Gaz Hall

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SEO Articles

Here you'll find a selection of articles that I've written over the years, mostly about Search Engine Optimisation, although there are a few general marketing and technical articles too.

Dates on the articles are the original dates however many have been updated to reflect current trends in SEO where appropriate.

25 February 2025: Understanding Google AI Overviews (22 min read)
Discover how Google AI Overviews transform search: their technical foundations, impact on publishers and users, optimization strategies, and ethical implications.
28 January 2025: Faceted Navigation: A Comprehensive Guide to Enhanced User Experience (11 min read)
Faceted navigation has become an indispensable tool for managing and exploring large collections of information.
7 January 2025: What is a Competitive Gap Analysis for SEO? (23 min read)
See how a competitive gap analysis for SEO can uncover untapped opportunities, reveal competitor strategies, and help you dominate search rankings.
4 January 2025: Core Web Vitals Optimisation: A Comprehensive Guide to Improving Page Experience (11 min read)
Discover actionable strategies for Core Web Vitals optimisation to improve page experience, boost SEO rankings and increase conversion rates on your website.
19 December 2024: Is SEO Worth It For Small Businesses (10 min read)
Discover why SEO is worth it for small businesses! Unlock increased visibility, improved search engine rankings, and greater traffic with effective strategies.
8 November 2024: What Is An SEO Company? (11 min read)
For businesses looking to improve their online presence, partnering with a reputable SEO company can provide the expertise and resources needed to succeed in an increasingly competitive digital marketplace.
4 October 2024: QuillBot Review: A Writer's Perspective (10 min read)
This comprehensive review examines QuillBot's features, capabilities, and limitations from a professional writer's perspective.
21 September 2024: How to Optimise for Voice Search (12 min read)
Voice search optimisation represents a significant shift in how we approach SEO and content creation.
21 June 2024: What is a Topic Cluster (11 min read)
By following the guidelines and best practices outlined in this article, you can create effective topic clusters that serve both your audience and search engines.
3 May 2024: Integrating Semantic Keywords into Your Content Strategy (11 min read)
Integrating semantic keywords into your content strategy requires a comprehensive approach that goes beyond traditional keyword optimisation.
18 March 2024: How to Build Relevant Backlinks to your Website (11 min read)
Building relevant backlinks requires a strategic, long-term approach focused on creating value and building relationships.
18 October 2023: Using SEO To Get More Visibility in New Regions or Countries (11 min read)
Expanding your website to new regions or countries is more than just a simple translation of your existing content.
30 September 2023: Google Helpful Content Update: September 2023 (9 min read)
Understanding the Impact of Google's Helpful Content Update on Search Engine Optimisation
28 August 2023: Google Core Update: August 2023 (8 min read)
The key changes and algorithm updates in Google's August 2023 Core Update
11 June 2023: What effect will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Have on SEO? (11 min read)
This article addresses the challenges that SEO professionals often face, offering practical solutions aided by AI
3 April 2023: What is Time To First Byte (TTFB) and How Does It Affect SEO? (8 min read)
Understanding the link between Time To First Byte (TTFB), User Experience and SEO is crucial for any website owner
26 October 2022: Canonical URLs: A 2 Minute Guide (3 min read)
You may convince search engines that two URLs that appear to be identical are actually the same by using a canonical URL.
2 April 2022: More Context For Structured Data Issues In Search Console (2 min read)
Google has announced that they are adding more context to their error reporting around structured data.
23 March 2022: 4 Things To Consider When Writing Content (4 min read)
4 Things To Consider When Writing Content
14 October 2021: How To Optimise For Featured Snippets (4 min read)
Featured snippets may be found within Search Results, within the People also ask section, or along with Knowledge Graph information.
4 May 2021: Images Don't Help You Rank on Google (1 min read)
Although more aesthetically pleasing, Google have confirmed that adding images to your pages doesn't help your ranking
4 December 2020: What is E-A-T in SEO and How To Optimise For It (9 min read)
Understanding and implementing E-A-T - Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness - is becoming increasingly crucial for a successful SEO strategy.
30 April 2020: Which Type of Sitemap Should I Use for SEO? (7 min read)
Which Type of Sitemap Should I Use for SEO? My Simple Guide Explains the Pros and Cons
12 April 2020: Why isn't my site on Google? (5 min read)
Why isn't your site on Google? Here are some of the reasons why.
30 March 2020: What is the Crawl Budget of a Website? (2 min read)
Not all pages on a site are spidered. It really depends on the crawl budget that has been allocated to each website
17 March 2020: Optimise Site Speed for SEO (6 min read)
Google sees loading speed as a strong ranking factor so how do you optimise your site speed for SEO?
1 March 2020: Understanding the Three Types of Searches and How they Rank (6 min read)
To understand how to get your pages to rank well, you should understand what search engines want. If you can build pages the way search engines want them, your pages will show up at the top.
2 February 2020: SEO Guidance from the UK Government (1 min read)
Last week, the UK government issued SEO advice to data publishers.
14 October 2019: Anchor Text Diversification (3 min read)
Anchor text diversification and good practise search engine optimisation go hand in hand.
2 July 2019: Using the Long Tail for SEO (3 min read)
Long Tail SEO is a really useful technique to generate organic search traffic for your website. It is based on the proven theory that long tail keywords are easier to rank for than generic keywords.
23 April 2019: Meta Descriptions: Best Practice (5 min read)
Also known as a snippet, the meta description appears under your pages URL in the search results.
30 March 2019: Google Merchant Center Free Update (1 min read)
Google have now opened Google Merchant Center up for any e-commerce store to use.
23 January 2019: Why Have My Google Rankings Dropped? (5 min read)
There are many reasons why a site’s ranking might suffer an abrupt plunge, and the majority of them can be remedied with a bit of time and effort.
18 September 2018: Should You Implement AMP? (5 min read)
Hundreds of top publishers from around the world have adopted Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to improve their organic search results.
23 August 2018: How to notify Google that someone has copied your content (1 min read)
If you find that a competitor of yours has copied your content then one of the avenues open to you is to notify Google of this.
5 August 2018: How to get Content Ideas from Search Console using Regular Expressions (2 min read)
If your site is relatively old, here's a way to get content ideas from Search Console
14 March 2018: Title Tags: Best Practice (3 min read)
To rank well in the SERPs, you need to optimise your page titles for the search engines
10 October 2017: Best Practice SEO: Moving From One Domain To Another (3 min read)
If you're moving from one domain to another domain, you want to make sure that it doesn't affect your positions in the Google rankings.
17 October 2016: HTTP or HTTPS? The SEO Impact of Using SSL (4 min read)
This article looks at whether switching from HTTP to HTTPS will help you achieve your search engine optimisation goals.
11 November 2015: Choosing the perfect domain name (5 min read)
Help and advice on the best domain names to select for your next web based project
20 September 2015: Update Google Analytics by PHP (12 min read)
Google Analytics is usually updated by embedding Javascript code into your web pages but did you know this can also be done in PHP?
14 April 2015: Google Mobile Friendly Update (1 min read)
On April 21st 2015, Google changed their search algorithm to boost the search rankings of mobile friendly web pages.
20 July 2014: Tips to Avoid Keyword Cannibalisation (4 min read)
Keyword cannibalisation occurs when too many pages are optimised for the same keyword.
18 November 2013: Server and Hosting Issues affecting SEO (4 min read)
Thankfully, only a handful of server or web hosting dilemmas affect the practice of search engine optimization.
4 October 2013: Google Algorithm Update: Hummingbird (2 min read)
Last month, Google announced its Hummingbird algorithm update to provide more accurate search results to the user.
23 May 2013: How To Remove Bad Links From Your Backlink Profile (3 min read)
Google’s link disavowal tool provides website owners with a way to inform Google that they don’t want certain links from external sites to be associated with their site.
20 February 2013: Life Before Google (4 min read)
Search engines and SEO have come a long way since the 1990s. Google's focus today is on connecting users to valuable content.
14 January 2013: Schema Markup and SEO (3 min read)
Schema markup is one of the most powerful but least-utilised forms of SEO available today.
10 October 2012: Is it worth buying an exact match domain? (2 min read)
Over the last few years, it has become common practice for marketers to buy domains that match their keywords for SEO purposes.
20 May 2012: Google Algorithm Update: Penguin (2 min read)
Last month, Google launched the “webspam algorithm update,” which specifically targets link spam and manipulative link building practices
1 June 2011: Google Algorithm Update: Panda (2 min read)
Over the last few months, Google have been rolling out a new algorithm update (code named Panda).
6 April 2009: What is a web crawler and how does it work? (4 min read)
Have you ever wondered how answers can be at our fingertips in the digital age? This post aims to show how this happens.
20 October 2007: What does the Introduction of Universal Search mean for SEO? (2 min read)
Google has made a big change to its search listings in the form of Universal Search. What does it mean for SEO?
11 September 2007: What are Link Farms and How to Avoid Them (3 min read)
Link farms used to be very popular in the early days of Google and provided automated registration, categorization, and link page updates to members
11 November 2006: Introducing Webmaster Tools (2 min read)
Last month, Google overhauled Google Sitemaps and created Google Webmaster Tools. From within this new tool, you can see what searches users use to find your site and also what position your site is in.

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Gaz Hall, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX | +44 203 095 6006 | +44 7477 628843 | gaz@gazhall.com

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