Each week 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.
Why it’s worth targeting keywords with no-to-low monthly search volume
02/07/2019
SEL released an article detailing why targeting no-to-low volume terms is still worthwhile due to their higher rate of conversion and generally lower levels of competition, meaning they therefore return a greater ROI. The article provides tips on how to uncover and target these types of terms.
A note on unsupported rules in robots.txt
02/07/2019
Google has announced it will no longer support the noindex tag in the robots.txt as of 1st September 2019. The alternatives are robots meta tags, using 404 and 410 HTTP status codes, password protection, disallowing in the robots.txt and the Search Console Remove URL tool.
Formalising the Robots Exclusion Protocol Specification
01/07/2019
Google announced that it was requesting comments on formalising the Robots Exclusion Protocol, which is currently not a formal standard and they are seeking to change. Whilst the protocol hasn’t changed yet, this could mean it will further into the future.
Google aims to make it easier for SMBs to start using its products
27/06/2019
Google announced that it is launching a new website that aims to help SMEs get started with their products; this includes personalised plans recommending products to use based on answers from a questionnaire and selected goals.
Wayback Machine adds ‘changes’ feature
27/06/2019
Wayback Machine has added a new beta feature which allows comparison of the same URL but on different dates to monitor what content has changed – very useful when analysing reasons for a page’s search traffic/visibility losses or gains.
The Future Shopper 2019
28/06/2019
The Future Shopper 2019 report by Wunderman Thompson revealed that younger shoppers are not as committed to Amazon as older shoppers. The survey across 15,188 global online consumers who shop at least once a month found that only 26% of those under 25 say Amazon is the best at having what they want compared to 35% of all consumers. They are also less likely to believe it provides the best returns and customer service. The report indicated that 16-24 year olds may be reverting back to traditional shopping in a physical store, with 53% preferring to shop in store, above the average of 48%.
15 excellent examples of content design and UX on travel websites
03/07/2019
Econsultancy looks at some examples of travel websites that are using design and UX to great effect. With user experience at the forefront of search performance, there is much that can be learned from looking at sites that are doing it well. Whilst the article looks specifically at travel sites, much can be applied to all website types.
Potential Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On June 27th
28/06/2019
There was chatter within the SEO community that there could have been an update on 27th June, where fluctuations in search rankings were noticed across the various monitoring tools. Worth bearing in mind if any losses or gains have been made from that date.
