Today half of the world's population access the internet to look for answers to their queries. Today, Google solely conducts more than two trillion searches every day and has completely transformed the way people browse the internet. With many alterations to its algorithms on a daily basis, Google is absolutely the most significant rule setter of the game.

When the founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin first came up with the idea of Google, they had everything planned for the future. In the paper they released back in 1998 at Stanford, they stated how PageRank citation would help arrange the chaos on the internet caused by the increasing web pages. From its very birth, Google has always placed the user's intent and experience on a high pedestal, and to date, it remains the essence of Google's purpose.

What Makes Google The Revolutionist?

Every known name in the search engine league, like Yahoo (founded 1997), Baidu (founded 2000), and Bing (founded 2009), have had almost the same timelines with similar competitions. Google (founded in 1995, formerly known as Backrub), however,Ā  quickly shifted from the slow lane to the fast lane in just two decades.

As mentioned earlier, Google serves its users with the best experience. Google understands that it needs to help people as much as possible, so they return to the search engine whenever they need help.

How Do Search Engines Work?

The primary objective of any search engine is, as the name suggests - searching. You can take the example of a library, where books are arranged according to their subjects in different rows and columns, representing indexes or databases. When you need any book, you simply walk up to the aisle with relevant books and pick out what you think is most helpful for you. Google takes care of all these steps, and the only action you have to take is to search for your problem in the search engine query.

Every search engine principally works through three stages:

A. Crawling

The search engines have crawlers or spiders (Google Bots for Google) that help them analyze the content over the internet. This process of discovering new content gives them an idea about the information your page will provide for their users. The data can be in any format, including texts, images, videos, and PDFs.

B. Indexing

Every search engine also has an index where they store and arrange all the data acquired by them from your website and web pages according to the context where the search engine can use them. Indexing provides your data the visibility it requires to appear as search engine query results.

C. Ranking

The search engines have different factors that define your rank on them, the main aspects being the content, structure, and keyword usage. Ranking simply means ordering the stored data in the most relevant to least relevant fashion.

What Does Google Do Differently?

Google Search is extremely precise in understanding what a website or webpage wants to communicate to its readers. However, if you still wish to choose how Google Bots read and analyze your content, you can select the different filters for the Google Search Console.

Moreover, the AI technology, RankBrain, employed by Google, now intuitively understands what people might be looking for, and that is a massive difference separating Google from its competitor search engines. Using the search history, user behavior, and user interaction on the web browser, Google can piece together all the information about you to provide you with the best answer matching your likes and dislikes.

If you are a movie enthusiast and it sounds too much like J.A.R.V.I.S. from Marvel's Iron Man, you will most likely get the accurate picture. Additionally, you should also note that the privacy policies on Google keep all your data secured and use it only for your provision.

How Does Google Search Algorithm Work?Ā

Google search algorithms have one function: dig deep into the abyss of content available on the internet and return with the most relevant answer to your search query. The significant difference separating Google from other search engines is that its algorithms are so powerful that they do all this within a fraction of a second.

Google algorithms act as a filter to distinguish, rank, and present your answers. For instance, you can open a website for online shopping that views all the products that the seller trades. But to get an accurate product, you would add filters and categorize what precisely you are looking to buy. This job of properly organizing and presenting the data available on the internet is done by the series of algorithms that Google's ranking systems use.

The Google algorithms determine the following key factors to determine relevant search query results:

1. Meaning of the User's Query

If the user searches for a solution, it means they definitely have a problem. Google focuses on the meaning of the user's query, taking care of the different meanings a word can have to provide you with the most relevant result for your query.

2. Web Page Relevance

The algorithms then search for the relevance in the data stored with them and match it to the searched query. The compatibility is compared by matching the keywords in the content to that of the question and machine-learning analysis.

3. E-A-T

The quality of the content and reliability of the information provided by the website is a key factor in determining the ranking. Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a website can be verified by the number of backlinks they earn on other websites with a good E-A-T.

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4. Accessibility

The algorithms check if the user can access the site on multiple devices and quickly find the information they are looking for.

5. User Behavior

The user's interaction with different websites, their search history, and geographical location - all help the algorithms figure out the most relevant data on the internet according to their needs.

What is the Role of the Google Search Algorithm?

Google adds minor updates to its algorithm almost every day, but the significant changes that can heavily impact your traffic generation are brought about almost twice a year. Although, as mentioned before, all these updates provided by Google are only to enhance the user experience, whether it is quickly searching for a result or finding the most relevant content on the internet.

Back in December 2020, Google's core algorithm was updated and they added more E-A-T guidelines in the bunch to service users' best interests. It was aimed at more creative, unique, and informative content for your reader.

You can check for these core updates every couple of months and accordingly update your website content.

Here are some places you can get your Google algorithm updates:

1. Google Alerts

It is a highly informative application introduced by Google to keep you updated with anything and everything related to you and your searches. Google Alerts sends you a notification every time someone searches a keyword matching your history or any changes to the search patterns.

2. Google SearchLiaison

It is the official Twitter account for the Google algorithm that provides you with every bit of update that Google introduces to its algorithms.

3. Google Analytics

It is a free service by Google that you should opt for as a web creator. Google Analytics serves as an SEO tool and also updates you with the changes in user policies.

4. Analytics Tools

Many independent analytics tools for SEO allow their users to regularly view every change to the algorithms introduced by Google. Tools like MozCast are highly reliable and keep themselves updated with every amendment.

How Does Google Find the Best Results for its Users?Ā

Google only serves the best results to its users. Therefore, you should try to create content that would satisfy the needs of your users, pleasing Google along with it. Several factors help Google analyze your website and judge if it should be ranked high in SERPs or not.

Check out these factors to hit two birds with one stone:

1. Page Content

The content of the page is the primary route for your visitors to enter your website and look around. You should focus on creating unique content that engages the users to stay longer and browse other offerings.

2. Schema Markup

Your web page structure makes it easier for the Google crawlers to crawl through your content and analyze it. These crawlers also organize the content according to their purpose, so it could be used when a related search is conducted. Schema markup also helps the readers swiftly go to the details of the query they need an answer to instead of going through the entire content and wasting their precious time.

3. Page Loading Speed

The search results are provided by Google in a matter of seconds, making it essential that the result it provides should also quickly load when a user opens it. You should ensure that your content loads fast, even if there are many images included.

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4. User-Friendly Design

The website or webpage should support the user to check if the webpage quickly provides answers and has enough information. User-friendly design also means that your website is compatible with any device, from a personal computer to a mobile phone. Moreover, the guideline released by Google ensured that mobile-friendly websites would be potential high rankers.

5. Security

Google supports a website that ensures privacy and security for the user's data. In a major guideline release, Google also added to their algorithm that they would support HTTPS more than HTTP because of the security that HTTPS provides.

6. User Behavior

Google algorithm pays minute attention to the way a user interacts with a website. Behaviors will involve total time spent on the website, bounce-back rates, click-throughs, and website usage data.

How to Improve Ranking in SERPs?

All website creators should focus on how they want their data to be viewed by the user and Google. SEO strategy is created to help website creators and owners optimize their content for higher ranks in the search engine result pages.

Factors that play principal roles in other search engines are easily understood. However, Google updates its algorithms so many times that it is quite hard to stay abreast with the latest changes. Fortunately, some basic concepts never change and can help you optimize your content for the best user experience.

1. Superior Quality Content

It will always be the first factor affecting your ranking in the SERPs. Since the content is the first thing that introduces your viewer to your website, the content is your web page's backbone. Make sure that your content matches user intent and solves their problems.

2. Structuring

Your website or webpage content should have a fixed structure that is easy to understand and read. You should use meta titles, tags, and other on-site SEO components to optimize your content for a better ranking.

3. RankBrain

However, Google has so far only used RankBrain as an incorporated factor for its web page ranking system; it is still the third most crucial factor to take care of if you want a higher ranking on SERPs.

4. Visual Aids

You can add informative images and videos to help your viewers better understand your content. Infographics are known to influence people more than plain texts, which can be perceived as boring.

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5. Audit

You can audit your content and optimize your web pages for on-site and off-site SEO elements, check your ranking regularly, and your website usage.

FAQs

1. What Is the Key Focus of the Frequent Google Algorithm Updates?

User experience has always been the main focus of any updates in the Google algorithms. Google supports websites that ensure their readers will have easy access to all the information and the content will be easy to read through.

2. How Does Google Search Engine Work?

The Google search engine crawls through your website to look for your content, indexes it by categorizing it, and then ranks it to match the search query with the most relevance.

3. Is There a Penalty for Over-Optimization?

Yes, if your content is stuffed with keywords or phrases, Google penalizes your website or web page. The best recommendation is to keep it simple, with about five keywords per page.

4. Main Factors to Improve Ranking in the SERPs?

The main factors that can improve your ranking in the SERPs are mobile-friendliness, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness (E-A-T), and Schema Markup.

Conclusion

Although Google's search engine is quite different and more advanced than other search engines in the race, you can simply focus on improving your reader's experience on your website to ensure your seat in its SERPs. Like every other search engine, the Google search engine crawls, indexes, and ranks your web page. Optimizing the content to suit the user query and being up-to-date with the algorithm changes is the best way to get a higher ranking in Google SERPs.

Google Business Profiles hold utmost importance for the local SEO of your clients. You need to conduct a regular Google Business Profile (GBP) audit to improve your client's rankings.

Why is conducting this audit on a regular basis so important?

As you may already know, Google constantly makes changes to its platform. Hence, any best practices you may have put in place for your client's GBP listing may have already become irrelevant. Or, maybe, your client's contact details or hours of operation may have altered. If you notice that there is a significant amount of drop in traffic, it means it is time to perform a Google Business Profile audit.

In this post, we'll discuss in detail how to perform this audit for your clients. But before that, let's get some common questions out of the way. Let's begin:

What is Google Business Profile?

Google Business Profile, previously known as Google My Business, is a free service that allows a business to establish a profile with its contact information, location, and customer reviews.

As per the latest statistics, 64% of consumers use Google Business Profile to find contact information. For customers to find your client's business, they need a thoroughly filled-out Google Business Profile.

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Note: If your client's GBP is optimized, it will help your client outrank their competitors in local searches.

Why Should You Conduct a Google Business Profile Audit?

You should conduct a Google Business Profile audit for your client because some common errors can affect businesses of all sizes. Let's take a look at some of these errors:

A. Inaccurate Information: Your client's GBP should have the latest information of phone numbers, business hours, etc.

B. Incorrect Business Name: Ensure your client's business name is the same as their real-world business title.

C. Misleading or Fake Reviews: Fake negative reviews tarnish your client's brand reputation. Even fake positive reviews can result in the loss of trust in your client's business. Inform your clients not to review their competitors and their own business. They should also not use any review management software that doesn't follow review platform guidelines.

D. Outdated or Poor Quality Photos: Your client's profile should have accurate and high-quality photos.

E. Not Replying to Questions: Your agency needs to keep a check on Google's Q&A feature and reply to any questions. Or else, someone from the public can answer those questions and provide incorrect information.

Google Business Profile Optimization Checklist

The first step you need to take to optimize your client's GBP listing is to ensure your client's business is claimed and that their business information is accurate.

Audit your client’s GBP listing and see if your client’s business information is accurate by checking:

• Official Business Name
• City, State, Zip
• Phone Number
• Street Address
• Website Address
• Suite or Unit
• Short Business Description
• Email Address
• Business Logo
• Long Business Description
• Primary Category
• Secondary Category
• Business Hours

Tip: Another good practice you must follow is to make sure your client's address, business name, and phone number are consistent in every online mention.

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Next, follow this guide to fully audit the GBP listing of your client:

GBP Address Audit:

• Check if this is a physical location or a service area
• Check if the business is situated in the city center
• See if the address looks legitimate
• The GBP address must match the one from the citations
• Check if the city of the business location is added
• Check the zip code of the business

GBP Business Hours Audit:

• Your client’s business hours must match the ones from the citations
• The listing must display popular times (including time/day)
• The business should have up-to-date business hours (including holidays)

GBP Business Title & Website Link Audit:

• Don’t intentionally add keywords to the business name
• The business URL must match the one from the citations
• The GBP must link to a site (link to city page/root domain)
• The GBP link that links to a site should contain UTM tracking

GBP Category Audit:

• Make sure the business is using the ideal primary category
• Check which additional categories are currently in use and their order
• The GBP categories should mirror the service categories from the site
• The main site should have a page for each of the service categories

GBP Review Audit:

• The listing should display third-party reviews (such as Yelp and Facebook)
• You should reply to reviews by incorporating relevant keywords
• You’ll want customer reviews to come from Google’s Local Guides and include pictures

GBP Photos Section & FAQ Audit:

• Check the number of photos and their quality
• Photos should correctly show the business location
• There should be a good balance between photos posted by users and the business
• Make sure the content of the Q&A section has location/service keywords
• The listing should have questions and answers
• Upvote good answers that aren’t from your client

GBP Post Audit:

• Check the date of the last GBP post that shows on the listing (Ideally, one should publish once a week)
• Check the total post count
• Posts should contain content, links, and photos
• Include geo mentions in GBP posts
• Posts should link back to website pages (service pages, city pages, root domain, product pages)

GBP Sitelink Audit:

• Check if the listing has the options of booking/appointment
• Link additional profiles (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)
• See if you can complete a 360-degree tour for the GBP listing
• See if you can include on-site services and online appointments
• Show services/products with their prices

Local Optimization Audit

According to Google, local results are based chiefly on prominence, distance, and relevance. Audit the local listings of your client by making sure these three primary factors are up-to-date. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Relevance

Add detailed and full business information to help Google gain a better understanding of the business of your client. This will help match your client’s profile to relevant searches.

2. Distance

A good practice to follow is to have an up-to-date address and location keywords in every local listing.

3. Prominence

This refers to how famous a business is. It is also based on the data that Google possesses about a business from around the internet (taken from directories, articles, and links). So, keep this information in mind because it can also impact local results.

Note: You also need to apply SEO best practices and conduct an overall technical SEO site audit to see better results for your clients.

Competitor Comparison

Who doesn't want to move ahead of their competitors? You can help your client beat their competition by understanding the depth of their competitor listings.

When you analyze your client’s competitor listings, you get to know the changes or additions you need to make to your client’s listing to make it relevant. For instance, you may see that your client needs to increase the quality and number of reviews.

Listen Up: Check for these in your client’s competitor listings and then accordingly make changes to your client’s listing:

• Check if they have their target location in their listing title
• Check if they have a keyword in their listing title
• Check their review count
• See where their links go to

Tip: You can also check the Google Business Profile Guidelines to make any optimizations for your clients that you will think will work in their favor.

Keep Citations Consistent

You need to keep citations consistent as it’s crucial for local SEO.

Citations refer to a mention of your client’s business name across the internet. Citations include review sites, local listings, and GBP listing.

Ensure you take these final steps as a part of your audit:

• Your client’s NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) may be correct on GBP but wrong on other directories, leading to problems with profile ranking. Ensure your client’s NAP is consistent across the web (this includes Bing, Facebook, Apple Maps, etc.).
• Open Google Maps and search for your client’s business. Check for any duplicate listings.

GBP Insights & Optimization

If you use DashClicks’ Analytics app, you will be able to integrate the Google Business Profile listing. All you have to do is go to the “Listing Manager” and click on “scan for optimizations.” After you integrate GBP, you will be able to view GBP insights such as “Google Phone Calls by the Hour” and “Google Views on Search and Maps.”

Lastly, we would also recommend that you opt for white label local listing management services from DashClicks for GBP optimization.

Wrapping It Up

If you carefully follow all these steps, you will be able to conduct a successful audit and carry out Google Business Profile optimization for your client. The audit will offer all the insights you need to get your client's ranking where it should be! So, what are you waiting for? Conduct the audit to boost your client's rankings today!

As voice search technology has leaped forward in recent years, voice searches are heading towards the first position in the race of internet searching methods. They make searching fast, simple, and convenient. Voice search is already a big thing on Google.

Although it is thought that teenagers today would be more into voice searches, it is found that almost 52% of users (over the age of 55) belonging to older age groups are trying it out and loving it. Moreover, with the increase in the use of smartphones and Bluetooth devices, voice searches have become a crucial part of device design today.

What Is Voice Search SEO?

Voice searches have a vast arena of applications - from searching e-commerce websites to using your home devices. These applications make it critical for website owners to understand what voice search SEO is and how it affects the search results on any search engine.

Voice search SEO, simply put, is optimizing your website or webpage so that you rank higher in the SERPs, especially when the query is searched by voice assistants. It is a part of SEO and not a completely alien technique. Today, as the new normal, every SEO must involve optimizing the websites to adapt to voice commands.

Difference Between Textual and Voice Search

Although voice search isn't the lead runner, it still is a close competitor coming next only to web browser searches. The reason is anyone would prefer tapping on an icon and speaking out their query or simply starting their question like, for example, OK, Google! What is Voice Search SEO?

When we manually enter our search query, we usually choose specific keywords restricting the search engine to them. Comparatively, when we use a voice assistant, we speak out the sentence in a more conversation-like manner, enabling the search engines to give us a more comprehensive and specific answer. It was not just in the movie Hero that the person was comfortable talking to a voice assistant, but studies have shown that voice commands and searches come more naturally to people.

Moreover, with the evolution in technology, voice assistants are becoming more innovative in understanding what the speaker is precisely looking for just by listening to the sentence searched. Precision becomes relevant when realizing that many words have the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings, and matching them with the user's intention is an outstanding achievement. Google Assistant on mobiles can search in over 100 languages today and gives out an average perfect result 90% of the time.

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Voice searches also load much more quickly, averaging in on 4.6 seconds, almost 52% faster than the text search queries, making them time-efficient. Additionally, voice searches have a massive advantage - you don't need to touch the screen, making it possible to use it to search while engaging in another activity.

Impact of Voice Search on SEO

Voice search is transforming the way the world views anything over the internet. It has single-handedly made the website and webpage creators tweak their SEO strategies to adapt to voice searches if they wish to get their pages and sites in the top ranks of SERPs.

1. Device Accessibility

Every search engine has always kept the intentions of their users in the first place, making it critical for any website to provide the best UI features if they want to rank higher. Moreover, with the expansion of technology, users now wish their devices to be able to search for answers to their questions through voice commands. Voice search optimization is a necessity as most people using voice searches become regular visitors of your websites.

2. Long-Tail Keywords or Phrases for Searches

Most voice searches are in the form of phrases or questions. Although it is imperative to include keywords in your content for your overall ranking in the SERPs, it is essential for voice search SEO optimization to add phrases and long-tail keywords to match user intent.

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3. Loading Speed

It is a factor for any SEO optimization to keep your website or webpage in the fastest loading capacity. However, for voice search SEO, loading speed becomes much more critical as voice searches are quicker than text-based searches.

4. Content

The voice search has changed how the content for a webpage is created. The content available now is much more conversational and informal as compared to how it used to be before voice assistants became common. The content should also match the user's regional or traditional interaction behaviors to get better views and traffic.

5. Localization

The content a website now carries is more focused on localized searches since most voice searches are done for businesses or locations near the user.

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Strategies and Resources to Optimize for Voice Search SEO

1. User-Friendly Website

This has to be the first strategy for optimizing your website for voice SEO. The majority of people use their mobile devices to search for voice-based searches. Also, every search engine has changed its policy to push mobile-friendly websites ahead on the SERPs, making it critical for you to design your website in a mobile-friendly manner if you want to attract traffic.

Along with that, your website should also load quickly so as to not waste the user's time because a voice assistant is primarily used when the person is preoccupied with other tasks.

Moreover, make your content keyword-specific yet short. According to search engines, the perfect answer is about 29 words, allowing the search engine to quickly crawl through your content and rank your answer in the top search results. Note that every search engine wants the user to have a pleasant experience and provide them with a quick, simple solution to their problem.

2. Be More Natural With Your Content

As discussed in the differences between a typical text-based search and a voice-based search, people type down specific keywords while they are using a keyboard to search for something, but while speaking through voice recognition, people talk as if to communicate with the assistant.

For example, if you want to search for a shoe store around your location, you will probably type Shoe stores near me. But when using a voice assistant, you will go for an actual question like, Which is the best shoe store near me? or you might even add conditional words like, What is the cheapest shoe store near me?

Voice recognition has evolved in the past few years to precisely match your results to your location. This is to find regionally relevant answers to your queries for a better user experience, which SEO today is all about.

3. Aim for Featured Results

As with any SEO strategy, voice SEO also involves aiming for featured results in SERPs like snippets and recommended videos. A study showed that voice results use about 40 percent of the information from the featured snippets. Also, the videos featured in the results of a text query are placed at the third position, while for most voice-based searches, videos are at the first position in SERPs.

Getting your website or web page featured as snippets and videos uses structuring the content of your webpage. Also called schema markup, structuring the content helps the crawlers to quickly go through your site to analyze the content, enabling them to qualify your website as a search result.

You should assign tags, meta titles, and titles to your content which help form the microdata for your content. This microdata is then used by the search engines to precisely focus on the data you can provide to the user and if it would satisfy their issue or not. For Example, here is a Google search for How many people live in the United States.

4. Optimize for Localized Searching

Mostly when using a voice command search, people use their mobile phones, and about 51 percent of those searches are usually about a local business. For instance, a user will search, Where are ice cream shops in Pasadena?

Search engines use many tools and listings like Google My Business to browse through the nearest business searched by the user. It also means that your content must include listings from Google My Business for your page, tourist attractions, landmarks, and even a near me to rank in higher results for a local area-based search. Moreover, users check the maps, timings, services, addresses, and contact details of business holders in a search result; hence, you should get a Google My Business listing and claim it to provide the required information to the search engines as well as the users.

5. Use Questions as Keywords

If you look at any voice-related search examples above, you will notice that all are question-based. Studies show that most voice searches are in the form of questions. Targeted keywords may be how, what, best, and where, among others. It is also researched that over twenty percent of voice searches result from a combination of just 25 keywords.

A great benefit provided by any search engine is that they will provide you with the related and frequently asked questions by the users. You can use this information to add those questions to your webpage to present people with solutions. Hence when optimizing your website and webpages for voice search SEO, ensure that you target keywords that are more question-based, increasing your probability of achieving higher ranks in the voice search.

6. Include FAQs

One of the best strategies to ensure your spectrum of reaching out is by adding a page specifically about frequently asked questions about your topic. Multiple reasons support an FAQ page in boosting your visibility. Most queries in voice searches are question-based or in the form of a question, and FAQs come entirely in that category. Second, having a FAQ page will cover more wide variety of keywords that couldn't be included in the content itself, making your webpage more visible in the voice searches. Additionally, voice searches are also simple language questions with no specificity in the structure; hence, answering the FAQs in a general sense will increase your visibility further.

Tools for Voice Search SEO

The best tools for voice search SEO optimization are -

• SEMRush Marketing SEO Tool: It primarily allows you to assess your ranking in the SERPs. SEMrush also views how you can improve the ranks further by suggesting changes to get better user-based content.
• Moz Pro SEO Software: This is a complete tool for voice SEO optimization. Moz Pro is always up with the changes in Google algorithms and provides numerous services to its users, from searching for keywords to crawling their website for suggesting improvements.
• Ahrefs SEO Keyword Tool: You will use this tool to analyze your content for improvements to rank higher in the SERPs. The analysis by Ahrefs provides you with backlinks, broken links, links in your own content and niche, and an overview of your best-performing page in the SERPs.
• SpyFu: This tool allows you to search for higher-ranking keywords in your niche. SpyFu will also enable you to see what keywords are being used by your competitors, hence providing you with the idea of how you can improve the ranking of your content on the search engines.
• Google Search Console: It is a free tool available to website owners to check their ranking in the SERPs. You can also choose Google Search Console to check how you wish your website to be presented in the searches and what content can be viewed.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What Is Speech Recognition for Voice Search?

Speech recognition is a technology allowing users to search for their queries through voice commands instead of typing them into the device they use.

2. Voice Search VS Text Search

Voice search differs from text search. It focuses on the user's intent by copying the way the user communicates. Voice searches are also phrase-based content in contrast to text queries, which are more keyword-based content.

3. How to Optimize for Voice Search SEO?

Voice search optimization is part of the SEO techniques. In order to update your SEO for voice searches, create structured content with more conversational and natural words, be concise by using long-tail keywords, and answer the related questions in a more user-focused manner.

4. What Are the Various Platforms That Use Voice Commands to Carry Out Tasks?

The best and most common platforms using voice commands include -

• Google Assistant for Android phones,
• Siri by Apple Inc.,
• Alexa by Amazon,
• Bixby by Samsung,
• Cortana for Windows

Take-Away

Voice Search SEO, if optimized correctly, holds the enormous power of directing huge traffic toward your website and web pages. The voice search trend is scaling quicker than expected. With more reasons arising, like advanced technologies utilizing voice commands and diseases that make contactless communication a lifestyle for today's world, optimizing for voice search SEO is a critical step to take.

The user interface is present in every consumer or business product.

Creating an item or service that effectively satisfies a need or want is critical for a successful production. However, how users perceive and interact with a device is equally vital.

Two practices sit at the heart of both of these dilemmas: user experience and user interface. Both must be designed alongside one another to ensure harmony within the final product.

By first understanding UI, we can begin to explore the definition of UI design, its core guidelines, and how UI designers effectively build user-friendly interfaces for everyone.

What is a User Interface?

A user interface is how a person can interact with a product or service. It's how we can enter inputs or commands, which the device then uses to yield a response.

There are four primary types of user interface:

A. Command Line Interface

The Command Line interface involves opening a command prompt to enter specific commands. When entered correctly, the device reads the request and returns additional prompts or the requested file.

Command lines are effectively obsolete in consumer products. As technology improved, designers were able to create new interfaces that were much more intuitive and user-friendly.

To try out a command line interface, open the Run command on your Windows PC. Then type calc' and hit enter. The command prompt reads the request and opens the calculator app on your computer.

B. Menu-Driven Interface

The menu-driven interface allows users to follow a series of menu commands as opposed to entering them freely into a command prompt.

The designer of the product understands the purpose of the product, and, therefore, designs a menu interface around the different options available to the user. They click on one menu prompt and discover new menu options based on their choice.

A menu-driven interface is not dissimilar to how we interact with technology or software now. Most products now utilize a GUI (which we'll go over next), while this style simply presents users with easy-to-follow options.

Examples of a menu-driven machines are ATMs or money kiosks you can still find in grocery stores, malls, or gas stations.

C. Graphical User Interface

A graphical user interface is what designers use in everyday computers and devices. Rather than confining users to a list of set commands, they can freely interact with all aspects of the device through graphical displays.

You're utilizing a GUI right now to read this content. A UI designer carefully planned an interface that allowed you to intuitively move from startup to browser, to this URL. You also utilized interfaces along the way by using Google search and this website.

GUIs are the standard. They're used in computers, phones, gaming consoles, televisions, and much more. It allows you to easily identify other software or content and provides a pain-free way to access any of it.

D. Touchscreen Graphical User Interface

A touchscreen GUI is markedly similar to a standard GUI. What fundamentally changes the experience is the manner of user input.

For decades, people have acclimated themselves to the nuances of the mouse and keyboard. It's still the preferred way for many to interact with a GUI for their everyday work or personal hobbies.

However, touchscreen functionality exists and is not going away. Touchscreen input often provides a better UI due to its speed, responsiveness, and natural tendency to reduce human error.

But, tapping a screen comes with its nuances that UI designers must face. This involves:

• Reading screen touches
• Responding to differences between tap and hold
• Haptic (physical feedback)
• New graphical icons and navigation methods

No matter which interface is used, a UI designer has to provide consumers with an ideal experience.

Next, let’s take a look at UI design itself to gain a better understanding of what UI designers handle regularly.

What is UI Design?

UI design is the process of styling an interface in a way that's aesthetically pleasing to view.

With that in mind, UI includes visual elements including typography, color palette, menu styles, and content presentation. UI isn't just a matter of taste. It can have a direct positive or negative impact on a user's ability to use or enjoy the website correctly.

It's here where many readers find themselves confusing UI with UX, or the user experience. To help you better understand, let's define UX next.

UI vs UX - How They Differ and Overlap?

While UI is how a user accesses and perceives a product, the UX is what the product provides for the entire customer journey as a whole.

The UX is how effective a product is at understanding the consumer and providing an effective solution for specific pain points.Ā  If a person can take advantage of your product and has an easy time doing so, you are providing a quality user experience.

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Let's use a modern iPhone device as an example.

Defining the UX starts with understanding the purpose of the device. It exists to be all-in-one handheld hardware that handles phone calls, SMS, emails, web browsing, task management, gaming, and much more. It aims to provide users with app solutions that effectively satisfy their every need.

The UX is the device's ability to provide this. It includes all aspects of their journey with the product including the inner tech, processing power, applications, settings, and ease of use. A great UX also recognizes where consumers may face issues and rapidly provides solutions to reduce or eliminate errors.

The UI of the iPhone is what users experience when interacting with the device. It includes its menu designs, graphical icons, fonts, text color, and touch responsiveness. It's a quality UI due to its intuitive nature, while also granting users the ability to modify the interface for improved accessibility.

While they are different concepts, they overlap frequently in the goal of satisfying users. The UX comes first and is guided by a firm understanding of your core audience. The UI serves to offer users the perfect design and presentation, aligning your needs with proven design concepts provided by a Presentation Design Agency.

UI Design Guidelines

Creating designs for your brand's website can be subjective. But, that doesn't mean that there aren't consistent rules for you to follow when building an effective interface.

Thanks to the constant feedback loop present between the user experience and user interface, we can measure what's most important when designing your website.

Those guidelines include the following concepts:

1. Quality UI Provides Clarity and Visibility

Many site owners make the mistake of overdoing it with their new site.

They become focused on adding new graphics, features, and content without considering whether a user can consume it all. These cluttered designs make it difficult for the user to engage with the site.

Quality UI designs do more with less. When you think of top-trending websites or household technology, you'll notice one thing - simplicity.

Clean, minimalistic UI designs deliver all of the information a user needs to know. It does not obscure a user's ability to understand the interface, nor does it overwhelm information.

It demonstrates the confidence that it understands the end-user and presents a UI that enables a quality UX. The user is able can access the feature they need without any hassle.

2. Great UI Provides User Freedom

By freedom, we mean that UI should allow users to explore freely and customize their experience. They continue navigating within the capabilities of the site but are allowed to take different pathways based on their needs.

Consider how your experience is when you interact with menu-driven interfaces. You know exactly what you need, but you have no choice but to sit through additional menus to get to your chosen destination. If the user makes an error during menu selection, they may have to repeat the process. This is an unappealing, frustrating UI.

Quality UI design recognizes that users within a given audience have their differences. There isn't necessarily a right way for them to use the site. Instead, the UI attempts to understand all of the different use cases and provides dynamic options based on previous actions.

3. UI Should Be Accessible

Accessibility is becoming increasingly important in the development of technology.

Creators are realizing that their design approach often focuses on your average, able-bodied individual. However, many people have restrictions or disabilities that prevent them from engaging with a UI as intended.

Accessibility problems manifest in a variety of ways. If your UI relies on communicating feedback with color, color-blinded users are disadvantaged.

If your presentation relies on image and video, the blind and hard-of-hearing are unable to engage with your website.

Offering realistic UI solutions to such individuals is not an easy task. Tech experts are assuredly already exploring the challenges some disadvantaged people may face as we switch more to touch screen technology. Voice options serve as a viable solution in some cases.

Providing a quality UI that includes accessibility goes back to the golden rule - understand your audience. If you're aware that users may face these setbacks with your UI, you must consider solutions in your overall UI design.

4. Smart Content Delivery

Personalized content is becoming increasingly important as businesses shift online.

The people using your website services are at different stages of their journey. If someone is brand-new, they'll want to learn more about your brand, the benefits offered, and other details that might push them toward signing up.

An active registered user does not need that information. They're already familiar with your website and use it for a specific purpose. Showing them the same content that you would show to a brand-new customer leads to a bad user experience.

Consider customizing your user interface to allow for a more personalized experience. This is a staple for online services such as social media platforms, CRMs, SaaS, and many others. Those sites leave cookies in the browser allowing your platform to recognize returning visitors.

Instead of seeing the same content as everyone else, the returning user gets greeted by name. They see the information that's immediately relevant to their needs and can quickly access any tools or apps to get started.

Personalization is not just important for quality UI, it's now mandatory for successful service, sales, and digital marketing.

5. Clear Feedback & Communication

Every website needs a method of communicating critical information to the user.

We take quality UI for granted in every device we use. A mouse cursor defaults to an arrow, showing users specifically where they're pointing at any given time.

When you click on an app, the cursor shifts to an hourglass. We know this as the symbol for loading.

These types of UI feedback allow users to understand the results of their actions. Conversely, if the cursor didn't switch to an hourglass, we would know to try again. If the problem persists, there's likely an error they need to investigate.

There are other methods of communicating feedback to users based on your goals. For example, smartphones require a way of distinguishing a single touch from a sustained press. The latter usually trigger haptic feedback or a physical sensation to communicate success.

Quality UI design communicates when actions work and also when errors occur. You can improve our UI further by communicating exact errors and directing users to quick solutions.

The UI means more than being just aesthetically pleasing. It effectively communicates everything the user needs to know before they take their next action.

6. Be Consistent in Your UI Design

Consistency is important, whether it's within the same product or across multiple.

The more a user interacts with your interface, the more they will learn the language. They understand all of the nuances, what indicators represent, and how to move from place to place.

Do not upset that experience by making the interface different in other places. Otherwise, the user now is tasked with learning a new set of rules, making your interface both frustrating and confusing. There's no consistency in what the user can expect.

The rule of consistency should persist across devices. We can continue our previous iPhone example to see how Apple achieves this.

Whether you're using an iPhone, an iPad, or a Mac, the interfaces are consistent. The first two are virtually identical, allowing anyone to easily pick one up if they're familiar with the other. The Mac has some necessary differences, but the process of understanding and navigating iOS is effectively the same.

Apple's approach to UI design is what makes more of its user base loyal. If someone uses an iPhone, there's a natural incentive to choose their other devices thanks to its consistent UI and UX. Not only do users understand how to use the tech, but they can also jump from device to device with zero issues.

7. Allow Users to Correct and Avoid Mistakes

Everyone's been there. You're working on an important document. A distraction comes along and you accidentally misclick and delete critical information. It's a terrible feeling and the consequences can be huge.

That's why designers consider these occurrences by offering the ability to prevent errors. Seldom are users stuck dealing with one-off mistakes with most modern tech.

Instead, services generally allow you to undo, edit, or reverse your last action. This can help you correct typos, restore deleted files, or undo a saved change.

Some UI designers go a step further and offer warnings before allowing the action to occur. Their feedback loop might show that users frequently make a specific mistake. Thus, they add a confirmation menu to confirm your intention.

The UI Design Process for a User-Friendly Interface

1. Research Your Target Demographic

The UI design process begins early.

When businesspeople start a company, the goal is to provide some product or service that directly addresses an audience's need(s). However, determining what that offering will be relying on performing effective customer research.

Let’s say that a marketing agency wants to build an analytics tracking tool for its users. Its audience can range from new entrepreneurs to seasoned business owners. When we research these types of people, we can make some early conclusions about what our service needs:

• It should allow for a variety of analytics integrations
• The setup process should be easy for newcomers
• It should clearly define metrics and KPIs for each platform
• It should be customizable and allow users to choose their highlights
• It should protect the security of their accounts

There’s more to include, but this is a great starting point.

Each bullet details something that our team needs to keep in mind when designing both the UX and UI. Our UX team is focusing on how to make sure users can perform the necessary actions with ease. The UI team needs to design the layout, menus, and presentations in a way that makes it intuitive for users to engage.

Doing this early research phase, reach out to your target audience and any existing customers. This is not an opportunity to sell something. Rather, you should entirely focus on their needs and what they hope to gain out of using your proposed website. Let them guide you on what your team needs to achieve and what you need to avoid with the final product.

2. Perform a Competitor Analysis

The chances are that you're not alone in your new business endeavor. Whatever you're proposing with your site, there's already another business doing the same or similar.

Creators need to be vigilant in understanding what the competition provides. With a live, working website, they've already had the opportunity to research, test, and refine various iterations of what you may be trying to achieve.

Analyzing your competitors will help your designers understand three critical details:

• Which features do you need to have to be competitive?
• Which problems are present in their design, so that you can avoid them?
• What can we do with our website to distinguish ourselves and/or outdo the competition?

As a minimum benchmark, your design needs to meet the industry standard. If your UI is lacking basic essential features, there’s nothing compelling users to choose you over a competitor.

Of course, your service will not be perfect on the first draft. Even industry-leading sites go through various drafts, prototypes, and extensive user testing to achieve a desirable result. Get ahead of the game by scouting the competition and understanding the assignment before you put pen to paper.

3. Use a Style Guide (or Create One)

Every brand should have a style guide. This is a designer's bible so that they know exactly what decisions to make within set brand guidelines.

A style guide is important to help make your site’s interface consistent with your entire brand image. This is important when considering UI design concepts such as:

• Typography
• Colors
• Imagery
• Logo implementation

This can at least serve as a firm starting point for your designers when crafting the site’s UI. From there, you can make future style choices for things such as sizing, icons, and customization features that are consistent with the overall image.

Working within set guidelines helps ensure that your team works toward a clearly-defined vision. You don't want your prototype to look alien to your brand, lest you create a cognitive disconnect between yourself and your audience.

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4. Start Sketching Your Initial Concepts

Every great design starts with putting pencil to paper. However, thanks to modern tech, there are a ton of tools and services to help make sketching easier.

Sketch, an aptly-named service allows teams to collaborate on UI sketch projects. It allows you to experiment with containers, drag-and-drop images, resize on the fly, and much more. Your teammates can see the changes in real-time, leave comments, or reach out directly with instructions.

Your sketches should be the earliest ideas of what your UI should look like. Start to play with the different ways you can display necessary information to your users. Once you have one (or a few) that you like, you can begin the process of wireframing.

5. Create Lo-Fi Wireframes

A wireframe is a blueprint of what your user interface will look like on the final website product.

When creating a wireframe, your primary goal is to create a clear visualization of what the user will see. You also want to map out how users will navigate one from one menu to another. Sharing this vision with the team will help to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the design.

The purpose of keeping your wireframes low-fidelity early on is to avoid wasting time on design elements prematurely. These lo-fi designs are sometimes called “gray boxes,” and are meant to show the basic format. You don’t need to worry about adding the right text or images to create the full interface just yet.

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As you become more confident in your UI design choices, you might start adding more elements that will be present in the final design. These are known as mid-fidelity and high-fidelity wireframes, with each becoming more detailed than the last.

If you already started sketching in Sketch, you can continue your progress from wireframe to prototype. However, other excellent tools exist for different skill levels including:

• Adobe XD
• Figma (Free Version Available)
• Justinmind (Free Version Available)

6. Move Toward Working Prototypes

Once you understand your user flow and solidify the UI design choices, start building a working prototype.

At this point, you've already settled on what the interface should look like to viewers. Now, your team needs to assemble a working version of the interface for further testing. Your goal is to establish a respectable version of the website you can present to your team and early testers.

Likely, your prototype will not resemble the final site. You're putting an early version of the product into outside hands. This new perspective will help you make continued changes to the style, colors, menus, text, and other presentation aspects. It can also help highlight opportunities to create a more optimized user flow.

After implementing continued feedback, you'll inevitably find yourself with your first mockup. This is a high-fidelity version of your final product and a close approximation of what will hit store shelves. As you fine-tune your mockup using a video mockup generator is a fantastic way to bring your static designs to life, making it easier to see how things will really work and look. Plus, it can provide some great feedback points from your testing team.

Quality UI Design Tips for Your Website

Your company's website can't just look good.

Its clean, minimalistic design needs to enable your visitors to have a quality experience when viewing your content. It should demonstrate a deep understanding of your audience so that you can provide them with what they need without delay.

Maintain clarity and consistency in all design aspects. Give users the freedom to explore other pages, while maintaining an intuitive sense of direction throughout their journey.

Above all else, test design changes and get feedback from your visitors. Because they're the ones engaging with your site regularly, they'll be the ones to spot room for improvement in either the design or potential feature additions.

Your website is never done. But, with a strong approach to your UI design, you'll consistently produce a product that's worth being at the top of the rankings.

Deciphering language used in search is a complex task.

As humans, we have the benefit of understanding not just what people say, but the context that surrounds it. Often, we can say a word or phrase, but offer an implied meaning that’s never stated. Nevertheless, we automatically understand the intention.

It’s this type of intelligence that Google continuously tries to provide in its search algorithms. It’s no longer enough to just do a keyword match. It needs to understand the relevance of what’s being said so that it can accurately serve that content to the right audience.

All of this is why Semantic SEO is now a critical part of your organic marketing.

In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through:

• What is Semantics?
• What is Semantic Search?
• What is Semantic SEO?
• How to Use Semantic SEO for Your Website

What is Semantics?

There are two primary components to linguistics and communication: lexicon and semantics.

Lexicon is defined as the actual units used in communication, otherwise known as words.

Semantics is the aspect of language that focuses on using logic to infer the true meaning and intention behind the words. It’s how we as people can communicate something with words, but mean several different things based upon a variety of internal and external factors.

For example, the word “monitor” has at least three meanings. One, it can be a verb that means to watch or observe. It can also be a noun that refers to someone who supervises. Finally, it can refer to the display you use when using a computer device.

The way we determine which “monitor” is right is through semantics. That is, we can logically deduce the meaning based on semantic clues like surrounding words, previous statements, or physical observation.

It is the process of matching the correct meaning to the act of communicating.

What is Semantic Search?

Understanding the meaning of semantics is essential for determining how it applies to search.

As search engine algorithms continue to evolve, they improve their ability to better understand the meaning behind our queries.

Therefore, semantic search is the idea of helping search engine algorithms understand the intention behind a search and the relevancy of the possible results. Google no longer just wants to match the query to on-page keywords, it wants to find the true meaning through the same logic means that we do.

How Search Results Used to Be?

In the early days of the internet, search engines used a fast, lean way to help users find content.

Any time you entered a keyword, you would receive hundreds of results featuring pages that included the keywords in your query. It was a guarantee that every found result mentioned your words at multiple points throughout the page. Because the lexicon matches, those pages were determined to be the best results.

How Search Results Are Evolving?

Thanks to our established understanding of semantics, we already begin to see the flaws with old SEO practices.

When sites wanted to improve their rankings, they would write a quick page to publish on the internet. This might be a quick list of tips about a subject with the primary intention being to use a keyword with high search volume.

The problem with taking keyword usage at face value is that it ignores the semantic aspects of communication. When someone enters a search into Google, the algorithm would not be able to interpret one meaning versus another.

For example, a user searches for “cheap compact disks.” Google previously had no way of interpreting the actual meaning.

Do they want to learn about which compact disk build quality? Do they want to find a cheap CD dealer? Or is there another intention that’s being obscured due to poor communication? Everyday internet users expect search engines to automatically understand their intentions.

Introducing the Knowledge Graph

Google understands that users want information fast. They want to learn all that they can about a particular query in as few clicks as possible to have a positive experience.

The company recognized that it had the advantage of processing and indexing an incredible amount of content daily. In this content lies important facts and answers to everyday questions that their users had.

As a result, it set out to create a database that collected accurate information about a particular topic. It would then be able to provide all of this information to a search user anytime their search query included a reference to the topic.

The Knowledge Graph is now present on every Google SERP. If you want to know last night’s football scores, you’ll find the information immediately without ever clicking a URL. If you wish to know to learn more about Google, you’ll find critical details such as a company description, founding members, current SEO, and location.

The knowledge graph includes virtually every important idea, place, company, or figure. The graphic is also able to provide direct links to related topics that are also found within this web of information.

It showed Google’s desire to provide users with answers to every possible question they might have regarding their query. They did this by utilizing previously established semantic connections based on content around the web. They would go on to take these new aspects of semantic search and apply them to the next big update.

The Hummingbird Update

Just a year later in 2013, Google launched the Hummingbird update. This allowed their search engine to better process different types of search queries based upon a variety of semantic factors.

Let’s revisit our prior example “cheap compact disks.” With Hummingbird, the search algorithm understands the true intention of the vague query. “Compact disks” is the primary keyword, but “cheap” provides the critical semantic context. It now knows that cheap refers to cost, implying that the user is looking to purchase low-cost CDs.

Because it can make this connection, it will no longer waste the user’s time by yielding guides or informational results. Instead, you now get results from sellers like Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, and Walmart linking to their music and audio sections.

It also had a tremendous impact on local SEO. When a user enters certain queries into Google, it can also derive semantic meaning from the person’s location. For example, if they search for “best Chinese food,” Google knows that the most relevant results are the ones physically closest to their location.

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BERT and Voice Input

While the changes to the SEO made a huge impact on semantic search, there was still work to be done.

The way people search continues to grow alongside technology. In the time it took to see the previous update, users began utilizing their mobile phones more than ever to input searches. We also saw a rise in hands-free devices like Google Home or Amazon’s Alexa among everyday consumers.

The promise of these devices meant that you no longer needed to enter your search with a keyboard. The on-the-go nature of new technology meant that users needed to be able to search for suggestions using their voices. This demonstrated continued issues with Google’s ability to understand more complex queries, especially those that were more conversational.

When typing, we tend to use as few words as possible, especially on a phone. We’ve also been trained in the old ways of SEO to focus on keywords and omit unnecessary fluff.

Those that use voice search revert to their traditional way of speaking. Instead of typing “semantic SEO,” someone may ask, “What is Semantic SEO and its purpose in content?” It’s easy for us to infer the meaning, but it can be tricky for the algorithm to understand the exact meaning of a longer query.

BERT, Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, is a technology that is designed to solve complex queries. It’s able to understand complex queries by looking not just at the keyword, but at all of the surrounding words as well as the sequence in which they appear.

BERT was also created to continuously learn from search users. The more that Google receives different types of searches, it takes steps closer to understanding the various ways humans communicate. It’s automatically gathering data and improving how it evaluates our efforts to learn new information.

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It may even be able to predict the next word in your query based on the words already entered. You can try entering a query into Google yourself and observe how quickly it generates an auto-filled response that matches your needs or comes close.

Google's SMITH Algorithm

Though it's still experimental, Google is currently testing its new SMITH technology, which stands for Siamese Multi-Depth Transformer-Based Hierarchical Encoder.

However, SEO experts know that this search advancement exists and promises to outperform BERT. While BERT is capable of predicting a few words based on user input, SMITH may be able to predict entire passages of text within a longer piece of content.

The full published study is available on Google's Research website. It explores Google's latest testing results, which seem to indicate that SMITH has its shortcomings. Currently, it seems that SMITH is not meant to replace BERT. Instead, both may be able to supplement the other's shortcomings.

While BERT focuses on short-form content, SMITH may be able to rapidly process entire documents. Together, they may be able to rapidly process the semantical meaning of the content of any web URL, regardless of length or size.

Now that you understand the purpose and history of semantic search, let's take a look at how it's impacting your SEO strategies.

What is Semantic SEO?

Semantic SEO is the process of optimizing your content to provide depth and meaning around a certain topic. Keywords still play a critical role, but the focus is on providing authoritative, complete responses to a user's search query.

Based on our previous discoveries in this article, we understand how this applies to our content creation efforts moving forward. Writing 500 words and including the keyword in your title and headlines does not lead to meaningful content.

Instead, Google's algorithm heavily favors pages that go into greater detail. High-ranking pages also make use of opportunities to link to relevant content both on and off-site for additional context. It's not just looking at keywords, but it's also reviewing the supporting text and links to derive the semantic meaning behind it.

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A. Search Intent and Relevance

You can optimize your website for semantic SEO by first considering the user's search intent behind a query.

Site owners can do this by considering the implied intention behind a keyword before selecting it. If the goal of your content is to provide information, you'll want to avoid transactional keywords and focus on informational ones. You can also help Google understand the intention and relevance of your content by utilizing semantic keywords.

B. What Are Semantic Keywords?

Semantic keywords are keywords that are closely related to primary keywords but have a slightly different, deeper meaning.

Let’s use “search engine optimization” as our keyword. Examples of semantic keywords are:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Search engine optimization techniques
• Search engine optimization example
• Search engine optimization specialist
• Search engine optimization course

All of these keywords are directly related to the primary keyword. However, the additional words provide context to derive a slightly different meaning.

These semantic keywords serve to strengthen our primary keyword when used effectively.

If a user was to search “how to do search engine optimization,” our result will be more likely to rank high if:

• We utilize semantic keywords appropriately
• We fully answer the user’s query (including techniques and examples as seen in the LSI keywords)
• We link to other SEO-related content available on the site where applicable
• We avoid overusing primary or semantic keywords to boost visibility

Next, we’ll explain the best strategies for using semantic SEO when developing content for your website.

How to Use Semantic SEO Throughout Your Website?

Implementing effective semantic SEO tactics begins as early as designing your website.

Some of the best strategies involve structuring your content in a way that naturally groups semantically-relevant content alongside one another. This reverberates throughout your entire content creation strategy and futureproofs your site when making additions or changes.

1. Plan Content Using Keyword Clustering

Keyword clustering lends itself beautifully to everything we've discussed in this article.

Previously, SEOs would generate a list of keywords with high search volume. Then, they’d plan pages or articles around making generous use of that keyword.

Today, SEOs take their list of keywords and cluster them into groups by their shared relevance. You can do this by sorting your keywords by common words and the frequency in which they appear.

Let’s revert to a previous example. A digital marketing agency is using “search engine optimization” as a target keyword. Other relevant keywords that we can use are terms like “search engine optimization techniques” and “search engine optimization specialist.” We cluster these terms into one group due to their relevancy.

We can use these cluster keywords to support the content on our core “search engine optimization” page. You could speak about the SEO service, what a specialist does, and some techniques site owners can use. From there, you should build out pillar pages that dive into your cluster keywords in greater depth.

When you create and organize content this way, you help Google understand the relationships. As Google’s understanding improves, it becomes more confident in the type of content you’re providing, so that it can better match a user’s search intentions.

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2. Address Longer User Queries

Long-tail keywords are a mixed bag for many SEOs.

On one hand, they often get skipped due to their lower search volume. When a brand is eager to boost traffic, it doesn't seem worthwhile to create pages around these keywords.

On the flip side, longtail keywords tend to exhibit high levels of engagement. When fewer results are taking the time to answer a question, users are more likely to engage with content that matches their needs.

You don't necessarily need to create an entire article focusing on a longtail keyword. Instead, you can address them within the body of pillar content established during keyword clustering. While your pillar page will cover a host of material, you can capitalize on longer queries by answering important questions throughout your article.

A great place to find longtail keywords is by checking out Google's People Also Ask section on SERPs. These questions are actual search queries and feature the best available response from available content.

Answering these questions in your core content is an excellent way to pull in additional traffic without diminishing your results. You'll pull in clicks for those lower search volume keywords, while simultaneously strengthening the quality of your core content. You get more eyes on your website and Google rewards you for helping out its users.

3. Always Utilize HTML Markup

Every content creator and SEO should already be doing this.

When you organize and upload content, you must tag sections of your content correctly. This HTML markup language explicitly tells Google's crawler what is on your page. Everything on the page should feature a tag including the type of text, buttons, videos, images, or forms.

Regarding the text, there are rules for tagging each section.

• Titles are indicated by H1
• H2 are commonly used as sub-headers to flag important topics/keywords
• H3-H6 flag topics or questions that belong underneath other headers
• Paragraph text is marked with <p>

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A modern CMS will automatically update the HTML accordingly so that you don't have to code your website. However, you need to know how to markup your text correctly to ensure that Google can index your content correctly.

If you're interested in the various HTML markup tags you can use, check out a full library along with tutorials here.

4. Make Use of Internal Linking

The benefit of designing your content around keyword clustering is how it lends itself to internal linking.

As we've learned, Google processes all of the content on a page to determine the meaning as it applies to search intent. However, it also crawls the entire site when performing the indexing process. That means that it will follow links from page to page to understand the navigation and how each page relates to one another.

When you cluster your keywords, your content in each group shares a relationship. When content is closely related, there are more sensible opportunities to add internal links to other pages. Just like with semantic keywords, Google will follow these links and use the content to define a shared meaning.

Be sure to only link to content whenever relevant. Anything that's out of context will likely be seen as unreliable or spammy, hurting your SEO efforts in the long run.

5. Utilize Structured Data

Structured data, also known as schema markup, is a language used to help search engines understand your website content.

While other semantic SEO techniques reinforce relationships, this markup language tags and define sections of the webpage. It not only allows for better indexing and ranking but grants the possibility of using that information on the SERP.

Sites that utilize structured data enhance their search result by building a rich snippet. Search results with rich snippets get increased visibility by showing you important details such as:

• Product availability
• Pricing
• Ratings
• Authors/directors/creators
• Release dates
• Company

Those examples simply scratch the surface. There are over one thousand schema properties you can use whenever appropriate.

The recommended format for implementing structured data is JSON-LD, a JavaScript notation. You can either implement the code directly via JavaScript or by using built-in features found within your CMS.

There are also tools available online that can help you generate structured data based on the type of page you want to create.Ā  Check out Schema.dev's schema builder with a browser plugin option available. You can also test your new structured data before publishing it for indexing.

Semantic SEO is the Key to Higher Rankings

Search engine optimization has changed substantially in the last ten years.

Site owners can no longer ad fluff to their website that simply mentions keywords. Thanks to several Google updates, search algorithms can now understand the content, but can discern the significance and relevance of the material within.

Content creators must invest time in creating pages with depth. You may need two to five thousand words to effectively answer every reader's needs. The more authoritative your content, the more likely Google is to trust it.

But, you may also proactively aid search engines. Make sure to utilize semantic keywords, apply the proper HTML markup, and make use of structured data. Instead of counting on the algorithm to get it right, give it a push in the right direction to get better rankings.

If understanding SEO practices seem complex, you're not alone. That's why DashClicks offers a free platform to help you get started. You can select which keywords you want to track and monitor your progress over a given period. Set your goals and see how you stack up against the top competitors. Give us a try today!

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” Dwayne Johnson.

Brand consistency is the ultimate objective of any business because of its enormous benefits. It is the positioning that showcases a brand’s values and identity. It’s crucial because if you practice brand consistency, your audience can recognize your brand’s characteristics through your brand’s messaging.

What brand elements do the companies want to engrain in the minds of consumers, so they can remember their brand? These elements are as follows:

• The tone of messaging
• Logo
• Visual brand elements, such as colors and themes.

Together these elements help people easily recognize your brand across different marketing channels.

It’s crucial to differentiate your brand by practicing brand consistency, so it stays top of mind even amid growing competition. It will also boost customer loyalty and brand authority.

So let’s discuss how to practice brand consistency.

Is it as simple as that sounds? No way, it can be quite challenging!

What Is Brand Consistency?

Brand consistency is maintaining communication and marketing positioning according to your business values. It also involves the elements that create its identity.

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What if a Coca-Cola ad looks like this?

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Does it even look like a Coca-Cola ad? It seems more like a Pepsi ad and can confuse its loyal customers. That’s what makes brand consistency so crucial.

Now, look at the following ads for Nescafe. Look at the brand colors, themes, and tone in their messaging:

• Recharge yourself
• Charge your brain
• Warm up to the rains with Nescafe
• Enjoy a cup before the chaos

All the ads point to its basic appeal “To recharge and refresh yourselves for important occasions.“

The target audience is tired people looking for a little caffeine to refresh them.

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Importance of Brand Consistency

Coke and Pepsi have been arch-rivals for more than a century, but Coke dominates the soft drink market. Many people think Coke is an older brand, but that's not true. Pharmacists launched both brands in the US in the late 19th century. And you'll be surprised to know that even though Pepsi tastes better, the brand value of Coke is $33 billion against Pepsico's $18 billion.

Coke's market domination can be attributed to its ability to weave its way into our lives. Look at the way the brand communicates with consumers and the way the brand stays true to its values and mission. Their logo and brand color instantly create a feeling of warmth, feeling better, revived, and energized.

The secret to their success is brand consistency. Coke has kept its brand identity and product consistent for over 130 years.

How DashClicks Helps You Manage Brand Consistency?

DashClicks' white label dashboard allows you to customize your reports, websites, emails, and communications with your clients. And we are not talking about the logo or the brand name; you can customize virtually anything, including the background colors, fonts, messaging, and reports, through various tools and templates.

What's DashClicks?

DashClicks offers a white label platform and software to help agencies conduct their day-to-day operations faster and better.

DashClicks' marketing agency software and ecosystem can make life easier for agency owners. It simplifies and streamlines everything, including marketing, selling, fulfilling, and servicing. The built-in apps will help you structure, create and automate. The biggest advantage of using the DashClicks platform is that it enables you to scale your business.

Here are the four ways we can maintain brand consistency using DashClicks -

1. Dashboard App

Our reporting dashboard is the one source of truth for all your data. It allows you to use dozens of pre-built widgets across all your apps and pull your data into one unified client dashboard software.

The Dashboard application acts as the home page for your entire platform experience. This is a fully customizable page so that users can personalize their page view.

Watch this video to learn how you can customize everything on the Dashboard as an agency owner to maintain brand consistency while sharing reports and data.

2. Sites App

The strongest armor DashClicks white-label platform offers you is their Sites App. The App gives you the freedom to create the website of your dreams. Create and manage your websites using our white-label drag-and-drop website builder for agencies. It means you can fully customize it as per your branding needs. The website builder allows you to take control of your website without any coding knowledge and change the background colors, fonts, images, messages, content, headers, and footers, whenever you want. Our custom content management system (CMS) makes editing your website a breeze.

Watch this video to learn how to use Sites Apps -

3. Analytics App

DashClicks' Analytics App brings real-time marketing reporting software to your fingertips. With this App, you can monitor and report on all of your marketing campaigns in one place.

Apart from that, it's also a powerful branding tool that allows you to customize your reports with your logo, brand name, colors, and fonts. With this App, you can easily share reports with your clients highlighting your branding elements and keeping your agency top of mind.

4. Templates App

It is another powerful app from DashClicks that helps you manage brand consistency. With the Templates App, you can stack your templates and unify communication.

It allows you to create custom email and SMS templates and start unifying your messaging across your entire organization. To manage brand consistency, you can use custom SMS templates throughout the agency ecosystem.

Final Words

DashClicks ecosystem offers many apps that helps you manage brand consistency. We have already discussed how crucial brand consistency is for business growth and customer loyalty.

The templates app allows you to keep your communications consistent across the entire agency ecosystem. So, if you want to keep your agency top of mind, and manage brand consistency, use DashClicks' white label platform. Moreover, it comes with powerful automation tools.