Interested in integrating the IndexNow WordPress plugin? This can be an easy and efficient way to significantly strengthen your site’s SEO performance for many reasons.
From automated website indexing on multiple participating search engines to real-time status tracking with notifications and optimization recommendations, it helps ensure your content is always found by target audiences.
Learn more about the IndexNow API, the benefits it offers, and how to integrate it into your WordPress CMS step-by-step.
Understanding the Benefits of the WordPress IndexNow Plugin for Optimal SEO Results
There are several SEO advantages to using IndexNow on WordPress, including:
Automated Website Indexing for Quicker Search Engine Visibility
While you can request website pages for indexing on Google Search Console, an automated content indexer can significantly speed up the process. You don’t need to manually submit pages for indexing one at a time whenever you update or add new content. The WordPress IndexNow plugin will do it for you.
It instantly notifies all participating search engines, including Google, to help them index and crawl your content faster. Where manual indexing could take 14+ days for search engines to discover WordPress site changes, the IndexNow plugin can do this within minutes, depending on the content length and design.
There’s even an auto-updating sitemap feature that refreshes your sitemap daily when enabled. Static plugins like Yoast and RankMath only do this when you edit a post and don’t account for real-time changes without wasting your crawl budget—so users can see them in the search results quicker.
Streamlined Failed URL Submissions for Faster Indexing
Search engine crawl bots aren’t always able to index your website pages the first time around, and you must be able to catch that to ensure your SEO content is found.
Failed indexing requests can include:
Slow server response times
Sitemap formatting issues, like HTML over XML, duplicate content, and non-indexable pages (noindex, blocked by robots.txt)
Keyword cannibalization (multiple pages with the same target keywords)
The WordPress IndexNow plugin automatically re-requests failed URLs for indexing and notifies you instead of tracking their status manually in Google Search Console. It makes it easier to maintain your website for potential errors.
Exclusive IndexNow Plugin Insights for Website Optimization
The IndexNow API offers exclusive indexing metrics for your WordPress site that you won’t get anywhere else. These include failed, successful, and all pending submitted URLs. This feature allows you to track their status in real time.
That way, you can fix potential issues faster with their optimization tips and ensure your site is always discoverable for a greater content marketing ROI.
Easy & Free WordPress CMS Integration for a Simple Setup
You don’t need a web developer to integrate the IndexNow plugin on WordPress. It has a simple click-to-download process within the CMS—no technical skills or third-party sites required. Not to mention, it’s also free!
IndexNow WordPress Plugin Integration: A Step-by-Step Guide
Now that you know the benefits of using the IndexNow API, here’s how to integrate it into your WordPress CMS:
Log In to the WordPress CMS Dashboard & Click Plugins
Like the Apple App Store on your iPhone, WordPress has a similar plugin directory within its CMS. All you have to do is log in and click Plugins from the home dashboard to find the IndexNow API.
Search for the IndexNow API in the Plugins Directory
Once you find the Plugins library, enter IndexNow in the search bar to find it. Once it appears in the list of related results at the top, click on it to start the integration process.
Activate the IndexNow Plugin
As we mentioned above, integrating IndexNow on WordPress is an easy, click-based process. Simply click Activate, and it’s immediately integrated into your CMS. However, you must be an admin to do this, as there are user restrictions.
Configure the IndexNow Plugin
The last step in the integration process is configuring the IndexNow plugin, which is also easy. On the left-hand menu of the WordPress CMS dashboard, go to the Settings section. From there, you’ll find the plugin set up with its plugin metrics displayed. Click Get Started, and then it’ll automatically generate a new API and configure it for you.
That way, you’ll get automated website indexing, and the IndexNow metrics are integrated into your site. Done!
A Stronger SEO Strategy Starts Here: Maximize Your WordPress Site’s Visibility with Full Optimization
While the IndexNow API is a great way to index and optimize your WordPress site with their recommendations, sometimes there are technical issues that need to be addressed—or many of them if you have a large and unoptimized website. From sitemap formatting errors to keyword cannibalization, IndexNow can’t fix them for you and only tells you what’s wrong.
At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital marketing agency in all aspects of sitewide optimization on WordPress. We have a team of website developers, site designers, and SEO copywriters to help your content get discovered. We’ll continuously monitor and optimize your website for maximum search engine visibility.
Yes, IndexNow is a Google indexor tool, plus all participating search engines, like Bing.
Is IndexNow Worth It?
Yes, the IndexNow API is worth it for several reasons. From automated website indexing to real-time status tracking and exclusive plugin metrics with optimization recommendations, it can significantly streamline and strengthen your site’s SEO performance.
GA4 Exploration reports go beyond your standard SEO reporting. It dives deeper into your website’s SEO data by gaining more insights into its user behavior. From customizable data views to several dashboard filters and audience segments, it provides advanced SEO analysis that isn’t available in traditional Google Analytics 4 SEO reports.
This comprehensive guide will walk you through GA4 Explorations and how to navigate each report to show you the SEO data that matters most for your business.
GA4 Exploration Reports: A Complete SEO Guide to Navigating Dashboards & Templates
GA4 Explorations is a powerful reporting tool to help you monitor your website’s key metrics, including SEO. Below, we’ll break down the advantages of using this platform for your business and how to use all seven reports to improve your SEO efforts.
Understanding the Benefits of GA4 Exploration Reports for Your Site’s SEO
Here’s how GA4 Explorations can strengthen your site’s SEO performance:
Customizable SEO Data Features for In-Depth Reporting
GA4 Explorations has many pre-built filters, variables, and segments to configure their dashboards.You can either create an exploration from a blank canvas or build one from an existing report. This feature allows you to configure the SEO data that you want to see more in-depth.
These customizable features include:
Canvas: A large area that displays your site’s SEO data with seven pre-selected techniques (explained later below). It can also have multiple tabs, so you can use multiple techniques within a single exploration.
Variables: A panel that gives access to the dimensions, metrics, and segments you can use. It can also change the timeframe of the exploration.
Tab Settings: A feature that lets you configure the currently selected tab based on the technique, Variables panel, and customizable technique-specific options.
These capabilities help you understand your site’s SEO data further and answer complex questions about it.
Relevant User Behavior Metrics for Data-Driven SEO Strategies
GA4 Explorations bring more relevant user behavior insights on your website, so you can make more informed data-driven SEO strategy decisions, like content or design optimization. With highly customizable reporting features, like filters, variables, and segments, you can focus on the most relevant data on your website’s users and their journeys.
Centralized Dashboard Access for SEO Teams
After you create a GA4 Exploration, it can be the new standard template for your SEO teams to reference. Having centralized access ensures consistent SEO accuracy so they’re not customizing reports differently. Even if you have a large staff, you can create up to 200 individual explorations per user per property or up to 500 shared explorations per property.
Navigating All 7 GA4 Exploration Reports & How to Use Them for SEO
Now that you know the benefits of GA4 Exploration reports, here’s how to navigate each dashboard and understand the SEO metrics they provide.
1. GA4 Path Exploration
The GA4 Path Exploration report shows exactly how users interacted with your website via a tree graph. These include where they entered, exited, returned, the channel used, and the browser. This dashboard is useful for understanding the typical paths people take when visiting your site.
Source: Google Analytics Help
This report benefits your SEO efforts by discovering the top-performing pages that users go to, so you can reference these actionable trends and implement their attributes to lower-performing ones. You can also find looping behavior that makes visitors stuck to improve your site’s user experience–which is a top factor in SEO performance.
2. GA4 Cohort Exploration
The GA4 Cohort Exploration report shows how groups of users with shared common attributes interact with your site over time. It creates user groups based on shared conditions (a cohort), such as the same new customer acquisition date, transactions, and conversions.
Source: Google Analytics Help
This dashboard measures visitor acquisition and retention by letting you create user cohorts that meet specific criteria.
For example, if you’re running a website promotion, you can see how long it takes newly acquired and returning customers to buy. These microtrends can help you optimize remarketing campaigns for your dynamic display ads by re-engaging with them at the right time.
3. GA4 Funnel Exploration
The GA4 Funnel Exploration report visually shows the steps users take to complete a task on your website and how successful they were at doing it. This dashboard measures how effectively your site supports conversions because you know where people typically drop off.
These usually involve how user-friendly your website is, so you can uncover areas of improvement to make it easier for them to complete their customer journeys.
Source: Google Analytics Help
For example, this report shows the average elapsed time between each funnel step. If you find users taking a long time to move from cart to checkout, you may have functionality issues that make it hard for them to take the next step. User-friendliness is a top priority in Google’s search algorithms, ensuring they provide relevant content that is easy to navigate.
4. GA4 User Exploration
The GA4 User Exploration report dives deeper into your website’s user behavior based on the segments you create or import. These include individual activities, like how, when, and where the user was acquired, plus the timeline of events triggered by that user on your site by date.
Source: Google Analytics Help
This dashboard is essential to better understand your visitors’ behavior so you can personalize your site’s experience for them or troubleshoot any issues. For example, if a customer had an issue placing an order on your site, you can analyze what went wrong based on the actions they took and create a segment of users who take similar ones going forward.
It’s about analyzing how your most valuable users engage with your site, the paths they follow, where they spend their time, and the promotions they click. That way, you can optimize your site’s user experience and SEO content for conversions when you know which ones they interact with the most.
5. GA4 Free-Form Exploration
The GA4 Free-Form Exploration report shows your site’s SEO data visually with multiple style options, including:
Crosstabs
Bar charts
Pie charts
Line charts
Geo maps
Scatter plots
Source: Google Analytics Help
There’s also an anomaly detection that lets you identify outliers in your SEO data over time or within a segment at the same period. It’s a statistical feature using Analytics Intelligence to flag a single metric within a single dimension value or over several metrics and dimension values at a point in time. That way, you can forecast the value of specific SEO metrics in a time series.
From comparing several metrics side by side to creating audience segments from selected metrics, it’s highly flexible in customizing your SEO data with several visual styling features.
6. GA4 Segment Overlap
The GA4 Segment Overlap report shows up to three user segments and how they relate to each other. This dashboard helps refine SEO data by identifying new user segments who meet complex criteria and how they overlap.
Source: Google Analytics Help
For example, you can create three user segments on New Users, Mobile Traffic, and Converters. Isolating these specific audiences helps you understand the connections between valuable user groups on your website for SEO optimization opportunities.
You may find that your new users have different characteristics on mobile and desktop, such as one device converting more than the other. This information can help you optimize the mobile design on the pages they’re visiting to increase conversions.
7. GA4 User Lifetime
The GA4 User Lifetime report examines user behavior and value over their lifetime as a customer. It shows the source, medium, and campaign that drove users with the highest value over a set period. This dashboard helps measure customer lifetime value to help improve your site’s retention strategies.
Source: Google Analytics Help
This report helps you understand which SEO campaigns are the most valuable to your existing customers and allocate your budget and resources more effectively. You’ll know the traffic source contributing the highest lifetime value of users, so you can optimize creatives and copy in your paid or organic search efforts based on these insights.
Your GA4 Metrics Show Valuable Insights: Leverage Them Fully to Maximize Your Site’s SEO Success
SEO alone is multifaceted, and navigating several GA4 reports with many available features can be challenging. Let us help you leverage the power of these tools with our SEO exports.
At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital agency with extensive experience in all aspects of SEO marketing, including website optimization, copywriting, and GA4 reports. We’ll also provide quarterly SEO reporting across Google’s platforms with key metrics that matter most to your bottom line to ensure your strategies remain relevant.
Using Google Analytics 4 for local SEO can help you better understand your local business’s online performance more effectively–but do you know which reports to track? With many dashboards and metrics available, navigating which ones to monitor and how to configure them can be challenging.
Below, we’ll break down the top three local SEO reports in GA4, how to use each one, and the benefits of leveraging these tools for your local brand.
Using Google Analytics 4 for Local SEO Reporting: 3 Dashboards You Should Be Tracking to Optimize Local Online Performance
Here are the top three reports you should be using in Google Analytics 4 for local SEO and why they’re key to boosting your online presence to nearby customers.
1. Demographic Details Report
Using Google Analytics 4 for local SEO can help you better understand exactly who your target audience is. When you have data-driven insights into the demographics and behaviors of people who visited your website, you can refine your local marketing strategies.
The Demographics Details report does just that. Before diving into this dashboard, let’s show you how to get there and additional insights you can reference with it.
Under the User tab, you’ll find a User Attributes overview that shows the following information:
Users by country
Users by city
Users by gender
Users by age
Users by interests
Users by language
Users in the last 30 minutes
The overview displays the location data of your website visitors’ browsers over a set period. It even breaks down by active, new, and returning users. This data shows how well you’re retaining existing local users and attracting new ones.
You may find that your site is attracting new users in specific cities, showing strong brand awareness in that area, so you can focus on other neighborhoods where it’s underperforming. You may also find that returning users are declining in one location, so you can optimize your site for customer loyalty in that area, like referral marketing program initiatives.
Now moving on to the Demographic Details report, which is found under the User Attributes tab.
As a local business, we recommend customizing this GA4 report by city so you can see which surrounding neighborhoods bring the most people to your site. You can also identify gaps in local areas you may not be attracting enough users from.
That way, you know which areas to prioritize in your navigational types of SEO content, like service location pages or paid search campaigns.
The Demographics Details report can be configured with a long list of metrics, but we suggest using the following:
Total users
Views
Event count (website entrances)
Sessions (website browsing)
Average session duration (how long people browsed your site on average)
Engagement rate
Bounce rate
This data shows local user behavior trends across different cities to discover where people are engaging with your site the most and the least.
2. Traffic & User Acquisition Report
The next dashboard you should be using Google Analytics 4 for local SEO is the Traffic and User Acquisition report. While these are two separate dashboards, they both cover key information about the people your site attracted, the channel they entered from, and how they interacted with your site over a set period.
User Acquisition Report
Under the Acquisition tab, you’ll find the User Acquisition dashboard, which breaks down the behavior metrics of your website visitors by channel group.
It displays the following channels from which your users entered your site:
Direct
Organic search
Email
Referral
Organic social
Paid search
Organic shopping
Unassigned
Knowing the sources that acquired the most users unlocks key opportunities for the marketing channels you use. If you find that email marketing has been the top source for generating the most local users to your site, you can use your resources more efficiently because you know it’s successful.
In contrast, you can find areas of improvement, such as lower-performing local service ads that don’t bring many users, so you can spend your marketing budget in other channels.
Traffic Acquisition Report
The Traffic Acquisition report is also under the Acquisition tab, which breaks down the behavior data of the general traffic your site attracted.
The difference is that the Traffic Acquisition report shows multiple sessions of traffic from the same user, while the User Acquisition report only shows attributes from a user’s first visit.
When it comes to local SEO data, this dashboard is especially useful because it displays Google Business Profile traffic metrics as “GoogleLocalListing / organic.”
However, you must have UTM parameters set up on your GBP listing so GA4 can track this data. It’s basically a custom URL you’ll place as the link to your website on your GBP, so when someone clicks it, it’ll show in the Traffic Acquisition report. You’ll need to configure your dashboard to “Session source / medium” to monitor your GBP traffic metrics.
The “GoogleLocalListing” is the source, while the medium is organic. This data is crucial to seeing how well your GBP listing performs in visibility and engagement from local organic traffic.
For example, if you find that your GBP is not a top traffic generator, you can use this as an opportunity to optimize it for improvement. You may need to revisit the local keywords used in your business description or weekly posts to strengthen the profile’s online visibility.
In addition to GBP, you’ll find other traffic source metrics, such as Facebook, email blasts, and organic Google search. These insights also uncover how well your site’s content ranks by showing how much local traffic is generated from search engines (organic Google search). That way, you have a better understanding of targeting the right keywords in your local SEO strategy.
3. Landing Page Report
While the Demographic Details and User & Traffic dashboards focus on local marketing metrics, the Landing Page report is for conversions. As a local business, you also need to gain more customers, and this report measures how successful your landing pages are at converting leads.
The Landing Page report is under the Engagement tab.
You’ll also find the same location page data as the Demographic Details and User & Traffic Acquisition reports. However, for your landing pages, you can discover key local SEO insights that may be helping or harming conversions.
For example, if you find your landing page generates the most entrances to your site but has a high bounce rate, it’s not converting leads for a reason. Your landing page may not be user-friendly for mobile devices or may have a slow loading time, making it harder for local potential customers to buy from you–even though they’re clearly interested.
From conversions to traffic, using Google Analytics 4 for local SEO is about seeing what’s currently working and what’s not.
Maximize Your Local Business Visibility & Stand Out From the Competition Online
Are you not seeing the results you want for your local business? Let us help you stand out from your competitors.
At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital agency with extensive experience in all aspects of local SEO, including GA4 reporting, Google Business Profile posting, and landing page optimization. We’ll also provide quarterly GA4 reports to ensure all local SEO strategies continuously and effectively support your bottom line.
Ready to maximize your local business’s footprint?
You know the importance of creating content for SEO. But, do you understand the main types of SEO content and when it’s best to use each one for your website? With unique frameworks and search engine guidelines, knowing their differences is key to maximizing ROI on your content marketing efforts.
Whether you want to boost conversions or increase keyword rankings, learn how to optimize your site’s online performance with these SEO content categories.
6 Types of SEO Content for Websites & How to Create Them for Optimal Online Performance
Below are the six main types of SEO content used for websites, their key differences, and how to create each one with the best practices to follow.
1. Cornerstone Content
Think of cornerstone content as your foundation for constructing a home. It’s what you’ll start with and build upon when creating future content. Also known as pillar content, it focuses on broader topics that you want your site to rank for and will eventually be expanded upon into more specific subtopics.
The purpose of cornerstone content is to bring evergreen SEO value to your website. It helps increase traffic and brand awareness by becoming a high-value resource specific to your industry. These are typically long-form and top-funnel-focused as they’re intended to attract readers and educate them.
If your business is a Chicago apartment property management company, a cornerstone content example would be creating a general Chicago neighborhood guide for renters. You should include key information that apartment seekers look for online, including the different Chicago boroughs, an embedded map, their rental market rates, budgeting advice, and leasing tips. This can be used as a blog or as a pillar page on your site, which we’ll detail further below.
Source: Luxury Chicago Apartments
From there, you can create subtopic blogs or pages that dive deeper into Chicago neighborhoods, their top highlights, and why it’s worth living there as a renter while internally linking to your cornerstone content.
Source: Luxury Chicago Apartments
Cornerstone content is an effective way to start and execute an SEO content strategy successfully.
2. Pillar Pages
Pillar pages are a type of cornerstone content. They’re intended to establish authority on a broader topic by being placed in a key area of your website, typically in the navigation bar and footer. That’s why cornerstone content is also known as SEO pillar content.
If your business is a web design studio that wants to promote its virtual trade show rendering services, consider creating a pillar page on this topic. Keep in mind that this is different than a service page that may focus on custom 3D web design. This pillar page will focus more on designing virtual trade show booths, the rendering process, and commonly used user-interactive features.
Source: JAM Graphics
From there, you can create subtopic blogs that internally link to your virtual trade show pillar page, such as 2D vs. 3D booth designs. Linking to your pillar pages in content marketing is an effective way to strengthen your site’s on-page SEO and keep users on your site.
3. Skyscraper Content
Skyscraper content is a type of linkbuilding strategy. It’s meant to strengthen your site’s SEO performance by having high-ranking websites link back to your content. Also known as backlinks, these are among the top-ranking factors that Google uses in its algorithm. That’s where the skyscraper content comes into play.
Known as the skyscraper SEO technique, it finds high-ranking content and what external links they’re currently using. Then, you’ll create your own version of it–but better. That way, when you’re doing backlink outreach, your skyscraper content will replace the existing one they’re linking to because it’s higher quality and mutually beneficial.
So, how exactly do you create better skyscraper content that’s already out there?
Look for the following factors:
Keyword Opportunities
Check for the highest volume keywords that can be used to naturally optimize your content’s headings, text, and metadata. If there are several question-based keywords that the competitor is using as headings, take this opportunity to create an FAQs section and use it there instead.
Adding FAQs is not only a great way to rank for question-based keywords, but it can also help your content generate rich results–which users click on 58% of the time versus 41% of non-rich results. Because it visually displays your content differently and above traditional search results, it makes your skyscraper content stand out and perform better–making it more likely that your linkbuilding strategy will succeed as a result.
Visual Opportunities
There are several ways to make your skyscraper content visually stand out from competitors.
Before designing visuals, ask yourself the following questions:
What types of media are they using? Does the competitor’s content have strong, clear visuals that support the topic’s purpose?
Are the paragraphs small and easy to read?
Is the content heading structure properly formatted? Or can it be broken down further so users can quickly scroll and know exactly what the topic is about?
Once you know the answers to these questions, you can find opportunities to make your skyscraper content’s visuals better. For example, if they wrote about a topic on on-page vs. off-page SEO, but only used stock images or graphics, create a comparison chart. It can be a graphic or a table that visually recaps their key differences more effectively.
Content Writing Opportunities
In addition to content visuals, the quality of its text is even more important. For example, if a website you want to gain a backlink from is currently linking to a dated blog, create a current-year version of it. Topics like “2024 Best SEO Content Writing Practices” can be replaced with a 2025 version to ensure it remains relevant and accurate.
Also, look at how helpful the content is. If the competitor is providing SEO content tips, like “make your content mobile-friendly,” but doesn’t provide how to do this or a link, include this in your skyscraper content. Add actionable steps they can take to optimize their content for mobile, like using flexible web page layouts and implementing max-width image source codes so the page is responsive on all devices.
This step creates higher-quality skyscraper content that supports your linkbuilding efforts and is another top-ranking factor in Google’s E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, & Trustworthiness) to provide helpful, relevant people-first information.
4. Blog Content
Blogs may seem like a straightforward type of SEO content, which is informative articles. However, businesses often make mistakes when writing them that don’t support their site’s SEO goals effectively. Among the most common ones is doing keyword research the wrong way. While finding keywords with the highest volume is important, it’s not the only aspect to look for.
You should also check the keyword’s search intent, which tends to be overlooked or not fully understood. Search intent is the general reason behind a person’s online search. Since blogs are top and middle-funnel, using bottom-funnel keywords wouldn’t be relevant to them and can hinder the content’s SEO performance.
For example, you wouldn’t use “running shoes” as the focus keyword in your “best running shoes” blog. It has a transactional intent that generates product pages in the search results for people ready to buy, not blogs.
Instead, you’d find variations of the keyphrase “best running shoes” or “running shoes recommendations” that support an informational intent and generate blogs in the search results.
You can easily confirm a keyword’s intent on Google and review what the search results show, or use SEO tools, like SEMRush, that will tell you.
Internally linking to product/service pages to increase conversions
Internally linking to relevant cornerstone content and pillar pages to keep users on your site
Externally linking to reputable sites that support claims and data used in your blogs
Organized content structure with proper heading hierarchy, small paragraphs, and supportive visuals
Compelling storytelling with introduction hook statements that grab readers’ attention, address their common pain points, and provide actionable solutions
Adding primary and secondary keywords throughout the text. Using long-tail keywords or adding them to more detailed headings can also help rank blogs for AI search engines.
Quality blog content can be one of the highest ROI drivers over time because your target audience is coming to your website from them, engaging with the site, and building your brand’s credibility.
5. Landing Page Content
Landing pages are a bottom-funnel type of SEO content. It’s the final destination after users see an offer of yours and click to learn more about it. They’re intended to attract transactional intent users and encourage them to complete their buyer’s journey for conversions.
Some examples of landing page content are:
Email blasts linking to a referral program page for existing customers to get a reward if someone they know buys from you
PPC ads linking to a product holiday discount page
Social media posts linking to an event registration page
Source: TurboTax
Creating landing pages requires a persuasive tone with short-form content and actionable language that aligns with where users are coming from. People who are visiting this page are already interested, so they shouldn’t have to sift through long paragraphs or irrelevant content. It should be easy for them to learn more about your offer and take action.
Additional tips for creating effective landing page content include:
Keep the landing page design consistent with where users came from to prevent confusion and ensure visitors that they’ve come to the right website
Implement a single call-to-action (CTA) or multiple buttons (sparingly) that lead to the same action you want people to take
Write short and simple action words that encourage users to take the next step in an appealing tone, such as: “Ready to stop wasting budget on PPC ads? Find out where.” over “Learn More or Contact Us.”
Landing page content requires finesse and punchier writing to make your offer worth it.
6. Lead Generation Content
Lead generation content is also bottom-funnel. It’s similar to landing pages, except it focuses on capturing leads versus conversions, although that’s the ultimate goal. They’re designed to gain the contact information of your target audience and, in exchange, give them a valuable resource.
Common types of lead generation content are:
Whitepapers or e-books that offer industry-specific insights from a notable expert, if they fill out a form with their name and email
Webinars where people must register online to attend the event
Downloadable templates or checklists that are sent to the submitted email address
Also known as lead magnets, their purpose is, as the name suggests, to convert visitors into leads, then eventually customers. Accessing their contact information allows you to build customer data profiles to customize your content marketing strategies and target the right audience. If you don’t know who your buyer personas are, this is an effective way to learn.
When writing lead generation content, ensure the offer you’ll bring in exchange is valuable to them, or they’ll look elsewhere where it isn’t gated. It should have a simple form with minimal fields (name, email, phone number) and short-form text that further promotes the offer. Lead generation content is also commonly used in landing pages.
Types of SEO Content FAQs:
What is Cornerstone Content?
Cornerstone content is a foundational type of top-funnel content marketing. It’s used to create general and high-value evergreen content relevant to your brand that you want to rank for, and then write specific subtopics from it to become an authoritative online resource in your industry.
What is the Difference Between Cornerstone and Foundation Content?
There’s no difference between cornerstone vs. foundation content. These are interchangeable terms used to describe broader, top-funnel content used as a foundation for your website to start improving its SEO performance.
What is Pillar Content?
Pillar content is another term often used to describe cornerstone content.
How Many Content Pillars Should You Have?
There isn’t a set number of content pillars you should have, as it depends on several factors, including:
Website size and template
Content marketing goals
Industry
Product/service offerings
As a general rule of thumb, three to five content pillars are the best practice for most brands.
What is Skyscraper Content?
Skyscraper content is a type of linkbuilding strategy used to find high-ranking sites, create better content than they’re currently linking to, and become a replacement backlink.
Strengthen Your Site’s SEO with Smarter Content Choices
Content marketing is a multi-faceted approach. It requires a unique understanding of all SEO content types and consistent creation to generate optimal results for your website.
Don’t create content for the sake of doing it. Maximize your ROI with content marketing specialists instead.
At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital agency with extensive experience in all aspects of SEO content marketing, including website pages, blogs, and lead magnets. With in-house SEO writers, graphic designers, and web designers/developers, we know how to customize your content and make it stand out online.
Whether you’re familiar with Google Analytics SEO reports or not, it’s a comprehensive platform with many metrics beyond keyword rankings. While keywords are necessary to monitor, connecting these rankings to your actual traffic analytics (not averages or aggregates) is how to measure your site’s SEO performance data more accurately.
That way, you have data-driven decisions to optimize your website effectively for a greater content marketing ROI.
Learn more about using Google Analytics for SEO, which reports are essential to track, and how to analyze them for improving SEO strategies.
5 Essential Google Analytics SEO Reports Your Business Should Leverage to Track, Analyze & Optimize Performance
Navigating Google Analytics SEO reports can be complex, with many features, dashboards, and metrics available. Below are the five essential Google Analytics 4 (GA4) reports you should leverage for optimal search performance.
1. Traffic Acquisition: Session Primary Channel Group (Default Channel Group)
The Traffic Acquisition Google SEO report measures how many people visit your website and how they interact with it. This report is necessary to evaluate as it determines how successful your site is in attracting users and keeping them on it based on their behaviors.
When entering the dashboard, configure it to Session Primary Channel Group (Default Channel Group) to review which sources contributed the most traffic your site acquired, such as Performance Max ads or organic social media. That way, you know which campaigns were the most successful for generating the most website traffic and the least for better budget optimization.
We recommend reporting on this quarterly and comparing it to the previous quarter to measure its progress, as it’ll show the quarterly increase and decrease percentages.
You can also configure the traffic acquisition metrics you want displayed in this dashboard.
We suggest configuring the Traffic Acquisition dashboard to the following metrics:
Views: Total number of website views
Total Users: Total number of new and returning people who visited your site
Event Count: How many people entered your site, and the channel they entered from
Sessions: Total number of people who interacted with your site within 30 minutes, adding items to cart, page browsing, etc.
Engagement Rate: How often people have active interactions longer than 10 seconds, such as two or more page views and at least one conversion event, with your site
Average Session Duration: Average time people spent and/or interacted on each website page
Bounce Rate: How often people leave your site
2. Engagement: Pages and Screens
The Engagement Acquisition Google SEO report measures how visitors interact with your website. This report is necessary to track as it determines how successful your site is in getting users to engage with it based on their behaviors. We also recommend reporting on this quarterly with the same metrics as your Traffic Acquisition report in the same right-hand menu.
When entering the dashboard, configure it to Page Path and Screen Class so you can see where users are entering and interacting with the most. It’ll show which pages are the top and lowest-performing, so you can discover optimization opportunities.
For example, if you find a bounce rate of 60% or higher, it may be a sign that your website design is pushing people away from a lack of engagement value. Common reasons for this are poor user experience, such as slow page load speed or lack of mobile-friendly design.
3. Engagement: Landing Page
Previously known as Conversions, the Engagement Landing Page report measures the performance of your landing pages. This dashboard is especially useful for e-commerce brands that depend on strong product page SEO for conversions and businesses running Google ad campaigns.
Like other GA4 SEO reports, you can configure it to track specific landing data you want. We recommend customizing it with the same Traffic and Engagement report metrics, plus conversions and total revenue.
You can even configure the dashboard with a daily, weekly, or monthly breakdown of the data provided. This feature is convenient when launching campaigns in specific periods. That way, you can review if your SEO strategies are generating profitable revenue and a greater ROI.
4. Google Search Console: Queries and Pages
In addition to GA4 SEO reporting, Google Search Console (GSC) is essential to measure your site’s search performance. While it’s not part of the GA4 platform, GSC is a key Google SEO report focusing on your website’s visibility rather than the user behavior of your site’s visitors.
Having data on your site’s content ensures it’s performing as it should on Google’s search engine.
Google Search Console: Queries
When logging into GSC, click Full Report and evaluate the Queries section by scrolling down. The Queries report displays the top search queries people used to visit your site during a set period.
You can use this information to identify popular keywords people use to drive more organic traffic and optimize your site’s content with them for higher rankings. We recommend reporting this on at least a quarterly basis.
Google Search Console: Pages
Next to the Queries tab, you’ll find the Pages tab. Click that to find your website’s pages’ performance during a set period. These page rankings factor in the most clicks and impressions (the number of times that page URL was shown in the search results). We also recommend reporting on this at least quarterly for an optimal SEO content strategy.
These insights are crucial to understanding how well your pages’ content performs, as they show what resonates with your target audience the most. You can discover content or page structure trends driving the best organic search performance and use that to improve lower-performing ones.
For example, if a blog post about “best project management tools” is one of your site’s top-performing pages, you can use this data to create more content on this topic because you know it’s popular with your audience.
You can also structure future-related blog posts with similar visuals, like dashboard screenshots or GIFs, to enhance SEO performance further within Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines.
5. Google Search Console: Search Results Performance
When logging into GSC and clicking Full Report, you’ll find a Search Results Performance report above the Queries and Pages section. The difference with this report is that it’s a broader overview of your website’s SEO performance in the Google search engine results page (SERP) versus specific queries and pages.
The Search Results Performance report provides the following metrics during a set period:
Total clicks
Total impressions
Average Click-Through Rate (CTR): The average rate at which people click through to enter your site.
Average Position: The average keyword ranking position for your entire website.
Analyzing these metrics helps you understand how your site’s traffic changes over time, where it’s coming from, and which queries are most likely to display your site in Google’s SERP.
If your website’s Average Position is starting to decline, you may be targeting the wrong keywords or using them incorrectly in your content based on the user’s search intent. For example, using transactional keywords like “running shoes” in blog posts may be the wrong search intent because people use this query to find product pages and are ready to buy, not learn more.
Get the Most Out of Your Google SEO Reports & Start Optimizing Smarter
SEO is a multi-faceted marketing practice because it involves many metrics to monitor for optimal success. At Reach Marketing Pro, we can help you streamline this process for better results.
We’re a full-service digital marketing agency providing services in all aspects of SEO, including SEO content writers, website design/development optimization, PPC, and more. Whether you have an existing website or need a new one, we have extensive SEO experience to ensure your SEO strategies support your bottom line. Ready to maximize your site’s search performance?
As an e-commerce brand, maximizing the potential of your performance max campaigns is essential to sell more products and generate greater returns on your ad spend. If you notice declining conversion rates or have difficulty analyzing complex analytics to make data-driven decisions, you likely need to learn more about this platform to improve your results.
Here’s how to optimize performance max campaigns to enhance your advertising efforts and better support your online store.
How to Optimize Performance Max Campaigns for E-Commerce: A Step-by-Step Guide
This guide will walk you through how to optimize performance max campaigns for e-commerce step-by-step.
Create Separate PMax Campaigns for New and Existing Customers
Credit: Google Ads Help
New and existing customers aren’t the same, so your Pmax campaigns shouldn’t be either when trying to target them. New customers aren’t aware of or as familiar with your brand, while current ones are already or have shown loyalty with multiple purchases. That’s why making separate ads for each is crucial for relevancy, as they have different needs and wants.
Pmax has a Customer Lifecycle Goal feature with unique customer acquisition and retention smart bidding modes that allow you to create campaigns for the following audience segments:
New Customer Value Mode: Bid higher for new customers over existing ones
High-Value New Customer Mode: Bid higher for higher value new customers over regular new and existing ones
New Customer Only Mode: Bid for new regular customers only
Win-Back Mode: Bid higher for lapsed customers over existing loyal ones
High-Value Win-Back Mode: Bid higher for higher value lapsed customers than regular lapsed ones
To optimize your ad bidding with specific audiences, you must upload your customer data profile lists into the platform. Pmax utilizes AI and automation to learn about your current customers via the data you provide. Even if you’re launching a campaign for new customers, Pmax will show your ads to people with similar purchasing behaviors and demographics to your existing ones for better results.
Whether your goal is to increase customer retention, acquisition, or both, developing separate campaign structures is necessary to bid for the exact audiences you want to reach and reduce wasted ad spend.
Upload Customer Sales & Traffic Data Regularly to Optimize Ad Delivery
As mentioned above, Pmax uses machine learning based on the customer data you upload and heavily relies on it for better campaign results. However, per Pmax best practices, this should be done regularly to optimize ad delivery.
Input customer sales and website traffic data routinely so the platform can better target specific audiences. Doing this allows its capabilities to continuously improve by placing your ads in relevant platforms that people with transactional intent and bottom-funnel behaviors use, like Google Shopping searches and YouTube ad clicks, to increase conversions.
Label Each PMax Campaign for Organized Ad & Audience Management
While this may seem obvious to keep your Pmax ads organized, your dashboard can become overwhelming when running several campaigns simultaneously. Label each campaign in ways your staff can easily follow for streamlined ad and audience management.
Your advertising teams can better leverage Pmax’s audience sorting tools and listing groups to discover which products should be advertised for each campaign and customer group. That way, they can easily analyze previous ad performances and optimize them for better results more efficiently via organized multi-campaign data.
Add Conversion Value Rules to Maximize Your Campaign Budget
Credit: Google Ads Help
In addition to automated ad placement, Pmax optimizes bids to drive more conversions based on your goals and uploaded sales and website traffic data. The Conversion Value Rule feature lets you set specific bidding conditions based on the conversion value of your existing customers, including online shop visits, audience match segments, and store location.
It adjusts your bidding strategy per these conversion value rules to maximize your campaign budget because you’re targeting highly potential customers with similar demographics and online behaviors—reducing wasted ad spend on irrelevant audiences as a result. If improving conversion rates on Google Performance Max is your goal, you can’t afford to miss this step.
Design Unique Assets for the Ad Placement You’re Targeting for Optimal Results
You can organize audience data and ad campaigns efficiently yet still not get optimal results if the visuals aren’t relevant to the people and platforms you want to reach. While Pmax has a range of one to 20 image assets allowed, Google recommends at least four unique images per ad group.
Because Pmax shows your ads on Google’s family platforms, like YouTube’s Home page, sponsored Gmails, and Maps suggestions, creating separate images with varying aspect ratios is crucial to complement your omnichannel campaign visually. You can even repurpose the assets from your other search campaigns, like PPC dynamic display ads, to streamline the process.
Designing specific assets for the platform you’re targeting improves the visual quality of your ads by following their image guidelines. It also helps attract customers, as the first thing they notice in your Pmax campaigns is how your ad looks. If you use a square Google Shopping asset that becomes stretched on YouTube, it can hinder your brand’s perception from a grainy image.
Credit: Google Ads Help
Pmax even has an Asset Report feature that compares the visual performance across individual and group images you used in other campaigns. It has a Performance Label that organizes image assets by Best, Good, and Low based on the most triggered user actions. That way, you can make data-driven creative decisions to optimize your Pmax campaigns visually.
Remember, your Pmax campaign images are meant to convey your product’s unique selling features. Displaying them properly based on the platform you’re advertising on and the people who use it is key.
Make Your Landing Page Design User-Friendly & Consistent with Your Ads to Encourage People to Complete Their Purchase
Don’t lose customers in the final step of their buyer’s journey from a bad landing page design. If users click on your ad but your website makes it harder for them to buy the product due to slow load speed or the landing page looks completely different, it can push them away from poor user experience (UX) or confusion from thinking it’s the wrong site.
Pmax best practices for optimized landing pages include:
Using the same call-to-action and keywords as your ad text for users to find the offer or discount displayed in your campaign easily
Designing a consistent look that mirrors your ad’s image assets
Creating a mobile-friendly design with balanced white space, visible contact buttons, and quick loading speed for users to shop and navigate your store on any device seamlessly
Having a user-friendly website, including your landing pages, goes hand-in-hand with your Pmax campaigns to encourage people to complete their purchases.
PMax Optimization FAQs:
What’s Automatically Optimized with a Performance Max Campaign?
Pmax automates several campaign optimization features, including:
Individual and group image asset performance and recommendations per campaign
Omnichannel budget allocation
Bidding strategies
Ad placements
Audience segment targeting
Can You Run Pmax with Standard Shopping Campaign?
Yes, you can run Pmax with standard Shopping campaigns, even when advertising the same products on the same account. Google recently changed the flexibility to manage these campaigns together, which previously prioritized Pmax over Shopping automatically.
However, it requires a careful strategy to prevent campaign overlapping. Campaigns with the highest Ad Rank will be served to audiences based on several factors, including ad/landing page quality, auction competitors, and search queries.
Keep in mind that PMax’s best practices are for broader audience targeting, while standard Shopping is meant for precise product targeting to maximize dual campaign performance.
How Many Custom Images for Performance Max Campaigns Are Allowed?
Pmax allows up to 20 custom image assets per ad group. You must have at least one image asset to launch a campaign.
What Are Some Tips for Improving Conversion Rates on Google Performance Max?
Improving conversion rates on Google Performance Max must involve sales-focused optimization, including:
Uploading bottom-funnel custom data routinely
Setting up ad conversion tracking
Creating optimized landing page designs
Designing unique image assets per ad group and platform you’re targeting per campaign
Supercharge Your Online Store’s Sales with Professional PMax Optimization
Now that you know how to optimize performance max campaigns, it’s also important to understand the commitment to do this successfully. From continuous campaign monitoring to custom graphic design and data-driven strategy development, it requires ongoing optimization to maximize results.
Let our Pmax pros handle this for you.
At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital marketing agency with extensive experience in all aspects of Google ads for e-commerce brands. We know how to leverage the complexities of Pmax’s platform to better reach your goals from search to sale.
Our team will provide monthly reports to ensure you maximize your budget and campaign performance with ongoing optimization. We also have in-house graphic designers and copywriters to create your ad’s messaging and custom visuals within your branding guidelines.
Whether you have an outsourced advertising agency or an in-house team, Google Ads Report Editor streamlines your manual reporting processes. From template-based reports to customized ad campaign metrics and user-friendly dashboards, you shouldn’t spend more time than you have to—especially if it’s on a monthly or quarterly basis.
Learn more about the Google Ads reporting tool and how you can leverage it to scale your client’s business more successfully.
How to Use Google Ads Report Editor for Client Reporting: A Step-by-Step Guide
Previously known as Google Adwords, the Google Ads Report Editor is software that automates and improves your search engine (SEM) marketing reporting processes via template-based features and customizable dashboards. For experienced SEM marketers, you can also create your own reports from scratch.
Below is a step-by-step guide on how to use Google Ads Report Editor for clients.
Select the Ads Report Type You Want Insights On
Before you start, confirm which Google Ads performance report you want to create for your client. There are four automated report templates, each with unique metrics they measure about:
Account Performance Report
Credit: Google Help
The account performance report measures the financial health of your client’s Google Ads account. It includes their ad budget, account billing, campaign clicks, and impressions. However, it also displays conversion metrics, like return on ad spend (ROAS), revenue, and conversions.
This report provides a monthly account overview of how successful your client’s advertising investments are via performance-based metrics compared to their competitors.
Ad Group Performance Report
Credit: Google Help
The ad group performance report measures how relevant your client’s keywords and ads are within a specific campaign or ad group. Like the account performance report, it also shows conversions, clicks, and impressions, but for specific ads versus a general overview.
This report is generated daily or weekly, with multiple filters available to review the ad group performance on a deeper level. You can filter by ad type, campaign type, advertising channel, the ad group the ad belongs to, and more.
Campaign Performance Report
Credit: Google Help
The Google Ads campaign report measures your client’s campaign success based on ad groups and keyword performance. It displays metrics like ad impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), estimated conversions, and average cost-per-conversion (CPC).
This report is best for determining the success of your client’s ads within a specific group or campaign for optimization opportunities and strengthening conversion rates.
Keyword Performance Report
Credit: Google Help
The Google Ads keyword report measures the performance of all the keywords used in your client’s account. It displays metrics like clicks, impressions, CTR, and average ranking position for a specific keyword and period.
This report is best for monitoring keyword performance and which ones convert the most leads. It ensures the target keywords used for each ad campaign remain relevant to Google’s ever-changing algorithm and SEO trends. That way, you can discover keywords that aren’t driving traffic and optimize them for better results.
Search Term Performance Report
Credit: Google Help
The Google Ads search term report determines which queries generate ads on the search engine results page (SERP). It displays metrics like ad clicks, impressions, and CTR.
The difference between the keyword performance and search term report is the data provided. Search terms are the specific phrases people use when shopping or searching for services online. You can use this to create ad and landing content that’s shown to trigger ads in the SERP.
Keywords don’t show ad triggers. They display how many people use it to shop or search for services online and how difficult it’ll be to rank for it in your ad campaign. Additionally, if your clients have dynamic search ads, keywords aren’t used for these campaign types.
This report is best for generating weekly or monthly to stay up-to-date with your client’s campaign search term performance. It ensures you use queries that trigger ads in the SERP while using data-driven strategies for campaign optimization.
Understand the KPIs You Want to Share
When providing ad reports to clients for Google PPC efforts, consider their goals to determine which KPIs you want to share. It’s key to report on specific metrics relevant to their bottom line and ad campaign strategy to measure its success efficiently.
Average CPC (Cost-Per-Click)
Average CPC shows how much your client paid for each ad click and their budget’s effectiveness based on what this metric measures. It’s calculated by dividing the total cost of clicks by the number of total clicks.
Average CTR (Click-Through Rate)
Average CTR is the number of people who clicked through the ad’s call-to-action CTA). It measures how successful the ad’s engagement was in encouraging people to learn more about your offer.
Campaign Overview
If you have clients with multiple Google Ads campaigns, this metric provides an overview report of which ones were the most successful comparably. It’s the first dashboard you see when logging in and displays metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR, and more.
What makes this metric unique is that it also shows diagnostic insights of your ad campaigns. It spots specific issues that may contribute to your ad not generating conversion and even offers tailored recommendations. It skips the legwork of analyzing vast amounts of performance data so you can fix it faster.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the average percentage of people who click into the ad’s CTA and become a customer as a result. It measures the campaign’s overall success because it contributes to your client’s ROI based on their ad spend.
CPC (Cost Per Conversion)
CPC is how much your client paid on average for each ad conversion. It measures ad campaign profitability by calculating how much revenue they generated after conversions and the costs they paid for them.
Impressions
Impressions are how many people your ad was shown to. It measures brand awareness and market reach, so your client understands their campaign’s visibility scale for their target audience.
Quality Score
Quality score is a unique metric specific to Google Ads Report Editor that measures the relevancy of your ad group’s keywords, ads, and landing page. It determines how your client’s ad campaign strategy should look by comparing it, on average, to their competitors.
Your ad quality score is measured on a scale from one to 10 and calculated by several factors. These include your client’s expected CTR, landing page user experience, and ad relevancy based on your target audience demographics.
Look for Reporting Trends & Opportunities
Google Ads reporting software is comprehensive. Not to mention, the wide range of metrics it provides can be overwhelming to clients who aren’t PPC-savvy. Don’t just share the report with a long list of data. You should also explain what these numbers represent.
When creating Ads reports, analyze them for common trends and opportunities to make data-driven campaign decisions for your clients, such as:
Consistent negative and positive performance metrics over a specific time to forecast future ad performance
Comparison of historical and new ad campaign performance data to determine what was successful for optimization opportunities
Review of real-time data to discover ad performance issues and successes quicker to better meet campaign goals with cost-effectiveness
Your clients invest in PPC and rely on you to translate Google Ads jargon into digestible data. These reporting practices help them understand their campaign performances more easily while seeing the value in the services you provide.
Spend Smarter On Your Ads, Not Harder: Optimize Your Campaigns with PPC Pros
The last thing your client wants is to see their advertising budget wasted from poor campaign performance. Leave it to the PPC pros to maximize your success.
At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital agency with extensive experience in all aspects of Google Ads and customized reporting to focus on metrics that matter for your client’s bottom line. We’ll show you what’s working and not every month to optimize your ad campaigns for better results.
Our in-house team of PPC experts, graphic designers, and copywriters customize ads and landing pages to ensure the full cycle of their ad campaign is unique to their brand.
Ready to generate greater returns on your clients?
As an e-commerce brand, investing in product page SEO is non-negotiable. Selling products is the core mission of your business. If your product pages aren’t properly optimized for search engines and users alike, they likely won’t perform successfully.
SEO for e-commerce product pages is essential to promote online visibly, clicks, and conversions from organic traffic. If shoppers and search engines can’t discover them or push them away from poor SEO, they won’t support your bottom line as they should.
Learn e-commerce product page best practices and how you can generate a greater ROI with SEO content optimization.
SEO for E-Commerce Product Pages: A Step-by-Step Guide
Below is a step-by-step guide on product page SEO with common mistakes to avoid.
Write Unique Product Page Titles & Descriptions
SEO for product descriptions and titles requires unique copy for better search visibility, especially for e-commerce brands with large catalogs. Duplicate copy in your product pages can cause crawling delays from search bots because they don’t know which version to save in their database for indexing.
It also wastes your crawl budget, causing you to wait until you can request again, leaving your product pages undiscovered online.
More ways to improve your SEO product descriptions include:
Internal links to relevant product pages in the same collection to promote upselling and cross-selling opportunities
Backlinks from reputable sites that recommend your product to demonstrate trustworthiness and credibility
Not using the same product descriptions as the manufacturer’s website, as they’re not created for SEO or shoppers and keep your brand separate
In addition to unique titles and descriptions, they should also provide an added value proposition. Instead of only explaining what your product does, showcase what customers will gain from it.
If you’re selling winter coats describing them as, “engineered to keep you warm” is obvious, as it’s what they should do. Saying something like, “engineered to keep you warm at -10° F” is a stronger selling point.
Displaying your product’s specific benefits, along with its features, better addresses your buyer persona’s challenges and concerns.
Optimize Your Copy with the Correct Search Intent
All shopping starts with a search. While you may be familiar with keyword optimization, businesses often make the mistake of choosing the wrong ones.
Your keyword research is more than finding queries with the highest search volume and lowest difficulty from your competitors. It should also include selecting keywords with the right search intent to attract the appropriate audience.
For example, if you’re an athletic footwear brand and optimize a product page description with a keyword, like “best running shoes” this wouldn’t provide the best SEO opportunity. This keyword generates blogs in the search engine results page (SERP), not product pages.
While “best running shoes” has a commercial search intent, the SERP shows users comparing options by reading blog recommendations before buying. Optimizing your product pages with this keyword can cause fewer people to click on them or quickly leave because that’s not what they’re looking for with that search query.
A transactional keyword, like “running shoes” generates product pages in the SERP, showcasing the intent of people ready to buy. Adding this to your product’s description and page URL attracts relevant traffic, promoting a higher chance of converting them.
A slight keyword change in your product page SEO can significantly impact its performance. Luckily, SEO platforms like SEMRush tell you the search intent behind every keyword, so you don’t have to guess.
However, it’s easy to check yourself. Simply enter the keyword into a search and review the SERP for what they show. If it generates product pages, you have the correct search intent.
Use Clear, Captivating, & Optimized Product Visuals
While you may have high-quality product page images, are they captivating enough to customers? In addition to displaying your product, fully showcasing how they apply to the real world resonates further with shoppers. Instead of only using product images on a white background, include lifestyle visuals, too.
For example, if your brand sells hiking boots, include photos of people in a mountainous landscape wearing them to provide a better visual context. If you sell office chairs, use a short-form video to show their different sitting configurations, demonstrating the product’s diverse usability and comfort further.
Once the product page visuals are finalized, ensure they’re optimized next. Writing image alt tags with descriptive language ensures it’s ADA-accessible for all online shoppers. Also, aim to use target keywords in your image alt tags naturally to improve your page’s search visibility via metadata.
Implement Structured Data Markup to Generate Rich Results on Google
Structured data markup is one of the most critical components of product page SEO. In a saturated online market, e-commerce brands must stand out in the SERP more than ever. As a form of on-page SEO, structured data markup helps your product pages generate rich results.
Rich snippets visually showcase your product differently than the SERPs and are placed above traditional search results. They’re designed by Google to enhance the shopping experience without having to click on your online store. When users click on rich results 58% of the time versus 41% for non-rich results, it’s worth optimizing your product pages for.
Review Snippets: Average rating, number of reviews, reviewer information, etc.
Product Schema Markup: Carousel image, pricing, product availability, etc.
Sitelinks Search Box: Sitewide product search in the SERP, without having to click on your website
FAQs Schema Markup: List of common product questions, assembly directions, etc.
Structured data markup gives customers a streamlined shopping experience while providing Google with the standardized language it requires to generate rich results for your product pages.
Create Valuable Call-to-Action (CTA) Buttons
As an online store, you must encourage users to take action via CTAs to increase click-through rate (CTR) and conversions. These CTAs should be more than buttons below your product description stating, “Buy Now.” They should also be convincing of the value your products bring.
If you’re a skincare brand selling facewash, instead of creating a “Shop Now” CTA button, write something like “Start Your Self-Care” to showcase to customers that it’s a worthy investment in themselves.
Additional ways to create valuable CTAs for e-commerce product pages include:
Using Multiple CTAs to Meet Customers Where They Are in Their Buyer’s Journey: add to wishlists, you might also like, one-click checkouts, save payment methods, address autocomplete, email signup discounts, etc.
A/B Testing Button Designs to See What Resonates Best with Your Target Audience: button locations, shapes, colors, fonts, sizes, etc.
Placing CTA Buttons Strategically to Streamline Users From Product Page to Purchase: minimal pop-ups, responsive button designs on mobile and desktop, etc.
Conduct a Site Audit to Correct Page Performance Issues
You can do all the optimization in the world and still not have success if your product pages have performance issues. If they have slow loading times or poor mobile design, they can push potential customers away. Also known as user experience, it’s about making your site easier to use for a seamless shopping experience.
Look for the following issues in your site audit to improve your product page SEO:
No breadcrumbs for easy site navigation from product page to checkout
Low-quality compressed product visuals on mobile
More than four seconds in page load speed on desktop and mobile
No SSL certificate to secure your website and shoppers’ saved sensitive payment information
User-friendly e-commerce websites help people discover, browse, and purchase from your product pages more.
Stop Losing Shoppers from Poor Product Page SEO: Get Found Faster & Sell More Today
Drive more transitions to your product pages with digital marketing professionals. At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service agency with extensive experience in site-wide optimization, including Shopify, WordPress, and custom e-commerce websites.
We have graphic designers to create customized, compelling product visuals per your unique brand. Our SEO copywriters write effective product page copy that adheres to Google guidelines and customer needs. Additionally, our web designers/developers ensure your site’s shopping experience is seamless and engaging.
Together, our in-house team provides you with the full suite your e-commerce website needs for a stronger product page performance.
Ready to generate more organic traffic and transactions?
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become more widely used among businesses for web design and development. AI website builders bring numerous benefits, like streamlined troubleshooting of bugs by scanning your existing code and SEO recommendations by analyzing your current content. It skips the time-consuming manual processes with automated, cost-effective features.
The rise of AI marketing trends still poses several risks without proper use for site builds. From accidental plagiarism to private data leaks, website building with AI still requires cautionary use as improvements remain ongoing.
Learn when it’s best to use AI site builders and when to hire professional web developers for your company’s needs.
AI Website Builders: When to Use AI or Professional Web Developers
Below is a guide on AI website builder best practices, including when and when not to use them.
When It’s Best to Leverage AI for Website Creation
Here’s when you should use AI-powered website builders for your business.
Tight Site Launch Timelines
It’s not uncommon to have delays in your web build projects. If tight deadlines are coming soon, AI site builders can streamline your launch.
They can accelerate the web build process through each stage, including:
Site design concepts with generated visuals
Branding brainstorming sessions with prompt summaries
Web design and development generated coding languages
Interface analysis testing for performance issues
Streamlined SEO Optimization of Existing Content
One of the simplest ways to leverage the benefits of AI website builders is their SEO content analysis capabilities. They can quickly scan your existing web copy with SEO-generated suggestions, like keyword density and easy readability.
This feature is especially useful for site redesigns to strengthen its SEO performance before you migrate it to another platform.
Enhanced User Experience (UX)
Your website’s user experience (UX) can make or break its performance. If your site makes it harder for people to navigate with slow page load speed or vague content that doesn’t address their specific needs, they’ll quickly leave for a competitor who meets them more effectively.
That’s where AI website design and development comes in.
You can craft visitor profiles with website interface testing in AI prompts to generate personalized recommendations and strengthen UX. AI site builders may suggest mobile design-focused changes to make browsing on all devices easier or chatbots to provide 24/7 customer service for international users with different time zones than yours.
Another example is copy edits related to your audience’s emotions with action-focused verbs, like “Start Your Free Trial” instead of “Sign Up” to promote more engagement and conversions.
When It’s Best Not to Use AI for Website Creation
Here’s when you shouldn’t use AI-powered website builders for your business.
Unique Content Creation
Although AI made significant advancements in its machine learning capabilities, it’s still relatively new and requires careful use. If you plan to use an AI site builder to create unique content for your web pages, we don’t recommend using this tool as you may face accidental plagiarism.
Whether it’s for website copy or blogs, AI writing tools pull their generated text from various online sources. They analyze existing content across internet algorithms and combine it with your entered prompts to generate paraphrased text. If you copy this content word for word, it can become a form of plagiarism.
Additionally, AI text generators still need improvements to sound more human. They often use the same sounding robotic-like tones and content structure patterns that look like AI wrote them. Examples of these include wordy, run-on sentences and formal tones without emotion.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t use AI web builders for content.
It’s best to leverage them as a writing assistant for:
Content inspiration for specific writing tones, like editorial blogs, persuasive product pages, conversational home pages, formal case studies, etc.
Web copy outlines to help format what your pages should look like faster
Website branding to guide on what makes your business unique with visual suggestions
Existing content analysis and recommendations for SEO, buyer persona needs, grammar, etc.
Target audience discovery sessions based on their demographics, interests, website visitor data, etc.
Summaries of existing long-form content to streamline its main points
Sensitive Website Visitor Data
As mentioned above, you can enter your website’s visitor data into AI site builders to generate personalized UX recommendations.
Sensitive Data Collection: Healthcare information, social media feeds, etc.
Non-Consensual Data Collection: Photos/videos of people, facial recognition without permission, etc.
Private Data Leakage: Unintentional data leaks or outside breaches due to insufficient cybersecurity
Because AI web builders are third-party platforms that use real-world algorithms to tailor generated text and enhance their machine learning capabilities, data privacy compliance issues can arise. It’s best to enter generalized visitor demographics into your AI web build prompts, like age, location, interests, and pain points.
That way, you can take advantage of AI while keeping your website visitor information anonymous, safe, and consensual since it isn’t private data.
Minimal to No Experience in Using AI to Build a Website
If you haven’t used AI for building websites before or have minimal experience, we recommend starting on a smaller scale first. AI tools require a learning curve to leverage their benefits fully without risk.
For web builds, you can start with detailed web page prompts for copywriters to reference or generated visual design concepts for graphic designers to gain inspiration. On the back end, you can use AI site builders to scan your existing code for web developers to troubleshoot bugs and performance issues faster.
AI Website Builder FAQs:
Can AI Build a Website?
Yes, you can use AI to build a website. Their capabilities include web copy, site code, content organization, and more.
What’s the Best Free AI Website Builder?
Some of the best free AI website builders include:
HubSpot: Designs single-page websites based on the answers to the questions it asks in your prompts
WIX Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI): Generates site builds for small to medium businesses within minutes including, scalable features like live chats, member registrations, etc.
GetResponse: Creates small business websites with complex marketing features based on customer data/behavior, conversion-focused designs, and customizations for existing site templates.
What’s the Best AI Builder Available?
Some of the best AI builders for paid accounts include:
CodeWP: Generates WordPress site builds, including conversational coding, 24/7 AI assistance, security scanning, and troubleshooting issues
Hostinger: Includes a free custom domain name, email accounts, SEO, e-commerce features, and marketing integrations from a single AI web builder
Shopify Magic: Builds Shopify sites with generated AI product image editing, SEO-friendly e-commerce copy, personalized live chat responses to boost conversions, etc.
Leverage Web Developers with AI Experience to Maximize Your Site Build Success
Deliver faster results and greater ROI of your web builds by blending the best of both worlds. Leveraging professional web development with AI-powered tools can maximize your site’s success.
At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital agency with in-house web designers/developers with AI-enhanced experience in various site platforms, including WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and more. We combine traditional web development with modern AI integration to bring your site’s goals to life more efficiently.
As a business owner, you invest in your website and can’t afford for it to be invisible online. Whether you’re familiar with search engine crawling or not, it’s critical for user discoverability. If Google and other search engines can’t find (crawl) and save (index) your site, neither will people when looking up information related to your business.
This step-by-step guide will show you how to crawl a website more effectively to promote a greater content marketing ROI.
How to Crawl a Website: Tips to Help Google & Other Search Engines Discover Your Content More
Here’s how to crawl a website to make your content more discoverable by search engines.
Conduct a Site-Wide Audit to Understand Potential Crawling Issues
Numerous factors impact your site’s crawling from search engines. You can check website crawlability by conducting a site-wide audit to uncover the potential issues that may prevent it from being crawled.
Below are the key metrics to monitor during your site audit and how to improve each for greater crawl accessibility.
Low Crawl Budget
Google crawlers have a time limit when crawling your site, known as a crawl budget. It’s determined for you and measured based on various factors, including your site size, number of URLs, total unique pages, content update frequency, and SEO health.
One of the most common crawlability problems businesses experience with their sites is a wasted crawl budget. From slow page load speed to duplicate content, these can make crawl bots take longer than necessary to discover your content from wasted time and confusing, redundant site structure.
You can check your site’s crawl rate on Google Search Console’s “Crawl stats” report to find its current budget. We’ll break down how to optimize your crawl budget based on common issues impacting them below.
Duplicate Content
Whether it’s repeating the same heading titles or page URLs, duplicate website content can cause crawlability issues. Not only can this waste your crawl budget, but it also can make search engine crawlers confused because they don’t know which version to save in their database for indexing.
You can discover if you have redundant website content with web crawler platforms like ScreamingFrog and SEMRush. These tools scan your entire site, including duplicate content, and will flag the exact areas for you to fix. You can correct this by updating your existing content so it’s unique or removing the pages altogether.
Broken Links
Search engines rely on crawlable links from your website. If it has many broken links, this can cause crawlability problems. Whether it’s a removed page that’s still being linked from other areas of your site, URL typos from a site migration during a website redesign, or 404 errors, these can make it less crawlable.
Check for broken links with tools like Google Search Console under the “Indexing” report or Screaming Frog during your site audit. They’ll flag the specific broken URLs and the reasons why—and they’re easy to fix!
The three main ways to fix broken links are:
Redirecting them to another URL
Updating the URLs
Removing the links from your site
Redirect Chains
While fixing broken links, you may make mistakes when redirecting them, resulting in redirect chains. These are caused by multiple redirects between the original link and the location it’s being sent to.
Redirect chains waste your crawl budget because crawl bots continuously follow this loop that never reaches its final page destination—resulting in unnecessary crawling time spent. Search engine crawlers may even stop following it and skip it, causing delayed or missed indexing for certain pages.
Like broken links, you can fix redirect chains by updating or removing them during your site audit and routine web maintenance.
Dated Canonicals
If you aren’t familiar with canonicals, they direct search engine crawlers on which URL you want them to crawl and index from a duplicate page. While some duplicate content is normal, like international web domains and separate blog websites, many dated canonical URLs and tags can lead them to crawl the wrong ones, like older page versions, which waste your crawl budget.
URL inspection tools like Google Search Console flag harmful canonical URLs so you can remove them from your site.
Slow Page Load Speed
If your website takes too long to load, this can also negatively impact your crawl budget. Your site’s below-average load speed uses more time to crawl each web page. As a result, your other web pages may not get crawled because your budget was prematurely spent. While sites differ in size, the optimal page load speed shouldn’t take more than three seconds.
You can check your site’s average loading times on PageSpeed Insights. All you have to do is copy and paste your website’s URL into Google’s free tool. It measures your website’s desktop and mobile load speeds and diagnoses performance issues impacting them, such as unused Javascript or CSS code.
You can improve your site’s page loading speed by:
Minifying Javascript and CSS code with unnecessary rules or dense structures to reduce the files loaded on your web pages
Compressing large media files, like background videos and images, to a lower resolution
Upgrading or switching web hosting plans with larger servers that can better host your site’s size
That way, you can ensure your website has an efficient crawl rate and optimized crawl budget.
Poor Core Web Vitals
If your website has poor performance, this can cause crawlability issues. Your site’s health can be checked on Google Search Console’s Core Web Vitals. These metrics measure your website’s overall performance for loading, responsiveness, and visual stability on mobile and desktop.
Don’t get discouraged if your site fails the Core Web Vitals test. Google will diagnose the areas of your website causing these issues with solutions to fix them, such as caching page content and improving site speed.
Remove Unnecessary Pages From Robots.txt Files
If you don’t know, a robots.txt file is a plain text tile that directs search engines how you want them to access and crawl your site. It’s like a recipe written in the language crawl bots understand so they know how to follow it.
As a tip, don’t include all your web pages in your robots.txt file that don’t require crawling. For example, shopping carts and staff directories typically don’t need to be crawled for users because they’re not intended for SEO and focus more on on-page user interaction.
Removing these unnecessary pages can optimize your crawl budget, so it prioritizes the ones you want while preventing your site from being overloaded with bot traffic requests.
Resubmit XML Sitemaps After Content Updates & New Pages
In addition to providing robots.txt files, you must submit XML sitemaps to Google for efficient crawling. While robots.txt files are like a recipe, XML sitemaps are as the name suggests, a map of your site. It acts as a blueprint of your site structure for search engine crawlers to reference.
Even if you submitted an XML sitemap already, resubmitting it after content pages and new page creations is the best crawling practice. It gives crawl bots the most up-to-date version of your site so the right one is shown to users when searching for information related to your business online.
You can submit XML sitemaps on Google Search Console, and best done by web developers—especially if you don’t know how to crawl a website. While sitemap generators exist, web developers have the coding expertise to create them more accurately and prevent wasted crawl budgets due to structural errors.
Add Relevant Structured Data to Web Pages
Structured data helps search engine crawlers better understand your page’s content. Although you’re providing a robots.txt file and XML sitemap, structured data contextualizes your web pages to maximize their crawlability and online visibility from rich results in the SERP.
Rich results are unique features that stand out from the SERP’s standard blue links and textual elements, such as product feature carousels and images.
SEO crawling is the process search engines use to discover your website. It’s the preliminary step before they save it in their database, known as indexing, so it shows your site content to users when using relevant search queries.
What is a Web Crawler?
Web crawlers are the bots search engines use to discover your site so it becomes visible on their platform.
How Do Web Crawlers Work?
Web crawlers are search engine bots that use an automated process to find your site’s content so it can download it into their database (index) next. Search engines use web crawlers to retrieve your site’s information and display it to users when using queries relative to it.
Keep Your Site Visible Online with SEO Web Experts
Don’t let your website disappear. At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital agency with extensive experience in site-wide optimization for greater crawlability, indexation, and overall SEO performance. These include websites of all sizes and various CMS systems, like WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Dealer.com, and more.
Our team of SEO experts and web designers/developers can help you navigate the complexities of crawling. That way, you can improve your site’s performance and better support your bottom line.
