Author: Kenneth Bell

30-second summary:

12 months, several curveballs, and some masterstrokesIf you missed out, today is a great day to look through the Search Engine Watch lens for the year gone byKey themes that were front of mind in 2021 – Google’s updates, cookie death counter-strategies, mastering customer experience elements, trust-building, and alternatives for search marketing and ranking

As the world, people, and of course businesses motored through a year of uncertainties – these crackers of articles gave your strategies an unfair advantage.

#1 – Google Page Experience update is all set to launch in May 2021 – Webmasters, hang in there!

You asked, “What is Page Experience, anyway? Do we really need to have an overflowing to-do list?” – and we answered everything around this enigma. This piece touched upon every aspect, angle, and action point that SEOs needed to know.

#2 – The search dilemma: looking beyond Google’s third-party cookie death

The ad tech and search industry continued to remain precarious that Google will use the cookie deprecation as a new way to establish market dominance to feed its own interests. Google expert, Susan Dolan drew from her rich experience and detailed realities of the search scape. She also shared insights and predicted future key themes that rose out of the 3p cookie death.

#3 – Everything you need to know about the Google MUM update

As the industry bid farewell to BERT, Google’s Multitask Unified Model (MUM) update in June 2021 opened new search experience dimensions. The cranked-up competition for search visibility between businesses and advertisers – left SEO practitioners and agencies with yet another burning question, “How will we win MUM’s good graces?” Joe Dawson’s comprehensive guide left no stone unturned.

#4 – Why killing your content marketing makes the most sense

“Kill your darlings”, yes, we said it! Though it sounded outlandish, this piece held wise and valuable advice from best-selling author Joe Pulizzi on why this could be one of the best business decisions you could’ve made in 2021.

#5 – Quora and Reddit: Powerhouses for SEO and marketing in 2021

Everyone is obsessed with Google, but did you know Reddit is the seventh most popular website in the US while Quora has a DR of 91? This guide shone a light on how your search strategy could take advantage of these platforms with diversification, tap into great brand-building opportunities, and enhance your E-A-T standing.

#6 – Now is the best time to stitch your search marketing loopholes before 2022

The third-party cookie still stands at a crucial intersection between digital marketing, SEO, paid media, web design, and several business tangents. The industry needed to think hard and think differently for a contingency plan. SEO pioneer, serial entrepreneur, and best-selling author, Kris Jones helped weave a tight SEO and search marketing strategy way ahead of 2022. Why? Because a stitch in time saves nine.

#7 – Seven first-party data capturing opportunities your business is missing out on

The internet continued zigging in a privacy-focused direction as a response to consumers’ increasing demand for a transparent, responsible, and ethical outlook towards their data. First-party data became indispensable and consumer trust, invaluable. While the playing field inched closer to the great reset, we revealed some hidden first-party gems every business could use to redesign their search marketing strategies.

#8 – UX: an important SEO ranking factor

The story of SEO and UX began almost 20 years ago with both making a foray into the market in the 1990s. Since then, SEO practitioners saw seasons change and the Page Experience, paired with data analysis finally etched UX as a key ranking factor. Atul Jindal condensed years of his experience working with fortune 50 companies into this SEO guide to help you win at SEO and search experience.

#9 – Cross-channel marketing: why you shouldn’t put all your eggs in the Google basket

The pandemic didn’t let us forget that while every business is unique, budgets too took a hit, making allocation stringent. But why did so many businesses still stick to the “big guns” when allocating spending? Adzooma CEO Rob Wass and Cambridge University’s Akanshaa Khare joined forces to challenge this notion. They produced some truly unique insights that would make stakeholders rethink their media spending habits.

#10 – Core Web Vitals report: 28 Ways to supercharge your site

Everyone remembers the chaos surrounding the Core Web Vitals in early 2021. SEO folks were keen to get ahead on optimizing their site and Twitter threads were full of speculation. Armed with information, we shared a 28-point checklist on action items to spot, optimize, and embrace the inevitable rollout of these new ranking factors.

Thank you for being valuable supporters throughout our journey. Team Search Engine Watch wishes everyone a happy year-end and an adventurous 2022!

*Ranked on page views, time on page, and bounce rate.

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The post Wrapping up 2021 with our top 10! appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

30-second summary:

Title optimization of articles, blogs, or webpages is critical to get traffic and earn money from Adsense and affiliatesThe standard advice is to stick to one keyword phrase per page to maintain strict relevance and avoid getting penalized for keyword stuffingAdding extra related keywords, however, apart from the modifiers and words to create a sensible title has the potential to get more traffic to websitesHere are some good insights and tips on how you can optimize your keywords titles

Optimizing titles of articles, blogs or webpages is critical for getting traffic and earning money from Adsense and affiliates. The standard advice is to stick to one keyword phrase per page to maintain strict relevance and avoid getting penalized for keyword stuffing. But adding extra, related keywords, apart from the modifiers and words to create a sensible title, has the potential to get more traffic to your site.

In this article, I’ll review, my own experience in crafting carefully multiple keyword titles.

Keep the title short – one keyword phrase to a page

As a golden tip, start targeting individual keywords on separate pages and use multiple pages for related words. General landing pages for mixed or general topics generally will not work because you will not be able to compete for popular single keywords without adding phrases for longtail titles. The general advice is that you should keep the title short (less than 70 characters) and only target perhaps two or three primary keywords that are highly relevant to the content of the page and its objective. You can of course develop long-tail keywords that include your primary keywords plus a series of modifiers to make a ‘sensible’ title that makes sense to humans and the test the bots use to evaluate your sites.

void keyword stuffing

There is a lot of information on the dangers of keyword stuffing, which means over-use of your keyword or keywords in the title, description, and the body copy. Google invokes a penalty for keyword stuffing, though the threshold keyword density is not exactly known. There are various tools for counting keyword use frequencies. Keyword Density is simply measured as the relative number of times your search term (Keyword or Keyword phrase) occurs as a percentage of the total number of words on a given page. The ideal Keyword Density must not be greater than 5.5 percent. But various search engines have different thresholds before they apply penalties. Reasonably, high Keyword Densities can help boost page rankings but you don’t have to overdo it.

Keyword Density can be boosted by using your keywords repeatedly in the:

Title tagHeader tagComment tagBody tagAnchor tagImage tagAlt tagDomain name, andParagraph tag

Another general piece of advice for titles is not to exceed using the identical keyword in the title more than twice.

How Google and other search engines crawl and rank your keywords in the title

It is not widely understood, but Google and other search engines register and rank every individual keyword in your title and every combination – including various orders and positions for the keywords. Although there is a priority for phrases with the keywords in the order they are in the Title, and for words that appear first, Google will register all the keywords and phrases and derive a ranking for them.

Dilution of the weight of the keywords in the title

Google also appears to regard long titles as more likely to be Spammy (especially very long titles). Longer titles may also appear keyword-stuffed. Research has shown that the first keyword in the title has the highest weight; the second keyword has somewhat less weight and so on. By adding more words you may dilute the weight applied to each of them. For targeting two-word searches and phrases, it is important to keep keywords close to each other and in their ‘natural’ order. Try to match the likely order of the terms in the search phrase, to the order in the title.

Use multiple keyword phrases multiply your traffic

If Google derives a rank for all the words in the title, surely, by including two or three keywords rather than one will be more likely to get more traffic. The traffic for each word should add up and multiply. Understanding when this is appropriate and when it is not is the crux of optimizing titles. As explained previously the weight or value of the keyword appears to fall rapidly as you move from the first word to the last. More keywords appear to dilute the weight given for each word. Also, there is the important issue of relevance. Your page may be penalized if the words you use are not highly relevant to the content of the page.

The key aspect is competition – only use a single phrase if the competition is high

If there is a lot of competition for a keyword then it is best to only use a single keyword or phrase. Stick to the keyword phrase you have found using the Google Keyword Planner for use in the title. You know the statistic and competition for that exact phrase and it is unwise to fiddle with it. Various tools can be used to estimate competition for the phrase and the likely traffic. The Keyword Research tool shows how even minor changes in the phrase can dramatically affect traffic and competition.

If the competition is high you have to maintain the strength of your page and title to compete. Adding extra phrases will dilute the weight applied to the keyword. You will be competing against pages that are likely to be strongly targeted on that keyword phrase as well. You could lose the battle if you don’t have that singular, highly focused title for the keyword.

If there is moderate competition enrich your title with more keywords

For moderate competition, there are several ways you can go to use multiple keywords in the title.

1. Use two or more Modifiers

The solution to not duplicating the keyword is to add one or two extra modifiers or action words. If you look at the competitive keyword phrases shown by the Google Keyword Tool you will often find that two phrases look promising that both contain the primary keyword or phrase.

[action word 1 keyword] + [keyword action word 2] = [action word 1 keyword action word 2]

Let’s say, for instance, you are after a keyword title for your article about Green Tea health benefits and you want to use a longtail keyword narrowing the search to extracts. The obvious solution is:

Health Benefits of Green Tea Extracts

This provides a title for four phrases

Benefits of GreenHealth Benefits of Green TeaGreen Tea ExtractsHealth Benefits of Green Tea Extracts

Another example is a title about Professional Make-up Artists

Reviews of Professional Make-up Artists + Make-up Artist Portfolios = Reviews of Professional Make-up Artist Portfolios

This makes the title target four phrases in one:

Reviews of Professional Make-up ArtistsMake-up Artist PortfoliosProfessional make-up artist portfoliosReviews of Professional Make-up Artist Portfolios

In both cases, this very simple tactic makes it possible to create a short concise title that is enriched by optimizing it for more than one key term and narrowing down your target audience. Perhaps your article is about creating portfolios and how to find and review make-up artists and this title targets these keywords. Of course, it is often hard to find word combinations similar to these and it emphasizes that title design is a real art. These examples also show how the use of action keywords and modifier phrases to target buyers who are ready to buy, which will fulfill the aim of your website.

2. Long tail action based keyword choices

Long-tail titles using action words are generally more effective, as action-based queries usually attract users that have already got their credit card out and are hungry to find what they want and to buy it. Targeting your audience will lose part of the potential audience but the ones you have filtered for will be more likely to buy.

The role of SEO title optimization is to enrich the keywords in the title that potential buyers might use when conducting a search to target the group that is interested in your product or services.

The best strategy is to build the longtail keyword title, not by using poorly selected action words as modifiers, but by researching the action words and phrases as well for maximum benefit.

Combine competitive keyword phrases to enrich the title

The Google Keyword Planner Tool might show two promising keyword phrases essentially related to the same topic. Let say, for instance, that you are trying to market green tea extracts using their health benefits, particularly to help people having issues with losing weight. The Google Keyword Planner Tool shows three competitive phrases

green tea health benefitsgreen tea extractgreen tea health benefits for weight loss

These phrases can be combined in ways that retain the order of the words (with green tea as the first phrase) but allow all these phrases to work in your title.

For example

Green Tea Extract: Health Benefits for Weight Loss

This longtail keyword is optimized for all three competitive phrases.

The ideal separator for two phrases

What is the ideal separator when using multiple keyword phrases? It does not really matter. You can use a pipe (|), a colon (:) a dash (-), or a comma (,)

However, don’t use the underscore ( _ ) as search engines don’t recognize it as a separator. These characters have no ranking benefit, but they help make your title readable.

Dealing with plurals and synonyms

In some cases, you may want to expand the keywords in the title to include plurals, synonyms, and other expressions for your topic. For example “architect supply”, “architectural supplies” and “technical drawing equipment” essentially deal with the same topic. You will need to craft the title to include these variants if you can.

For example: “Architectural supplies: Technical Drawing Equipment for Architects”

One of the potential dangers with targeting a single term in your title is that it creates a tendency for over-optimization, even when it’s not intended. You may use that single keyword everywhere on your page. If you include variants this is less likely to happen.

Don’t overdo it!

You need to be careful because adding more keywords can mean that each of them will have less and less impact. The more you try to stuff extra keywords into the less natural it is going to sound. For example, if you use the following title it will appear in the search results as –

Cheap Coffee | Gourmet Coffee | Ground Gourmet Coffee

Google won’t like it as it will be interpreted as keyword stuffing. Your potential customers won’t like it because they will see it as unnatural and likely to provide useless promotional material

Much better would be:

Low Price Ground Gourmet Coffee and Fresh Roasted Bean Suppliers

Which version looks better in the search results? Which one is less likely to be seen as keyword stuffing and deception?

If you have a keyword ‘Recycling Information – How And Where To Recycle

What if you want to optimize an article for the keyword “Recycling Tips” as well?

You could build a title such as

Recycling Information – Recycling Tips – How and Why Recycling is Better

But this is clearly keyword stuffing and Google will probably penalize it.

A better option is

Recycling Information – Tips, Tricks and How to Recycle

You can see that your second keyword recycling tips is in the title, but with the keyword word information in between. This will be slightly less effective but Google will still list you page for the keyword Recycling Information – Tips. If you look at the search results where the matching keywords are shown in ‘bold’, you will notice that this often occurs even for pages that appear high up in the search results.

Final thoughts

Building traffic is important, but it is conversion rates that really matterThe keyword “tail” should not “wag” your dog (marketing strategy). Keep the focus on the major keyword and keep it at the front of your title.Use association and keyword matching to group keywords. Rank your potential phrases for search popularity, but make sure you can compete for them and cascade down by adding modifiers to build a longtail title that will work.Never forget that a human user will determine your conversion rates, not the search enginesYour titles must be readable and appealing

If you do all this along with writing high-quality content intended for people and optimized for Google, your articles, blog, or webpages will suddenly be ranking for multiple keywords with high conversion rates. You may even end up being in the first spot for a keyword that was never your main focus.

Jacob M. is a copywriter, marketing blogger, inbound marketing consultant, and founder of Write Minds. He can be found on Twitter @jmcmillen89.

Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

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The post How to optimize keywords and SEO titles with popular keywords appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

Paragraphs? Isn’t that what you get when you insert a white space after a bunch of sentences? Do you need to think about where to put that whitespace? Or can you just put one in whenever you feel like it? Well, writing correct and clear paragraphs is really important for the readability of a text. And, as Google ‘reads’ text too, it’s also important for Google! So in order to get that great content, you’ll need to give your paragraphs some extra SEO love! In this post, I’ll explain why paragraphs are important for SEO and I’ll give tips on how to write clear and SEO-friendly paragraphs.

Why are clear paragraphs important for SEO?

Paragraphs give structure to a text and help readers understand the meaning of a text. They divide a text into little chunks and make clear which sentences belong together. Readers use that structure to make sense of the text. When written properly, paragraphs help readers to understand the connection between the topics that are presented in the text. Paragraphs make a text easier to read, especially if they are accompanied by the right subheadings.

As Google is trying to mimic a human-like experience, writing clear paragraphs is really important for SEO as well. Google wants to present the user with well-written text. Google wants the reader to be able to understand the text. And, Google itself will have a much easier time understanding your text and assessing the topic, if that text is written well.

Core sentences

When deciding whether or not to read a certain article, people tend to scan through a text. While scanning, they tend to read the first sentences of every paragraph. I usually refer to these sentences as core sentences. These core sentences are the most important ones in your paragraph and should contain your most important message. Lots of English writers call them ‘topic sentences’, but I like the term ‘core sentences’ (this shows that I am native Dutch, as I translated the Dutch term into English). The idea is that if someone reads the first sentences of all the paragraphs in a well-written article, they’ll understand what the article is about. They’ll understand the core of the article.

The existence of core sentences or topic sentences is not unknown to Google. Google understands that readers pay extra attention to those, Google knows that writers will use these sentences to get their message across. So when you’re writing, use these sentences for SEO! If possible, make sure to put your focus keyphrase in that first sentence of a paragraph.

What does a clear and SEO-friendly paragraph look like?

A paragraph is more than just a bunch of sentences and whitespace. So what does a clear and SEO-friendly paragraph look like? Let’s explore some characteristics!

ddress one topic

A paragraph should always be about one topic, one aspect, one thing. It should have one message. You should not try to address multiple things in one paragraph (unless you’re summarizing). A paragraph should really be a thematic union. The sentences of a paragraph should belong together and when you want to start talking about something else, you should start a new paragraph.

Make them complete

Your paragraph should be complete. That means that you should not go one about the same thing in the next paragraph. Everything you are going to discuss about a certain topic should be in one paragraph. After a whitespace, there should be a change in the focus of the text.

Keep them short

An SEO-friendly paragraph should be rather short. Try to keep paragraphs to a maximum of 10 sentences. You can have some paragraphs that are longer. Mixing up shorter and longer paragraphs makes for a good read. If a topic is too large, you may have to cut it up into two categories and make two paragraphs out of it. In that case, make sure to critically assess your topic. If you are writing about something for more than 10 sentences, you’re probably addressing different things. Make sure to divide your paragraph in a smart way.

Use subheadings!

Add subheadings to your paragraphs to help readers to understand what that specific paragraph is about. Subheadings really help a reader to grasp the main message of your text. People use subheadings to determine whether or not to read your article. And, they use them to understand the argumentation of the text.

Start with your core sentence

An SEO-friendly paragraph always starts with a core sentence in which the message of the paragraph becomes clear. After that, a good paragraph has a few supporting sentences that are all about that same message, but elaborate upon or bring nuance to that main message. The paragraph optionally has a concluding or a transitional sentence, which rounds things up or creates a bridge to the next paragraph.

An example of a paragraph with a core sentence, supporting sentences, and a transitional sentence.

Short recipe for a clear and SEO-friendly paragraph

So, let’s make this practical. Let me give you a short SEO love recipe for clear paragraphs. And let’s make them SEO-friendly while we’re at it!

Decide what the message of the paragraph is. What is it that you want to say in this specific paragraph? What is the central topic in this paragraph?Get that message into a sentence. That’ll be the first sentence of that paragraph. Is it possible to use your focus keyword in this sentence? That would be awesome! Will it make you sentence weird? Don’t use it.Write a few supporting sentences in which you elaborate on that first sentence. You could also bring nuance or a different view. But make sure to stay on topic.Optional: write a concluding sentence in which you round things up. You could also write a transitional sentence to make room for your next topic.Assess whether or not your paragraph is too long. If the paragraph is rather lengthy (more than 10 sentences), consider splitting it up into two paragraphs.Do you need a subheading for this specific paragraph? If so, write one. When in doubt, use a subheading. People generally don’t use enough subheadings in their text. And if it makes sense, try to use your focus keyphrase in the subheading. Re-read that paragraph. Does it make sense?Last checks: make sure you don’t use too many long sentences. Avoid passive voice as much as possible and check whether or not you used enough transition words.

Love your site and write clear paragraphs

You write posts and articles because you want people to read them. You want people to understand them too! And you want Google to rank your content high in the search engines. Writing clear paragraphs really helps make your texts more readable. And, it will help Google understand your texts as well. So, give those paragraphs some of your SEO love. Especially those first core sentences deserve some extra SEO love. That could really make all the difference. And it’s not hard work. It’s just a little love. Let’s spread that SEO love! 

Read more: How to write an SEO-friendly introduction for a blog post »

The post How to write clear and SEO-friendly paragraphs appeared first on Yoast.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.digitalnativeaus.com/?p=581

30-second summary:

Within the digital marketing space, the conversation around privacy and cookie changes has focused heavily on programmatic and paid socialBut how will third-party cookie deprecation and new privacy regulations impact paid search?Here is what search marketers can expect and how to prepare

In the digital marketing world, targeting, measurement, and optimization have foundationally relied on the ability to accurately track user behaviors and performance across the web. However, as we all know, platforms like Google and Apple have introduced privacy-focused initiatives over the past few years that complicate targeting and measurement for advertisers.

When discussing the impacts of these changes, much of the conversation has focused on programmatic and paid social, which are undoubtedly the digital channels feeling the greatest impact. What has not been discussed in great detail is the impact on search marketing. How should advertisers adapt their paid search strategies to adjust to these new realities?

Before digging into action items, let’s recap the newest updates and how they’ll impact paid search campaigns.

Chrome’s privacy updates will have a greater impact than iOS.

There are two key privacy changes top-of-mind for search marketers in 2021. App Tracking Transparency (ATT), introduced through Apple’s iOS 14.5 update, requires a user to opt-in before a company can track their data across other apps or websites. Fortunately, the impact of this update on search programs for most advertisers is limited. Advertisers may see fluctuations in universal app campaign (UAC) volume, and search properties with a larger app-based audience (for example, YouTube) will experience some degradation in measurement and targeting. By and large, though, the ATT update is more of an issue for programmatic advertisers than search marketers.

Google Chrome’s third-party cookie deprecation, coming in 2023, will have a larger impact on paid search. From a targeting perspective, remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) will become less effective without data on users’ behaviors across non-Google properties. As of Q3 2020, RLSA accounted for 20 percent of Google search ad clicks for Merkle advertisers – so this is a significant segment of traffic. There will also be new measurement challenges, especially for companies relying on proprietary reporting tech.

While iOS 14.5 is already a reality for advertisers, there is more than a year left to prepare for Google’s third-party cookie deprecation. There are several steps search marketers can take now to optimize performance within a more privacy-focused environment.

1. Lean into first-party data audience solutions to target

Effective audience segmentation and targeting will continue to be critical in search moving forward. Google offers several in-platform audience options, such as in-market and affinity audiences, that don’t rely on third-party data and can be leveraged by advertisers indefinitely.

However, there’s a greater opportunity for organizations to differentiate themselves by crafting a strong audience strategy using their own first-party data with Customer Match. Many advertisers already use Customer Match to some degree, but the data may not be refreshed regularly, or it may not be segmented in detail. The transition away from third-party cookies is the perfect impetus for fine-tuning a first-party data strategy.

First, advertisers should assess the quality of their first-party data. How comprehensive is the data that’s collected? Are there a lot of duplicate records, or is there a reliable unique record for each customer? All of the slicing and dicing in the world won’t be helpful if the data you’re working with is fundamentally flawed.

Next, marketers should assess opportunities to segment their customer lists in meaningful ways – a single “email subscribers list” isn’t going to cut it anymore. Smart segmentation is always important, but it will become even more critical because it will empower Google to build more tailored similar audiences.

After establishing segments, there must be a plan to refresh those audiences frequently. Determine an appropriate cadence for updating customer match lists and determine who’s responsible for doing it. Currently, this can be done through the Google Ads API or within the Google Ads interface.

Once a foundation is in place for your audience strategy, revisit your approach quarterly to ensure that segments continue to align with attributes important to your customers and your business. This also creates a natural check-in point to confirm that lists are being updated as expected and that they’re all receiving traffic. If needed, audience bid modifiers should be adjusted to reflect current performance.

On the topic of bidding…

2. Test or transition to Smart Bidding to take advantage of Google’s proprietary signals

While we, as advertisers, will have lesser user data available to us without third-party cookies, Google will continue to have a wealth of information about its users and their behavior on Google-owned properties. Google Ads’ Smart Bidding allows advertisers to take advantage of those audience signals to reach the right person at the right bid with machine learning. That’s not to say that segmentation isn’t important with Smart Bidding – it still is. One of the many signals the bidder looks at is all of the audiences a given user belongs to, including customer match audiences.

Advertisers can and should take advantage of custom audience segmentations through Google Analytics, Looker, or Google Cloud Platform (Big Query). And they should automate the pushing of defined customer audiences to Google marketing activation to maximize business data with Google’s Smart Bidding.

Whatever your advertising goals may be, there is likely a Google Ads Smart Bidding strategy to suit your business needs. For search marketers not yet using Smart Bidding, it’d be smart to start testing in early 2022 to iron out any kinks and have a full-blown Smart Bidding approach before 2023.

3. Get comfortable with new reporting methods

We’ve talked a lot about adapting to the changes to come with targeting, but privacy updates also create challenges for reporting. There will be a measurement gap that advertisers need to solve. Fortunately, Google Ads has solutions in place to help fill holes with enhanced and modeled conversions.

Enhanced conversions improve reporting accuracy by using an advertiser’s hashed first-party data to tie a conversion event to an ad interaction. Enhanced conversions are powerful in that they make a one-to-one connection between an impression or click and a purchase. Modeled conversions, on the other hand, find their power in scalability; Google has been using them to report on cross-device conversions for several years. When used in combination, advertisers get the benefit of precision where a one-to-one connection exists, while smartly estimating conversions in areas where it does not.

As privacy regulations increasingly muddy the reporting waters, the stakes are higher to work with Google to fill the gaps. If you’re relying primarily on proprietary technology for reporting, consider using Google’s measurement system to get a more complete picture of performance. Understanding the full impact of search is critical for being able to optimize and allocate budgets effectively. Note that Google’s global site tag or tag manager is required to appropriately track conversions.

4. Monitor universal app campaigns for performance changes

Advertisers using UAC to drive app downloads via paid search should closely monitor performance for those campaigns. So far, Merkle has observed a slow downward trend in tracked installs as a result of Apple’s ATT update. To avoid the effects of ATT, some advertisers are increasing their investment in Android or shifting spend there entirely. UAC can continue to be an effective channel for marketers, but reduced visibility on iOS may require bid or budget shifts in order to hit performance goals.

Conclusion

Privacy updates are changing the way marketers approach targeting and measurement. Don’t panic – but do put a plan in place. With the right adjustments, search advertisers can effectively pivot along with the industry. More than ever, advertisers must value first-party audiences driven by search to further customer engagement, experiences, and marketing ROI. Using that first-party data, in conjunction with machine-learning-based bid strategies and modeled and enhanced reporting, will create a foundation to help future proof search campaigns for privacy updates in the years to come.

Matt Mierzejewski is SVP of Performance Marketing Lab and Search at Merkle Inc.

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Headings help users and search engines to read and understand text. For example, they act as signposts for the readers and make it easier for them to figure out what a post or page is about. Headings also define which parts of your content are important, and show how they’re interconnected. Here, we’ll give you pointers on how to think about headers and use them to improve the readability of your content.

Table of contents

Why use headings?Use headings to show text structureUse headings to improve accessibilityUse headings to improve SEOHow to use headings effectivelyStructuring your headingsHow to structure your headingsWhat does the subheading distribution check in Yoast SEO do?How to get a green bullet for your subheading distributionAn example heading structureAdding headingsUsing your keyphrase in the subheadings Yoast SEO can help you with the keyphrase in headings assessment How to add your keyphrase in your subheadingsHeadings in WordPress themesCheck your blog’s headings

Did you get a red or an orange bullet for subheading distribution in Yoast SEO? Learn how to distribute them better. Or, did Yoast SEO give you feedback on the way you use your keyphrase in subheadings? Learn how to improve that.

Why use headings?

Use headings to show text structure

Headings are signposts that guide readers through an article. Therefore, they should indicate what a section or a paragraph is about. Otherwise, people won’t know what to expect.

Readers like to scan content, to get an idea of what the text is about and to decide which sections of the text they’re going to read. Headings help them do that. Scanning the text becomes significantly harder for your readers when it doesn’t contain any headings. It’s even worse when you add long stretches of text after a heading. You don’t want to scare off people with the infamous wall of text.

For web copy, it’s good practice to make sure that your headings are informative to the reader. Some people like to tease their audience in the headings, trying to entice them to read further. While that can work very well, it’s also very easy to get wrong. Remember that the main focus of headings should be on the content – and the primary purpose should be to make the text easier to read and understand.

Also, keep the following two things in mind: firstly, a paragraph should start with a core sentence on which you elaborate in the rest of the paragraph. When restructuring your text to add a heading, make sure the first sentence of your paragraph contains the essential information of that paragraph. Secondly, consider how the information is structured in your paragraphs and what the relation is between paragraphs, and how a subheading can help make that information easier to digest.

Read more: Why text structure is important for SEO »

Use headings to improve accessibility

Heading structure is important for accessibility as well. Especially for people who can’t easily read from a screen. Because headings are in HTML, a screen reader can understand the article structure and read them out loud. By reading or listening to the headings in an article, visually impaired people can decide whether or not to read an article. Also, screen readers offer shortcuts to jump from one heading to the next, so they are used for navigation as well.

Don’t forget that, in many cases, what’s good for accessibility is also good for SEO!

Keep reading: Writing accessible content: 4 checks you can do with Yoast SEO and the block editor »

Use headings to improve SEO

It’s generally agreed that how you use headings doesn’t specifically impact your SEO. Making minor tweaks to individual headings likely won’t help your performance. However, there are indirect benefits. Using headings creates texts of higher quality that are easier to read. A better text is better for users, which is better for your SEO.

If visitors can’t quickly find what they’re looking for, they’ll probably leave your site and look for another answer to their question. This is why text structure and heading use also impact SEO. Search engines pick up on people bouncing from your site. When you have a high bounce rate, search engines can conclude that your page doesn’t give searchers what they’re looking for. Consequently, you might get lower ratings.

With headings, you should always put the user first. Use them to add structure and signposts to your content, and to describe what each section is about. If your headings let users know what your article is about, they’ll help Google understand your content, too.

How to use headings effectively

So, what is the best way to use headings? There are two things that we can advise you on: you should structure your headings well, and you should use your keyphrase in them. Yoast SEO can help you in both cases. In the Readability analysis, it checks how you distribute your headings. And, in the SEO analysis, it checks whether you’ve used your keyphrase. So let’s explore the importance of these two aspects, and take a look at how you can use Yoast SEO to write great headings. 

Structuring your headings

NOTE: There are two different sets of ‘rules’ when it comes to how to use HTML heading tags; the ‘classic’ approach (from the HTML4 standard), and, the ‘modern’ approach (from the HTML5 standard). We’re going to focus on the classic approach, as there are some usability and SEO challenges with the modern approach (you can read more about that here).

When you’re editing an article in WordPress, you’ll usually see different ‘levels’ of headings in the text editor – from ‘Heading 1‘ to ‘Heading 6‘. These come in different sizes; moving from largest to smallest. Behind the scenes, these are converted into HTML heading tags; from to . Your theme probably uses these HTML tags in its templates, too.

That’s why, when we talk about how to structure headings and content well, we talk about H1 tags, H2 tags, and so on. We’re referring to the underlying HTML code to differentiate between the levels of headings.

How to structure your headings

Your H1 isn’t the same thing as your page title. For more information, you can read about the difference between an H1 and the SEO title.

Firstly, you are limited to using one H1 heading on each page. The H1 heading should be the name/title of the page or post. On this page, that’s “How to use headings on your site”. You can think of your H1 like you would think of the name of a book. For example, on a category page, your H1 would be the name of that category. Or, on a product page, it should be the product name.

Then, as you write your content, you can use H2 and H3 subheadings to introduce different sections – like the “How to improve the distribution of your headings“ section, which you’re currently reading, which sits within the “Structuring your headings” section. Think of H2 subheadings like the chapters of a book. Those individual sections might also use more specific headers (H3 tags, then H4 tags, etc.) to introduce sub-sections. It’s rare for most content to get ‘deep’ enough to need to use H4 tags and beyond unless you’re writing really long, or really technical content.

What does the subheading distribution check in Yoast SEO do?

The subheading distribution check assesses whether you’ve used enough subheadings in your text. Most texts of over 300 words need subheadings, to help readers scan the text. So, this check will notify you if your text is longer than 300 words and doesn’t contain any subheadings. It’ll also let you know if a text section following a subheading is too long — i.e., more than 300 words –, and suggest you add subheadings to improve the readability of that part of the text.

We also have a video that explains more about the subheading distribution check and the keyphrase in subheadings check in Yoast SEO:

How to get a green bullet for your subheading distribution

So, what to do if you get an orange or red bullet in the Yoast SEO plugin for your subheading distribution? Well, first of all – and this is quite obvious – don’t forget to use subheadings! You should try to create a subheading for every separate topic in your text. This could be for every paragraph, but also for a couple of paragraphs discussing the same topic. 

We advise putting a heading above every long paragraph, or above a group of paragraphs which form a thematic unit. The text following a subheading generally should not be longer than 250-350 words.

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n example heading structure

Let’s say that we have a blog post about ballet shoes. We’ve chosen “ballet shoes” as our focus keyword, and written an article about all the reasons why we like ballet shoes. Without headings, there’s a risk that we might end up writing a really long, rambling piece that is hard to understand. But if we structure things logically using headings, we not only make it easier to read, we help focus our own writing.

Here’s what the structure of that post might look like:

H1: Ballet shoes are awesomeH2: Why we think ballet shoes are awesomeH3: They don’t just come in pink!H3: You can use them for more than just dancingH3: They might be less expensive than you thinkH2: Where should you buy your ballet shoes?H3: The 10 best ballet equipment websitesH3: Our favorite local dancing shops

See how we’ve created a logical structure, using H2 tags to plan out sections and H3 tags to cover specific topics? We’ve done the same thing in the post you’re reading right now!

This is a good example of how your headings should be structured in a medium-length article. For a shorter article, you should use fewer (or more general, high-level) headings. If you want to go into much more detail, there’s nothing stopping you from using H4 tags to create even ‘lower-level’ sections.

dding headings

But wait, it’s good to know how to structure them, but how do you actually add headings? If you’re using WordPress, there are a couple of ways to do this:

Via the editor
The easiest way to add headings is through the editor. If you’re using the new block editor, you can click the + button and select ‘Heading’. Then, you can select which heading (H2, H3 etc.) you want to add.

If you’re still using the classic editor in WordPress, it’s easy too. Make sure you’re on the visual tab of the editor and select ‘Heading 1’ or another heading from the dropdown menu.

Using HTML
It’s also possible to add headings using HTML. In the classic editor, you will need to make sure you’re on the text tab (or directly in the code), and use heading tags , etc. to specify each type of heading. End each heading with a closing tag like . Like this:

In the block editor, you can also switch between the visual editor, or edit as HTML. To do that, click on the three vertical dots in the block toolbar. Then, select the Edit as HTML option. Like this:

Using your keyphrase in the subheadings 

Headings give you a great chance to use your focus keyword (or its synonyms) prominently, to make it really clear what the page is about. By adding your focus keyphrase to your subheadings, you stress its importance. Moreover, if you’re trying to rank for a keyphrase, you’ll have to write about it. If none of your paragraphs address the main topic, you’ll probably have a hard time ranking.

Still, just like keyphrases in general, it’s important not to overdo it. Add your keyphrase where it makes sense, leave it out where it doesn’t.

Yoast SEO can help you with the keyphrase in headings assessment 

After you insert your keyphrase in the Yoast SEO meta box, the keyphrase in subheadings assessment checks whether you’ve used it sufficiently. In Yoast SEO, you’ll get a green bullet if you use the keyphrase in 30 to 75% of your subheadings. Keep in mind that we’ll only check your H2 and H3 subheadings. If you have Yoast SEO Premium, the plugin can even check your use of synonyms.

How to add your keyphrase in your subheadings

Whether you add your keyphrase to a subheading depends on the paragraph(s) it’s connected to. Every paragraph in your text should tell the reader something about the topic at hand. In addition, your subheadings are nothing more than a very short outline of what you are going to say in one or more paragraphs. Therefore, it should always be possible to add your keyphrase to one or more subheadings. If you’re still struggling to achieve this, ask yourself a couple of questions about the structure of your article.

Does my text discuss the topic described in the keyphrase? If not, should I pick another keyphrase?Do my current subheadings accurately describe what I discuss below them?What paragraphs are most closely connected to the topic and the keyphrase?What questions do these paragraphs answer concerning the topic and the keyphrase?

Most of the time, you’ll find that answering these questions helps you add the keyphrase to one or more of your subheadings. If you can’t, you should probably consider question number one again. If that doesn’t solve your problems, consider educating yourself on copywriting and text structure, to get a clearer view of how a good piece is structured. Your keyphrase should be central to the topic. Therefore, you should be able to add it to a couple of subheadings.

Headings in WordPress themes

Most themes will use headings as part of their HTML code, but some don’t follow best practices. Almost all themes will automatically use the name of your article in an H1 tag. This is helpful because it means you don’t need to repeat the post name inside your content.

Unfortunately, some themes use tags incorrectly – they use tags in an illogical order (e.g., an H4 then an H2), or use tags messily in sidebars, headers, and footers. This can cause problems for accessibility, as the order of your headings might not make sense. Users, search engines and assistive technologies usually look at the whole page, not just your content area.

If you have a custom theme, you might be able to fix this by adjusting your HTML code. If you’re using an off-the-shelf theme, you may need to reach out to the developers. Either way, you should check whether your headings make sense on each template type on your website!

Check your blog’s headings

Using headings well is helpful for your users. It increases the chances of people actually reading your article, improves accessibility, and might even contribute to SEO. So add them into your copy – just make sure you use them correctly!

There’s a handy button in the upper left of the content editing screen in the WordPress block editor, named Details. This shows an outline of the page you’re editing. If you’ve structured your content well, it should look something like this!

If you’re still using the Classic Editor in your WordPress website, you can test your published article via the W3 Validator.

Read more: WordPress SEO: the definitive guide to higher rankings for your WordPress site »

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