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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 ranking
• Median 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 snippet
• instant answer
• Whether the keyword is branded 
• local pack 
• Knowledge panel 
• top stories
• People 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. 

Do you have a site with mixed content - both YMYL (Your Money or your Life) and other types of content? Do you know if that is best for organic traffic?

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Here’s the takeaway: for that YMYL content to rank (and that’s content where Google thinks could have an impact on the searcher’s current or future well-being (physical, financial, safety, happiness, etc.).  You need to break the site in two.

As you probably know, YMYL content needs to be created with a high level of expertise and authority.

Yes, that’s the latest guidance from John Muller at Google - your non-YMYL content is probably dragging your site down. This came up in Google’s April  SEO office hours. 

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. 

Google updated its User CTR Patent

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Yes, they say that they don’t use click-through rates, but they just filed an update to their CTR patent. You should read Bill Slawski’s analysis to make up your mind. I’m in the camp of using user signals (and we know that Bing does), so I think it’s worth adding to your SEO processes.

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. 

Did you know that Google can figure out *who* wrote your site content?

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John Mueller says they use something called recognition where they spot writing patterns that they know comes from a particular author, even if there isn’t a bio on the site. 

However, Google still recommends a biography and links to your author’s social media profiles. 

Now is the time to develop even deeper relationships with subject matter experts to write your content (vs. unknown ghostwriters). Search Engine Journal covers it in more detail.

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. 

Spotify had made sharing podcast content easier

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Spotify lets you share a specific timestamp from a podcast. When you tap the share button, you’ll see a toggle option that enables you to create a link for the particular spot in the podcast you want to share. This is also helpful as a host if you’re going to share specific mentions of resources or other people in your marketing promotions for each episode. Learn more here.

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. 

Subfolders vs subdomain - which is more effective when you’re consolidating your website?

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Here’s the tip (and is what I recommend to clients): moving to a subfolder almost always increases traffic

But don’t take my word for it. Rand Fishkin recently shared 14 case studies around how moving a subdomain to a subfolder (almost always) increases search traffic

And how moving from a subfolder to a subdomain (almost always) decreases search traffic. I’ve added a link to his tweet thread on my site. 

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. 

Let’s talk about RSS feeds.

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Google recently announced an updated use for RSS - allowing users to follow brands

I spotted this announcement on the Chromium blog - an option to enable Android users (using Chrome Canary) to follow their favorite websites and opt into RSS feed updates via a “follow” button. Just when you thought RSS had died - here’s another reason to keep it alive and up to date. I kid, of course, as Bing LOVES RSS feeds and podcasts are based on RSS.

So make sure that your RSS feeds are accessible by search engine bots and go ahead and upload them into Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

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. 

Let’s talk about the Google I/O Updates that impact SEO

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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. 

Let’s talk about GA4 and its different terminology

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Let’s talk about two different terms you’ll find in GA4 that are not in the older version of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics 4 Bounce Rate (Why It Isn’t In GA 4)

In GA4, Google has flipped it to engagement rate, which is “engaged,” a session must either result in a conversion, last over 10 seconds, or have multiple screens or page views. This article also goes into an explanation of the new page value metric in GA4.

What are Data Streams in Google Analytics 4?

GA4 is SO different from Universal Analytics, and it’s worth reading this article as a way to start to get familiar with the new ways data is filtered and viewed in GA4 vs. what you’re used to.

If you’d like to learn more about GA 4, Olga Zarzenczna has created a Basic GA 4 Guide at seosly.com.

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. 

Let’s talk about Facebook Groups

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1.8 Billion People Use Facebook Groups Every Month

This is a HUGE amount of potentially untrackable visits to your site - Facebook groups are a part of that “dark web” you heard talked about - unless, of course, you’re in the group, and you’ve shared a link with UTM tracking. 

So how do you take advantage of this audience?

Well, If your audience is active in Facebook groups, you can often reach out to an admin to see if your brand can hold an AMA of value to the group. 

Or if the group is relevant to you personally, you can join the group. I’m a member of a variety of podcasting groups which allow for you to share your most recent episode once a month.  One of those groups is using a text to email confirmation method that I’ve seen speakers use. They trigger it at the sign-up questions for their group and you’re automatically added to their Facebook group. 

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.