Every fortnight the Croud SEO team collate the latest news from relevant sources around the web so you don’t have to. Read through the top SEO news stories for this week below and follow us on Twitter or sign up to our newsletter.
Google mobile-first indexing to be applied to all sites within a year
26/02/2020
Google is sending message to Search Console users informing them that all sites will now use mobile-first indexing within the next six to twelve months. If there are still many mobile issues found on site, it should be a priority in resolving them to ensure it’s best placed to capitalise on the mobile first index.
More & better data export in Search Console
26/02/2020
Google announced it is allowing more data to be exported via Search Console – including the ability to download complete data sets, rather than just specific table views. This will allow better analysis of any issues or to spot potential opportunities.
Learn how to use the Search Console AMP status report
24/02/2020
The AMP developers blog released a post on how to use Google’s new AMP Search Console reports to troubleshoot and resolve AMP issues. Even though AMP isn’t a ranking factor, speed is and knowing how to improve page speed using AMP can help improve user experience for mobile users.
A quick guide to understanding Google’s quality rater guidelines
20/02/2020
SEL released an article detailing how to use the quality rater guidelines from Google to improve page quality. This includes looking at the E-A-T, meeting user needs, what your money or your life means (YMYL) and overall quality.
The state of tracking and data privacy in 2020
14/02/2020
SEL looks at the state of privacy and tracking in 2020; covering a brief history of tracking, how cookies work and how first and third party cookies operate, alongside other important tracing concepts. Then looking at how data has been used since the advent of its monetisation and how this has impacted outcomes today, such as the GDPR.
Five key psychological principles of UX & UI design
10/02/2020
Econsultancy looks at how psychological principles can be used to improve UX and UI; this includes keeping choices simple, making important actions easy to reach, prioritising position, being wary of selective disregard and not being evil. With UX becoming increasingly important for search, building sites with this in mind could pay off in terms of search performance.
Retail sales, Great Britain: January 2020
20/02/2020
According to the UK Office of National Statistics, retail sales for the past 3 months fell 0.8% compared to the previous 3 months, with declines across all sectors. Online retail sales as a percentage of total sales were down from 19.3% in December to 19% in January. Bear this in mind for any performance reports across the period.
How Low Can #1 Go? (2020 Edition)
26/02/2020
Moz takes a look at how beneficial position 1 is in 2020. Analysis across a large number of SERPs has revealed that at worst, the top organic position can now be as low as 2,938 px down the page; three times worse than the same analysis conducted in 2013.
