Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Tuesday, June 14th, 2022
For so many reasons it can be tempting to stop doing SEO for a period of time – maybe it’s budget, maybe you’ve had a bad experience with your SEO vendor or maybe you’re not seeing the results you thought you’d see.
When that happens, should you take a break from SEO? And if you do, what are the consequences?
The answer: SEO is a marathon, not a sprint
SEO is like running a marathon. If you stop because you tire easily, your competitors will pass you. The longer you take a break, the further ahead the competition – and it might be hard to catch up.
Of course, no one is forcing you to do SEO. But you must consider what you are up against before you make a decision to stop spending time and money on it.
What you are up against is 12 changes to Google Search on average each day, millions of competitors per keyword and website maintenance that if not done will result in a poor-quality site, making it even harder to rank.
That’s why the secret to SEO success is endurance. SEO can only stop if Google quits changing things and all your competition goes away.
Three reasons you shouldn’t stop doing SEO
Here are three things to consider before you take a break from your SEO:
1. There’s an average of 12 changes to search per day
It’s no secret that Google is always updating its search engine. In 2020 alone, Google ran over 600,000 experiments that “resulted in more than 4,500 improvements to Search.” That’s an average of 12 changes per day, folks.
Some changes are minor, some are major. Some are announced, many fly under the radar. (You can see how many Google updates SEOs are talking about, here.)
In all cases, tracking and understanding how these changes impact a website is not a core competency of most businesses. So, you need SEO expertise.
And that is why SEOs spend countless hours testing and analyzing Google changes so their clients or employers can benefit from that knowledge.
If you quit SEO suddenly, your website will not likely stay afloat in the Google storm for very long.
2. You have millions of competitors – yes, millions!
Try doing any search in Google and see how many results show up. Literally any query can have millions or billions of results. Those are your competitors online.
Out of those millions of results, your content somehow needs to show up on page one. And if you want even more clicks, your content needs to be among the first few results on the page.
We analyzed data from three recent studies on search results position and click-through rate, and across the board, position one always gets the most clicks:
Click-through rates analysis from three studies by Ignite Visibility, Sistrix and BacklinkoAdd to that the fact that you need to be an expert on the different search verticals (like Google Images, for example) and all the search features that show up on page one – not just the 10 blue links – to effectively compete.
Every day that you pause your SEO is a day your competition can spend money and resources to get ahead.
Given that it can take five to seven months to start seeing the results you want from SEO, that is time you can’t afford to waste. (Plus, some keywords take even longer to rank; it took us two years to help a client rank No. 1 for “games”).
Maintaining your website is a full-time job
While it’s true that quality websites can build value over time in the form of links and traffic, you cannot set it and forget it in SEO.
You need to maintain both the technology that drives your website and the content on it regularly. And how often depends on what type of website you have and what type of content there is.
For example, if you have what Google calls “your money or your life” content, you will need to review it and refresh it regularly.
Consider also that every site will need technical SEO fixes on a regular basis to ensure it is operating at peak performance for search engines and end-users. Think: servers, content delivery networks, content management systems, pages crawling issues, etc.
Remember that Google said in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines that “unmaintained/abandoned ‘old’ websites or unmaintained and inaccurate/misleading content is a reason for a low Page Quality rating.”
Because Google cares that websites are up-to-date and offer a good experience, if you stop SEO, you risk impacting your ability to rank.
Final thoughts
When businesses want to take a break from SEO, it’s often because they aren’t seeing the results they want. And that is usually due to other factors like budget constraints, hiring the wrong SEOs or even mismatched expectations.
If you budget 5% to 10% of your revenue, though, and you work with the right SEO vendor, you should be able to get the results you want. And those results typically end up in more revenue to the business.
When SEO is driving revenue, stopping SEO is rarely a question that any business ponders. If you treat SEO as an essential marketing activity for the life of your business, you will often win the marathon. If you give up, you lose.
The post Should your business ever take a break from doing SEO? appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, June 13th, 2022
If your WordPress site rank is not performing as expected, all hope is not lost.
There are a couple of things you can do to improve your SEO ranking. The seven methods outlined below are quick, simple, and proven to show results.
1. Make sure HTTPS is enabled
Using an SSL certificate to secure your website lets your viewers know your site is secure, which helps with ranking.
SSL certificates are available both free and paid. Once you have an SSL certificate installed for your site, use a plugin like Really Simple SSL to assure your content is served from the secure protocol.
2. Optimize your URLs
A good permalink structure is crucial to SEO-friendly URLs.
WordPress gives you this functionality from installation, but you can make changes to it with plugins for more modifications.
URL optimization is important when optimizing your pages on your site for certain search queries and keyword phrases.
Placing your primary keyword in the URL is considered a best practice for on-page SEO.
When a search engine crawls your site, it’s easy for them to understand what your content is about.
3. Use an SEO plugin
SEO plugins are a great way to diagnose and improve both technical and on-page SEO recommendations. Consider installing one of these recommended plugins.
- Yoast SEO – One of WordPress’s most popular plugins. The free version of Yoast boasts tools to help optimize your content for SEO and improve overall readability.
- Rank Math – Rank Math has an intuitive panel on your page or post that allows you to see changes that would positively affect your SEO.
4. Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions or tags is an element that summarizes the content of your post or page. It gives search engines a brief description of what they will read or find on your website.
A meta description should not be longer than 275 characters long as that is all Google will display.
A compelling meta description can bring more readers to your post, adding to your SEO rank. You will want to add your keyword to your meta description for easy lookups and add it to your content.
5. Craft good content
High-quality content is one of the best ways to improve your SEO. Good quality content goes deeper than the material you write or create on your website.
Assure you have a deep understanding of the subject you are writing about and do some keyword research to best capture your audience’s attention.
Avoid creating duplicate content on your site. Duplicate content refers to ideas or topics that have already been created or discussed on your website and will negatively affect your SEO score.
A good model to follow is the E-A-T model, which creates trust with your user and an overall better SEO ranking.
What is E-A-T content? Google uses search quality guidelines to ensure the content on a site is good for users. It is not a ranking factor for SEO, but it affects how your content is read.
E-A-T stands for the expertise of the writer, authoritativeness of the content or site itself and trustworthiness of the content provided.
Assuring your website has an about us page will show your authoritativeness and expertise to your readers. Because of this, collaborating with other experts contributes to your SEO.
6. Site optimization
Today, site speed is another important factor for SEO optimization, as serving content as fast as possible is what a lot of users need—every second matters.
Use a hosting provider that is optimized for your WordPress site with options such as NGINX or Redis for server-side caching.
An example of WordPress optimized hosting is InMotion Hosting’s Ultrastack, which uses NGINX to intelligently cache frequently-used resources to save memory.
Images should also be optimized. If they are too large or take too long to load, it will strain your website. Using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to serve your content helps reduce load times.
The Jetpack plugin provides a free image CDN, but there are other hosting resources that can be used such as Cloudflare.
If your current hosting provider does not provide server-side caching, you can use a caching plugin such as W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket.
7. Keep an eye on your analytics
Google Search Console and Google Analytics go hand in hand to track how your website is performing. These metrics give you detailed information about how visitors interact with the content on your website.
Other resources are Bing’s Webmaster Tools and third-party options such as Semrush.
Utilizing these tools also allow you to review your keyword rate, as well as site speed.
Final words
SEO can be challenging, especially if you are a new website creator or small business owner; however, keeping the tips above in mind will help you along the way. Having the right foundation to start and creating good quality content will ensure your website and media rise to the top.
Get WordPress Hosting that’s optimized for performance and SEO.
The post Top 7 SEO tips for WordPress sites appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, June 13th, 2022
Amazon’s reign as the king of ecommerce won’t end any time soon.
More than 2 billion people visit Amazon each month, according to Statista.
So, how do you stand out and generate more sales?
The core belief behind Amazon’s algorithm is straightforward. They want customers to continue buying. They are interested in sales just as much (if not more) than you are as a seller.
The difference? Amazon doesn’t have any loyalty toward any brand other than their own.
More sales lead to higher rankings, which in turn, leads to more sales.
But how can you get past the chicken vs. egg scenario to start seeing improvements?
Here are the six marketing strategies you can use to grow your Amazon sales.
1. Cover the basics
Tips and tricks don’t replace solid marketing fundamentals. In general, you should be thinking in terms of strategy, not just tactics.
Do you have high-quality photos and strong copy? How are you positioning your brand/product? Are your prices competitive or is your product differentiated?
These matter on every channel — especially Amazon. You can’t start optimizing until your basics are covered.
2. Reanalyze your keywords and focus on keyword relevancy
Amazon’s algorithm may be focused on customers buying products, but that is similar to saying Google’s algorithm is focused on providing the best answer. While it may be true, a lot of variables and nuances go into rankings. This includes:
- Ratings.
- Sales fulfillment.
- Sales velocity.
- Inventory.
- Pricing.
- CTR.
With the A10 Algorithm update (which seems to be based on several updates throughout the years instead of one major update), matching the shopper’s interest/intent has taken center stage. Amazon is attempting to show products based more on searchers vs. their own profitability.
While you may have done keyword research when you first set up your product detail page, shopping behaviors may have changed. You should regularly conduct keyword research and make sure you have the terms placed throughout the product detail page. This includes important areas like title, description, and bullet points.
This isn’t simply stuffing keywords in your copy. You still have to write for shoppers in a way that drives conversions. The algorithm may rank your product, but it doesn’t buy it.
Shoppers are the ones reading and making the decision whether to purchase. Your copy must help convince them that your product is the right choice.
3. Invest more in advertising
As expected, Amazon Advertising continues to grow and be an essential part of the company’s revenue.
Amazon’s ad revenue was more than $31 billion in 2021. That’s more than triple its 2018 ad revenue of $10 billion.
If you want to be successful on Amazon, an ad campaign is a must.
Amazon rewards sales and running Amazon ads allows you to get those sales. Unlike Google Ads, where paid ads have no impact on organic placement, Amazon does. You can stimulate sales velocity and improve your rankings by investing more in Amazon Ads.
As the competition continues to grow, so does the cost.
The good news is that Amazon also continues to refine its ads platform to give you more options and data to improve your Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS). ACoS is calculated by dividing your ad spend by your ad revenue and multiplying it by 100.
4. Bring in more off-Amazon traffic
Amazon is dominant online and they want to remain that way. A good way to do that is to get traffic from other sites. That is why Amazon does take into account traffic that leads to sales from off-Amazon channels like Google and Facebook.
Take advantage of the Brand Referral Bonus program and create an external traffic campaign for your product listings. Whether it is Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or any other type of campaign to drive traffic, you can set yourself up to receive a commission from Amazon and higher organic listings for your products when done properly.
5. Use a coupon with Amazon advertising
Everyone loves a discount and a good deal. You can play off both psychological triggers by running a coupon for your sponsored product ads.
Sponsored product ads allow your product to be shown within the search results for specific terms.
When you run a coupon at the same time searchers can see your product with a discount. This not only helps the CTR from the search results but also leads to a higher conversion rate – both crucial metrics for successful Amazon marketing strategies.
In many cases, it isn’t even the amount of the coupon that makes the difference, but simply having one is enough.
Even if you can’t offer a coupon with advertising and turn a sustainable profit on your sales, you should still consider it for a period of time. The improvements in your rankings could lead to higher sales well past the full advertising blitz.
Keep your guard up, however, because you are never operating in a silo. Competitors will always be after your market share.
6. Invest in high-quality videos
Photos still get most of the attention (rightfully so), but videos have earned their place among the must-haves when it comes to listing quality.
The more information you can give to potential buyers to make them understand and trust your product the higher your sales and the better your reviews will be.
These four video tips may help you produce more sales from your Amazon listing:
- Shoot a video describing and using your products.
- Make sure you have a plan to address the pain points your product solves and highlight other important differentiating factors.
- Highlight how your product compares to others and show it being used with a lifestyle video to determine what resonates most with your buyers.
- Keep it focused on sales.
Remember, Amazon wants happy customers and more sales — just like you.
Even though it may feel like it, it isn’t you vs. Amazon. It is you vs. the other products someone would buy instead of yours on Amazon.
Keep strategy focused on awareness and conversion. If you implement the right strategy, Amazon should reward you with higher rankings.
The post 6 Amazon marketing strategies to implement in 2022 appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Saturday, June 11th, 2022
Twitter has removed the nofollow link attribute from Twitter posts, tweets, in its source code. It is unclear if Twitter removed this attribute on purpose or not and if even search engines, like Google, would value links from Twitter or not.
Timing. According to Chris Silver Smith, Twitter removed the nofollow link attribute sometime in the past couple weeks or so. He said on Twitter “Twitter is apparently no longer using rel=”nofollow”. This includes links you find on “profiles, tweets, and other pages on Twitter may now contain followed links,” he said.
Back in 2008, former search quality lead and spam fighter, Matt Cutts, posted that Twitter added the nofollow link attribute to bio sections on Twitter. Within a year later, Twitter added the attribute to all tweets and other sections of their site.
Will these links count? It is hard to know if Google or Bing or other search engines will start to now follow and count links found on Twitter.com and within tweets. We know Google can sometimes treat links that do not have a nofollow attribute, as if it does have a nofollow attribute. I would assume Google would by default do that with most social networks, including Twitter, because user generated content and links, are hard to trust in general.
Will it last. Also, I suspect Twitter will soon add the nofollow link attribute back to external links as soon as they hear about this publicly. So this may be short-lived. We have reached out to Twitter for a statement.
Why we care. Twitter is one of the largest social networks and is used heavily by SEOs and marketers. If links remain unfollowed, it potentially might lead to more link spam on that network and both hurt the usefulness of Twitter and potentially the value of links in general on Twitter.
But again, I really don’t think Twitter intentionally removed the nofollow but we will see.
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Saturday, June 11th, 2022
Google has just announced that they are pulling back restrictions on some previously prohibited categories from showing on the YouTube masthead.
Effective today. Google will now allow booking for masthead ads for the following categories:
- Sports betting (US only)
- Alcohol (where legal)
- Prescription drugs (US, CA, NZ)
What Google says. A spokesperson from Google stated “We’re constantly reviewing our ad requirements to improve our products and services. Given the evolving regulatory landscape for sports betting and following our successful implementation of our new “per market” YouTube masthead format, we believe that this decision balances the needs of advertisers and consumers.”
Categories for election and political ads, as well as (non-sports) gambling remain restricted.
Additional YouTube masthead changes. In 2020 we reported on Google’s announcement that they would discontinue full-day masthead reservations and replace them with more targeted options. The new CPM option allowed mastheads to be more accessible to a broader market of advertisers.
View the changelog. You can view the changelog and new policies here.
Why we care. Mastheads are just one of many YouTube and Google advertising formats, and only a fraction of overall ad impressions for YouTube on any single day. But advertisers in any one of the previously restricted categories above can now select that placement, giving them more options for their ad campaigns.
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Saturday, June 11th, 2022
LinkedIn has just announced that they’re expanding the Boost button to the LinkedIn Events page. This means that advertisers will be able to promote events and drive registrations.
Last year LinkedIn gave advertisers a new feature to Boost organic posts from their page. This allowed them to promote an organic post to more of their followers, or specific professional audiences of their choice.
How it works. To Boost an event, simply navigate to the Boost button on your Events page. Select the target audience you want to see the ad. Set the schedule, and budget, and enter the payment info. This will create an event ad that will appear in the feed of professionals you’ve selected as your target audience.
What LinkedIn says. “Over the last few years, we have seen virtual events bringing communities together. Companies across industries have used LinkedIn Events to promote their content and continue building on their community of professionals.”
Learn more. Read the full article here.
Why we care. Boosting posts isn’t new. Facebook has been allowing advertisers to boost posts for years. The option allows time-sensitive content to be shared easily, without having to navigate the ads manager dashboard. This week LinkedIn also announced the introduction of a centralized Business Manager. While we’re glad they’re finally catching up to where the rest of the platforms have been, we are curious, what’s next?
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Saturday, June 11th, 2022
Want to publish great content on LinkedIn?
Coming up with content ideas can be a challenge.
Sometimes the hardest part is coming up with the right idea.
It also can be easy to talk yourself out of your own ideas.
So if you’re in need of some ideas or inspiration, here are 10 quick and easy tips to come up with topics.
All of the following tips were provided by various LinkedIn for Creators team members during their live What Creators Need to Know: Episode 4. I’ve summarized those for brevity and also sprinkled in a few of my own thoughts to add some context.
1. Look up common hashtags
Focus on hashtags that are used by, and relevant to, your industry.
Click on the hashtag to find high-performing posts. Use this for some inspiration on topics.
However, don’t steal or slightly reword posts from other creators. You will more likely than not be called out.
2. Talk about timely topics
This can be current events or industry news. You can also use LinkedIn’s trending section to find popular news stories and conversations, which you can use as inspiration for your next post.
Do you have to weigh in on partisan or controversial issues? That’s your call. Just know that your post could get filtered out if it’s political or you could lose followers who disagree with you.
3. Experiment with formats and publishing times
Try out a variety of content formats – mix up photo, video and text posts. See what works with your audience.
If you do livestreams, for example, figure out what works best for your audience. Try out a couple of different days of the week and times of day to see which gets you the most views.
Consider polling your followers to find out when they would be most likely to watch. Once you figure out your time, be consistent to make watching you a habit.
4. Quality over quantity
Not every LinkedIn post has to go viral.
Focus on creating content that could directly help one person – or even just a few people.
If that post also happens to go viral, that’s an awesome bonus.
But numbers shouldn’t be the only way you measure success.
Before hitting Post, think about your audience. Could your content help them:
- Become better at their job.
- Advance in their career.
- Solve a problem they’re experiencing.
- Learn something new.
- Understand current events, an issue, or other types of changes.
5. Share your truth
The good, the bad, the ugly. Show your personality.
People want to see your real life, voice and story.
LinkedIn is a professional network, but that doesn’t mean you always have to be super polished and super professional.
6. Spark conversations – and keep them going.
Ask your audience a question that will elicit a response and also encourage them to share their insights and thoughts. Help keep the conversation going by responding to comments.
Aside from adding questions to your post, you can use polls or tag others who you think would be beneficial to the conversation or anyone your audience would like to hear from.
That said, tag wisely. Don’t just make a post and tag dozens of your contact – those people may find it annoying and it may do more harm than good.
Also, avoid sales pitches.
You want to be approachable. Selling is the exact opposite of being approachable. It will turn off people and can hurt your engagement.
7. Be authentic
Be yourself. Tell your story. Just be you and stay true.
Hair, makeup, lighting, audio – it doesn’t always have to be perfect. Show up as your best, most authentic self. Do what you love and show it on video.
I believe it was Dr. Seuss who said “There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
8. Share your experiences
Share your entire journey with your followers – your wins, challenges, losses, and everything else in between.
Be vulnerable. Be open with your audience.
Great content doesn’t have to be perfect. Life is a little messy – so record it.
9. Stop overthinking content
Approach content with a mindset of documenting rather than creating all the time.
Things you read or hear, conversations you have, questions you answer, problems you solve – all of this is content just waiting to be created every day.
10. Ask for a quarter off for metrics
This ties back to experimenting.
Sometimes you need space to test, learn and set a baseline to measure performance. It typically takes time to see results on a new platform – so the last thing you want to do is think you have no traction when, in fact, you’re just starting to build the traction you will need for start seeing tangible results in three, six, or 12 months.
The best time to start creating great content on LinkedIn was years ago. But the second-best time is now.
The post 10 quick and easy tips from LinkedIn for creators appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Thursday, June 9th, 2022
Ever feel like you’re shouting into the void with your email campaigns? You send thousands and thousands of messages; the only response you get is link clicks. It’s useful to see who’s at least somewhat paying attention, but how do you handle all those leads who clicked and didn’t convert?
Join experts from Conversica and learn how companies using conversation automation as part of their email flow see an average of 9.88% response rate, nearly 4x more opportunities and over 10x ROI.
Register today for “Beyond the Blast: Next-Level Email Strategy Requires Conversation,” presented by Conversica.
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Thursday, June 9th, 2022
Merchants have a new Twitter feature, called Product Drops, to help engage their followers and stay on top of new product releases.
What are Product Drops. Product Drops from Twitter is a new feature that allows brands to notify their followers when they launch a new product. The feature is the first of its kind for a social media platform.
How does it work. When a merchant tweets about an upcoming launch, followers will see a “Remind me” button at the bottom of the tweet. They’ll simply tap that button to be reminded of the launch day.
On the product’s launch day, they’ll receive a notification in the app 15 minutes before, and at the time of the drop. Clicking the notification will bring them to the merchant’s website where they can shop for the product and (hopefully) grab it in time.
The devil is in the details. Before followers click the “Remind me” button they can view the full details of the product that’s dropping. To do this, they’ll just click on the tweet and the Product Details page will open. From there, they can view the price, description, and more.
Ready. Set. Launch. Twitter is rolling out Product Drops to merchants in the US only, on English iOS devices. It’s being tested with select partners including:
- Dior
- Fossil
- Jeff Staple
- Home Depot
There is no word on when the feature will roll out to all merchants.
What Twitter says. “People come to Twitter to talk about products and product drops every day. And merchants have long been dropping products on Twitter without any native product support. We’re excited to change that and introduce new shopping features that empower shoppers to stay on top of the launches that matter most to them and provide merchants with another way to engage shoppers around big product moments.”
Check it out. Read the full announcement from Twitter here.
Why we care. Shopping on Twitter isn’t new. But until recently, there hasn’t been any native support surrounding it. This feature aims to help alleviate some of the frustration people feel around missed product drops, angry customers, and overwhelmed brand reps. However, not all of a brands followers are on Twitter. And even if they are, this feature requires they be near their phone or logged into Twitter to receive the notifications. This feature is a good start to increasing brand engagement, but may miss the mark with many of their fans.
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Thursday, June 9th, 2022
Since its launch in May 2003, WordPress has become the most-used website platform globally. The WordPress platform powers almost 37% of the top 1 million trafficked websites, according to BuiltWith data.
Given the low cost (you really only pay for hosting), ease of installation and use and flexibility, WordPress is ready for websites of all sizes, from personal blogs to enterprise businesses.
Count me as a fan. I’ve advocated for its use, going back to nearly the beginning of its existence in 2003.
I’ve worked on many WordPress websites, and one of the most common questions I still get is about pages versus posts – which one should be used?
Before answering that question, let’s review how WordPress pages and posts differ.
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WordPress pages
Pages in WordPress are intended to hold content that may be considered more “evergreen,” such as the home page, product/service pages, or about us-type content.
Pages can be nested to create a directory structure by making one page the “parent” of another.
Generally, pages cannot leverage categories, tags and authors and are usually not included in RSS feeds from the website.
WordPress posts
Posts in WordPress link the platform back to its roots as a blogging platform. Posts were intended to hold news-related, time-sensitive, and other content that might be associated with websites that are strictly blogs.
Posts are time-driven and can leverage categories, tags, and authors for archive pages and on-site search. Posts are included in RSS feeds.
Content authors can make posts appear in a directory structure by setting up categories, which can be in parent/child relationships, and creating the structure in the Permalinks settings in the WordPress settings.
One crucial thing to remember: Both pages and posts are content for your users and the search engines.
The website owner sets their appearance and use. Pages and posts can be used interchangeably for any purpose – though it’s a terrible idea to mix similar content between the two formats.
| WordPress pages |
WordPress posts |
| Intended for evergreen content |
Intended for news or “blog” content – very time-driven |
| Can be nested together in parent/child arrangements to create a directory structure |
Can fit into a directory structure using categories that can be nested in parent/child relationships |
| Cannot leverage categories, tags or authors |
Leverages categories, tags, and authors |
| Cannot use RSS feeds to share content |
Can use RSS feeds to share content |
| Can be styled any way the website owner wishes |
Can be styled any way the website owner wishes |
| Is considered content to the website visitors and search engines |
Is considered content to the website visitors and search engines |
Evolving recommendations
In the past, I most often recommended that “evergreen” content be created as pages. These would include items like the home page, product/service pages and “about us,” etc.
Other news-related, time-sensitive, instructive, blog-type content would be created as posts. As mentioned above, this follows what most consider the intention of pages and posts.
Although this way of working is still quite valid, I’ve been rethinking this advice lately.
Why?
A large number of websites I’ve worked on lately have had terrible information architecture.
For many of these sites, most, if not all, content is in the website’s root folder. Some sites have content on the same topic mixed between pages and posts. The former issue is relatively easy to fix, the latter, not so much.
Part of the problem is that WordPress is set to put all content at the website’s root by default. Another part is a misunderstanding of how pages and posts are intended to function.
My recommendations now are slightly different if a site is being built from scratch or undergoing a significant reorganization.
In that case, I have two recommendations based on the type of content that will comprise the majority of the website:
- For sites with a majority of evergreen-type content, I recommend the site be all pages.
This allows pages to be built and nested together in parent/child relationships to construct a logical folder structure. Even if there is timely blog-type content, pages will work quite well unless there is an absolute need for tag or author connections.
- For sites with a majority of timely, blog-type content, I recommend the site be all posts.
This allows for content to be organized along category lines. Posts also allow for tag and author archives to be used. This type of setup also allows for easy RSS feeds. The home page can be set up to show the latest posts to help keep it fresh with the newest information.
Either of these arrangements would work well because pages and posts are just content to website visitors and search engines. Both content formats can be styled to suit the needs of the website.
If forms and other interactive features are needed, they can be applied equally well to pages or posts.
From an SEO perspective, the content format on the back end is irrelevant – it’s what is presented to users and search engine spiders that matters.
Should I uproot everything and change the structure of my site?
As I mention above, I recommend building this type of structure on a new site or if a site is undergoing significant work like a re-platforming onto a new theme or migration to a new design.
If your website is working well and you don’t notice any significant problems, it’s OK to take an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.
Final thought
The main reason for my changing recommendations is the lack of a logical directory structure on many sites I support. While it is quite possible to create a logical structure with a mix of pages and posts, it is certainly much simpler to set up and maintain if the site is set up with all one type of content.
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Observations
