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Google doesn’t stop rolling out algorithm updates, and 2024 remains the same. The latest algorithm update was announced just last month, with content quality, spam reduction and reliability being the priorities.
Here is my take: there is no need to panic. It is not that scary. If your strategy is already centred on quality content and genuine user engagement, then Google&#8217;s tweaks are just minor bumps on the road to digital success.
Let&#8217;s drill into Google’s algorithm methodology and look back at what the recent changes entail.
</div>
<h3>What’s Google Search Algorithm?</h3>
Google search algorithm is a rather complex set of rules and calculations that determines the ranking order in which websites appear in search result pages.
It considers a few factors like relevance, quality, and user experience to deliver the most useful and trustworthy results to users based on their search queries.
The algorithm keeps updating to improve search accuracy, making sure that people find the information they are looking for quickly and efficiently. So relevancy is key here.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-14956" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Confused_young_woman-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1706" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Confused_young_woman-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Confused_young_woman-250x167.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Confused_young_woman-700x467.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Confused_young_woman-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Confused_young_woman-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Confused_young_woman-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Confused_young_woman-120x80.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />
<h3>How does it work?</h3>
It analyses billions of web pages and ranks them based on various factors to determine their relevance and quality. While the exact details of Google&#8217;s algorithm are restricted and constantly updating, here&#8217;s a simplified explanation of how it generally works:
<ol>
<li>Crawling: Google uses automated programs called spiders to browse the web and discover new pages. These crawlers follow links from one page to another, indexing the content they find along the way.</li>
<li>Indexing: After crawling, Google organises the content it finds into a massive index, essentially a giant library of web pages. This index allows Google to quickly retrieve relevant pages when users search for specific terms.</li>
<li>Ranking: When a user enters a search query, Google&#8217;s algorithm will determine which pages in its index are most relevant to that search query. It considers hundreds of factors, including keywords, website authority, user engagement metrics, freshness of content, and more.</li>
<li>Retrieval: Once the algorithm has ranked the relevant pages, Google displays them in the search result pages, with the most relevant and high-quality pages appearing at the top. So we must prioritise good quality website content in our optimisation plan.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Ok, what are the Google algorithm updates?</h3>
Google continuously refines its algorithm to provide better search results and combat low-quality content.
These updates can range from minor tweaks to major algorithm changes, such as the introduction of new ranking factors or adjustments to existing ones.
Let’s look back at the major algorithm updates from Google in the past decade and see how they shape the results.
<ol>
<li>Hummingbird (2013): Introduced a new search algorithm focused on understanding the context and intent behind search queries rather than just individual keywords. It improved the understanding of long-tail queries and semantic search.</li>
<li>Penguin (2013): An update to the Penguin algorithm aimed at targeting web spam, particularly manipulative link-building practices. It penalised websites with unnatural or spammy backlink profiles.</li>
<li>Panda (2014): An update aimed at penalising websites with low-quality or thin content. It targeted sites with poor user experience, duplicate content, and content farms.</li>
<li>Penguin 4.0 (2016): A real-time update to the Penguin algorithm, meaning penalties could be applied and lifted more quickly. It also devalued spammy links rather than penalizing the entire site.</li>
<li>Mobilegeddon (2015): An update that prioritised mobile-friendly websites in mobile search results. It aimed to improve the user experience for mobile users by favouring responsive and mobile-friendly designs.</li>
<li>RankBrain (2015): Part of Google&#8217;s core algorithm, RankBrain uses machine learning to understand the meaning behind search queries and deliver more relevant results. It helps Google better interpret unique queries.</li>
<li>BERT (2019): Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) is a natural language processing algorithm that helps Google better understand the context of words in search queries. It improves the understanding of nuances in language and context.</li>
<li>Page Experience for Mobile (2021): A significant update focused on user experience metrics, including Core Web Vitals (loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability), mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security etc. It emphasised the importance of delivering a positive user experience.</li>
</ol>
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<h3>March spam updates</h3>
Yes, Google have updated their algorithm again and it’s a big one this time. <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-update-march-2024/">Google rolled out spam algorithm updates on 5th March</a>.
This major core update targets low-quality and unoriginal content. Any such content detected on your website will be deindexed by Google.
With the increased popularity of AI usage lately, the most obvious source of low-quality and unoriginal content would be AI-generated. If you have published pure AI-generated content for your website without human review, its time to stop doing it and rethink your content strategy.
There are over 200 factors in Google’s algorithm, but they don’t all have the same weight. Some have a much more significant impact on your rankings than others, even when it comes to basic stuff.
So, staying ahead of the ever-changing Google algorithm updates and adapting your approach would enable you to engage with long-term success in the competitive online marketing world.
Thanks for reading.
<a href="https://www.friday.ie/contact/">Reach out to us</a> if you want to learn more about the strategy plan for optimising your website and content.

No Need to Panic: Understanding Google’s Algorithm Updates

Benchmark reporting, or a Digital Audit, is an exercise that combines audience research, deep-dive analytics and competitor analysis. It offers a clear data-driven view of how your organisation&#8217;s marketing strategy compares with competitors.
I’ve often heard the expression that luck is &#8216;Opportunity meeting preparation.&#8217;
Well, the Benchmark Report can lift the lid on opportunities to attract more customers and overtake your competition.
In this post I&#8217;ll discuss the digital audit, and why the process is one of our most powerful tools.
<blockquote>&#8220;When we show people where their organisation sits amongst their competitive set, they sit up and take notice.&#8221;</blockquote>
Digital benchmarking uses a combination of audience research, deep-dive analytics and competitor analysis to give a clear data-driven view of where your marketing efforts compare to competitors. From visibility to market position, content, and social media activity.
Its research outputs will help you to understand areas to improve, new opportunities to target and the places you should focus on so you can retain customers and grow your business.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-14887 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/benchmark-reporting.jpeg" alt="" width="1000" height="600" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/benchmark-reporting.jpeg 1000w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/benchmark-reporting-250x150.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/benchmark-reporting-700x420.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/benchmark-reporting-768x461.jpeg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/benchmark-reporting-120x72.jpeg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" />
The digital landscape is ever-changing.
How people make purchasing decisions, engage and create content, and the laws around data privacy are changing. It&#8217;s important to understand and adapt to these changes.
By comparing performance against your competitive set, benchmarking offers valuable insights that will inform your digital strategy. It will also help improve trust signals and your overall customer experience.
Let&#8217;s take a look at some of the benefits.
<h2>Benchmark Benefits</h2>
<ol>
<li>Measure performance: Benchmark reports allow you to see how your digital experience, marketing efforts, or content stacks up against competitors.</li>
<li>Identify trends and opportunities: By understanding industry trends, you can capitalise on opportunities and adapt to changing audience intent and market conditions.</li>
<li>Improve customer experience: Benchmark reports can help you understand what a great customer experience looks like for your industry, positioning you to take action to reduce frustration and increase engagement.</li>
<li>Optimise your strategies: The report data will help refine your marketing activity by identifying which channels, content, technologies, and tactics work best. For example, if content is created you can see what your audience is looking for based on keyword research and trends, you can increase organic visibility and traffic.</li>
<li>Stay ahead of competitors: By understanding your competitors&#8217; strengths and weaknesses, you can adapt your strategies to stay ahead.</li>
</ol>
The data and insights you will gain from this work will inform your marketing channels. If you take the right action, performance metrics will increase in organic and paid search rankings, overall visibility and social media signals.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-14924 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/path-digital-tR0jvlsmCuQ-data-analytics-scaled.jpg" alt="data analytics screen for digital aiudit" width="2560" height="1475" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/path-digital-tR0jvlsmCuQ-data-analytics-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/path-digital-tR0jvlsmCuQ-data-analytics-250x144.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/path-digital-tR0jvlsmCuQ-data-analytics-700x403.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/path-digital-tR0jvlsmCuQ-data-analytics-768x442.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/path-digital-tR0jvlsmCuQ-data-analytics-1536x885.jpg 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/path-digital-tR0jvlsmCuQ-data-analytics-2048x1180.jpg 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/path-digital-tR0jvlsmCuQ-data-analytics-120x69.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />
<h2>The Digital Audit Process</h2>
<ol>
<li>Choose a reputable source: Look for research and insights from a trusted partner. Ensure the data you uncover is reliable and relevant to your industry.</li>
<li>Analyse the data: Carefully review the data and insights provided in the report to understand how your performance compares to industry peers. Take an unbiased look at it and leave assumptions to the side.</li>
<li>Identify areas for improvement: Use the insights from the report to identify areas where you can improve your digital experience, marketing activity, and content strategy.</li>
<li>Create a strategy: Develop an action plan and schedule based on the insights from the report, outlining specific steps to improve your performance.</li>
<li>Monitor progress: Build a monthly action plan to ensure you are improving and optimising relevant channel content.</li>
</ol>
By understanding your data and trends, you can refine your strategies and take action to improve customer experience. When we show people where their organisation sits amongst their competitive set, it&#8217;s like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_of_the_Pops" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Top of the Pops</a>, and they always sit up and take notice.
Following this process, you will gain greater insight into your competitive landscape. Learn where you are doing well, where you can improve, and where your competition is stronger.
You will also understand your audiences better &#8211; their intent, and needs.
Thanks for reading :)
<a href="https://www.friday.ie/contact/">Get in touch</a> to chat about digital audit and benchmarking, and getting a bigger slice of the cake.

Unlocking the Benefits of a Digital Audit

User Experience (UX) is a fundamental component of successful digital marketing strategies. And rightly so.
From e-commerce websites to mobile apps, <a href="https://www.friday.ie/expertise/user-experience/">UX</a> plays a pivotal role in ensuring user satisfaction, influencing purchasing decisions, and ultimately determining whether customers become loyal advocates or turn to the competition.
As an agency, we’re consistently highlighting the essential role of UX in <a href="https://www.friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/">digital marketing</a>, including its impact on user-centric marketing, trust and credibility, SEO, and the ability to drive customer loyalty.
We firmly believe (and why wouldn’t we?) that if you&#8217;re spending money to get users to your brand experience then you should give them the best one possible.
I’ll say it more than once in this blog post, but I can’t help myself: it’s a no-brainer.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14476" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/no-brainer.jpeg" alt="no-brainer" width="624" height="351" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/no-brainer.jpeg 624w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/no-brainer-250x141.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/no-brainer-120x68.jpeg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px" />
<h3>User-Centric Marketing</h3>
In the modern digital landscape, a shift towards user-centric marketing has become imperative. Gone are the days of a purely product-centric approach.
User-centric marketing is a strategy that prioritises the needs, preferences, and behaviours of the consumer above all else.
Instead of making assumptions about what customers want (often based on complacency or ego), businesses leverage data and insights to gain a deeper understanding of their target audience.
The UX process utilises usability testing, user research, analytics deep dives, UX audits and other core activities to take you out of your own building and into the minds of your customers.
This knowledge allows us to create personalised experiences that resonate on an individual level.
Unfortunately, not enough businesses recognise the importance of focusing on the user and their experience throughout the marketing journey. UX lies at the heart of this approach, aiming to provide users with seamless, efficient, and enjoyable experiences when interacting with digital products or services.
<h3>Every Touchpoint</h3>
When businesses prioritise UX, they simplify the path to conversion and address the user&#8217;s needs at every touchpoint.
By doing so, they create a frictionless experience that makes it easier for potential customers to navigate through their website, understand the product or service, and ultimately make a purchase.
This user-centric approach has been proven to significantly improve conversion rates, resulting in higher business success.
There is no simpler way to put this: If your website converts better then EVERY digital marketing channel converts better.
It is that straightforward. A no-brainer, if you will (sorry!).
To implement user-centric marketing effectively, businesses must understand their customers&#8217; needs, pain points, and motivations.
By developing a comprehensive understanding of their target audience, businesses can create valuable solutions that address specific challenges or desires. Moreover, effective communication of these solutions is key to establishing a meaningful connection with customers.
<h3>Why Listen to Users?</h3>
At its core, UX is all about enhancing the overall experience for customers. By prioritising the needs and wants of customers, businesses improve their satisfaction and engagement levels.
This, in turn, leads to increased conversions, repeat business, and positive word-of-mouth.
Businesses need to cut through the noise and deliver relevant and tailored experiences now. Today&#8217;s consumers are inundated with marketing messages, making it, at best, noisy and annoying. Consumers are tuning out&#8230;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14477" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/giphy.gif" alt="" width="480" height="320" />
By leveraging customer data and analytics, businesses can gain insights that enable them to customise interactions, products, and services to match individual preferences. This personalised approach resonates with customers, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.
UX serves as the bridge that connects businesses with their customers in the digital world. It encompasses every aspect of a user&#8217;s interaction with a digital product or service, ensuring that they find value in what businesses provide.
A good UX design goes way beyond aesthetics; it focuses on creating intuitive and user-friendly interfaces, delivering seamless navigation, and providing relevant content.
From the moment users land on a website to navigating through products or services and reaching the final checkout, the entire customer journey should be smooth and enjoyable.
UX design utilises data-driven decision-making to continually refine and improve the user experience, aligning it with the evolving needs and expectations of customers.
So don’t be a data denier… we have enough of those! Let the data lead the way.
<h3>Building Trust and Credibility</h3>
In the digital (and mostly faceless) world, building trust and credibility is more challenging yet more important than ever.
Establishing trust through UX design is crucial to creating meaningful connections with users.
A user-friendly and intuitive website not only enhances the user experience but also builds confidence in the brand. When users find a website easy to navigate, aesthetically pleasing, and functional, they develop trust in the brand&#8217;s credibility.
Transparency is another critical factor in building trust. In an era of data breaches and online scams, customers are increasingly concerned about their privacy. Businesses must be clear about their privacy policies and how they handle customer data. Making these policies easily accessible and understandable contributes to establishing trust.
Just try not to make your user’s privacy journey too annoying or intrusive. Far too many are doing this and websites are losing revenue there.
A study titled &#8220;The Impact of Privacy Laws on Online User Behaviour&#8221; (<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3774110">Goethe University</a>, revised 2022) found that the enforcement of privacy laws like the EU&#8217;s General Data Protection Regulation (<a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/">GDPR</a>), which mandates the use of cookie notices, had a negative effect on user quantity and usage intensity on websites.
The study suggests that these effects could translate into revenue losses for websites. Let that sink in.
<h3>Relevant Content</h3>
Providing high-quality and relevant content is another way to build trust and credibility.
Regularly updating a blog, resources, and social media platforms with informative and valuable content not only helps in ranking better on search engines but also establishes the brand as an industry expert.
Customers are more likely to trust a brand that consistently provides helpful and authoritative content. Of course, this also lends itself well to your <a href="https://www.friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/search-engine-optimisation/">SEO</a> efforts.
Leveraging social proof is another powerful strategy for building trust and credibility. Customer reviews, testimonials, case studies, and endorsements can significantly influence potential customers&#8217; perceptions of a brand. Positive reviews serve as proof of a brand&#8217;s reliability and trustworthiness, thereby enhancing credibility.
<h3>Consistency</h3>
Consistency is also crucial in building trust and credibility. Consistency across all platforms and touchpoints helps establish a credible brand identity.
Whether it&#8217;s on the website, social media channels, or email campaigns, maintaining consistency in branding, messaging, and tone of voice reassures customers and strengthens the brand&#8217;s identity.
UX can provide a consistent experience while digital marketing uses these same insights for consistency of messaging.
<h3>Influence on SEO</h3>
In recent years, search engines have started giving more weight to user experience in their ranking algorithms.
They understand that websites that offer a good user experience are more likely to provide value to users. As a result, these websites are rewarded with higher rankings in search engine results pages (<a href="https://www.semrush.com/blog/serp/">SERPs</a>).
User engagement metrics play a significant role in determining the quality and relevance of a website. Metrics such as session duration are believed to influence a website&#8217;s search engine ranking.
When users have a positive experience on a website and engage with its content, it sends positive signals to search engines, indicating that the website is valuable and relevant.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14479" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/make-google-happy.jpg" alt="" width="575" height="320" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/make-google-happy.jpg 575w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/make-google-happy-250x139.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/make-google-happy-120x67.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px" />
<h3>Mobile</h3>
Mobile optimisation is another aspect where UX and SEO intersect. Search engines have prioritised mobile-first indexing.
This means that search engines primarily consider a website&#8217;s mobile version when determining its rankings. Having a mobile-friendly UX is no longer optional but necessary to rank well in search results and provide a positive experience for mobile users.
Website speed is another critical factor that affects both UX and SEO. A slow-loading website not only frustrates users but is also frowned upon by search engines.
Speed is a confirmed ranking factor (for now), and it directly impacts user experience. Users typically leave a website if it takes too long to load, which increases the bounce rate and signals to search engines that the website might not provide a satisfying user experience.
<h3>Navigation</h3>
A clear and logical navigation is crucial for both UX and SEO. A well-structured website with intuitive navigation allows users to find what they&#8217;re looking for quickly and easily.
This positive user experience leads to increased engagement, lower bounce rates, and longer session durations, all of which contribute to better SEO performance. Moreover, search engine bots can crawl and index a website more efficiently when its navigation is clear, leading to improved visibility in search results.
UX and SEO are no longer separate entities but intertwined components of a successful digital marketing strategy.
By aligning UX with SEO best practices, businesses can create a more enjoyable user experience, drive organic traffic to their websites, and ultimately improve their search engine rankings while doing so!
<h3>Driving Customer Loyalty</h3>
A positive user experience can be a significant factor in driving customer loyalty.
When your customers find a website or app easy to use, visually appealing, and pleasant, they are more likely to return and make repeat purchases.
By continually improving and updating the UX, businesses can foster a loyal customer base that not only remains engaged but also becomes brand ambassadors, recommending them to others.
To drive customer loyalty through UX, businesses must focus on creating delightful experiences at every touchpoint.
This includes designing intuitive user interfaces, optimising website performance, and personalising interactions based on individual preferences.
By consistently delivering exceptional user experiences, businesses can build trust, foster loyalty, and establish long-term relationships with their customers.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14478" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/giphy-1.gif" alt="" width="450" height="253" />
<h3>No-Brainer</h3>
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, the role of UX in digital marketing becomes increasingly crucial.
User-centric marketing, built upon a foundation of exceptional UX design, empowers businesses to prioritise customer needs, enhance satisfaction, and drive revenue. It is a no-brainer. No, really.
By building trust and credibility, influencing SEO, and fostering customer loyalty, businesses can position themselves for success in the digital realm.
Investing in UX is not just an option but a necessity to thrive in today&#8217;s highly competitive digital marketplace.
By prioritising the user and delivering exceptional experiences, businesses can unlock the true potential of their digital marketing efforts and cultivate strong, lasting relationships with their customers.
Of course, you can also generate a sh*tload more revenue along the way.
Reach out to <a href="https://www.friday.ie/contact/">Friday</a> today to see how UX and Digital Marketing can transform your ROI.

The Crucial Role of UX in Digital Marketing

In the ever-evolving world of SEO, AI has already played a pivotal role in transforming various aspects of how we search.
Google in particular have been at the forefront of utilising AI to enhance user experiences, improve search quality, and support the discovery of relevant information.
And now it’s about to reach the next level using, you guessed it, AI advancements again.
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<video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-14375-1" width="1280" height="720" poster="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot-2023-05-15-at-21.40.10.png" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/A-look-at-whats-next-for-AI-and-Google-Search-_-Google-I_O-2023.mp4?_=1" /><a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/A-look-at-whats-next-for-AI-and-Google-Search-_-Google-I_O-2023.mp4">https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/A-look-at-whats-next-for-AI-and-Google-Search-_-Google-I_O-2023.mp4</a></video></div>
In short: Google are now introducing cutting-edge generative AI technology to enhance the search experience. And I’m liking it!
I will stand up and pay attention to anyone who appears to be taking their time and using a considered approach to AI advancements. Much of it has been far too rushed.
We all know that Google <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/8/23590864/google-ai-chatbot-bard-mistake-error-exoplanet-demo">jumped the gun</a> a bit and were too exposed by factual errors, but I think the lesson has been learned.
Over the years, Google has introduced ground-breaking advancements such as the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) and the Multitask Unified Model (MUM) to revolutionise search capabilities.
I won’t delve too much into <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/introducing-mum/">BERT or MUM</a> right now, all you need to know is that they paved the way.
Continuing this trajectory, Google is now venturing into a new frontier called Search Generative Experience (SGE), where generative AI takes centre stage.
Generative AI is a type of AI capable of creating new content, such as images, videos, music, or text, that is not directly copied from existing examples.
It’s a fascinating area with so many functionalities, responsible implementation questions being raised, known limitations and more&#8230;
<h3>What is SGE?</h3>
Search Generative Experience represents an early step in transforming the search experience using generative AI.
It presents an AI-generated response above the search results. Google explicitly indicates the answer as being from Generative AI, followed by a response to your query.
The answer is presented in a box and Google provides citations to the websites used for generating the answer. These citations can be clicked to explore further.
Alternatively, you can ask another question or use the toggle button at the top right for more in-depth information.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14377" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/google-search-generative-ai-experience-look.png.webp" alt="" width="2048" height="1521" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/google-search-generative-ai-experience-look.png.webp 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/google-search-generative-ai-experience-look.png-250x186.webp 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/google-search-generative-ai-experience-look.png-700x520.webp 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/google-search-generative-ai-experience-look.png-768x570.webp 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/google-search-generative-ai-experience-look.png-1536x1141.webp 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/google-search-generative-ai-experience-look.png-120x89.webp 120w" sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" />With SGE, users will notice a revamped search results page that organises familiar web results in a novel manner, enabling you to extract more value from a single search.
It empowers users to ask entirely new types of questions, gain quick overviews of topics with relevant links for further exploration, engage in a natural conversational mode for follow-up queries, and effortlessly accomplish tasks like generating creative ideas or drafting content directly within the search interface.
So far, it looks pretty f*cking cool.
<h3>How SGE Works</h3>
At the core of SGE are AI-powered snapshots that provide users with a synthesised overview of a topic.
These snapshots offer factors to consider and relevant insights, serving as a jumping-off point for users to explore a wide range of content and perspectives on the web.
SGE also incorporates a conversational mode, allowing users to naturally ask follow-up questions and obtain additional links to resources for in-depth exploration.
Leveraging AI, the conversational mode adapts to the context of the user&#8217;s queries, reformulating and refining the search intent over the course of the conversation.
This dynamic approach ensures users have access to the most relevant content as the conversation progresses.
<h3>Vertical Experiences</h3>
SGE extends its benefits to verticals such as shopping and local searches.
In shopping, SGE aids users in making informed purchase decisions by uncovering insights, presenting notable factors to consider, and offering a range of product options with descriptions, reviews, ratings, prices, and images sourced from Google&#8217;s comprehensive Shopping Graph dataset.
Similarly, SGE enhances local search experiences by providing AI-powered insights that facilitate comparisons and exploration of options.
<h3>What About The Ads?</h3>
This is an important one, and make no mistake, search ads will continue to play a vital role within SGE. They will appear in dedicated slots throughout the page.
Advertisers can leverage SGE to reach potential customers at various stages of their search journeys, just as they have done already.
On the ethical front, Google says they remain committed to transparency by ensuring clear differentiation between ads and organic search results, utilising the usual labels. I’m sure the <a href="https://www.friday.ie/blog/deceptive-design-and-how-it-hurts-your-business/">dark patterns</a> will continue here, but let’s see.
<h3>Embracing Creativity</h3>
Generative AI capabilities in SGE unlock new possibilities for users to engage with information creatively. Beyond merely finding information, SGE supports users in utilising that information in innovative ways.
Whether it&#8217;s searching for a new product or brainstorming ideas for social media posts, SGE&#8217;s creative potential offers users an enhanced and immersive search experience.
It&#8217;s important to note that, initially, SGE imposes certain constraints on creative applications to prioritise safety and quality. However, as the system evolves and quality improves, creative capabilities will expand.
<h3>SEO</h3>
Whatever content SGE surfaces will still use citations and will link to content where needed, so this does not necessarily mean that we are facing a world of zero-click searches. There will be more of them, but this is not the death of your SEO traffic.
On the flip side, it will look for content that is trustworthy so all of the same <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-e-e-a-t-how-to-demonstrate-first-hand-experience/474446/">E-E-A-T</a> principles will apply if you want your content to be surfaced here.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14384" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot_2023-05-16_at_10_56_13.jpg" alt="Google E-E-A-T" width="784" height="431" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot_2023-05-16_at_10_56_13.jpg 784w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot_2023-05-16_at_10_56_13-250x137.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot_2023-05-16_at_10_56_13-700x385.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot_2023-05-16_at_10_56_13-768x422.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot_2023-05-16_at_10_56_13-120x66.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 784px) 100vw, 784px" />
<h3>Applying It Responsibly</h3>
As an experimental feature, Google says they are approaching SGE thoughtfully and responsibly, in accordance with its AI Principles.
Many will like to hear this since there is currently an overreaction in which people think this will destroy the world.
<h3>So there you have it&#8230;</h3>
SGE brings cutting-edge generative AI technology to enhance the search experience, and this is certainly welcome.
It offers a distinctive new search experience, distinguishing itself from previous versions while retaining the familiar Google search essence.
Notably, Google has made improvements in linking to publishers, aiming to actually generate website traffic.
It&#8217;s pretty exciting, to be fair.
If you want to know more about what all of this means for your SEO strategy, then <a href="https://www.friday.ie/contact/">get in touch</a> with us today.

A New Way to Search: Google’s Generative AI

If you use ChatGPT to write your blog posts then you&#8217;re turning up to a gunfight with a knife.
So no, you absolutely should not use it for this. I&#8217;ll explain why….
Don&#8217;t get me wrong, AI is incredible and I fully welcome it.
ChatGPT is great for certain things such as text completion, language translation, sentiment analysis, summarising text, and answering questions&#8230; it&#8217;s even a useful tool for a wide range of real-world applications such as chatbots and customer service.
It really is a game changer, but just not for your content strategy.
It&#8217;s no surprise that ChatGPT has garnered a lot of attention in the SEO industry. After all, it&#8217;s a chatbot that utilises natural language processing to answer questions. In fact, it may even be one of the most widely discussed AI tools to date.
When it comes to ChatGPT and SEO, I was keen to wait until the dust settled before forming an opinion.
In a short space of time, it very quickly went from just being an awesome new tool to sudden cries of “SEOs will be out of work now!”.
Which is, of course, total nonsense. In my lifetime I do not expect AI to be able to replicate human emotion or creativity.
It can mainstream some SEO tasks very well, such as keyword and content research, but it should not be used to fuel your content strategy.
<h3>Not capable</h3>
Firstly, it amazes me that so many are jumping the gun in assuming that ChatGPT is the answer to their content drought. And they do so without even asking the very tool that they place so much trust in for no apparent reason.
If you did ask it, it will tell you that it is not capable of creating original content or ideas, not to mention that it recommends you do your own research and not use it as a substitute for a human writer:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14359" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1671532184600.jpeg" alt="Should you use ChatGPT to create your blog posts" width="734" height="407" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1671532184600.jpeg 734w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1671532184600-250x139.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1671532184600-700x388.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1671532184600-120x67.jpeg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 734px) 100vw, 734px" />
Of course, many attempts have been made to generate content – in bulk or otherwise &#8211; using ChatGPT, but the results have been less than satisfactory in terms of relevance.
While some of the content produced may have driven traffic, it failed to attract the right audience, and it did not typically generate revenue.
For most businesses, creating content in bulk using AI would be a challenge in terms of maintenance and impact, particularly without a substantial marketing team or revenue.
The cost of maintaining such content would eat into the bottom line, with little or no return on investment.
Furthermore, since generic content is often removed from the buyer&#8217;s journey, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify allocating resources towards its improvement.
<h3>Ineffective approach</h3>
Years ago, many people tried publishing thousands of posts using content mills for as low as 2 cents per word, and it proved to be an ineffective approach. This is no different.
The same is true for using ChatGPT or any other automated tool to produce content. It&#8217;s simply old-school SEO, and these strategies do not work in driving business growth.
The key to success lies in understanding what your audience needs and delivering it with authority, rather than spamming content around non-competitive, high-volume keywords.
The business acumen to recognise that AI-generated content is not the solution required to move the needle is missing.
Most businesses require high-level content that communicates expertise and addresses consumer concerns. Unfortunately, AI is not currently capable of generating such content.
<h3>No acumen</h3>
I recently came across this post on Twitter by a copywriter. It’s grim, to say the least. And the business that chose to do this? There is clearly no acumen on display by this particular client:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14360" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1673602990751.jpeg" alt="" width="800" height="443" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1673602990751.jpeg 800w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1673602990751-250x138.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1673602990751-700x388.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1673602990751-768x425.jpeg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1673602990751-120x66.jpeg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />
You could argue that most blog posts should not be for SEO, and this is true. But even those created for trust, optics and usefulness by ChatGPT will fall very short of requirements.
<h3>Content that satisfies</h3>
It is imperative to reiterate (once more) the paramount importance of creating content that aligns with Google&#8217;s expectations.
While not particularly complex, this is a facet of creating content that is frequently overlooked.
Google places a premium on content that satisfies the following criteria:
<ul>
<li>Offers original information, reporting, research, or analysis</li>
<li>Provides an extensive, exhaustive, or complete overview of the subject matter</li>
<li>Offers insightful analysis or intriguing data that goes beyond the surface level</li>
<li>References and cites other sources rather than simply duplicating or rehashing their content, thereby offering additional value and originality. ChatGPT, for instance, is a prime example of this approach.</li>
<li>Is the kind of content that would prompt you to bookmark it, share it with others, or recommend it?</li>
<li>Is similar to the calibre of content that you would find in a reputable publication, such as a magazine, encyclopedia, or book? This is an essential consideration; Google effectively prioritises journalism.</li>
<li>Offers greater value than other search results pages? Trust me, ChatGPT is not expending such extensive effort solely for your benefit.</li>
<li>Is crafted with care and attention to detail, avoiding any hasty or sloppy errors</li>
<li>Is not mass-produced, thereby avoiding neglect and disregard for individual pages or sites.</li>
</ul>
As you can see this is not the work of AI. This is humans. It’s critical thinking, applied knowledge, originality and opinions.
I have not even yet mentioned the trust factors that Google often references. You might know it as <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/12/google-raters-guidelines-e-e-a-t">E-E-A-T</a>.
<h3>Authority of content</h3>
Google&#8217;s ranking algorithm considers multiple factors when determining the authority of content.
Among these factors are questions related to the author&#8217;s expertise, including whether the content provides clear sourcing, evidence of the author&#8217;s expertise or the website&#8217;s authority, and links to relevant pages such as an author page or an About page.
The algorithm also considers whether the site producing the content is well-trusted or recognised as an authority on the topic. Additionally, the algorithm evaluates whether the content is written by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrates a deep understanding of the topic.
Finally, the algorithm checks for easily verifiable factual errors in the content.
Now, do you really want to trust ChatGPT with any of this???
<h3>Not a solution</h3>
ChatGPT is a tool and NOT a solution. It can be an effective starting point.
If you have writer’s block then by all means ask it for suggestions on sub-topics – but you’d best be prepared to write about these topics in an original, thoughtful, and perhaps opinionated way.
Think about a world filled with AI-generated content. It&#8217;s a world where quality is no longer the deciding factor, where homogeneous content reigns supreme.
After all, why bother with a half-decent writer when you can just rely on ChatGPT to generate something similar? But if everyone is using the same tool, where is the differentiation?
If your competitor generates articles on the same topic using the same AI tool, how do you stand out?
The answer: you don&#8217;t.
You&#8217;re left to compete solely on backlinking and technical SEO, which are smaller pieces of the puzzle compared to content itself.
<h3>Often wrong</h3>
But even if you manage to get your AI-generated content indexed, there&#8217;s another problem: accuracy. ChatGPT may be confident in its writing, but it&#8217;s often wrong.
It&#8217;s like using predictive text on your phone &#8211; it can lead to nonsensical statements. Except with ChatGPT, the mistakes can be subtle and dangerous.
It may use insecure libraries in code snippets, or get facts wrong. And let&#8217;s not forget its inability to count words and characters properly. At the time of writing this, if you ask it for ten headlines with 50 characters or fewer, it&#8217;ll spit out ten headlines of arbitrary length, assuring you that they&#8217;re within your parameters.
<h3>Risky proposition</h3>
So, is relying on ChatGPT for SEO content generation a good idea? In short, no. Not really. The lack of differentiation and the potential for inaccuracies make it a risky proposition.
Sure, it&#8217;s an impressive tool, but it&#8217;s not a substitute for human creativity and expertise.
When ChatGPT exploded on the scene, I became very tired of reading articles only to get to the end and be told “Surprise, this was written by ChatGPT!”
This was not clever, it was obnoxious, and I could usually tell that it was written by AI anyway.
Well, I’ll just finish by saying&#8230;
Surprise, ChatGPT could NOT have possibly written this one.
Because it’s actually original and voices an opinion.
If you want to know more about how Friday can help you with <a href="https://www.friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/search-engine-optimisation/">SEO</a> and <a href="https://www.friday.ie/expertise/content-marketing/">content</a>, then <a href="https://www.friday.ie/contact/">get in touch</a> with us now.

Should you use ChatGPT to create your blog posts

Should you use ChatGPT to create your blog posts?

<h4>Whether you run a business that has an app or website that is either core to, or part of the sales process you will want to keep a close eye on the conversion rate on an ongoing basis. Is the software, content and interface doing its job? Can users find the content and functions they need and are they converting? How can it be improved?</h4>
It may be that you don’t know if your website or app needs minor updates or a major redesign, best not to make assumptions around this as it can be costly. There’s no such thing as a perfect user experience, there’s always room for improvement and discovering where the improvements can be made is where a UX audit can be invaluable.
Research carried out by Forester in 2017 shows that, on average, every €1 invested in UX brings €100 in return. They also found that a well-designed user interface could raise your website’s conversion rate by up to a 200%, and better UX design could increase conversion rates up to 400%.
<h3>The Process of a UX Audit</h3>
A UX audit will go through a series of steps that will help uncover any usability issues. This will provide actionable recommendations that will help eliminate any issues and improve the overall user experience and conversion rate. The process of a UX audit will vary depending on the goals, budget and time allotted. This could range from a day or two to several weeks. During a UX audit, the auditor uses a variety of tools, research methods and metrics to find out where the software is or is not working. The most effective UX audit would include quantitative and qualitative research that involves users, this would include usability testing, interviews or surveys.
As part of a UX audit, a UX professional would usually carry out what is known as a heuristic evaluation of the software. User experience pioneers Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich published an article in the early 1990’s which contained a set of principles, or heuristics, that industry specialists soon began to adopt as a benchmark to systematically determine the usability of an interface. In the absence of enough time or budget for user research, a heuristic evaluation may be central to the audit process.
&nbsp;
<h3>10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design</h3>
As experts, we go through a checklist of criteria to find flaws and areas that can be improved based on the following principles.
<h4>#1: Visibility of system status</h4>
The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.
<div id="attachment_12374" style="width: 799px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12374" class="wp-image-12374 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image.png" alt="" width="789" height="272" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image.png 789w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-250x86.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-700x241.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-768x265.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-120x41.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-80x28.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 789px) 100vw, 789px" />A progress bar tells the user something is happening and indicates how long it might take. This builds trust and patients.</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#2: Match between system and the real world</h4>
The design should speak the users’ language. Use words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than internal jargon. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
<div id="attachment_12381" style="width: 1404px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12381" class="wp-image-12381 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cal.png" alt="" width="1394" height="896" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cal.png 1394w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cal-250x161.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cal-700x450.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cal-768x494.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cal-120x77.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cal-80x51.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1394px) 100vw, 1394px" />Familiarity with something in the real world, the Mac calculator is not too far from the old Casio model we all used in school.</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#3: User control and freedom</h4>
Users often perform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted action without having to go through an extended process, a bit like the undo command that is common on a PC.
<div id="attachment_12387" style="width: 1312px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12387" class="wp-image-12387 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/undo.png" alt="" width="1302" height="699" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/undo.png 1302w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/undo-250x134.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/undo-700x376.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/undo-768x412.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/undo-120x64.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/undo-80x43.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1302px) 100vw, 1302px" />The undo feature Google added in Gmail gives the user 5 seconds to stop an email from sending (after they press send), might come in handy!</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#4: Consistency and standards</h4>
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions and reduce learning.
<div id="attachment_12382" style="width: 1209px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12382" class="wp-image-12382 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/jakobs-law-utility-nav.jpg" alt="" width="1199" height="525" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/jakobs-law-utility-nav.jpg 1199w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/jakobs-law-utility-nav-250x109.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/jakobs-law-utility-nav-700x307.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/jakobs-law-utility-nav-768x336.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/jakobs-law-utility-nav-120x53.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/jakobs-law-utility-nav-80x35.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1199px) 100vw, 1199px" />Don’t reinvent the wheel, users will find familiar interfaces that follow convention much easier to use.</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#5: Error prevention</h4>
Good error messages are important, but the best designs carefully prevent problems from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions, or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
<div id="attachment_12378" style="width: 3407px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12378" class="wp-image-12378 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal.png" alt="" width="3397" height="1704" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal.png 3397w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal-250x125.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal-700x351.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal-768x385.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal-1536x770.png 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal-2048x1027.png 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal-120x60.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5ccb5076df86e7441a9f761b_modal-80x40.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 3397px) 100vw, 3397px" />Users need to fully understand the outcome of their actions.</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#6: Recognition rather than recall</h4>
Minimise the user’s memory load by making elements, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the interface to another. Information required to use the design (e.g. field labels or menu items) should be visible or easily retrievable when needed.
<div id="attachment_12384" style="width: 2654px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12384" class="wp-image-12384 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08.png" alt="" width="2644" height="1468" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08.png 2644w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08-250x139.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08-700x389.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08-768x426.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08-1536x853.png 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08-2048x1137.png 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08-120x67.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-28-at-09.37.08-80x44.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 2644px) 100vw, 2644px" />In Phtoshop, Adobe present the users with a list of recently worked on files, this helps the user from having to go rooting for them.</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#7: Flexibility and efficiency of use</h4>
Shortcuts — hidden from novice users — may speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the design can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
<div id="attachment_12379" style="width: 1210px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12379" class="wp-image-12379 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/130870-phones-feature-what-is-apple-pay-and-how-does-it-work-image1-qjaxkx6zrb.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/130870-phones-feature-what-is-apple-pay-and-how-does-it-work-image1-qjaxkx6zrb.jpg 1200w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/130870-phones-feature-what-is-apple-pay-and-how-does-it-work-image1-qjaxkx6zrb-250x167.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/130870-phones-feature-what-is-apple-pay-and-how-does-it-work-image1-qjaxkx6zrb-700x467.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/130870-phones-feature-what-is-apple-pay-and-how-does-it-work-image1-qjaxkx6zrb-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/130870-phones-feature-what-is-apple-pay-and-how-does-it-work-image1-qjaxkx6zrb-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/130870-phones-feature-what-is-apple-pay-and-how-does-it-work-image1-qjaxkx6zrb-80x53.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Payment applications like ApplePay and Google Pay help users quickly pay for something online without having to enter their payment and personal details again and again.</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#8: Aesthetic and minimalist design</h4>
Interfaces should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in an interface competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
<div id="attachment_12380" style="width: 2040px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12380" class="wp-image-12380 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Busy.png" alt="" width="2030" height="1035" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Busy.png 2030w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Busy-250x127.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Busy-700x357.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Busy-768x392.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Busy-1536x783.png 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Busy-120x61.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Busy-80x41.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 2030px) 100vw, 2030px" />Less is more. Users like consuming information at a glance. Clean design minimalist design helps with this.</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#9: Help users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors</h4>
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no error codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
<div id="attachment_12386" style="width: 1210px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12386" class="wp-image-12386 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/twitter_Eg3hXdQWoAI0Dgq.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="675" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/twitter_Eg3hXdQWoAI0Dgq.jpg 1200w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/twitter_Eg3hXdQWoAI0Dgq-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/twitter_Eg3hXdQWoAI0Dgq-700x394.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/twitter_Eg3hXdQWoAI0Dgq-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/twitter_Eg3hXdQWoAI0Dgq-120x68.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/twitter_Eg3hXdQWoAI0Dgq-80x45.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Help users solve a problem, give them as much informartion as posisble without technical jargon.</div>
&nbsp;
<h4>#10: Help and documentation</h4>
It’s best if the system doesn’t need any additional explanation. However, it may be necessary to provide documentation to help users understand how to complete their tasks.
<div id="attachment_12383" style="width: 1608px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12383" class="wp-image-12383 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/monday.png" alt="" width="1598" height="989" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/monday.png 1598w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/monday-250x155.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/monday-700x433.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/monday-768x475.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/monday-1536x951.png 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/monday-120x74.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/monday-80x50.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1598px) 100vw, 1598px" />A smart, predictive search can help users find answers to their questions quickly.</div>
&nbsp;
<h3>The Output of a UX Audit</h3>
A UX audit should also take into account the content, layout and the user flow through the interface and uncover any blocks or hurdles that users may have to get past in order to complete a task. 
There is no universal format for a UX audit report, each one is tailored to the process employed for the project. It may consists of some or all of the following.
<ul>
<li>Usability review / heuristic evaluation</li>
<li>Information architecture review</li>
<li>Data analytics</li>
<li>Revised User flows</li>
<li>Review of language, clarity, and Calls to action</li>
<li>Conversion optimisation</li>
<li>Content review</li>
<li>Visual design review</li>
<li>Suggested updates mapped out in a priority matrix</li>
</ul>
At the end of a UX audit, you should receive a comprehensive report with clear and actionable recommendations and advice. The key suggestions from this audit can be mapped out in a priority matrix that will identify the quick wins or low hanging fruit that will have the highest impact on UX with lowest amount of design or development effort — we start from there and work our way through the findings to maximise ROI as quickly as possible.
<div id="attachment_12391" style="width: 1010px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12391" class="wp-image-12391 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-1.png" alt="" width="1000" height="800" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-1.png 1000w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-1-250x200.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-1-700x560.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-1-768x614.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-1-120x96.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-1-80x64.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" />Priority Matrix</div>
A UX audit is an essential process for any software product, app or website. A well-executed review will help businesses fix problems quickly, improve retention and boost conversions.
<h4>Interested in running a UX audit on your app or website?</h4>
Please, get in touch to see how we can help.

What is a User Experience Audit and how is it Useful?

People can be fairly quick to criticise Google.
It usually comes down to concerns about privacy, company culture, or monopolisation… but they continue to use the search engine – almost every day.
Not just that, but people trust the results.
It&#8217;s not only that it provides you with the most relevant results. People value the importance of instant gratification, personalisation, and control.
When it comes to developing trust in the online world, the paradigm has altered. Trust can now be established by meeting the human urge for faster gratification.
And Google does this exceptionally well.
Their algorithms are always changing, using machine learning to understand what others like to engage with and, as a result, providing you with the finest results possible.
This is accomplished through the use of a variety of metrics, the most recent of which are click-through rates and your website&#8217;s dwell times. The longer a person remains on a website after clicking through, the more relevant it is seen to be, and hence the higher it will rank.
As a result, the value of <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/user-experience/">UX</a> and a positive on-site experience cannot be overstated. But unless you want to <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">talk about that right now</a>, that&#8217;s a discussion for another day.
<h3>Trustworthiness</h3>
According to a previous study, an established newspaper is trustworthy since it is physical and has a well-known brand. The first Google result, on the other hand, is probably now regarded with the same level of legitimacy and trustworthiness as The Irish Times&#8217; front page.
As a result, there has been a lot of debate regarding Google&#8217;s responsibility to serve not only the most relevant but also trustworthy websites in its rankings. This is why we now get things like <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-search-notice-warns-searchers-when-results-are-new-and-possibly-unreliable-349906">this</a>. Fake news has a lot to answer for.
With the change to a connected world, people want something digestible and easy to understand, such as a quick video, short article, or infographic &#8211; whatever it takes to scratch the itch. True or not, they&#8217;ll take it.
<h3>Information on human behaviour</h3>
Advertisers and psychologists now have access to a wealth of fresh behavioural data that they can use in personalised discussions and mass marketing campaigns.
Facebook, Apple, and Google, among other social media platforms and data collecting agencies, have been watching and sharing their users&#8217; activity with specifics of data input, text messages, location, camera, actual personal information, and other capabilities in order to understand more about them.
Researchers have discovered patterns in human behaviour using this unprecedented data, shedding light on the human judgment process and trust-building.
Advertising and marketing is the most sophisticated and researched field when it comes to trust-building.
This isn&#8217;t surprising given that academics have access to trillions of data points voluntarily donated by people like you, and the discipline is growing beyond traditional understandings of human psychology and trust-building strategies.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="512" height="340" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12366" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/unnamed.jpeg" alt="Data Points" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/unnamed.jpeg 512w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/unnamed-250x166.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/unnamed-120x80.jpeg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/unnamed-80x53.jpeg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />
Facebook, for example, analyses and tests people in a variety of emotional states in order to provide data about their decision-making.
Facebook has tailored each user&#8217;s experience based on their results and continues to learn about <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788">human behaviour</a>.
<h3>A deep understanding</h3>
This comprehensive knowledge of each user is shared with the advertiser with the aim of establishing a successful and mutually beneficial partnership. And it&#8217;s incredibly effective. It absolutely works for us as an agency.
In order to educate and benefit their product and, in turn, marketers, Mailchimp, and other email marketing platforms deliver consumer data based on millions of emails every day as well as their customers&#8217; behaviour.
Although it took some time, most people and businesses have come to regard the internet as an important part of their daily lives. This is also true with Google.
For quite some time, Google has been providing you with more relevant search results based on arguably personal information such as your location, previous purchases, search history, and interests, for example.
We&#8217;ve invested so much, and this wouldn&#8217;t be possible without trust. And this kind of trust is based on a fantastic, ever-evolving, and individualised product. All of this leads to instant gratification.
Mobile devices now give us instant results, or at the very least the capacity to search on demand.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-12359 size-medium" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/main-qimg-ea63bf2d15cef03052c769c20c05be33-c-250x248.png" alt="In Google You Trust" width="250" height="248" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/main-qimg-ea63bf2d15cef03052c769c20c05be33-c-250x248.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/main-qimg-ea63bf2d15cef03052c769c20c05be33-c-700x696.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/main-qimg-ea63bf2d15cef03052c769c20c05be33-c-150x150.png 150w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/main-qimg-ea63bf2d15cef03052c769c20c05be33-c-768x763.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/main-qimg-ea63bf2d15cef03052c769c20c05be33-c-120x119.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/main-qimg-ea63bf2d15cef03052c769c20c05be33-c-80x80.png 80w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/main-qimg-ea63bf2d15cef03052c769c20c05be33-c.png 966w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" />
<h3>New possibilities</h3>
This demand for rapid information fulfilment has made it easier to cancel plans and explore other opportunities. Questions are answered and arguments are resolved.
The ordering of search results is critical in online searching: users expect the best results to be displayed at the top of the page, and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2012/03/09/search-engine-use-2012/">they trust search engines</a> to locate the best results and rank them appropriately.
When a search engine returns a result, there are four parties involved:
<ol>
<li>The search engine, obviously</li>
<li>The source of information</li>
<li>The SEO consultant or firm</li>
<li>The user</li>
</ol>
All of these factors have an impact on a search engine&#8217;s ranking. While it is evident that a search engine has an impact on its own results, these other aspects must also be considered.
Filtering enormous amounts of results can be difficult for search engine users. As a result, users must have faith in the search engine&#8217;s ability to rank results based on their relevancy to the query.
In addition, it is important to consider whether consumers&#8217; high levels of trust in search engines are justified, given the fact that no search engine has complete control over its results and that users have no other way of determining how good a search engine&#8217;s results are other than by looking at the results they find.
<h3>Positioning</h3>
People often believe Google&#8217;s positioning more than their own rational judgments, according to one eye-tracking study. It&#8217;s insane, yet true.
When you look at the data on privacy, you&#8217;ll see a contradiction&#8230;
<ul>
<li>65% of individuals do not want search engines to track their searches.</li>
<li>73% said they would be uneasy with a search engine keeping a tally of their requests and utilising that data to customise subsequent search results since they consider it is a privacy violation.</li>
</ul>
Despite all of this, Google still maintains a market share of 92.47% as of June 2021.
This is due to the fact that people place great value on search engines&#8217; effectiveness. As a result, they continue to trust them and use them.
This performance is largely dependent on your private data. If it wasn&#8217;t, your search results would be much more general and certainly less relevant.
We freely submit our data to social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and many others, but then believe we have the right to complain about confidentiality when these platforms provide us with a more personalised experience.
Your instant gratification comes at a price. It&#8217;s only a matter of deciding how much you&#8217;re willing to pay.

In Google You Trust

You will know by now that your website needs to load fast.
You just need to Google it to remind yourself as to the many reasons why, so we will not do that again here.
In summary: happier users, better conversions rates and more conversions.
There&#8217;s no need to make it any more complicated because that’s all it is. Why else would you focus on it?
You don’t need another blog post about % of revenue loss for every % of extra second of load time. Zzzzzzzz. You’ve hit the snooze button on that a few times, so just turn off the alarm now.
Let’s look to the near future instead…
<h3>Great user experience</h3>
In May 2021 things will start to get very real when Google begin to label search results that have what they call a &#8220;great user experience&#8221;. They may begin testing this sooner, but that&#8217;s the official rollout date.
By ‘user experience’, we are not talking about UX in a traditional sense. We refer to ‘user experience’ in the way that Google defines it algorithmically – so, how fast and uninterrupted a web page is when loading.
In May, if yours is not up to scratch, then your click-through rates will decrease. There’s no question of that. It was probably already annoying users anyway.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="328" height="268" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11731" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/giphy-2.gif" alt="" />
This is the Google Page Experience Update.
An article on Search Engine Land <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-page-experience-update-to-launch-in-may-2021-343581">last year</a> said of this update: “Many SEOs expect it will be relatively minor.”
Well, let me tell you that this will not be ‘minor’. You can be damn sure of that.
The impact on rankings will be direct, since Google themselves have called this an &#8220;upcoming Search ranking change&#8221; and also there&#8217;s the potential indirect ranking loss suffered as a result of your competitors being labelled as a ‘great user experience’ when you are not.
It&#8217;s already there in the code within Google Search Console, if you know where to look:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="640" height="361" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11743" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/t-google-search-console-page-experience-appearance-filter-1612963427.jpg" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/t-google-search-console-page-experience-appearance-filter-1612963427.jpg 640w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/t-google-search-console-page-experience-appearance-filter-1612963427-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/t-google-search-console-page-experience-appearance-filter-1612963427-120x68.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/t-google-search-console-page-experience-appearance-filter-1612963427-80x45.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />
Without investment, this is the beginning of the end for some websites. There are those that will, in a year or two, essentially end up on Google’s scrapheap as a result of this.
<h3>Something tangible</h3>
This very tangible thing, an actual visual signal in Google search results saying that your website is a &#8220;great user experience&#8221;, will be something that’s desired because it’s visual.
In-house marketers will have something tangible to tell their teams or agencies: “That’s what we want.” It will not be achievable in all cases, and if you do not have this label then your click-through rates (CTR) from search results may not suffer massively, but it will definitely be desirable.
What they won&#8217;t tell you is that this still remains slightly relative. If you are in a sector with just a few competitors then it may be okay at first to just have a faster web page than the others &#8211; but your end goal should still be to be fast by comparison to most others.
Before now, this discussion was usually held on the back of PageSpeed Insights scores (which are mostly bullsh*t and unreliable) and Lighthouse tests (a bit more detailed and sometimes useful, but not always accurate).
And then Google clearly stated that it’s the Core Web Vitals scores in Search Console that you need to pay most attention to, but many are still not listening.
<a href="https://web.dev/vitals/">Core Web Vitals</a> are a set of real-world, user-centred metrics that quantify key aspects of the user experience. They measure dimensions of web usability such as load time, interactivity, and the stability of content as it loads. For example, you can probably remember more than one time when your thumb clicked on the wrong thing while a page was loading and aligning. Not great if you&#8217;re anywhere near a one-click purchase.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-11725 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Search_Page_Experience_Graphic.jpg" alt="Google Page Experience Update" width="960" height="540" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Search_Page_Experience_Graphic.jpg 960w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Search_Page_Experience_Graphic-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Search_Page_Experience_Graphic-700x394.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Search_Page_Experience_Graphic-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Search_Page_Experience_Graphic-120x68.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Search_Page_Experience_Graphic-80x45.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" />
<h3>Actual Google Chrome users</h3>
The fact that these scores are based on actual Google Chrome users who visited your website should be all you need to know. The data comes from the Chrome User Experience Report and reflects actual usage data on your site from users around the world.
Well now, it’s Core Web Vitals that will help you to achieve this new label in search results. So it’s time to listen and stop running Page Speed tests on just your home page and sharing those results internally with a sigh of relief &#8211; they mean nothing now, they are just indicative at best.
Now here’s one of the toughest parts&#8230;
There are websites that use plugins and functionalities which are fundamental to how they have worked up until now. There are those that use page types and layouts that are heavy loading but they are what users have come to expect from that brand&#8230; websites like these may need a lot of work before they can achieve the status of being a ‘great user experience’ in Google’s eyes.
So if you haven’t begun to look at this now then you need to do so immediately. Some time, effort and investment will likely be needed.
<h3>Help your SEO</h3>
It is important to dispel the myth that better Page Speed scores instantly ‘help your SEO’. They can, but not always directly. Google is now looking for the complete user experience – great load times, strong click-through rates from search results, and strong engagement with the page itself.
To give an example: You can have a landing page that loads extremely quickly but if the content is sh*t and the user has no idea what to do next then they will bounce (leave your website) and your rankings will drop.
Google is not just a search engine, it is a suggestion engine. And they want to suggest websites that are not just fast but are also the perfect result for what the user searched for. They hate being wrong.
<h3>Fit for purpose</h3>
Don’t just take this time to focus only on Core Web Vitals and Page Speed. Take a fresh objective look at whether or not your website and core landing pages are even fit for purpose.
“Great page experiences enable people to get more done and engage more deeply,” Google say.
“In contrast, a bad page experience could stand in the way of a person being able to find valuable information on a page.
“By adding page experience to the hundreds of signals that Google considers when ranking search results, we aim to help people more easily access the information and web pages they&#8217;re looking for, and support site owners in providing an experience that users enjoy.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="244" height="182" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11732" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/tenor.gif" alt="" />
None of this should be news to digital marketing professionals. Google has previously had known and established factors influencing its mobile-first index.
Up to now, those have been mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS/HSTS, popups, interstitials, and more. Until now, it has been very much a focus on ‘mobile-friendly’ and ‘mobile-first’, but now it’s very much ‘mobile-fast’.
<h3>Next steps</h3>
You must revisit your website&#8217;s performance, security, and mobile-friendliness. These are already important, but they&#8217;ll become even more so.
You should also:
<ul>
<li>Check that your hosting service is fast, reliable and responsive.</li>
<li>Check that your website is not overstuffed with visual content (videos, images) that are going to make your site slow. Use a <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/cdn/what-is-a-cdn/">Content Delivery Network</a>, if possible.</li>
<li>If your website is not responsive and mobile-friendly by now, then you should be tearing it down to build it again.</li>
<li>Ensure that you have the correct security measures in place. HTTS/HSTS&#8230; Google may even begin to check your site for a firewall.</li>
<li>Avoid pop-up banners where possible. Nobody enjoys them. Cookie notices have already done enough damage.</li>
<li>Run some manual tests for loading, interactivity, and visual stability. So, do your pages load fast and look right?</li>
<li>Monitor Core Web Vitals data regularly.</li>
</ul>
As always, the most important next step is simple…
Get in touch with Friday Agency and let us show you <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/" data-trid="267">what we can do</a>.

Google’s Page Experience Update is Almost Here

SEO - The Best Business Investment in a Recession & Beyond

SEO: The Best Business Investment in a Recession & Beyond

Have you ever worn the same thing as someone else to a party?
What if you went to a party and when you got there, over 100,000 people had the same idea?
That’s what would happen if you write a blog post called “how to optimise my blog post for SEO”.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="786" height="511" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9696" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog-image-1.jpg" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog-image-1.jpg 786w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog-image-1-250x163.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog-image-1-768x499.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog-image-1-700x455.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog-image-1-120x78.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog-image-1-80x52.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 786px) 100vw, 786px" />
What’s happening everywhere is that original thought and compelling content is being threatened (or at least drowned out) by those who:
<ol>
<li class="p1">write just to rank</li>
<li class="p1">are too conservative</li>
<li class="p1">have no strategy</li>
<li class="p1">have little to say about their product, service or industry</li>
<li class="p1">have little to say about their company</li>
<li class="p1">are just plain lazy</li>
<li class="p1">fall under all of the above&#8230;</li>
</ol>
Personally, I have a real problem with the overabundance of what’s called “topic cluster content”. This is pushed by the likes of HubSpot, the <a href="https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/10/topic-cluster-content/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Content Marketing Institute</a>, and many more. To explain this concept: you simply find your core topic (that people are searching for) and then you write more blog posts about related sub-topics (that people are searching for).
<blockquote>&#8220;The internet is being flooded by content that has absolutely no value. Content for the sake of content. And it must stop.&#8221;</blockquote>
<h3>Kind of Boring</h3>
So for example, if I was to write about how to optimise a blog post for SEO, then I might proceed to write a piece a week later about how to build relevant link to said blog post. Logical, right? Yes, but isn’t it kind of boring?
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="480" height="240" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9712" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/giphy.gif" alt="" />
Writing for SEO is okay to a point, but far too many brands are picking up on this technique and creating content that has little to no value. And it&#8217;s sort of all the same. At best, it might be slightly useful &#8211; but it’s probably been written over 100,000 times before. And much of it ends up in TL;DR territory.
Let’s get to the point of what is considered to be poor quality content, and then stay where you are so that we can discuss what to do about it&#8230;
According to Google&#8217;s own guidelines, your content is of poor quality if:
<ul class="ul1">
<li>It&#8217;s lacking in purpose</li>
<li>It is harmful or offensive</li>
<li>Presents unsubstantiated conspiracy theories</li>
<li>Promotes hate or violence</li>
<li>The page is just a copy of an idea already present on the internet</li>
<li>There are numerous grammatical errors or misspellings</li>
<li>and many more&#8230;</li>
</ul>
And hidden somewhere within their documentation if you look closely enough, there is also this key piece:
<ul>
<li>Little to no time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users</li>
</ul>
Now that&#8217;s the real problem right there. They do not like lazy content.
Google has felt the need to create guidelines like <a href="https://www.semrush.com/blog/eat-and-ymyl-new-google-search-guidelines-acronyms-of-quality-content/">E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) </a>because most people simply cannot follow their advice by writing with honesty&#8230; and for the user.
<h3>Getting away with it</h3>
The internet is being flooded and, over time, ruined by those creating content time and again that has absolutely no value. Content for the sake of content. And it must stop.
The mere suggestion that you should have an opinion can be met with, &#8220;Yeah maybe if we were Ryanair or Paddy Power then we could get away with that.&#8221; A knowing guffaw will usually follow. Well, guess what &#8211; those brands are getting away with it and it&#8217;s getting them a lot of exposure. Their content is often original, has a supporting strategy, dares to create debate&#8230; and come on, they&#8217;re having fun.
Brands who create content with honesty don&#8217;t give much of a sh*t about what people are searching for, or what they will write about next week based on, well, what people are searching for again. They will write with authority, they will have an opinion, an original piece of thought, a tone of voice, a strategy&#8230; all of the core elements that are missing from most content.
<h3>Not just Storytelling</h3>
The next time you sit down and strategise content, think about all of this. And very importantly, if you have a topic then Google it before you write so that you can ascertain if it&#8217;s already been done a million times or not. And if it has then you&#8217;d better make it bloody good or else don&#8217;t bother. Good content is not just storytelling, it&#8217;s telling your story well.
And don&#8217;t be afraid to have an opinion. If it doesn&#8217;t work then life will go on (assuming you haven&#8217;t said something completely ignorant or offensive). But you MUST have an opinion or a voice, or your content will not stand out. It just won&#8217;t.
Furthermore, there are so many blogs that are chock full of articles about products or services and you&#8217;ve got to wonder why these are not just given a logical/permanent home on their website. Your blog is your place to have an opinion or a voice, not to shove a product benefit down someone&#8217;s neck&#8230; again. Let your product pages be great at doing that.
Don&#8217;t focus on what everyone else is saying and then try to say it better. Instead, focus on trying to say what nobody has said yet. Now that&#8217;s something of value. That&#8217;s something I&#8217;ll read. And so will many others&#8230;
<h3>Where to Start</h3>
We know that this is not easy&#8230; you do need to research your audiences, engage with them and better understand their needs, you need a direct line to those with the authority to greenlight and/or produce this content and have the opinion, you need the resources to produce something compelling.
So if you&#8217;re wondering where to start with often limited resources, then:
<ul>
<li>Look at your own industry &#8211; there are surely developments that you (or someone in your organisation) can have an opinion on. Everyone between four office walls has an opinion so be bold, back that up and talk about it.</li>
<li>Read a lot &#8211; If you are not keeping pace with your industry then you may have an opinion that is out-dated &#8211; or that someone has already had.</li>
<li>Do NOT immediately look for what users are searching on Google for. Most searches do NOT end in a purchase, remember? Instead, use informed <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/strategy/research/">research</a> and ask them what they&#8217;d like to see from you.</li>
<li>Is there any industry experts who would be willing to write for you? They will be less afraid of judgment and might even have some credibility to lend.</li>
<li>Weigh up the risks and rewards and maybe just do something cheap but fun. Like that time Friday created TDer, which is still <a href="https://www.tder.ie/">worth a look</a>.</li>
</ul>
With the right amount of effort and willingness, you&#8217;ll not just be creating content that delights your audiences.. but also your audience&#8217;s audiences.
Now go and take risks with your content, because the answer is always no if you&#8217;re never even asked. Don&#8217;t just be like the rest.
Fancy taking a risk with your content? <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">Get in touch.</a>

Where Has All The Good Content Gone?

If this headline caught your attention and you’ve come here looking for the answer, you’ll be disappointed.
But don’t go anywhere, this is still relevant…
The question you should be asking instead is “How good should my blog posts be?”
<h3>It&#8217;s not about length</h3>
Too often in discussion around content, this question is asked. “How long does it need to be?”. If you’re asking this, your approach is all wrong.
There’s nothing new to say here that we haven’t already been trying to drill home. It’s not about length, it’s about the <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/user-centric-content/">user</a>.
It’s about relevance, originality, quality, and engagement. And if it can be entertaining, informative, controversial or opinionated, then even better &#8211; people might actually share it.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="477" height="158" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9584" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screenshot-2019-07-25-at-15.29.57.png" alt="Share my content" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screenshot-2019-07-25-at-15.29.57.png 477w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screenshot-2019-07-25-at-15.29.57-250x83.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screenshot-2019-07-25-at-15.29.57-120x40.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screenshot-2019-07-25-at-15.29.57-80x26.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 477px) 100vw, 477px" />
You may have seen studies out there suggesting that the longer your piece of content is the higher it will rank on Google. And yes, this is true in many cases. But not in every case. Let me explain…
I just searched on Google for “how long should a meta description be?” and this page ranked first &#8211; <a href="https://blog.spotibo.com/meta-description-length/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://blog.spotibo.com/meta-description-length/</a>
You know why? It’s rich content, its original, it’s got the length checker tool, there’s a useful image and then appropriate text length. That’s the key here &#8211; “appropriate”. It’s not two thousand words long but it certainly goes a long way towards answering my query.
Now, if my question instead had been “why do I need meta descriptions?” Then there’s an argument for writing more in order to give background, context and actionable value. Now that’s one I could easily write 2,000 words on. Not that length matters&#8230;
<h3>One core question</h3>
There is 1 core question you need to ask yourself at 3 key points while creating a blog post. And that question is: “Why should someone read this content and not someone else’s?”
And you should ask it:
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1">Before you create your piece of content</li>
<li class="li1">While you write it</li>
<li class="li1">When you review it for publishing</li>
</ol>
So, at every point.
If you cannot answer that question, then start again.
You should ask yourself the same about your brand, product, service, website… it should be a part of everything that you do. But that’s another day’s discussion, and that could easily be 10,000 words&#8230; or whatever is appropriate.
<h3>Keeping things simple</h3>
There’s a lot to be said for keeping things simple. As I write this, that is exactly what I’m aiming to do. This blog post is not for the purpose of making Friday Agency seem smart &#8211; it’s to show that we can make sense with minimal effort.
On this topic, even some very well-known websites have been getting it wrong from time to time. Take Search Engine Journal for example, which states <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/rank-higher-than-your-competitor/309929/">here</a> that: “Your content has to communicate your company’s unique selling proposition using the words that people who are looking for your goods and services are most likely to type into a search engine.”
Sorry, but this is b*llshit.
You do not need to broadcast your USP in every communication &#8211; this is a trap that far too many brands have fallen into. As a result, their blogs become catalogs, or About pages with added tumbleweed. It also leads to word count for the sake of length comparison.
Here is another <a href="https://searchengineland.com/tf-idf-the-best-content-optimization-tool-seos-arent-using-319122">article</a> on TF-IDF, which would have you believe that if you can analyse who ranks in the top 10 on Google and emulate the keywords/topics that they use then you can do the same &#8211; and, boom! you’ll be there too.
Not true.
But it will help you to maintain a certain level of unoriginality.
Covering related topics is fine, but don&#8217;t solely rely on tools and competitors to suggest these for you. You&#8217;re the expert.
<h3>Rank without copying your competitors</h3>
Your content can rank for what you want it to rank for, even without using the exact keywords. It can rank without copying your competitors. Google’s algorithm is smarter than mere comparison. It doesn’t require that you repeat yourself, state the obvious or be a collection of the thoughts of your competitors.
I stumbled upon another quote recently: “Analysing the top ranking content for LSI keywords, sub-topics they’ve included, who they link out to, what kind of media they use, etc. can be really effective at helping you understand how Google wants to answer the searcher’s query.”
Now, this is fine up to a point. But guess what &#8211; it’s not Google answering the query &#8211; it’s you. For your user. So write for them, and don’t spend the term of your natural life analysing what others are doing. Certainly take a look, but it’s not everything.
Spending all of your research time looking at what competitors are doing is about as useful as a pogo stick in a minefield.
The same goes for your word count. Do not be over-concerned about the length of your competitors’ blog posts. Answer the user’s query with honesty and expertise, and then send it out into the wild. You&#8217;ll know fairly soon if it&#8217;s good enough.
<h3>A final thought</h3>
There are so many factors involved that influence your blog post’s ranking position, and word count is just a very small part of it.
Here’s a final thought &#8211; how about you try to be the brand who are first to use certain engaging keywords and topics within your article? Say things that your competitors are not saying.
Have an opinion. Suddenly, you’re authentic.
Hey, you won&#8217;t find another blog post like this one on this topic!
Even if this very blog post doesn&#8217;t go on to rank no.1 for &#8220;How Long Should My Blog Posts Be?&#8221;, then at least it&#8217;s original.
Struggling with original content? <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">Get in touch.</a>

How Long Should My Blog Posts Be?

SEO & UX: The Perfect Partners

It&#8217;s Time to Step Away &amp; Put Your Users at the Centre of Your Content Strategy
For many businesses, creating content can be an arduous task. Usually this is because in-house resources are rather tight when it comes to creating content on a regular basis. Or sometimes, the skillset simply isn’t there. However, another barrier I come up against, or more slows the process down in the beginning, is the lack of understanding in the value of creating content. When I say “value” I do mean revenue!
For an Ecommerce business, for example, the primary goal is transactions and revenue generated. It’s totally understandable. You’re in business to make money!
Where’s the value in creating content? Oh yeah, for SEO. I did that in the beginning, but it took up too much time and I didn’t see the return I wanted.
If you have been creating content (or none at all in many cases), with the sole purpose of your business revenue goals in mind, rather than the user, you could be in for a bumpy ride down the rankings.
Graham said it perfectly in his blog “<a href="https://friday.ie/blog/building-trust-into-the-customer-experience/">your customer’s goals should be your goals</a>.”
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 75%; position: relative;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="giphy-embed" style="position: absolute;" src="https://giphy.com/embed/xUNd9GIay1fKQTSWIM" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
<a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/soultrain-soul-train-don-cornelius-xUNd9GIay1fKQTSWIM">via GIPHY</a>
<h2>Google’s Algorithm Update (March 2019)</h2>
On March 12th Google confirmed that it had made an <a href="https://searchengineland.com/googles-march-2019-core-quality-update-stories-of-recovery-314347">update to its core algorithm</a>. Targeting predominantly those that fall under the Your Money Your Life (YMYL) category, essentially websites that fall under the health segment. As a result a lot of websites saw their traffic deteriorate dramatically. Phew! I hear you say. But wait there’s more.
The algorithm update seemed to favour and reward websites that had content optimised to Google&#8217;s E-A-T standards. These standards put an emphasis on the overall Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness of a site. The higher Google scores you in these areas, the greater the reward.
Although many of the websites initially affected were health centric, there were a large number of other sites across a variety of industries affected by the update. I think it’s important to read between the lines here. Google’s goal, from a user point of view, is to return the most relevant search results to a user’s query. It’s that simple. With artificial intelligence becoming more advanced and user’s expectations of search evolving, your content has to go beyond trying to rank just for those high volume, high value keywords.
<h2>Content Experiences</h2>
Content marketing, it’s about simply creating &amp; distributing, right? Unfortunately not. It’s about creating an experience. A <a href="https://hub.uberflip.com/blog/what-is-content-experience-definition">content experience can be defined as</a>, the environment in which it lives, and how it engages users to take action on your site. 
In layman&#8217;s terms, it is the experience you get, both good and bad, when you interact with a piece of content.
<h3>What’s A Content Environment?</h3>
The environment in which it lives. Essentially the aesthetics of the content. It relates to the overall presentation of the content. Is it structured in a digestible and easy to navigate format? Is it in line with the brand? It’s all about creating attractive content that users want to consume and engage with and ultimately give them a positive user experience. It is about integrating relevant copy, image and video with good quality UX.
<h3>Engaging Users</h3>
You want your content to serve a purpose, for both you and the user. It is important to create content that is as relevant as can be to the user’s query. Once you’ve given them a positive user experience, the next step is for them to engage with you (all going well). 
The more personal the experience the better. User’s want to feel as if the messaging has been tailored to them. If you want to bring your user on a content journey, or simply want to generate leads, then make sure your CTA’s are relevant and natural. Think about what is relevant, and better yet, what fits contextually.
<h2>Creating A Content Experience</h2>
Creating incredible content isn’t about finding high volume keywords and churning out a long-form blog once a month. To create an experience, you need to begin by diving deep into that particular topic and consider all the possible needs your potential customers may have related to that topic.
Remember, you don’t have one type of customer. Your content has to satisfy a wide range of user needs. These needs can be transactional, but also informational.
For me, a content experience doesn&#8217;t have to begin when a user visits your site. It can now begin on the search engine results pages. With SERP features like Featured Snippets, it gives businesses an opportunity to entice and engage users before they even click. As users enter the top of the funnel and begin their research, you can seize the opportunity to be top of mind.
Consider an online retailer selling laptops. Now consider all the different types of information a user might search for around the keyword “laptops”.
They may be interested in;
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Brands</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Software</li>
<li>Comparisons</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Reviews</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Storage</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Speed</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Use cases &#8211; for designers, college students</li>
</ul>
User research is a crucial part of developing a content strategy. There are numerous data sources you can use to help research what type of content to create. It’s about thinking outside the box. 
<ul>
<li>Focus Groups</li>
<li>Customer Personas</li>
<li>Your Employees</li>
<li>Keyword Research</li>
<li>Forums</li>
</ul>
<h3>Focus Groups</h3>
If you can, start with a research focus group. This is particularly beneficial in highly competitive, niche markets where there might not be many product or service variations. Getting your customers in front of you can reveal a lot about their needs.
At Friday, one of the first steps we take in the beginning of any project is carrying out user research. Whether it’s driving a UX project, a new web build or a content strategy, research helps create that roadmap. 
<a href="https://friday.ie/blog/importance-of-ux-research/">Don’t base your decisions on assumptions</a>, it’s far more beneficial to just ask.
<h3>Customer Personas</h3>
If you can’t access a focus group, then try and get into the minds of your customer personas. What way do they think? What needs do each of them have? It’s not just about providing a product or service that they need. They may have had a particular thought process justifying why they need it. They may have gone through a series of events which led them to come looking for your product. Whatever the needs, each user has their own unique situation.
<h3>Employees</h3>
Talk to the people that deal with your customers on a daily basis. They will have a wealth of insights into what your customers needs are. 
<h3>Keyword Research</h3>
This should all be supported with in-depth keyword research. In particular, more long-tail keywords and queries. As long as it makes contextual sense. Start with your core keywords and work out. 
Gathering, grouping and categorising all of this data can then help mapping out your content pillars and calendar. The real work begins when it comes to creating and publishing.
<h3>Forums</h3>
Get on to forums relevant to your industry. See what everyone is talking about. They can be a goldmine of information. If you can&#8217;t get in front of your customer&#8217;s this is the next best thing.
<h2>Expertise + Brand = Trust (A Winning Formula)</h2>
When you gain trust, you build valuable, long-lasting relationships. 
Creating content that covers the length and breadth of a particular topic showcases your knowledge, experience and expertise. When your content is in-depth and consistently provides users with exactly what they want, it will positively effects for your brand
When you build your brand and establish yourself as the expert, you’re not only gaining the trust of the user, but you’re also gaining the trust of Google. 
From an SEO perspective, even if you’re not appearing in first position, if your brand is strong enough, and recognised as an authority in a particular field, users are more likely to click on your search result. Why click on a result from a brand you know nothing about, when you know you’ll get exactly what you want from the link in position 3?
<h2>User Intent</h2>
Does your page solve the user’s problem? Does it meet, and hopefully, go beyond their expectations? When you’re content matches the intent of the user, you’re providing them with positive user experiences. 
We don’t just love positive user experiences, Google loves them too. Positive user experiences translate to positive user signals. It’s these <a href="https://www.searchmetrics.com/glossary/user-signals/">user signals</a> that can benefit your organic visibility. Examples of these signals are; 
<ul>
<li>Click Through Rates</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Length of Time on Site</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Lower Bounce Rates</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Number of Pages Visited</li>
</ul>
Of course, these metrics are case dependent. Sometimes a user gets what they need and leaves. There’s no need for any further action. For example, looking for the contact number of a business.
<h2>So What Next?</h2>
Making the shift to creating high quality, user-centric content will pay dividends in the long-run. We’re living in a digital world saturated with advertisements and what sometimes feels like too many options.
Why would you want lots of options, when there could be one choice that solves everything?
If you want to avoid slugging it out in the trenches with growing numbers of competitors and rise to the top, then you need to put your efforts into positively strengthening your brand. You need to gain the trust of your target audience. Once you have that, a lot of the work is done for you in terms of consumers deciding whether to choose you or your competitors.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-9153 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/the-cream-always-rises-to-the-top.jpg" alt="the-cream-always-rises-to-the-top" width="642" height="361" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/the-cream-always-rises-to-the-top.jpg 642w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/the-cream-always-rises-to-the-top-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/the-cream-always-rises-to-the-top-120x67.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/the-cream-always-rises-to-the-top-80x45.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 642px) 100vw, 642px" />
How do you get there? Start by giving your users exactly what they want, and then give them more. There’s potential customers out there, that you didn’t even know you had. Give them positive, unforgettable experiences and become ‘the’ expert in what you do.
If you&#8217;re curious about creating a user-centric content strategy or would like to know more, then feel free to <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">get in touch with the team at Friday</a>.

It’s Time To Start Creating User-Centric Content

“We’ll go with the website but we can’t afford the SEO right now…”
I still hear this. Often. And realistically, if you can&#8217;t afford to invest in SEO, you can’t afford a website.
This post could have been written ten years ago, but sadly, for some, things haven’t changed so it still needs to be written today.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="320" height="240" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9037" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/O1Lp.gif" alt="" />
What’s happening far too often is that businesses ultimately have a website that is not a sales tool. And it’s because they think SEO is not important, that it’s optional, or that they can invest modestly and still expect to see results. Hell, some even think it’s a scam. And in a way, you can’t blame them if you <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/seo-if-you-think-best-expensive-wait-hire-bad-one/">look at how</a> some so-called ‘professionals’ behave.
SEO drives visibility amongst those who have potentially not heard about your brand. Without it, your website is mostly getting traffic from those who already have.
Without an ongoing investment in Search Engine Optimisation, you might as well just walk out on to the street and show your new website to strangers on a laptop. Because that’s probably the only way they’ll ever see it. And they might be the only people to see it.
<h3>Your First Website</h3>
So, there are two scenarios here. First is that you’re a new brand, perhaps a start-up. You need your first website. You get a few quotes from a few agencies or developers. And hey, you’re a start-up so you go with the cheapest one. Seems like a reasonable thing to do, right?
Well no, it’s really not. It’s wrong on so many levels.
You need to ensure that this website is being built with SEO in mind. They might tell you that your website will be “SEO friendly”, but actually there’s no such thing because you cannot launch a website and expect it to eventually rank highly on Google unless there has been a strategic approach to SEO and content.
A strategic approach to SEO include: getting to know your business and audiences, keyword research, competitor research, a content gap analysis, backed up by a content strategy and calendar… and it should be informed by research too.
And by research, we&#8217;re not talking about clipboards on Grafton Street (in Dublin) here… this is surveys of your actual audiences, focus groups and so much more.
From this information, you can then better understand what your potential audiences want, certainly content-wise.
And of course, there’s that little important part of finding out who they are and what makes them tick, where they engage online and how. This ALL informs SEO.
So if you are launching your first website, and none of the above has been discussed, then no, it is not “SEO-friendly” at all.
<h3>A New Website</h3>
Many websites will go through a complete overhaul, re-design or re-development. They will change their URLs and structure. If you do not factor in SEO at this stage, then you WILL lose traffic. There is no question of that.
So this is where I come back to SEO not being optional…
If you are requesting quotes from agencies for a new website, and they have returned a quote without a recommended investment for SEO &#8211; then tear it up, or delete the e-mail.
If you are disqualifying agencies or developers because SEO is included but you think it’s too expensive, then stop and think. Don’t do that. It’s essential. Without it, you WILL lose traffic and revenue.
If you are migrating to a new website, then allow us to explain WHY it’s so important. But do remember that this is just top-line stuff. There’s a lot more to it&#8230;
If you are changing your URLs, even slightly, then your previous ones all become broken pages. This also means that any website that previously linked to you, and was likely helping your rankings, now points to a broken page.
Also, If URLs change then your referral traffic that has historically sent leads or revenue will also be pointing to broken pages. That’s revenue lost.
This is the ideal time to revise your core SEO elements, so page titles, descriptions, rich snippets, for example. However, if SEO is not included then do not expect this work to be done.
Furthermore, if it’s not in scope then you might end up with some peculiar-looking search results. As an agency, we would never allow small things like this to happen, but some might&#8230;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="582" height="422" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9032" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.11.09.png" alt="no meta data" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.11.09.png 582w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.11.09-250x181.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.11.09-120x87.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.11.09-80x58.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 582px) 100vw, 582px" />
Website migration is also the ideal time to begin introducing new research-based content. Some of this will come from your overall research initiatives and even <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/user-experience/usability-testing/">usability testing</a>, but then can also be guided by keyword research specific to the audiences we have identified.
So, this can be done right. And a website migration should be seen as a way to correct those past wrongs, and actually, increase your traffic as opposed to just protect what you had before.
We built a new website for a client at the end of 2017. Look at the increase in SEO Users to the website since then.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="800" height="456" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9034" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.19.02.png" alt="seo success graph" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.19.02.png 800w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.19.02-250x143.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.19.02-768x438.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.19.02-700x399.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.19.02-120x68.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-22-at-10.19.02-80x46.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />
It’s not bad, eh?
It’s good to note that the increases above were not just down to SEO. It was a perfect mix of all digital disciplines coming together &#8211; research, content, architecture, design, build… and SEO. It was the result of a brand who know of the importance of SEO as a part of an entirely new website and migration.
So, is SEO optional? No.
Can it ever be? No.
Without it, a brand new website will hardly ever be found. Without it, a new website migration can, and likely will, have catastrophic results.
With it, you should see some great results and that’s all that we’ve seen on our watch.
<a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">Get in touch</a> with Friday if you’re planning a new user experience or if you want to improve your SEO. You&#8217;d be in safe hands.

Enough is Enough: SEO is Not Optional

You may hear some talk this week about Domain Authority, and how it&#8217;s changing.
Domain Authority (DA) is a score out of 100 that is assigned to your website by an SEO tool called Moz. It is created to predict how well a website will rank on search engines. And it&#8217;s mainly based on the links to your website. Yes, it’s that simple. But it&#8217;s a big deal in the SEO community.
Honestly though, it never meant that much&#8230; and in our experience, it rarely correlated very closely with a website ranking highly. But we’re talking about it here because you may hear more about it. And it might be about to become slightly more useful.
<h3>Very fundamental changes</h3>
On March 5th 2019, Moz made some very fundamental changes to how this is calculated. They have more link data, it’s more recent, and their engineers have defined ways to interpret it better.
Previously, spammy domains and useless websites were getting high scores, usually based on the number of links that they have, as well as the criteria behind those linking to them.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="620" height="424" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8916" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/RESPECT-MY-DOMAIN-AUTHORITY.jpg" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/RESPECT-MY-DOMAIN-AUTHORITY.jpg 620w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/RESPECT-MY-DOMAIN-AUTHORITY-250x171.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/RESPECT-MY-DOMAIN-AUTHORITY-120x82.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/RESPECT-MY-DOMAIN-AUTHORITY-80x55.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" />
So even those who were up to no good &#8211; buying links, etc &#8211; were in the past being given a high Domain Authority score. It still didn’t mean that they ranked anywhere, but this enabled them to do one thing &#8211; e-mail tonnes of people and try to sell these domains to you based on that score.
In a <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/another-day-another-seo-email/">previous post</a>, we did discuss how you should completely ignore these e-mails.
But from now, you may start to receive less of them &#8211; because Domain Authority will have decreased. If you receive an e-mail offering to sell you domains then you can check <a href="https://analytics.moz.com/pro/link-explorer/home">here</a> to see if the scores are indeed correct. But honestly, just do it for fun. And delete the e-mail anyway.
<h3>What exactly is a good Domain Authority</h3>
We’re often asked the question “What exactly is a good Domain Authority score out of 100?” Well, the answer is that it’s all relative. You need to compare yours to your competitors in your market. It’s really not a case of an Irish company saying ‘Well those guys in the US do the same thing as us so we want the same score as them!’. They’re in the US, so of course they have more links.
If you monitor your site’s Domain Authority, you can expect to notice some changes. For some sites, DA scores may be higher; for others, they may be lower.
If you’ve been a bit naughty in terms of your link building techniques, then I can guarantee you that it will now be lower.
<h3>Increase across the board</h3>
We ran a check on our own clients’ Domain Authority scores and we have seen a 13% increase across the board. And that’s because we do it ethically and effectively.
One client’s website’s Domain Authority, which was only launched at the end of 2017, increased by 50% on the back of the link building we carried out in the right way over the course of that time.
There are some points to note here:
<ul>
<li>If your agency tell you that your Domain Authority has increased, then ask them if this is because Moz simply updated it – don’t be sold this as something they have achieved for you.</li>
<li>If your score has increased then this will not necessarily mean that your rankings suddenly will. This is independent of Google. But it does mean that you can give yourself a pat on the back for not being too spammy with your link building.</li>
<li>DO ask your agency if your Domain Authority has changed since March 5th. If it has dropped then you need to ask them what sort of links they’ve been building for you all this time. In fact, ask to see them.</li>
<li>Never expect to get a Domain Authority score of 100. It’s all relative. To give perspective, the NASA website has a score of 94. It’s unlikely that you’re in that space&#8230; pun intended.</li>
</ul>
So as you hear things about Domain Authority this month, this will hopefully help to demystify some of that.
In short, if your score has decreased then ask some questions about the type of links you have. If it increased then you’ve probably been doing either very little, or lots of the right things.
But it will NOT mean that from March 5th 2019 your rankings will increase if your score increased. As we said, it is nothing to do with Google. But it’s a useful indicative tool for showing where the gaps are vs. your competitors when it comes to link building.
Read more about our SEO services <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/search-engine-optimisation/">here</a>. We know link building, and we do it very well.

What The Hell is Domain Authority? And What’s Changed?

I got a phone call recently from a very well-known website. If you work in SEO, you’ll know them. They had a question that can only mean one thing &#8211; it’s that time of year again…
“What are your SEO predictions for 2019?”
And so it begins, a barrage of articles about this very thing.
The contradiction is that these articles are usually written purely to rank highly for queries related to just that, so they are sort of missing the point.
I&#8217;m writing this for our readers, our clients, and anyone who wants something more engaging. And for that reason, this article will be read more than 95% of those junk articles out there &#8211; because, we hope, it&#8217;s a little different.
Lists of SEO predictions usually mention some of the same topics every year. They throw the same shit at the wall and hope that when it sticks they can say &#8216;Aha, we were right!&#8217;.
Most of these lists are about as useful as asking a crystal ball for the winning lottery numbers.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-8385 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SEO_Crystal_Ball-750x400-700x373.gif" alt="" width="700" height="373" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SEO_Crystal_Ball-750x400-700x373.gif 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SEO_Crystal_Ball-750x400-250x133.gif 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SEO_Crystal_Ball-750x400-120x64.gif 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SEO_Crystal_Ball-750x400-80x43.gif 80w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
Many of these predictions also appear over and over again because people often give Google too much credit. Their <a href="https://twitter.com/FridayAgency/status/1058120268936372226">underdeveloped algorithms</a> can&#8217;t keep up with the needs and wishes of SEO professionals. They just can&#8217;t.
If I was to follow suit and mention the usual generic predictions, then I&#8217;d look at the following&#8230;
Voice search. No, not yet. Perhaps not ever, at least not in the form that it’s been sold to you. It won&#8217;t change the world of SEO in 2019. Don’t believe <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/voice-search-simplified/">what you’ve heard</a>.
Visual search. Yes, it might grow. But it’s niche, so get over it.
VR/AR. I’ve seen this in lists of predictions. It has nothing to do with SEO, only the resulting experience of a search, just like content.
GDPR. This is not relevant, so the conversations about how GDPR impacts on SEO need to end now. If you have been ethical all along then it shouldn&#8217;t impact anything, including link building.
Mobile search / Mobile first. Give me a break… we saw that coming fifteen years ago, and that time has already come.
So that’s a taste of the usual predictions and an admittedly very cynical view on them. But this article results from having already seen a multitude of these articles since early in 2018, all with a view to just ranking on Google.
What’s more important to me is what should and realistically could happen. This is where we become predictive rather than pre-emptive for the sake of ranking, something that other agencies fail to do.
If you’ve stumbled upon this article then congratulations, it may provide more insight than those others.
Those other types of &#8216;listicle&#8217; articles, every year, will include very little that surprises you. It&#8217;s content for the sake of ranking for it… it’s clickbait. As <a href="https://sparktoro.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rand Fishkin</a> nicely illustrated for us here.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-8375 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Screen-Shot-2018-11-09-at-11.05.49-700x385.png" alt="" width="700" height="385" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Screen-Shot-2018-11-09-at-11.05.49-700x385.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Screen-Shot-2018-11-09-at-11.05.49-250x138.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Screen-Shot-2018-11-09-at-11.05.49-768x423.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Screen-Shot-2018-11-09-at-11.05.49-120x66.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Screen-Shot-2018-11-09-at-11.05.49-80x44.png 80w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Screen-Shot-2018-11-09-at-11.05.49.png 1273w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
Instead, here&#8217;s some realistic advice for the next 12 months&#8230;
Sentiment. This should come as no surprise. Google made the switch some time ago from monitoring keyword repetition and usage to instead looking at synonyms… and then, context… and then, engagement. This year, they will begin to better algorithmically determine your content’s sentiment/intent in as much as that’s possible for an algorithm to do, and you will rank better based on how users interact with it. So it&#8217;s goodbye to content for the sake of content&#8230;
Goodbye Spam. In November 2018, Google spokesperson Danny Sullivan himself reached out to the SEO community to publicly ask for their opinion about what Google can do better in their search results. Responses varied from harsh to <a href="https://twitter.com/FridayAgency/status/1058120268936372226">obvious</a>. But this is definitely a signal that in some shape or form public feedback will begin to matter more. Google knows that their algorithm is not good enough, and robots ain&#8217;t fixing it all.
A Reality Check. SEO professionals will finally realise that Google is all about the user. This has always been the case, they are just getting better at it now. So your bullsh*t spammy techniques will stop working in 2019. Completely. You’ll wonder why. You’ll blame Google. I won’t because I played by the rules all along. Ethical SEO practices should, if Google’s engineers have any sense, finally reap their rewards across all core markets in 2019.
AI. Yes, Artificial Intelligence will change the way in which we conduct keyword research and it will change the way in which Google serve results. So you can expect your rankings to change in the next 12 month. A lot. If you ever wanted to know who decides what content ranks and where, or what gets lost in that sea of generic predictions lists, well that&#8217;s AI.
So there you have it. It&#8217;s not a detailed list of predictions but at least it&#8217;s not generic either.
So don&#8217;t be spammy in 2019, this will catch up on you even more. Be smarter than that. Watch your rankings closely because they will fluctuate a lot more. And create original, compelling content that will engage rather than be skimmed.
If you want to take your <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/search-engine-optimisation/">SEO</a> and <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/strategy/content-strategy/">Content Strategy</a> into 2019 and beyond in the best possible way, then <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">get in touch</a>. There are no crystal balls, we just stay ahead of the curve, and that keeps you ahead of your competitors&#8230; and that drives revenue.

What Are Your SEO Predictions for 2019?

I got another e-mail today offering SEO services. And yesterday, too. And the day before that.
They usually offer: SEO services, guest blogging, ‘high Domain Authority links’, an SEO ‘Partnership’, Super Ranking Services (yes, I’ve seen this) and a multitude of other things.
You probably know the ones, and I hope that you’ve deleted them. Here’s a recent one. It’s just great:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="250" height="166" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-6599" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-08-09-at-09.40.44-250x166.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-08-09-at-09.40.44-250x166.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-08-09-at-09.40.44-120x80.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-08-09-at-09.40.44-80x53.png 80w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-08-09-at-09.40.44.png 553w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" />
Please just make it stop!
This sort of activity is useless at best and usually pretty harmful.
But it’s not stopping. And unfortunately, these e-mails are only a part of the problem…
After just a few random Google searches, I’m still seeing it everywhere. I’m seeing the problem with SEO that has been around for quite some time and seems to be going nowhere.
What problem, you might ask?
The fact that most of them don’t have any idea what they’re talking about.
A few minutes of research will uncover bizarre claims even from Ireland-based companies who could otherwise appear as reputable and might even draw you in because, hey, they’re local!
<h4>Statements That Make No Sense</h4>
There are claims that cannot be backed up, statements that make no sense… all designed to make you part with your cash to pay for SEO services that will do NOTHING. And if they do anything, they’ll do damage.
“We are the number one company for link building.”
Em, says who?
“The more websites that link back to your website, the higher your website ranks on search engines.”
You’ve got to be kidding me…
“Pick the best link building packages to expand your business and increase your ROI.”
A package? Really? What year is this??
“Our link building campaign packages start at €1000 per month.”
Great, take my credit card.
Always remember: In the wrong hands, most marketing disciplines are just a wasted investment. In the wrong hands, SEO can be dangerous.
<h4>They’ll Try To Confuse You</h4>
SEO is a discipline that can require a lot of technical knowledge to get it right, and a lot of experience to make it work.
It’s also quite complicated, and that’s why it’s very easy for so-called practitioners to hide behind things that they can talk about, and sound knowledgeable in, but they do not truly understand it or even have the aptitude for it.
They’ll try to confuse you into believing that they’re the experts, and that you need them.
<h4>Let’s Talk Some Sense</h4>
I could go on and on about this, but let’s talk some sense instead. If you missed it, then give my Podcast a listen below. It’s on this very topic and discusses the multitude of SEO b*llshitters out there – and how not to get burned by one.
&nbsp;
<iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6286674/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
And once you&#8217;re done listening, delete those SEO e-mails. Then consider <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">getting in touch</a>, and getting it done right.

Another Day, Another SEO Email

You’ve probably heard a lot about Voice Search by now. Percentages, stats and predictions about the rise of voice-enabled devices. Let’s ignore that for a moment and discuss the practicalities&#8230;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3830" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/mugatu-voice-search.jpg" alt="" width="574" height="459" />
Firstly, let’s all calm down.
No, Voice Search is not going to change the world as we know it. But yes, it does have an impact.
Voice Search on mobile phones has been around for many years. It&#8217;s voice assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Echo that are now causing more and more people to pay attention.
It’s likely that voice search on assistants will not be saturated by shorter commercial searches like &#8220;Cheapest iPhones&#8221; for some time.
Mobile and desktop will still be used to actually see a product, engage with product photos and video, compare price and satisfy the need to read more.
And also, Voice Search is just not built for that type of query because it must be seen as impartial.
Voice Search on assistants lends itself well to research-driven queries. For that reason, it&#8217;s more likely to receive and satisfy a query like &#8220;Which version of the iPhone can&#8230; do X?&#8221;
<h3>&#8220;What is important&#8221;</h3>
The instant gratification of getting the right answer to a question on these devices will rarely, for now anyway, lead to a direct sale.
What is important though, is positioning yourself as the one who&#8217;s best able to answer these questions, primarily through <a href="https://searchenginewatch.com/2017/09/04/how-to-optimize-featured-snippets-for-voice-search/">Rich Snippets</a>.
Voice Search on assistants, otherwise known as “eyes-free”, is at present most effective for those interacting with apps, making calls, home automation, playing music, solving a problem, just seeking an answer to a general question, and much more.
Hell, some people may even just be using it to settle a bet or just have a bit of <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/funny-things-to-ask-google-assistant/">fun</a>!
So some of the more popular voice searches are for things such as finding a location, instructional content like “How do I remove my HUAWEI Mate 10 Pro battery?”, basic information like “How do I find the number for…?” and endless random queries like “How old is Liam Neeson?” … and much more.
Just for the record, sometimes Google Home is wrong &#8211; Liam Neeson is immortal.
If it helps, we also recently analysed over 83,000 voice searches on Google to give a steer on this. People seem hesitant to ask Google about the &#8216;Who&#8217;, &#8216;Why&#8217; and &#8216;When&#8217;&#8230;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-3826" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/voice-searches-1.jpg" alt="Google Voice Search" width="538" height="448" />
<h3>&#8220;There is a &#8216;Needs Met&#8217; Rating&#8221;</h3>
One thing that most articles seem to ignore is that Google themselves have recently published guidelines on this (keep reading for the link), and they’re surprisingly straight-forward. There is a “Needs Met Rating”.
This is similar to how they already factor in dwell-time; in other words, how long a user stays on your website to consume your content as opposed to hitting the back button and returning to the search results.
So, basically: is the user happy with the answer that Google has given them? Has it met their needs?
It’s simple: Google doesn’t want to give shitty voice answers. Unlike traditional search whereby the answer ultimately comes from your website, this is being delivered as if from Google themselves &#8211; they really don’t want to mess this one up.
<h3>&#8220;Consider this when you write content&#8221;</h3>
So what answers do they like to use?
Very importantly, they take into account the length of a worded audio response. If it’s long enough to satisfy a query, then it’s likely you’ll score high. Consider this when you write content with voice search in mind &#8211; or any content, for that matter.
This does not mean that longer is better. Don’t elaborate too much in your response to a short, succinct question and don’t be too concise for a query that needs a more detailed answer.
Grammar is also taken into account. As with any content, this will be seen by Google’s algorithm as lazy and of low quality, and therefore less likely to be chosen as the best response.
<h3>&#8220;Some Initial Steps&#8221;</h3>
If you’re wondering how to dip your toes in the water here, let&#8217;s suggest some initial steps.
<ul>
<li class="p1">First, take a look first at your website’s blog, FAQ and support content. Is the correct markup in place so that it can also be used in response to a voice search?</li>
<li class="p1">Do your product pages contain content that references the solutions you provide to a user’s problem? This is not a new concept. It should address any queries or concerns that users have about what you offer, even about your sector. It could also call out the nice benefits of what you provide &#8211; how will it make their lives easier or better?</li>
<li class="p1">Have you spoken to the frontline of your customer support? Or, those who best understand the queries that people have about your product, service or even broad queries relevant to your sector? This can help you to formulate content that answers these questions.</li>
<li>Keep your content as non-biased and non-commercial as you can. Google Home is unlikely to use your answer if it says &#8220;We are the best because&#8230;&#8221;</li>
<li class="p1">Lastly, and it’s tougher than it sounds, just put yourself in the mindset of someone who has a voice assistant. What would YOU realistically use it for? What kind of answers would YOU be satisfied with?</li>
</ul>
&#8220;Eyes-free” devices will also take into consideration a user’s location, time of day, their own preferences, search history and more. It has much of this in common with mobile and some desktop searches. Location is important because &#8220;near me&#8221; searches are on the rise due to users assuming that their location is a given.
<h3>&#8220;You need to be cautious&#8221;</h3>
Approaches to optimising for voice search will differ depending on your product, sector, offering, and geographic location. But first and foremost, take a read of what Google themselves have to say <a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/guidelines-eyesfree/evaluation_of_search_speech_guidelines_v1.0.pdf">here</a> and really let the examples sink in.
And remember: like search in general, you don’t want to over-do it. Google has stated that you need to be cautious about rushing out to create tonnes of single-page Q&amp;As to try and dominate voice search. Don’t do it, it’ll be too obvious.
So, there you have it.
If you want to know what impact Voice Search may have on your business then <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">get in touch</a> and we&#8217;d be glad to chat.

Voice Search Simplified

Search Engine Optimisation has gotten a bad name. It’s often called a Black Art, something I’m growing weary of because it’s too big and important to dismiss it as such. SEO professionals or agencies are often answerable to this, and in some cases rightfully so&#8230;
There are some very bad SEO practitioners out there, opportunists who saw it as an easy sell for something non-quantifiable.
How can even the most reputable SEOs convince someone that we’re not like the rest, especially when someone has already been ‘burned’ by one, sometimes more than once? SEO is not regulated or audited, so it’s difficult to find the best. Many will opt for the cheapest because, well, “they’re all the same”. Well, they’re not. Some are actually very, very good.
<blockquote>&#8220;Perhaps You Didn’t Ask The Right Questions&#8221;</blockquote>
A friend recently told me that she was about to engage with the services of a wedding planner and really wanted to work with her, but she was unsure as to how reputable or effective she is. Sure, there was positive word-of-mouth, even some good reviews on her website. But in an industry where excellent results are subjective, it can be easy to convince clients that you will do, and have done, the best job possible.
It’s relatively easy to use emotional or other triggers to convince them that what they got in return for their hard earned, (supposedly) well-invested money was to the best standard available. You take their word for it, after all, what do you have to compare it to?
Most people only get one shot at a wedding, and in the wrong hands, this can lead to a life-long regret. “Of course hiccups happen”, they may say, and then you’ll convince yourself that this is true and move on. Perhaps the problem was that you didn’t ask the right questions to begin with.
<blockquote>&#8220;So-Called SEO Experts Who Don’t Give a Shit&#8221;</blockquote>
Now let’s bring it back to SEO. If you’re thinking of engaging with an SEO professional or agency then there are some pertinent things to ask before doing so.
SEO has a bad name in some circles and if we’re honest with ourselves then it’s down to the bad practice of many so-called SEO experts who don’t give a shit about your business or its performance.
They want your money, plain and simple. They’ve seen the business opportunity that innately comes from offering a service for which results can be subjective and someone else might even be responsible: “But Google changes all the time!”.
Over the past few years, I’ve acquired new clients or pitched SEO services to potential clients who were very unaware of what SEO truly is or what an effective SEO strategy should be. They know they need it, but they don’t truly know what it is.
My job has been to cut through the bullshit, talk specifically about their business goals and what this channel (or channels) can do to increase their bottom line and visibility. I want to know that they&#8217;re comfortable they are seeing a return on their investment, even if it’s not always 100% measurable. Agencies and marketing professionals, in general, have their own reputation to think of, but it’s those who are also truly dedicated to yours that really stand out.
Also over the past few years, I’ve taken on SEO for clients who had engaged in previous services and some of my findings were worrying, to put it politely. Having been given a ballpark figure as to how much was being paid on a monthly basis so that &#8220;SEO is taken care of&#8221;, clearly no attention had been paid to some of what we know to be core ranking factors.
In one client’s case, there were sponsorships, charity initiatives, public speaking events, memberships, partnerships. conferences, and much more in the previous six months that could have very clearly lent themselves to relevant and effective links. None of this was ever even mentioned. The previous reports showed rankings for keywords that were misspelled, irrelevant, unachievable… and those that were relevant had no strategy in place in order to achieve higher ranking for them.
<blockquote>&#8220;In the Wrong Hands SEO is Not Just Done Badly &#8211; It Can Be Dangerous&#8221;</blockquote>
And then there’s the very bad…. clients who have worked with an agency who have built links of no value across multiple countries and platforms, and even links that are potentially damaging to their Google visibility. Let’s make one thing clear: if you are an online-only business then in the wrong hands SEO is not just done badly &#8211; it can be dangerous.
If you are not a well-established domain with some good historical links to counter-act spammy activity, then you can be removed from search results. It might only be temporary, but it means that for a period of time your largest online channel is gone, and that’s Google organic search.
<blockquote>&#8220;If you think it&#8217;s expensive to hire the best, then wait until you&#8217;ve hired a bad one.&#8221;</blockquote>
In some instances, I have contacted previous agencies and specifically asked for my client’s historical link building reports so that I can reverse the damage that was done. This can be rectified, but of course it’s best avoided.
Unlike Google AdWords Partner status, there is seemingly no way to make a complaint about an SEO professional or agency who have taken your money to knowingly employ tactics that have no impact or can seriously damage your businesses’ online visibility and reputation. When I say there’s ‘seemingly’ no way, I refer to the assumption that nobody cares, you’ve just got to move on and fix it.
However, if you look at Google’s own Webmasters content, they are subtly pointing you in the right direction <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35291?hl=en">here</a>. The suggestion is that you report this wrongdoing to the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network. There’s even a specific journey for those who have been sold ad space or directory listings.
<blockquote>&#8220;They Are Knowingly Putting Your Business at Risk&#8221;</blockquote>
I’ve already done this on numerous occasions, in particular, last year with regard to a Dublin-based digital agency (who shall be un-named) who have three different names, three different websites, all at the same address &#8211; who purposely, and perhaps still do, build harmful links.
Unless they have no internet access, they’ll be aware that these tactics are not just dangerous, but have been redundant for at least 10 years. Bottom line: they are knowingly putting your business at risk &#8211; and you’re paying them to do so.
My advice to those who are in doubt is to first speak to someone impartial so, in other words, someone who comes with strong recommendations. If they feel that you have been treated unethically then you should report it. With this, <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/search-engine-optimisation/">we can help</a>.
So, it’s about asking the right questions. Not just if you are looking for SEO services, but you should also ask those of your current agency or provider. For example…
<ul>
<li>Can you show me some examples of strong relevant links that you have influenced for other clients?</li>
<li>How will your SEO strategy fit in with our business goals?</li>
<li>What do you report on? Note: If reporting amounts to just monthly rankings and traffic then forget it because finding valuable data can be even easier than hiding it.</li>
<li>How much have you learned about our business?</li>
<li>How will you audit our content and how do you propose coming up with a detailed approach to our content for the next 12 months?</li>
<li>How much will this cost?</li>
</ul>
There are so many more questions, and it’s important to note that it’s highly likely that choosing SEO services based on lowest cost alone will lead to the wrong decision. If you think it&#8217;s expensive to hire the best, then wait until you&#8217;ve hired a bad one.
SEO takes time, effort, creative thought, marketing know-how &#8211; it’s not just about keywords, meta tags, fixing broken links and making new shiny ones.
So if you ever need a wedding planner then feel free to use the cheapest provider. Just be sure that they understand your requirements and wishes, be sure that they won’t send invites to people in other countries who have never heard of you and have no interest in attending, do not let them build you a Wix &#8216;bride and groom&#8217; website and promise you #1 on Google for “best wedding”… or better still, annoy the hell out of your venue owners so that the whole party is called off.
If you want it done right then you may not get the cheapest option, but it may turn out to be the best decision.
Treat it like you&#8217;ll only ever get one shot at it.

SEO: If You Think The Best Are Expensive, Wait ‘Til You Hire a Bad One

We&#8217;ve done some thinking at Friday, and have come up with our thoughts and predictions for Digital Marketing trends in 2017.
Some trends have stayed popular, however, there are a couple of new ones, and as a digital marketer I am excited to see where we are going and where we could be in 5 years time.
<h3>AMP</h3>
I wrote about the introduction of <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/what-is-amp-and-how-to-get-started/">AMP pages</a> last year. Accelerated mobile pages are mobile pages (websites) that load instantly on your phone. You can sometimes see them as a carousel in Google’s results.
What’s happening is that the content behind the headlines is loading in the background before you read it, and when you open an article it loads up to 85% faster than normal old school websites.
We predict that AMP pages will see a big spike in uptake in 2017 &#8211; stay tuned for more info.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2544" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Google-AMP-v2-1.jpg" alt="AMP Pages" width="767" height="246" />
<h3>Social Recruitment</h3>
We have found a growing trend in organisations using social channels as a key tool in their recruitment process. It is a powerful way to connect with potential employees and recruit them.
Unsurprisingly, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a> is number one for obvious reasons but, <a href="http://www.facebook.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook</a> is fast becoming a popular platform to drive recruitment.
Audiences can be reached more accurately and closely than any other platform. You can target by demographics, location, age, interests, education, etc.
Here are some stats:
· 86% of people in the first 10 years of their career are likely to use social media in the job search 
· 14.4 million job seekers have used social networks to find a job. 
· 59% of recruiters rated candidates sourced from social networks as “highest quality” 
· 94% of recruiters are active on LinkedIn, but only 36% of candidates are. Job seekers, by a wide margin, prefer Facebook; with 83% reporting they are active there, compared to just 65% of recruiters. 
· 79% of job seekers are likely to use social media in their job search.
Find more stats <a href="http://www.wepow.com/top-10-recruiting-stats-you-should-know-in-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.
&nbsp;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2643" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1-uCIFmcfeRMHimNM58BjG2Q.jpeg" alt="2017 Digital Marketing Trends" width="800" height="580" />
<h3></h3>
<h3>Mobile wallets</h3>
No more wallets, no more bank cards &#8211; pay with your phone.
Install <a href="https://www.android.com/intl/en_ie/pay/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android Pay</a> or <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Pay</a> or any <a href="http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/digital-wallets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">other mobile wallet option</a>, and you’re sorted. However, if you lose your phone, well… that could be a problem!
Other parts of Europe are still waiting for this step to be completed, however in Ireland we are ready. Mobile payments here we come.
<blockquote>· The number of mobile shoppers in UK will reach an estimate of 40.1 million-nearly 89% of the digital shoppers. 
 · Retail mobile sale (m-commerce) will leap to £25.74 billion ($39.34 billion)</blockquote>
Make sure your business is set up to accept mobile payments for your goods and services by having NFC enabled terminals/card readers.
<h3>Quality Content</h3>
<a href="https://friday.ie/blog/content-marketing-and-page-quality/">Content, content, content</a>! It’s long past time when people were writing content for search engines.
You should always think of your users. Have a <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/mixing-a-great-content-marketing-strategy/">Content Strategy</a> &#8211; be relevant, be informative, be educational. Try answering “who”, “what”, “when” and “how” questions, and search engines will reward you.
However, if you’re still doing the same thing you were 5 years ago; writing content for search engines, keyword stuffing and link building campaigns without any strategy… be prepared for a dramatic drop in ranking or manual actions.
There will always be new algorithm updates as Google will continue to perfect their search engine, and with that we have to continue perfecting our <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/seo-so-you-want-to-be-number-1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SEO skills</a>.
Always have people in mind when it comes to content or <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/search-engine-optimisation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SEO</a> and the rest will follow.
One more search and content change that will be hugely popular in 2017 is voice search. This was initially started as a help for the blind, but as always with Google it developed into something greater, they managed to perfect something that was never meant to be so popular. Thank you Google :)
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2644" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1-_gdNaejNLJJtIOBAHk5xwA.jpeg" alt="SEO" width="800" height="572" />
<h3>JSON Schema</h3>
You won&#8217;t need to remember this but JSON stands for “JavaScript Object Notation.”
In simple terms, JSON helps showcase parts of your website you&#8217;d like to highlight in search results &#8211; phone numbers, social networks, recipes, reviews, product listings, executives, founders and more.
As I mentioned in our <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/what-is-amp-and-how-to-get-started/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AMP Pages post</a>, Google is doing everything it can to keep you on their network &#8211; the aim is to provide you with all of the useful info you’re searching for, without having to leave the Google platform.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-2645" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/JSON-Schema.png" alt="JSON 2017 Digital Marketing Trends" width="686" height="1085" />
<h3>Conversion Rate Optimisation</h3>
Conversion rate optimisation is nothing new &#8211; it&#8217;s the method of using analytics and user feedback to improve the performance of your website through testing and iteration.
The end goal is always a conversion, the action you care about the most such as leads, downloading e-book or a good old sale.
If SEO is all about getting traffic to your website, CRO is what converts that traffic into the leads/customers.
CRO as an essential part of the eCommerce process will be more popular in 2017.
There are some powerful CRO tools out there for you to use such as <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimizely</a>, <a href="http://unbounce.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Unbounce</a>, or even the free <a href="https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1745152?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Analytics Content Experiment</a>.
<h5>You can find more <a href="https://klientboost.com/cro/cro-tools/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CRO tools here</a>.</h5>
<h3>UX led design</h3>
UX design is the process of designing products (websites, apps or softwares) that are useful, easy to use, and delightful to interact with.
It’s all about how a user feels when interfacing with a system.
Lately we are seeing more and more companies <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/design-led-companies-winning/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">embracing UX</a> in their journey, and it will only continue to grow. B2B and B2C companies finally realised that having just a website is not enough anymore. It needs to be user friendly.
As a UX agency we couldn’t be happier about that. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drop us a line</a> and we’ll do the rest! If you need some inspiration check out our blog on <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/5-e-commerce-design-trends-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UX trends.</a>
<h3>Live Video Streaming</h3>
Both YouTube and Facebook introduced 360-degrees videos, and we have live videos on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
Video has shown to be the best way to reach your customers, as it is creative and entertaining. It builds trust, you can explain everything in few seconds, and not to mention that Google LOVES videos.
I have something to get you even more excited: <a href="https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics-2016.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">76% of business say that video provides good ROI.</a>
Are you using video in your marketing efforts?
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Video Kiosk: Video Marketing in 2017 - Video Marketing for Businesses 101" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ZU3vxGkKw4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
<h3>Wearable technology &amp; The IoT</h3>
Wearable technologies are slowly taking their turn. It’s all about accessories as a girl might say. ;)
We witnessed the development of smart <a href="http://www.apple.com/ie/watch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Watches</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Glass</a>, <a href="http://www.loreal.com/media/press-releases/2017/jan/kerastase-and-withings-unveil-worlds-first-smart-hairbrush-at-ces-2017" target="_blank" rel="noopener">L’Oréal smart hairbrushes</a> and there is much more to come.
I would like to see a wearable technology that can teleport me to work on Monday morning. Soon hopefully.
Check out the video below.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Innovative Start-ups focused on IoT and Wearable Technologies" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ssGzEmcLA7g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
<h3>Snapchat for marketing</h3>
Snapchat is my favourite! I don’t want to be bias, but this is the platform I couldn’t live without.
There are so many opportunities for marketers yet to be found on <a href="https://www.snapchat.com/en-GB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Snapchat.</a> Geo-targeting, filters and instant communication with their audience are just some of them.
In the future Snapchat could create different branded filters, like the existing filters for cities that show where are you, soon we could see someone posting his/her picture with the Coca-Cola logo to show they were in the Coca-Cola factory.
There are endless possibilities with Snapchat, you just need to be creative and find them.
&nbsp;
So in summary, there are some old trends that are growing in importance and popularity and some interesting new technologies that we expect to see more update in.
If you need help with your digital marketing, let us know, we’re always ready for a new challenge at Friday.

2017 Digital Marketing Trends

You possibly have not yet heard of the AMP pages/project, and that’s ok, as it is a relatively new thing. I want to give you some insight into what AMP is and how you can benefit from it. 
<h3>So what is Google&#8217;s AMP?</h3>
According to the <a href="https://www.ampproject.org/">Accelerated Mobile Pages</a> (AMP) Project, “AMP is an open source initiative that embodies the vision that publishers can create mobile optimised content once and have it load instantly everywhere.” 
You know when you do a Google search on your mobile and you get news related results that appear in a carousel? That content is AMP. What’s happening is that the content behind the headlines is loading in the background before you even read it. 
When you decide to click and open one of the articles all of its content has already loaded so it pops up instantly. AMP content is formatted in optimised highly efficient HTML and javascript. AMP pages are loading 85% faster than standard pages. 
Google spent a huge amount of time over the last several years convincing web developers and publishers to adopt responsive design. So why are they introducing a new play rule now? If you ask me, I would say it’s because Google always looks to give users the best possible experience. With <a href="https://instantarticles.fb.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook Instant Articles</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/news/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple News</a>, and whatever else is happening I’m wondering how web developers and publishers are going to adopt another new format.
Another reason for AMP is that Google wants to keep the user inside its ecosystem and AMP gives it more control here. Displaying Maps, Reviews, related search content, full answers, recipes etc &#8211; if we get the answer to your query without having to leave Google’s platform, we rely on it even more.
It’s possible that AMP will ultimately be ranked higher than responsive pages; but for now, Google has not taken an official position on this.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-2539 aligncenter" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/AMP7-1.jpg" alt="AMP Pages" width="300" height="533" />
<h3>How to get started with AMP pages?</h3>
If you have a WordPress site, it should be pretty straightforward to implement AMP and a plugin I have used called <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/amp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AMP</a> works very well. Some WordPress themes may not be fully compatible so check its compatibility first. 
<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/glue-for-yoast-seo-amp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Glue for Yoast SEO &amp; AMP</a> is another plugin that will come in handy with your SEO efforts. This plugin makes sure the default WordPress AMP plugin uses the proper Yoast SEO metadata and allows modification of the AMP page design. 
If you don’t use WordPress, Google created a <a href="https://www.ampproject.org/docs/get_started/create_page.html">tutorial</a> to help you start with AMP’s. 
It takes Google several days to crawl and index your site before it starts showing in Search Results. As always with Google, early adopters will see the best results. 
If you are considering implementing AMP, do it as soon as possible. Google is doing everything to push and promote AMP, they have even implemented mobile tagging of AMP’s through <a href="https://www.google.com/analytics/tag-manager/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tag Manager</a>. 
<h3>How can you benefit from AMP?</h3>
Here are the main advantages of having AMP pages:
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1">Faster loading pages for mobile users — AMP pages load 15-85% faster than standard sites, therefore it’s not a surprise that one of the main benefits of AMP is faster mobile loading.</li>
<li class="li1">Improved search engine ranking — Faster load times help mean better rankings.</li>
<li class="li1">Use of Carouses: Google started to display AMP content within carousels that include large images. This naturally draws users attention and improves your click-through rate.</li>
</ol>
There was a lot of talk that AMP pages will see a huge ranking boost, so the SEO community got excited. :) However, the latest research and Google’s announcement showed pages will not receive any ranking boost or be shown in top search results.
However, when there are two versions of a page, Google will prefer and link to the AMP version.
<a href="https://youtu.be/WrpkFROqR0Q">https://youtu.be/WrpkFROqR0Q</a>
Let us know your thoughts and challenges with implementing AMP Pages in the comments below.

What are AMP pages and how to get started?

7 Digital Marketing Trends for 2016

Content is King is a term that gets thrown around quite often, but what exactly does this mean and how does it relate to SEO and content marketing? High quality content has a purpose, meets a user’s intent in a satisfying way and tells search engines how suitable the content is to that user.
Search Engine Land has a nice infographic called the <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://searchengineland.com/seotable" data-href="http://searchengineland.com/seotable">Periodical table of SEO</a>, in which they consider quality and research to be the most important factors in relation to creating content. In this post I will discuss the elements of page quality and how you can use this information to improve your search presence.
Before I get into page quality it’s important to understand that Google is trying to satisfy users based on a search query. Google is becoming increasingly intelligent and understands that many people are simply people are looking for answers to questions. Just consider what <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchworks/algorithms.html" data-href="http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchworks/algorithms.html">Google themselves say</a> about the goal of search:
<blockquote class="graf--blockquote graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">“Our goal is to get you to the answer you’re looking for faster, creating a nearly seamless connection between you and the knowledge you seek”</blockquote>
Their knowledge graph is a prime example of this. Understanding how people are searching can give you ideas on how to optimise your content. There are a number of ways you can find just exactly how your audience is searching. A quick and simple test is to look at Google’s autocomplete function. Say for example, imagine you wanted to do a piece about responsive web design:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1499 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/responsive-web-design.png" alt="content marketing" width="778" height="182" />
This shows you some top searches and could help direct you as to what people are looking for in relation to responsive web design i.e. Tutorials, templates etc.
Google keyword planner is also another handy tool to get search volume for specific keywords. This will give you a good insight into the potential reach of a content idea. All you need is an AdWords account to access this tool
Google is also assessing your page based on how well it meets the user’s intent. Every page should have purpose and should meet a user’s intent. There are 3 main types of intent that I would like to draw attention to:
<ol class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Do — complete an action or accomplish a goal e.g. “buy car insurance”</li>
<li class="graf--li">Know — find out information e.g. “how to make chocolate biscuit cake”</li>
<li class="graf--li">Go — navigate to a specific page or website e.g. “brother hubbard cafe”</li>
</ol>
Once you have decided on the purpose of your page you need to write content that meets this purpose to the highest degree possible. No matter what your chosen topic area you must ask the question “What is my audience looking for?” and how does my page meet the intent of their search query?. Incorporating user intent into your content marketing strategy will focus your efforts on exactly what your target market is looking for.
<h3 class="graf--h4">Assessing Your Page Quality and Content Marketing:</h3>
Pretty much every page can be split into 3 areas; main content, supplementary content and advertising. It’s important to look at each element and ask yourself some questions:
<ol class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Main Content — This is the meat of the page. It is the part that helps the page achieve its purpose. This can include text, images, video, reviews etc. Being thorough is key here. You need to ask yourself does the content look like it took a significant amount of Time, Effort, Expertise or Skill to complete? Essentially there are no easy shortcuts to creating high quality content, you need to do the labour.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Supplementary Content &#8211;This type of content contributes to user experience but is not directly related to the purpose of the page. This could include navigation, related articles, related products etc. The key point here is whether the SC is helpful? If not then why is it there?</li>
<li class="graf--li">Advertising — Quite self explanatory; how much advertising is on your page. Ads can affect user experience so ensure that you don’t overdo it. If you are reliant on advertising as a revenue stream, focus on using industry-approved standards. Check out <a class="markup--anchor markup--li-anchor" href="https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6002621?hl=en" data-href="https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6002621?hl=en">Google AdSense </a>and <a class="markup--anchor markup--li-anchor" href="http://iabireland.ie/councils/display-ad-standards/" data-href="http://iabireland.ie/councils/display-ad-standards/">IAB</a> guidelines.</li>
</ol>
So how can you assess whether your content is of high quality? Going back to 2011, Google <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ie/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html" data-href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ie/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html">posted 23 questions a in blog post</a> looking at what makes a high quality site. These are still highly relevant today and are very similar to their internal page quality guidelines that were ‘leaked’ last year. I won’t list all the questions in the post but here are 6 key ones that I find help me assess content:
<ol class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?</li>
<li class="graf--li">Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?</li>
<li class="graf--li">Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?</li>
<li class="graf--li">Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?</li>
<li class="graf--li">Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?</li>
<li class="graf--li">Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?</li>
</ol>
These questions should be applied to all of your content marketing no matter what the format. This will help you to deliver higher quality content that your audience will be more likely to engage with.
<h3 class="graf--h4">Expertise Authoritativeness and Trust.</h3>
E-A-T. These are 3 elements that search engines consider as factors when judging page quality. So how does this manifest in relation to your content? In short, you want to display high degrees of these traits for any given web page. Expertise and authoritativeness relate to who exactly is writing the content and do they know what they’re talking about. For example, health advice should come from individuals with medical expertise (i.e. Doctors)**. So how do you display this? Well this could simply be referring to professional sources, citing academic sources or completing bios which signal expertise.
Trust relates to the website as a whole, examples of how can you show this is ensuring you have an About us, Contact Info, Author Bios and Customer Service page. Other methods include enabling user ratings, security trust marks and of course high quality inbound links.
<figure class="graf--figure">
<div class="aspectRatioPlaceholder"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="graf-image aligncenter" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*OwtQ6rIUM_4VxTDd." alt="content marketing" width="531" height="169" data-image-id="0*OwtQ6rIUM_4VxTDd." data-external-src="https://cdn-static-1.medium.com/_/fp/img/media-loading-placeholder.b31hiO4ynbDLRrXWEFF4aQ.png" /></div>
</figure>
**Please note Google holds pages that affect “Your Money Your Life” to higher standards than usual websites. So keep this in mind when choosing a topic.**
We at Friday understand the importance of quality particularly when it comes to search and content marketing. If you would like to connect or find out how we can help you improve your SEO, get in touch!

CONTENT MARKETING – HOW TO IMPROVE PAGE QUALITY

Content Marketing – How to Improve Page Quality

Number 1 on the first page of a Google Search &#8211; it’s what we’re all looking for in life really, isn’t it? 
Even when putting my own name into the goliath Search Engine Google I remembered my glee when I noticed I had pipped the other Gillian Hunt, the American photographer to the top spot. 
Yes indeed, this Gillian Hunt was once upon a time a Number 1 Google Search Result. One of my biggest claims to fame &#8211; maybe… achievements &#8211; well perhaps not. To be honest I had little or no idea why my LinkedIn Profile was ranking above any other search result in Google, but it still made me smile!
For an individual the need to be the number one search result may just be an ego thing **cough cough** but for a business it can mean the difference between success and failure, life and death, kick ass Christmas parties or tea for one… you get the picture. 
Being found on the internet by potential customers is key for a thriving business in today&#8217;s world. And that’s where SEO comes to the party.
<h2 class="graf--p">The basics of SEO &#8211; Optimisation</h2>
Search Engine Optimisation, so really what is it? SEO in its simplest form is a marketing discipline which primary focus is to increase the visibility of a search engine result of your business. 
Now to do it well you need to look at both the technical and creative aspects of your website. But with a strategy in place genuine SEO can improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines. 
Sounds easy doesn’t it?
And some of it is; Search Engines want users to find what they are looking for but they need to know your business is the most, or one of the most relevant results given the search terms/words entered into that little white box. 
SEO has a specific set of tactics in it’s toolkit endorsed by the Search Engines that allow their technology to easily crawl your website picking up and indexing all the relevant information, (<a href="http://www.smartbugmedia.com/blog/10-on-page-seo-tips-to-use-in-2015">Read more</a> on some of these techniques). 
That’s one component of SEO “optimising” the relevancy of the site. But hey kids SEO is not all about ensuring you are presented accurately on the web, so search engines can match your relevancy to a search. Oh no… now not only do you need to be relevant, but you need to be popular too! What the?!
<h2 class="graf--p">Domain Authority</h2>
Yes Search Engines decided if your content is shared or linked to from other sites than this is worth a higher ranking particularly if those sites themselves have a high “Authority”. What the hell is Authority I hear you ask? 
Well just like the real world online authority suggests power and control, a site with a high domain authority is listened to by users, people read, engage with, share and link to these type of sites and Google award that site for well… being popular. 
When a popular site with high domain authority links to your site **Bing** your ranking is improved. It’s just like hanging round with the cool kids or even the cool kids mentioning you while they chat to their cool kid friends. 
Feel like you’re in school again? Well it’s not far off it, relevance and popularity is what it’s all about and any SEO strategy worth its salt is going to influence just this, how relevant you are by optimising the site and popular by getting your site links out there into the interwebs.
<h2 class="graf--p">Mobile Optimisation</h2>
So I have been keeping up to date with SEO standards and tweaking my site, linking back to it and getting my content out there in the web, basically trying my very best and then someone mentions mobile. WHAT? With significant Web traffic coming from mobile devices, companies cannot afford to ignore the mobile Web and yet many still do. 
For Google, mobile comprised almost half of all traffic from June to November, with 52 percent coming from desktops and 48 percent from mobile. <a href="http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2388915/why-mobile-web-still-matters-in-2015" target="_blank" rel="noopener">(Read more on mobile and browsers stats.)</a>
That’s a lot of mobile users getting online and you know it because you’re one of them. And suddenly the game has changed for all those sites who have not thought about mobile. As of Tuesday, April 21, 2015, Google has made a massive change to the way it ranks websites. How massive? Seemingly some people were calling it the “Mobilegeddon”, which could be a slight over reaction. 
But maybe not, if your website is not mobile friendly Google have said themselves:
<blockquote>
&#8220;it will have a significant impact in our search results&#8221;.
</blockquote>
So SEO is not just about relevancy and popularity or certainly not just on desktop, all of that now needs to be applied to the mobile web. 
So is your site mobile ready? <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Test it here</a> and see how you rate. 
We had to try it ourselves and ohh look… The Friday Agency is AWESOME, but of course we are, that’s our business (and just us… we’re just awesome).
<a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Friday-Mobile-Ready.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1384" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Friday-Mobile-Ready.png" alt="Friday-Mobile-Ready" width="767" height="477" /></a>
<h2 class="graf--p">Responsive Design</h2>
So what can you do after some good SEO strategies and your site is rating reasonably well on a desktop search but lost down a dark lane of a mobile search? Google’s number 1 suggestion for mobile optimisation is Responsive Design. 
We have spoken at length about Responsive Design in our Journal <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/responsive-web-development/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mobile Apps or Responsive Websites</a> <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/mobile-apps-responsive-websites-choose/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Responsive Web Development</a> (see what I did there… linking back to our site, good SEO).
Basically it’s building one site that fits all, one URL, one website that adapts for phone, tablet and desktop. Other options are dynamic serving, where Google sniffs out what device is searching and serves up different HTML, but even Google says this can be error prone. 
Of course there is also the Mobile site which was one of the earliest mobile optimisation strategies. But seriously all this sounds like too much work 2 sites, 2 builds, 2 SEO maintenance works to be constantly updating. I’m tired just thinking about it. 
Responsive design &#8211; One site, built for all, users like it, Google really likes it and of course SEO marketers like it. It&#8217;s a simple concept, but so many businesses are still playing catch up. 
Now you may think I have been unfairly Google centric on this post, but really, with all devices included, StatCounter Report’s for the last quarter Google has over 93% of the Search Usage in Ireland and just over 90% Globally… so I thought I might just do that, focus on the big guns, it’s all about relevancy and popularity after all.
 <a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/StatCounter-search_engine-ww-monthly-201505-201507-bar.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-1374" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/StatCounter-search_engine-ww-monthly-201505-201507-bar.png" alt="StatCounter-search_engine-ww-monthly-201505-201507-bar" width="616" height="375" /></a>
If you need help with SEO or optimising your site for mobile through Responsive design and development, give us a shout &#8211; it’s what we do.

SEO –  So you want to be number 1?

Following up on my recent post about creating a great <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/mixing-a-great-content-marketing-strategy/">content marketing strategy</a>, I want to talk about how you can go about writing great content to fill it.
Let&#8217;s start with picking a topic.
<h3>Picking a topic</h3>
Choosing a good topic to write about is important if you want to grab your reader’s attention. It’s always best to have a content strategy in place &#8211; your strategy should already have a list of juicy ideas to post about.
Try to have a mix of what we call &#8216;stock and flow&#8217;. Stock content is ‘evergreen’ content, that your targets will be looking for over a long period of time. Flow is the type of content that is more day to day and reminds people that you exist.
Also, it might seem obvious, but try to write about content that comes easily to you such as the following:
<ul>
<li>What you work at.</li>
<li>What you know about.</li>
<li>What you’re interested in.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Writing a Title</h3>
A good title is essential &#8211; it’s the first thing people will see and it sells your content.
Unless you don’t need people to find you through search, your title should strike a balance between using clever wording to grab people’s attention and including at least one good keyword or keyword string.
<a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/friday-writing.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1204" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/friday-writing-1024x768.jpg" alt="writing content" width="1024" height="768" /></a>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
Once you’ve got past the title you need an engaging introduction to draw your reader into your topic. Use humour, tell a story. If you can make an introduction funny or personal, it’s much easier for people to engage in it.
<h3>Make a point</h3>
Identify the goal you want to achieve before you start to write your blog post. This would usually be at the same stage as picking topics to talk about. Whatever your topic, you will want to have an angle or an opinion on it &#8211; this makes it more interesting, engaging (or controversial) for the reader, otherwise it could get boring.
<h3>Depth &amp; Quality</h3>
From the intro, you move into writing a story &#8211; creating a clear and interesting narrative.
Even if you’re writing a simple news piece, you will want to keep your audience’s attention and for them to know that they’re following a story.
Here are some ways of doing that:
Tell a storytelling a story helps engage the minds of readers, to persuade and to help reinforce your points and ideas. I like how Seth Godin puts it: &#8220;Great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences.”
<a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/rsz_chalkboard-620316_1280.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1217" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/rsz_chalkboard-620316_1280-1024x514.jpg" alt="what's your story?" width="1024" height="514" /></a>
More from Seth on <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/04/ode_how_to_tell.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">How to tell a great story</a>.
<ul>
<li>Add Quotes 
See Seth&#8217;s quote above! A good quote reference will back up your points.</li>
<li>Use Examples 
If you can reference an example, readers will not only come away with an idea of how to do something – they’ll have seen it in action.</li>
<li>Add your opinion 
Facts mixed with your opinion make posts more interesting.</li>
<li>Add Photos 
It’s incredible what a simple image or photograph can do to help make a point, particularly <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/photography-web-design/">with photography online</a>. I’m not just talking about eye-catching title images – but those that actually add value and depth to your posts. If you don&#8217;t have your own photography bank, you can try stock or royalty free or there are some very good stock sites that offer content that is free for commercial use. See <a href="https://unsplash.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unsplash.com</a>, <a href="https://stocksnap.io" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stocksnap.io</a> and <a href="http://www.raumrot.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">raumrot.com</a> for example.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Publishing &amp; Promotion</h3>
It’s always good to test what works for you and your audience. At Friday, we usually only publish blog posts on weekdays and generally towards the end of the week. Our target audience is working office hours and will mostly consume our content during those periods.
The end of the week can work better to publish, as many people are often busier at the start of the week.
Once you have published content on your website, search engines will pick it up pretty quickly but you’ll want to push it out on through your relevant channels also. For example:
<ul>
<li>Email Newsletters</li>
<li>Social Channels e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn</li>
</ul>
Check out this nice <a href="https://friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/social-media-best-times.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">infographic</a> from SurePayRoll on best times for each.
<div>Courtesy of: <a href="http://www.surepayroll.com/">SurePayroll</a></div>
That’s it, happy writing. If you liked this post, feel free to share it.