The Reality of Duplicate Content
Don’t let the gleaming new material you worked so hard to create fade away. Here’s everything you need to know about duplicate content and how to avoid it. The dreaded “duplicate content penalty” is one of the biggest SEO misconceptions.
Do you want to learn an SEO secret?
The term “duplicate content penalty” is a misnomer. You will never receive a warning from Google Search Console informing you of a duplicate content penalty. However, just because your site has the same or similar material on several pages or even multiple sites doesn’t mean it’s not being penalised. When Google comes across the same content on a site – or numerous sites – its algorithm determines which content to rank.
Google appears to rank the erroneous content in the vast majority of cases. And if that happens, the gleaming, valuable information you toiled over might as well vanish as Wonder Woman’s jet.
What Is Duplicate Content and How Do I Avoid It?
Duplicate content is exactly what it says on the tin. When the same copy appears on two or more web pages, this is known as duplication. Duplicate content can arise on your own site or on a site that you don’t have control over. Items like footers and other text that makes sense to be on numerous pages are not considered duplicate content. Because of pagination – or how your website is designed – Google recognises this content isn’t the “core” of what you’re attempting to express.
You should look for duplicate content.
Even seasoned SEOs, I’ve discovered, rarely check for duplicate material unless at the start of the process – during Technical Discovery. This is a blunder. Someone scraping your site and posting your content as their own can result in duplicate content. It also happens on websites since unique content is difficult to come by, and it’s often faster to merely cut and paste content for comparable pages. Setting up a routine to check for duplicate material is a good idea. Some programmes check duplicate information on a regular basis and give an alert when it is discovered.
Monitoring for Duplicate Content
There are a variety of tools for checking for duplicate content. Three separate tools are used;
Semrush is our first choice – The site audit report in Semrush looks for duplicate material, but just on the domain. As a result, we employ a second programme to keep track of duplicate content and other portions of the Internet.
Copyscape has shown to be the most effective, but there are many more options.
We also use Grammarly, which has a fantastic Chrome extension for quick site scans.
The majority of the tools are intended for use by teachers etc and others who need to check for plagiarism. These tools aren’t specifically designed to discover “duplicate material,” yet they do a terrific job of it.
Is There a Limit to How Much Duplication Is Acceptable?
The major search engines, as far as I’m aware, have not defined what constitutes duplicate material. Many SEO professionals have sought to clarify the difference between similar and duplicate content. I still want the all material be at least 30% distinct from the rest of the copy.
For this, I use an ancient “keyword density” programme. Several technologies compare two bits of content and calculate the duplicate percentage
You should be able to locate one that works for you by searching for “duplicate content checker” or “keyword density tool” on Google.
How Do I Get Rid Of Duplicate Content?
It should be simple to fix duplicate content once you’ve discovered it. All you have to do now is make your content stand out. However, it is more complicated than it appears. We’re all aware that Google favours content that demonstrates knowledge, authority, and trust, or EAT. The rewrite can be stiff when a writer edits identical content they’ve written. It’s simple for duplicate text that has been corrected to resemble a 5th-grade book report in which the student simply rewrote what was in the Encyclopedia Britannica. To avoid duplicate content difficulties, it’s usually best to have a writer who isn’t the original author of the content.
One piece of advice: don’t show the content that needs to be rewritten to the new writer.
Allow the next writer to start from the beginning. This nearly ensures that the new duplicate will be one-of-a-kind.
Advanced Content Duplication Removal
Fixing duplicate content concerns on sites with a lot of it can be tough. In ecommerce environments where products are identical, we frequently find a lot of duplicate material. I recommend that you avoid using automatic solutions to fix duplicate material on huge websites. These automatic methods frequently produce illegible pages that do not convert, which is something no one wants. My recommendation is to identify each page and assign other authors to rework pages that they did not write. If that’s not possible, rewrite any duplicate content on category pages at the very least. If you don’t have the time or money to edit every page, having your category pages properly set up provides you the highest chance of making a sale. When this happens, we notice that category pages rank slightly higher and that conversions occur on category pages.
Duplicate content on product pages may or may not rank.
And even if they do rank, it’s possible that they won’t stay there if Google gets confused and doesn’t know which piece of material to rank. It may take a long time to fix thousands of pages with duplicate content. It’s tempting to utilise automated solutions to resolve duplicate content issues, but resist the urge. Take the time to go over the site with a professional writer and come up with original, authoritative material for each page.
However, keep in mind that not every product description needs to be written in Pulitzer-winning prose. In almost every scenario, being clear on product sites converts better than attempting to be witty or cute. The most important thing I’ve learned about removing duplicate content is to hire new authors.
It is always effective.
For more info on how to work with (or without!) duplicate content, feel free to drop me a line!
What to ask when appointing an SEO Consultant
We all know we need to do more for SEO – making our websites stand out and giving Google everything that it needs to put us forward as a reliable and trustworthy solution for our target audience. And with an SEO consultant, all of that and more can feel achievable.
But what should you look for in an SEO consultant, to help optimise your recruitment services and ensure that your adverts for both candidates and clients are being seen by the right people?
The importance of SEO
First thing’s first, why might a recruitment business like yours need an SEO consultant in the first place?
Organic search is a key area of business growth and success online, as it uses the website’s content and usability to rank it and present it to a captive target audience group. An SEO consultant can help you to transform the way your business is interpreted by search engines, putting focus on the copy and features which support a high SEO ranking, and changing things which aren’t working.
While an SEO consultant may need time to get to know your business as they are not a formal employee, the benefit of a consultant is that they will bring a wealth of experience to your business. That is, if you find one that’s worth investing in (like us!)
Here’s how working with a consultant can benefit your recruitment agency.
The benefit of working with a recruitment SEO expert
When it comes to my clients, all of them know what to do when a company is engaged in their services and when candidates come knocking. They are experts in moving candidates through the recruitment process, and in ensuring that a client’s vacancies make it to the right platforms and job sites.
But when it comes to marketing themselves, it can often be a different story. When your business lies in working alongside and within other businesses, it can be easy to put your own marketing on the backburner – with SEO dropping as each day passes without a new content update or keyword check.
When you work with an SEO consultant, all of the hard work you do for your clients becomes part of your overarching marketing campaign for your own services. It allows you to focus on the great service you provide, without impacting your own online presence and ability to reach and connect with new clients and customers.
Now that you know the value of an SEO consultant, here’s what to ask in order to find the right one.
The questions to ask an SEO consultant
The following questions will help you in identifying the competency, success rate, potential plans and ideas, and the approach of each SEO consultant (not to mention their cost and the handover process upon completion of the project).
What SEO tools do you use?
This isn’t just about the tools they use, but the way they use them and how they put different tools to the test in delivering great results. The more they can tell you about their chosen tools, the more experience they have with them.
What do you do best?
Simple, straightforward, and eye opening. By asking an SEO consultant what they do best, you start to unpick their experiences and their own skillsets – giving you a better idea of what they do well themselves, and what they might outsource. Not to mention, when you know what each potential consultant does best, you can be sure to work with the one which best matches your business.
How can your work impact my business, and how soon will I see results?
A good consultant will outline the various touchpoints that their work will affect, including the organic traffic to your site, conversion rates, the creation of a cohesive marketing strategy, PR and content creation, and increased online exposure through your website and social media / other platforms.
If an SEO consultant has a strong track record, then they will understand the benefit of their work not just in terms of figures but in relation to how they nurture a strategy that will withstand the test of time.
What has been your biggest success to date?
Not only is this a great question for highlighting the success rate of the consultant, but it also gives you some insight into how they operate and what they value in terms of the way they partner with and support different brands and businesses.
What kind of SEO reporting can I expect to see from you?
This touches on both regular updates and the overall report at the end of the partnership and helps to set expectations for both parties. If the SEO consultant doesn’t immediately have an answer to this question, or if they don’t directly ask you about the way you want to be updated and the reports you want to see, then this is a red flag. Any great service involves reporting, and a strong consultant will want to deliver the information you need in a way which works for you.
How much do your services cost?
The final question – and it’s a big one. After all, recruitment SEO services can deliver the very best consultant candidates right to your door, but if you can’t afford their services or you are limited by your budget in terms of the timeline you can give them, it’s not a worthwhile investment of time or money.
Finding the right SEO consultant for your business can be a gold ticket to success – but before you can start capitalising on their experience and knowledge, you first need to be sure that you’re working with the right person. Asking the above questions will help you to ensure that the next steps you take are benefitting your business success and growth.
Entity-Based SEO: Everything You Need To Know
There’s no denying that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most complicated aspects of digital marketing. It’s not helped by the fact that SEO keeps changing over time, with Google bringing out new ranking factors and ways of organizing the billions of sites on the web.
With that in mind, you might have heard about something called entity-based SEO. What does this mean and what else do you need to know about it? Needless to say, it’s a crucial aspect of the modern SEO strategy, so you need to know as much about this topic as possible. This guide will walk you through everything you need to understand:
What is entity-based SEO?
Previously – and we’re talking about the very early stages of SEO – keywords were the main thing used to rank websites. Google would look at how many keywords and synonyms were on your site, ranking you based on similar keyword searches. The more keywords you had, the better you’d perform.
Nowadays, Google has moved away from solely relying on keywords. Instead, context is now a huge part of SEO, helping users find exactly what they’re searching for. You see, the problem with keywords is that, on their own, they provide absolutely no context behind what someone is searching for. A good example is someone searching for ‘Georgia’. On its own, Georgia can relate to so many different things – is the person searching for info on the state or the European country? Do they want to find information on a person called Georgia? There are countless options that can be considered if you look for further context behind the search.
Adding context to keyword searches is, effectively, what entity-based SEO is all about. Instead of just looking at keywords, Google uses SEO entities.
What is an SEO entity?
Google defines entities as:
“a thing or concept that is singular, unique, well-defined, and distinguishable.”
In more simple terms, it relates to pretty much anything:
- People
- Places
- Colours
- Dates
- Concepts
- Companies
- Events
The list is endless, but each entity is distinct and independent of all others – and of keywords. From an SEO standpoint, an entity is basically a subject that you can link to the knowledge graphs of search engines. If you’ve done a bit of research into this topic before, you’ll know that Google used Wikipedia as a primary trusted seed for its Knowledge Graph. What this means is that you can basically call an entity a subject that can be attached to a Wikipedia article page. So, if you look something up on Wikipedia, it will have a subject or category, which is basically what an entity is in the SEO world.
An even simpler way of breaking it down is by saying that entities are basically the topics relating to keywords. However, the entity itself must link to a knowledge graph that has information and data across the web. A knowledge graph makes it easier for search engines to scan your site for information.
How is entity-based SEO beneficial?
From both the marketer and the consumer standpoint, entity-based SEO has its benefits. Consumers will be directed towards the most relevant topics and websites for their searches thanks to entities. Going back to the Georgia example, if someone were to type this into Google, the dropdown box would already present a series of suggestions based on different entities. It can show famous people called Georgia, as well as the country of Georgia, and various information on the state in the US. Plus, if someone were to add ‘things to do in’ before Georgia, they’d get searches that showcase everything you can do there. This is because all of the websites include entities that let Google know they are talking about Georgia the place and what people can do there.
For marketers, entity-based SEO gives you a chance to categorize your business better than ever before. You can attach entities to your brand, providing more context behind it and allowing you to use more keywords. If Google knows that your brand name is attached to the ‘business’ entity, you can start using keywords linked to what you sell. This is why companies like Dell can be found when people search for laptops or computers. You can also connect your business to specific place entities, ensuring that only people within that location will find your content. It’s useful when the area you work in has the same name as other places around the world.
In summary, this whole idea lets you refine your SEO strategy to be found by the right people and grow your presence.
How do you implement entity-based SEO?
For starters, it revolves around your content and the words you use in the text. You can call upon lots of words and phrases that aren’t keywords but add context to the keywords you’re focusing on. As an example, let’s say your business focuses on SEM. You know this term to relate to search engine marketing, but it can also be an acronym for scanning electron microscopy, which is an entirely different thing. How will Google know what you’re talking about? By including lots of content revolving around marketing and search engines it is easy to find the right entity and include your pages in results relating to search engine marketing, rather than the other topic.
Secondly, listing your business online will be a massive help as it defines and creates your entity. Google My Business is a great place to start as Google will instantly recognize your brand and put you in the right category. Other business listing sites will further solidify this, establishing your company name as a business brand and letting you call upon keywords for searches relating to what you do.
Ultimately, it’s all about adding context to your website. Entity-based SEO goes beyond keywords by helping search engines understand what category to put you in when people search. It’s all built around creating a better experience for the user and finding the most relevant sites for their searches. Yes, it can be confusing, which is why it helps to work with a digital marketing agency to fully understand the process and how you can benefit from it.
