Grant Whiteside

These reviews focus on the good or bad of websites that I give 59 seconds of my time to. In this case, multi-lingual translation of website pages is a major plus (that so many fail to do). It's just a shame that there's little depth to the product ranges available. I create these videos so that people can pick up on useful things that they can consider adding (or avoiding!) within their own websites. #digitalmarketing #websitetips #customerexperience

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QUESTION: Should you use Google's PAA Questions list in your content? MY THOUGHTS: Yes, with discretion. It can be great for finding topics to address that your page doesn't cover, a way to differentiate your company by comparing yourself to others. But, most of them will be IRRELEVANT to your business. In my experience, it's almost always irrelevant for my B2B clients. I find better insights on topics to add to the page by reviewing top ranking pages' content. LET'S TALK SEO OPERATIONS: When preparing your creative brief, look at the PAA questions -AND- topics covered on the pages ranking at the top. While looking, I keep an inventory and provide the full inventory to the writer in the creative brief. If there are any "must have" questions they're flagged as "must have." Then, the writer chooses a the questions they feel they can speak to on the page, while still adding value for the user. And, they're free to add additional questions that round out the messaging and information for the user. This approach ensures SEO gets what is needed to rank, but the writer feels they're still in control of page messaging. Writers don't like to be told what must be on the page, because they can't always speak to what is requested. But, when they have options presented the right way, I find writers very supportive to incorporate content for SEO.

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Taking a look today at content auditing and knowing what to prioritise in your publishing schedule. This includes looking at aspects such as thin content, search intent, low traffic content and considerations around passive backlink opportunities: https://lnkd.in/esQ_Di3J

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I'd been told that removing hero/banner images on product category pages is a revenue benefit for E-commerce websites. But, I couldn't find any real-world evidence to support these claims, so I ran my own real-world trial as an A-B test on a client website! Special thanks to Matthew Drage for allowing us to run this trial and share these insights publicly with you. Our findings showed a staggering 40% increase in order volume and a 132% increase in turnover for the B-test 😳 Here is the full report showing all the results from the metrics we tracked: https://lnkd.in/eNfekirs #CRO #SEO #ABTestResults

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Experts (SEOs or any other flavour) are great at identifying problems and highlighting what needs fixing. Recommendations are often ignored or left behind due to a huge gap between what’s suggested and how it gets implemented This disconnect between excellent audit recommendations and frustrating reality? This is the SEO implementation gap 

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𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞'𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 An interesting question was raised on LinkedIn about why anonymous Reddit content can outrank expert advice from credible websites like PCMag Google's John Mueller provided some insight into this phenomenon. The key takeaway is that Google’s search algorithm aims to deliver relevant and useful results, which means that credibility is just one of many factors. User-generated content (UGC) on Reddit can sometimes provide real, hands-on experiences that users find valuable, which can explain why it outranks more "credible" sources in certain cases. Mueller emphasized the multidimensional nature of SEO and search rankings. It's not just about credibility, but also relevance, usefulness, and the practical experiences shared by users. For example, when someone shares their long-term experience with a product on Reddit, it can be seen as highly valuable and relevant to search queries. This phenomenon highlights the importance of understanding SEO as a multifaceted discipline. It's not enough to have credible authorship; content must also meet user needs in various ways. This more than ever proves that the direction of algorithms is going towards user-first content. Have you noticed other instances where seemingly less credible sources outrank experts? How do you think SEO strategies should adapt to this trend?

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Hand up I missed that this was published in 2020, thought it was brand new. Regardless its still accurate. Definitely check it out, at least read the "What Can the SEO Industry Do to Fight Disinformation?" section.

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One thing I do when auditing GA4 accounts is look at the number of values being captured in each custom dimension. If there over 500 values captured by a custom dimension, it can reek havoc on the reports because it introduces high cardinality. When this happens, GA4 will lump dimensions in to 'other'. It's a real bugger. For instance, I am working on an audit where they registered 'scroll section' as a custom dimension (it tracks the section of the page where a user scrolls). GA4 registered 53,956 values for this one dimension!! Way more than the 500 cap. So, how do you know what dimension have a high value count? You can use Looker Studio to build a quick report that counts unique values. 👇

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One challenge that news SEOs occasionally face is creating an evergreen content strategy because evergreen content isn’t exactly news. 🌲 Even though evergreen content for news sites seems counterintuitive, it isn’t. For evergreen content to benefit both the site and the readers, it has to be rooted in the news, which makes it newsy. And because it’s newsy, having an evergreen content strategy helps newsrooms create more content around a new idea, subject or event, and it can help sites rank for breaking news topics without actually breaking the news. The most straightforward topic for news evergreen content is explainers. Explainers are a great way to create factual, serviceable content about an event or person that informs your readers and creates background information about a person or event that you can link to repeatedly. Another benefit of explainers is that they provide the background information that your readers might otherwise leave your site to find. This keeps your readers on your site, reading your content. For some examples of newsy evergreen article ideas to get you started, check out Creating Evergreen Content For News Sites at Oriole Group. #SEO #content #cmo 🌲 🌲 🌲

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In the AI era, traditional SEO strategies may fall short. Shifting to 'search engine training' can better align with how AI-driven search algorithms interact with your content. Embrace this new approach to enhance your digital presence. Read more: https://lnkd.in/g_qjiMNi #SEO #SearchEngineTraining #AI #DigitalMarketing #SearchAlgorithms #ContentStrategy #MarketingTrends #AIInSEO

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Previously being a marketing director, knowing your market share and size of your total addressable market (TAM), filtered to actual not a wide assumption is key to your business success. Before you segment and create consumer target areas/attitudes and behaviours you have to know what you are dealing with. Going to narrow, you will hit the ceiling quickly. Too mass and broad... A lot of brand building involved and channel marketing to get cut through in the mass market and into memory structures for funnel activity based on lead time to purchase. Every pitch process we enter we focus on the share of search and share of market. Using models pioneered by binet and fields adapted for the online channel. Knowing the positioning of the brand segmented into their market based on the primary channel customer drivers needs to be analysed carefully so we know where there is room to grow, ceiling (need to attract new customers) and gaps. We recently grew one of our household name retail brand clients category share of search in Q4 by 6% YOY in a very competitive market. Equating the share growth to a YOY revenue growth of 15.4%.

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There are a sea of tools to assist with SEO. But all that people really want, are helpful answers to their questions! Enter Google Search with their semantic SEO update (not new). The idea was simple, to optimise content for 'meaning', rather than just a set of 'keywords'. So here's my third post on what we use ChatGPT for, as an agency. Like I keep saying, we never use it to write copy / content. Post 3 - Using AI to help with semantic SEO

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The often overlooked SEO goldmine - Bing Webmaster Tools! Not using it? You should be! 😉 While there are some obvious similarities between Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT), the latter can often provide insight that GSC doesn't. It helped me identify and isolate issues for clients that weren't even on GSC's radar (rather chunky issues at that!). Plus, it's now boasting 16 months worth of search performance data (about time, long overdue!) and Copilot integration so you can query the data using AI - again, beating Google to the punch - where's the Gemini integration with GSC? Who knows! 🤷‍♂️ (I'm sure its coming). Not using BWT? Now's a good time to start!

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Despite AI advancements, high-quality, engaging content continues to drive SEO success. In an AI-driven landscape, the importance of quality content remains paramount. Whether crafted by humans or machines, content that engages readers and provides value is what truly impacts SEO rankings and audience retention. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gu7uAMFH #SEO #ContentQuality #AIContent #DigitalMarketing #EngagementMatters #SEOstrategy #ContentCreation #MarketingTrends

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I've mentioned the insights from Mark Ellaway and the team at Bigfork Limited before. This report is well worth a butchers. Two takeaways that chimed with me are that '75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep–free sales experience.' and that what buyers really want from a website is information to help them buy!

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There's talk that whilst the Google Disavow Tool can be a useful resource, its value is in question. Let’s look at whether the tool designed to tell Google that certain links don’t matter, actually does anything. https://ow.ly/m0bW50SV6IN #GoogleDisavow #Backlinks #Disavow

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