In March of 2024, the Google Chrome Team replaced one of their original Core Web Vitals with one they had been testing for two years: Interaction to Next Paint (INP). With this move, INP became the new gold standard for testing the âsnappinessâ of usersâ experience on the web. But what is a Core Web Vital, and why does it matter?
What is a Core Web Vital?
Web Vitals are metrics put out by Google intended to help website owners understand the quality of experience they are delivering to their users. Some of these metrics apply less to some websites than others, so Google has designated three of these which they consider to be relevant to every website as Core Web Vitals. These cover three categories of user experience: loading, interactivity, and visual stability. INP is the metric corresponding to âinteractivity.â Importantly, this is not just about user experience; Core Web Vitals also affect a siteâs page ranking in Google.Â
What is INP?
INP measures (with a couple technical exceptions) the duration of the longest interaction on a page. Interactions primarily consist of clicks (or taps on mobile) and key presses, and the interaction length is measured as how long the page takes to do what it needs to do after the user initiates the interaction. Thus, if a page has a bad INP, this does not mean that all interaction lengths are long, but rather that there exists some interaction which takes an inordinately long amount of time.
How can I measure and improve my siteâs INP?
As a site owner, though there are many ways to measure INP, all you need to do is enter your site URL into Pagespeed Insights, which is a tool run by Google themselves that will tell you how your site performs across all three Core Web Vitals. If they tell you that you have a good score, you should have nothing to worry about. If not, you may need to do some digging on what exactly the issue is that theyâre detecting. There is no one-size-fits-all resolution to this sort of issue, but a competent developer (like those at Atlantic BT!) should be able to investigate where the slow interactions are and determine both why theyâre slow and how they can be made faster. They’ll comb through the site, looking at every interaction the user has with the page, including input delays, button clicks, and more. These links might be a good place to start if you’re introducing the issue to a developer:
While fixing INP may not be simple, it is certainly worth the effort put into improving user experience and search result ranking. Since INP just replaced another related-but-different Core Web Vital, now is a good time to re-evaluate your site and see if anything needs to be done. If there is something you need to fix, and you donât have the capacity to handle it in-house, consider letting us know! Weâd love to figure out how we can help.
It’s easy for SEO firms to lie to businesses who have little SEO experience in-house. In fact, when you look behind the curtain, many SEO agencies have spammy practices or are a one man shop pretending to be larger.
That’s why it’s important to ask the right questions when vetting an SEO agency. Better still, learn how to evaluate their answers.
1. Ask if page 1 rankings are guaranteed.
If an SEO firm promises rankings or immediate results right from the beginning, it’s a major red flag. For one, it is dishonest to promise something that is beyond their control. Basically, claiming that your site will rank #1 or show up on the first page for a specific keyword is not accurate.
The reason is that nobody but the major search engines (Google , Yahoo and MSN) control how websites rank in their organic search results. No SEO firm can guarantee results because they have no control over the search engines algorithms.
It is true that a reputable SEO firm understands what factors go into ranking websites and can help increase search engine visibility, but no quality firm will ever promise rankings. Look for month-to-month contracts, references from existing customers, or portfolio of results.
2. Ask what is involved in a successful SEO strategy.
A legitimate SEO firm is able to explain what goes into a successful SEO strategy in plain English; not some overly technical industry jargon. Every strategy should mention important on-page and off-page optimization, tracking results through website analytics, content development, link building, and continuous tweaking/testing to increase rankings and conversion rates.
3. Ask when you can expect to see results.
Setting proper expectations on both ends is key. Any firm that says you will be fully optimized in 2 weeks is lying. A successful SEO campaign is ongoing and always improving.
The first thing the SEO firm should ask you is what are you goals? Without understanding what you are trying to accomplish, there is no way anyone can give proper expectations. Once your goals are established, the following can be determined: realistic expectations based on the current condition of your website, an understanding of your competition, and how much time/money/resources you can devote towards SEO efforts.
A quality SEO firm will not necessary be able to say that you will see results in exactly 2 months; however, they should be able to give you a range as to when you will start to see a noticeable increase in traffic and conversions.
4. Ask how SEO efforts are measured.
In order to track whether your SEO efforts are successful or not, you need to monitor your website analytics, ranking reporting, and any other type of marketing measurements your company has readily available.
This is also a question for both teams. You’ll want to let an agency know how you measure success so you can align goals. Then, find out how an agency will track and report on how their efforts contribute to goals.
5. Ask how often you’ll collaborate on progress and strategy.
Since SEO consists of an initial SEO setup and then ongoing monthly maintenance, it is important that the SEO firm outlines when and how often you will meet to discuss your SEO strategy.
As the search engine’s algorithms change, your SEO firm will need to get creative, try new strategies, and make adjustments as required. In an effort to have both marketing and SEO strategies running in line, meeting regularly is recommended. It is not uncommon to meet on a monthly or quarterly basis to talk about your website analytics, conversion goals, and recommendations to improve your SEO. It is also important to see what the firm has been doing to improve traffic, conversions, etc.
A good SEO firm knows that they will require the assistance of their client to get them where they need to be. It is a true partnership between client and SEO firm. Because content development is such a big part of SEO, the company should devote some resources for writing articles, blogs, and press releases. Ask the firm how you can help to increase results faster.
Need help with digital strategy?
If you need help finding a vendor for ongoing SEO, we’re happy to help you out. Atlantic BT is also happy to perform SEO audits, offer guidance throughout your SEO strategy, and develop a website that supports SEO. Contact us to see how we can help you out.
When restructuring a complex website, an important first step is to inventory existing content and analyze findings in an audit.
The purpose of a content audit is to see which pages exist, decide which ones are valuable, and expose any hidden issues with the website.
Content audits tend to expose issues with site structure, technical SEO, orphaned pages, or content value. Take a look at how it works!
Unveil any strange categories, taxonomies, or hierarchical issues.
With an outdated or limiting CMS, many companies get in the habit of creating pages without housing them in a logical place. Websites can grow larger over time, creating a mess of page categories, tagging systems, and menus.
By closely examining pages, a content audit breaks down this mess to guide decisions about the restructure. And good news for you – with a combination of an updated CMS and clear site structure, it will be easy for you to create new pages moving forward.
Diagnose technical SEO issues.
A content audit can also help you diagnose any missed opportunities with SEO. And weâre not talking about expensive monthly backlinking campaigns. There are many ways to optimize your website for search engines by simply building SEO-optimized page templates.
The content inventory step will show all meta and H1 tags in plain view, allowing marketers to quickly find patterns in how they were generated. Are these page elements exceeding character limits? Missing keywords? Missing altogether? Your new website should have auto-generated meta tags that fall within guidelines. From there, follow best practices to manually optimize key pages.
At Atlantic BT, we will even take content audits a step further, cross-referencing additional tools to find slow pages and opportunities to incorporate schema markup.
Find orphaned pages.
During a content audit, we trace navigation to all pages and get familiar with paths users can take. If we see a page listed and cannot find a way to navigate there, itâs likely an orphaned page.
Orphaned pages, or pages that are impossible to get to by clicking through a website, are harmful for both SEO and user experience. According to Search Engine Journal:
Orphan pages arenât great for either users or crawlers.
Users canât reach those pages through your siteâs natural structure so if thereâs important or useful information on those pages, itâs wasted.
This can create a frustrating user experience.
With no internal links, no authority is passed to the pages, and search engines have no semantic or structural context in which to evaluate the page.
Without any way of knowing where the page fits into your site as a whole, it can be more difficult to determine which queries the page is relevant for.
If an orphaned page seems unimportant, you should likely delete it. If there is some value, weâll find a way to fit it into a new site structure and ensure there is a navigation path.
Find groups of low-value content.
Do you have multiple versions of similar pages? A random tagging system for blog posts? Our team can determine the importance of content by referencing analytics data or understanding your business goals.
However, we consider a content audit a collaborative effort. Weâll rely on you to ultimately decide if a page is valuable for your business.
What step comes after the content audit?
An outdated website structure feels like a mess. Even after a content inventory reveals the existing site structure, it can be daunting to take steps toward simplification.
Based on our findings in the content audit, Atlantic BT can make recommendations for a new website structure. Does it make sense to categorize by industry, services, or personas? We can help you visualize the options and design a site that is simple for visitors to navigate. Give us a call to learn more.
Many of our clients have marketing teams that handle ads, content, and overall strategy. But even with a well-structured marketing team, itâs easy to spin your wheels on elements of your website that donât have a clear formula for success.
In this grey area, weâve found some patterns in what our clients need help with. From careful research and testing with hundreds of websites, weâve compiled some best practices in how to handle common marketing struggles.
1. You know SEO is essential, but youâre unsure where to spend your time.
Everyone seems to understand the importance of organic optimization. But as your competitors start to invest in SEO, you quickly realize that you canât do everything without a large specialized team.
So how do you identify the quick wins or your âbest bang for your buckâ initiatives? One way we help our clients discover these quick wins is by completing an SEO audit in an effort to point them in the right direction.
Our SEO audits are generally not a one-size-fits-all template. Instead, we take some time to understand your business goals and review your Google Analytics profile. From there, we identify pain points and discover opportunities that are worth taking a deeper dive by leveraging other tools.
These deep dives provide actionable steps to get you ranking for the best keywords. For example, we might:
Find page two keywords and provide an internal linking strategy to help achieve page one results.
Evaluate site speed performance and identify the top development changes to give you a boost.
Provide keyword clusters that help you build a focused content strategy.
Generate lists of âunlinked mentionsâ so you can reach out for backlinks over time.
Create guides including best practices for your continual reference.
2. Youâre unsure if your site structure is optimal.
Does your site have all the necessary information for a potential buyer? Are the right pages prioritized in your navigation? Are the pages named correctly? Are the URLâs optimized? Does the hierarchy make sense?
There are many factors to consider with creating an improved information architecture. At Atlantic BT, we tend to use a mix of our own well-tested techniques and apply SEO best practices. Itâs also important that we follow a certain order in this process, as many steps have dependencies.
1. Initial workshop(s): First, we work with your team to help you choose the best categories and page names that will make sense to your customers. This is usually a workshop where we gather business information and ideas. In some instances, weâve built these strategies in a quick 30 minute meeting. In others, we test naming conventions with card sorts and interviews.
2. Visual recommendation: Then, we take this stage into consideration and recommend a hierarchy and sitemap. This step may also include categories and filtering options for certain areas of your site. For ultimate clarity with a messy concept, we create both a visual map and a spreadsheet.
3. SEO optimization: Finally, an SEO specialist will review the recommendations to create optimal URLs and select the best target keywords for each page. At this stage, we may also map the appropriate 301 redirects.
4. Implement and measure: When these steps are complete, itâs easy to work with developers to implement. We can measure the success of the new site structure by observing conversion rates, heat maps, and other website metrics.
3. Youâre unsure if youâre getting the most out of your blog.
A blog strategy goes beyond topically relevant content. When asked what is the purpose of your blog, are you able to answer?
The best blogs have multiple purposes. For example:
Attract people who could potentially be interested in your product or service. Provide educational resources, describe problems they may face, or share news to keep them in the loop of latest trends. Youâll need to build paid or SEO strategies around bringing in new prospects with this content.
Inform people on why your solution is the best option for their problem. This is where you talk about your process, unique differentiators, and company culture. You can provide value to new users or cater this content to people who are already familiar with your brand. Itâs also ideal content for remarketing campaigns.
Build confidence in customersâ decision to choose you. Continue to publish content on how your company is innovating and staying ahead, and inform existing customers of anything you think they should be aware of.
No matter what your buying cycle may be, itâs helpful to list out existing content and ideas for new content. Fitting these ideas into your buyerâs journey will help you spot any missed opportunities. Atlantic BT can help you map out your content strategy in this way, which is called a gap analysis.
4. Youâre looking for ways to improve without knowing what you need.
You always want to keep improving your website to stay ahead of your competitors, but the marketing activities that prove successful start to become weekly tasks. With so many set activities on a daily basis, there comes a point where itâs hard to step into a high-level view and find new opportunities.
High-level website audits turn into deeper dives.
Sometimes people ask us for general website audits to find any missed opportunities as a safety measure.
Atlantic BT can conduct a quick general site audit that identifies areas that may require a deeper dive. For instance, we may begin by reviewing site performance, keyword analysis, heat maps, and competitor websites. Based on our findings, we may recommend something more specific, like a UX audit, SEO audit, or site speed audit.
Weâll handle development.
A deeper dive can help us build a marketing roadmap for you to follow. Because marketing and development are closely tied, these roadmaps often include development work. Atlantic BT can seamlessly step in to support you in the development pieces if needed.
Do you feel any of these marketing pains?
Do you relate to any of these struggles? Weâre happy to help in several ways. We conduct discoveries to build strategic recommendations, and we can help you evaluate what technology will fix core issues. Reach out to hear from an expert and learn more.
Local or service-based SEO is fairly straightforward: you optimize service pages, start a Facebook page to drum up local interest, build some relevant links to pages, write some keyword optimized blogs, and ultimately cover the SEO basics.
But for something like an online learning system, a media platform, or eCommerce; SEO presents new challenges. The sheer breadth of these websites is a challenge in itself. All SEO tasks will have to be prioritized by effort and impact, regular audits become essential to stay on top of site health, and youâll likely be coordinating with several internal or external marketers to keep things afloat.
Aside from page volume, eCommerce websites have a unique structure that presents industry-specific challenges. Digital ads will be closely tied to your revenue and technical SEO becomes a priority.
Take a peek at 5 of the top challenges that eCommerce SEO experts face and how they are handling them.
1. Implementing custom product descriptions.
Custom product descriptions are an opportunity to create unique content on product pages. Custom descriptions will also help you add several relevant keywords in one place.
Better still, you can incorporate some tricks in your product descriptions to make them convert – such as using sensory adjectives or suggesting some common product uses, helping buyers picture a product in their everyday lifestyle.
Here are some methods to create a consistent practice of unique product page content.
Train site users for SEO.
Train the people who actually upload products and add descriptions in keyword research. For example, we wrote a blog on SEO basics for this reason. We can share these simple tips with clients who have larger site sizes so that they can train blog writers to incorporate best practices.
A blog post isnât always the best way to train. Try having an SEO expert audit some existing pages and show teams how they would fix them. Showing tangible examples is usually easier to digest than having people read an overview.
Make sure you house a writeup or presentation as an internal resource. SEO is complicated, and youâll need to make it easy for learners to refer back to this material.
Automate unique descriptions.
A unique description does not necessarily need to be manually written. There are a plethora of tools and AI solutions that could be implemented to help. For example, these four software businesses offer Natural Language Generation (NLG) product descriptions:
If you have enough good reviews on a page, you may eliminate the urgency for a custom description.
While a high quality product may generate reviews on its own, using a tool like Power Reviews to ask for feedback after a purchase is a better way to ensure ratings.
Remember to ask customers to write something a few paragraphs long… or provide them with an example.
2. Prioritizing keywords with thousands of products.
Thereâs no single correct way to zero in on certain products. But here are some options to help you prioritize:
Pick keywords around your largest revenue-driving product
Pick keywords involved with a new product you are trying to grow
Pick keywords that are the easiest wins for your business – or âkeyword mappingâ
eCommerce keyword mapping.
Pick an âeasy winâ keyword by looking at traction youâve already built. Do you have any page 2 rankings for promising keywords? You might be able to bring them to page 1 with a simple internal linking strategy.
Focus on product landing pages.
Another approach is to manually optimize product landing pages, given there is a manageable amount. These will be your high level category pages.
Optimizing these landing pages eliminates the issues of having similar products compete with each other. If your site offers a high volume of similar products, this is probably your best bet.
3. Defining an unclear blog strategy.
What is the goal of your eCommerce blog? Likely, youâve discovered that a blog is the easiest way to get unique content on your website in bulk. Itâs also a great way to attract organic traffic from buyers in the âawarenessâ phase.
Maximize the ROI of your blog by using it for internal linking opportunities and faster conversions.
Boost sales by internal linking in your blog.
Backlinking from external sources can help boost the authority of your web pages and demonstrate relevance. Internal linking is an easier way to do the same thing, helping you capitalize on the authority youâve already built.
First of all, find blogs that have the most or highest quality backlinks to start with. These will be easy to pick out because they likely generate the most traffic.
Then, link these top blogs to products that youâd like to focus on using keyword anchor text.
The keyword anchor text will signal relevance to search engines, and the blog postsâ backlink authority will pass through to the product page.
Conversion optimization in your blog.
Boost product conversions throughout your blog by incorporating featured product callouts, adding a recommended product widget in the blog, or adding popups with limited offers and coupon codes.
You could also go the longer (but less pushy) route: gather newsletter signups on your blog and nurture them with emails including offers and featured products.
4. Optimizing URL structure.
There are a couple of optimal URL structures for eCommerce.
Most optimized eCommerce stores today are using one of these two structures:
storename.com/category/sub-category/product-name
storename.com/product-name
Using the first option works like a breadcrumb, showing users exactly where they are on the website.
On the other hand, the second option can keep your URL short and reduce confusion (especially if you have many levels of categories on your site). To give you some more schema markup opportunities, you can use a breadcrumb on your product page along with this shorter URL.
For instance, Best Buy uses this URL structure for a product page:
Also note that Best Buy is a large website with similar products. They need to add unique identifiers like an SKU in the URL to prevent duplicates.
Should you restructure if your site is organized differently?
Changing your site structure and implementing a high volume of redirects will hurt your SEO initially. However, cleaning up your website should pay off over time if youâre willing to take a temporary hit. And if youâre already suffering in the organic department, you have nothing to lose!
5. Third-party scripts are slowing down your website.
With sales tied closely to marketing spend, you probably have all sorts of third-party scripts to track conversions (Google ads, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.). An easy precaution to take is uploading scripts in Google Tag Manager so that marketers can pause them when they are not in use.
A Google study proved that 53% of mobile ad clicks immediately exited when load times exceeded 3 seconds. Now calculate your site conversion rate and average sale to determine the revenue impact.
Site speed is worth the investment! And as frequent deployments can affect your site speed, the only way to stay on top of it is to perform regular audits. We recently compiled a prioritized list of 6 key factors to boost website performance to give your team a starting point.
Marketing and Development are tied closely together.
Youâve probably noticed that all of these SEO best practices are closely tied to eCommerce web development. For this reason, youâll need to rely on a development team that is well-versed in eCommerce SEO, or make sure that youâre investing in appropriate training.
Ready to get the ball rolling? Give us a call – we offer free consultations to get started building your eCommerce digital strategy.
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Instagram has slowly been increasing its features for advertisers and sellers. The new Instagram Shopping experience provides an additional revenue stream for the app itself (as they charge a fee for sales). But itâs also providing a whole channel for brands to gain exposure and drive sales!
Read on to learn more about the ins and outs of Instagram Shopping and see what brand value is in store for you.
Whats the new Instagram Shopping experience like?
Instagram Shopping began with the rollout of tagging products within posts and video descriptions. Users were able to click on these products and either save for later or click through to purchase on the brandâs website.
But this month, Instagram began rolling out a whole new shopping experience in test phases.
How do users get there?
Instagram shops are now a tab in the interface, letting users browse products when theyâre in the mood to purchase.
How do users browse products?
Products are organized into collections, making it easy to stumble upon appealing items. Product recommendations are based on the brands that Instagram users are following, meaning this shop is completely customized towards an individualâs preferences.
What other features should I know about?
Instagram influencers and creators are also able to tag products in their own posts. This means that affiliate programs are now more useful to sellers than ever before.
Better still, users now have access to a seamless in-app experience. Since all of their information is already stored in Facebook pay, the checkout process is simple.
How does Instagram Shop benefit eCommerce sellers?
Bypass larger brands – get exposure through targeting your niche.
eCommerce is a growing, competitive space; especially since Covid forced many stores to rely on digital sales.
While you are enjoying the benefits of more people shopping online, you likely noticed that traditional channels are becoming more competitive at the same time:
Search engines driving organic traffic
Paid ads targeting through custom audiences and search intent
Social media exposure through relevant hashtags or the Instagram Explore page
Now, Instagram Shop provides a channel with less barriers to entry. Focus on growing your Instagram following and affiliate partnerships to tap into a ready-to-buy audience, without worrying about search engine bloodbaths or the Instagram Explore pageâs ambiguous algorithm.
Tap into an audience that is more likely to purchase.
Not only are Instagram users getting an extremely personalized shopping experience while theyâre in the buying mindset, they also have a convenient checkout experience.
Buyers shop with Facebook pay, meaning there is no hassle to input all of their billing information. For you, that means less cart abandonment.
How do I set up my Instagram shop?
If youâre new to social media selling, make sure your domain is verified through Facebook Surfaces and Instagram Shopping. Then, connect to a business Facebook page.
Next, youâll need to connect a product catalog to your Instagram Business Account. You can either manually upload your products, or you can sync your website if itâs built with a supported platform (like Shopify or BigCommerce).
Once youâve configured your catalog, you can submit your Instagram account for review. If your account is approved, youâll be able to enable shopping in your settings.
Whatâs next for Instagram Shopping?
With new features that make Instagramâs shopping experience streamlined and personalized, this is becoming an essential branch of eCommerce strategy.
And it doesnât stop at setting up your Instagram store. Live shopping is coming soon! That means that influencers using an Instagram Live can tag products within the video.
This is valuable real estate! When someone posts a live, all of their users are notified immediately (jumping to the top of everyoneâs feed).
Itâs a great time to start setting up influencer marketing programs to take advantage of upcoming features.
