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Advanced Website: Site SEO settings

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The information in this article is relevant only for Pro users at this time. For information about booking websites for Lite users, refer to the Guesty Booking Engine

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's un-paid search results. Sometimes this is called "natural" or "organic" traffic. The better your site's SEO, the more likely it is to rank well in search results.

Note:

Google now factors Core Web Vitals in their search engine ranking. For more information, see Optimize your site for Core Web Vitals

Improve your site’s visibility to search engines and boost organic traffic by filling in the site’s SEO fields. This makes it easier for search engines to know what your sites are about so they can be displayed higher on search result pages (SERPs).

To edit your overall site's SEO:

In the side panel, click Settings, and then click SEO. You have the following options:

  • No index for the entire site. Tell search engines not to crawl your site so it won't appear in search results.
  • Site meta title. This is displayed by search engines in their preview of your site. It is important for both SEO and social sharing. Try to limit this to 60 characters.
  • Site meta description. Give an overview of the content and information the site provides. Search engines use this to display a description of the site. Try to limit it to 160 characters.
    • Please note that it is best practice for each page of your site to have a unique title and description. For this reason, we recommend entering your page title and description individually in the Page Settings menu.
  • Custom sitemap, robots.txt & other files. While the platform automatically generates a sitemap.xml file as well as a robots.txt file for your site, you can replace them with this option. Other files can also be uploaded, such as an ads.txt file.
  • Site Keywords. These are terms related to your site (for example, pizza delivery, for a pizza shop). Separate keywords with a comma.
    • Please note that search engines no longer use keywords to impact website ratings. All keyword usage should be considered optional.

No index for the entire site

If you do not want your site or any of the pages to show in search results, set your site to No Index. This will tell search engines to not crawl your site.

Site meta title

This is the most important tag for your site SEO. This tag tells people and search engines what your page is about. The site title appears in the title bar of the web browser and in search engine results.

The title tag should contain important keywords to help search engines determine what your page is about. Also, real people will be reading the site title when deciding whether or not to click on a search result, so make sure to make it people-friendly.

This field can be connected to the Content Library via Connected Data. For more information, see Connected data.

If you have a multi-language site, the site title cannot be translated.

Site meta description

The site description may be used by search engines when they display the content of your site on their results page. So, while this field is not important for search engine rankings, it is very important for compelling users to click through to the site.

This description is your opportunity to advertise site content to people and let them know exactly whether your page contains the information they are looking for. Create a concise and compelling description that people will want to click on.

This field can be connected to the Content Library via Connected Data. For more information, see Connected Data.

If you have a multi-language site, the site description cannot be translated.

Custom sitemap, robots.txt, and other files

Guesty Websites allows you to upload several different file types to the root of your website. This allows you to have selected files that are served from the root of your domain, in order to use them as additional data to assist in your website.

For more information about this feature see Advanced Website: Custom Sitemap, Robots.txt & Other Files.

Site keywords

Major search engines do not use keywords to determine your site's ranking. In fact, on Bing.com, your site can be penalized for having overly "spammy" keywords. However, some smaller free directories and search engines may still use them to help categorize sites. All keyword usage should be considered optional.

Site SEO hierarchy

It is important to keep in mind that the homepage SEO settings and any specific page SEO settings take precedence over the global site SEO settings. Global site SEO settings are used for any pages that do not have page-specific content in the SEO settings.

It can take up to 4-12 weeks for Google to update with any changes. You may be able to shorten the time frame by asking Google to crawl your site for changes (you must have your site added to Google Search Console).

Lazy loading and fonts

Lazy loading of images and widgets improves page speed by loading images and widgets when they become visible on scroll. You can also enable an option to display default system fonts so visitors can start reading instantly while site fonts are loading.

Note:

The site may blink when fonts are loaded.

To enable lazy loading and fonts, click the Lazy loading of images & widgets and Show default system fonts while custom fonts are loading toggles.

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