Checking a site’s indexing status on Google is a key step in getting to rank and get visits from search engines. But how exactly does indexing work?

How does website indexing work?
Google uses programs called bots (spiders or crawlers) to scan the web for new content. Through links they go from one piece of content to another and include them in their archives. Periodically, they go through such paths again to discover new content and variations of pre-existing content.

The scanned content is included in the list of sites from which the search engine can choose those potentially to return to users’ searches. Google “fishes” from the sites included in its archives to generate result pages to offer to visitors. The order of the results is called “ranking” and is determined by Google’s algorithms through evaluations based on a large number of parameters.

Google performs indexing of websites for free and spontaneously. However, it does not happen under all circumstances; certain conditions can make it difficult for crawlers to access or store content.
Indexing can be hindered:

• by special instructions on the page (noindex meta tag) or in the robots.txt file
• by technical problems that prevent crawlers from viewing content
• by the presence of identical duplicate content

To ensure that indexing occurs correctly, check that the page contains enough text to be read, and that it is unique, i.e., not a duplicate of an already indexed page. In this case it may happen that the new content is excluded from Google’s results. In addition, the presence of duplicate content risks causing Google’s crawlers to consume unnecessary resources that it cannot use to crawl other pages. Google assigns a “crawl budget” to each site, a maximum limit of resources it allocates for crawling, and wasting it on resources that are not useful will affect the quality of indexing.

To speed up indexing you can link the pages of the site through internal links: in fact, crawlers move from one page to another through links this favors the passage of bots to the deep content of the site and makes indexing more complete.

To check whether a site is indexed, you can:

• check from tools such as Google Analytics whether it gets visits from search engines
• type into Google the formula site: followed by the content address without www (e.g., site:webhero.co.uk/page-of-example)

How to index a site on Google?
By now you may be wondering: how can you index a site on Google?

First of all, if you haven’t already done so, you can activate a Gmail email address, which you can use to sign up for Google Search Console. GSC is a Google service that allows you to manage various technical aspects of your site, including indexing.

If you want to index a particular URL (such as new content) you can enter its path in the URL Inspection tool. If the page is not indexed, it will reply that “The URL is not found on Google” and you can request a crawl.

This is still a technique to adopt to speed up the discovery of particularly important content, but it should not make up for a recurring difficulty in indexing.

If this occurs, the source of the problem must be identified in order to correct it and restore a proper crawling opportunity for crawlers.

To facilitate indexing, we can help Google by providing it with an actual list of pages to scan.

The sitemap is a map that lists all the pages on the website. This file greatly aids Google in learning what content is on the site and speeds up the inclusion of items in its archives.

To create the sitemap you can use plugins such as:

• Google XML Sitemaps
• Yoast SEO
• Rank Math

which allow you to quickly create a sitemap of the site’s files.

It is not only about indexing a website, but also about optimizing its content to make it easily understandable and valuable to search engines.

For this reason you may need the help of an SEO consultant, a professional who can guide you through the recommended procedures to make your website easily understandable and authoritative for search engines.

The post What is indexing and how to index a website appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Today, making a website is a goal potentially within everyone’s reach. This is thanks to WordPress, an open source – therefore free – platform for creating websites, with no need to know how to program. However, WordPress is also a treasure trove of secrets and advantages all waiting to be discovered!

What is WordPress
WordPress is universally recognized as the easiest technology for creating and managing websites: more than 40 percent of websites are built on this platform, and there are already more than 18 million installations worldwide.

It is an open source content management system licensed under the GPLv2 license, meaning it is accessible to all for use and modification. The great notoriety of WordPress lies in the fact that anyone can make use of it without necessarily knowing HTML and PHP programming (although of course mastery of these languages allows one to make more pronounced changes that meet one’s needs). The interface of WordPress is particularly intuitive, making it a suitable choice for those who do not understand programming.

WordPress initially began as an affordable tool for creating blogs, but over the years features and customization possibilities have been added, making it a website creation system suitable for both large and small companies. It is used nowadays to create professional and amateur sites, showcase sites, blogs, ecommerce, landing pages, forums and others.

WordPress was created in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little from an earlier platform known as b2/cafelog. All but the first version is named after a famous jazz musician (in fact, as soon as you activate it, a plugin called Hello Dolly, the title of a Louis Armstrong song, appears).

How WordPress works
WordPress is developed with PHP, a programming language designed for dynamic pages. WordPress makes use of a MySQL database and is published under the GNU (General Public License).
WordPress is available in two versions:

• WordPress.org, the free and open source version that you can install on your web host to create a website that is 100 percent yours. It has many resources to take advantage of, such as plugins and guides. With this version you can make the most of the platform’s potential and carry out SEO and user experience optimization.
• WordPress.com: a free online version but of which you do not own. In fact, it presents a third-level domain and big limits to customization. Therefore, it is not a convenient choice when you want to activate a professional project to be fully managed.

WordPress – The Advantages
Why is WordPress a suitable choice for anyone who wants to start a website?

1.Free website creation platform
2.Intuitive interface, even without knowledge of programming
3.Ability to make changes
4.Presence of a large number of plugins – including free ones – to expand functions
5.Easily optimized on the SEO side
6.Guaranteed reliability (as a result of its notoriety)

WordPress is a CMS that is very easy to install and even easier to manage, even for those without development skills. The text editor is particularly intuitive and makes it easy to plan, organize and publish content. As an open source CMS, it does not belong to the agency building the website on behalf of the client, so it remains in the hands of the client.

The CMS provides a huge number of themes-many of them free-of charge-from which we can choose the one that best suits our needs. They are very easily installed and can be replaced just as easily. The large amount of themes available allows us to choose those that are definitely responsive, whose size of the elements therefore adapts according to the display that is viewing it.

Since it is an open source platform we can constantly take advantage of new features, security updates, made available by thousands of developers worldwide. As a free platform therefore it is affordable for all budgets and therefore does not incur costs on website development.

In fact, new versions are released periodically including updates in functionality and security defense.

In addition, those who understand programming can personally add changes to the HTML and PHP code to add the desired features. A responsive website is a fundamental condition for selling online and satisfying its users.

WordPress is very intuitive in SEO optimization already by default. However, plugins specifically designed to introduce the information needed to make pages relevant on search engines can be added.

WordPress was not created specifically to manage online stores, but it is possible to add an extension called Woocommerce, which allows it to be declined explicitly into a version dedicated to sales. In this way, the platform can be made perfectly responsive to the needs of sellers.

WordPress – The Disadvantages
The platform is improvable from the point of view of permissions and roles, which other CMSs handle more extensively. However, it is not always the best choice, especially when you have to manage complex projects and in multiple languages.

Moreover, being as mentioned the most popular platform for building websites, it is the most prominent target of hackers, who especially leverage outdated versions of plugins to exploit security holes. For this reason, it is necessary to periodically upgrade plugins to ensure that hackers do not exploit flaws in outdated versions.

How to install WordPress
Installing WordPress requires:

• Access to a server
• A text editor
• An FTP client such as Filezilla to transfer files

To install WordPress follow these steps:

• Make sure your web host meets the minimum requirements to run WordPress;
• Download the latest release of WordPress;
• Unzip the downloaded file to a folder on your computer;

Choose a secure password for your Secret Key;

The five steps to install WordPress are:

• Make a download of the WordPress file in .zipper format.
• Generate a WordPress database and user
• Configure wp-config.php
• Upload your WordPress files via FTP
• Activate the WordPress installer

From the dedicated WordPress page you download the latest version of WordPress from the blue button provided.

Then you need to ascertain whether you need to decide whether to create a database and a WordPress user (some hosting allows you to skip this step).

The database and user can be created via web hosting control panel (such as Plesk or cPanel). By following the respective instructions we can get to creating the database and user without too much difficulty.

At this point we need to configure wp-config.php so that WordPress can connect to the database.

We need to rename the file wp-config-sample.php with the name wp-config.php.

Open the text file with your editor of choice and look for this line:

// ** MySQL settings – You can have this info from your web host ** //.

A number of settings will appear below.

The DB_CHARSET and DB_COLLATE options should not be changed.

You must make this set of changes instead:

• DB_NAME – Change “database_name_here” to the name of your database.
• DB_USER – Change “username_here” to your username
• DB_PASSWORD – Change “password_here” to your password
• DB_HOST – Change “localhost” to your host name (usually localhost)

In the * Authentication Unique Keys and Salts section you need to indicate a set of secret keys, which in this way will be customized to your case and not easily

identifiable. At that point save the files and proceed to upload them to the hosting.

Provision to enter the hosting via FTP, through the credentials provided by the hosting itself.

WordPress plugins to know about
WordPress has countless plugins developed to meet certain needs. Let’s look at some of the most important ones. Plugins can be added or deactivated with a simple click, but don’t overdo it: as the number of plugins installed increases, site performance drops. In addition, plugins can conflict with each other, so be careful which and how many of them you activate.

Maintenance
Maintenance is a plugin that allows us to make the site inaccessible to users, providing instead a customizable screen that informs the execution of interventions at the moment.

Thanks to this plugin we can inhibit visits while we perform some intervention within the site (e.g., rewrite text, change images or redefine the structure).

BackupWP
Unfortunately, unforeseen things happen, and it is not impossible to end up with your site compromised, either because of hacker intervention, some update gone wrong or some thoughtless intervention. The plugin allows you to save a copy of your site content (themes, plugins, media, etc.) in an internal folder and then download it or transfer it to an external service e.g. Dropbox. The database is downloaded in zipper format and then can be conveniently re-uploaded.

Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a plugin that allows us to take care of the SEO optimization of a website, adding to the content that information that makes it relevant to search engines.

We can then manage the SEO fields of pages such as title, description, search engine submission. It also allows us to easily create and update the sitemap and set other general SEO rules for the site.

Alternatively, plugins with similar functions such as All in one SEO and Rankmath are available.

Akismet
Akismet is the most popular anti-spam plugin. It can detect and block something like 90% of fake and spam comments and classifies them as unwanted, making sure that they are not mixed with healthy ones.

Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is the world’s most popular contact form plugin. It is a simple and intuitive feature that is definitely flexible and can be integrated with CAPTCHA control and Akismet filtering.

Google Analytics by MonsterInsights
This plugin, in addition to Google Analytics data, offers interesting features for measuring website performance.

Google XML Sitemaps
Google XML Sitemaps allows you to easily create and update your WordPress site sitemap to speed up search engine indexing.

Broken Link Checker
This plugin allows you to identify broken links within your site. Broken links are not useful for surfers and lower the time spent on the site. This way we can detect them more easily and correct them.

Lazy Load by WP-Rocket
Allows you to enable “lazy loading” of images, that is, loading them only when the user scrolls to where they are. This lightens the page loading time since it is not necessary to make them appear from the beginning.

Wordfence
Wordfence is a plugin that allows you to implement a reliable firewall to protect your site and a malware scanner to identify and block possible intrusions. The plugin allows you to set many limits on login IPs, disable login attempts after a certain number, block suspicious changes to plugins, and report all suspicious activities that endanger the security of the site.

Wp Super Cache
A foolproof plugin for increasing site performance. The plugin creates a cached copy of the site to increase page loading speed.

Alternatively, other plugins are available to speed up the site such as W3 Total Cache.

Related Post Thumbnails
This plugin allows you to show other content below articles by customizing the preview appearance.

Redirection
Over time it happens that we find ourselves in the need to change the URL address of a page (the path that identifies it on the web), or that a piece of content becomes unreachable and we need to redirect visitors to another destination.

Redirection is a plugin that allows you to redirect visitors from one URL to another. All you need to do is indicate the starting and ending page and you’re done.

Woocommerce
Woocommerce is an open source plugin designed to build online ecommerce of various sizes through WordPress. It currently has millions of installations and is renowned for its simplicity of operation. It allows you to easily manage pricing, orders, shipping and customers. It also offers in turn the ability to add plugins to optimize functionality and add specific features such as courier shipment tracking.

Buddypress
Buddypress is a plugin designed to manage a community from a WordPress site. It allows users to register a profile and interact through groups and private messages.

As you can see, WordPress is definitely a beneficial platform for those who intend to manage a website, especially for those who, lacking programming skills, would not know how to do it otherwise.

The post WordPress: guide, advantages, functions and plugins to know appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

What is Yandex Metrica?
Yandex Metrica is an online tool produced by Yandex made to analyze user behavior. It is a tool that allows you to refine the analysis of information related to site behavior. Thanks to such data it is possible to increase the conversion capacity and therefore the sales of the website.

The tool is available in English, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish languages.

Why use Yandex Metrica?
Why use Yandex Metrica when you already have Google Analytics available? Primarily because it can offer more specific information regarding the behavior of users on the site and those factors that reveal their liking or disliking. Thanks to this platform we can analyze the clicks performed on the portal, go into detail about traffic and behavior, and extract the information in the form of convenient customized reports in PDF, Excel or CSV.

A great advantage is the ability to segment traffic at the level of devices, type of users, source of visits, etc. – to obtain important data for site evaluation. For example, we can identify where users’ attention is most focused, to place call-to-actions with greater effect.

The benefits of Yandex Metrics

• Allows you to analyze traffic by geography and sources
• Ability to obtain very accurate traffic data
• Allows you to understand behavior on each area of the site and identify the areas that attract the most attention
• Helps to understand what length is most appropriate for a page
• Helps identify phenomena behind interruptions in the buying process
• Allows you to create easily customizable reports

How to use Yandex Metrics?
To use the tool, as with Google Analytics, we need to create an account copy the code within the site. If we have a WordPress site we can make use of the appropriate plugin.

Keep in mind that the Yandex code must be installed on all pages that you intend to monitor. Otherwise they will be shown in the navigation as empty.

Also thanks to Google Tag Manager you can implement Yandex on your site via a simple portion of custom HTML code.

From Yandex then you will need to create a new counter from the Add Counter item and enter the required information:

• Counter name
• Website domain
• Time zone and currency
• Session duration
• Accept the terms of use and then click “Create Counter”.

You can also set advanced collection and editing filters. The counter has a yellow or red circle. When properly installed it will change to green color.

When you are ready, you can try Yandex Metrica.

The dashboard of Yandex Metrica
Yandex Metrica presents a very intuitive operation. Its dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of information about the website.

The dashboard among the information proposes:

• Total users
• New users on the site
• Traffic origins
• The average age of visitors
• Devices used to navigate
• Average age of users
• The various sources of traffic
• Data on visits: dwell times, bounce rate, behavior on pages

Yandex Metrics also is easily customizable in the way it offers information. In fact, we can add preset or tailor-made boxes (widgets) to bring useful information to our case. The information then can be made gradually more detailed according to the degree of specificity our analysis needs.

The information is generally saved for two weeks.

Yandex Metrica Maps
Click Map
The click map gives an idea of how successful the buttons on the site are at attracting attention and prompting users to use them. From this data we can deduce whether we should change them in terms of location or layout.

Link Map
This is a heat map that takes on warmer tones in areas where users click more and cooler tones in places where there is less interaction.

Scroll map
This map highlights the areas that receive the most attention: areas tending toward red are the most viewed and areas tending toward blue are where users linger the least. The further down users go to look for information (scrolling) the more it is a sign of interest in the content.

Form Analysis
Contact form analysis allows users to check how well contact forms and their fields work. It is represented through a conversion funnel and returns us data on conversions, form usage and submissions. This item gives us an idea of the site’s conversion rate using the forms.

Session Replay
Session Replay is a command that allows you to record in the form of an unlimited number of videos a user’s visit session on the site. To use it, one simply needs to click on the Play button. The tool returns us data on the origin of visits, country, activities on the site, duration, number of pages viewed, etc. The table columns can be modified to meet the user’s preferences. Before viewing the video, we can view the browser, device and search engine used, duration of browsing, and other useful data.

From the traffic analysis, divided by categories, we can analyze the user experience and understand whether it can be improved by acting on text or graphics.

In the dark column on the left we can click on Settings and set the user monitoring features. In addition, Yandex Metrica is a tool that does not violate privacy rules as regulated by the GDPR.

As you can see, Yandex Metrica is an important qualitative and quantitative analysis tool for analyzing site performance from the perspective of user satisfaction and engagement developed. However, Google Analytics is still the most widely used platform with the largest amount of information available, so giving up on it to focus only on the competitor can reduce to a disadvantage for us. Nothing prohibits us from using both!!!

The post Yandex metric: What it is used for and how it works appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Want to get started with your own online site? One affordable way is to host advertisements, so you can earn a percentage of the amount advertisers pay to have the ads appear. But how do you go about getting ad proposals and handling payments? An easy way is to affiliate with Google Adsense!

What is Google Adsense?
Google Adsense is a free platform that allows you to run advertisements to promote your products and services much more effectively.

Google Adsense allows you to earn money by showing advertisements relevant to the tastes of site visitors. advertisers pay to have their advertisements appear and promote their products.

Publishers can choose which sites to have ads appear on, block unwanted ads, and change the appearance of ads to make them appear more effectively.

Google Adsense banners allow you to earn money through visits to your site and advertisers to reach an audience they would otherwise be precluded from.

Each click corresponds to a profit margin for the owner of the site where the visit was made. The payment comes not from Google but from the advertisers, who shell out a certain amount for each click received by the ad. The available spaces are sold using an auction system that guarantees the highest bidder the opportunity to have his or her ad appear on the site in question. Google, for its part, checks the ads produced to ensure that they are suitable for minors and comply with its rules of use. earnings are commensurate with either the number of clicks obtained or the impressions (views) accrued. Each click corresponds to a certain number of cents in dollars or euros in earnings. Google makes a transfer when the threshold of $100 (70 euros) is exceeded.

Google Adsense: what it is used for
Google Adsense allows us to manage the appearance of:

• rich media ads
• headline ads
  responsive ads
  display ads
  matching ads

Google Adsense ads are managed by the platform’s algorithm so that they are shown based on the topic of the sites in question. For example, if we talk about reviews of home appliances on our site, reasonably enough ads will be presented pertaining to products of this kind.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine a priori what the earnings from the ads will be. Revenue may depend on the types of ads enabled, the traffic that the site in question generates, the price of ads posted, and which Adsense products are used. Adsense automatically places ads on the site based on agreed availability. The platform’s auction system provides those who win the highest bid the right to appear in the circuit’s selected site.

How do Google Adsense ads work?
Ads are allocated according to an auction system: customers set a price they are willing to pay to have ads appear on certain sites. The various requests are competed and Google’s system determines which ads are likely to generate better returns for publishers and a better browsing experience for users. Ad yield is determined by the number of clicks obtained by the ads and based on the type of ad put up.

The platform informs the client of the yield achieved based on clicks and the type of ads tuned, daily clicks, and visit statistics.

The site owner must beware of clicking their own ads and having their friends do so. You must fill out your profile with all the required information and to be careful about the content on your own site.

How much does Google Adsense cost?
Adsense is a free platform. To be precise, it is Adsense that pays those who host ads, from the price paid by advertisers to have their ads hosted.

How to start earning with Google Adsense?
Google Adsense is easy to implement. To make your site eligible to host ads, you must implement a code provided by the platform. Advertisers compete with an auction system to appear on the site. The highest bid wins the right to appear on the site. Google then takes care of the billing system to get the earnings from the ads to the owner of the host site.

To apply to host ads, you can carry out the appropriate registration process. The platform will verify that the portal complies with the rules of the program. Publishers must comply with Adsense’s rules, otherwise they may have their accounts disabled. Adsense reserves the right not to have its ads appear that violate its rules of use. It is up to the site owner to keep abreast of the affiliate program’s usage rules.

Of course you can see the ads on your site, but you cannot click on them to simulate more clicks, as this is not a rule allowed by the Adsense usage rules. Site owners however can decide which ads to enable on their portal and which not. From Adsense’s Ad Blocking page we can decide whether to block specific ads from appearing.

To make good money you’ll want to develop your website around a very specific niche, so that it steadily gains more visibility and traffic grows accordingly. The amount of content on the site is not necessarily commensurate with the traffic that can come in on the ads. On the contrary, so many pages can lead to scattered visits and self-cannibalization. Better to focus on a number of quality content that is truly useful to the user and can attract visits on ads more consistently.

Arrange the spaces on your site intelligently so that they are visible and attract clicks. Colors should be highly visible so that they attract attention. Place few slots so that the space you have is used effectively. Ads must not be camouflaged or they will be banned from Adsense. Ads on the contrary must be clearly visible without annoying the user or taking up too much space in a harassing way. To earn as much money as possible it is advisable to place a few ads in a very visible place on the site, so that they attract as many clicks from visitors as possible.

The largest ad is not always also the one that is right for us. On some sites, the arrangement of elements is such that a large banner attracts attention without disturbing the view. In other cases, for the same size, the banner hinders navigation and therefore deters users from clicking, and perhaps prompts them to leave the site.

Google Adsense of course is a professional platform and, to render at its best, requires advanced skills. If you don’t feel you can use it effectively and are afraid of throwing away time and money, contact us for advice!

The post Google Adsense: what it is, how it works and how to earn money appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Are you tired of waiting days and days for your content to be discovered by search engines? There is finally a tool that can help you index your website content much faster.

IndexNow is a newly evolved protocol active since November 2021 that promises to make indexing content on the Web much faster. It is an open source protocol open to all search engines that would like to make use of it.

It is a signal that allows associated search engines to prioritize content crawling on new items or changes made, thus operating more efficiently.

This immediate indexing technology is currently supported at Microsoft and Yandex. Microsoft urges content creators to implement this mode to speed up the crawling of items and reduce the efforts of crawlers to discover new content. Other entities such as Wix and Duda plan to implement this model

How does IndexNow work?
IndexNow works like a ping that notifies search engines that a piece of content has been produced, updated, or deleted.

Also of note is that the single notification is received by all associated search engines, thus making it immediate to inform all of them of the change.

This is a useful tool both for content creators-who can notify search engines of new content that has been produced-and for search engines to focus their resources only on what actually needs to be indexed.

IndexNow allows users to generate a key in a text file (named with the key value) in the root of the site and begin sending URLs as they are added or removed. Microsoft makes it known that sending the URL consists of nothing more than an HTTP request containing the new URL and key.

To use IndexNow just follow these simple steps:

• Generate a key with the online generation tool
• Include the key in a text file in the root of the site
• Submitting URLs when they are added, changed or removed

Submitting consists of sending a simple HTTP request through

• https://www.bing.com/IndexNow?url=url-changed&key=your-key for Bing
• https://yandex.com/indexnow?url=url-changed&key=your-key for Yandex

One or more URLs can be submitted per API call. As a mode therefore it presents itself from the use particularly intuitive and affordable. In this case then the contributors have an active role of making sure that their content is indexed, rather than simply relying on “passive” crawling. There is a limit of 10,000 URLs per day that can be crawled.

Advantages of IndexNow

• Fast and free procedure for indexing new content
• Allows users to speed up indexing of content
• Allows search engines to save crawling resources
• Reduces crawl requests to websites
• Provide users with fresh content
• Webmasters need only report once, as the call is shared to all associated search engines

IndexNow: why to use it
IndexNow is a real godsend for those who need to speed up, compared to the usual time, the crawling of their content.

Resorting to Indexnow however is not of itself a guarantee that web pages will actually be indexed.

From Google’s point of view, however, it is a superfluous tool, as Big G claims that it is perfectly capable of coping with indexing requests and that it has reduced the time it takes to discover new content However, webmasters testify that delays in getting their content stored are not uncommon.

In November, however, Google let it be known that it will test the protocol applied by Bing and Yandex.

Microsoft Bing recently released a plugin that makes it easier to make use of this protocol. The plugin automatically reveals and flags URLs.

Meanwhile, IndexNow is catching on; more than 60,000 sites are making use of it.

This tool will probably gain even more utility in the future as new platforms join its use. CMSs will therefore progressively implement a native ping system via this procedure to make its use more intuitive.

We will see if this method becomes a standard shared by all search engines or if it is discarded in favor of some other solution.

The post IndexNow: the solution for immediately indexing content appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Do you want to make your business known to those who have never heard of you? Do you need to make your business appear is searches are conducted on Google Maps?

Appearing on Google Maps through Google MyBusiness is free, so all the more reason why it is a fantastic opportunity for anyone who wants to increase the visibility of their business online.

Why list your business on Google Maps?
Registering on Google Maps is a step you can take to increase the visibility of your business online.

Doing so allows you to make your business appear within local packs and Google search results that list local services in a given industry.

Appearing on Google Maps allows you to:

• provide up-to-date information about your business
• distinguish yourself from your competitors
• prevent someone else from requesting ownership of your business card, misleading your audience
• get visits from people interested in your services in a given territory
• get discovered by new customers
• increase sales

MyBusiness proves to be an excellent tool for local SEO, that series of activities aimed at increasing the visibility of a brand in a given geographic segment. Local SEO allows you to appear more prominently among local searches on Google, therefore increasing your chances of being contacted by potential customers interested in your solutions.

Google Maps is integrated with Google MyBusiness, so it’s just a matter of doing one thing-registering your GMB page complete with every detail-to optimize your business for both tools.

The GMB page is a tool that allows you to show your business for local searches along with all relevant information: hours, address, phone number, photos and videos, reviews.

How to add business to Google
The local maps in the local pack are visually highlighted on the first page of Google results. Below them are the name, address and hours of the selected businesses.

Adding your business on Google Maps allows you to:

• have your business appear for searches on Google Maps
• appear in the Knowledge local panel
• Appear in the local pack (featured local results on serp)

Optimizing your business for local searches allows you to increase your chances of getting traffic from potential customers interested in services in your area. Google, through the local pack and the businesses featured on Google Maps, aims to provide results that are more responsive to specific searches. and make them more intuitively available.

How to list your business on Google Maps
To list one’s business on Google Maps, a series of steps must be taken:

• create a profile on My Business
• enter the details of your business
• request verification by sending a PIN card
• enter the PIN to confirm your MyBusiness card

It may also happen that your business name is already on Google Maps: someone may have created it or it may have been reported to Google by a third party. In this way we can apply to obtain ownership of it through the appropriate procedure made available by Google.

To appear on Google MyBusiness, you must first open a MyBusiness profile. That tab allows you to manage all the information offered to Google (and users) such as:

• business name
• category
• address
• opening dates and times
• phone number
• reviews

When creating an account, you will be asked for your first name, last name, email address and password. To create your page, enter MyBusiness and click on Try Now and start the wizard, whereby you enter all your data.

To register the page you must receive the PIN code, which is sent by postcard to the defined location. The address must be just that of the business and not of another location (such as one’s home) since Google needs to verify the real existence of the business in question. The address must be complete, including floor number if necessary, and any information needed to locate it. If Google Maps cannot find the given address directly, you can manually place a bookmark to pinpoint the location.

Once you receive the postcard, simply log into your account and enter the code obtained.

Having done this, we can estimate that we will appear among the Google Maps results within 2 to 3 weeks. After entering the PIN, the card will be visible to everyone and editable in its basic information. If you provide another location, however, you will need to receive a new code at the new destination to verify that it is operational. Each PIN is valid for 30 days, after that period it will be necessary to request a new code.

From the Administration panel we can manage all the information and update it when necessary. We can enter multiple locations, if our company operates in different locations, and characterize each one with the respective information (e.g., phone number and address)..

At this point we will have to take care periodically to update the information in MyBusiness, as it will be shown on Google Maps and among Google results.

So we need to communicate when appropriate changes in opening days and hours, phone numbers, address.

Managing the MyBusiness page allows us to include pictures of company exteriors and interiors, photos of the company team, videos of the staff at work, all that content that can improve the reputation of the brand among the public.

Photos are important elements to attract the attention of the public. That’s why you’ll want to upload good quality, original images that will help attest to the authority of your business.

Taking care of your reputation through MyBusiness allows you to get useful social signals to increase sales, primarily reviews. Satisfied customers can leave substantiated reviews that provide additional social proof signals. Such reviews can help improve Google Maps rankings and thus appear more relevant.

The proximity of the business in question to the user typing the search also plays a crucial role in making it appear more prominent than others.

Google MyBusiness also allows you to analyze traffic statistics obtained through Google Maps searches to get an idea of your visibility and estimate your attractiveness to your audience.

When a profile is very fully curated, for very specific searches (e.g., store name + location) it can appear in the Knowledge Panel at the top right of search results, thus making itself very visible to users.

The post How to list your business on Google Maps appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

In this article, I’m going to teach you exactly how to index your content on Google faster using the Google API. We will do this through an Instant Indexing plug-in and other things that I will list in a very short time. This guide is built for WordPress but you can use it on other CMSs as well, only the last part of the tutorial will change.

This API insertion process is a bit complex, but when it comes to your website’s content ranking and SEO it’s good to spend some time on it because it will only help you in the future.

You have two options or watch this video below made by me where I show you the whole process, or read the next few paragraphs.

What is Instant Indexing
Instant indexing is precisely the instantaneous indexing of content that is done by having the website communicate directly with the APIs that will immediately pass it to the search console (you can find a guide on the search console here if you need to better understand how it works).

Basically between the search console and the site there will be a third party (the APIs) communicating the updates that happened on wordpress directly to Google.

Why what and how will instant indexing help?
Most importantly, instant indexing indexes and ranks content faster.
Because it uses Google’s search indexing API to submit content directly to the search engine, this makes your content visible on the SERP faster than traditional Sitemap submission. Especially important for content where the time factor matters a great deal, such as news updates or topical blogs

What will we need to make the link?

We will need four things:

1.Google Cloud Platform
2.Search Console
3.Rank Math SEO
4.Instant Indexing (a plugin we’ll see in a moment)

How to connect Google APIs for instant indexing to WordPress.
Well let’s start to see how to do it.

1.Now click on My First project at the top
2.Then click on new project and enter the name of your site or project. You could also leave the location blank.
3.Now select it from the top and enter the project.
4.Let’s go to the menu on the left and then to “APIs and Services” after that “Library” and in the search field type in “Indexing APIs,” select it and click on Enable, you will get the related screen.
5.Click on “Credentials” and then “Create Credentials” Service account.
6.Give it a name to your liking and also a description so you can remember it “Example Instant Index Service”
7.Assign it the owner role
8.The system will recognize an email for you, copy it
9.Go to Search Console and at the bottom left go to Settings
10.Now go to Users and Authorization and click “Add User.”
11.Paste the previously copied email and give it “Owner” authorization, give add
12.Go back to Google Cloud Platform and click on the 3 dots on the email and then on “Manage Keys” (See picture below)

13. Add key
14. Create new Key and select Json and click create. It will download a json file for you
    Well now let’s go inside wordpress, we are almost done
15. Install Rank Math SEO if you haven’t installed it yet and go through the whole installation procedure to configure it

16. Install Instant indexing, the plugin (see image above) or download it from here

Instant Indexing for Google

Activate it

17. Open the plugin will be in the rank math menu in the “Instant Indexing” section
18. Go to the “Google Api Setting” section and load the Json in by doing browse. Alternatively to make it cleaner you can open with notepad or notepad the file and copy the contents of the json to paste it there in the specific text field.
19. Now in the Submit section decide what to bring in with the API (e.g. Articles, pages etc etc), then make save changes.
20. You are done now everything will work, but if you want to give it a try, take an article that has not been indexed yet and put it in the field in the console tab and give Send to Api, if it comes out “Success” everything will have gone well.

If you enjoyed the guide, please sign up for our Newsletter to always receive these bombshells in your email box and first of all.

The post API indexing Google with WordPress: how to connect it all in 2 minutes appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Fonts are one of the most overlooked elements of website design, but one that can prove crucial in achieving the goals set through them.

As you may have guessed Google fonts are a set of fonts contained in a real topographic type library, specifically it is a set of application programming interfaces or better are known as APIs. Specifically it allows all users to use web fonts on their App or website. Especially they can be used freely since they have a free license, in detail it is a library that makes available to everyone a real interactive web directory that is essential to make easier the selection and management of fonts through Android and CSS.

This service is made available by Google and all the fonts present and bandwidth are definitely free.

For this reason it is necessary to choose very carefully the most suitable fonts for one’s case, so as to optimize the technical performance and make the website pleasing to the user’s eye.

What is Google Fonts?
Google Fonts is a free license to simplify fonts via CSS and Android. Google Fonts was created to simplify the search for fonts, made available for free under open source licenses. They can be used for both commercial and non-commercial projects.

Within the site, through the appropriate search command, we can choose the font aesthetically best suited to our case and invoke it within our site, to have the text on a given page formatted through such dictates.

Indeed, with the establishment of the first CSS specifications, the need arose for web resources to easily retrieve fonts not from local terminals but from servers, so as to ensure proper display for all.

Google Web Fonts-now Google Fonts-has replaced the earlier TypeKit in providing fonts for embedding in websites: it is enough to integrate the appropriate code into the HTML or CSS of the site to ensure the same display for all devices.

The fonts from which we can choose are divided into:

• Serif (font with graces), small extensions at the end of letters that appear to bring them closer to each other, such as Droid Serif;
• Sans Serif (fonts without graces), such as Roboto and Open Sans;
• Handwriting (fonts that resemble handwriting), such as Shadows Into Light;
• Monospace (fonts whose characters are the same width and have a style that resembles typewriters) such as Inconsolata
• Display (fonts with very closely spaced letters) such as Lobster and Poiret One, generally suitable for large projects

Fonts should be chosen in agreement, without overdoing it so as not to make the site too heavy; opting for more than two or three fonts per page would make reading it more tiring.

Advantages of using Google Fonts
Google Fonts, as mentioned, are aesthetic website assets that can boost dwell time and conversions to CTAs. In fact, they offer several advantages:

• library of free and secure fonts (being provided by Google)
• freely usable fonts for commercial and non-commercial projects (no licensing restrictions apply)
• improve the readability of pages
• definitely lightweight (they make the loading of the web page hosting them faster)
• very versatile: available in numerous versions to accommodate everyone’s visual and formatting needs
• ensure that the fonts are compatible with every site and application
• aesthetically attractive

All Google fonts meet precise Google community standards and prove to be definitely compatible with most sites.

Why use them?
As we know, the fonts used can have an even substantial impact on web page loading times and content readability. They therefore translate into important elements for the user experience of the page, which in turn can affect the ranking through the liking signals produced by user experience.

Google Fonts are designed by Google to make the file arrive as lightly as possible in relation to the fruition technologies used.

With a shorter loading time we can achieve a lower bounce rate for our web page, increasing the chances of conversion. In fact, a font that is difficult to read discourages from reaching the end of the page and pushes the user out before responding to calls to action.

Which Google Fonts to choose for our site?
Typography can prove very valuable for one’s site. A suitable font for one’s project reflects the aesthetic style of the website, is very readable and conveys a certain personality.

In the store there are over 1040 fonts among which we will certainly find the one that suits us. Also, as mentioned, the fonts are available for free, so we can experiment with one or the other until we find the one best suited to our site. So let’s take some time to choose the right font to the layout of our site that will be more enticing to read.

The post Guide to Google Fonts: how to choose fonts for your website appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

The development of an online brand is not only pursued through the optimization efforts of its website, but also through the construction of a network of external signals to support its online reputation.

Of course, foremost among these factors are backlinks, one of Google’s main ranking factors, but these are not the only elements that matter in terms of online visibility. What are the others?

What is Offpage SEO?
“Off-page SEO” is a definition that indicates a series of activities that are carried out on elements external to a website in order to increase the latter’s reputation in the eyes of search engines. Off-page optimization of a website obviously involves link building, the obtaining of backlinks from valuable sites in order to enhance a portal’s reputation, but it is not limited to this.

In fact, links are taken as a yardstick of a website’s importance, but in addition to them there are other factors that Google may consider more or less consistently for ranking purposes.

In general, off-page SEO encompasses all those activities that are carried out to improve the visibility of a site on the Web without resorting to changes in its structure and code.

When to resort to offpage SEO?
A successful strategy must take into account all those factors that develop outside the website in question and that influence its authority and visibility. Just as a person’s reputation is affected by various types of elements (hearsay, references, interviews, reviews), so the website is affected by mentions, citations, activities in the brand’s territory, etc.

Offpage SEO encompasses a number of valuable disciplines on the side of external signals that can be processed by search engines to draw up an assessment of a site’s authority in its field. They are very important in those contexts where competition is very fierce and there is a need to affect more of the external factors underlying ranking.

What activities does offpage SEO include?
Offpage SEO activities include:

• link building
• social media marketing
• content marketing aimed at other platforms
• reviews
• local citations

Creazione di link

Link building is a strategy aimed at obtaining links from authoritative portals that are actually visited and thematically related to the target portal.

Links are a major factor in Google rankings and are obvious “esteem signals” provided by other sites that algorithms take into account for ranking purposes.

Content marketing and guest posts
The creation of valuable content is one of the cornerstones of building a website’s authoritative reputation, but it does not necessarily have to be carried out within the site in question. Content is something that attracts the attention of an audience, and this is the case even when it is published within sites other than one’s own.

Creating interesting resources is a technique that is used to generate interest around the brand and build an aura around it as a competent and trustworthy entity in its field.

Link building is frequently carried out through the creation of guest posts, content designed to be hosted on other sites with a link within to one’s own.

Truly effective content-and therefore content whose links drive more effective traffic-is content designed to really address the needs of one’s audience, possibly in a more original way than the competition already does.

This is why resources such as:

• blog articles
• videos
• infographics
• case studies
• surveys
• podcasts

that delve into a particular topic and that a site may be interested in hosting to get traffic in line with its business.

Public Relation
Public relations are a range of online and offline activities aimed at increasing brand awareness. They may include:

• interviews
• sponsorships
• participation in industry events
• collaborations

They generally include all those activities that aim to make a brand known among a segment of the public that generally does not follow its activities.

Public relations allows to generate chatter (buzz) around a brand, to create curiosity and thus searches for information.

Google is able to pick up on these queries focused on a given brand’s activities, products and services. With tools such as Google Trends and Google’s own autocomplete for example, we can assess whether there are any consistent searches related to a particular brand, to taste for ourselves whether digital PR has succeeded in stimulating interest in the audience.

Mentions
Mentions are references to other websites made without recourse to links. Even in the absence of a clickable link, they are equally signals of interest and therefore are evaluated positively for the purpose of a website’s reputation.

Citations, to be truly effective, must be carried out in a positive sense, i.e., be expressed in a flattering sense with respect to the brand in question, and be made in a context relevant to that of the subject of the mention (e.g., a cook’s review in a cooking forum).

Forums are one of the main channels, in addition to social networks, in which mentions of brands, companies, and subjects accumulate: people exchange information and opinions about those who can provide products and services suitable for their needs, to make sure they make effective choices. Being mentioned-in a positive tone-among the most relevant names in one’s industry is a great sign of relevance and contextualization, even in the absence of links. Forums have fallen into disuse with the development of social media and the proliferation of blogs, yet they are still valued in certain niches, especially since they allow enthusiasts to exchange information that can be found even after time has passed.

Reviews
Reviews are ratings left in special platforms (TripAdvisor, Google MyBusiness, Facebook Pages…) that testify to visitors about the experiences that brands’ customers have had.

Collecting positive experiences is a laudable goal not only to offer Google attestations of one’s value but also to boost the effectiveness of call-to-actions. A brand about which positive attestations are spent is able to communicate its value more effectively and convert more powerfully. This results in better positive signals regarding the effectiveness of the site (dwell time, inbound organic traffic, number of page views..) that can translate into positive elements on ranking.

Social networks.
Links shared on social networks are not directly useful for ranking purposes, since they do not transmit link juice being “neutered” precisely to prevent them from being abused to distort rankings.

However, social networks are definitely useful platforms for increasing a brand’s visibility in its own context. It is expected that a company that is active and maintains contact with its audience has every interest in taking care of its presence on social, both in terms of the information shared by its official page and by participating in thematic communities with relevant interventions.

Sharing content in a balanced way, without tending toward spam, in social communities relevant to one’s business is a good way to make one’s brand known to potentially interested parties. Social media are excellent platforms for providing timely customer support as well as for getting initial contact from potential customers, so they are among the most congenial solutions when it comes to online reputation management.

Tools such as Quora and Reddit make it possible to cultivate relationships with one’s audience and come up with useful content to grow one’s reputation.

Influencers are particularly visible individuals in their own sphere and reputed as authoritative sources of information: they are excellent reference points for public relations purposes. In order to increase the visibility of our brand, we can turn to influencers in their respective social circles economically within our reach to agree on sponsorships or referrals in ways that suit them.

Google MyBusiness
Google MyBusiness is a platform provided by Google in which businesses can curate a profile of their business that will be visible on Google Maps and among the local results on the serp.

The MyBusiness tab is a concentration of information about a local business that the brand can manage in order to make its web presence more easily recognizable.

Users can leave reviews about the goods and services enjoyed and request information, which will remain visible to all. Curating one’s profile card helps to provide an up-to-date image of one’s brand, gather positive reviews of one’s operation, and provide responses to negative reviews in a way that defends one’s operation.

Brand building
Visibility on the web is realized through several factors, usually pertaining to the brand related to the website. Brand building is the practice involving those activities aimed at cementing a brand’s reputation online.

It may involve, for example:

• sponsorships and participation in industry events
• interviews
• case studies

and all content that allows the brand to be brought to the attention of segments of the public that generally do not follow it.

The post What is Offpage SEO? – The strategies you need to know appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.