We live in the new media age where websites are a major prerequisite for any organization looking to thrive in the competitive business landscape. After all, 64.4% of the global population are internet users, and 2.14 billion online shoppers exist worldwide.
Nonetheless, as digital technologies continue to transform all business models, the need for privacy policies is becoming more apparent. Although the majority of people only have the most basic understanding of these policies and think them to be just a form of website protection measure, there’s more than meets the eye.
Do you know web privacy policies also impact your website’s SEO and ranking? That probably caught you off-guard! Not to worry, this article establishes the thin line that exists between privacy policy and SEO.
Web Privacy Policy and SEO
Data privacy policy refers to a legal document that gives details of how your website garners, uses and protects customer data. However, aside from being a major player in securing customer information and compliance with privacy laws, it can serve as a ‘trust signal’ that greatly impacts your SEO and conversion rates.
On the other hand, SEO means Search Engine Optimization and it refers to a set of practices usually employed to increase a website’s visibility and ranking in organic search results.
To be more explicit, search engines like Google have a set of algorithms that rank websites in chronological order when users type in a keyword or phrase. If your site meets those criteria, it gets ranked and if not, it’ll be shut out from search results.
The Link Between Web Privacy Policy and SEO
So where’s the connection? While there’s no single way to grade the level of trust Google has for your site, one of the evident criteria that is used in the ranking process is user experience, which comprises data protection, privacy policies, and web security. Privacy policy is vital for enhancing user experience as it helps in gaining customer trust and credibility.
When users surf the web, they want to be confident that their personal information is collected and used with due process while being guaranteed of a maximum security. If your website is lacking privacy policies, it negatively impacts your brand reputation, conversion rates, and finally, your SEO ranking.
Why You Need A Clear and Concise Privacy Policy
Now that the link has been established, you’ve got a lot to gain from creating a clear and concise privacy policy as it sets you up for something even greater. Check out what you stand to benefit from;
- First and foremost, it validates your brand as reputable, trustworthy and credible, bringing about an increase in customer engagement and conversion rates.
- Also, it eliminates the extra bit of stress on having to worry about the risk of penalties or legal action by conforming with privacy laws.
- Ultimately, it generates a lot of traffic and sets your website up to rank high on the first page of SERP.
These policies should be free from ambiguities, meaning users should easily comprehend how and why you collect their personal information and what you intend to do with them. Ensure you define the security measures that protect user information such as encryption and firewalls.
Privacy Policy and Local SEO
Local SEO simply refers to the optimization of your search engine strategies to ensure your goods and services are available to customers in their local community.
Although, local SEO can be a tricky game, that is; if you want your products and services to gain a lot of traction, they have to be customer or user specific. They have to be directly targeted to the needs of customers to increase your chances of ending up on top local results.
A well-crafted privacy policy impacts your local SEO in various ways, one of which is protecting your website from being classified as vague and misleading. That singular factor can result in a high bounce rate and destroy your chances of surfacing on organic search results.
To get a bigger picture of what local search results actually look like, Google starts by presenting you with a map followed by its “Google’s 3 Pack”, which refers to the list of the top three websites for the user’s search.
6 Steps On How To Optimize Your Web Privacy for SEO
In your bid to craft a web privacy policy that is optimized for SEO, there are quite a number of things to consider and pay attention to. Follow this guide for better understanding;
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Choose a privacy policy generator
Although it may sound entirely new, you need a privacy policy generator that aligns well with your business needs and budget. This tool allows you to easily generate personalized and compliant privacy policy for your website formed on your inputs and choice.
The interesting part of this is that these tools are in myriads giving you an inexhaustible amount of freemium and premium versions to choose from. One thing to keep in mind during selection is that any tool you end up with must be updated, reliable and compatible with your website.
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Personalize your privacy policy
At this juncture, you need to tailor your privacy policy to align with the intent of your website, target audience and data practices. When including relevant information, ensure you keep them clear and concise for easy readability and comprehension. Take note of the following;
- What data do you collect?
- Why do you collect them?
- How do you make use of those details?
- Which third-party individual or site has access to the user’s data?
- How do you keep up with the data storage?
- How do you secure user information?
- How do you manage cookies and other tracking technologies?
In the same vein, you must painstakingly factor in other important aspects like legal requirements and standards of the market where your target audience are.
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Scrutinize and present your privacy policy
Be Clear: Aim for perfection by ensuring your policies are free of technical jargon that can confuse users. Rather than using technical or complex words and sentences, try words that are simple and succinct to enhance readability and comprehension.
Be user-friendly: Exploit the benefits of white space, use headings and bullet points to make your privacy policy interactive and easy to read.
Be accessible: Finally, you must ensure your privacy policy is easy to locate when users navigate through your web pages. Place the links at strategic points in the header, footer, or menu, or probably use a pop-up or modal window to display it when the need arises.
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Integrate relevant keywords
Since keywords are a major prerequisite for optimizing a website’s visibility on search engines, incorporating relevant keywords to your policy increases your website’s chances on SERPs. To better understand keywords, here’s a demo.
If your website offers dropshipping business, you can integrate keywords like “online stores” or “online transactions” to signal search engines on what your site is all about.
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Test your privacy policy for SEO
And this is the part where you make a follow-up to ensure that your privacy policy is indexed and ranked by search engines, also that it offers precise and pertinent information to satisfy customers and users.
Typically, there are a number of prominent tools that can help you measure the performance, visibility and usability of your policy like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Lighthouse.
However, one other thing that works well is optimizing key aspects of your privacy policy like the meta title, meta description, keywords, and URLs to align with user’s search queries.
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Update and review regularly
For the final step! You need to keep a tab on your privacy policy and ensure it’s up to date and reviewed from time to time. This makes it relevant, compliant and accurate with the latest privacy laws and regulations.
What’s more, keep users abreast of latest updates and developments or better still, seek their opinions if necessary. Take your time to reassess your policy’s performance and keep an eye out for the slightest opportunities to make necessary improvements.
Exploit The Viability of Privacy Policy
The competition in the business sphere has never shown signs of regression and organizations are becoming more creative by the day with their marketing tactics even if it means usurping the slightest teeny-weeny bit of opportunity that arises.
So why shouldn’t you do the same? While most businesses still undermine the effectiveness of privacy policy in impacting organic search results, you now have a better understanding as to how you can leverage the situation to your advantage.
Privacy policies are crucial for protecting user data and ensuring conformity with privacy laws. However, by following the step by step process stated above, you can create an effective privacy policy that is SEO optimized.
Rilwan Kazeem is a freelance content writer, explorer, and reader. He has covered topics including digital marketing, HR, emerging technologies, and their intersection with business. Rilwan’s writing has been featured in Leaderonomics, Engagedly, and Newsbreak—where he unraveled “10 simple steps to launch an online business in 2023”, among others.
