AI-driven content creation has revolutionized the way we generate written material, transforming industries ranging from marketing to journalism. In this era of digital content dominance, two prominent AI models stand out for their remarkable abilities: Google Bard and Chat GPT. These advanced language models have the power to generate high-quality, human-like text, making them invaluable tools for content creation. In this post, we delve into the world of AI for content marketing and compare the strengths and weaknesses of Google Bard and Chat GPT. Join us on a journey through the cutting-edge landscape of AI-driven content generation as we explore the capabilities, applications, and unique features of these two game-changing models.
How AI Can Support Content Creators at Different Stages
Idea Generation and Research:
Topic Suggestions: AI tools can analyze trending topics and user interests to provide content topic suggestions.
Content Research: AI can help content creators find relevant sources, statistics, and information quickly.
Competitive Analysis: AI can analyze competitors’ content to identify gaps and opportunities.
Content Planning and Organization:
Content Outlining: AI can generate content outlines based on selected topics or keywords.
Editorial Calendar: AI-powered tools can help creators plan content calendars, considering publication frequency and timing.
Writing and Drafting:
Text Generation: AI models like GPT-3 can assist in writing articles, blog posts, product descriptions, and more.
Grammar and Style Checking: AI-driven tools such as Grammarly can provide real-time grammar and style suggestions.
Voice Typing: AI-based voice recognition systems can transcribe spoken ideas into text efficiently.
Content Editing and Proofreading:
Automated Proofreading: AI can help writers correct errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Style and Tone Suggestions: AI can provide recommendations for improving clarity and style.
Content Optimization:
SEO Recommendations: AI can analyze content for SEO improvements, suggesting keywords, meta tags, and content length adjustments.
A/B Testing: AI-driven A/B testing tools can optimize content performance by experimenting with different headlines, images, and layouts.
Visual Content Creation:
Image Generation: AI tools can create custom images, infographics, and visuals based on content themes.
Video Editing: AI-powered video editing software can automate tasks like scene recognition, captioning, and video creation from text.
Translation and Localization:
Translation: AI can quickly translate content into multiple languages, making it accessible to a global audience.
Localization: It can adapt content to specific regions, considering cultural nuances and preferences.
Content Promotion and Distribution:
Social Media Scheduling: AI can automate the scheduling and posting of content on social media platforms.
Email Marketing: AI can personalize email content based on recipient behavior and preferences.
Performance Analytics:
Content Analytics: AI-driven analytics tools can provide insights into content performance, helping creators understand what works and what needs improvement.
Recommendations for Improvement: AI can offer suggestions for optimizing content based on performance data.
Content Monetization:
Ad Placement: AI algorithms can optimize ad placement within content to maximize revenue.
Subscription Models: AI can help creators identify and implement subscription-based content strategies.
Audience Engagement and Interaction:
Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: AI-powered chatbots can engage users on websites, answer questions, and provide support.
Personalized Content: AI can analyze user data to deliver personalized content recommendations on websites and platforms.
Content Maintenance and Updates:
Content Auditing: AI can help identify outdated or inaccurate content that needs updating.
Recommendations for Refreshing Content: AI can suggest changes or additions to keep content relevant.
By integrating AI into each stage of the content development process, creators can save time, reduce errors, and improve the overall quality and effectiveness of their content. AI tools can also free up creative energy, allowing content creators to focus on what they do best: producing engaging and valuable content for their audiences.
Are you looking to revolutionize your business’s content marketing strategy?
Google Bard and ChatGPT are two notable AI models that have been developed for this purpose. Let’s compare them in terms of their capabilities, use cases, and advantages.
Google Bard
Content Generation Focus: Google Bard is specifically designed for content generation, particularly in the field of poetry and creative writing. It aims to assist writers and poets in crafting artistic pieces of text.
Limited Scope: Its primary strength lies in creative writing tasks, making it less versatile for a wide range of content creation tasks.
Creativity Emphasis: Google Bard is known for its creative flair, as it can generate imaginative and artistic content. It often produces poetry and creative writing that is highly poetic and expressive.
Use Cases: Google Bard is best suited for creative writing tasks, including generating poems, short stories, or creative prose. It’s not optimized for more factual or technical content.
Human-AI Collaboration: Users typically collaborate with Google Bard to enhance creative content. It can provide creative suggestions or even compose sections of poetry or prose that writers can incorporate into their work.
ChatGPT
Versatile Content Creation: ChatGPT, on the other hand, is a more versatile AI model. It can be used for a wide range of content creation tasks, including answering questions, generating articles, coding assistance, and more.
General-Purpose AI: ChatGPT is designed to provide human-like text-based responses across various domains, making it a versatile tool for businesses and individuals.
Practical and Informational Focus: While ChatGPT can exhibit creativity, its primary strength lies in providing practical and informational responses. It excels at answering questions, explaining complex topics, and generating informative content.
Use Cases: ChatGPT can be used for a broad spectrum of applications, including customer support chatbots, content creation, research assistance, and brainstorming ideas.
Human-AI Collaboration: Users often interact with ChatGPT in a conversational manner, making it a valuable tool for engaging with customers, assisting users, and providing information.
Advantages of Google Bard
Ideal for creative writing and artistic content
Can add a unique artistic touch to content
Appeals to poets and writers looking for creative inspiration
Advantages of ChatGPT
Versatile and suitable for a wide range of content creation tasks
Strong focus on practical and informational content
Valuable for customer support, research, and general knowledge sharing
While ChatGPT and similar AI models have numerous advantages, they also come with several disadvantages and limitations:
Lack of Contextual Understanding: ChatGPT does not have a deep understanding of context, which can lead to responses that are contextually incorrect or nonsensical. It may generate plausible-sounding but inaccurate information.
Bias and Controversial Content: AI models like ChatGPT can inadvertently generate biased or controversial content, as they learn from data on the internet, which may contain biases. This can perpetuate stereotypes or provide inappropriate responses.
Inability to Verify Information: ChatGPT can produce information that is not fact-checked, leading to the spread of false or misleading information. Users must exercise caution and verify information obtained from AI models.
Lack of Creativity: While ChatGPT can generate text, it lacks true creativity and the ability to generate truly novel or imaginative content. It often rehashes existing information and patterns.
Repetitive Responses: The model may generate repetitive responses, especially when faced with similar queries, which can be frustrating for users.
Difficulty with Complex Tasks: ChatGPT may struggle with complex or multifaceted tasks that require deep reasoning, critical thinking, or in-depth domain knowledge.
Sensitive Content: AI models can generate content that is sensitive or inappropriate, which is a concern, especially when used in public forums or customer service applications.
Privacy Concerns: When used in applications that involve personal data, there can be concerns about user privacy, data security, and the potential for misuse.
Lack of Emotional Understanding: ChatGPT lacks emotional understanding and empathy. It may not respond appropriately to users’ emotional or sensitive issues.
Resource Intensive: Running large AI models like ChatGPT requires significant computational resources, which can be costly and environmentally demanding.
Not a Substitute for Human Expertise: AI models like ChatGPT should not be seen as a replacement for human expertise, especially in fields where human judgment, ethics, and empathy are crucial.
Limited Long-term Context: ChatGPT has difficulty maintaining context over long conversations, often providing less coherent responses as a conversation progresses.
Language Limitations: It primarily works well in English and a few other languages. For languages with less training data, its performance may be limited.
Ethical Dilemmas: Using AI in various applications, such as customer service or content generation, can raise ethical questions about transparency, accountability, and the responsible use of technology.
In summary, the choice between Google Bard and ChatGPT depends on your specific content creation needs. If you’re primarily interested in creative writing and artistic content, Google Bard’s creative capabilities may be appealing. However, if you require a more versatile AI model for a broader range of content creation and informational tasks, ChatGPT’s flexibility and practicality make it a strong choice. Ultimately, the choice should align with your specific use cases and objectives.
Can ChatGPT, BARD and Other AI Models Replace Search Engines?
ChatGPT and BARD, like other AI models, have specific capabilities and limitations that prevent them from replacing traditional search engines. Here are some reasons why they may not be able to serve as full substitutes for search engines:
Information Retrieval vs. Conversation:
Search Engines: Search engines are designed primarily for information retrieval. They provide a list of relevant web pages based on keywords or queries, making them efficient for quick access to a wide range of information.
ChatGPT and BARD: These models are designed for natural language conversations. While they can provide information, they are more suited for interactive dialogues and may not efficiently retrieve information in the same way search engines do.
Scope of Information:
Search Engines: Search engines index a vast amount of web content, including websites, articles, images, videos, and more, offering comprehensive access to the internet’s knowledge.
ChatGPT and BARD: These models generate responses based on pre-trained knowledge and may not provide as broad a scope of information as search engines. Their responses are limited to what they’ve learned during training.
Specificity of Queries:
Search Engines: Users can enter highly specific queries and receive relevant results. Search engines use complex ranking algorithms to determine the most relevant content.
ChatGPT and BARD: Conversational AI models may struggle with very specific or technical queries, as they rely on general knowledge and may not have access to up-to-date or specialized information.
Real-time Information:
Search Engines: Search engines can provide real-time information, news updates, and live data, making them suitable for current events and trends.
ChatGPT and BARD: These models may not provide real-time information as they do not continuously crawl the web or access live databases.
User Intent and Interaction:
Search Engines: Users typically have a clear intent when using search engines, whether it’s finding information, making a purchase, or seeking directions. Search engines provide results accordingly.
ChatGPT and BARD: These models engage in conversation and may not always understand or fulfill user intent effectively, leading to more interactive and conversational responses rather than direct information retrieval.
Monetization and Advertising:
Search Engines: Search engines generate revenue through advertising and sponsored listings, a business model that may not apply to conversational AI models.
ChatGPT and BARD: These models are primarily designed for generating text based on user inputs and may not integrate advertising as a core feature.
ChatGPT and BARD are powerful AI models for natural language understanding and generation, they serve a different purpose than search engines. Search engines excel at providing a wide range of information quickly and efficiently, while conversational AI models are designed for interactive conversations and may not be as efficient for traditional information retrieval tasks. Both have their roles, and they can complement each other in providing a well-rounded online experience.
AI Tools vs. Human Expertise for SEO
AI tools can enhance and streamline many aspects of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but are unlikely to completely replace the need for human expertise and oversight. Here’s why:
Algorithm Updates: Search engines like Google regularly update their algorithms to provide better search results. AI can help adapt to these changes faster than manual methods, but human SEO professionals are still required to understand the updates and adjust strategies accordingly.
Content Quality: AI can generate content, but it might not always produce high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that resonates with human audiences. Skilled content creators are essential for crafting content that aligns with a brand’s voice and effectively communicates with users.
Strategy and Analysis: AI tools can help with data analysis, keyword research, and identifying trends. However, the strategic aspect of SEO, such as setting goals, devising long-term strategies, and making informed decisions based on data, requires human expertise.
User Experience: User experience (UX) is a critical factor in SEO. AI can help optimize websites for UX by analyzing user behavior, but decisions about site design, navigation, and user interaction often require human input.
Ethical Considerations: AI-generated content can raise ethical concerns, especially when it comes to misinformation, plagiarism, or biased content. Human oversight is necessary to ensure that the content adheres to ethical and legal guidelines.
Local SEO and Context: Understanding local nuances, cultural differences, and the context of specific markets often requires human insights and local knowledge that AI may not possess.
While AI tools are incredibly valuable for automating routine tasks, improving data analysis, and staying updated with search engine algorithms, they are best viewed as complementary to human expertise in SEO. The combination of AI and human intelligence can create a powerful synergy that optimizes websites, content, and strategies for the best possible SEO outcomes.
Digital Marketing Companies for SEO Content Development
A digital marketing company can play a crucial role in assisting businesses with their content development needs in several ways:
Content Strategy: Digital marketing agencies can help businesses develop a comprehensive content strategy aligned with their goals and target audience. This involves determining the types of content needed, frequency of publication, and the channels for distribution.
Content Creation: These agencies often have teams of content creators, including writers, designers, and video producers, who can produce high-quality content. This content can encompass blog posts, articles, social media updates, videos, infographics, and more.
Keyword Research: They conduct keyword research to identify relevant search terms and phrases that can boost a business’s visibility on search engines. This is vital for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Content Optimization: Digital marketing experts optimize content for search engines and user experience. They ensure that content is well-structured, includes relevant keywords, and provides value to the audience.
Content Distribution: Agencies have the expertise to promote content effectively across various online channels. This includes sharing content on social media, email marketing, influencer partnerships, and paid advertising campaigns.
Analytics and Performance Tracking: They use analytics tools to measure the performance of content marketing efforts. This includes tracking website traffic, engagement metrics, conversion rates, and ROI (Return on Investment).
A/B Testing: Agencies often run A/B tests to refine content strategies and improve performance over time. This involves testing different content variations to see what resonates best with the audience.
Content Calendar Management: They create and manage content calendars to ensure a consistent and organized publishing schedule. This helps in maintaining audience engagement and SEO rankings.
Repurposing Content: Digital marketing companies can repurpose existing content into different formats to reach a wider audience. For example, turning a blog into a video or an infographic.
Adaptation to Trends: Staying updated with the latest trends in content marketing is crucial. Digital marketing agencies can help businesses adapt to new trends and technologies, such as voice search optimization or interactive content.
Content Performance Reporting: They provide regular reports and insights on the performance of content marketing efforts, helping businesses understand what works and what needs improvement.
Content Compliance: Ensuring that content complies with legal and ethical standards is essential. Digital marketing agencies can help businesses navigate content compliance issues.
When looking to enhance their online presence, many businesses turn to professional content writing services to create engaging and informative website content. Digital marketing companies also leverage the power of AI tools to develop excellent content. In essence, a digital marketing company acts as a partner in developing and executing a content strategy that aligns with a business’s objectives. Leveraging expertise and resources for effective content marketing can indeed help businesses enhance their online presence, engage their target audience, and drive growth.
Reach out to us today to explore our AI content marketing services further and discover how we can improve your content marketing strategy.
What could be the simplest and quickest way to draw a prospective customer’s attention to your product? Though experienced SEO companies that provide organic search engine optimization services know many ways, a concise title could be one of the best ways to make the targeted audience reach your products much faster. That is, by providing a short, attention-grabbing title, advertisers can create an opportunity to capture their audience’s attention faster.
Recently, Google introduced a new optional attribute called the “Short Title” through their Merchant Center, which allows you to be more concise and to the point with your products. Shortened titles for products ads need to be concise and will be used in a browsing context.
“Short Title” for Product Ads
To identify the products in Google Merchant Center and to improve click-through rates, online retailers can now add an optional short title for product listing ads.
Full product titles often get truncated – users may not be seeing all the relevant information from the product ad – in the “browsy” contexts Google has mentioned. However, the new short title attribute provides retailers with an alternate, concise way to identify their products and is intended to show in “browsy experiences,” like Discovery campaigns and Shopping ads on Gmail.
“Title” Vs “Short Title” attribute
When compared to the “title” attribute – which is required in the ad set up – the “short title” attribute is optional. Also, the title attribute more accurately matches the product landing page, as well as a customer’s search. Whereas, short title attribute is a brief and concise identification of your product.
Where Can We See the Short Title Attribute?
Mostly, the new “short title” attribute for Google product listing ads will be shown in places where users typically do a lot of browsing, including shopping ads, Gmail and a large proportion of Google Discovery campaigns. However, as this attribute is an optional feature, it won’t always be shown across the entire Google network.
Minimum Requirements for a Short Title
To make sure you submit high-quality data for your products, follow certain guidelines provided by Google.
Use a relevant short title that clearly describes your product.
Be concise.
Describe the product shown on your landing page and make sure the short title describes the product you’re linking to.
Use professional and grammatically correct language.
Avoid gimmicky ways of drawing attention by including all caps, symbols, HTML tags, and promotional text.
Don’t use words from foreign languages unless they’re well understood
Write foreign words using the alphabet of your target language.
Don’t use foreign characters for gimmicky purposes, because, this technique is common in spam and untrustworthy ads.
Use capital letters only when it is required and appropriate. Don’t use capital letters just for emphasizing.
Don’t include promotional text.
Don’t add information such as price, sale price, sale dates, shipping, delivery date, other time-related information, or your company’s name.
Don’t use extra white spaces.
If all these guidelines aren’t followed properly, then Google will disapprove the product, because these are the minimum requirements to meet for a short title to be eligible to be shown to users.
Best Practices for Short Titles
To optimize your product data for performance and to help you go beyond the basic requirements, follow certain best practices recommended by Google for short titles. Check out these best practices that work for everyone including Google Ads specialists and experienced marketers.
Limit your short titles to 65 or fewer characters (or less). Most users only see the first text of 65 characters in a title that is short.
Try to be concise and insert the most important details first, because, users don’t always read the entire title, especially in “a browsy experience,” where they are scrolling quickly.
Make sure the title is very specific to the topic and provides clear expectations for your readers. It must clearly reflect the content that follows.
Optimize your title for your audience. For instance, if you run a restaurant that introduces some special recipes each day, use some interesting title such as, “24 Brilliant Baking Recipes to Change Your Kitchen Game”
Consider including your primary keyword in the content, based on search intent. But never stuff your page titles with keywords.
It is important to prioritize your Most Important Things. The users’ attention span has dropped to just eight seconds – reducing almost 25% in two years. As soon as you can and prioritize the most crucial points when you write a title, particularly as readers are likely to be browsing your content at a rapid pace.
This latest attribute has been welcomed by webmasters and marketers, as they can now optimize their product titles even further in Google Merchant Centre. Experienced local SEO companies keep track of new features launched by Google or social media platforms to understand how it can impact their clients’ digital marketing campaigns.
Need support to implement result-driven digital marketing strategies?
Among the many local SEO companies, MedResponsive, our social media digital marketing company can handle all aspects of developing your brand’s social presence.
Contact us at (800) 941-5527. We can help you take your digital marketing campaign to the next level and personalize your campaign to match your brand and message.
Have you ever noted what Google displays for each query when you search? Many people instantly answer title and Meta description, but miss a 3rd aspect – Page URL. Similar to page titles, URLs also help describe a web page to search engines and potential audiences, which means a URL should be accurate, enticing, and well-structured. A well-optimized URL is important for both search engine optimization and user experience. Therefore, while you’re creating a new website or for an existing site, try to implement a search engine optimization-friendly URL structure that helps search engines make sense of each page.
What Is URL Structure?
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator), also known as permalink, is a webpage address that describes a resource and its location on a web page using simple words.
https://www.medresponsive.com/blog/
It is very important to structure your URL with simple words because it helps people know what the page is about, before landing on it. Moreover, the easier a URL is to read and understand, the better it will perform in search engine results.
URL Anatomy
A page’s URL is visible and used in web browsers, consists of many parts and the main part is made up of a domain name and/or subdomain name.
However, for SEO, the important part of an URL is the slug, that is the text that specifies a unique page or post. You have to choose a slug every time you create a page or post. Though most content management systems automatically create a URL when a new page or post is created, you can edit the slug portion to optimize it for search engines and users.
Why Is It Important to Have an SEO-friendly URL?
An SEO-friendly URL is important for both searchers and search engines, because:
It improves the user experience (UX)
It helps determine how to rank your page based on SEO factors
Though search engines consider many variables when ranking a page, URLs are high on the list. This is because, when search engines crawl a website, your website URLs are the first thing they look at. They will inspect the URL structure to see if it’s confusing or not.
In case the search engine doesn’t clearly understand a site’s URL structure, it is very likely that some of the website pages may not get indexed. Therefore, ideally, create an SEO-friendly URL structure; that too, before developing a website, because the changes might be hard to implement after a website goes live. Moreover, creating your URL structure in the pre-development stage of a website will save you the time and hassle.
Check out an example of an SEO-friendly URL: https://longisland.medresponsive.com/content-writing-services/
From the above URL, you know that the destination page is referencing what’s on the specific page, that is, the page refers to content writing services.
Neither Google nor your site visitors will appreciate a bad URL structure as it can make you end up with endless redirect loops. So, get your URL structure right by involving a complex blend of usability and accessibility factors, along with some good old-fashioned SEO.
How to Create SEO-friendly URL Structure?
Though there is no one-size-fits-all approach, from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective, there are some best practices that you can adopt and follow when creating an SEO-friendly URL structure and set your websites up for future SEO success. Let’s see six best practices for creating SEO-friendly URLs.
Accurately Describe the Page: While creating URLs, make sure you use words that accurately describes what your page is about. Include an accurate phrase or term that pertains to the page content so that users can make an accurate guess about the content simply by reading the URL.Moreover, having user-friendly URLs will benefit a website owner as it helps:
People remember them
Get a higher click through rate (CTR) from organic search
More relevant to the content
Use Target Keywords in the URL: One of the best URL practices and one that has the most direct impact on SEO (& UX) is having descriptive keywords in the URL. Including target keywords in the URL helps both search engines and humans understand the topic of the page. Make the keywords in your URL relevant to your resource and its content, so that it helps people assume what to expect when they click on it.Optimize every web page around one keyword, and include the exact keyword in the permalink portion of the URL.
While placing the keyword in the URL, make sure to place it in the beginning of the URL, as search engine spiders do not give as much significance to words toward the end of a URL.
Even though incorporating keywords is important, do not overuse it, because search engines recognize keyword stuffing and will penalize your website for those actions.
Make URLs Secure: Security is one of the most important aspects of your website, therefore, rather than using HTTP, protect your website’s integrity and your users who connect to it by using HTTPS. In fact, Google has stated that it uses HTTPS as a ranking signal, because, compared to HTTP, it is much more secure.
ImageSource:https://onpagechamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/chrome-security-warning.png
HTTPS is much valued by search engines, as they don’t want to be directing people to unsafe websites. By installing an SSL certificate, your site will be trustworthy, and you give users and search engines peace of mind while navigating your website.
Keep URLs Short: According to a study by Matthew Barby, the average URL length for pages which rank on #1 spot in Google search results is only 59 characters. Therefore, it’s better to have shorter URLs than longer URLs.
Imagesource:https://mk0apibacklinkov1r5n.kinstacdn.com/app/uploads/2019/02/good-url-example-960×304.png
There are many benefits of shorter URLs, such as
They are easier to remember.
They are easier to share on social media.
They provide improved search engine rankings.
Makes your website look much more reliable and authoritative.
Match your page content with user expectations.
With a shorter URL, you don’t run the chance of being cut off in organic search results, and can also avoid using unnecessary folders.
So, when it comes to your URL length, try to keep it to less than 100 characters, be more concise and cut out words around the keyword that aren’t needed for clarity. The shorter and more meaningful your URL, the more brand searches and direct traffic you’ll get from users who remembered it.
Use Less Folders in a URL: “Folders,” are simply the slashes you see between texts in a URL. Using a ton of folders makes your navigation more complicated, so it’s best to keep it simple with the number of folders you use in your URLs.To keep the URL structure simple and shorter, it’s recommended to use a maximum of two folders per URL. By doing so, you make your URL way more eye appealing, and easier for search engines to decipher the meaning.
Use Lowercase Letters in URLs: Though most modern servers treat capital and lowercase letters in URLs the same, some don’t. This could lead to duplicate URLs\ a 404 error and loss of page rank. Therefore, to be on the safe side, keep your website consistent with lowercase for all of the letters in your URLs.Image Source: https://onpagechamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/url-lowercase-letters.png
To help your site rank higher in search results and entice users to visit your pages, utilize these best practices for SEO-friendly URLs. But remember that Google likes to change the rules and to stay updated with the latest rules you have to keep your eye open for changes in the world of SEO. Relying on a professional digital marketing company would help you create SEO-friendly and optimized URLs that are necessary for your website and thereby attract more users to your site.
Google’s algorithms and ranking signals are aimed at recovering data from its search engine and instantly providing users with the best possible results for their query. This is accomplished by delivering webpages ranked by relevance on its search engine result pages (SERPS). A digital marketing company gets businesses on the first page of Google by helping them optimize their websites by keeping up with Google’s many ranking factors. Let’s take a look at Google’s major algorithmic updates over the past two years and their impact on search engine results.
2020 Updates
May 2020 Core Update
On May 4, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan announced on Twitter that Google would be rolling out a broad core algorithm update. This turns out to be a very broad global update and reports say it’s still underway, as Danny Sullivan hinted just after its release.
Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the May 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog post for more about that: https://t.co/e5ZQUAlt0G
– Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020
Search Engine Journal noted that this is the first core update since COVID-19. The pandemic has changed what people need from Google’s search results.
Google Search has never seen as many searches for a single topic continue over a sustained period as is happening now with COVID-19. Many searches are for news about what’s happening in local areas, such as sheltering updates or the latest on testing. Here’s how we’re helping….
– Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020
Certain things that were not important before gained search traffic. People are looking for information about the novel coronavirus, health services, where they can access remote services, or places they can buy products they need urgently. On the other hand, losers were searches related to travel, tourism, live entertainment, and in-person events, among others.
Since it was released, many search data companies reported its significant impact. Here’s a RankRanger chart that compares the impact of the May 2020 core update across different verticals:
SEMRush reported on volatility by industry as well as the winners and losers. Industries most impacted were travel, real estate, health, pets & animals, and people & society. The winners were local.com, yellowpages.com, superpages.com, businesswire.com, prnewswire.com, globenewswire.com, xe.com, mapquest.com, and gamekidgame.com. The losers were linkedin.com (quite significantly impacted on May 6), manta.com, allmusic.com, idaily.com, nypost.com, discogs.com, afiavillage.com, eventbrite.com, peoplepill.com and owler.com.
Featured Snippet De-duping – January 22, 2020
Google’s featured snippet is a promoted organic ranking or “Position Zero” that was introduced in 2014. Natural listings of web pages appeared in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (generally in the top 3-4). On January 22, 2020, Google announced that featured snippets would no longer be repeated in search results. Danny Sullivan tweeted that this change “declutters the results & helps users locate relevant information more easily”.
Danny Sullivan@dannysullivan
If a web page listing is elevated into the featured snippet position, we no longer repeat the listing in the search results. This declutters the results & helps users locate relevant information more easily. Featured snippets count as one of the ten web page listings we show.
Panic broke out and conversations abounded – what did this update imply for SEO? Well, rank-tracking and organic CTR were impacted.
Before this change, the featured snippet URL appeared also as the #1 organic result on desktop search, and in some cases, also in the second position of search results. The featured snippet update on Jan 22, Google dropped the normal URL for the website on Page 1 when its Featured Snippet is displayed. In other words, the featured snippet is now the top-ranking organic result, and this makes rank tracking a little complicated. It was felt that losing a top page organic ranking when you appear in the featured snippet could have a damaging effect on CTR.
SEOs started discussing whether it was time to start blocking featured snippets. Responding to a question, the deduplication would not change performance reports. As position zero featured snippets and organic position one were already counted as the top rank, a site that lost the organic number one position but retained the featured snippet would still get that listing counted as a number one ranked position.
2019 Updates
January 2020 Core Update – January 13, 2020
On Jan 13, 2020, Google announced the release of a core update dubbed the January 2020 Core Update.
The Jan 13 Core Update impacted all search results globally. Seven categories that suffered the most are: Health, Family & Community, Beauty & Personal Care, Finance, Internet & Telecom, Vehicles, and Law & Government. Health was the worst hit which is consistent with past experience with previous core updates.
Losses can occur in a core update. If you have been hit, what you need to do is assess your content to see that it is meeting visitors’ expectations, Make sure it’s accurate, up to date, and generally written in a way that demonstrates expertise. Sites impacted by one core update need to be vigilant as they are generally more likely to be impacted by subsequent core updates.
Bert – October 25, 2019 and December 9, 2019
On October 25, 2019, Google applied its Bert model to better understand search queries, calling it the biggest step forward for search in the past 5 years. BERT stands for bidirectional encoder representations from transformers and impacted both search rankings and featured snippets. Google said that Bert would be used on 10 percent of U.S. English searches.
On December 9, 2019, Bert was rolled out to over 70 languages worldwide with the aim to help Google “understand searches better than ever before”. And it did. With BERT, Google’s algorithms, for the first time, managed to grasp queries and the connections between words.
Here’s an example of Bert in action:
For the query “2019 brazil traveler to usa need a visa”, BERT helped Google understand that the query is about a Brazilian traveling to USA, not the other way around.
This update unleashed frenzy – how do you optimize for BERT, wondered SEOs. And Danny Sullivan replied in a tweet:
Broad Core Algorithm Update – September 24, 2019
On Sep 24, 2019, Danny Sullivan tweeted that Google was releasing a broad core algorithm update within a few hours and that the rollout would take a few days to complete.
Anecdotal evidence shows the results were mixed: some recoveries and mild wins and losses (10 to 20 percent), and nothing disastrous as in past updates. Some losers had low quality content and others who reported losses attributed it to links. Experts concluded that Google was indeed focusing on links.
Core Update – March 12, 2019
Google announced a broad algorithm update on March 12, 2019:
This week, we released a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see these tweets for more about that: https://t.co/uPlEdSLHoX https://t.co/tmfQkhdjPL
– Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 13, 2019
This core update had a far reaching impact across sites, categories, and countries. Starting on March 12, there was a massive surge in search visibility and a big drop. In addition to the health/medical niche, categories impacted included commerce, news publishers, lyrics, coupons, games, how-to, and more. Some sites with egregious anchor text repetition were hit hard, while rank monitoring tools showed that many sites that were hit by the August 1, 2018 update recovered. Google also clarified that this update and other recent core updates had nothing to do with any neural matching updates.
2018 Updates
“Medic” Core Update – August 1, 2018
Though Google called it a “broad core algorithm update”, the August 1, 2018 algorithm was nicknamed the “Medic Update” as it seemed to focus on health and medical sites. YMYL Your Money Your Life sites were also impacted. Google guidance was referenced from its previous core updates, and said that there’s “no ‘fix’ for pages that may perform less well – the only thing to do was to remain focused on building great content:
Google said that there is nothing you can do about the impact, but has been suggesting that you can continue to work on improving your website, improve content, and create a better overall user experience, which ultimately, would lead your site to rank better with the next update.
Mobile-First Index Roll-out – March 26, 2018
On March 26, 2018, Google confirmed the rollout of mobile-first indexing, which uses the mobile version of a page as the canonical version. It focuses on security, speed, mobile-friendly design, and mobile SEO across all services. Things got moving in September 2018 and mobile-first picked up the pace as Google sent out emails confirming the enablement of mobile-first indexing for a large number of domains. This change impacted businesses that did not have a responsive site with identical mobile and desktop content.
Dealing with Google’s algorithmic updates requires a comprehensive strategy. SEO experts know that these changes are part of the game and know what it takes to help sites avoid algorithmic penalties. And if sites do end up being impacted by Google’s actions, digital marketing gurus can help them regain their lost rank and traffic.
Digital marketing in healthcare as well as any other industry primarily focuses on providing better user experience. Search engine rankings are an important element of a good digital marketing strategy. Every website owner tries hard to make their pages reach the top of the Google search result pages. While rankings are important, you also need more people to click on your website in search engine results. High rankings for your main keywords may bring in consistent and relevant traffic that may help your website grow. While it is extremely important to rank well, this may not bring in the desired results if people don’t actually click through to your website from the SERPs. That is where the prominent role of “Google Search Sitelinks” come in. Google sitelinks are those links below the Google search results pointing to different pages of the website that take up to 90 percent of above-the-fold screen space. Site links are a great way to improve your click-through rate (CTR) which in turn brings more website traffic, thereby strengthening your SEO. What are Sitelinks or Google Sitelinks and in what ways can these links help your website – these important aspects are discussed in the blog in detail.
What Are Google Sitelinks?
Google sitelinks first appeared in 2005 and were officially announced in 2006. By 2007, these were a regular feature in search results. In simple terms, Google sitelinks are small sub-listings appearing under the primary search results on the SERPs (search engine result pages). These are internal links to the other pages or sections of a page in the website that come under SERPs, with a short description. Often found when performing a brand search, these links help users easily navigate to relevant information around a website quickly. Sitelinks help users to click on that specific part of the website content which interests them, rather than just clicking on the main URL and navigating to other sections. In addition, these links give users a complete and better idea about the content and areas on the website, which then helps them see the relevance to their particular query.
For instance, when we search for “Managed Outsource Solutions” on Google, we get the website and some of the links below it. The four given links under “managedoutsource.com” along with the “More results from managedoutsource.com” link are called “Sitelinks”. For instance, a user searching for “Managed Outsource Solutions” may not necessarily want to view the homepage. Rather, they might directly want to read information about the range of outsourcing services offered, which is given under the heading “Outsourcing Services”.
In short, sitelinks direct users to the best results within the shortest point of time. Also, these make your website more important in search results, which in a way may directly impact the branding side as well. However, an important aspect is sitelinks do not get displayed automatically. Google only displays them when they believe that these are highly relevant and helpful for the user. Google only selects the pages that get displayed within the sitelink portion and the site owners do not have any direct control over the process. However, website owners can take steps to optimize the website and improve their appearance on the page.
Why Should You Have Google Sitelinks?
Sitelinks are one of the most common features that appear in 1.8 percent of SERPs in the Ahrefs US database. It is estimated that about 67 percent of all organic keywords for Wikipedia.org contain sitelinks. There are several prominent reasons as to why sitelinks can benefit both a website and their visitors –
Improve Click-Through-Rate (CTR) – Click-through-rate (CTR) is the topmost factor that plays an active role in successfully generating organic traffic. A good CTR directly relates to the popularity of a link and how relevant it is to a particular search query. For instance, when a person conducts a simple brand search, sitelinks offer more significant and pertinent pages that may directly take them to their desired product or services. As per a study conducted by AWR, on an average basis, the first three results account for nearly 55 percent of all clicks. From there onwards, it tends to drop rapidly. Website searchers who get instant access to the specific pages they are looking for will be tempted to click through from the search engine. Higher the number of people who click on your website in the SERPs, the more consistently your website will rank for that specific search term which in turn gets reflected in your organic traffic.
A Sign of Trust and Credibility – Sitelinks displayed on a website are a sign that Google trusts that website. However, these links may not be displayed for all websites. Google displays sitelinks only for those search results which they think will be useful to the user’s queries. A poorly optimized or untrustworthy website will not have sitelinks displayed in the SERPs.
Help Browse Deeper Pages – Generally, when a user browses a website, chances are that they will search through their home page, product or service page and blog or article pages. With sitelinks, these popular page links will show up in search results, driving more traffic to the most important pages, helping to deliver leads like inquiries or subscriptions. Therefore, along with high CTR and SEO, sitelinks also help a website benefit from higher conversions.
Increase Brand and Product Awareness – From Google’s perspective, sitelinks usually link out to the most important pages on your website, considering the number of external and internal links. In most cases, these pages are chosen based on the website’s structure, content and the search term in question. Sitelinks are often product pages, pricing pages, about us pages or blogs which help educate users more about a website or company, products or services offered without even visiting your website.
Generating Good Sitelinks for Your Website – Tips
Getting sitelinks for your website involves no direct or fixed steps. Sitelinks, whether and when they appear, how or which links are chosen are all up to Google’s algorithms. However, like any other aspect of digital marketing and SEO services, there are certain best practices that can be followed to increase the chances of getting sitelinks –
Create a Unique Name for Your Website – One of the most important steps is to create a unique brand name for your website. As Google search sitelinks are mainly found for brand searches, creating a unique brand name will help you rank in the top position. For instance, if your website is called “The Cake Company”, chances are that it will never gain first result on the first page as the term is too generic. A generic name like this will struggle to rank, as it is quite hard for Google to know whether the user is searching for a cake company in general or this specific company as such. The best way would be to choose a brand name that is unique as this makes it easier for your website to rank higher and secure Google sitelinks. Without a strong brand presence, it is difficult to rank for a fairly generic name. On the other hand, rare company names can rank well and appear on the first page. For instance, the brand name “Apple” – is a good example of the same. Based on user intent, Google will be able to recognize that the searches performed are related to the brand “Apple” rather than the fruit. Therefore, if your company is already an established one, never change the name in order to better target SEO as this is a very complex task.
Link Source – https://bloggingwizard.com/google-sitelinks/
However, this example works only for bigger and established brands and not for smaller brands as they don’t have the leniency where generic brand names are concerned. Therefore, a strong brand presence is crucial for having a high rank for your generic name. A company which is in its pre-startup phase need to choose a name that is unique as this will help better rank in brand searches.
Use Structured Data – Structured data (also known as rich snippets or schema) helps Google to better understand your website and organization. While structured data can help improve your website’s appearance in the SERPs, by displaying review or event snippets, it can also help when it comes to sitelinks. Structured data can notify Google about the specific menu to consider for sitelinks, specify about or contact page and enable a sitelinks search box.
Ranking Brand Name at #1 in Search Results – Google sitelinks are mainly assigned to the very first page of the search results. Therefore, if you are to have a chance of getting those sitelinks, you need to be ranking at #1 page at search results. Make sure to take all essential steps like creating a unique brand name, auditing back links, checking online citations (like correct name, address, phone numbers and URL), content marketing tactics (like blogging) and marketing social media profiles and keeping them active may help strengthen your brand’s online presence to a great extent. For instance, if you are searching for the term “New York Times”, the American newspaper based in New York City is the one that gets the Google sitelinks. This is due to the superior ranking of “New York Times” at position #1. Therefore, reaching the number one rank can help you to easily get the sitelinks.
Focus on Building Internal Links – Internal links help Google to identify the topmost, important pages on your website. The more number of times you link an internal page on your website, the more important that page may appear to Google. For instance, if you frequently link website page to a specific product, contact us page or About Us page, these will be good candidates for sitelinks. Google may take that as a signal for judging the importance of that page. Building internal links not only help Google crawlers navigate your website in better way, but also helps users to move through the website, while engaging with your content.
Focus on Page Titles – One of the most important elements of SEO, relevant and effective page titles help Google to provide pertinent sitelinks. Google sitelinks are generated from page titles. Therefore, make sure that each page title gives a short but detailed description of the specific content of the page. On the other hand, irrelevant titles (with no connection with the page content) will be difficult to rank and affect SEO. For instance, you shouldn’t give the title “Get to Know Us Better” to your “About Us” page because this may confuse Google and you may get duplicate sitelinks.
Focus on Clear Website Structure and Navigation – Creating a website with complicated structure is difficult for both search engines like Google to crawl and users to easily navigate. Google won’t be able to assign sitelinks if they can’t find or understand the website pages. Make sure your website have an intuitive structure and use clear headings to organize pages and divide these pages in to different sub-categories wherever possible. Use standard web pages with details like – About, Contact and Product/Services as these are easily understood by Google.
Add an XML Sitemap in Google Search Console – An XML sitemap helps Google to easily crawl across your website pages. Including sitemaps will enhance the total coverage of your web pages and determine the most important pages on your website. Generally, Google responds based on the priority and the total amount of traffic that web pages receive. Therefore, those websites who have not yet included sitemaps on the Google Search console account can create one.
Create Brand Awareness – A positive brand reputation is a factor that Google considers to determine rankings. Generating awareness about your website name may help improve your site’s authority. The more number of people know your company by name, the more number of searches you will receive which in turn may increase the chances of getting sitelinks. There are several steps that can help create brand awareness which include – Guest blogging (on popular industry sites), receiving positive reviews and testimonials, participating in online community discussions, reaching out to online news outlets and giving expert interviews.
Sitelinks are one of the most important elements Google introduced to help users find all the essential information easily and quickly. These offer tremendous potential for websites to increase the SERP, boost branding and site traffic. But, like any other important aspect, getting sitelinks doesn’t happen easily. Website owners interested to take advantage of the benefits offered by sitelinks will carefully need to monitor their own website. They should have a clear understanding about the specific queries for which the domain appears in the top positions and track to see if the sitelinks appear for the brand. A basic understanding of the above-mentioned guidelines or factors can make a big difference to the performance of your website and increase their chances of earning sitelinks creating a boost in organic traffic and brand awareness.
If you wish to improve the sitelinks for your website, consult a reliable digital marketing company. Such companies may provide advanced digital marketing services that may help increase the volume and quality of traffic to your medical website, make your services available to a wider patient base and improve your revenue.
