The 21st Century has brought about a huge change in how businesses promote themselves. The internet has become the largest and easiest way for companies to make their names known on a large scale, oftentimes making it an easy target for hackers around the globe. Google, like other large search engines and corporations, has taken notice.

With the release of Chrome 68 in July of 2018, Google announced that Non-HTTPS sites will now be declared “Not Secure” sites, acting as a beacon and warning off potential site visitors and potential customers. This is big news, but you may not fully understand all of the layers and implications this announcement can have on your business.

What is a HTTPS website? How does this announcement affect my current web page? Will it affect the traffic my website receives? Don’t worry. We’ve taken a moment to answer these questions and others to help you understand the importance of properly securing your site and protecting your company. Keep reading below and we will simplify what all of this means to you.

Protect Information Exchange with Secure Socket Layers

Acronyms can be confusing, so let’s break down what they mean. The “s” you find at the end of the “http” portion of a URL means the website represents an extra layer of protection. HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a secure version of HTTP, the protocol in which data is sent between a website and a browser. These websites have something known as an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate that protects users by securing information in three separate layers:

1. Data Integrity: Files will not be corrupted when transferred
2. Authentication: Protects users from attacks
3. Encryption: Makes users data hard to track, protecting their information from hackers.

The main benefit of HTTPS is it offers a secure connection to your website visitors where they can share personal data with you. For example, when a customer of an online vendor shares credit card details, HTTPS offers an additional layer of protection.

Taking a Deeper Look at SSL Certificates

To enjoy the benefits of HTTPS, you will need to install a SSL certificate. This will help ensure data between browsers and your web service stays secure and private. Once an SSL certificate installed on your server, it acts like a padlock  — engineering a secure connection between the browser and web server. While a hacker may find a way to intercept vital customer information — they will be unable to decrypt it or use it without the special key or code for your padlocked data.

Enhance Your Search Engine Optimization

If you don’t already know, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of increasing the visibility of your website. Websites with higher visibility will attract more high-quality traffic, which have a higher probability to turn into paying customers. In short, a robust SEO strategy is similar to having a giant neon sign in the digital world that attracts customers looking for the products or services you offer.

Simply put, having an SEO strategy is a must-have for any business looking to capitalize on the 63,000 Google searches performed every second. And the security of your website can have a direct impact on SEO strategy and your ability to gain high visibility.

Are SSL and SEO Connected?

Yes! SSL and SEO are very connected. Research was conducted to understand the importance of an SSL certificate to SEO. The results were telling! After analyzing over 1 million search results on Google, it was concluded that having a Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure domain directly impacts the rankings on Google’s first page. This means not having an SSL certificate or an HTTPS site can cause your web page to have less visibility and less traffic. In addition:

• Google Chrome will label HTTP sites as insecure, which can warn users away from your site because the connection isn’t secure.
• HTTP sites will load much slower than HTTPS, and the speed at which a page loads is proven to be a huge SEO ranking factor.
• Since 2014, Google’s ranking algorithm has included HTTPS as a signal.

However, not having a secure site can affect more than your traffic and search engine results page (SERP) positioning: it can affect your ability to convert sales.

• A staggering 84% of users will ditch a purchase if their data is being transmitted over an insecure connection.

Contact Ready to Run for Assistance with SSL Certificates

Don’t scare visitors away from your site, increase the number of cart abandons, or lose valuable SEO positioning because your site isn’t secure. Instead, it’s vital to install the right SSL certificate to provide the best user experience. 

However, when it comes to choosing SSL certificates, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Fortunately, the experts at Ready to Run Designs can help! We are a team of digital marketers and website design professionals who will guide you to the best SSL certificate based on your needs and goals.

Don’t wait! Contact Ready to Run today for assistance with SSL Certificates.

Whether you call them featured snippets or position zero, they have become the holy grail of SEO since Google released this feature back in 2014. In short, featured snippets are direct, quick answers you’ll see at the very top of a Google search results page. The featured snippet block includes a direct answer to the user’s query. For instance, we searched “What are featured snippets?” and received the following:

The potential benefits of landing in position 0 on a search engine results page are tremendous. You stand to enjoy more traffic, more SERP visibility, and a significant jolt in the credibility of your brand. Fortunately, you don’t have to be in a top-ranking position to land in position 0.

Getstat reports a stunning 70% of featured snippets are from sites not currently in top-ranking organic positions. Let’s take a closer look at featured snippets and a few suggested ways you can increase your chances of landing in position 0.

What Are the Most Common Types of Featured Snippets?

Featured snippets can come in virtually all sizes and shapes, including:

• Numbered lists
• Paragraphs
• Tables
• Bulleted lists
• Images
• YouTube Videos
• Charts

According to Getstat, the most popular type of snippet is the “paragraph” type at 81.95%, list snippets came in at 10.77%, while table snippets came in at 7.28%. And when it comes to the types of queries receiving the most featured snippets, they include:

1. Health
2. DIY processes
3. Mathematical
4. Financial
5. Status
6. Requirements
7. Transitional

How Can I Get a Featured Snippet?

No doubt, this is the million dollar question! The sobering answer is Google will decide which user’s queries will be most effectively answered by a featured snippet. At the same time, Google will decide which domains they’ll use for the answer.

Although you can tell Google to not use a page for a featured snippet — by including <meta name=“googlebot“ content=“nosnippet”>  in the page header — there are no official markups that will make Google use your page. This also means you don’t need to have any type of special HTML markups for search engines to feature content from your site in position 0.

Claiming Position 0 Starts with Keyword Research

Most studies confirm featured snippets are regularly triggered by long-tail keywords, such as the “What are featured snippets?” query demonstrated above. As a matter of fact, the more words you type into the search box, the more likely you’ll be presented with a featured snippet. If you’re looking to land in position 0, start your keyword research with featured snippets in mind. Consider:

• You may find more success with long-tail question-type of queries. Look to answer one of the Five W’s — who, when, what, why, or where — of intermediate difficulty. It’s a good place to start because these are the easiest to identify, but you shouldn’t stop there.
• You should also target informational intent — not just questions. Although featured snippets usually look to answer a searcher’s immediate question, question-type queries are not the only kind that trigger featured snippets. According to an Ahrefs study, large majority of keywords that triggered featured snippets were long-tail queries without any questions in them.

Keep Your Sections Tight

If you want to land a featured snippet, it’s vital to keep the section concise and tight. One commonality we’ve noticed throughout most featured snippets is brevity. In addition, you should section off your paragraphs and lists instead of simply letting them run all together.

For example, this list is only 55 words. And SEMrush suggests it’s a relatively normal length for featured snippets. Their analysis discovered the most common length for featured snippet content is anywhere from 40-50 words.

However, it doesn’t mean your entire article should be a single paragraph. On the contrary, Google has consistently given preference to longer-format content, which is commonly referred to as cornerstone content. This content should be broken into smaller, more digestible subsections with attention-grabbing images.

Even if you do not believe longer-format cornerstone content receives preferential treatment in Google, you can still cover more related questions in a single piece by creating longer, more in-depth content. Here are a few tips that have delivered exceptional results for others:

1. Ask questions in subheaders throughout the article. These subheaders should be closely related to the title.
2. Once you ask the question, immediately answer it in a shorter one-paragraph answer.
3. You can elaborate on the topic later on in the article.

Use Headers to Section off Your Content

In the process of formatting your content for featured snippets, it’s critical your break up content using SEO best practices. Make sure you organize your lists, steps, or paragraphs with headers in natural chronological order. You can use H1 headers, H2, H3, and H4 headers to organize your content and communicate the right message.

Keep It Well Organized and Factual

Similar to users, Google simply loves lists, steps, facts and numbers. You’ll see this time and time again, the information presented in featured snippets will be numbered lists, actual ingredients, cooking times, city of birth and birth years, as well as other fact based elements. Make sure to get as factual as possible and always employ numbers, lists, and proper names. Google seems to notice and like certain HTML codes, such as:

• <ol> Order Lists
• <table> Table
• <ul> Unordered list

Create a Single Article that Answers Several Related Question

Based on data from Ahrefs, once your page gets featured for particular information, it’s much more likely to be featured in other related queries. As a result, you should word your article and structure it in a manner that provides a lot of answers to several similar questions.

Google is exceptional at determining closely related questions and synonymic questions, which means there is no point in creating a new page to answer closely related questions. Having problems coming up with great questions? Use the Serpstat tool under “Questions” to help you create an awesome list of questions with your core keyword.

Got SEO questions? Don’t hesitate to contact Ready to Run for solutions and answers.

Most people are surprised to learn there’s much more to on-page search engine optimization (SEO) than keywords. On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your web pages to rank higher as well as earn more traffic through search engines.

While off-page SEO refers to external ranking signals like backlinks, citations, etc. — on-page SEO refers to both your HTML source code as well as content. Let’s take a closer look at a few simple and actionable on-page SEO steps you can take to improve the performance of your pages.

If Your Content Isn’t Solving a Problem…You Have a Problem

Far too often, we see companies who are doing it all wrong! Instead of looking to solve a problem for potential readers and/or prospects, they create content that is self-serving. Today, consumers are smarter than ever and are more hip to overtly-used sales language.

It’s best to create content that solves a unique problem. When you start with a problem and link it to a solution your business provides, you are well on your way! In addition, make sure your solution-based content checks all of the following boxes:

• Title tags and meta descriptions are still super important. So much so, your title tags and meta descriptions are the first — and may be the only — impression potential readers will have of your site. Make sure your title tags and Meta descriptions are irresistible enough to arrest the reader’s attention and make them click.
• Short and long-tail keywords should be well integrated. As you’re writing to solve a problem, you should think like a consumer thinks! Furthermore, you should include the words your potential clients would use to learn more about a solution to their problem. Make sure you’ve done your research and are including relevant short and long-tail keywords in your content, title tags, and Meta descriptions.
• Keep your content fresh. Make it a practice to review your content and keep it up to date. This should be a continual wash and repeat cycle, which will help influence the freshness ranking factor for your pages.
• Headlining with your header tags. It’s critical your H1, H2, and H3 are in a logical order to communicate the importance of subheaders to search engine crawlers. For example, the title of your page is the H1 and the H2 header tags should be related to (or be a sub-question) the title.
• What’s a picture worth? We know an image is worth a thousand words, but they can significantly slow down the performance of your site, which can negatively affect your SEO. Make sure your images are compressed to make your page nimble. And adding title file names and alt text can help your pictures rank in image searches as well as make them more accessible to all readers.

Elevating Your On-Page SEO to the Next Level

If you’re looking to elevate the profile of your website and take your on-page SEO to the next level, make sure you do the following:

• How easy is your content to read and digest? In general, the easier your content is to read, the better. You can use Flesch-Kincaid Readability tests to determine where you content ranks.
• Term frequency-inverse document frequency or TF-IDF may sound pretty intimidating, but it’s not. This term simply refers to the number of times a keyword (such as “How to fix a leaky faucet”) is mentioned on your page divided by the number of time in other places. It’s nothing more than a calculation to determine the relevance of “how to fix a leaky faucet” is on your page. If you can master this relatively simple technique, you can take your on-page SEO to the next level and help improve the visibility of your content.
• Get your content featured in Position 0 —Google’s Featured Snippets. Featured Snippets are type of search engine result designed to provide users with a direct, concise answer to their questions — directly on the SERP page without the user needing to click through on any specific result. Featured snippets come in a range of sizes and shapes, including bulleted lists, paragraphs, numbered lists, tables, YouTube videos, images, and more.

Make Your Content Crawler Accessible

A web crawler is a spider bot used by search engines to systematically scour the World Wide Web. If you want your page to be found or improve your visibility, make sure you can confidently check the following accessibility boxes:

• Meta robots tag allows crawling. If you’re blocking Google bots from crawling your website, you will never be found. In addition, you should make sure your URL is included in the sitemap.
• Internal linking is critical. If you create a blog post called “How to fix a leaky faucet,” you should have other pages linking to this page with anchor text that includes “How to fix a leaky faucet.” This will help ensure Google knows the keyword is important and the page is actually about fixing leaky faucets.
• Schema markup is a semantic vocabulary code you can add to your site to assist search engines in returning better results for users. By adding relative schema markup, you can spoon feed search engines what your content and pages are about.

Amplify Your Content with SEO Solutions

We get it — optimizing your content can seem confusing, especially when you consider the countless other tasks vying for your attention as a business owner. However, you don’t have to do it alone. Ready to Run offers a full team of SEO specialists who will work to optimize your content and improve visibility, so your content won’t go unnoticed.