Discover what Crawl budget is and how this strategy can improve the positioning of your site in Google search results.
Think of 100 billion searches per month, 3.5 billion searches per day and 40 thousand queries per second. This data is directly linked to Google, one of the main current search engines.
Faced with the greatness it represents, it is a fact that every time more businesses invest in perfecting their online strategies.
However, what entrepreneurs need to understand is that competitiveness for good positioning increases daily, demanding more advanced strategies, such as the crawl budget.
In this post, we explain what is crawl budget, what is its connection with the time of reading web pages and other related issues. Continue reading and discover how this strategy can help you!
What is crawl budget?
In a free translation, the term crawl budget means tracking budget. But his understanding goes much further.
Actually, it is related to the time the Googlebot (search engine robot) takes to make a reading or a “scan” on your site, after having defined how many and which pages are really important, according to the quality of the published content.
The more quality pages he reads, the better your site will be qualified by the Google intelligence system.
It is not possible to know exactly the time that Google takes to read your site, but it is possible to have an idea of that period through the Google Search Console.
By having the number of pages in your site, it is possible to understand how the search engine’s robot reads it.
How does Google read web pages?
Before explaining how to read the pages, it is important to clarify some relevant points.
The use of the crawl budget is worth it when your site has more than 10 thousand pages… that mean large sites such as electronic stores. Otherwise, you do not need to worry, because few pages do not influence the reading that Google does.
However, there are some aspects that will help you to have more pages read, something basic for any site – we will talk later about the tips to make this possible. Now, let’s focus on the question of reading.
Google takes some time until it connects to your site, reads the pages and only then stops this reading. The process occurs several times throughout the day. It is exactly in the fraction of time that it occurs, that authority is conquered, crucial to your location in the search engines.
Such “scanning” happens several times a day. And it is precisely the time it takes to become, its fraction, which is responsible for guaranteeing the authority of the site, as well as its importance.
Just to make it clearer, imagine that your site has several quality hyperlinks addressed to it.
Probably Google will give you a bigger notoriety because that means that your site is a reference.
Therefore, to optimize the reading time that the robot will spend on your site, it is necessary to focus on the strategies.
It is important to remember that, by tracking only a certain number of pages on your site, Google can classify them incorrectly, that is, differently from what you want.
This happens, for example, when your “About us” page (which does not generate sales) gains more visibility in searches than the one that contains content to convert consumers and products. Then, working with crawl budget serves to present to Google the content with superior relevance and that has been updated.
How to improve Google’s reading time on your page?
As we said, there are effective ways to improve the crawl budget strategy. Next, you will learn how you can optimize it!
Simplify site architecture
When the topic is to optimize the page reading time, one of the main tips is simplification. This means structuring the site layer by layer, starting with the architecture of the information and going through the content, design, programming and hosting.
The page can be tracked if the search engines can find and follow the link on your site. If your goal is to make her well positioned, you also have to be careful in using richer multimedia resources, such as JavaScript and Flash.
In addition, if you redirect the person several times to reach the destination page, this can also harm you. Therefore, keep a simpler structure to optimize site loading.
Remove useless content
The useless content can not only, as it should be removed from your site. Do you know that material that has little access and is not updated?
Well, he interferes in the crawl budget and it can be detrimental for search engines to find what is really important.
Therefore, try to clean up any information that does not add value to the site. If it is important, it is necessary to make a frequent update. This is because Google understands and reads with a greater frequency, that content that is constantly updated.
Identify duplicate content pages
Some websites are facing problems with content duplication. Sometimes, the same content (or almost the same) is available in different URLs.
In this case, the ideal would be to update the information of one page, complementing it with the information of the other, to avoid duplication.
If you have a blog with a lot of content, it may be that 2 texts with similar themes or almost the same keyword are published. You must be careful to insert different URLs and avoid this duplication.
Or, as already said, take advantage of the new text with a similar issue to complement the other one that already exists.
In addition to avoiding duplication, this will further value your content and make it gain more notoriety in Google.
Apply SEO strategies
The application of an SEO strategy is crucial for the crawl budget. Below, there is a series of tips that will be put into practice.
First of all, think about your content strategy and keywords. Do a search for the most searched terms by your audience on topics related to your business.
Then, when producing the content, do not forget to treat the keyword during the text and insert it in the internal title, in the intertitles and in the SEO components (SEO title, meta description, slug, alt text of image).
About the content, it must be really relevant to your audience and traceable. That is a material that adds value to those who searched for it, not only with information quality but also with structure, such as short paragraphs, use of intertitles, enumeration points and connective points.
It is important to insert internal and external links in the text that make sense. But, be careful with broken links, that is, they are connected to pages that no longer exist.
Why is it important to optimize the crawl budget?
A well-structured site, with quality content and according to the rules that Google’s robot sees as good practices, increases the crawl’s ratio that means that its position in the search engine will improve. As a result, the chances of your website being found by your audience increase.
In addition, it will offer a good experience to the user.
The crawl budget is a complex matter, but of great importance, especially if your site has hundreds of embedded pages.
Therefore, it is always good to keep the attention focused on the optimization of what we point out here. By doing so, this will help you improve the time spent reading your site, placing it prominently on Google.
If you still have questions about the topic or want to understand better about your application, leave us your comment!
