Have you ever worried about the no-index page on Google Search Console?
A new client who just started using the Google Search Console emailed, asking if non-indexed pages would prevent her website’s ranking on Google.
As web designers and SEO expert, I often rely on Google Search Console to gain insights into our website’s performance in search results. One common concern that may arise when using this tool is the discovery of no-indexed pages. However, understanding why these pages are no-indexed and the potential benefits they offer can alleviate any worries and even contribute to a more strategic approach to SEO.
/ In simple terms, a no-index page is a web page that has been set up in a way that tells search engines like Google not to include it in their search results. This means that when people search for information online, the page won’t appear in the search results. /
First and foremost, it’s essential to recognize that no-indexed pages are not necessarily a sign of an issue with your website. In fact, no-indexing certain pages can be a deliberate and beneficial strategy. Let’s explore why seeing no-indexed pages in Google Search Console is okay and nothing to worry about.
Purposeful No-Indexing: Many websites have pages that are not intended to appear in search engine results. These could include thank you pages, login pages, duplicate content, or pages under development. By no-indexing these pages, we can ensure that search engines do not waste resources crawling and indexing content that is not meant for public consumption.
Content Control: No-indexing specific pages allows us to have more control over which content appears in search results. For instance, if there are pages with thin or duplicate content that could potentially harm the overall SEO of the site, no-indexing them can prevent such issues.
Focusing Crawl Budget: By no-indexing certain pages, webmasters can direct search engine crawlers to prioritize crawling and indexing more important and relevant pages. This can help ensure that the most valuable content on the website is given priority in search results.
Strategic Landing Pages: In some cases, web designers and marketers may create landing pages for specific marketing campaigns or promotions. No-indexing these pages until the campaign is live allows for a coordinated launch and prevents premature indexing of temporary content.
So, how can web designers and SEO leverage this understanding within Google Search Console to optimize their website’s performance?
Monitoring and Analysis: Regularly checking Google Search Console for no-indexed pages can provide valuable insights into the indexing status of the website. This information can help identify unintentionally no-indexed pages or uncover potential issues that need attention.
Strategic Implementation: Collaborating with marketers to understand the intent behind certain pages and their role in the overall marketing strategy can help web designers make informed decisions about which pages to no-index and which to keep indexable.
SEO Optimization: Utilizing the data from Google Search Console, web designers and marketers can work together to optimize the indexing status of pages, ensuring that the most valuable and relevant content is being indexed and displayed in search results.
In conclusion, encountering no-indexed pages in Google Search Console should not be a cause for alarm. Instead, it presents an opportunity to understand the purpose behind these decisions and leverage them to enhance the website’s overall SEO strategy. By working collaboratively, web designers and marketers can use this information to improve content visibility, focus crawl budget, and drive more targeted traffic to the website. Understanding the nuances of no-indexing empowers us to make more informed decisions and ultimately achieve better results in the online landscape.
A website redesign can be a pivotal moment for any online business. It’s a chance to refresh the brand, improve user experience, and potentially boost engagement. However, one crucial element often causes concern: the impact on search engine rankings.
In truth, the effect of a website redesign on rankings is a double-edged sword. It can either significantly boost visibility or lead to a drastic drop, depending on how it’s implemented. Let’s delve deeper into the potential positive and negative impacts and how to navigate them effectively.
Positive Impacts of Website Redesign:
An effective website redesign can lead to a range of positive impacts on SEO rankings. By prioritizing user experience and technical SEO, businesses can enhance their online visibility and attract more organic traffic. Here are some of the potential positive impacts of a website redesign on SEO rankings:
Improved User Experience:
A well-designed website with intuitive navigation and faster loading speeds provides a better user experience. This can lead to increased user engagement, longer session times, and lower bounce rates, signaling to search engines that the website provides valuable content and a positive user experience.
Enhanced Technical SEO:
A redesign can be an opportunity to address any existing technical SEO issues, such as broken links, crawl errors, and slow loading times. By fixing these issues, businesses can improve their website’s accessibility and visibility to search engines, potentially leading to higher rankings.
Fresh Content:
Redesigning a website often involves creating new content and updating existing content. This fresh content can act as a signal to search engines that the website is actively maintained and relevant, potentially boosting rankings for relevant keywords.
Increased Mobile-friendliness:
In today’s mobile-first world, a mobile-friendly website is crucial for maintaining search engine visibility. A website redesign can ensure the website is responsive and optimized for mobile devices, leading to better user experience and, consequently, higher search engine rankings.
Negative Impacts of Website Redesign:
While a website redesign has the potential to boost search engine rankings, there are also potential negative impacts that business owners need to be aware of. It’s important to carefully plan and execute a redesign to mitigate these risks and ensure a smooth transition. Here are some of the potential negative impacts of a website redesign on search engine rankings:
URL Structure Changes:
Changing the URL structure of a website during a redesign can be risky. Search engines may not recognize the new URLs as being related to the old ones, resulting in a temporary drop in rankings. Proper redirects and communication with search engines are essential to mitigate this risk.
Content Loss:
Removing or significantly altering existing content can have a negative impact on SEO. It’s important to maintain the core content that drives traffic and rankings while introducing new, valuable content.
Technical SEO Issues:
If the redesign process is not carefully planned and executed, it can introduce new technical SEO issues, such as broken links, duplicate content, and slow loading speeds, all of which can negatively impact rankings.
Temporary Traffic Fluctuations:
During and after the redesign, there may be a temporary drop in traffic as search engines adjust to the changes. This is typically short-lived and can be mitigated by proper planning and communication.
Mitigating the Risks:
To ensure a successful website redesign that doesn’t hurt search engine rankings, business owners should take proactive steps to mitigate potential negative impacts. By following these essential steps, businesses can navigate the website redesign process effectively and minimize any negative effects on search engine rankings:
Plan and Prioritize SEO:
Make SEO a key consideration throughout the redesign process. Conduct thorough keyword research, identify potential SEO risks, and implement a plan to mitigate them.
Crawl and Index the New Website: Ensure Googlebot can crawl and index the new website easily. Submit the XML sitemap to Google Search Console and major search engines and monitor for any crawl errors.
Implement Proper Redirects: If changing URLs, set up 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new ones. This helps search engines understand the relationship between the old and new pages and maintain your SEO rankings.
Monitor and Analyze:
Continuously monitor your website’s traffic, rankings, and SEO performance after the redesign. This allows you to identify any issues quickly and take corrective action.
In today’s competitive online landscape, the importance of a well-executed website redesign cannot be overstated. As a business owner with a website, it’s crucial to understand the potential impact of a redesign on search engine rankings and take proactive steps to mitigate any negative effects.
When approaching a website redesign, it’s essential to strike a balance between enhancing the user experience and maintaining or improving search engine visibility. By understanding the potential positive and negative impacts of a redesign, business owners can make informed decisions. If you still have questions about how to move forward with website redesign, Turek Web Design is here to help you. Schedule your 20 min free consultation!
Lyndsay Hannah, a Boston photographer, is a family and newborn photographer whose images are full of love and creativity. Her passion and originality come through her beautiful and memorable images. Her subjects are not in typical poses, but authentic and unrestricted.
Needed help with SEO
Small business owners like Lyndsay wear many hats and need help when they are faced with technology issues. They could probably solve the issue on their own, but it would take them hours of learning, and more hours to implement. Lyndsay hired Turek Design for a 2-hour SEO consultation to help her with her photography website.
The main issue and her goal
Lyndsay’s target audience is Boston and its suburbs, but her business is located elsewhere. She wants her website to show up for search terms such as newborns photography, or family photography in the Boston area and not where her business is located. She is posting new blog posts diligently on her website and has seen good SEO results. Reading about how to make a website search engine friendly left her with a lot of question. Various articles or blog posts recommend different strategies because there are different ways to accomplish the same goal. Plus not all website are created equal, so there are different solutions for different sites.
What we did
By using any modern web design platform, (e.g., WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, etc.,) one is not required to know coding (unless you are adventurous and wants to add something). Even though people don’t need to know coding to create a website, there are huge amounts of data behind every platform. These are important to Google to understand what the website is about. An SEO consultation starts by understanding what is behind the website.
We look
at:
The
H1 and H2 tags, descriptions and page title
On-page
interlinking and links structure
Website
speed
External
and internal backlinks
Website
usability
Social
Media integration
When all
this is completed, we meet with the client to discuss our findings.
Why and how?
I firmly believe in the importance of fully explaining why and what I do. Explaining how to fix the issues helps everyone understand the basic of SEO and how Google reads any given website.
Small changes sometimes entail additional changes.
If we change the first line on the website from ”Welcome to my website” to
”Looking for a newborn photographer in Boston?” we also need to change the text
in the subsequent paragraphs.
Result
Changes at the website do not show increased ranking instantly on Google. It takes time and patience and constant works to slowly increase the position. When I met Lyndsay, her main keyword was 35th on Google, about 5 pages down. A little later she reached 28th, and after that 12th, which is second page on Google.
If she consistently puts the work into her website, she will reach the
first page very soon.
Are you a photographer having a hard time optimizing your photography website? You are not alone. Most photographers find it difficult and subsequently get lost trying to make their photo website Google friendly. These are some tips that you should take into consideration in order to make your photography site better.
How to optimize your images for SEO
A photographer portfolio consists of beautiful images, so big part of optimizing a photography website means optimizing images.
What about the Image Alt Tags
Every modern platform allows you to add Alt Tags. What is an Alt tag? It is a description of the image. It comes from the time of slow internet, when people did not automatically download images, but read the Alt text first. (Nowadays it is also an important part of optimizing a website for screen readers for visually impaired visitors. ) Why do you need to add it? Simple, Google can’t understand your images; Alt Tag descriptions translate your images for search engines.
Let’s imagine that a new mom is searching for a newborn photographer and finds your photographs on Google because you had a great image description. She might then add it to her Pinterest board so other new moms will see your great photography skills. There is a high likelihood that she will go to your site and see the rest of your photographer’s portfolio. She might become a new client or just a new follower on Facebook or Instagram. This is one of the reasons why Alt Tags can be so useful to your portfolio
Optimize your image file names
It is easy just to use the automated file name when you upload a new image from your camera. But what would Google understand from this; cunningham-sm.jpg or 3444577893-2019-04-12.jpg?
Nothing, right?
So you should take time and add file names that help your SEO. For example, Cute-Baby-Photography-Boston.jpg file name is much more descriptive, right?
If you upload your image in its original size or high resolution slowly but surely, it will destroy your website and user experience. Why? Because the bigger the file size, the slower your page is. People are eager to see your page, but if it takes a long time to load, they may click elsewhere. Photographers’ websites are image-heavy, so you should be careful of the sizes of the images you upload. If you want to check out how fast your site is, use this website. https://gtmetrix.com
If your website loads slowly, you should check the sizes of the images and files. ( Here is an article how to edit your images on WordPress platform.)
Make your images as big as needed, but do not go way bigger. In Google Analytics, you can see the average screen size your visitors use, use that knowledge to speed up your site.
Create good content to read
Most photography websites’ mistake is the lack of content
One common mistake found on most photography websites is the lack of content. While it’s understandable to believe that your images can speak for your value and artistic prowess, the truth is they alone won’t attract visitors to your site.
Here’s where Google comes into play – it prefers websites with plenty of text. So, having a stunning full-screen image with your logo as the homepage won’t suffice for Google to recognize your photography business in Worcester County. To ensure Google understands your target audience and location, make sure to prominently feature the desired location on your website.
Now let’s talk about your target audience. Most photographers aim to attract people within a 50-mile radius or less, as they prefer not to travel too far. Create a list of the major towns and cities in your area and prioritize adding these names to your website.
Remember, engaging content and strategic targeting will help your photography business thrive online and reach the right clients. How we could help a Boston Photographer to optimize her website, read this case study.
to Blog or not to blog, that is the question
When it comes to optimizing your photography website, regularly adding new content is key. But here’s the catch: it’s not just about uploading new images, it’s about adding valuable text too. Search engines don’t recognize new images as fresh content, so it’s crucial to find engaging topics that provide useful information to your audience.
For instance, imagine the curiosity of new moms wanting to know how early they should schedule a session with their newborn. And what about families pondering over how to dress for a photography session? Oh, and don’t forget those who are concerned about what happens if it rains during an outdoor photography session.
You see, there are endless questions waiting to be answered, and by addressing them on your website, you’ll add immense value. This extra content will not only engage your audience but also boost your photography website’s ranking in search results. Exciting, right?
Get a good website hosting company
Invest into a good website hosting company with great service. Don’t pick the cheapest shared plan that doesn’t use the latest technologies. Website hosting is more important than just the price. Your hosting will affect your website loading speed and your website security.
Invest in an SSL certificate
Online security has gotten a lot more attention recently. Visitors are looking for the “security sign” in front of a domain name, especially if sensitive personal information is collected from users. An SSL certificate, which is noticeable by the “s” here https:// , guarantees that all data is encrypted and securely stored on your website.
In conclusion, photographer websites tend to lack content and be full of images which are not ideal for SEO. To make sure you are getting the most out of your website, you need good long content that is location-specific. Additionally, it would be beneficial to include a blog as well on your website. There are a lot of digital marketing tips out there that can help you optimize your website and get the best traffic result. If none of this works for you, then perhaps it’s time for an expert touch. If you are a photographer and need help optimizing your website, schedule a chat to learn more about how to optimize your website.
In today’s digital age, having a website for your business is essential. However, having a website alone is not enough to ensure online success. Your website must be optimized to rank high on search engine result pages (SERPs) to reach your target audience. This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes in.
SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to improve its visibility on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. SEO involves a series of techniques, including keyword research, on-page optimization, and link building, among others. To achieve the best results, it’s important to involve an SEO person in the planning phase of your website. Here are some of the advantages of involving an SEO person in your website planning:
Proper Keyword Research:
Keyword research is the foundation of SEO. It involves identifying the keywords that people use to find the products or services that you offer. An SEO person can help you identify the right keywords to target on your website, which can help your website rank higher in search engine results pages. We can teach you how to use the keywords on your service pages and how to write an SEO friendly blog post.
Optimization of Website Content:
Content is king when it comes to SEO. An SEO person can help you optimize your website content to make it more appealing to search engines. This includes optimizing your titles, meta descriptions, and tags, among other things. Proper optimization of website content can improve your website’s visibility on search engines and attract more traffic.
Proper Website Architecture:
The architecture of your website is critical to SEO. An SEO person can help you create a website structure that is easy to navigate for both users and search engines. This can help search engines crawl your website and index your pages more effectively, improving your website’s visibility on search engine results pages.
Improved User Experience:
SEO is not just about optimizing your website for search engines; it’s also about creating a better user experience for your website visitors. An SEO person can help you create a website that is easy to navigate, loads quickly, and provides a great user experience. This can lead to higher engagement rates, longer session times, and more conversions.
Competitive Advantage:
Finally, involving an SEO person in your website planning can give you a competitive advantage. With the right SEO strategies in place, your website can rank higher than your competitors’ websites on search engines, attracting more traffic, and generating more leads and sales.
In conclusion, involving an SEO person in the planning phase of your website can be extremely beneficial for your online success. An SEO person can help you with keyword research, website content optimization, website architecture, user experience, and competitive advantage. So, if you’re planning to launch a website or redesign your existing website, make sure to involve an SEO person to help you achieve the best results.
Some people firmly believe that a Google Business listing is all you need. Others think that your success will be determined solely by your website. So, which one is it? The truth is, each of these marketing tools is valuable. They can each help you generate client leads, meet your revenue goals, attract new customers, or keep existing customers engaged, even while you’re sleeping. But while building and maintaining a website isn’t necessary for everyone, establishing your Google Business listing is.
This free
listing can act as a 24/7 marketing tool. It can help you establish
credibility, attract attention, provide important business information, and
offer social proof through reviews, all without a website. Still, many are
hesitant about adding a Google Business Listing to their online presence. Let’s
talk about why how this mindset can be hurting your business:
Why is GMB listing important?
When it comes to GMB / how it is called in the SEO world/, your question may be, “why?” But the better question is: “why not?” Google business accounts are easy to set up and free. How many other marketing tools are truly this easy and effective? With a GMB listing, your business can rank on local searches without having a website to link back to.
You can provide new and existing customers with all of the information they need right here. As far as basic information goes, your listing should make it easy to find:
Your phone number
Your email address
Your business address
A breakdown and description of your services and products
Prices for your services and products (optional)
Relevant images and logos
Whatever else your target audience will find valuable
The easier you make it for customers to find you and important information related to your business, the easier you make it for customers to choose you over others offering the same products and services. With a Google Business Listing, all of your information is stored right there on the Google server. You don’t have to worry about paying for or maintaining a website, optimizing multiple pages, or tracking its performance. Of course, having a website can also help you achieve your goals. But again, it isn’t always necessary.
How you can use online reviews to your advantage
Many businesses use online reviews as social proof or evidence that they’re offering a product or service that exceeds their customers’ standards. Local opinion is important when you’re choosing a service. Online marketing studies in 2019 revealed that online reviews influenced purchase decisions for 93% of consumers. Further, 97% of respondents answered that they read reviews for local businesses. With numbers this high, you may be missing out on important opportunities if you’re not highlighting your reviews and making them easy to find.
Online reviews not only generate social proof, but they also increase trust and give you a direct line to potential customers. Many business owners, especially new ones, are afraid of getting bad reviews. But I have a little secret for you: the occasional bad review won’t destroy your reputation. Even the most successful businesses get a bad review from time to time. If you get a negative review, you can balance it out with new 5-star reviews. Luckily, there are two easy ways to do this:
Educate your new and existing customers on the importance of completing online reviews.
Many people will only leave reviews when they are very upset about the way something turned out. If your customers are generally happy with your products or services, they may not feel compelled to share that each time they come back for more. But that evidence of having repeat, loyal customers is crucial. Politely let your customers know how much a positive online review means to your business. If you’re worried that they still won’t take the time, offer an incentive. A coupon code, free sample, or other type of discount works wonders for rewarding company loyalty and initiating a positive online review.
Provide excellent customer service.
Businesses that go above and beyond are the ones that don’t have to try as hard to convince customers to leave positive reviews. If you’re providing excellent customer service and a top-notch overall experience, your customers will be happy to help. They’ll also be much more likely to take the initiative and leave a positive review on their own, making less work for you.
Local posts are similar to FB posts
GMB listings have become so popular in recent years that they are essentially acting as bonus social media platforms. Right on your listing, you can:
Promote
important events and updates
Promote
new or existing products and services
Bring
attention to any discounts or loyalty programs you offer
Boost
your website traffic (if you have one)
Boost
traffic to your business’s social media pages
Quickly
and easily book appointments
Add
a “call now,” button that makes it easier for your customers to contact you
Add
a “buy now,” link that takes all of the hassle out of the purchase for your
customer
Offer
specials with start and end dates that are easy to find
At Turek Design, we make it easy for you to get your information out there. It’s time to take advantage of this incredible marketing tool. We will help you create and optimize your business listing for outstanding results. Your listing can help you manage your online presence, provide social proof of your excellent customer service, attract attention, retain customers, find new ones, increase your revenue, and so much more. Why wait another day to get the word out about your business? Schedule a free discovery calltoday to see how we can help.
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