Welcome to Part I of Edition No. 56 of my weekly newsletter, providing practical analysis in the world of digital content strategy.
Contents
Tip: Is Your Site Name Accurate?
Analysis: The Rollup/Data Stream Conundrum in GA4
Tip: Is Your Site Name Accurate?
Google announced this week that subdomain site titles are now available on mobile in search results.
When Google lists a page in search results, it shows the name of the site the page comes from. This is called the site name.
Whether you have a subdomain or not, you should care about your site name accurately showing up alongside results for your homepage in Google.
Here are the four different ways you can make it as easy as possible for Google to recognize your preferred site name on the SERP:
1. Structured Data
Following Google’s structured data guidelines, set the name and URL properties relevant to your site within your code.
(Structured data, in general, is a great way to help search engines better understand the information on your page.)
2. Your <title> tag
In the code of your site, write your site name in the <title> tag. So:
<title>Your Site Name</title>
3. Your <h1>
You would do this the same as your <title> tag, except it’s for your <h1>.
<h1>Your Site Name</h1>
While having more than one <h1> on a site doesn’t hurt your SEO traffic, it’s probably best to limit your homepage to a single <h1>. If that’s not possible, make the <h1> with your site title the first one (the highest up) in the code.
4. Site Metadata
Set og:site_name to your site name using Open Graph protocol in your metadata.
While you may need a coder’s help to change some of these, there’s any easy way to check them. (That is, if you don’t know how to do it directly in your CMS.)
I randomly selected The Buffalo News, which implements these best practices well, as an example.
1. Go to your website’s homepage
2. Right-click somewhere and select “View Page Source” (I’m in Chrome, but you should see a similar option in any browser)
3. Use the Ctrl/Cmnd + F function to search for the different elements in the code. For example:
Did you find this tip useful? Share it to help spread the word.
Analysis: The Rollup/Data Stream Conundrum in GA4
Many Google Analytics Universal users at larger companies are accustomed to roll-up properties.
These allow you to “roll up” data from various sources into an aggregate view.
As a reminder, here’s how account structures differ in UA vs. GA4:
For example, if the Acme News Service (a made-up organization) owns one news website in all 50 states, they might be interested in seeing how all 50 sites combined are performing. A UA rollup property made this possible.
In Google Analytics 4, however, only 360 (aka paid) GA4 accounts have access to this feature.
GA4 360 User? Here’s How To Create a Rollup
A few things you should know about roll-up properties:
There’s a limit of 50 properties per roll-up
You can’t have a roll-up property within another roll-up property
The data processed in roll-up properties costs money
But what if you are in the Acme News Service’s situation, and you’re not a 360 customer? How can you see all your GA4 data in one place (for free!)?
There’s more than one possible solution to this problem, and how you proceed is up to you.
Not a paid member? Ask your employer if they’ll let you expense it. Subscriptions include discounts or free lifetime access to:
Google Analytics 4 Training: Course for News and Content Creators
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