The purpose of owned media is to get as many readers as possible to read your content and take action.
The key to successful owned media is getting your content ranked high on search engines.
SEO measures are necessary to rank high on search engines, and one of the most important points to consider in order to improve SEO effectiveness is crawlability.
This time, we will explain content design with crawlability in mind.
Crawlability, which indicates the ease with which crawlers can patrol
A crawler is a program that automatically crawls the Internet, and search engines enter the information collected by the crawler into a database.
Since search engines display data in their databases on the Internet, they first need to have crawlers crawl the content of your company’s own media.
It is best to design owned media so that crawlers can easily visit it.
Crawlability is a term that refers to the ease with which crawlers can visit your site, and considering crawlability is extremely important for improving SEO effectiveness.
To check crawler patrols
It is also very important for site operation to check whether crawlers are visiting the owned media smoothly.
If the number of visited pages decreases significantly or an error occurs, you must investigate the cause.
You can check the crawler frequency on
Google Search Console
.
Content design that takes into account crawlability to improve SEO effects
When thinking about content design, the main thing to keep in mind is that crawlers are not humans.
Being aware that crawlers are robots is a great hint when designing content that will improve SEO.
Crawlers crawl through owned media based on keywords and themes.
In order to increase SEO effectiveness, it is necessary to design content with crawlability in mind.
Specifically, the following two points need to be made to make it easier for crawlers to crawl owned media.
In order to make it easier for crawlers to navigate, two things are needed: easy-to-understand “links” that serve as guideposts, and “site structure” that is easy to navigate.
Improved links
Crawlers that visit owned media will continue crawling using internal links as guideposts if there are any.
Google gives high marks to professionalism and relevance.
It is desirable for internal link destinations to be more specialized and relevant pages.
Most owned media have a theme for their site, so there should be many pages that are highly specialized and relevant.
Considering crawlability, setting up internal links to make it easier for crawlers to visit is effective for increasing SEO effects.
On the other hand, if internal links are placed in unrelated destinations, it may actually lower your reputation.
Review the internal link destinations in your owned media, and if you find internal links to pages that are less relevant, it is better to delete them unless there are special circumstances.
There are actual cases where internal links were improved and the ranking increased.
There was a problem with the owned media of companies that operate business with bases in the area, where it was difficult for crawlers to crawl the pages introducing the bases in the area that were expected to receive the most visits.
Owned media has area categories that introduce each area, but the cause was that there were no internal links connecting each area from other categories.
This company has placed internal links in the footer of the page that lead to each area.
By installing internal links, the number of crawlers visiting the area pages increased, which helped improve search engine ratings.
Improve your site structure
Improving the structure of your site is also an important element to increase crawlability.
Websites are designed with a hierarchical structure such as a top page, category pages, and article pages.
This hierarchy is called the “directory structure,” and optimizing the directory structure makes it easier for crawlers to visit.
For example, if a category page has too many items or is complex and difficult to understand, it may be difficult for crawlers to navigate, so it is necessary to improve the categorization so that it is simple and easy to understand.
In addition to the directory structure, what I would like to improve is the “click hierarchy,” which is how many clicks it takes to get from the top page to the article page.
Crawlers do not visit every part of a site from beginning to end.
Just as people click inside a site and arrive at the page they are looking for, crawlers also crawl around.
In order to increase crawlability, it is said that the ideal hierarchy is one that allows users to reach the article page within three clicks.
There are cases where we actually improved the structure of a site to increase its crawlability.
This site was started without considering the concept of directory structure or click hierarchy.
We have steadily increased the number of article pages as the first level from the top page.
Articles related to the pages in the first layer existed as a second layer, but their number was small and the difference between the first and second layers was unclear.
Structurally, each page was independent, and crawlability was extremely low.
As an improvement measure, we set up category pages for major themes on the first level, and reinstalled article pages related to each theme on the second level.
They also added internal links between related pages.
By improving the structure to take into account the directory structure and click hierarchy, the site’s crawlability has improved dramatically.
summary
◆Crawlability is a term that refers to the ease with which crawlers can circulate.
◆A crawler is a program that automatically crawls the Internet.
◆In order to increase SEO effectiveness, it is necessary to design content with crawlability in mind.
◆In order to make it easier for crawlers to visit, two things are necessary: easy-to-understand “links” and “site structure” that is easy to crawl.
◆Installing internal links to make it easier for crawlers to visit is effective for increasing SEO effects
◆By optimizing the directory structure, it becomes easier for crawlers to visit.
◆In order to increase crawlability, it is ideal to have a hierarchy that allows you to reach the article page within 3 clicks.