Google Discover – how to get your content in?

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Google Discover – how to get your content in?

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If you do not know what Google Discover is or how to make the most of the Google app – this a must-read! Some basic information for starters, especially useful after installing the Google app, and then some tidbits for more experienced users. Check if we touch upon topics you haven’t heard of before! 

What is Google Discover?

Google Discover (until 2018, Google Feed) offers high-quality content that can actively adjust to your interests by displaying relevant content and the latest data. For many, it is a reliable source of news from around the world.

How is Google Discover different from the Google search engine?

The difference between the Discover service and the Google search engine is that the search engine responds to the user’s search query by displaying results (SERPs – Search Engine Result Page), and Google Discover suggests personalized content automatically. Google Discover is based on a dedicated algorithm that uses information about the user, namely:

  • location history,
  • browser search history,
  • interaction and involvement on individual websites,
  • “My activity” from other Google services (Gmail, contacts, photos, calendar, maps, notes).

After processing the collected information, the system tries to reach the internet user by creating a dedicated content package in the form of:

(You will find the rest of the article below the form)

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Verseo spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością with its registered office in Poznań, at the following address ul. Węglowa 1/3, 62-122 Poznań is an administrator of your personal data.

About Verseo

Company’s office is located in Poznań. Company is entered into the register of entrepreneurs, kept by the District Court of Poznań – Nowe Miasto i Wilda in Poznań, 8th Commercial Division of the National Court Division under number 0000596164, NIP (Tax Identification Number): 7773257986. You can contact us by writing a letter on the address indicated above or e-mail:[email protected]

You have right to:

  1. access to your personal data,
  2. correct your personal data,
  3. demand to remove your personal data,
  4. restrain to process your personal data,
  5. object of process your personal data,
  6. transfer your personal data,
  7. withdraw consent.

If you think we process your personal data not in accordance with the law, you have right to object to supervisory authority – President of Personal Data Protection Office.

We process your personal data to:

  1. handle your question, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. 6 of General Data Protection Regulation
  2. promote our goods and services including ourselves in connection with your consent, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. a of General Data Protection Regulation
  3. protect or claim in connection with our reasonable interest, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. f General Data Protection Regulation

You share your personal data freely. Please remember that without sharing your personal data you will not be able to send us a message, and we will not be able to answer you.

We can share your personal data with trusted recipient:

  1. providers of tools made for: website analytics, marketing automation,
  2. hosting operators.

We will process your personal data by the time:

  1. which is necessary to achieve a specific purpose for which they were collected and after this term by the time which is necessary to protect or possible claim,
  2. of withdraw your permission .

We don’t process personal data in a way, which would involve making only automated decisions about you. More information about processing of personal data you can find in our privacy policy.

  • articles,
  • world news,
  • match results (also live),
  • guides,
  • interesting facts,
  • video materials,
  • warnings and alerts

Discover differs from Google News pages. The evergreen content delivered to the user does not come only from news websites and it is not news from the last minute. These can be pages with different forms of presenting the content and subject ranges. Artificial intelligence is used to help target Internet users’ interests.

Google Discover card – what’s in it?

Evergreen content, live results, notifications and news. The Discover tab consists of a headline, an image, source of the user-targeted article. On a classic smartphone-sized screen, the user will usually see two articles. If you swipe down the screen, you will find more. There is a heart button next to each topic (to get more personalised notifications and increase the chances that it will always be up-to-date). You can also share an article or mark it as uninteresting, which will allow the service to be even better adapted to our needs.

How to use Google Discover and customize the feed?

The Google Discover card is available to users:

  • in the Google app,
  • in a browser on an Android phone or tablet
  • in some devices, where you just need to swipe right when being on the home screen.

Google Discover – good to know…

A very useful function in Discover is to adjust the articles to users’ interests, without the need to search for them. The service allows you to select notifications as well as exclude unwanted posts or sources.

How to adapt the google Discover card to your needs? Nothing easier. If you have enabled “Internet and application activity” on your smartphone (after clicking on your profile picture or initials in the Google application and entering “Your data in the search engine”), search for “Settings” -> Channels and Interests -> Your interests. There you can check the list created by Google and modify it if needed.

How to appear on Google Discover feed

Google says there are a few key points, which have to be fulfilled if you want to appear on Google Discover feed. The content on the website must comply with the content policy, which prohibits:

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  • misleading the user; 
  • promoting hatred, violence, cruelty, and terrorism;
  • using profanity;
  • creating a sexual context;
  • creating medical content.

The above-mentioned actions are strictly forbidden. Of course, any self-respecting website will not allow losing its reputation on the market by creating forbidden content. So how to build an advantage over the competition and appear on Discover?

Only show valuable and interesting content!

We have prepared a practical checklist with tips. Analyze the most important guidelines and check if your website is ready to get traffic thanks to Google Discover!

Responsiveness and speed of the homepage

The most common errors that can influence the algorithm rating:

  • content wider than the screen,
  • small font that makes it difficult to read the text,
  • clickable elements too close together.

Speed is no less important. This is one of the most important factors that affects the functioning of your website not only when it comes to Google Discover, but also in the eyes of the Google bots and, above all, users!

Do you know that…

Almost 70% of customers admit that the website’s slow loading time influences their decisions related to the further use of the website. Regardless of how high-quality content and information on a given topic you will be presenting, Google Discover tools require a fast reaction!

Any errors will be shown to you by Google Search Console, to which you can link your Google account. All you need to do is click “Support on mobile devices” or “Basic internet indicators” on the left side of the menu – the tool will present any problems related to the responsiveness or loading speed of subpages. The Accelerated Mobile Pages may also be useful. you will find more on the official website https://amp.dev/

Publish interesting and more relevant content, compared to other sites

It sounds trivial, but the authors of the content know it’s probably the hardest thing to do. Building reliable and targeted content for a given audience is a long-term process. For Google, valuable, credible and original content that follows trends is important. It definitely can’t be a wall of text that no one will fully read.

Rich and original content will include:

  • insightful analyzes,
  • reports confirmed by surveys,
  • interesting conclusions and summaries,
  • infographics,
  • quotes,
  • good grammar and punctuation,
  • structured content – title, subheadings, paragraphs, bullet points.

To appear in Google Discover, create evergreen content on your website, which brings new users to the site regularly. These are texts that rarely lose their relevance and will always be useful for a given audience. They can be:

  • industry articles,
  • guides,
  • FAQs,
  • product descriptions.

If these kinds of materials appear on your website, they should be slightly modified from time to time. Add new content or original photos, when you decide that the content has lost its relevance. However, you must not change the topic, or the URL address or use it on other websites.

Generate a high E-A-T score

E-A-T (Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness) are three indicators that are very important to Google’s algorithm, especially when it comes to Discover. What exactly do they mean? They built-up trust among web robots and users. They take into account  such factors as:

  • service life and positive domain history,
  • the growing popularity of the website,
  • customer data encryption (security features such as SSL),
  • operational reliability (rare errors caused by servers)
  • frequent content updates.

The above factors are a must-have for any website, also in terms of SEO.

E-A-T also applies to authors of texts who must be verified in at least a few posts and recognized as experts in a given field. Ratings of people using the site and generating page views can help in this assessment. Therefore, give the readers the chance to comment or rate the article (using 1-5 stars).

It is worth strengthening the credibility of the materials created by adding the date of posting, name and surname of the author (along with a short author bio).

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Make sure you have a title that reflects the content

The title is one of the most important elements of every article, guide or news as its an important ranking factor for the bots. While according to SEO best practices it is worth using keywords in your titles, it is not the case in Discover. According to official Google recommendations, the titles should not cause extreme emotions such as unhealthy curiosity or excitement. Simply put – avoid clickbaits and create titles that correspond to your content.

Use your communication channels to promote posts

If you are also active on social media, try to choose the most interesting for promotion. Linking or sharing your post in several channels will help you reach a larger audience. This will certainly be noticed by the Google algorithm, which will perhaps consider your content even more valuable and show it in Discover.

Prepare dedicated images

Another important element is the right image. Google recommends including high-resolution images (min. 1200 pixels wide) in your materials. You will need to use max-image-preview: large or AMP.

Remember…

The original photo taken by the website owner will be better rated than a random photo from free stock or using the website’s logo as an image.

Why are images so important? Pictures take the vast majority of the display on any phone.

If you meet the above guidelines, your site will gain popularity and feature on google Discover. Of course, these are only guidelines. The trends are very changeable and dynamic, which makes it necessary to keep yourself updated and have a bit of luck. It is worth using tools such as Google Trends, Senuto or Semstorm to stay current.

Remember that paying attention to the above tips and adapting the content of the website to the user’s needs is the way to go.

How to check the traffic generated thanks to Google Discover?

The traffic generated by the website thanks to Google Discover can be checked in a free tool – Google Search Console.

When your website is connected to GSC and meets the minimum requirement for impressions, a new option in the “Performance” section called “Discover” should appear in the left menu.

As you can see in the discussed example from GSC, the website gained traffic through valuable articles that appeared on the Google search list. You can see which articles generated clicks and impressions.

Google Discover – should your content be there?

It is worth fighting for a place on Discover as it is one of the most developed services from Google and it’s for free. Users receive personalized news, guides or other useful materials corresponding to their interests and level of knowledge.

Google Discover is a user-oriented product and it clearly shows the policy pursued by Google for the years to come. Websites that can attract Internet users to their content have a better chance of appearing on Discover and gaining valuable traffic and more customers. For this to happen, you can’t forget about the website’s responsiveness, original images and E-A-T indicators. Be patient and you will be satisfied with the results!

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Google Ads Campaign – How to Start?

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Google Ads - advertising campaigns

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Ads on the Google Search Network are currently one of the most popular methods of advertising. It’s not just easy to use – it’s also the quickest way to get your website in the top search results for a given keyword. It’s an intuitive tool with a wide range of possibilities. How to set up an ad on Google Ads platform? Find out in our guide!

Google Ads is a broad platform that allows you to use various types of ads. One of the most popular kinds is a Search ad – an ad that is displayed in search results. They’re displayed to users who type in keywords specified in a given campaign – they appear both above and in-between the so-called organic search results.

Your ad’s placement depends on the amount of money you’re willing to spend and on the level of interest in a given topic. Advertisers who wish to set up a campaign for a given phrase take part in an auction which decides whether specific content is displayed and where it’s displayed.

Ads on the Search Network – what are the advantages?

Why should you choose a Search ad? Its biggest perks include:

(You will find the rest of the article below the form)

Contact us and get a free quote

We will analyze your business and prepare an individual price offer for the optimal marketing mix for you. Completely free.

Your data is safe. More about data protection

Verseo spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością with its registered office in Poznań, at the following address ul. Węglowa 1/3, 62-122 Poznań is an administrator of your personal data.

About Verseo

Company’s office is located in Poznań. Company is entered into the register of entrepreneurs, kept by the District Court of Poznań – Nowe Miasto i Wilda in Poznań, 8th Commercial Division of the National Court Division under number 0000596164, NIP (Tax Identification Number): 7773257986. You can contact us by writing a letter on the address indicated above or e-mail:[email protected]

You have right to:

  1. access to your personal data,
  2. correct your personal data,
  3. demand to remove your personal data,
  4. restrain to process your personal data,
  5. object of process your personal data,
  6. transfer your personal data,
  7. withdraw consent.

If you think we process your personal data not in accordance with the law, you have right to object to supervisory authority – President of Personal Data Protection Office.

We process your personal data to:

  1. handle your question, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. 6 of General Data Protection Regulation
  2. promote our goods and services including ourselves in connection with your consent, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. a of General Data Protection Regulation
  3. protect or claim in connection with our reasonable interest, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. f General Data Protection Regulation

You share your personal data freely. Please remember that without sharing your personal data you will not be able to send us a message, and we will not be able to answer you.

We can share your personal data with trusted recipient:

  1. providers of tools made for: website analytics, marketing automation,
  2. hosting operators.

We will process your personal data by the time:

  1. which is necessary to achieve a specific purpose for which they were collected and after this term by the time which is necessary to protect or possible claim,
  2. of withdraw your permission .

We don’t process personal data in a way, which would involve making only automated decisions about you. More information about processing of personal data you can find in our privacy policy.

  • taking users directly to your website, which boosts visibility, traffic, and sales;
  • precision targeting options – the advertiser decides who should see the ad;
  • easy configuration – setting up a campaign is very simple;
  • affordable prices – you can achieve excellent results at a relatively low cost if you set up your campaign properly.

Google is the world’s number one search engine that has billions of visits every day. That’s why advertising on Google is always a good idea!

Why should you invest in Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords)? How much does it cost? See for yourself!

Types of Google ads

It’s good to take a closer look at the types of Google ads before you start configuring your first campaign. They may include:

  • text ads – ads that resemble organic search results;
  • Product Listing Ads – tiles displayed on the top of the page that lead to a specific product in an online store;
  • image and video ads – ads shown on the websites of Google search partners (Google Display Network).

You can select a type of campaign depending on your goals. Text ads mostly increase website traffic, shopping ads boost sales, and image and video ads are mainly aimed at increasing brand awareness and improving its image. That’s why it’s so important to determine your priorities first!

How to set up a Google Ads campaign – first steps

Setting up a campaign on Google Ads is not as complicated as one may think. Below you will find step-by-step instructions on how to start with Google Ads.

First of all, log in to your Google Ads account and select “Campaigns”, then click on an icon with a plus sign (+) and a “New campaign” button. After that, you’ll be able to create your very first ad.

You’ll be asked to select an objective for your campaign. You need to decide on the effect that the campaign is supposed to have (sales, traffic, brand awareness, etc.). You can also create a campaign without goal recommendations. In this case, you’ll have to set all the parameters yourself.

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The third step is selecting the type of campaign. Google Ads offers a couple of options. Select “Search Network” and click “Next”.

The next step is naming your campaign (to make it easier for the advertisers to tell them apart). In the “Networks” section, unselect Google Display Network. It’s not recommended to include both the Display Network and the Search Network in your campaign, as each of them focuses on achieving different goals.

Once you complete these steps, your Google Ads campaign will be saved to drafts. You can return to the setup any time you want.

Settings – Google Ads campaign step by step

Then it’s time for campaign detailed settings. They allow you to display your ads to specific audience. Before you reach this point, it’s crucial that you know who your target audience is. Of course, you could target a wide audience, but it’s usually expensive and not very effective. What targeting settings are there?

The first field is location. You can direct your campaign at users from Poland, from all around the globe, or any particular location. You can narrow it down to people in a specific region or town. You can also exclude locations – this way you can target a large area with the exception of particular regions within.

The next part is language. Whenever you set up a campaign aimed at Poles, it’s worth selecting both Polish and English, since a lot of people in our country set their browsers to English.

The next section is the audience. It allows you to enter, for example, demographic information or details regarding online activity or interests. It’s another way of narrowing down your target audience. It’s optional, though. You can narrow down the criteria even when the campaign is already running. It is possible to use system suggestions on how to specify the campaign’s target audience. The options available here are “Targeting”, which allows you to narrow the reach of your campaign, and “Observation”, which enables you to monitor the criteria and set custom bids per recipient.

In the next step, you can specify your budget. Enter the average daily budget for your campaign.

Then you’ll need to specify the bid optimization model. There are plenty of options in this regard. For example, you can set a maximum cost-per-click bid (max. CPC bid) or focus on getting as many clicks as possible within a certain budget. If you want to increase sales, conversion tracking will prove useful. Impression share, on the other hand, will allow you to maximize the frequency of ad display.

Once you complete all that, your Google Ads campaign will be preconfigured.

But these are not all the settings and options offered by Google Ads!

Ad group configuration

We’re almost there! All that’s left to do is configure ad groups taking into account product or service categorization that allows you to accurately match the message to the recipient. You can create standard or dynamic ad groups.

Standard and dynamic ad groups – what’s the difference

Standard ad groups operate on the keywords you enter.

Dynamic ad groups are created based on the analysis of your website’s content. They’re created automatically.

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You can set a different bid for every group. Keywords can be used with different keyword matching criteria (e.g. exact match or broad match).

Creating text ads

Ad configuration is not the same as setting ad’s content. The wizard provides you with a preview of what the ad is going to look like in a browser. Select the URL to which the user will be directed and determine the content of the headline and the right ad.

Good to know…

A headline can consist of up to three parts, while an ad description can include no more than 2 lines of text. For each field, a maximum number of characters is provided.

In the case of dynamic ads, the URL and headline are selected automatically. Only the ad description, consisting of no more than two lines of text, is created by the user.

How to create the ad’s content?

Most importantly, remember to adapt it to keywords and target audience. The content should entice the viewer to click on the ad. It’s best when it includes the main keyword. Once you click “Ready”, you can add more ads to the same group.

All that’s left to do after confirming it is wait for the results. Bear in mind, however, that it may take a few days to confirm the ad (usually it’s one business day). It’s good to keep tabs on how a given campaign is doing and what results it produces. You should also remember that even if a campaign spends more than its daily budget on a given day, it will not overrun its monthly budget. A well-configured ad on the Google Search Network should quickly start achieving its goals. Some parameters can also be adjusted while the campaign is running.

Effective Google text ad – what do you need to know?

Google Ads is a tool that offers a wide range of possibilities. Even a simple text ad can be configured and adjusted in a number of ways. With the right settings it’s highly effective. How to optimize your budget?

First of all, remember to:

  • emphasize your offer’s unique features;
  • use keywords in your ad’s text;
  • adjust your ad to the target audience (your client);
  • keep your ad consistent with the website to which it leads;
  • include a CTA (Call to Action, such as “buy”, “check now”, “sign in”, “get a quote”);
  • adjust your ad to mobile device users.

Don’t be afraid to experiment as well! For example, try running the same campaign in various configurations to see which one achieves the best results. This way, you’ll learn how to create effective campaigns in no time! Google Ads tools may prove useful too – on your profile, you’ll find a lot of valuable information on the effectiveness of your ads.

One of the parameters you can follow is Google Ads Quality Score. It’s an indicator of how “relevant” a given ad and website are to the users searching for particular keywords. Of course, it’s only a rough evaluation of your campaign, but it tells you whether the campaign requires optimization.

Good to know…

Google Ads allows you to set up ads even with a very small budget. It encourages users to experiment and explore the wide choice of options available. Moreover, it’s a user-friendly, intuitive tool that is available to everyone.

Even a person without much experience can create a successful Google Ads text ad. But you can also leave it to a team of professionals. Feel free to contact us! 🙂

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Search Engine Optimization – how to effectively monitor your SEO performance?

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SEO monitoring

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Search Engine Optimization – how to effectively monitor your SEO performance?

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We’ve always been saying that it takes a lot of time for your SEO activities to bear fruit. But how can you know when that happens? How to check whether your actions aimed at SEO are actually effective? This time, we want to briefly discuss some methods of measuring positioning effects and provide both advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

Positioning aimed at effects – why is it usually ineffective?

But before we focus on the tools that can help you measure the efficiency of Search Engine Optimization, let’s take a closer look at which parameters are actually worth tracking. Just a few years ago it was still popular to conclude deals for SEO “aimed at effects”. This model implied that the client pays the agency only for attaining a specific goal, namely placing a given number of keywords in the top search results. But this method of settlement is on its way out – and for good reason too. The approach that involves introducing more changes to the website rather than focusing on promoting specific keywords is much more efficient.

When it comes to SEO activities, we mainly strive to achieve valuable traffic – one that brings a brand measurable gains. There’s no profit in boosting a keyword to the TOP10 or even TOP3 search results if no one is interested in searching for it. What’s more, even if it’s an attractive keyword, placing it there doesn’t mean that the user will click on the website’s link. If the content of the headline and the description doesn’t meet the user’s expectations, they may search for another website.

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And even if they visit your website, but they don’t find what they’re looking for – it won’t bring you any profits. So if you want your positioning to be truly effective, it must be complex and guide the user through the whole sales journey. In that case, monitoring keywords is just one way of measuring SEO performance.

(You will find the rest of the article below the form)

Contact us and get a free quote

We will analyze your business and prepare an individual price offer for the optimal marketing mix for you. Completely free.

Your data is safe. More about data protection

Verseo spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością with its registered office in Poznań, at the following address ul. Węglowa 1/3, 62-122 Poznań is an administrator of your personal data.

About Verseo

Company’s office is located in Poznań. Company is entered into the register of entrepreneurs, kept by the District Court of Poznań – Nowe Miasto i Wilda in Poznań, 8th Commercial Division of the National Court Division under number 0000596164, NIP (Tax Identification Number): 7773257986. You can contact us by writing a letter on the address indicated above or e-mail:[email protected]

You have right to:

  1. access to your personal data,
  2. correct your personal data,
  3. demand to remove your personal data,
  4. restrain to process your personal data,
  5. object of process your personal data,
  6. transfer your personal data,
  7. withdraw consent.

If you think we process your personal data not in accordance with the law, you have right to object to supervisory authority – President of Personal Data Protection Office.

We process your personal data to:

  1. handle your question, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. 6 of General Data Protection Regulation
  2. promote our goods and services including ourselves in connection with your consent, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. a of General Data Protection Regulation
  3. protect or claim in connection with our reasonable interest, based on art. 6 ust. 1 lit. f General Data Protection Regulation

You share your personal data freely. Please remember that without sharing your personal data you will not be able to send us a message, and we will not be able to answer you.

We can share your personal data with trusted recipient:

  1. providers of tools made for: website analytics, marketing automation,
  2. hosting operators.

We will process your personal data by the time:

  1. which is necessary to achieve a specific purpose for which they were collected and after this term by the time which is necessary to protect or possible claim,
  2. of withdraw your permission .

We don’t process personal data in a way, which would involve making only automated decisions about you. More information about processing of personal data you can find in our privacy policy.

Which parameters show that SEO is working?

In order to properly measure positioning effects, we should first figure out what our main goals are. Based on them, you can determine Key Performance Indicators – KPIs. They’re verifiable indicators showing that your SEO activities are successful. Such indicators should be settled with a positioning company at the very beginning and then followed through the entire process of building your website’s visibility. In the case of positioning, KPIs can vary across brands and should be selected individually. The most popular among them are:

  • increase in valuable website traffic,
  • increase in the number of conversions from organic traffic, i.e. search results,
  • lower bounce rate – situations when the user leaves the page right after visiting it,
  • more keywords in the TOP10 and TOP50 search results,
  • improving the website’s position for relevant keywords,
  • longer average time on page.

SEO results in Google Analytics

The first – and free at that – tool we can use to measure positioning effects is Google Analytics. By placing a special tracking code on our website, we can use this tool to see how the website’s visitors behave. The parameters worth checking in this case include:

  • website traffic – we can compare current statistics with the ones from six months before to see whether there’s been an increase,
  • bounce rate – this value indicates whether our visitors found what they were searching for,
  • number of views of subpages which are most relevant to our business, e.g. most important product categories,
  • number of conversions, that is significant actions that the user is supposed to perform. Conversions may include purchasing a product, sending a contact form, downloading a guide or booking an appointment.
  • average time on page – this information can help you establish whether your website meets the expectations of the users. This way you can make sure that your subpages are positioned for the right keywords.

However, in order to receive correct results from Google Analytics, you first need to properly set up this tool. Otherwise, the data will be misrepresented. Before we start using it as a monitoring tool, we should exclude our own IP address and the IP address of the positioning agency from the analysis. Then the tool won’t include visits from users who are not potential customers. We should also exclude traffic generated by any known bots and block spambots from visiting our website. For reliable data, we should also make the tool consider only traffic associated with our host.

If we use Google Ads or Facebook Ads, it’s necessary to connect our Analytics and Google Ads accounts and to implement the Facebook Pixel on our website. That way, the system will recognise traffic and conversions from these two sources and the results associated with organic traffic will be more reliable. What else requires our attention to obtain data on SEO performance from Google Analytics? We must definitely specify proper goals, indicate what the system is supposed to treat as conversion.

When it comes to Google Analytics, the Acquisition and Conversion reports will certainly come in handy.

SEO results in Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another Google tool that’s helpful in controlling SEO performance. It doesn’t use the internal data from our website but shows how it’s perceived by Googlebots. So we can mostly use it to check:

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  • the list of keywords under which the website is displayed on Google,
  • CTR – a ratio of clicks on the link to displays of this link in search results.

That way, we can not only control for how many keywords is our website displayed in the top search results, but also whether the displays lead to any actions.

What Google Search Console also offers us, when it comes to measuring results, is the ability to filter out keywords under which the website is shown. We can quickly and easily check the results of those keywords which are critical to our business. Yet Google Search Console is just a supplementary monitoring tool, and it cannot replace more accurate tools that are described below.

External SEO monitoring tools

Apart from free Google tools, we can also use a wide range of paid external programs that allow us to measure SEO effectiveness. They use their own algorithms that try to copy the algorithms of search engines and, based on that, prepare data about the visibility of a given website. Not only do these tools help you analyze your website in terms of keyword position or estimated website traffic, they also help you compare these results with the visibility of competitors.

There’s a multitude of such tools, and most of them operate in a similar way, so choosing one of them is usually based on preference. They include programs such as Senuto, Semstorm, Ahrefs, SurferSEO or Semrush.

Reports from these tools are a good starting point for SEO performance analysis, but they shouldn’t be our only source of information. None of these programs has access to Google algorithm, so none of them can truly imitate the results our website achieves in the search engine – they can only roughly estimate them. What’s more, results from individual tools can vary greatly. As practice shows, the differences can be as high as several dozen percent. Where do such discrepancies come from?

No one really knows to what extent do certain elements influence the website’s position. External tools must therefore make some assumptions which not always overlap. Sometimes, a tool’s update may lead to an error, which will temporarily distort the data. That’s why, when using these programs, you should always allow a margin of error.

Search Engine Optimization – monitoring

So, all in all, how should you monitor SEO performance? Most importantly, instead of focusing on tracking keyword positioning, look at the bigger picture. Consider things such as traffic, bounce rate, or the number of conversions whose main or supplementary source was organic traffic.

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It’s also useful to divide KPIs into the main and supplementary indicators and to focus on actions which can be carried out by an SEO specialist. Finally, don’t stop at acquiring data from one source – every source has its limitations, so only by comparing them can we obtain the full picture.