Marketing your business requires running ads on various platforms to get your name out there. But what if you could optimize your website to appear at the top of the Google search? What if people find your product by simply asking Google a question in which your product is the solution?

When you break down how to search using Google, people often type quick phrases like “nail salon near me” or “how to fix ice machine.” If your product is at the top, your website ranks well for Search Engine Optimization or SEO. What if your website does not appear toward the top? Then users will never see your website or know your product exists. That’s where Google Search Console for SEO comes in.

What is Google Search Console, and how can it help maximize your website’s SEO? Use the Google Search Console tool to determine why your website performs poorly in search results. Search queries, crawling errors, and overall visibility of your website. Then learn how to fix the issues to increase SEO.

In this article, we will demonstrate how to set up Google Search Console and how to use Google Search Console for SEO. Once you know what Google wants from your website, you can implement the changes and climb the rankings.

What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a web service offered by Google that allows website developers and business owners to identify problems with your website. Google likes and dislikes specific aspects of a website. And if your website meets all the parameters, it is more likely to rank higher in Google searches.

Google Search Console identifies areas you can improve your website to increase SEO. What does Google Search Console do? It collects data about your website in a Google Search Console dashboard so that you can clearly identify the weaknesses of your website’s SEO.

Google Search Console is an essential tool for any SEO strategy. Use it to discover the following:

• How your website performs on Google searches
• Which pages Google can index on your site
• Crawling errors
• The benefits of submitting multiple URLs
• Technical SEO errors

When you use Google Search Console, you do not have to guess what your website needs to improve SEO. Instead, Google will point you in the right direction to finding SEO success.

How to Add a Website to Google Search Console

Until 2015, Google Search Console was called Google Webmaster Tools.

Please note that you must prove ownership of your website before it is accepted into Google Search Console.

First, sign into Google Search Console with your Google account. You will be met with a pop-up to add a new property or website to the dashboard.

Enter your website domain and follow the steps to verify your ownership of the website.

How to Verify Google Search Console

Add a new property to Google Search Console and choose a method of verification. Here are some ways that you can verify your website ownership:

• Upload an HTML file.
• Input an HTML tag into the source code.
• Provide your Google Analytics tracking code.
• Provide Google Tag Manager snippet.
• Follow directions for Google Sites, Blogger, or Domains accounts.
• Search by the domain name provider in the verification wizard.

Once you are a verified owner of your website, you will receive a verification token. This does not happen immediately and can take up to 48 hours to hear back.

The token is valid as long as the verification information is current and valid. Google Search Console will notify you if your verification is no longer confirmed and allow you to remedy the issue. After a grace period, your Google Search Console access will expire.

Choose the URL Version You Prefer

Each domain name represents a different server. Enter the URL that you would like Google to crawl and index. Your website has a variety of pages within it. Each URL should be entered into Google Search Console to receive statistics and metrics on each page, helping you identify the weak-performing pages and giving you a chance to improve them.

When you have new content that you would like Google to explore, you can enter a new URL. Check if the URL can be indexed by clicking the “Test Live URL” button. Later in this article, you will understand the importance of indexable pages.

Use 301 redirection codes to notify Google that a page has been permanently moved to a new location. This will resolve any error pages that may come up in Google. 404 errors can be used as a demerit against your website rankings, so it is best to resolve them immediately to stay in good standing with Google.

Managing Users, Owners, and Permissions in GSC

Explore the different types of owners and users, along with their specific permissions on Google Search Console:

• Verified Owners: The person who owns the website and completes the verification process is a verified owner. The owner goes through a verification process to receive a verification token from Google.
• Delegated Owners: A delegated owner is someone the verified owner granted GSC access to by sharing the verification token.
• Full User: Users have more limited access than owners. A full user has view rights to all data and is allowed to take specific actions.
• Restricted User: A restricted user may not be able to view all the data in the account. They have partial access to the dashboard. All of these permissions can be customized.
• Associate:  An associate may be able to complete certain tasks without having access to the dashboard to see data. This is helpful if you want someone to check periodically for 404 errors or enter a new URL.

When you find out how to add someone to Google Search Console, you will be able to assign restrictions and accesses to the account. One company can have a dozen users on one account with varying levels of access. Google Search Console is valuable to SEO experts, digital marketing, developers, and more.

For additional information, read about users and permissions from Google Search Console.

Understanding Metrics and Dimensions for Better GSC Analysis

If Google Search Console provides you with data for your website, you better learn how to analyze the data. Let’s walk through each metric to understand how to improve your SEO strategy.

Query

The dashboard will show the top keywords or questions and the number of clicks associated with each query. These are the words that users type into Google. How many see your website come up in the search results?

Click

The number of clicks represents the number of times someone clicks on your website when they come across it during a Google search. If they see your website and the short description, does it catch enough attention to warrant a click?

Impression

Google Search Console impressions represent the number of times your website appears during a Google search. Even if the user does not scroll down far enough to see your website on the results page, it still counts as an impression. Did the query initiate Google to crawl your website and bring it up in the results?

Average Position

What does average position mean in Google Search Console? The average position is the average ranking of your website in the list of results after a Google search. If your website has an average position between 1-10, it appears on the first page of Google search results. This is the goal. Lower rankings indicate that you need a better SEO plan for your website.

CTR (Click-through Rate)

The click-through rate is the percentage of times someone clicks on your website after seeing it in the search results. The rate will indicate that it is showing up in the results but may or may not garner any clicks.

How to Filter Data in Google Search Console?

All the data can feel overwhelming. Take a moment to hone in on what you want to learn in that instance to filter the information

Search Type

Indicate the search type that you would like to see data. For example, choose web, image, or video. If your website comes up mostly during a web search, you do not have to worry much about image or video searches.

Date Range

Choose a date range for your search from the list of pre-set time periods, or create a custom date range. You can get a broad view of the data or identify a period just after a website relaunch or content audit.

Queries, Page, Country, Device, and Search Appearance

Provide an image explanation Click “New” next to your date range to add up to five more search specifications, including queries, device, page, country, and search appearance. This filtered search allows you to pinpoint the data that you need without sifting through the comprehensive dashboard information.

Index Coverage Report (Page Indexing)

The index coverage report will identify all pages within your domain indexed with Google, including the errors and excluded pages.

If you wonder how to “index my site on Google,” this is a good place to start. If the page is not indexed, you will see an error, meaning the page does not qualify. Other pages that are not approved could be marked with a warning, indicating the page is indexed, but there is something that needs fixing. Or it could be labeled excluded, meaning there is too much duplicate information on the page to be indexed as an original page on Google.

All of these identifiers help you to understand your next steps. When you index a website, Google Search Console allows you to troubleshoot and fix any mistakes needed to complete the job correctly. The more pages you have indexed from your site, the higher the site’s position in a Google search.

Purpose of Sitemap File

Provide a sitemap file so that Google can better crawl your site. A sitemap describes the pages and videos on your website and how they relate to one another.

Give Google the best chance of validating your site by providing a sitemap.

Understanding Website Search Performance with GSC

Google Search Console is a tool for monitoring your website and collecting data to make it better. What can you find out about your website with GSC? Understand the inner workings of your website and areas of improvement to roll out better metrics and increase your SEO. 

Monitor Your Pages

Google Search Console will reveal metrics for each page of your website to determine which pages are performing well and which pages need extra care. Use the following metrics to monitor the pages on your website and identify any issues early.

Which Pages Have the Highest Traffic?

Pages with the highest traffic indicate the pages that have the most visitors or eyes on them. Identify which pages people click on the most. Once you know which pages have the highest traffic, you can model other pages after successful ones.

Find the pages with the highest traffic by following these steps:

1. Click Performance.
2. Click on the tab that says, Page. You will find it next to Queries.
3. Change the date range to the period of time you are looking for, whether it be 30 days or a full 12 months.
4. Select Total Clicks.
5. Next to clicks, select the option to sort from highest to lowest.

Once you receive your answer, what will you do with the information to improve your website? If the page with the highest traffic is your landing page that immediately converts clicks to sales, you are doing well.

But if the page is an information page that is not producing conversions, you have some work to do. Increasing traffic to all pages on your site will ultimately convert to higher sales.

Which Pages Have the Highest Ranking?

Discover which pages appear in Google in the highest position. If you have pages appearing in the first-page rankings on Google, you know your SEO is on-point for those specific pages. On the other hand, pages that show up on page three or four may never get eyes on them.

1. Click Performance.
2. Select the Page tab.
3. Change the date range to the most recent weeks to get a current update.
4. Select Average Position.
5. Click the small up arrow next to Position and sort from smallest to highest. With rankings, the smallest number is the best position on a Google search.

While this information is valuable, keep in mind that one keyword may result in the page receiving a greater position on Google. In contrast, another keyword does not provide the same results. That’s why it is an average position. Use this information to identify successful pages, but understand that it is not the only metric to measure a page’s success.

Which Pages Have the Lowest Ranking?

Do you have webpages that consistently perform low in a Google search? Use this tool to identify those pages:

1. Click Performance.
2. Choose the Page tab.
3. Change the date range to a current range to get up-to-date results.
4. Choose Average Position.
5. Click the small up arrow next to Position and sort from highest to smallest – the highest rank being the worst in Google.

You can focus your attention on those pages when you identify those that get the lowest number of visitors. Does the content need to be rewritten? Do you need more keywords on that page? Use Google Search Console and a top-notch SEO strategy to plan your next steps.

Which Pages Have Increasing or Decreasing Rankings?

Do you have a page that used to rank well and is decreasing in rankings? What changed? Is the page outdated, or is the industry more competitive? Learning about the ups and downs of page rankings is essential to an ever-changing industry.

1. Click Performance.
2. Choose the Query tab.
3. Choose your desired date range, then click the Compare tab.
4. Select two of the same time periods and click Apply.

Look at how page rankings are changing over time. How can you use this information to your benefit?

Monitor Your CTR

The click-through rate information is essential to tweaking your SEO strategy. Do people leave the search results to go to your page? Here’s how you can find out with Google Search Console.

Which Queries Have the Highest CTR?

Find out which keywords result in the highest click-through rates. Then you can increase the keyword implementation to get even better results!

1. Select Performance.
2. Choose the Queries tab.
3. Change the date range to see the full scope of the past year.
4. Select Average CTR.
5. Sort from highest to lowest.

Feel free to change the date range to get more specific results. And then use the information to your advantage and make your website even better.

Which Queries Have the Lowest CTR?

Are there keywords that you have implemented that result in the lowest click-through rate? Change your SEO plan to no longer invest in those keywords.

1. Select Performance.
2. Choose the Queries tab.
3. Change the date range to see the full scope of the past year.
4. Select Average CTR.
5. Sort from lowest to highest.

Use Google Search Console to get a better picture of your keyword performance. You may find that a keyword you thought would bring the most traffic to your site returns the least click-throughs.

What Is the Average CTR?

As trends change, identify a change in keywords as you look at the average CTR. You may find that the query results ebb and flow, and the keyword is worth keeping.

1. Click Performance.
2. Select your desired date range.
3. Look at the Average CTR.

This metric is nice to view, but you should make SEO decisions based on several metrics.

Monitor Your Indexability

When Google indexes your pages, they can appear on Google search results. Ensure your pages are indexable to drive more organic traffic to your website.

How Many Pages Are Currently Indexed?

Find out which pages have been indexed by Google.

1. Click on Overview.
2. Scroll to the index coverage report.
3. Look at how many pages are included in Valid Pages.

This means that the pages are indexed and do not present any errors. The number of indexed pages on your site should increase as you publish new blogs and content and as you fix existing indexing errors.

Which Pages Have Not Been Indexed and Why?

Identify the pages that have not been indexed. Can you figure out the issue?

1. Go to the Index Coverage summary.
2. Select Excluded in the search box.
3. Look into the pages that have not been indexed

Are There Any Indexing Errors Present?

If there are errors on indexed pages, learn about how to fix the errors to get the page recategorized and ready to appear in a Google search.

1. Access the Index Coverage summary.
2. Select Error and Valid with Warnings to see the list of pages that need indexing attention.

Use this information to make your website indexable so that Google can easily crawl the website during a search. Catch these errors early to avoid wondering why a page is not performing well.

Monitor Mobile Usability

Mobile usability is integral to making sure your website is indexed. Google uses mobile-first indexing, assuming many users conduct a Google search from their phones. Your website should be just as mobile-friendly as it is desktop-friendly.

Make sure your website is performing well across all devices.

1. Click Performances.
2. Selected the Devices tab.
3. Click on the desired metrics, such as Total Clicks, Average CTR, and Impressions
4. Compare the statistics across mobile, tablet, and desktop.

You will see any inefficiencies or errors in your mobile usability if the metrics are not the same across the board. Keep in mind that 63% of Google searches are from a mobile device. You do not want to leave those searches on the table.

Monitoring Backlinks and Internal Links

Backlinks are links on other sites that direct to your site. If you have other websites referring to your page, it builds up your credibility with Google.

Internal links are also important because they make your site easier to navigate for users, clicking links to jump from page to page. In addition, internal links are a way to self-promote your site and embed an internal link on a high-performing page to a lesser-known page or, better yet, to the sales page.

What's the Total Amount of Backlinks?

As your website grows, you should work to increase backlinks by collaborating with other companies. Write guest posts. Publish guides and tutorials on your website that will prove valuable to outsiders.

• Click Links on the sidebar.

The total number of external links will come up. As this number rises, you can see how many other domains are directing traffic to your site.

Which Pages Have the Most Backlinks?

Then you can find out which pages are performing the best regarding backlinks.

1. Click Links on the sidebar.
2. Select External Links.

Which pages on your site offer the most valuable information for other companies? Publish similar pages to continue increasing your SEO.

Which Sites Are Linking to Your Site the Most?

Under the same External Links heading, you can view the sites that link to your website. Which ones are followed by the most users? This helps you understand why collaboration is essential. 

If you know how the websites found you, wonderful! If big websites start linking to your page, it will only increase both of your sales.

Which Pages of Your Website Have the Most Internal Links?

Lead website visitors on a journey as they link from page to page within the site.

1. Click Links on the sidebar.
2. Select Internal Links.

Are there pages on your site that have more internal links than others? Plan for a site audit to implement more internal links and boost the internal promotion of other pages on your website.

How Many Internal Links Does Your Website Contain in Total?

Choose Links on the sidebar to see the total number of internal links on your website. When you work to increase the number of internal links, do you see an increase in other metrics?

Identify Google Penalties

Learn if you have any Google penalties that mark your site as spam. If you see a decrease in your rankings and page visits, you may have an error on your site that would lead to Google removing your website from search results.

Check manual review penalties by clicking on Search Traffic. Then click Manual Actions. You will also receive an email if you have a Google penalty, after which you must take swift action to repair the error.

Identify 404 errors

404 error pages can happen by mistake if you were to change the web address of one of your pages or move content from one page to another. You should always keep the number of 404 errors on your website to a minimum.

1. Click Settings.
2. Select Crawling Stats.
3. Click By Response.
4. Select Not Found 404.

Use Google Search Console to identify error pages before they become infuriating to your users and negatively affect your Google rankings.

Conclusion Paragraph

Use Google Search Console to learn about the inner workings of your website. What are your website strengths, and what areas need improvements? Use the metrics to identify if your SEO strategy includes aspects to improve your website’s search rankings.

Google Search Console is also a great tool to identify issues before they affect your business. Why is there a sudden change in page visits? How can you fix a 404 error page before users stop visiting your website?

Use Google Search Console as an SEO tool to learn how to make a better, high-performing website that converts visitors to sales. A powerful and comprehensive SEO strategy will bring organic visitors to your website for years to come.

Hire an SEO Consultant

Loupe & Blade is an SEO consulting firm you can trust. You can rely on our team to deliver if you are overwhelmed with creating an SEO strategy and staying updated with digital marketing trends. Send a message to contact@loupeandblade.com to start a conversation about your SEO needs.

FAQs

Before becoming familiar with Google Search Console, you may wonder why you must verify your website with the webmaster tool. Here are some common questions that demonstrate how useful the tool can be.

How do I check the performance of my website on Google?

With Google Search Console, you will be able to find out if your website is showing up in Google searches. Find out the average ranking, traffic to your website, and keyword success when you register with Google Search Console.

How do I check for keyword performance in Google Search Console?

Access the Google Search Console dashboard to see the performance ratings of each query. The tool will provide common keywords associated with your website and which have the highest click-through rates.

What is the best use of Google Search Console?

You can use Google Search Console to confirm or deny whether your SEO strategy is successful. Are users flowing to your website as you make changes with keyword placement, internal links, and high-quality content?

In addition, are there mistakes on your website that disqualify it from showing up in search results? Google Search Console has your answer.

How accurate is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console visually represents how easily Google can crawl your website during an everyday search. You do not have to guess why your SEO implementation is not working when you have Google Search Console to check the facts. If a keyword does not perform well, the statistics are right in front of you to show the changes over a period of time.

Take out the guesswork when you use Google Search Console to see real-time click-through rates, impressions, and keyword success.

Does Google Search Console affect SEO?

Google Search Console not only affects SEO but is also essential to SEO. When you have access to a tool created by the most-used search engine in the world, you better use it. Learn about your average search rankings and watch them increase when implementing a new SEO approach.

In addition, keep in Google’s good graces by seeing what SEO trends appeal to Google more. You will never fall behind the curve when you have Google Search Console to monitor your SEO statistics and keep you up-to-date with emerging techniques.

For any further inquiries or assistance regarding optimizing your website with Google Search Console for SEO, feel free to reach out to our team. We're here to help you guide the complexities of search engine optimization and maximize your online presence.

How do you know what to trust on the internet? It's a complicated question that gets more complicated by the second. Good news for you is that with SEO there are some guidelines and best practices. Remember, trust is subjective overall but what we need to care about most as we’re creating content is effort. How hard are you working to show your audience that what you’re putting out is helpful and trustworthy? So we’ll go over several factors to building trust in your content. Some we’ll get right from the Google Quality Rater Guidelines and others we’ll just get from plain ole common sense. 

Let’s start by pointing out that the QRG are largely about Your Money Your Life topics which is broad but doesn’t include everything. So you can think about it plainly and simply as health and financial advice (again, not limited to that but we can use that as a basis). However, everything they lay out can be considered a best practice when writing about anything that you have a subject matter expertise about. 

KNOW YOUR SUBJECT MATTER

Don’t write what you don’t know. I’m not an expert at gardening. So building trust in that subject matter would be a large task, probably larger than I could accomplish. You need to have true knowledge in a subject to build trust. And if you are faking it, the audience is going to know. We’ve all been on a blog where we hoped the article would provide quality information and it become clear that the author didn’t understand the subject. So if you want to build trust stick to places where you believe readers can trust you in the first place. 

STAY TRUE TO YOUR HEADLINE 

Google says this in it’s quality rater guideline under consideration(p.20):

The Title of the Page

The title of the page is considered part of the MC. Descriptive MC titles that

 summarize the page allow people to make informed decisions about what

 pages to visit.

And: 

Quality of the MC

Consider the extent to which the MC is satisfying and helps the page achieve

 its purpose.

What this is saying is your headline should let the reader know accurately what the page offers. If your page title is about how to fix a pool pump then you should consider what the reader would want to see in the MC(main content) of the page. Do they want to hear about the history of the pool pump? Why you should upgrade to a variable speed pool pump? Probably not. 

This might seem like obvious stuff but I’ve run into so many people and websites that don’t do this. They promise one thing but deliver an experience that isn’t that. The most important thing you can do is give the reader what they want and in a way they’d be happiest to get it. 

SHOW EFFORT 

Google talks about this on P.21

Consider the extent to which a human being actively worked to create satisfying content. Effort may be direct, such as a person translating a poem from one language to another. Effort may go into designing page functionality or building systems that power a webpage, such as the creation of a page that offers machine translation as a service to users. On the other hand, the automatic creation of thousands of pages by running existing freely available content through existing translation software without any oversight, manual curation, etc., would not be considered to have human effort.

While I don’t hold the opinion that your content has to be a certain length to satisfy the algorithm I do believe that your content should satisfy the query completely. If you were to talk about how to fix a pool pump and you simply had 5 steps that totaled 50 words that’s not great effort. If your competitor has a blog post that’s 1000 words that gives detail on how to do it, and includes areas where you might run into trouble, the effort is there so the experience is better. Which would you rank higher? 

Taking the time to write a better piece of content will almost always yield better results. Usually content wins if it’s first, best or different. It’s unlikely you’ll be first so focus on being best or different. 

SHOW YOUR REPUTATION 

On Page 22 of the guidelines they discuss reputation for the author: 

An important part of PQ rating is understanding the reputation of the website. If the website is not the primary creator of the MC, it’s important to research the reputation of the content creator as well. Reputation research should be performed according to the topic of the page. For example, if the page contains medical information, research the reputation of the website and content creator for providing medical information. It's possible for a website to be a go-to source for one type of content (e.g., humorous videos), but an untrustworthy source for a different type of content (e.g., financial information).

So this can be tricky. Not every gardener has a degree in it or has won awards. We know a doctor has different certifications and professional accreditation but for the rest of us there’s a couple things to consider.

1. Is your website about the subject matter? If your site is a general blog about anything and everything it’ll be hard to make the case that you’re an expert in one specific area so be sure that your site reflects your expertise everywhere. 
2. What can you tell the reader about your own experience? I like to have author bio pages and bios at the bottom of blogs when possible to show the user that you aren’t a person who just picked up this subject matter today. If you are a gardener, how long have you been doing it for? Where do you work? What in the gardening realm is your particular expertise? 

The more you can promote your own reputation the easier it’s going to be. 

GET PERSONAL

On Page 26 they mention experience, which is a new addition to the guidelines: 

Experience : Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic. Many types of pages are trustworthy and achieve their purpose well when created by people with a wealth of personal experience. For example, which would you trust: a product review from someone who has personally used the product or a "review" by someone who has not?

The guidelines make a good point: it’s easier to take advice from someone who has been there and done that. So if you’re a professional talk about your experience. If you’re walking someone through fixing a pool pump let them know that you’ve fixed them before. Let them know about a time you encountered a problem in fixing the pool pump. Get personal. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Building trust isn’t honestly complicated. If you can get specific about what you know and create content that shows real effort and insight then you’re going to be okay. I think we often spread ourselves too thin as content creators and it ends up hurting us in the long run. Just drill down and focus. The readers will find you.

Have questions about building trust in your SEO content? Contact us for expert advice and guidance. We're here to help you create content that resonates with your audience and boosts your online credibility.

If you own a small business, staying competitive in the ever-evolving online marketplace can be challenging. Investing in SEO can be an effective way to ensure your business stands out from the competition and maintains visibility online. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the practice of optimizing your website for higher rankings in search engine results. SEO can help your business attract more qualified leads, increase website traffic, and grow its online presence. Read on to discover the top three reasons why you need SEO for your small business.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. When people interact with Google or other search engines to find information, they are essentially conducting a conversation with a computer. The computer responds to these search queries by producing a list of results, or an “organic” page one result might be your website. SEO is the process of optimizing your website so it ranks higher among these search engine results.

Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses

If your small business website is well-optimized, it can appear high in search results and generate more leads. This can help you achieve two goals with one marketing effort: increase leads and reduce marketing costs. Here are just a few ways that SEO can benefit your small business. - Increased Website Traffic - The more people who visit your website, the more likely they are to make a purchase. By increasing your website traffic, you can boost sales and improve your brand’s reputation. - Improved Conversion Rates - The goal of every small business is to turn website visitors into customers. With a highly optimized website, you can boost conversion rates by up to 80%. - Higher Brand Visibility - When people are looking for the products or services that your business offers, it’s critical that they find you. SEO can help you stand out from your competitors by increasing your brand visibility. Let’s explore a bit more deeply. 

Reduce Marketing Costs 

Buying ads on Google and Facebook are costly. We’ve seen brands spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on ads and unless you start building great word of mouth or more organic pathways into leads and customers those costs are only going to go up..even if you have the most talented performance marketing agency. 

Buying into SEO now builds customers starting in as little as six months. The content you create today can bring in leads for years and allow you to reduce your ad spend as you mature. So many companies wait for SEO only to regret it later. Your business is young and even if you can’t spend all your marketing on SEO, it’s best to put a few dollars every month toward optimizing your pages and creating new pages that will perform well on Google. 

It Builds A Relationship 

Stop thinking of SEO as some four-letter word. That’s shortsighted. SEO is most often an opportunity to answer the questions your audience is asking. They are seeking help, information, counsel, whatever you’d like to call it. The content you create allows you the opportunity to start a conversation with them. 

Imagine you’re looking to get into running after years of not doing enough exercise. You google “how much running should a beginner start with?” And you come across an article that is all about running for beginners. Aside from the normal disclaimer of talking to your doctor first (which you should) they create an incredibly helpful picture of what you should do. They have charts and a sample 2 week training plan. They teach you about heart rate training and cadence as you’re running. They help you with ideas for the best running shoes for your body. 

Is that someone you might come back to the next time you have a question about running? Probably. That blog just turned you from a passive searcher into a friend. Now they can keep providing value. 

ITS MORE RELIABLE THAN ORGANIC SOCIAL 

Ads are the most reliable way to meet a customer. If you have the money, Google, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok will find someone to look at your ad. But we know that on social engagement can be wildly inaccurate. You see accounts get “shadowbanned” and you see accounts get reported and suspended over tiny infractions (some deserve to be flagged but others were more or less a victim). One day you’re up and the next day you’re down. 

SEO has those swings but usually they aren’t as wild and when Google finds you to be a quality results for the queries related to your business it’s likely they are going to keep you near the top of the search results. So many companies that get “dinged” by Google have some issues in there past they are paying for now. Companies that do it right in the first place can see big wins that last for a long time. 

As a small business you have a lot to consider but don’t let SEO fall by the wayside while you figure out your social media strategy. Do both and keep SEO as a priority and it’s going to pay dividends down the road. 

Our comprehensive SEO services are tailored to meet the specific needs of small businesses, helping them increase online visibility, attract more qualified leads, and achieve sustainable growth in the digital marketplace.

So you don’t want to spend money on an agency. I feel you. It’s not cheap even if the work is quality. So how do you take advantage of the value of organic traffic if you’re not hiring a professional? Here are some straightforward tips to help you win the SEO game. 

1. Write great content. This seems obvious but you’d be surprised. Great content doesn’t have to be long and novel-like. It needs to be purposeful and useful. If you’re writing SEO content for businesses ask yourself this question: what a query or search term I would like to appear in for my business? Then ask yourself? What’s the best possible content I can deliver for that query? If you can answer and execute on these ideas you’re on the right track.
   Good content isn’t about length or images or any one thing. It’s about understanding what you reader wants and how to get them there. 
2. Show them value within the article. This is more than just having great content. That’s priority 1. This is about providing value beyond the page. You have your customers here for one time only (hopefully not, but lets be realistic). How do you keep them learning about your product? Educating themselves?
   This is where product offerings, email capture and related links to other helpful pieces of content and provide huge value. The more we make a connection with our customers the more it can benefit SEO. 
3. Dial In Your Keywords. You can’t be everything to everyone. Deciding that you want to rank for the Top 20 keywords in your niche is great but also a fool’s errand unless you have unlimited time and money. What you’re better off doing is picking 5 keywords that you think will have a transformational impact on your business and trying to create content around those keywords. And when you get done creating one piece of content for each, create another. And another. The more the merrier. 
4. Stay Educated. SEO changes all the time. Your job should be to stay educated on what’s happening. Most of the time this won’t affect your business but if you’re doing things like publishing guest posts, or working in affiliate content, the news that comes down can have huge impact for your business. 
5. Don’t Try and Game The System. Want to grow SEO for your business? Don’t think you can black hat your way into it. Scrapping other websites and having an AI write the program is one way. But it’s not THE way. Don’t bother with guest blog posts and don’t bother with buying thousands of links. None of it will matter. SEO takes time and effort. Shortcuts will end up costing you more time and a lot more effort, not to mention a lot of stress. 

If you think we can help you and you want to make the jump to an agency, please let us know.

Are you looking for ways to increase the visibility of your business online and attract more customers? SEO, or search engine optimization, is an effective approach that can help you to get your business noticed. SEO is a complex and ever-changing field, but there are some simple steps you can take to get started. Here are four easy SEO tips that will help you to boost your business’s visibility and reach more potential customers.

Understand the Basics of SEO

The first step to increasing your visibility online is to understand how SEO works. SEO is the process of optimizing your website to get a higher ranking in search engine results. That means there are specific steps you can take to make your website more visible to search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. SEO relies on two main factors - on-page SEO, which is the optimization of your individual web pages, and off-page SEO, which is the effect of links pointing to your web pages from other websites. As a business owner, you don’t have to understand the technical aspects of SEO. However, you do need to understand the basics of how SEO works and what you can do to optimize your website for higher search engine ranking.

Optimize Your Website for SEO

Optimizing your website for SEO is the first step to increasing your visibility online. To do this, you’ll want to focus on three main areas: site structure, content, and link building. Site Structure - Some people think that page rank is an indication of how many links you have pointing towards your site, but that’s not the case. Page rank is determined by how Google views your site’s structure and how they believe it should be organized. So if you want a higher ranking, you must make sure you’re following their standards. The best way to ensure that your site is following Google’s standards is to use a sitemap. A sitemap is a map of your website that Google uses to index your site. It shows Google where each page is located, which makes it easier for them to crawl through your site and index your content. Content - The amount of content on your site is important because it shows Google how long your website has been around. If you have more content, it shows Google you’ve been in the game for a while. People often think that having a lot of content is easy, but it takes time and effort to consistently publish quality content. Another reason Google likes to see a lot of content on your site is because it gives them something to link to. Google is a search engine, after all, and they like to index as many pages as possible. If Google can’t find a page to link to on your site, they won’t be able to rank it. Link Building - Having the right site structure and a ton of quality content are essential, but you also need links to those pages. Luckily, you can get articles published on other sites that link back to your content on your site. This is called link building and it’s a great way to get your site indexed.

Create Quality Content

Visibility isn’t the only thing Google looks at when deciding where your website should rank. They also want to know that your site is an authority on a particular subject or topic. One way to show Google that your site is an authority is to write quality content. How do you know if your content is quality? There are a few things you can look for to determine if your content is high quality. The first thing you’ll want to do is make sure your content includes your target keywords. This helps to not only make your content more relevant to your readers but also makes it easier for Google to find and index your site. Next, you’ll want to write in a conversational tone. This helps your readers feel like they are having a conversation with you as they read your content. Make Sure Your Content Has the Following: - Relevance to Your Topic: Your content should be relevant to your site topic. If it’s not, Google will know and you may end up hurting your ranking. - Authority: You can show Google that you’re an authority by including research and statistics in your content. - Well-formatted: Google also looks at the format and design of your content. If it’s well-designed and easy to read, Google will like it.

Leverage Local SEO

Most people think of SEO as a national or global marketing strategy. While it’s true that national SEO is an effective way to attract customers, local SEO is also an important part of SEO. Consumers are increasingly using online search engines to find local businesses. In fact, research shows that 59% of customers use online search engines to find a local business. If you want to get more customers visiting your business, you need to be visible in local search. If you are not ranking in local search, you are missing out on potential customers. Luckily, there are some easy ways to increase your local SEO ranking. One way to improve your local SEO is to claim your business on Google My Business. You can also add your business information to Google Maps. Another way to improve your local SEO is to create high-quality content that includes your business name and address. You can also collect positive reviews from your customers and add them to your website.

Track and Monitor Your SEO Efforts

If you want to track your SEO efforts, you’ll want to use SEO tools. There are many different SEO tools you can use to track your efforts and monitor your SEO. To start, you’ll want to use a keyword research tool to find the most relevant and popular search terms related to your business. This will give you a good idea of which keywords you should be targeting. You can also use a Google Trends tool to see which keywords are getting the most traffic. You can also use an analytics tool like Google Analytics to track your SEO efforts. This allows you to see how many people are visiting your website, where they are coming from, and which pages they are spending the most time on. Finally, you can use a backlink analysis tool to see which websites are linking to your website and how many there are. This will help you to understand your current backlink profile and help you set goals for future link building efforts.

Utilize SEO Tools

There are many different SEO tools that can help you to track your SEO efforts and track your website’s progress. Some of these tools also provide data on your website’s keyword rankings and traffic. Here are some of the most popular SEO tools that you can use to help track your SEO efforts. Google Analytics - Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools for SEO. It allows you to track your website traffic by showing you where people are coming from and how long they spend on your site. It also shows you which pages are most popular and how many people are clicking on your website’s links. Ahrefs - Ahrefs is another popular SEO tool that allows you to track your website’s traffic and keyword rankings. It also gives you data on your backlinks and shows you how many people are clicking on your links. Google Search Console - Google Search Console (previously known as Google Webmaster Tools) is another popular SEO tool that allows you to track your website’s keyword rankings. It also gives you data on your backlinks and shows you how many clicks are coming to your website.

Stay Up-to-Date on SEO Trends

As we mentioned earlier, SEO is a complex and ever-changing field. That means that what worked a few years ago may no longer work today. That also means that as time goes on, SEO strategies will change and evolve. That’s why it’s important to stay up-to-date on current SEO trends so that you can adapt your strategy as necessary. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you can start by following some SEO blogs and reading about the latest trends and strategies. You can also attend conferences and hire an SEO consultant to give you insight into the latest trends and developments.

Hire an SEO Professional

If you’re serious about growing your business and increasing your revenue, it may be time to hire an SEO consultant or professional. An SEO consultant can help you to identify potential problems with your website and suggest ways to improve your SEO. They can also help you to develop a long-term SEO strategy that will help you to consistently increase your traffic and leads over time. When hiring an SEO consultant or professional, it’s important to make sure they are reputable and trustworthy. You can reach out to us if you need any help at contact@loupeandblade.com

If you’re reading this it’s likely you are thinking about taking your business to the next level through search. You’ve probably had a few referrals. You may have talked to an agency or two. You might be experiencing sticker shock as well. So the question is “do you need help from a professional agency?” Here’s a few things you should be thinking about to help you make the decision. 

1. How valuable would organic traffic be to your business?
   This seems like a silly question but truthfully it’s worth understanding. I’ve encountered many businesses that sold products or services that just didn’t have a great pathway to organic search traffic. Sometimes a product is something that doesn’t make sense in search. Don’t let an agency tell you that you can have big returns in SEO just because it wants to sell you a service. The truth is there are some businesses that should do better in search than others. If you can’t see a pathway to SEO growth for your business then hiring an SEO agency doesn’t make much sense.
   
   Here’s a simple exercise: what would you need to search to get to your business? If it’s “digital marketing service for e-comm business” then sure, maybe you have a way to grow search. If it’s “b2b video platform for fortune 500 companies” what are the odds someone is finding you on search? I’d guess it’s not very good.
   
2. How Competitive is the market?
   Let’s say you have a company that sells shoes to men and women. All searches related to shoes are dominated by Google ads. The rest are likely going to legacy sellers, department stores and affiliate publishers. If your shoe has some unique value prop (made with 100% recycled parts) then maybe there’s a way to create content and pages that allow you to be seen in smaller more targeted queries but the idea that you’ll rank highly for “men’s shoes” is pretty unrealistic. If you have money to burn then maybe it’s worth a shot but otherwise I’d suggest putting your time and effort into other areas that might get you ROI faster.
   
3. Does the SEO agency have experience in your niche?
   Now, this doesn’t always have to be the case. You could go with an agency that doesn’t have experience but in my opinion it’s better. An SEO that deals with publishers will have experience with the unique challenges that business face (ex. Dealing with ad placement and google best practices for intrusive ads). Local SEO experts will be able to deal with your SEO issues there better than someone who has never done it before. SEO agencies who have worked with medical content will understand better what works in their experience to build trust. It’s important that you find an agency that knows your business and challenges.
   
4. What am I getting for my money?
   Seems obvious but there’s so many questions people don’t ask when interviewing these agencies. For instance, a technical audit is great but what does that mean for you? What are they going to tell? Will they prioritize the issues for you? Will they work with your devs to help fix the issues? Will they provide documentation of their analysis to verify it’s legitimacy?
   You can’t ask enough questions about what are you getting for your money. No SEO agency can guarantee you better SEO by any magnitude but you can at least know what the deliverables will be, how they will be laid out and how they will help you.
   
5. Do they have references?
   This is one that I believe needs to be asked more often. They can tell you they worked with Apple, Amazon and Microsoft but is there anyone there that can speak to the quality of their work. Of course references are designed by the candidate to make themselves look great but in the world of SEO, producing happy clients is such a big win that if they can show you even a few clients who can speak to the quality of their work you should feel good.
   

Do you have patience?

This might be the most important. A good SEO agency has a high expected value. The problem is you won’t see that value for months, maybe over a year. Of course they can help you immediately with creating good content, fixing issues on the site and even link building services, but to see your SEO grow it can take a while.

Can you be comfortable spending 10,20,50 thousand dollars on an SEO agency and wait it out?

In my opinion it’s similar to investing. People know that putting $100 a month into a mutual fund will give you much better returns in 40 years but many people don’t have the patience to think that long term. Of course I’m biased but I think it’s worth it. The rate of return on a great piece of content or an optimized site can be worth way more than you spend on the agency. You just have to have the patience to do it.

Not sure if SEO is right for? Contact us and we can help.

Site Speed. I've seen many clients get obsessed with the idea of slow site speed. Clients have spent an inordinate amount of time watching the Core Web Vitals and deploying engineers to fix this problem. 

I get it. Those Core Web Vital graphs are scary especially when most of your URLS are red and the ones that aren't are green. But i'm here to tell you that if site speed is keeping you up at night you're focusing on the wrong thing. 

Let's start by clearing up the confusion. When CWV has first announced Google came out with this language: 

“Relevance is still by far much more important. So just because your website is faster with regards to Core Web Vitals than some competitors doesn’t necessarily mean that come May, you will jump to position number one in the search results.”

What does this mean? Depends on your interpretation. Most SEO conversations insisted this meant that page speed was just a tie breaker. This became the narrative until John Mueller corrected this month's later: 

“It is a ranking factor, and it’s more than a tie-breaker, but it also doesn’t replace relevance.

Depending on the sites you work on, you might notice it more, or you might notice it less.

As an SEO, a part of your role is to take all of the possible optimizations and figure out which ones are worth spending time on.

Any SEO tool will spit out 10s or 100s of “recommendations”, most of those are going to be irrelevant to your site’s visibility in search.

Finding the items that make sense to work on takes experience.”

Um, okay. So it's more than a tie-breaker, but certainly feels like...a tiebreaker. 

So what does this mean? If you're up at night worried about ripping scripts off your page and closing down programmatic ads, you might be focused on the wrong things. 

Your website and its relevance to the searches and conversations online that you want to be a part of matter most. So if your content stinks, if your pages do a poor job of communicating to Google what they are and why they matter then no amount of fast loaded pages will fix that. 

Google's job, at its best, is to direct users to the most relevant places for the query they are searching. You need to spend your time making sure Google can read your pages and be assured over and over that your page is THE destination for that query. 

Of course making your pages faster and having a better ad experience matter but only as a secondary factor once you've mastered the art of relevance on your site.

Don’t get fooled into thinking that you need to spend endless amounts of time and engineering on fixing a problem that, in my experience, EVERYONE HAS. Focus on content first and foremost and everything else will fall into place.

If you’re asking this question, it means you want to improve SEO but are thinking of doing it independently. The short answer is no, but the longer answer is a bit more complicated. 

For those of you who don’t know: Screaming Frog is an excellent crawler for people looking to do a technical audit on the site. The advantages of the crawler are that it’s cheap relative to other enterprise solutions. It crawls an entire website, which itself is an advantage. Many web-based crawlers in software such as Semrush or Ahrefs usually have a limit to the number of pages you can crawl based on your subscription level. In most cases, Screaming Frog for an entire year costs less than a month of those subscription services. We should point out that Semrush and Ahrefs do much more than a technical crawl, so comparing prices isn’t really fair. 

The main drawback to Screaming Frog is that it’s a desktop-based crawler, so crawling a big site could create issues with computer speed. Ideally, you could run your crawl on a separate laptop. And of course, with any desktop-based crawl, the connection to your internet can create interruptions. This all means, if you have a big site (say over 100,000 URLs) crawling on a desktop can be a pain. 

I should be clear, too, that I own a license to Screaming Frog and use it as one of the many tools we use when evaluating our clients' websites. It’s far from the only tool we use, but there are things that I really enjoy about it, and can give me some helpful insights. 

So if I like it, why discourage the average website owner from using it? It’s not that it can’t provide value, but as with anything else, the data is only as good the context you have for it and the changes it prompts you to make. 

It’s a bit like having a blood test and then reading the results for yourself. Do you know what a good range is? Do you know what it means to be out of range? Do you know which numbers to prioritize and how to treat the problems with priority? Probably not. 

That's my issue with most crawls, you can do it yourself. What do the results mean to you, and how do you figure out what to prioritize? Not every “error” or “issue” you’ll see on a crawl is worth your time. And there are times when crawls don’t show you things that actually need to be resolved. So, if you want to learn SEO and figure using Screaming Frog and your website as a lab rat, then by all means. If you know enough to be dangerous and want to DIY your SEO, do it. 

But if you’re serious about getting SEO right for your business, then invest in real SEO experts. Even if that isn’t us, I can assure you that there are many qualified SEO experts, and I’m happy to make recommendations and referrals if our company isn’t right for you.

If you're seeking comprehensive SEO services beyond tool-based audits, our team offers expert guidance, strategic insights, and tailored recommendations to elevate your website's performance and drive tangible results.