During the Search Engine Journal Show, Martin reiterated that there is no confirmed date as of yet, but they are targeting mid-June.

“There is no specific date that things will start happening. Currently, the announceable is mid of June, so it might be any time in what would consist of mid of June.”

Martin also reminded everyone that this rollout would be gradual. There is no on/off switch, where it goes from not in effect to fully in effect from the next day.

“It will not be an off/on kind of situation.

It will gradually roll out, it will gradually add things to the mix of signals, and it will gradually start being effective. So not like a full-on switch from nothing to all of it, and there’s no date announced yet.

I think the timeline is roughly starting mid-June, and then should be fully in effect at some point in August.”

Mobile vs. Desktop

Earlier this month, Google revealed that the Page Experience update would apply to mobile as well as desktop search results. This triggers a few questions:

• Will the Page Experience update roll out on mobile and desktop at the same time?
• Will Google assess desktop pages differently from mobile pages?

Martin answered both these questions during his live appearance.  Regarding the rollout on mobile and desktop, he said:

“At the beginning, we will definitely roll out for mobile-first, and then eventually desktop will join the mix as well.”

Regarding the second question, Martin mentioned that there is no aggregate score, so mobile and desktop pages will be treated separately. He said:

“I am not aware of any aggregate score at the moment. That doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future. As far as I’m aware right now, mobile is being used for mobile and desktop is going to be used for desktop.”

The Core Web Vitals and Page Experience updates were supposed to go live earlier this month. However, the rollout was delayed. If you haven’t already prepared your website for it, you have a few more days. 

You can watch Martin’s full video here.

The post Google Page Experience to launch next month; full rollout by August appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

H1 heading tags are still used as one of the key things to optimize on a web page.

However, its use has some confusion. More specifically, there is an argument over how many H1 heading tags can be used on a web page. There is also some doubt regarding its importance and whether or not Google still uses the H1 heading tag to determine what a web page is about.

In this article, we will:

• Discuss more about the H1 heading tag and its uses,
• Share results of a recent survey by SEO professionals indicating their opinions on how to use the H1 tag,
• See what Google has to say about the H1 heading tag, and
• Share our recommendation on what you should do in case you are not sure.

Let’s begin.

What is the H1 heading tag?

H1 heading tag normally refers to the main heading of a web page. It is often very similar to the meta title of a web page.

In normal circumstances, it is assumed that the H1 heading tag represents the title of the web page and/or the main contents of a page.

The heading tag is created as <h1>Heading</h1> in HTML.

How do SEO professionals use the H1 tag?

As mentioned earlier, there is some doubt regarding whether or not you can have multiple H1 heading tags on a web page. Recently, Cyrus Shepard conducted an online survey on Twitter that showed the following results.

This survey showed that almost 57 percent of SEO professionals believe that only one H1 heading tag should be used per page.

You will notice that most SEO audit tools (e.g., SEMRush and Ahrefs) also recommend using only one <h1> per page.  However, there is a fairly sizable percentage of people who believe that it is okay to use multiple H1 heading tags per page.

So, what does Google say about it?

Multiple H1 heading tags and Google’s recommendation

Surprisingly, Google does not restrict using just one H1 tag per page. In fact, Google says there is no upper bound or lower bound limit at all. You can use as many H1 tags per page you want, or you can use none at all.

According to Google’s John Mueller:

“You can use H1 tags as often as you want on a page. There’s no limit, neither upper or lower bound.  Your site is going to rank perfectly fine with no H1 tags or with five H1 tags.”

“Our systems don’t have a problem when it comes to multiple H1 headings on a page.”

Moreover, if a web page does not have an H1 tag, it may still rank for keywords in the H2 title.

When someone asked the same question and confirmed it with John, he responded:

“Of course.  

Will it still [rank for the keywords in H2]? I don’t know if it will still but it can. It can, absolutely.”

In response to these questions, John Mueller also provided some more context regarding the use of heading tags. He said:

“Headings on a page help us to better understand the content on the page.

Headings on the page are not the only ranking factor that we have. We look at the content on its own as well.

But sometimes having a clear heading on a page gives us a little bit more information on what that section is about.”

And this is something that is certainly true. In the early 2000s, when Google search ranking algorithms weren’t smart enough, they used to take strong signals from heading tags to determine the content of a page.

But that was a long time ago.

Google is now smarter than ever and is perfectly capable of understanding the contextual meaning of a web page and then ranking it accordingly for the right queries.

Our recommendation

For 99 percent of online content, we do not recommend using multiple H1 tags — despite the explicit confirmation by John Mueller.

It is important to understand the role of heading tags in modern-day SEO.  While keyword-rich heading tags may give you an occasional keyword ranking bonus, that is not the purpose of these heading tags anymore.

Headings and heading tags on a web page should be used primarily to structure your content and to improve the readability experience of your website visitors.

The right heading structure can also help search engines understand the content and various sections of your web page — especially for long-form content.

Any keyword ranking bonus is just that … a bonus. Therefore, it should not be the primary focus.

And most web pages tackle a single topic, which should be represented by a single H1 heading tag. 

Let us know what you think about H1 heading tags and how heading tags should be used in modern-day SEO.

Related Posts:

• On-Page SEO Guide
• Meta Description Best Practices
• How to Make a Good Headline
• Headlines That Work
• Headline Performance

The post H1 Tag Best Practices SEO appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

However, despite all the efforts and success, it is possible to lose all those rankings and have your website de-index from the search engine.

There are many reasons why Google may decide to de-index your website. But a recent conversation with Google’s John Mueller revealed that there are also two different ways Google deindex a website from the search index.

Let’s see what John said.

During the SEO Office-hours hangouts, one person asked John Mueller the following question:

“I own a site, and it was ranking good before the 23rd of March. I upgraded from Yoast SEO free to premium. After that, the site got deindexed from Google, and we lost all our keywords.”

To provide more context, the person also mentioned that they did gain back rankings for a few keywords, but they would lose the rankings again in a matter of hours.

They also mentioned that they had double-checked robots.txt to ensure it is set up as it should.  They have also ensured that there are no manual penalties.

John Mueller first clarified that the upgrade to the premium version of the Yoast SEO plugin has nothing to do with it.

“I don’t know… it sounds kind of tricky… I would say offhand it probably doesn’t have to do with the updating of your plugin.”

The next part was more interesting as John Mueller shared some insights into how the deindexing process works from Google’s perspective.

He specifically highlighted the slow and long deindexing process in which Google gradually deindexes parts of a website that it no longer considers relevant.

“ … it could very well be a technical issue somewhere.

Because usually, when we reduce the indexing of a site, when we say we don’t need to have as many URLs indexed from a website, we tend to keep the URLs that are more relevant for that site and that tends to be something that happens over, I don’t know, this longer period of time where it like slowly changes the indexing.”

This was a valuable bit of information from John Mueller but not very relevant to the person in their particular scenario, as they were experiencing a total website deindex (not a partial or gradual one).

To that, Mueller responded:

“So if you’re seeing something where like the whole site disappears from indexing, it almost sounds like something that might be related to a technical issue… something along those lines.”

Our suggestions

If you have been noticing something similar, you should first check your robots.txt to ensure it’s not blocking pages. 

Next, double-check if you still have an active sitemap and ensure there are no crawling issues.

Third, do a full SEO audit and shortlist any technical and website quality issues. Those issues will most likely be the culprit.

Note that there were multiple reports of unconfirmed Google algorithm updates in March. So if your loss in keyword rankings coincide with that timeline, those algorithm updates may also be responsible.

The post Google highlights ways it removes websites from the search index appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

Over the next few months, Facebook will be updating its news feed to provide Facebook users more relevant content. To achieve that goal, Facebook is gathering feedback from users.

The end result will be based on four different signals driven by user feedback.

Those four signals are:

1. Is this post inspirational?

Who doesn’t like more inspirational and uplifting content on their Facebook news feed — especially in these trying times.

One part of the feedback survey will ask people if they found posts inspirational. Based on that feedback, Facebook will recognize posts as inspirational, and that signal will be incorporated and considered for future news feed rankings. 

2. Is this post interesting?

To keep engagement high, it is important for Facebook to show highly relevant content to its users. After all, no one engages with content that they are not interested in.

So Facebook is planning to ask people if they are interested in certain topics and if they would like to see more posts on their news feed about those topics.

Based on that feedback, Facebook will be able to rank and prioritize content in users’ news feeds.

Posts that are more interesting to users will appear closer to the top. Moreover, we can also expect more posts around those topics that users mark as interesting.

3. Do you want to see less of these posts?

Facebook wants to know which posts are not interesting to the majority of people so it can deprioritize them in the news feed rankings.

This feedback will be gathered by how people react to certain posts. For example, a post will be deprioritized if it gets lots of angry reactions.

4. Do you want to hide this post?

Facebook users can hide posts that they do not like, but Facebook is making it even easier to do so.

This will also serve as a ranking signal to improve the news feed experience.

Here is what Facebook said about this feedback process:

“While a post’s engagement — or how often people like it, comment on it, or share it — can be a helpful indicator that it’s interesting to people, this survey-driven approach, which largely occurs outside the immediate reaction to a post, gives a more complete picture of the types of posts people find most valuable and what kind of content detracts from their News Feed experience.”

This news feed rankings will be adjusted over the next few months, based on the feedback Facebook receives from users.

The post How Facebook is improving its news feed ranking appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

This pops up an important question: will there be a consideration for websites that get a large percentage of visitors from countries with slower internet speeds?

In a recent episode of Google Office Hours Hangout, Google’s John Mueller was asked the same question. 

He responded:

“I don’t know what the final setup there will be.

It is something where we have country information in Chrome User Experience Report data. So it is something where we’d be able to figure out where users are primarily coming from.

But the general idea is still kind of that users should be able to have a good experience.

And if the bulk of your users sees a slow experience, regardless of why, then essentially that’s what will apply there.

So that’s at least from what I know, that’s kind of the general standpoint there.

It’s like if 90% of your users are coming from locations that are slow and essentially 90% of your users have this …sub-optimal experience with your site, then that’s kind of what will be taken into account.”

This presents a unique problem for websites and website owners whose traffic comes mostly from countries with predominantly slower internet speed. 

Because Core Web Vitals scores are measured from actual users, if a user has a slow internet connection, he is more likely to have a poor user experience on your website. And if the majority of website visitors have the same experience, it may affect your website’s Core Web Vitals scores.

One idea is to block countries with slow internet speeds in an attempt to improve Core Web Vitals scores and protect your search engine rankings.

However, that is not really recommended. Martin Splitt answered this question back in January 2021. He said:

“No. That’s thinking that is laser focused on the Core Web Vitals and that’s really, really risky.”

A, Because people from these countries, if they want to access your website, they will through a proxy or what’s called a “VPN” which really is mostly a proxy for most cases.

And then the speed is even slower, so not helping.”

Conclusion

As of now, there are no allowances for websites whose visitors come from countries with slow internet speeds.

However, this does not mean you should block those countries.

At the end of the day, Core Web Vitals is only one small search ranking factor. Your focus should be on providing the best overall user experience to your website visitors.

If you do everything else right, your website will likely see improvement in search rankings.

The post Core Web Vitals scores may be affected by slow internet speed appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

1. See how Google views your website

The Google Search Console offers a URL inspection tool that allows you to see how Google crawls and views your website. This tool comes especially handy when you publish a new web page or redesign your website.
First, you can see if the web page is being indexed by Google. This helps you eliminate any concerns about potential crawling issues.
Second, the URL inspection tool also tells you the last crawl date. If you have updated your web page, or if you have been noticing fluctuations in the SERPs, you can view that in the context of the last crawl date by Google.
Third, you can also use the URL inspection tool to check if indexing is allowed on the page and how Google is viewing the canonical tag on that page.
All these are crucial factors when it comes to ranking a web page on the SERPs.

2. Rewrite and improve metadata

Getting your page to rank on Google’s first page is only half the job done. Many SEOs think that is the end goal, but it is not.
The other half of the equation is to actually get organic traffic. It does not matter if your page is ranking on the first spot if no one clicks on it.
That’s where the efficacy of metadata comes into play.
In Google Search Console Performance reports, you can find the organic click-through rate of all the pages on your website.
We recommend shortlisting pages with a high number of impressions but a low click-through rate (CTR). Those are the pages that have the potential for attracting more visitors but are being limited by less-than-engaging metadata.
Improve the performance of such pages by rewriting the meta title and meta description. Make sure to monitor those pages for any increase or decrease in performance.

3. Improving the internal linking structure of your website

We all know the importance of links. However, when we talk about links in SEO, we mostly assume external backlinks pointing to our web pages.
However, internal links (from one page of your website to another page) also play a crucial part.
These internal links:

• Help search engine crawlers better crawl your website and find pages that they likely wouldn’t otherwise,
• Keep website visitors engage on your site with relevant content, and
• Help keep the bounce rate low.

But not all pages on your website would have a high number of internal links. With Google Search Console, you can easily find all such pages.
In the menu, click on the ‘Links’ report. Click on the ‘Internal links’ report. You can then export this report into an Excel spreadsheet and display it in descending order to quickly identify pages that need some love.

4. Identify low-hanging fruit

SEO professionals are always looking for opportunities to quickly increase the organic traffic a website receives. But optimising pages and increasing traffic is a long-term process.
But it doesn’t have to be if you start by targeting low-hanging fruits.
In the Google Search Console Performance report, you can use the filter to identify pages ranking on specific positions. We recommend shortlisting two groups of pages:

• Pages that are ranking on positions 11-15 (on Google’s second page)
• Pages that are ranking on positions 4-8 (on Google’s first page)

These pages are on the brink of receiving organic traffic.  With a little bit of improvement, pages in the first will be able to rank on Google’s first page, and the pages in the second group will be able to breach the top three spots (which get most of the traffic).
With this strategic framework, you will be focusing your attention on resources and efforts on pages that are more likely to yield results quickly.

Conclusion

Google Search Console can be used in a variety of ways to improve search rankings, web page performance, and the overall health of the website.
The above-mentioned four tips will go a long way in helping you improve your site’s performance in the SERPs.

The post 4 Google Search Console Features appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

According to Google, there was an internal reporting issue with the Google Search Console crawl stats report. Because of this internal reporting bug, the crawl stats report between March 10, 2021, and March 23, 2021, may not be entirely accurate.

Here is what Google said:

“You may see a drop in data in this period due to an internal reporting issue.”

The good news is that this is just a reporting issue. Therefore, you may have experienced a drop in your crawl data in the Google Search Console crawl stats report, but that’s it. There was nothing wrong with the Google crawl activity during this period. And because this is just a reporting bug, it did not have any effect on your Google Search performance.

As Google also confirmed, “This issue did not affect actual page fetches, only the reporting of fetch activity during this period.”

Google Search Console — Crawl Stats report

The crawl stats report in Google Search Console shows Google’s crawling history on your site. This includes information such as your server response, crawling requests made, and any issues that the search crawlers may have encountered.

This report is particularly useful when identifying potential crawling issues on your website.

However, if you notice a drop in crawl activity between March 10 and March 23 in the crawl stats report, do not be alarmed. Make sure to take this reporting issue into account when reporting or analyzing your website’s accessibility health and potential crawling problems.

Increased reporting coverage

If you are comparing the crawl stats report from previous periods, it is important to remember that Google recently increased its reporting coverage in January 2021.

Because of the additional types of crawls, the number of crawls reported for your site would likely have been increased this year.

Learn more about the different Google Search Console reports in this article.

The post Google reported data issue in Google Search Console appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

But how does Google detect duplicate content?

Well, the obvious method is for search engine crawlers to crawl each web page, read and analyze the contents of the page, and decide if the page has duplicate content.

But that is not the only method Google uses.

In order to prevent unnecessary crawling by search engine crawlers, Google also uses a predictive algorithm method that predicts and detects duplicate content based on the URL patterns.

This vital piece of information was recently shared by Google’s John Mueller in a recent Google Search Central SEO hangout.

In this blog post, we share what John Mueller said, how Google’s predictive detection method works, and what SEO professionals and content marketers can do to ensure their content does not get incorrectly flagged as duplicate content.

John Mueller on detecting duplicate content

Here is what Google’s John Mueller said while explaining how Google predicts duplicate content:

“What tends to happen on our side is we have multiple levels of trying to understand when there is duplicate content on a site. And one is when we look at the page’s content directly and we kind of see, well, this page has this content, this page has different content, we should treat them as separate pages.

The other thing is kind of a broader predictive approach that we have where we look at the URL structure of a website where we see, well, in the past, when we’ve looked at URLs that look like this, we’ve seen they have the same content as URLs like this. And then we’ll essentially learn that pattern and say, URLs that look like this are the same as URLs that look like this.”

As mentioned earlier, John Mueller explained that the purpose of this predictive method is to save crawling resources:

“Even without looking at the individual URLs we can sometimes say, well, we’ll save ourselves some crawling and indexing and just focus on these assumed or very likely duplication cases.”

John also shared a few examples, i.e., automobile websites that use almost similar content with different cities’ names in the URL. Google’s predictive algorithm can detect such processes (using cities in the URL when there is no need to do so) and correctly flag those pages as duplicate content.

What can SEOs do?

Now comes the big question: what can SEOs do to make sure their content is safe.

John shared a few best practices:

“What I would try to do in a case like this is to see if you have this kind of situation where you have strong overlaps of content and to try to find ways to limit that as much as possible …

That could be by using something like a rel=canonical on the page and saying, well, this small city that is right outside the big city [in case you have an events website with each page discussing multiple events happening nearby], I’ll set the canonical to the big city because it shows exactly the same content.

So that really every URL that we crawl on your website and index, we can see, well, this URL and its content are unique and it’s important for us to keep all of these URLs indexed.

The post Google has multiple ways to detect duplicate content appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

That’s how important headlines could be.

But what if your headline fails?

In that case, chances are that your content will fail as well — because 8 out of 10 people likely won’t even read the amazing, well-researched piece you’ve written.

That’s why a lot of your time and attention should go towards perfecting the headline of your next content piece. Similarly, a lot of your focus should also be on making sure that you don’t make mistakes that might lead your headings towards failure.

In this post, we highlight four big reasons why a headline might fail.

1. It doesn’t have a benefit

It is one of the most common reasons why most headlines fail.

If you want to know the one copywriting rule that will always help you, it is this: sell benefits.

Does your title indicate a benefit for the readers? If it doesn’t, it is more likely to fail.

Ask yourself: what’s in it for the reader? Will it benefit the reader if they click the headline and read the rest of my post?

And always remember that no one wants to buy a one-inch drill. They want a one-inch hole where they could hang their favorite photograph.

2. It doesn’t have any clarity

Recent scientific studies and researches prove that readers prefer clear headlines.

Unfortunately, most headlines are messy, complicated, and definitely not clear.

Clarity is important. In fact, it is often the most important thing in this cluttered online world. And maybe, it is because of the lack of clarity that most of your headlines fail.

Here is an example of a headline with a lot of clarity that doesn’t leave much ambiguity.  The reader would know exactly what they are getting into.

As long as the content on the page matches the expectations set by the headline, the user will have a good user experience.  On the other hand, a bad user experience would also send negative signals to search engines — which might lead to a demotion in search engine rankings.

3. It is too long

Longer headlines vs. shorter headlines: which one works better?

It is kind of debatable, and there is no definite answer. But there is a case for shorter headlines being better at times when compared to longer headlines.

Longer headlines require too much attention from readers. Moreover, some long headlines can become unnecessarily complicated — not very easy to read or understand.

If you are unsure which route to take, try sticking with a shorter headline. It has fewer chances of being a failure and more chances of creating a powerful impact and being more memorable.

Besides, longer headlines are also a big problem when it comes to search engine optimization. If a headline is too long, it will get truncated in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Ideally, your headline should have less than 60 characters. Whenever in doubt, use a SERP snippet checker tool to see how your headline would appear in the search results.

4. It doesn’t attract the right kind of target audience

Every blog post or copy is written for a very specific group of target audience.

What if your headline doesn’t target your specific audience and prospects? If it does not appeal to the right audience, it will likely fail — and your content with it.

As we discussed earlier, a lot is riding on the headline. People are overwhelmed on the internet with blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, and other forms of online content. The attention span of the average online reader is shrinking.

Your content headline should be able to address and attract the right type of readers who’d stick to the end of the post, become a follower, and/or buy the product from you.

Conclusion

Content headlines (or title tags) are extremely crucial for your online content to succeed. If the headlines you write do not have these aforementioned four qualities, they are more likely to fail.

Good news is that now you know which pitfalls to avoid the next time you’re creating a title for your blog post or landing page.

Related Posts:

• On-Page SEO Guide
• H1 Tag Best Practices
• Meta Description Best Practices
• Headlines That Work
• Headline Performance

The post How to Make a Good Headline: Avoid These 4 Things appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

A meeting, however, recently took place between Microsoft’s CEO and the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. In that meeting, Bing offered to take Google’s place in Australia as the leading search engine.

Paul Fletcher, Australia’s minister of communications, said that they would prefer if Google stay in the country:

“We made it clear we very much prefer them to stay in Australia, they’re an important, significant part of the ecosystem.” But he also indicated a possibility that this might not be the end result. 

“But ultimately these are business decisions,” Paul said.

It is important to note that Google currently occupies 94.45 percent market share in Australia. On the other hand, Bing only has a market share of 3.6 percent in Australia. 

However, given the opportunity, Bing has thrown their hat in the ring.

“The Microsoft CEO reached out to the prime minister and proposed a meeting, accompanied by senior executives, I was able to join that meeting, and we had a very informative discussion about Microsoft’s interest in the Australian market. At the moment, they have a small market share in search, but they’re interested in expanding that, they’re interested in developing the presence of Bing here,” Paul Fletcher shared.

What this means for SEOs and online businesses in Australia

If Google does go out of Australia — and Bing replaces it — it will definitely have a few repercussions for businesses and SEOs.

First, Google is the leading search engine in the country. Those Google rankings won’t matter, and many businesses will likely lose a lot of website traffic. 

The following tweet by Rachel Anderson puts things into perspective.

Second, this also means that businesses and SEOs need to look into their Bing rankings now. You might be ranking on  #1 for important keyword phrases on Google, but it does not mean that you’d also be ranking on the top in Bing SERPs.

Based on current Bing rankings, you should be able to forecast an increase or decrease in traffic, conversions, and revenue.

Third, make sure to optimize your website according to Bing webmaster guidelines.

The post Bing steps up to replace Google in Australia appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.