Welcome to another insightful week with The SEOs Diners Club newsletter. Leveraging over a decade of SEO expertise, I aim to distill the week's most critical developments into a concise read that won't take more than ten minutes of your time. Let's dive into the insights that matter.

1️⃣ Google Search Console Insights Guide: SEO Insights

Improve your SEO performance using Google Search Console Insights. Optimize your site with detailed analysis and applicable tactics.

I've prepared a comprehensive guide on how Google Search Console Insights can be used to shape SEO strategies and understand your website's performance.

What Is Google Search Console Insights?

Google Search Console Insights pulls data from Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics and provides easy-to-understand reports. It offers five performance views and provides essential data for understanding user interactions with your site. These reports evaluate your content performance and give clear ideas on how you can improve your SEO strategies.

How to Access Reports?

Search Console Insights reports can be accessed from the following link at the top of the search console overview page.

What is the Content of the Reports?

• Achievements Report: Lists milestones for the site.

• Performance Report on Google: Provides a graph showing daily click changes from Google.

• Your Increasing Content Report: This shows the pages receiving more traffic and the number of clicks these pages received.

• Your Most Popular Content Report: Lists the 15 most popular pages across the site.

• How People Find You Report: The top search queries driving traffic to your website.

Tips for Understanding Reports

Reports contain hidden tips that explain how the data will be used. These tips are hidden behind a graduation cap icon in the upper-right corner of each report.

What is the Importance of Search Console Insights?

This tool illuminates your website's overall health and performance trends. Highlighting key metrics and insights helps all stakeholders, regardless of SEO knowledge, understand their website's trajectory and make more informed decisions about their SEO strategies.

Although the report is still in beta, the information presented is valuable to anyone looking to understand websites better and improve search performance.

2️⃣ 2023 Search Quality Raters' Guidelines Update from Google: Here's What's Changed

Explore updates to Google's 2023 Search Quality Raters Guidelines. Improve and optimize your SEO strategies with this new information.

Updates to Google's 2023 Search Quality Raters Guidelines include significant changes to better meet the user needs of search results.

These changes are significant for SEO experts because they provide insight into how Google evaluates search results and what is considered high-quality content.

Here are some highlights of these updates:

Meeting User Intentions and Needs:

Google is redefining what quality search results mean and helping quality evaluators understand why specific results are more valuable than others.

Evaluation of Forum and FAQ Pages:

The new updates provide more guidance on evaluating the quality of the forum and FAQ pages. New or missed posts are evaluated in different ways depending on the quality of the content.

Importance of Location:

The importance of the user's location in search queries is emphasized. There is a difference between queries with local intent and general questions.

Expansion of Minor Comments:

Google further explains the concept of “thin interpretations” for situations where a query may have multiple meanings. This includes less common meanings of search queries.

More Detailed Definitions of 'Know Simple' and 'Do' Queries:

It is stated that some query types are not "Know Simple" queries. These are queries that need a definite answer and can be answered in a short space of time.

Better Definition of User Intent:

Improbable user intentions are identified for specific keywords. This allows search intent to be evaluated within more reasonable limits.

Examples of Google's SERP Features Meeting User Needs:

Google provides examples that show how well it meets user needs for various search queries. This helps determine results that best meet user expectations.

These updates will help SEO professionals develop a better understanding of how Google evaluates search results and what their quality standards are. This information is critical in developing strategies to optimize websites' content and meet Google's quality expectations.

3️⃣ Google: Fix Technical Problems Before Chasing the 'Next Big Thing'!

Google emphasizes the importance of resolving technical issues before new trends in SEO. Focus on basic SEO and content quality.

In the recent Search Off The Record Podcast, Google's Search Engagement team highlighted the importance of resolving critical technical issues in our SEO strategies.

Here are some critical points I prepared based on advice from Google experts:

1. Focus on Basic Technical SEO: According to Google experts, essential technical SEO elements such as site navigability, indexing, and page rendering directly affect your site's performance in search results.

2. Prioritize Quality: High traffic does not always mean high quality. Google states that user engagement and satisfaction are more important in measuring the site's success.

3. Remember the Purpose of the Content: Google experts emphasize that the content should meet the users' needs. Your content should provide real value to your visitors.

4. Plan for the Long Term: SEO is a long-term investment. Google recommends constantly reviewing your site's health and performance and making the necessary improvements.

4️⃣ Impact of Latest Google Updates on News Sites

Google's latest updates and the effects of these changes on news sites. Strategic recommendations for news sites.

An article in Press Gazette examines the profound effects of recent Google updates on news sites.

Since September, Google has caused severe traffic changes on scaled sites with its search and Discover updates, especially with SEO articles.

These changes led to significant decreases in the sites' revenues. Google stated that the updates aimed to "show helpful and reliable results", but some sites were seriously damaged.

In this process, sites with excessive advertising, especially those that negatively affected the user experience, experienced traffic loss, while sites with fewer advertisements and subscription-oriented sites were less affected.

Google seems to be paying more attention to the quality and originality of content. This means it's time to review content strategies for news sites.

In this context, here are my recommendations for news website owners:

• Invest in Original Content:

Google's latest updates focus on original, original, and valuable content. Therefore, pay more attention to producing original content on your news site. Sites that are not frequently updated and contain outdated SEO content seem to suffer the most.

• Prioritize User Experience:

Overuse of ads and poor user experience can lead to traffic loss. Review the ad density on your site and focus on improving the reader experience.

• Follow Google Updates Closely:

Changes and updates to Google's search algorithm can directly impact your site's performance. Keep your site constantly updated by following these updates closely.

• Beware of Third-Party Content:

Google indicates that sites with third-party commercial content are negatively affected by these updates. If you include third-party content on your site, consider reducing the amount of it and focusing more on news content.

Finally, remember that as a news site, you need to constantly adapt and improve not to be affected by these updates. Google aims to provide its users with the most helpful and reliable results. As long as you act by this goal, such updates can positively affect you.

5️⃣ Free Backlink Tracking with Google Sheets and GA4

Monitor your backlinks for free with Google Sheets and GA4. Explore data transfer, customization, and automatic updates.

The importance of backlinks in the SEO world is indisputable. However, it is also of great importance to monitor these backlinks constantly and effectively.

When I saw the article published by Bengü Sarıca Dinçer on Wix SEO Hub, I felt proud of her as a Turkish SEO expert and wanted to share it with you.

The article explains creating an accessible and effective backlink tracking process using Google Sheets and Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Bengü Sarıca Dinçer shows step-by-step how to import backlink data from GA4, process this data in Google Sheets, and update it automatically. It also touches upon common problems and solutions that may be encountered. This guide contains valuable information, especially for SEO professionals with limited budgets.

6️⃣ Book Of The Week: “The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes” - David Robson

The book “The Intelligence Trap” is a striking work by David Robson detailing the misleading nature of intelligence and how intelligent people can make mistakes.

The book explains how prejudices and wrong ideas can mislead intelligent people and what should be done to avoid these traps.

Providing examples of the tendency of knowledgeable people to make irrational decisions, Robson also shows ways to act more intelligently by learning from these mistakes.

In addition to intelligence and experience, the book also addresses concepts such as strategic ignorance, meta-forgetfulness, and functional stupidity, offering the reader methods to protect against the potential pitfalls of intelligence.

“The Intelligence Trap” offers rich content to understand and avoid the traps that intelligent people tend to fall into. For SEO professionals, this book can be a valuable resource for developing complex problem-solving and strategic thinking skills.

I hope you enjoyed this week's SEOs Diners Club.

See you next week for a new episode of SEOs Diners Club full of new information, tactics, and strategies...

Have a great week, and goodbye!

Best,

Mert Erkal

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