Every fortnight the Croud SEO team collate the latest news from relevant sources around the web so you don’t have to. Read through the top SEO news stories for this week below and follow us on Twitter or sign up to our newsletter.
Milliseconds make millions
24/06/2020
According to a study by Deloitte, page speed can have a significant impact on conversion rate across all industries. This was primarily due to higher engagement and improved “funnel progression”, pushing customers through to purchase; it also indicated that faster page speed correlated with greater average order values.
24/06/2020
Google has confirmed it has fixed an indexing issue relating to the Disqus platform, which is a popular way of allowing blogs/publishers to add comments to pages. If Disqus is in use on a site, it may have affected rankings positively or negatively, and as such should be monitored and adjusted accordingly.
Web Vitals come to Google’s Test My Site tool
24/06/2020
Google has added Web Vitals to their Test My Site tool – this comes after rebuilding the tool in 2019 which saw the inclusion of speed recommendations. The tool will now allow users to look at web statistics such as site speed and how it impacts conversion rate, providing important benchmarks to improve performance.
Is top of the funnel content under attack? How the SERP is set to change
23/06/2020
SEL discusses how the recent changes to the SERP could be leading to broader content being swept away. Around June 16th, Google added a new filter which rewards specific and specialized content, allowing users to filter down their search results and bypass broader results. This has the potential to bypass many broad product category pages that serve as a starting point for the purchase funnel for many ecommerce sites.
Google to allow removal of counterfeit goods from search results
11/06/2020
Google is now allowing its users to report counterfeit goods being shown in the SERPs for removal (similar to how stolen goods can be reported). This does not apply to trademark infringements however.
Google launches Keen, a new personalized search-discovery-social mashup
19/06/2020
Google has launched a search and discovery site, similar to Pinterest. If it succeeds, it will provide marketing potential for marketers in the future – worth keeping an eye on.
Helping local businesses reopen during COVID-19 with new products and features
16/06/2020
Yelp has announced a number of new features that allow local businesses to inform users that they are reopening. This includes letting customers know what COVID-19 prevention protocols are being implemented, as well as giving consumers the ability to report whether businesses are actually following these protocols.
Content creation guide: how to effectively think of SEO at every stage
19/06/2020
SEW looks at how to improve the search performance of content. This involves spotting content gaps, trending topics, writing with a “people first” approach, fresh eyes editing and ensuring search optimization takes place (alt tags, title tag, etc.).
