Canonical URL – How to use it effectively to boost SEO?

The canonical URL is a crucial notion that is frequently misunderstood and misused, even by seasoned SEOs with years of experience.

A canonical URL is the URL of the page on your site that Google considers to be the most representative of a group of duplicate pages.

What is canonical URL?

In technical terms, canonical URLs are just HTML link tags with the rel=canonical attributes. Search for rel=”canonical” in the source code of a webpage to see this. It’s a feature that only search engines can discover.

A canonical URL is a link element that tells search engines that multiple URLs are linked to the same master page. In a nutshell, they allow you to choose which version of a URL should appear in search results. This is useful for preventing duplicate content from having a negative effect on rankings.

How should Google choose which version of a page to index and rank?

Too much duplicate content, as well as low-quality content, is obviously bad for your website.

Your “crawl budget” may be impacted if you have too much duplicate content. As a result, Google may spend more time indexing several versions of the same page than crawling other key information on your site.

canonical url for websites
Image source Woorank

So if you want google to focus your website effectively, Why would you want Google to waste time indexing numerous versions of the same page rather than focusing on your website’s most important pages?

Here comes the canonical URL.

Why is Rel=Canonical beneficial to SEO?

When search engines see several pages with the same contents (duplicated content), they are confused as to which page to index and rank. as a result they ignore those pages. To improve the user experience and meet search intent, Google simply filters out duplicate results from ranking.

However, by following relative canonical URL best practices and knowing when to utilize this tag, you can simply remedy these difficulties to preserve your SEO value.

When to use a canonical URL?

  • When you republish your old content.
  • When you do A/B test with different Pages
  • To keep track of content that has been syndicated. You want to make sure that your preferred URL appears in search results if you syndicate your content for publishing on other domains for marketing purpose. The social media like Medium are providing the facility to add the canonical URL.
  • To tell users the URL they should view in search results.

General rules for all canonicalization methods:

The following are the guidelines recommended by Google

  • The robots.txt file should not be used for canonicalization.
  • Don’t canonicalize with the URL removal tool. It clears Search of all variants of a URL.
  • Don’t use the same or different canonicalization approaches to define various URLs as canonical for the same page (for example, don’t specify one URL in a sitemap but a different URL for the same page using rel=”canonical”).
  • Noindex should not be used to prevent the selection of a canonical page. This directive is used to remove a page from the index, not to manage the canonical page selection.
  • When using hreflang tags, specify a canonical page. Specify a canonical page in the same language, or the best available substitute language if a canonical for the same language does not exist.
  • When linking within your site, use the canonical URL rather than a duplicate URL. Linking to the URL you want to be canonical on a regular basis helps Google understand your preference.
  • Non-canonical pages should not be included in a sitemap. Only include canonical URLs in your sitemap if you’re using one.

Noindex Robots vs. Canonical URLs

The canonical tag informs search engines that this is the only version of the page available. The robots noindex tag instructs search engines not to index the page.

Is it best to use Canonical URLs or Noindex Robots Meta Tags to deal with duplicate content?

You may tell search engines not to scan your sites using meta tag SEO and a robots meta tag, which may appear to be a quick cure. In most circumstances, though, the more pages on your website that Google can crawl, the better. So it’s usually advisable to use noindex for pages that you do not aim to rank or receive traffic for.

What’s the Difference Between Canonical URLs and 301 Redirects?

in simple, A 301 Redirect tells the search engine that the page has been moved permanently, that it should be removed from the index, and that any SEO credit earned should be transferred to the new page.

A Canonical Attribute informs a search engine that a document contains many copies of the same content.

What are the ways for implementing the canonical URL ?

There are number of ways to implement the canonical URL in your website easily, the following are the most easy steps methods to do.

Use a WordPress plugin

if your website is build with WordPress platform the the plugins like Yoast, RankMath, All in one SEO etc., to implement the code they provide the facility by default.

Use the code in the website header

If you are familiar with coding then this is easy to go with a small code snippets can be used to add rel=canonical tags to your website. To set the canonical URL as soon as crawlers land on your page, add the following code to your page header

<link rel=”canonical” href=”inserturl.com<?php echo $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’];?>”>

Through Google Tag Manager

The Custom HTML tag in the google tag manager helps you to complete the job, the Moz website has a good article on how to implement the canonical URL via GTM please check that.

Best 5 Emotional Hooks To Increase Your Content Performance

The secret component is to add emotion. Let’s have a look at some tips for improving the performance of your content.

The first step is to consider how you can connect with your target market.
as well as creating intriguing content

The more you engage with potential customers, the higher your retention rate will be; if your retention rate rises, it’s a sign that you’re trustworthy to your clients.

1. Add a Good Story to Your Content

story telling

Everyone likes stories no matter what their age is, since stories are an effective medium to gain people’s attention and connect them emotionally.

Positive stories have the potential to impact the success of any company, so tell them about the success stories and case studies about your projects and how your customers are satisfied with your help.

2. Fear of Missing Out

Creating a sense of urgency is the most effective technique to generate sales since it elicits the fear of losing out on a wonderful opportunity.

People always love to grab deals. You just need to create the urgency to buy your products, like a lifetime deal that is valid for a limited time.

This creates the fear of missing out on the offer that they’ll be more interested in your brand and your product.

3. Help Your Audience to Achieve their Goal

Even the most common goals are intertwined with passions, anxieties, and feelings of inferiority for the majority of people. 
You have a direct line to your audience’s emotions if you can figure out what they want most.

Help Your Audience to Achieve their Goal

Offer to assist them in getting what they want, and they’ll perceive you as a friend – and will most likely buy from you.

It’s pretty crucial to undergo audience research to discover the correct angle with this strategy. By polling or interviewing your audience, you can try to speak directly with them.

Then incorporate these results into your writing, emphasising how your product or service may assist your target audience in achieving their goals.

4. Create questionable Title

This kind of title could directly address a need that your potential customer looking for solution and this could trigger them to click.

Not every question makes for a good title. You should never pose a question that anyone could effortlessly answer. 

Unanswered questions attract interest. That is why now a days lot of articles begin with a question: readers want to know the answer, so they click.

If you want more people to look at your content, a little mystery could be just what you need.

In your title, pose a question, and then answer it in the body of your material.

5. Make Your Audience Feel Unique

People gravitate to uniqueness. If you give your audience something they can’t get anyplace else, they’ll naturally flock toward you and help spread the word.

After a customer purchases your stuff, follow up with them.

They’ll be gratified to realize that you care about their opinions even after you’ve closed the deal.

Simply send a brief email asking if they are pleased with the goods and if there is anything further you can do to assist them. This strategy is an excellent method to establish a positive image for your company.

Do some audience research and segment your audience depending on the buyers persona, and make this a part of your plan as an ongoing effort.

3 Tips to Perform Link Building in 2022

If you have hired a professional SEO company, then it is necessary to take their advice and listen to their suggestions without questioning. Moreover, the SEO services and link building has to be given high importance and followed carefully. Ensure the SEO Company is experienced and works smart and hard to build quality backlinks for your website.  Link building and SEO go hand in hand. When you can create quality links for your website, the website link will start to appear in the search engine. It will automatically get popular and come in the front page of the search engine. The more popular you rank in the search engine, the more visitors will arrive at your website. Here listing three tips  for link building and SEO practices. 

Site reputation

The SEO Company hire experienced SEO experts and professionals to research keywords for your business. If they fail to find proper keywords and build wrong links, then it would totally affect your reputation and affect your site more than you started. It is important to create quality back links and earn a good reputation in the search engines. When the website is linked to wrong places, it is similar to joining with bad students in school. In the end, you have to fail the loss by either feeling guilty or loss in your business. 

Natural link building

Experienced SEO Company knows the tactics and strategies of link building. They ensure to do it natural by blending natural and meaningful contents along with the link to the popular submission sites. It does not mean that you need to build a lot of links in one or two days. If you do so, the search engine would red flag your website. The links should be natural like rave reviews. It has to be created a step by step and day by day. It is not advisable to create about 2000 links in a single day, where the search engine would easily find that you are doing something odd to cheat the system. 

Careful link building

Hard working and smart SEO experts ensure to create multiple anchor text links. It is not easy to create most of the time, but it will help to get your website on top ranking. Do you know the meaning of anchor text? Anchor text displays the keywords that you are trying to rank in the search engine. The spiders will rank accordingly by guessing. 

5 Reasons You Need a Professional Website for your Business

Have you ever thought to launch a professional website? What is the need to have a website for a business? Well, if you have such queries in your mind, then you should read this blog for detailed information. Most of the small business owners have a thought that there have fewer chances to benefit from a website, or website design and development process is expensive so it is not meant for them. Do you think that just because you are not using a computer or laptop, your customers also fail to use? These are some common misconceptions. These five reasons will clearly explain why your business requires a professional website, regardless of its size or type. 

Credibility: 

Nowadays, more and more customers are using the internet to find and discover services and products they require. When you have a website, it will be useful for your customers to learn about your service. If you do not have, there are chances for your potential customers to approach your competitor. It is important to neglect home-made website and build a website that looks more professional. It helps to inspire greater confidence. When you are running home -made or online businesses this is highly beneficial because you do not own a shop or store to promote your products. 

Saves Money: 

Since you are a small business owner, you may think that professional website is expensive, and it is not suitable for your budget. But to be frank, it is highly affordable than setting up a traditional store. The cost of designing and developing a website will vary from one to another, and the maintenance cost remains cheap most of the time. When you compare the website expenses with the newspaper advertisement, website is cost effective and helps to reach the potential audience. In simple terms, website is one of the best cost-effective methods to market your business. 

Inform customers:

An official website will inform the customers about the latest products, launches and reviews of a product. A website remains as an online catalogue or brochure. You can easily and quickly update product information on your website. The process is simple when compared to the print material. It is a valuable way of assisting customers about special promotions, upcoming events, arrival of latest products, or any extended services you are offering. Print advertisements become outdated in a day or two, but website helps to provide current news and information. 

Accessible: 

A website is easy to access by using an internet connection. Your potential customers can view your website anytime 24 x 7 x365, and it provides them a handiness of viewing and reviewing your services and products even your custom store is closed. In the present busy lifestyle, this is a best selling point to make a purchase decision. 

Improves customer service: 

For example, if you are selling eco-friendly products, you can share tips about recycling or if you are an accountant, you can provide advice for your clients and give them simple tips to shorten their bookkeeping practices. All these are possible by including a blog page, uploading newsletters, adding articles or FAQ page in your website. This way, you can share information as well as provide services to your clients.   

Top 4 Benefits of Mobile Friendly Website

The internet is rapidly changing, and it remains as an obvious reason to develop mobile friendly website. Nowadays, the users are accessing internet in various ways and mean that no one has imagined in this ten years. Mobile devices, watches, gaming devices, laptops, and tablets are increasingly popular and serving as a means for visitors to discover your website. This is the reason most of the website is optimized for mobile, tablet, and iPad devices. 

One of the search engine reports has found that mobile devices have traffic of about 15% and in some cases it remains higher. Large companies like Yelp reported that half of their searches are mostly from mobile devices. The count and reports differ and vary from one industry to another. But the baseline is mobile friendly website is significant for your business. Are you a marketing manager? Do you wish to communicate with your customers at ease? If so, you need to check out the benefits of building a solid customer base through mobile devices. 

4 Benefits of Mobile Optimized Website

Improved user experience

Most of us have come across this. For example, one of your friends sends a link to check out through text message or email, and when you click to open a message, you will have come across a jumbled load. This way, the website kills the chance of changing the visitor into a customer. The user will remain uninspired if they are not able to browse and get information from your website through their mobile device. A report have shown that about 60% of mobile users feel disappointed and face problems to browse the website using their device. 

Increased time

Time is very crucial since everything is easily available online. The website owners have limited time to attract the website visitors and make them as their consumers.  The website should be easy to navigate, and contents should remain mobile friendly. These have high chances to convert viewers into consumers. 

Improved Mobile SEO

If you wish to rank your website in the Google search engine, then you need to act according to the rules and limitations of Google. It is recommended to build responsive website to appear in the search engine. If not, you can create a separate HTML website for mobile users. This way, your website will rank well in the Google search engine and increase the visitors to your site. 

Competitive Advantage

There are several chances of your competitors to remain ahead of you by beautiful optimizing their website as mobile friendly one. If possible, visit the website of your competitors to check whether they have mobile optimized. You will get a clear idea of where your company is remaining. 

Conclusion

Mobile friendly website helps to increase sales and acquire more customers. Marketers and business owners who wish to stay ahead can optimize their website to help your company stand out of the crowd. A delay can result in 7% failure in conversions and loss in sales of about 2.5 million every year.