Tag Archives: technology

Website owners and digital marketers are concerned about maximizing their site’s potential and performance. SEO is essential in this current age. It’s a foolproof way to attract traffic, increase leads, and improve your conversions.

To rank for specific keywords, it is essential to know the right tools and techniques to deploy. One such tool is Google Lighthouse.

Lighthouse tool is 5a open-source designed to help improve your website’s performance and user experience by running technical checks. It uses a web browser called Chromium to build web pages and analyze them as they load. Because the tool is open-source, it is free to use and maintained by a community of developers.

Lighthouse also looks at the accessibility and SEO performances of your website pages and releases a report which you can use to analyze to improve them.  

This article provides a comprehensive guide on this innovative tool and its use.

How Does Google Lighthouse Work?

Consider what a lighthouse does; it is perhaps the highest point of a building or tower that emits light, serving as a navigational tool for captains of ships at sea. Following that logic, we can see that Lighthouse is a guide for web admins and developers.

Developed by Google, Lighthouse analyzes web apps and pages, generating best practices insights. It checks your website pages and gives instant feedback on errors, SEO, performance, accessibility, and tips on improving your website.

So, basically, Lighthouse audits the URLs of your website and shows you how good or bad it performs under best practices. Google designed the Lighthouse tool to help identify the common preventing sites from being better ranked during an organic search.

You can activate Lighthouse by running it from the command line in Chrome DevTools or as a Node module. It runs a series of audits on a URL page and generates a report for that page.

Each audit comes with a reference document explaining why that specific audit is essential and how to fix any issue.

What Metrics Does Google Lighthouse Measure?

Lighthouse analyzes your entire website based on a couple of metrics. These metrics are grouped into different categories. They include:

● Performance.

● Best Practices.

● Accessibility.

● SEO.

● Progressive Web Apps.

You can select one or more metrics to analyze. We are going to explore these Lighthouse metrics below:

Performance

In the Performance category, Lighthouse monitors how fast a web page or app loads completely. It indicates how quickly visitors can view your web content in its entirety. Some of the metrics analyzed under the Lighthouse page speed section include the following:

● First Contentful Paint (FCP). This is the time spent before the first image or text appears to visitors.

● First Meaningful Paint (FMP). This is the time when the main content of the page becomes visible to users.

● Lighthouse Speed Index. This shows how quickly the web content of a page load.

● Time to Interactive. This shows the time before a visitor can interact with web content.

● First CPU Idle. This shows the value when a web page activity is low enough to enable inputs to be processed.

● Estimated Input Latency. This shows the window of computation during a web page load.

After analysis, you will see the Google Lighthouse Performance Score. The Lighthouse Performance category also comes with recommendations for improvement.

Best Practices

The Best Practices category focuses on the security architecture of your website development. The tool checks if HTTPS or HTTP/2 is utilized by the URL. It also checks to see if the resources on the page are secure.

It also assesses the vulnerability of your JavaScript libraries, APIs, and database connections.

SEO

Lighthouse also runs several checks to see how your web pages appear on SERPs. This category is essential to generate website traffic and increasing conversions. It shows you the errors affecting your website and how to fix them.

Some of the checks include the following:

● The mobile-friendliness of your website.

● Your structured data

● Meta tags.

● Crawlability and index status of your website.

Accessibility

The Lighthouse audit in Accessibility reveals how well your website can be utilized by people with disabilities. This includes an analysis of buttons and links to see whether they’re perfectly described.

It also checks if the images and videos on your website have been assigned an alt-tag so that they can be described by a screen reader for visually challenged people.

Progressive Web Apps

In this section, Lighthouse checks to see how functional the website is. It also checks if it works offline with internet access or returns an error.

It is essential that you run checks on the Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) on your website to monitor their functionality.

Why Should You Use Google Lighthouse?

You know what Lighthouse does, but why should you choose it over other website auditing tools?

● It is user-friendly. One of the benefits of Lighthouse audit is that it is effortless to use, even for novices. Everything is in the right place, and navigation is smooth.

● It is made by Google. The tool is developed by Google, one of the largest tech companies in the world.

● It is free. Lighthouse is free for all users compared to other auditing tools, where you’d have to subscribe to a monthly or yearly plan.

● It is open-source. The tool is open-source by design. This means there are constant updates and improvements implemented on the tool by a group of developers.

The Differences Between PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse

While Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights carry out similar functions, they are quite distinct in some areas. What makes them different?

● PageSpeed Insight is a browser-based audit tool, while Lighthouse runs from the command line of browsers or as a Chrome extension.

● While PageSpeed Insights audits a single web page, Lighthouse analyzes an entire website.

● PageSpeed Insights focuses on the speed of a web page, while Lighthouse explores other metrics beyond speed.

How to Use Google Lighthouse

Now that you know how powerful the Lighthouse audit tool is, how do you use it? There are different methods to utilize it. Let’s explore them:

How to Run Google Lighthouse With Chrome

You can run Lighthouse from the Chrome Devtools of your browser. All you need to do is:

● Download Chrome for Desktop.

● Visit the web page you want to analyze,

● Right-click anywhere on the page and select Inspect.

● Locate the Lighthouse panel and choose the metrics you want to analyze.

● Click Analyze Page Load.

How to Use Google Lighthouse With Web.dev

Another way you can use Lighthouse audit for a web page is by using web.dev. Navigate to the page and input the URL you want to analyze.

You will see the result after the analysis has been completed.

How to Use Google Lighthouse With a Chrome Extension

You can also use Lighthouse on your Chrome extension. If you plan on using Lighthouse frequently, this is an excellent choice. To get started:

● Install the Chrome browser for Desktop.

● Click the extensions tab and search for the Lighthouse chrome extension.

● Install the extension and restart your browser.

● Visit the page you want to audit and click the Lighthouse symbol.

● Click Generate report.  

● It will generate an automated Lighthouse testing and report.

How to Optimize Your Lighthouse Performance Score on WordPress

Follow these tips to improve the Lighthouse Performance Score on your WordPress CMS.

● Optimize browser caching to manage static files on your browser.

● Optimize your fonts and remove unnecessary codes from your content.

● Use fonts preloading to improve the Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) metric.

● Reduce JavaScript execution time.

● Minimize main thread work.

● Ensure the images and embeds have the proper and uniform dimensions.

Conclusion

Lighthouse audit tool is an essential tool to have in your digital marketing arsenal. Thankfully, this article has explored the concept in detail. So, what are you waiting for?

Abstrax Web is a leading SEO and web design firm designed to help brands improve their SEO performance. Our services include website design and development, content marketing, wireframing, website analytics, and many more.

Reach out to us to see how we can help your business grow.

Outranking other websites during an organic search is one of the digital marketing objectives of most website admins. The rationale is that as more users see your website on SERPs, you can generate potential leads and boost business conversions.

This has led much digital marketing in the past (and even now) to deploy outdated and terrible SEO tactics. One such tactic is keyword stuffing.

It is the process of overstuffing a web page for a particular keyword(s) to rank higher for such keywords during an organic search. It is a manipulative tactic to trick search engines. However, it has now become outdated and redundant.

They are found on the meta tags, page lists, and additional keywords to sprinkle around the page. Filling your web pages with such keywords will create a poor user experience for visitors looking to find valuable content.

It is also a black hat SEO strategy, meaning search engines can flag and penalize your website. While it might’ve been an honest mistake, you should take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

This guide will explore everything you need to know about keyword stuffing and how to avoid it.

Examples of Keyword Stuffing

Spam stuffing is a terrible SEO strategy that should be avoided. This is how it looks on a website. The keyword used is “Lego toy”

Lego toy is an exciting gift you can present to your children. A Lego toy is a beautiful and stylish toy, so buy a Lego toy today. With beautiful Lego toy, your kids can have fun with those Lego toys. Their afternoons and evenings will be spent having fun with these Lego toys. So, grab a Lego toy for your kids today.

The paragraph above comes with a lot of problems:

● Keyword density. The passage shows that ‘Lego toy’ appeared seven times in a paragraph with 63 words. Search engines see this as unacceptable. It would surely earn your website a penalty.

● Audience targeting. Look at the passage critically. You will see that it is not published for people to read. It was meant to trick search engines into ranking the web page for those keywords. Any person that reads this will not bother going through the entire content.

● Content intent. When you read that passage, you get zero sense of purpose. The entire paragraph is just a placeholder for “Lego toys”.

You need to write your content with your target audience in mind. Editing and proofreading your content enables you to spot and correct keyword stuffing.

Does Keyword Stuffing Helps Rank Your Page?

Targeted keywords are a ranking factor on Google and Bing. However, people began to abuse that opportunity by stuffing their websites with the same keyword.

Search engines realized that users were no longer receiving valuable content, as website admins focused more on irrelevant keywords all over their web pages. Google released the Florida update, which targeted spammy links, reducing the impact.

But the problem still persisted. So, the search engine released the Panda update, which demoted sites with spam stuffing in SERPs. Soon after, the Hummingbird update followed, changing how results are displayed on SERPs.

Google has always frowned at keyword stuffing. So, no, stuffing your page will not help rank your page.

Is Keyword Stuffing Good for SEO?

Keyword stuffing goes against the best SEO practices for websites. It is an outdated and terrible technique for optimizing web pages.

Google released Quality Guidelines warning website admins not to embark on the practice. It doesn’t only result in a poor user experience but will affect your ranking position on SERPs.

User experience is a ranking factor for SEO. If people cannot relate to your article, they will leave. This increases your bounce rates which is a bad SEO signal.

Why Should You Avoid Keyword Stuffing?

From what you’ve read, keyword stuffing is bad for business. But why should you avoid it entirely?

● Drives away your visitors. When visitors land on your website, they want to see content relevant to their search intent. With spammy keywords all over the place, they will leave and never recommend your website to anyone.

● Your content will appear repetitive. Stuffing your articles and web content with the same keywords will make your content repetitive and robotic. People will not spend much time on your website if it feels that way.

● Your domain authority will be affected. When your content has spam, it demotes your brand as an authority. Your website will not earn backlinks from other websites if it is filled with repeated words.

● Search engines will penalize your site. Search engines will demote your website in their result pages when it looks spammy. This means your website will not be visible to anyone from an organic search. Thus, you will miss out on visibility and generating leads.

How to Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Do you want to avoid spam stuffing your website? Follow these simple tips:

● Have a primary keyword. You know what your website offers. So, have an assigned primary keyword with other related search terms.

● Maintain a great keyword density. This is the number of times a certain keyword appears on a web page. You should keep it moderate for the best results.

● Create longer content. The longer the content, the more space to spread out the target keyword. However, the content should also be relevant.

● Add the target keywords to the page element. The target keywords should be on your web page elements such as meta title, meta description, headings, and subheadings. Be careful not to overstuff it everywhere.

Does Google Penalize for Keyword Stuffing?

Google strictly warns against irrelevant keywords for websites. They will penalize your website by demoting its position on SERPs. This means you won’t anymore if you are enjoying massive traffic from organic searches.

It is essential to avoid it entirely, so your website won’t suffer from such a fate.

How to Do Proper Keyword Optimization

The success of your digital marketing campaigns lies in the keywords you optimize for SEO. So, how do you conduct proper keyword optimization for your website?

● Conduct keyword research.

● Look at the keywords your competitors are using.

● Avoid keyword stuffing.

● Create content that matches the search intent of your visitors.

● Audit your meta tags.

How Many Keywords Is Good for SEO?

After deciding which web page to optimize, you need to determine how many keywords will suit its SEO performance.

Your content should have two or three primary keywords to target for the website. If they’re more than that, placing such keywords into your meta tags will be difficult.

Having fewer primary keywords will make it easier for Google bots to rank it during an organic search.

Abstrax Web Can Do SEO Right for Your Business

Avoiding keyword stuffing is essential for your website performance for organic SEO. You need to contact a professional if you don’t know how to customize your web content without overstuffing it.

Abstrax Web is a leading digital marketing firm that will help generate more visibility, traffic, leads, and conversions for your website. Our services are specially tailored to your individual needs. They include website design and development, content marketing, mobile usability, website wireframing, and many more.

Reach out to us to see how we can help your brand.

People search the internet for content for different reasons. Thus, it is safe to conclude that while some search queries might be similar, the user intent behind that query might be distinct. Every website wants to outrank others during an organic search, to generate more leads and fulfill brand objectives.

The key to achieving that is taking the search intent of your visitors into consideration. When a customer intent is not considered in the grand scheme of your marketing, it will not yield positive results. So, what is it in the first place?

Search intent (or user intent) is the reason behind a search query. It is also regarded as the motivating factor behind a search. Why did the person pick up their phone to conduct a search? What are they hoping to find? What do they want to do with the information? More so, will the results displayed satisfy their curiosity? The intent of a website query is to find information.

Google algorithms such as Hummingbird and RankBrain consider each customer search and display results that are suitable to their query. Understanding how search intent plays into your SEO campaigns is essential.

This article breaks it down, showing you how you can use commercial intent to your advantage.

Why is Search Intent Important to SEO?

Search intent is the core reason people use search engines on their devices to look up information. Anyone with a pressing design to know something will always utilize search engines like Google and Bing to look for answers.

Initially, digital marketers and website admins only optimized their web pages with keywords, disregarding the quality of the content. However, search engines have evolved, leaning toward user intent and experience and providing the best results.

Thus, it is not only essential to optimize your web pages using targeted keywords. You must also provide valuable information to match those optimized keywords.

Why is user intention important to SEO?

You Position Your Website As An Authority

Providing visitors with information that matches their query helps establish your website as an authority in your niche. It tells your audience that you know your onions and can provide relevant answers to questions they have about something.

Establishing your website as an authority means more people will visit your pages. More so, you will be better ranked during an organic search.

Increase Brand Awareness

When people search for content and see your website on SERPs, it’s an opportunity for them to learn about your business. Your website can only appear on SERPs when your content matches user intent.

Conversely, people will spend more time on your website if your content is engaging. By doing so, they learn about what you provide and boost your conversions. They will be more likely to recommend your website to someone as it satisfies their needs.

You won’t have to worry about your competitors when your website provides relevant information to search intent.

Fulfill User Needs

Another reason why search intent is essential is that it fulfills the needs of your visitors. Let’s say someone wanted to search for “How to take care of pets”. If you have an online pet retail store, you can create content that answers that user query.

However, if your content mainly focuses on the items in your retail store, it doesn’t match the user’s search intent. The user intends to discover tips to take care of their pets and not products for their pets.

When you provide content matching a keyword intent, they will value your website and subconsciously be interested in your offer.

Generate Direct Leads

When people land on your website pages and see the answer to their query, there’d be less need to visit another website. They will continue to remain and engage with your content.

This increases their time spent on your website, which is a great signal to Google. The more time people spend on your website, the greater your chances of ranking higher during an organic search.

Understanding customer intent generates more leads for your business and better rankings on SERPs.

Why is Search Intent Relevant for Your Business?

Search intent is the driving force of SERPs. But how is it relevant for your business? We look at the reasons below:

● Helps you narrow down your keywords. Search intent allows you to identify which keywords to optimize. Without it, you’d be optimizing random keywords that offer zero value to a visitor.

● Provide valuable content. When you know what your potential is searching for, you will be able to provide valuable content.

● Improve user experience. People positively perceive businesses and websites that satisfy their search intent.

● Rank better in SERPs. If your content fulfills customer intent, Google will rank it better than others during an organic search.

4 Types of Search Intent

Search intent comes in different forms. They are broken down into the following:

● Informational

● Commercial Investigation

● Transactional

● Navigational

Let’s look at them in detail.

Informational Search Intent

Informational search intent simply means a user wants to learn some info about someone or something. Most search queries of this nature usually pose questions utilizing words such as who, what, where, when, how, and why?

For specific queries, Google might use SERP features to provide direct answers. Most search queries are informational. Thus, you can take advantage of that to improve your visibility.

Commercial Search Intent

Let’s say you want a new laptop but don’t know if you want an HP Envy or MacBook. The search you conduct to compare their specs is commercial search intent.

Google presents results from web pages that compare the two products. At the end of the day, the user will make an informed decision after reading up on commercial search intent.

Commercial search intent isn’t limited to product comparisons. Users might conduct this type of search to look for customer reviews, demonstrations, recommendations, and other pages that will provide details about a product.

Transactional Search Intent

Transactional search intent means visitors plan to do something specific in person or with their devices.

Transactional keywords in search intent aren’t limited to purchases. It could be searching for email signups, form submissions, or store visits. While Google usually displays the results in a carousel, it also provides additional information on the knowledge panel.

Navigational Search Intent

This kind of search intent means visitors want to discover a physical address, website domain, or contact information.

Google works to deliver the results using SERP features like map packs or knowledge panels. You can incorporate navigational keywords into your website to ensure visitors locate you when they need your services.

How to Determine Search Intent

There are several ways you can determine the search intent of your target audience. They include:

● Read the SERPs. Type the keywords related to your business and study how the results are displayed. It will give you an idea of how to optimize your web pages for more visibility.

● Use Google Ads to determine the extent of the intent. While you may not intend to use Google Ads, you can look it up to see how much people are willing to pay to rank for specific keywords.

● Use Google Analytics. You can also use Google Analytics to identify the search intent of your visitors. You can look up Organic Search, Pageviews, Session Duration, and Exits from the dashboard to see how people interact with your content.

How to Optimize for Search Intent

With everything you’ve learned, how do you optimize your web pages for search intent? Follow these tips:

● Conduct keyword research.

● Study SERP features.

● Look at the People Also Ask panel to identify keywords to optimize.

● Learn from your competitors.

● Categorize your content ideas by search intent.

● Think like a customer to discover keywords they might use.

Conclusion

Understanding search intent is essential to a successful digital marketing campaign. Thankfully, we’ve explored everything you need to know about customer intent and how to optimize your website for it.

Smartphones aren’t just an accessory but an essential part of our everyday lives. We can look up information, order a product, take pictures, book appointments, and call or text someone in a matter of minutes.

With more people spending time on their smart devices, it is essential for website owners and digital marketers to customize their websites to become mobile SEO friendly. But what is it in the first place?

Mobile SEO is optimizing your website to ensure it responds seamlessly on mobile devices. When implemented, your web pages provide an excellent user interface and experience to visitors regardless of their device names and screen sizes.

Some businesses do not regard this in their digital marketing, and that’s a huge problem. When your website is not set for mobile SEO optimization, it will affect your conversion efforts and your target audience’s perception of your business.

This article offers a breakdown of what it is and the mobile SEO best practices to deploy on your website.  

Importance of Mobile SEO

According to research, 52% of global internet traffic comes from smartphones. This is an eye-opener for business owners to customize their websites for mobile SEO. Search engines prioritize mobile user experience as a ranking factor during an organic search.

Why is SEO mobile important? We look at the reasons below:

Loads Your Website Quicker

Your site loading speed is essential to how and where your site shows up on SERPs. When your website takes a long time to load on mobile devices, it sends a wrong signal to search engines.

Mobile SEO ensures your website loads quickly for your visitors and search engines.

Decreases Bounce Rate

Visitors might leave if your website is unresponsive, increasing your bounce rate. A high bounce rate means your web pages aren’t suitable for mobile users.

Mobile SEO service helps lower your website’s bounce rates, allowing people to spend more time engaging with your content.

Improves Mobile User Experience

Another importance to optimizing your website for mobile SEO is that it improves the user experience of your visitors using smartphones. When people get into your website and can seamlessly navigate different content, it leaves a great impression on them.

They’d want to recommend your website to their friends and family. Mobile SEO makes sure of that.

Responsive On All Mobile Devices

Another importance of mobile SEO is that it ensures that your website is responsive on all smartphones. It ensures that both Apple and Android phones of different screen sizes can access the same content without delays.

Increased Mobile Conversions

Mobile SEO is essential because it improves conversion rates from your mobile visitors. Your bottom line will improve significantly when people can have a seamless customer purchase journey.

Mobile SEO is what you need to crown your digital marketing efforts with great success.

These are just a few of the many benefits of implementing SEO for mobile on your website.

Difference Between Mobile SEO and Desktop SEO

Most people often mistake mobile SEO and desktop as the same thing. While they might be similar in operation, they have distinct functionalities.

What are their differences?

● Location. This is one of the significant differences between both SEOs. Search engines consider the location of smartphones to deliver local results to them. This is because most phones make use of GPS to identify their location. While desktops have location monitoring, it is not an essential factor for delivering results. So, the results for desktops may be generic.

● Click-through rates. Due to the nature of both products, their click-through rates (CTR) are pretty different. For mobile devices, the CTR is low, as users will want to take their time to preview the meta title and description before clicking it. For desktops, the CTR is relatively high, as they get access to more search results due to their landscape screen size.

● Search layout. Another difference between mobile SEO and desktop SEO is the search layout. Mobile phones are evidently smaller, revealing fewer results at a time. Desktop SEO displays various search results due to its landscaped screen size.

Why Is Mobile SEO So Important to Generate Traffic?

You’ve learned that mobile SEO is essential for your website. But why is it important in the grand scheme of things?

According to Google, people spend 70% of their digital time on mobile devices. This means there’s a high possibility that most of your website visitors will be smartphone users. If your website is mobile-friendly, they will keep returning there and recommend it to their friends and family.

An unresponsive website is a massive turn-off to smartphone users, which might affect your ranking position on SERPs. Conversely, when your website is mobile-friendly, your conversion rates will go up.

How to Check for Mobile Traffic in Google Analytics

Do you want to monitor your website traffic from mobile devices on Google Analytics? It’s pretty easy. Follow these steps:

● Sign in to Google Analytics with your Google account.

● Select your website account from the menu.

● On the dashboard, click Audience > Mobile > Overview.

You will be able to see and analyze your website traffic from smartphones.

How to Check for Mobile Traffic in Semrush

You can also track your website’s mobile traffic using Semrush, another web analytics tool. All you need to do is:

● Sign in to Semrush.

● Visit Traffic Analytics.

● Input your website and click on Traffic Overview.  

How to Check if Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

Checking if your website is mobile-friendly is one of the best Mobile SEO audits you should carry out. So, how do you check if your website is mobile-friendly?

● Use Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool. Using the Mobile-Friendly Test Tool, you can check if your website is mobile-friendly. All you need to do is input your URL on the box and click to view the report.

● Check mobile usability report on Google Search Console. You can also use your Google Search to know if your site is mobile-friendly. On your dashboard, visit the Mobile Usability report to track and troubleshoot the mobile-friendliness of your website.

● Use other checkers. You can also utilize other online digital tools to check if your website is mobile-friendly. They include W3C Mobile Checker, MobiReady, Small SEO Tools, SiteChecker, BrowserStack, and many more.

How to Optimize Mobile SEO

Now that you know mobile SEO is essential to your digital marketing campaigns, what are the best practices to optimize it?

● Improve your site loading speed. Your website loading speed is vital to have excellent conversion rates. Our previous article covered how to make your website faster.

● Make your website responsive. Your website should be responsive for both PCs and smartphones. Your web development and design should take implement this.

● Improve your mobile user experience. Looking for different information from your website shouldn’t be difficult. Ensure that everything is in the right place to improve user perception of your website. Your navigation bar should be easy to locate.

● Optimize title tags. Every website page should have a meta title and meta description, as search engines also use that as a ranking factor.

● Optimize ‘near me’ content. Your content should be optimized for local results. The reason is that Google considers the device location when displaying results.

Mobile User Experience

Mobile user experience (often referred to as UX) refers to a user’s positive experience when using a device to access something.

Your website should have an excellent user experience, as it is essential for lower bounce rates, higher conversions, and increased sessions.

WordPress Plugins to Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

Popular CMS, WordPress, comes with a truckload of themes and plugins that promises mobile-friendliness. However, there are standout plugins that will make your website as responsive as possible.

They include:

● Superfly

● Smush

● Jetpack

● WP Mobile Menu

● Hummingbird

● Touchy

Conclusion

Mobile SEO should be incorporated into your digital marketing efforts to achieve the best results. Need a helping hand to make it possible? Abstrax Web is a leading digital marketing firm tasked with improving your website to fulfill your marketing objectives.

Our services include website design and development, website analytics, content marketing, website wireframing, and many more. Contact us today to see how we can help take your brand to the next level.