Daily SEO Tips

Katherine Watier Ong
Daily SEO Tips

Daily SEO tips by SEO veteran, Katherine Watier Ong

  1. 09/27/2021

    Episode 154: Semrush has a new Keyword Difficulty measurement

    Send us a text Hello and  thanks for listening to SEO tips today  In May, Semrush changed its keyword difficulty.  Keyword Difficulty (KD) is a metric that tells you how much SEO effort it might take to organically rank a page in the top 10 results on Google for a certain keyword. And overall with keyword difficulty, the higher the percentage is, the harder the competition will be. They launched an infographic walking through how they now calculate KD which might be worth printing and putting on your wall. The new calculation that takes into account the median # of backlinks & Authority Score PLUS the relative weight of the links and what the SERP looks like related to other SERP features. From an inbound link perspective, it looks at: Median number of referring domains pointing to the URLs that are ranking.The median authority score of the domains that are rankingMedian ratio of  ratio of follow no follow links pointing to the URLs that are ranking.And then it takes into account the keyword itself. And in that case it looks at: The median number of referring domains for the ranking URLs.search volume median follow no follow ratio for ranking URLs featured snippetinstant answerWhether the keyword is branded local pack Knowledge panel top storiesPeople also ask sitelinks the word count in the keyword or whether the search result has no search features.Semrush then weights the score based on whether or not it's in a regional database to ensure that the data is not skewed by less populated countries with lower search volume.  Now I recommend that nobody takes one of these measurements and runs with it in a vacuum for every keyword where you want to create a plan to rank you should actually take a look at the SERP results. I have found that for some Industries frankly the search results are whitelisted. In my experience, you discover the true lift around what it will take to rank for particular keywords once you do a competitive analysis. That competitive analysis should include finding out how many SEOs are working for the other brands with which you compete. For example,  I've had to tell Federal clients that they can't rank for particular topics because the other brands appearing in those search results have huge SEO teams. So that's your SEO tip for today -  be aware that the keyword difficulty measurement in Semrush has changed and plan accordingly to make sure your clients are aware. Thanks for listening come back tomorrow for another SEO tip. Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast. You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode.

    5 min
  2. 07/02/2021

    Episode 147: Google I/O updates that impact SEO

    Send us a text Let’s talk about the Google I/O Updates that impact SEO Hello. Thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Here’s a quick overview of the updates from Google I/O that impact SEO. 1. Google announced their new natural language engine - that they call MUM (the Multitask Unified Model). This model will allow them to answer sophisticated queries such as:   "I’ve hiked Mt. Adams and now want to hike Mt. Fuji next fall. What should I do differently to prepare?"  It also gives users answers from different search verticals and harvests information from over 75+ languages. Google pulls information from various sources: Lens, Photos, YouTube, Google Search, Gmail, Maps, and Shopping. It can understand implicit meaning and context 1000x better than BERT. 2. Google provided details around their handling cookies (which BTW dropping first-party cookies has now been pushed off for two years), details around APIs, PWAs, and Web Core Vitals improvement tips. 3. They also talked about how in May, they started rolling out About This Result to all English results worldwide. They plan to add more details to the panel with information about how a site describes itself, what other sources are saying about it, and related articles to check out. Google states that they pull this information from Wikipedia, so if your brand’s information on Wikipedia is out of date, I can refer you to a reputable Wikipedia coach who can help you resolve the issue. 4. Shopping Graph announcement. Google uses its “deep understanding of products, sellers, brands, reviews, product information, and inventory data” to power this shopping graph. Additionally, when you take a screenshot, Google Photos will prompt you to search the photo with Lens, so you can immediately shop for that item if you want. Shopping Knowledge Graph will connect to Google Lens, YouTube, Images, Photos, Chrome, and loyalty programs and display shopping carts on the Chrome homepage. 5. Google has released open-source Schemarama, which hosts a variety of schema troubleshooting tools. They have also added more rich snippets that you can earn in search based on your schema markup, like online activities that they can do from home, math solvers, and practice problems. They also reminded us of how to mark up your videos for their key moments for additional rich display in Google search. So that’s the update. Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow for another SEO tip. Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast. You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode.

    4 min

Ratings & Reviews

About

Daily SEO tips by SEO veteran, Katherine Watier Ong

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada