Insight | Why It's Important | How to Fix It |
Domain Insights | ||
Duplicate of homepage URL is found | The homepage is accessible both with a trailing slash - / - and without. This can lead to issues with both SEO and with analytics. 301 redirect one version to another to prevent issues. | To avoid confusion for search engines in determining the correct version of your homepage, its recommended to 301 redirect one version to another. Ask your site administrator or IT team to implement. |
Indexability Issues | ||
Canonicalized URL is noindex, nofollow | Canonicals help communicate the preferred version of a page to search engines. Having a canonicalized URL that is also noindex, nofollow is sending conflicting messages to search engines. | Ensure that the canonicalized URL is indexable. |
Underscore instead of dash in Hreflang | The specifications for Hreflang specifies the use of hyphens and not underscores to separate the language and the country. | Ensure you are using underscores instead of hyphens to separate language and country. For example: Use en-US and not en_US. |
Hreflang Present Outside <head> | Hreflang should be implemented in the <head>. If the Hreflang resides outside the <head>, it may not be crawled by search engines. | |
Hreflang Not Present | The Hreflang attribute tells Google which language and country you are targeting for a specific page. This allows the search engine to serve the page result to users searching in that specific language and country. If a site has pages that target multiple countries, having Hreflang attributes set up is highly recommended. | |
Empty Hreflang URL | Empty Hreflang URLs are going to be shown as errors in Google Search Console. | |
Hreflang URL is invalid | Empty Hreflang URLs are going to be shown as errors in Google Search Console. | |
Hreflang with multiple defaults | You should never have more than one x-default entry on a page since that sends a confusing message to search engines. | |
Meta Robots <meta name="robots"> specified more than once | A single meta robots tag is sufficient to specify all the directives (noindex, nofollow, noarchive, index, follow etc.) needed. The presence of multiple Robots meta tag opens up the possibility of conflicting directives being introduced on the page and for either one or all of them being ignored. | Check with your tech team on the setup of your Content Management System and page templates to combine the Robots Meta tag directives into a single tag if possible. |
Meta Robot tag <meta name="robots"> content contains no index | The meta robot directive “noindex” lets the search engines know that the page should NOT be indexed. This would prevent it from being ranked and showing up for any search results. | Check and confirm if the page should indeed not be indexable. If it should be indexable, then remove the directive for noindex. |
Meta Robot tag <meta name="robots"> content contains no follow | The meta robot directive “nofollow” lets the search engines know that links from this page should not be followed and that their reputation should not benefit from your link. Search engines may still be able to discover the links through other pages that link to them (from your site or on the web) but no reputation (or search equity) will flow from this page to any page linked. | Check and confirm if the links should indeed not be followed from this page. |
Last bot activity date older than 7 days | According to Google, "URLs that are more popular on the Internet tend to be crawled more often to keep them fresher in our index". A decline in the crawl activity for a page is thus an indicator of either a re-assessment by search engines of the popularity of the page OR an issue with the site architecture or the page itself. | Review the list of pages to ensure they are all still valid, not removed or redirected and still useful. If so, there are a few things you can do to help 1) Ensure the page is included in your sitemap 2) Run a Clarity Audit Site Crawl and make sure to enable the Internal links Analysis feature. Review the resulting report to ensure sufficient high value pages on the site link to the page in question. |
URL has more than 115 characters | The URL contains a high number of characters. | |
URL has non-lowercase elements in path | URLs on the web are case sensitive. Thus is considered a different page than As a best practice, it is recommended to stick with lower case elements in the URL path. On certain web servers, capitalization can make a difference to a page being rendered. Having URls that contain both uppercase and lowercase characters requires additional handling to ensure users that link to it or type it in don't encounter an error due to incorrect capitalization. John Mueller: URLS are case sensitive but can use either case https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/877952088030007297?s=20. | Check if the web server powering your website treats URLs as case sensitive. If so, you may need to ensure that appropriate redirect matching logic is in place to take users to the correct version if they click on a link or type in a URL with the wrong capitalization. Easier still is to setup a redirect rule to redirect all requests to a lowercase version of the URL. This will potentially avoid a number of other issues. |
Conflicting Hreflang and rel=canonica | Hreflang tags should be used in conjunction with the canonical tag. The canonical tag and the Hreflang tag for each version of a page should both point to the same URL. If the canonical URL and Hreflang URLs conflict, the search engine may index the incorrect page. | Ensure that the Hreflang and Canonical Tags are used together and do not point to different pages. |
Hreflang with duplicate language/region combinations | There should never be multiple entries for a single language/region combo. If more than one URL is specified for the same language and country, Googlebot will ignore all of them because there is no clear message about which page should be indexed for this language version. | |
Invalid region in the Hreflang attribute | Search Engines expect the region code in the Hreflang attribute to be in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format. If you use the wrong region code, it will not get picked up by Google. | Ensure that the region code used is in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format.For example:f<a target="_blank" href=" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2</a> |
| Crawl Budget Waste | According to Google, "having many low-value-add URLs can negatively affect a site's crawling and indexing." When a search engine crawler encounters links that result in errors or redirects, it slows down the crawl speed and wastes crawler resources that could have been used to crawl and index important pages. | Check last 14 days in botClarity. Filter by Google Mobile user agents. Determine total activity for the above filters. Determine total NON-200 activity. Show list of pages that had the most non-200 activity. |
Page Speed | ||
Minify JavaScript | Minifying JavaScript files can reduce payload sizes and script parse time. | Minification is the process of removing whitespace and any code that is not necessary to create a smaller but perfectly valid code file. Terser is a popular JavaScript compression tool. Webpack v4 includes a plugin for this library by default to create minified build files. |
Serve static assets with an efficient cache policy | HTTP caching can speed up your page load time on repeat visits. When a browser requests a resource, the server providing the resource can tell the browser how long it should temporarily store or cache the resource. For any subsequent request for that resource, the browser uses its local copy rather than getting it from the network. | Consider setting a long cache lifetime to speed up page load on repeat visits to your page. |
Serve images in next-gen formats | Optimized images load faster and consume less cellular data. | JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP are image formats that have superior compression and quality characteristics compared to their older JPEG and PNG counterparts. Encoding your images in these formats rather than JPEG or PNG means that they will load faster and consume less cellular data. |
Remove unused JavaScript | Unused JavaScript reduces page speed by consuming unnecessary bandwidth in loading the scripts. | |
Eliminate render-blocking resources | Resources are blocking the first paint of your page. | Consider delivering critical JS/CSS inline and deferring all non-critical JS/styles and removing anything unused. |
Preload key requests | This is an opportunity to speed up page load times by identifying the third level of requests in your critical request chain. Navigate to the Usability > PageSpeed report to see the Preload candidates identified for each page. | Consider using <link rel=preload> to prioritize fetching resources that are currently requested later in page load. |
Ensure text remains visible during webfont load | Fonts are often large files that take a while to load. Some browsers hide text until the font loads, causing a flash of invisible text (FOIT) which leads to a poor user experience. | The easiest way to avoid showing invisible text while custom fonts load is to temporarily show a system font. By including font-display: swap in your @font-face style, you can avoid FOIT in most modern browsers: |
Remove unused CSS | Unused CSS reduces page speed by consuming unnecessary bandwidth to load the CSS. | Remove dead rules from stylesheets and defer the loading of CSS not used for above-the-fold content to reduce unnecessary bytes consumed by network activity. |
Efficiently encode images | Optimized images load faster and consume less cellular data leading to a better user experience and faster page load times | This analysis looks at all the JPEG or BMP images on the page, sets each image's compression level to 85, and then compares the original version with the compressed version. If the potential savings are 4KiB or greater, it flags the image as optimizable. Navigate to the Usability > PageSpeed report to view the images identified for each page that are optimizable. |
Defer offscreen images | Offscreen or hidden images are not visible to users, wasting network bandwidth and slowing down page load speed. | Consider lazy-loading offscreen or hidden images in your page after all critical resources have finished loading to lower Time to Interactive. Navigate to Usability > PageSpeed to view the images identified for each page as candidates for deferring load. |
Enable text compression | Text-based resources should be served with compression to minimize total network bytes and thus improve the page load times. | The Usability > PageSpeed report lists all text-based resources that aren't compressed for each page. |
Minimize main-thread work | The browser's renderer process is what turns your code into a web page that your users can interact with. By default, the main thread of the renderer process typically handles most code: it parses the HTML and builds the DOM, parses the CSS and applies the specified styles, and parses, evaluates, and executes the JavaScript. The main thread also processes user events. So, any time the main thread is busy doing something else, your web page may not respond to user interactions, leading to a bad experience. | Consider reducing the time spent parsing, compiling and executing JS. You may find delivering smaller JS payloads helps with this. |
Reduce JavaScript execution time | When your JavaScript takes a long time to execute, it slows down your page performance in several ways: Network Cost, Parse and compile cost, Execution Cost, Memory Cost | Consider reducing the time spent parsing, compiling, and executing JS. You may find delivering smaller JS payloads helps with this |
Reduce server response times (TTFB) | Keep the server response time for the main document short because all other requests depend on it. | The first step to improving server response times is to identify the core conceptual tasks that your server must complete in order to return page content, and then measure how long each of these tasks takes. Once you've identified the longest tasks, search for ways to speed them up. |
Minify CSS | Minifying CSS files can reduce file size and thus the network bandwidth and time required to load - leading to faster page speed times. | CSS files can contain unnecessary characters, such as comments, whitespaces, and indentation. In production, these characters can be safely removed, to reduce file size without affecting how the browser processes the styles. This technique is called minification. |
Avoid enormous network payloads | Large network payloads are highly correlated with long load times. They also cost users money; for example, users may have to pay for more cellular data. | Reducing the total size of your page's network requests is good for your users' experience on your site and their wallets. |
Avoid an excessive DOM | A large DOM tree can slow down your page performance in multiple ways: - Network efficiency and load performance - Runtime performance - Memory performance | |
Properly size images | Serve images that are appropriately sized to save cellular data and improve load time. For each image on the page, Lighthouse compares the size of the rendered image against the size of the actual image. The rendered size also accounts for device pixel ratio. If the rendered size is at least 25KiB smaller than the actual size, then the image fails the audit. | Check the images on each of the pages identified and resize them to save data and improve page load time. |
Use video formats for animated content | Large GIFs are inefficient for delivering animated content given the extremely large file sizes associated with the format. | By converting large GIFs to videos, you can save big on users' bandwidth. Consider using MPEG4/WebM videos for animations and PNG/WebP for static images instead of GIF to save network bytes. |
Mobile Issues | ||
Viewport <meta> has a maximum-scale set | The maximum-scale attribute defines the maximum zoom that the site's users are able to use, which in turn could cause scaling issues. Web developers often use this specifically to keep scale settings consistent on an iPhone. This is because the Safari browser often just zooms the page when changing from portrait to landscape, instead of laying out the page as it would if originally loaded in landscape. This has the sometimes-unwanted side effect of preventing users from zooming in. | Check with your web developer and review your content to see if it contains dense images or details that would require mobile users to zoom in to view. If so, it is recommended to avoid using this attribute as it would likely prevent them from doing that. |
Viewport <meta> has a minimum-scale set | The minimum-scale attribute defines the minimum zoom that the site's users are able to use, which in turn could cause scaling issues. | It is recommended to avoid using this attribute. |
Viewport <meta> tag has a specific width set | If a specific width is set, mobile browsers will render the page at the width even on devices that are larger or smaller, and then try to make the content look better by increasing font sizes and scaling the content to fit the screen. | Set the viewport width to 'device-width' |
Missing <meta Viewport> tag | The viewport is the user's visible area of a web page. The viewport varies with the device and will be smaller on a mobile phone than on a computer screen. Without the <meta> viewport tag, mobile devices will render the page at a typical desktop screen width. | Configure the viewport tag to increase the device friendliness of your site. |
On-Page Errors | ||
Hyperlink (<a href>) has both href and onclick attribute | Google's guidelines on crawlable links states that "Google can follow links only if they are an <a> tag with an HREF attribute. Links that use other formats won't be followed by Google's crawlers. Google cannot follow <a> links without an HREF tag or other tags that perform as links because of script events." As such, when your hyperlinks contain both a HREF and an onClick attribute, the crawlers will only follow the HREF reference while users may be experiencing the OnClick only. This could cause issues if the page referenced in the HREF is not the page you intend to be indexed. | Check and make sure that both the HREF and OnClick events point to the same page or make the HREF reference blank if it may lead search engines to an incorrect or broken link reference. |
Meta tag found outside the <head> section | This page contains a meta tag that is not in the head tag and as such may not have any effect on the page optimization or its rankings. | Check and ensure that the key meta tags are included in the <head> section of the page HTML. |
No self-referencing Hreflang tag | If a page does not contain a self-referencing Hreflang in its set of Hreflang attributes those attributes may be ignored or interpreted incorrectly. | |
Meta description tag <meta name="description"> occurs more than once | Search engines expect only one meta description tag. If there is more than one, search engines may get confused and either combine the multiple instances of meta descriptions or ignore the descriptions altogether. Regardless, this risks giving up control over the description you'd like search engines to use and leaves it up to their algorithm to determine, which may or may not yield the desired results. | Ensure only one meta description exists per page and it is optimized to reflect the contents of the page. |
Meta Refresh tag <meta http-equiv="refresh"> found | "[The meta refresh tag] is not supported by all browsers and can be confusing to the user. The W3C recommends that this tag not be used." | Use a server-side 301 redirect instead. |
Title tag <title> occurs more than once | The HTML standard specifies that there may be only 1 title tag for a page. If there is more than one title tag present, search engines may be confused which one to use and either combine the titles, ignore them altogether or pick up one randomly. Regardless, this risks giving up control over the title you'd like search engines to use and leaves it up to their algorithm to determine, which may or may not yield the desired results. | This issue is triggered when the Title tag <title> is found more than once in the <head> section of the page. Check your Content Management System (CMS), the underlying page template used to render the page or contact your tech team to help investigate and eliminate the extra title tags. |
Hreflang Using Relative links | Alternate URLs must be fully qualified, including the transport method (http/https). Relative URLs can be misinterpreted by Googlebot, so they might not be indexed. | |
<h2> tag found outside <body> | <h2> tags are expected to exist in the <body> of a page. If it exists outside the body, search engines may not recognize it. | Ensure <h2> tags exist in the body of the page. |
Improve Relevance
Insight | Why It's Important | How to Fix It |
On-page Tags | ||
Title is a single word | A single word page title is typically a missed opportunity for optimizing your page for search engines and your audience. Titles are meant to be concise but descriptive of the purpose and intent of the page, which may be hard to achieve with a single word title. Search engines are also more likely to rewrite very short page titles with an algorithmically generated title, changing the experience and message you may wish to deliver to your audience. | This issue is triggered when the Title tag <title> contains a single word. This is usually indicative of an oversight in specifying a page title or replacing a default system generated page title. Update the title to contain a well formed, page relevant, descriptive text. |
Title tag <title> missing | Page Titles are critical to optimizing a page both for search engines and your audience. Titles give users a quick insight into the content of a result and why it’s relevant to their query. It's often the primary piece of information used to decide which result to click on, so it's important to specify high-quality titles on your web pages. | This issue is triggered when the Title tag <title> is missing on the page or cannot be found within the <head> section where it’s supposed to be. Check your Content Management System, the underlying page template used to render the page, or contact your tech team to help investigate and correct. Ensure that the page has a correctly implemented <title> tag and that the title is well written, descriptive, concise, avoids keyword stuffing and helps differentiate this page from other pages on your site and competitor pages in the search results. |
Title and Meta Descriptions are the same | The Title and Meta Description tags are typically used by search engines for generating the snippet displayed on the search result page. Together, they are the first chance to tell potential visitors what your site is about and why they should visit. A meta description tag should generally inform and interest users with a short, relevant summary of what a page is about. While Title tags should be less than 60 characters, Meta description tags can be up to 250 characters, allowing for more engaging copy around why someone should click on your search result. Having the same text in both your Title and Meta Descriptions is a missed opportunity for optimization. | Write a unique meta description that is consistent with the message in your title but provides additional reasons for your audience to choose your listing over your competitor's on the search result page. Some ideas to make your meta descriptions more enticing: 1) Use call to actions - Shop for, Buy now etc. 2) Highlight your key selling points - In Business since, Free Shipping, 24x7 Customer Service etc. 3) Highlight your range of products/services- (Over # in stock, 30+ services available |
Meta description tag <meta name="description"> missing | The description attribute within the <meta> tag is a good way to provide a concise, human-readable summary of each page’s content. Google will sometimes use the meta description of a page in search results snippets. Accurate meta descriptions can help improve your clickthroughs. | Ensure that a correctly implemented meta description tag exists on the page and that it is well written and helps differentiate the page from other pages on your own site and also from competitor pages in the search results. |
Meta description tag <meta name="description"> empty | The description attribute within the <meta> tag is a good way to provide a concise, human-readable summary of each page’s content. Google will sometimes use the meta description of a page in search results snippets. Accurate meta descriptions can help improve your clickthrough. | Ensure that a correctly implemented meta description tag exists on the page and that it is well written and helps differentiate the page from other pages on your own site and also from competitor pages in the search results |
Meta keyword tag <meta name="keyword"> found | Google (and most modern search engines) no longer support the meta keyword tag. | There is no harm in keeping a meta keyword tag, but certainly don't spend time trying to maintain it. If simpler, just remove it. |
Heading 1 tag <h1> not found | H1 heading tags help visitors quickly and visually confirm whether the page they are on matches their intent. H1 tags also help add structure to the page when used to identify sections of different content - which can be helpful for users and search engines. They are highly recommended for reinforcing the primary focus of the page in addition to the title of the page. | Check if it’s possible to add a <h1> heading tag that concisely and accurately highlights the intent of the page. |
Meta Description same as <h1> | Meta descriptions are a summarization of a page's content and are used to generate the snippet shown by search engines on the result page. Meta descriptions can be longer and more detailed than the <h1>, therefore, having them be the same is a wasted opportunity to optimize and convey your message. | Ensure that the meta description is detailed and the h1 is concise and therefore not exactly the same. |
More than one Heading 1 tag <H1> found | H1 tags are a great way to add structure to a page. If there is a logical reason to have multiple H1's for different sections of a page, its fine. Make sure though that regular text and paragraphs are not incorrectly marked as H1's. | Check whether the H1 tags used on the page are indeed used for headings of different sections. If not, consider correcting. |
Heading tag <h2> not found | Just like h1 tags, h2 tags are an important on-page SEO factor in order to reinforce to the search engines what the page is about. Search engines use the content in your header tags to understand the context of the content following the tag. | Ensure an <h2> tag is included on the page if possible. |
Heading tag <h2> empty | Just like h1 tags, h2 tags are also an important on-page SEO factor in order to re-enforce to the search engines what the page is about. Search engines recognize the copy in your header tags as more important than the rest. Having an empty <h2> is not recommended. | Ensure an <h2> tag is included on the page and is not empty It should accurately describe the copy that follows it. |
Title is less than 10 characters | A short page title is typically a missed opportunity for optimizing your page for search engines and your audience. Titles are meant to be concise but descriptive of the purpose and intent of the page - which may be hard to achieve with a very short title. Search engines are also more likely to rewrite very short page titles with an algorithmically generated title - changing the experience and message you may wish to deliver to your audience. | This issue is triggered when the Title tag <title> contains 10 characters or less - a typical standard for defining very short titles. Update the title to contain a well formed, page relevant, descriptive text . |
Meta description tag <meta name="description"> too long | Even though there's no limit on how long a meta description can be, the search result snippets are truncated as needed, typically to fit the device width. Historically, Google has recommended keeping your meta descriptions as short blurbs. | Keep the meta description relatively short. While Google doesn’t have a current maximum, keeping it to within 155 characters is recommended. |
Title too long for Google snippet | Google typically only displays the first 600 pixels of a page title - roughly equivalent to 60 characters. A title longer than the pixel width (or approximately 60 characters) is much more likely to be rewritten algorithmically by the search engines (and so may not convey the message you wished) or be cut off with an ellipsis (...) at the end. | This issue is triggered when the Title tag <title> contains more than 60 characters. Update the title to remove unnecessary words or punctuation or rewrite it to contain well formed, page relevant, descriptive text that is under 60 characters in length. |
SERP Features | ||
Schema Markup Opportunity | Structured data markup, such as that for Ratings, Reviews, FAQ’s, Price and Stock help Search engines understand the content of a page by providing explicit clues about the meaning of elements. Search engines also use structured data to enable special search result features and enhancements. Structured data markup that triggers rich results within the SERPs is an easy way to visually distinguish your search listing in the results page while providing greater context and confidence to your audience on why they should click on your results over that of your competitors. Schema markup that generates rich results has been shown to improve click-through rates and is highly recommended. | Check the pages highlighted and the Schema opportunities identified for those pages based on an analysis of the pages they compete with on the SERPs. Work with your developer to define, create and deploy structured data for your product/service pages. Resources: https://schema.dev - Free Schema Builder Chrome Extension to make it easy to build, test and deploy Schema for any page |
Image Ranking Opportunity | The presence of image results within the top 10 search results for a keyword is indicative of consumer preference for image content related to that query. Optimized image content is a unique way to rank for such queries and occupy additional screen real estate besides regular web page content. | Review each keyword to check if there are existing images available to optimize for those queries, or in some cases, if new images can be created for the query. Image optimization has a few straightforward guidelines. Optimizing the page title and description of the page its embedded on, providing good context on the page , including optimized alt text attributes and captions, using optimized file names and placing images close to the content related to the image are some important elements to consider. |
Video Ranking Opportunity | The presence of video results within the top 10 search results for a keyword is indicative of consumer preference for video content related to that query. Optimized video content is a unique way to rank for such queries and occupy additional screen real estate besides regular web page content. | Review each keyword to check if there is existing video content either available to optimize for those queries, or if new video content can be created for the query. Video optimization has similar guidelines to webpages, with a few unique elements. The video encoding format, presence of video sitemaps, presence of structured data for the video, indexable video pages with keyword rich titles, a descriptive meta description, and video tags (if uploaded to YouTube) are some of the important elements to consider. |
Pages where 90% of the inbound links have citation flow < 10 | Citation Flow is a metric provided by our backlink data partner, Majestic. It is a score between 0-100 which helps to measure the link equity or "power" the website or link carries. Citation Flow predicts how influential a URL might be based on how many sites link to it. This insight highlights pages where the vast majority of backlinks have an extremely low Citation Flow value. These pages can benefit significantly from more high quality links. | There are a number of strategies to explore for garnering high quality backlinks. Consider the ones that would make the most sense for your situation Original research with insights Building relationships with influencers Write quality blog posts for other sites in your industry Link reclamation |
Content | ||
URL Cannibalization (flip flopping) Issue | URL Flip Flopping or Cannibalization is a situation where multiple URLs from your domain are randomly ranking for a keyword query. This is indicative of content that is too similar in its intent leading to confusion for search engines in determining which one to rank higher. | Review the keyword and the URLs that are ranking for it over the last 14 days. Identify the one that best matches the intent of the query and to which you'd like to have your audience directed. Differentiate the keyword for the other landing page and preferably add a keyword rich anchor-text link from the alternate page to your primary page for the query. |
Improve Page Engagement | On most sites, content serves as an entry point for visitors with the intent to move them towards a conversion i.e. purchasing a product, downloading a resource, signing up for a service or similar. A high bounce rate indicates a high number of visitors that landed on the page decided to leave without engaging with any other content or moving forward in the conversion process. Poor page engagement is a significant problem since it shows that the content was successful in ranking and generating traffic but failed in engaging the visitor once they arrived on the page. | Addressing high bounce rates needs a review of 1) Relevance Are the search queries driving traffic to the page relevant to the content and its focus? Run a Content Fusion Analysis to evaluate whether the content aligns with the target topic. 2) Intent Is the intent of the page to educate, entertain or engage? Different content types with different intent can have significantly different bounce rates. Assess each page against its intent to assess if it is a problem. Evaluate the performance of each page against the overall bounce rate for similar pages using the Content Types segments. 3) Clarity Is it clear when a visitor lands on the page that they are in the right place? Simple and clear visual clues such as headlines relating to the topic and intent of the page can help tremendously. Manually review the page and check if it's clear within the first view what the page is about. |
SERP Meta Description mismatch | Search engines may rewrite description algorithmically for a variety of reasons: they are vague, overly branded, too short, too long, overstuffed with keywords, templated or nearly duplicative of description on other pages. Regardless, rewritten descriptions pose a problem since the message you have crafted and want to be displayed may not be the message shown to your audience. Additionally, it impacts any analysis of CTR you may conduct. | Update the description so that it is well written, descriptive but concise, avoids keyword stuffing and helps differentiate this page from other pages on your site and competitor pages in the search results. |
Title Rewrite Analysis | Search engines may rewrite titles algorithmically for a variety of reasons. If they are vague, overstuffed with keywords, templated or nearly duplicative of titles on other pages, overly branded, too short or too long. Regardless, rewritten titles pose a problem since the message you want may not be the message shown to your audience. Additionally, it impacts any analysis of CTR you may conduct. | Update the title so that it is well written, descriptive but concise, avoids keyword stuffing and helps differentiate this page from other pages on your site and competitor pages in the search results. |
Pages needing content refresh | Search engines and visitors both value fresh, updated content vs. outdated content that may not provide more relevant, current information. As time passes, a significant amount of content naturally becomes less relevant or competitive due to changing trends, new developments, searcher behaviors, searcher needs and the emergence of new content from competitors. The process of refreshing content periodically is one of the easiest ways to ensure your content is still the most relevant and authoritative and a proven way to improve your traffic. | Run a Content Fusion Analysis for each content piece identified below to check if it still covers the target topic(s) authoritatively. If the content itself is still relevant and provides sufficient coverage of the semantically related concepts, consider adding an indication in the title or copy of the last time it was reviewed and updated. This is useful for visitors to know that information is still relevant. |
Answer Box (Featured Snippet) opportunity | Answer box aka Featured Snippets are prominently displayed within SERP results. Being selected as the featured snippet can provide your listing much more significant visibility than standard web results. In addition, they can help with better brand perception and in some cases result in higher click-throughs than standard listings. | seoClarity research shows that 97%+ of Answer Boxes used to be sourced from the top 3 ranking sites (before Google stopped showing a web result if you are in a Featured Snippet). If you are ranking in the top 3 results, review the layout and structure of your content to ensure it succinctly and accurately helps answer the query. The use of ordered and unordered lists, paragraphs, and well-structured HTML are all good ways to improve your chances. |
CTR Optimization Opportunity | The click-through rate measures the percentage of searchers that found your listing in the SERP vs. the ones that clicked through (selected) your listing. It serves as an excellent indicator of how effective your SERP Title and Description were in matching the searcher intent and engagingthe searcher u vs. the other options available on the search result page. A below average click-through rate for a keyword at a specific rank position is an indicator of one or more of the following issues: 1) A mismatch between the intent of the searcher and what the Title and Meta description highlight 2) A lack of a strong unique selling point relative to the competitors on the page 3) A lack of a strong call to action | Review the title and meta description of the page in question against that of competitors in PageClarity > On Page Comparison Here are a few things to look for: - Does the Title clearly and succinctly convey what the searcher can expect to find on the page? - Is it differentiated from that of competitors? - Is the title optimized for the keyword in question? - Does the meta description have a clear call to action? - Does the meta description outline a unique benefit available from selecting your listing vs. that of competitors? and so on... It is recommended to test a few different versions of titles and descriptions to arrive at the one that would work the best. |
Improve Page Engagement | On most sites, content serves as an entry point for visitors with the intent to move them towards a conversion i.e. purchasing a product, downloading a resource, signing up for a service or similar. A high bounce rate indicates a high number of visitors that landed on the page decided to leave without engaging with any other content or moving forward in the conversion process. Poor page engagement is a significant problem since it shows that the content was successful in ranking and generating traffic but failed in engaging the visitor once they arrived on the page. | Addressing high bounce rates needs a review of 1) Relevance Are the search queries driving traffic to the page relevant to the content and its focus? Run a Content Fusion Analysis to evaluate whether the content aligns with the target topic. 2) Intent Is the intent of the page to educate, entertain or engage? Different content types with different intent can have significantly different bounce rates. Assess each page against its intent to assess if it is a problem. Evaluate the performance of each page against the overall bounce rate for similar pages using the Content Types segments. 3) Clarity Is it clear when a visitor lands on the page that they are in the right place? Simple and clear visual clues such as headlines relating to the topic and intent of the page can help tremendously. Manually review the page and check if it's clear within the first view what the page is about. |
| Monitoring | ||
| Recommended Keywords to replace or stop tracking | This insight recommends existing keywords being tracked in Rank Intelligence that you may not need to track. Over time, as products/services/offerings on your site change, there may be new keywords that start driving traffic and old ones that stop driving traffic. Keywords that are either mis-spellings or generate zero traffic are likely of low value for monitoring. You can improve your reporting and monitoring by replacing these keywords or removing them to allow greater focus on high value keywords. | Review the keywords below and remove the ones from Rank Intelligence that are irrelevant to your site or don't drive any traffic |
Recommended Keywords to track | This insight recommends new keywords you should be tracking in Rank Intelligence. Over time, as products/services/offerings on your site change, there may be new keywords that start driving traffic and old ones that stop driving traffic. It's important to track the new keywords that are either significant contributors of traffic or have the potential to. This will enable you to take action to improve the rankings or monitor for declines that can hurt your traffic | Review the keywords below and add the ones to Rank Intelligence that are relevant to your site. |
Improve Authority
Insight | Why It's Important | How to Fix It |
Internal Links | ||
More than 100 hyperlinks found | While there isn't a hard and fast limit on the number of hyperlinks (large e-commerce sites can get away with THOUSANDS!), to maximize the number of pages crawled and followed, it is generally recommended to stay in the range of 100 internal links on average. | Either eliminate unnecessary links to get down to a reasonable number, or consider breaking these pages up into interconnected pages, each carrying no more than about 100 links. |
No internal links found | Internal links are essential to helping a crawler (and users) discover pages on your site. The lack of internal links on this page would mean a dead-end for a crawler and would hamper discovery and indexation of other pages on your site. | Use the Usability > Clarity Audit feature to run a crawl of your site and identify relevant pages, products, services or categories to link to from these pages. Alternatively, check if you can simply add your global navigation bar to the page. |
Link Opportunities | ||
Pages where 90% of the inbound links have citation flow < 10 | Citation Flow is a metric provided by our backlink data partner, Majestic. It is a score between 0-100 which helps to measure the link equity or "power" the website or link carries. Citation Flow predicts how influential a URL might be based on how many sites link to it. This insight highlights pages where the vast majority of backlinks have an extremely low Citation Flow value. These pages can benefit significantly from more high quality links. | There are a number of strategies to explore for garnering high quality backlinks. Consider the ones that would make the most sense for your situation Original research with insights Building relationships with influencers Write quality blog posts for other sites in your industry Link reclamation |
High value linking opportunities | High quality backlinks continue to be an important factor for rankings. A tried and tested approach to finding high value linking opportunities is by leveraging the Wisdom of the Crowds, an approach that analyzes your top 3 competitors to find sites that link to at least 2 of them but don't link to you. | Review the sites listed and build an outreach plan. Consider what kind of value you could add to the content existing on the site: a new perspective, completeness of resources listed or something else. You can track the progress of link acquisition in LinkClarity > Managed Links |