Trade in Your PR & Creative Agencies. SEOs Do it Better.

To understand why, you need to understand SEO today. Think you already do? Read on. What is it that SEOs really do these days? Is it marketing? Is it creative? Is it PR? Is it search engine optimization anymore? What about “real company shit”? Not only what is it to us, the people who’ve been in […]

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Wikipedia and SEO: what every digital marketer needs to know

While everyone has heard of, and probably uses, Wikipedia, what fewer understand is the impact it has on search results.

Wikipedia ranks highly in responses to many search queries due to the high degree of trust the search engines have in its content, the breadth of information it contains and the global, multi-language scope of the site.

Our own SEO Ranking Factors Rank Correlation study shows this clearly. Typically Wikipedia ranks second in results for a large number of keywords, for example behind the respective brand or the specific URL for the search term itself.

However, if there is no significant brand that would match the search query, Wikipedia often ranks first. This is particularly true of informational keywords (such as definitions) that are unconnected to brands.

Looking at this graph from google.co.uk illustrates the correlation between Wikipedia URLs and search results:

Average ranking of Wikipedia in google.co.uk searches (from Searchmetrics 2013 SEO Ranking Factors - Rank Correlation Study)

So how can brands benefit from the correlation between Wikipedia and high search results? I’d say there are four key ways:

  1. Keep pages up to dateWikipedia aims to be an independent information source, so over developed pages about your company or products will be frowned upon by the community and potentially removed. However you should ensure that there are up to date, factual pages to ensure that you rank highly in search results.

    This is particularly true if you want to appear towards the top of results for informational keywords – make sure you are providing unbiased information that positions you as an expert.

  2. Maximise your Google Knowledge Graph informationGoogle’s Knowledge Graph feature aims to enhance search results by providing immediate information on the results page. Normally on the right hand side, it gives either basic details and images/maps on a topic or company, or direct answers to very specific queries, such as What is the population of London?, without a user needing to click on other results.

    Wikipedia is one of the major sources of this information – rather than your corporate website. So make sure information on your revenues, senior management, staff and products is always up to date on Wikipedia.

  3. Use photos within WikipediaKnowledge Graph also trawls Wikipedia for images to accompany results. Therefore make sure you include up to date images (such as your logo) on the site if you want to provide the latest information to browsers when they are searching.
  4. Increase trust in your brandAs it has been vetted by the Wikipedia community, information about brands on the site is considered highly trustworthy and independent by consumers. It provides neutral, fact-based content, along with multiple links to specific information which encourage people to find out more.

    Not having a Wikipedia page can therefore reduce trust in your brand. 

Our Ranking Factors survey shows that while Google favours quality, substance, and ultimately, relevance in ordering its search results it always takes into account secondary factors such as Wikipedia.

The information on the site is interwoven into Knowledge Graph results, meaning it could be the first thing that a prospective customer sees about your company or brand. Therefore you need to ensure you have built the right presence on Wikipedia and are keeping it up to date if you want to benefit from its undoubted power when it comes to search.

One Year Without Google Analytics

In mid-2012 I decided I was fed up with Google Analytics’ bogus data and horrible interface. I replaced the free tool with my own self-served installation of Piwik. Unfortunately I run enough Websites that Piwik put a considerable load on my server. It didn’t help that constant robot probing from hackers and spammers kept knocking the server offline. In late November 2012 I decided to try the “less is more” approach to analytics reporting. Rather than spending hours every day poring over the minutiae of what people were doing on my sites, I decided to try just looking at the high-level data that might be reported by a simpler tool. As many of my sites are now built on WordPress the Jetpack module/plugin came to mind. So I installed Jetpack, connected my sites to a couple of WordPress.com accounts, and proceeded to depend on that dashboard for my personal analytics solution. To say that Jetpack offers fewer details and reporting options than Google Analytics should suffice. People who feel compelled to bury themselves in data every day (even if the data is nonsense) have no reason to look at Jetpack. It was designed for folks who want to focus on […]

SMX West Rates Increase Saturday – Register Now & Save $300!

SMX West Super Early Bird rates – the lowest offered – expire Saturday, December 21st. Register now for an All Access pass and join us in San Jose March 11-13. Here’s what you get: Exceptional content: 60 tactic-packed sessions, inspiring keynotes and clinics Invaluable connections: Meet others…

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Breaking up responsive design

Over the last couple of weeks I have been dealing with the fine art of CSS. Although that is not my daily business anymore – because I lead the website review team here at Yoast – I really enjoyed mastering SCSS and using that for an actual design. During this field trip, I encountered several…

This post first appeared on Yoast. Whoopity Doo!