What's wrong with your content? Or better yet, what's right?
Crystal Carter of Wix joins Bernard Huang of Clearscope as she leads us in an entertaining teardown and audit session of attendee-submitted content.
The pair will review sites live and give candid, actionable feedback about what they'd do more of—or what they'd do differently.
Top takeaways from Crystal's session
Pay attention to making things convenient for users. Don’t bury key information, like CTAs. Guide them to the next steps in the most visible places. A good experience that’s straightforward and easy is good SEO.
Optimize for YOUR traffic—not traffic in general. Crystal reminds us to “go through the doors that open.” Focus on speaking to your audience and optimizing your site for what they need when they need it. If you receive a lot of organic traffic from socials, lean into crafting pages on your site that are the next click in their journey.
Website hygiene is important. You still need to make those H1s people- and search-engine friendly. Don’t miss out on using H2s, either. Pro tip: Don’t use images as your page headers!
If you’re not ranking well in a highly-competitive topic, it could be a brand authority problem. Licensing and location of operations matter for YMYL topics. And the more crucial or sensitive the topic is, the more challenging it will be to rank for it. You many need to consider PPC plays or brand-building plays.
Watch the full webinar
Supplemental resources
Here's the list of tools and resources mentioned on this call:
Structured data for SEO: What you need to know by Crystal Carter on the Wix Blog
Introduction to structured data markup in Google Search via Google Search Central
Crystal uses this prompt in the session for a GPT schema markup demonstration: “Can you list the variable fields that are required for this structured data”
Crystal is using the SEO Pro Chrome Extension in her audit
Bernard is using the Ahrefs Google Chrome Extension on this call
Questions from the session
There were a few questions during this session that, unfortunately, we weren’t able to get to. They’re answered here!
Q: What emerging SEO trends do you foresee becoming critical in the next year or two, and how should we prepare for them?
A: Answering this question as Clearscope here, but we truly believe (and have experienced) the power of prioritizing information gain across our content.
It’s less of a trend and more of an essential practice to healthy content creation and following EEAT practices.
An emerging SEO trend that has shown lots of promise, even in our own content library, is taking a perspective-driven Ranch-Style SEO to new content creation and refreshes.
Q: What’s the best way to handle SEO when launching new content or a new product? Is there a structured approach to ranking quickly?
A: Healthy, people-first SEO is a long-game, and it’s not necessarily something that can be accomplished quickly, especially for a brand-new site or business offering.
The best approach to SEO when launching new content or a product depends on factors like your industry, competition, and existing site authority.
Generally, focusing on optimizing your content for search intent, targeting relevant keywords, and ensuring fast indexing with technical best practices is key. Building backlinks and promoting your new content can also help with quicker visibility.
But ultimately? You’ll need to know your target audience and their true search intent in-depth and do a lot of testing. It’s important to not take a cookie-cutter approach, as ranking well with generic consensus content isn’t a viable strategy anymore.
READ MORE:
How to find your goldilocks keywords with search intent analysis
What is user intent? It's your key to boosting rankings, leads, and conversions
Q: How do you recommend approaching SEO for a niche business with keywords that have very low search volume, and geographically based?
A: If your business operates in a specific location, focus on targeting keywords specific to that location.
The ultimate goal of SEO is to get found by the right audience organically to increase visibility and revenue for your business, not build high-volumes of search traffic that cannot convert.
With a geographically-based business model, it’s likely that the right target search queries for your business would have a lower volume.
Q: How should we approach technical SEO (for someone who isn't as technical)—are there specific areas we should focus on after ensuring the basics (like site speed, crawlability, and XML sitemaps) are covered?
A: Once the basics are in place, focus on areas that enhance user experience and search visibility.
Start by adding structured data markup for rich results (ie, schema markup, which Crystal recommends during this call), ensuring mobile usability, and improving internal linking to boost page authority.
Tools like Google Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights can guide you through Core Web Vitals improvements. And make sure to audit your site regularly to ensure only high-quality, indexable content is being crawled.
Clearscope has several features that can help you instantly see internal linking opportunities and any technical issues on important pieces of content. Demo Clearscope here.
READ MORE: On-Page SEO: What it is, Why it Matters, & How To Optimize
Q: What advanced strategies can we use to improve local SEO, particularly in competitive markets?
A: We highly recommend checking out this Clearscope Webinar: Content Teardown + Audit with Amanda Jordan and Melissa Popp of RicketyRoo. Amanda and Melissa are multi-location and local SEO experts, and this session is filled with excellent tips and strategies.
About Crystal:
Crystal Carter is the Head of SEO Communications at Wix. She’s an SEO and digital marketing professional with over 15 years experience working with SEO and marketing clients around the world, including Disney, McDonalds, Tomy and more.
As an SEO, she identifies and implements tactics that help businesses optimise digital activity, drive sales, engagement and growth online. Crystal has contributed to events, webinars, and publications from Google Search Central, Brighton SEO, Moz, Whitespark Local Search Summit, Semrush, SMX, Search Engine Land, DeepCrawl, Women in Tech SEO and more.
