Online business owners should always stay updated on the changes in digital commerce and marketing best practices. For example, for some businesses, staying GDPR-compliant is crucial.
What is GDPR and how it can affect SEO? How to optimize your website so as not to worsen your ranking? Such questions are quite common when it comes to GDPR. Next, you will discover the key points regarding the GDPR impact on SEO and the ways to improve your SEO positions by making your website GDPR compliant.
What Is GDPR and Why It Is Vital?
What is GDPR and why can it affect your ranking? The GDPR is a document with the purpose as to protect the personal data of residents of the countries of the European Union from unscrupulous companies and giving citizens the possibility of self-control over them. The GDPR applies to all organizations that process the personal data of EU residents, regardless of geographic location.
GDPR best practices are based on the necessity to have a compliant site and follow legal SEO optimization practices as well. So, it is wise to think about key issues regarding SEO compliance right now. This will help to stay afloat in the near future as personal data safety will be in priority for the next years and this is a must for your marketing strategy.
However, the question of the impact of GDPR on SEO does not have a clear answer. The only clear thing is that if you are doing online business with EU companies, then it is definitely worth making your website compliant with GDPR requirements. Even if you are in the US, but among your users, there are EU residents, you still should adapt your site in the context of GDPR. But let’s get back to what this means for SEO and how it can affect your rankings.
How Does GDPR Impact On Rankings
Today there is no single answer to how GDPR can affect the ranking of the site. Experts note that at the moment there is no such influence. However, experts do not exclude the possibility that in the near future GDPR will influence the rating of sites. But today there are a few things that can be highlighted that relate to GDPR and have an impact on SEO, which as a result can affect the ranking of your site. What’s more, if you need some tips regarding SEO strategy for e-commerce you can highlight some points from pixelproductionsinc.com.
The Targeted Ads Issue
As usual, targeted advertising isn’t a GDPR-appreciated practice. Therefore, if targeted advertising has been the main focus of your SEO strategy, it’s time to change the focus. For example, you can focus on selecting relevant keywords as well as creating quality and useful content. As for the selection of keywords, this does not violate GDPR if you use appropriate tools. Preparing quality content with relevant keywords has been and continues to be an effective strategy to look into.
Therefore, instead of targeting, focus on keywords and quality content. This will save you from possible problems regarding GDPR as well as from worsening positions in the ranking in the future.
If you’re looking for an alternative to targeted ads, you can consider guest posting strategies. It also involves getting targeted traffic as well as backlinks, which doesn’t violate GDPR rules since you are not using the user data. All you have to do is find a partner site in the same niche as your site and prepare a guest post with a mention of your site. For example, if you work in the finance area, you need to find business and finance sites for guest posting cooperation. This will give you the relevant backlink and appropriate audience.
The User Experience Issue
The user experience your website delivers is one of the most important behavioral factors for SEO. A site with a low user experience score will never get a place in the top rankings. But what about GDPR?
According to the GDPR requirements, users have the right to agree to cookies or not. According to statistics, 80% of users leave a website due to pop-ups. Firstly, pop-ups can annoy users, secondly, they can affect the site loading speed. As practice shows, such pop-ups can significantly slow down the page loading speed. Ultimately, the user may decide to leave the website, which will cause the user experience score to drop and it will negatively affect the rankings, as sites with a low score in this criterion do not get into the top.
The solution to this problem is to optimise such pop-ups technically. Firstly, the pop-up should not affect the loading speed of the site, which can be solved with the help of design optimization. Secondly, it is worth considering the location of the banner. For example, it can be placed in the upper corner of the screen. It is also worth making sure that when clicked, the user will be able to view the page and not be faced with a blank screen. All these points require a technical solution in order not to spoil the user experience.
The Site Security Issue
The issue of security is what Google algorithms pay attention to when ranking sites, as well as what is indicated in GDPR. That is, according to GDPR, sites must have SSL if the site is collecting and storing data. As for the issue of rating, obtaining an SSL certificate will also provide an advantage in relation to the rating.
Google considers SSL-certified sites to be more secure. Therefore, the presence of such a certificate will allow you to kill two birds with one stone. You will achieve GDPR compliance and also get a ranking advantage over sites with HTTP protocols. If you need more tips regarding safety, you can get them by looking here.
The Final Verdict
So, as you can see, GDPR compliance is not such a challenging issue for your site. However, becoming compliant with these rules implies additional work for site owners. However, for SEO, this does not portend huge changes. You just need to change focus regarding your SEO. Since at the moment GDPR does not have a drastic effect on the rating, it is important to understand that this can happen at any time.
This means that sites that have already completed work on the corresponding GDPR will be given priority over those that have not. Therefore, such work can be considered a promising investment in order not to lose the rating and be a priority in the near future.
