The SEOs Diners Club - Issue #12 - Weekly SEO Tips & News

May 15, 2022

Here are the weekly SEO insights for the SEOs Diners Club members. In addition, you can also join our free SEO Diners Club network to ask questions and share your thoughts on these topics and more.

Practical SEO Guide for Beginners — E-Book | Niobe Hosting

I recommend you to read this SEO ebook I wrote for beginners.

Today, over 90% of online experiences start with a search engine like Google. So if your website is not well optimized for search engines and users, you are missing out on site visitors, leads, and revenue.

With the SEO Guide for Niobe Hosting, you can learn everything you need to know to get started with SEO and get profitable results. (Unfortunately, only in Turkish at the moment)

Hazırladığımız SEO Rehberi ile SEO'ya başlamak ve kârlı sonuçlar elde etmek için bilmeniz gereken her şeyi öğreneceksiniz. Hemen sepetinize ekleyin!

Google I/O Search Console Update: New Report for Indexed Videos

Google will soon add a new report to the Search Console that provides more data on the indexing status of videos.

On the second day of Google's annual I/O conference, the company previewed new reports coming to Search Console to provide more data about videos.

To make video indexing easier to monitor and diagnose, Google will soon add new datasets to Search Console.

If you publish videos on your site and flag them with structured data, you can use the Search Console to check if the markup is valid and how many impressions a video has received.

You'll soon be able to use Search Console to check the indexing status of videos and the landing pages they appear on.

You can find the details in the following blog post:

One of the few sessions at Google I/O on Google Search was presented by John Mueller, who you all know, and also Dikla Cohen, a Technical Solutions Consultant at Google. This covers some of the more basics around Google Search Console, some of the newer features released - all of which you should all know about if you read this site daily.

Should You Quit AMP? 4 Ideas to Help You Make a Decision

AMP is apparently on the decline. Search Engine Journal has summarized the pros and cons to help you consider whether an alternative might be more appealing.

Major media outlets are saying goodbye to AMP, and many believe they can increase revenue without it.

Some major publishers, such as Vox Media LLC and BDG, have moved away from AMP and used proprietary resources to develop their solutions. Additionally, smaller sites also want to invest in alternatives to AMP, such as leveraging tools like Prism.

But since every publisher and website has different needs, it's worth asking if AMP is as useless as it sounds.

Here's what website owners should consider when deciding whether to switch:

Thought 1: Will an Alternative to AMP Boost Search Rankings?

Consideration 2: Will an Alternative to AMP Improve User Engagement?

Thought 3: Does an Alternative to AMP Increase Revenue?

Consideration 4: Which Alternatives to AMP are Easy to Install and Use?

You can find detailed answers to these questions in the following blog post:

With AMP seemingly on the way out, we outline the pros and cons to help you consider whether an alternative is more appealing.

Google Updated Recommendations On How To Check For Titles In Search Results

The updated support page includes a new troubleshooting section to help diagnose why Google is rewriting title tags.

Google Search Center has updated a section of its developer support page that offers tips on how to control the site title Google uses in search results. In addition, the new section is about troubleshooting title tags to determine why Google changed the title links.

Google also provides a list of things to check that could cause Google to write its header link.

Half-empty <title> elements</title> — This means missing title tags

Legacy <title> elements</title> refer to title tags that have not been updated to reflect information changed on a web page, such as a date.

Incorrect <title> elements</title> — Google recommends that title tags accurately describe what the page is about. Google provides an example of a title tag that is too detailed and doesn't provide a high-level description of what the page is about

Micro-standard text in <title> elements</title> occurs when multiple pages are about similar things. Still, the title tag doesn't reasonably specify what's different from all the pages in the group.

Google cited an example of web pages about a television show that repeats the show's name on every page while skipping further information that distinguishes one page from another.

No clear main title — This is about the title elements on the page. As stated earlier, the main title should be different from all other titles on the page.

It would be beneficial for you to review and update the page titles on your site in line with these criteria.

Updated support page adds a new troubleshooting section for helping diagnose why Google is rewriting title tags

Google's Digital Marketing Certification Course Includes Keyword Count and Keyword Density Recommendations for SEO

Google's new digital marketing certification program includes interesting suggestions about SEO.

Although Google spokespersons have stated that they will not be preparing a certification program that covers SEO-related topics, a new Google digital marketing certification program includes the SEO topic.

Get the job-ready skills you need to kick-start your career in digital marketing and e-commerce with a professional certificate developed by Google.

Not only that, Google employees who added SEO to the marketing certification program gave us the content length and keyword suggestions about SEO that we are not used to hearing from Google.

It is seen that Google employees included the following statements in a slide prepared for the course.

“write 300+ words on your webpage; the higher the quality content you write, the more likely your webpage will rank higher in search engine results pages.”

Also, “keep your keyword density below an industry standard of 2%; 2% or less of the words on the web page should be target keywords”.

Of course, veteran SEO spokespersons immediately denied this. Any way you look at it, it is strange and contradictory for Googlers to share such details about the algorithm in a course. When the event got more prominent, Google found the solution by removing the relevant slide from the course program :)

Yesterday we reported that Google's SEO section of its digital marketing coursework for its certification program spoke about the importance of keyword density and word count. Well, within 24 hours, Google has removed that content from the coursework.

PageSpeed ​​Insights Adds New Lighthouse Speed ​​Metrics

The new metrics provide more detail on server speed and a better representation of page performance.

Lighthouse has been updated with two new metrics.

  • Interaction to Next Paint (INP )

It is a brand new metric that Google calls “overall interaction latency”, showing how long it takes to interact with the entire page.

INP metrics show how long it takes to interact with the entire page, unlike First Login Lag, which only measures how long it takes for the page to respond to a site visitor's first interaction.

  • Time to First Byte (TTFB)

Many of you must already be familiar with Time to First Byte.

The Time To First Byte (TTFB) metric measures how quickly the server responds to a resource request.

Therefore, the importance of this metric is that it helps isolate a factor (server responsiveness) that could harm all subsequent page load metrics.

This makes TTFB an essential measure to review for diagnostic purposes.

Anyone focused on improving vital Web Data should look at TTFB for a possible quick win.

What has changed about TTFB is that it was first presented as a metric in the PageSpeed ​​Insights results section.

Chrome will also collect and report TTFB field data for the first time.

New metrics improve feedback on server-related speed and provides a more comprehensive representation of page performance than previously available

6 Image Optimization Tips from Google

Google has shared six ways to make your website load images faster and more efficiently.

Alan Kent from the Google developer team shared visual optimization tips for e-commerce websites. While the video is explicitly aimed at e-commerce sites, these recommendations apply to any website with many images.

Here are six methods suggested in the video:

1. Eliminate Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

2. Size Your Images Right

3. Use the Best Image File Format

4. Compress Images Properly

5. Load Images Into Browsers' Cache

6. Sort Your Image Downloads Correctly

You can find detailed explanations in the article below:

Google shares six ways to make your website load images faster and more efficiently.

Google: What to Do About SPAM Links From “Malicious Domains”

Google's John Mueller answered a question about handling unsolicited SPAM backlinks.

You can find John Mueller's answers in the blog post below.

To summarize;

  • Links to 404 pages are ignored by Google and have no effect, neither bad nor good.

  • If disavowing (rejecting), SPAM links doesn't work in a few months; then the real problem is something else, not the links.

  • Be open-minded that the problematic site is not perfect, and there is an issue with this site that needs to be diagnosed.

Google's John Mueller answers a question about how to handle unwanted spammy backlinks

8 Engaging Infographic Types and Ways to Create (5 Free Tools)

Infographics are in vogue, but how can you make yours stand out? Try the types in this post and check out the free tools you can use to make them.

This week, I discovered the article, which you can find in the link below. Of course, everyone wants to make an infographic, but you don't know exactly where to start. There are so many beautiful infographics that one inevitably thinks that one cannot produce good enough infographics to compete with them.

You can create simple infographics by examining the types mentioned in the article and the methods and tools for preparing these types. You may be able to master it over time.

Infographics are all the rage but how can you make yours truly stand out? Try these different types and check out free tools you can use to make them.

Book of The Week: "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" - Greg McKeown

More than one million copies sold! Essentialism isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done.

Have you ever:

• found yourself stretched too thin?

• simultaneously felt overworked and underutilized?

• felt busy but not productive?

• felt like other people’s agendas constantly hijack your time?

If you answered yes to any of these, the Way of the Essentialist is the way out.

Essentialism is more than a time-management strategy or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is essential, then eliminating everything that is not so that we can make the highest possible contribution to the things that matter.

By forcing us to apply more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy—instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.

Essentialism is not one more thing—it’s a whole new way of doing everything. It’s about doing less, but better, in every area of our lives. Essentialism is a movement whose time has come.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less [McKeown, Greg] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

I hope you enjoyed my weekly SEO insights. Hope to see you next Monday in the new episode. I wish you all a great week.

Best,

Mert Erkal