What Do the New GDPR Regulations Mean For SEO?

On 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, the EU’s new data protection and privacy law for all individuals within the European Union. Businesses of all industries and sizes need to pay attention to GDPR to be compliant.

One area GDPR will affect is digital marketing and SEO. Take a look at how GDPR will affect your SEO strategies and what you need to do to comply with the new GDPR law.

It’s important to remember that GDPR does not necessarily have to be a headache for your business. Instead, it provides the chance for you to clean-up your data and ensure you treat the personal data of your website visitors and followers in a more positive way.

Website consent

One of the biggest areas of change is that the GDPR has set a new standard of consent for websites based in the EU. No matter how quality, unique and optimised your website is, under GDPR, you may need to get visitors to actively agree to cookies via a popup. Though you should be aware that Cookie Consent popups can potentially impact the page load speeds of your website, which can be a factor the search engines consider when ranking sites.

Meta data

In the wake of GDPR, strong meta titles and descriptions are more important than ever. Meta descriptions should be a concise reflection of what visitors will find on your web page and how your content will live up to the expectations of their search. By catering for what browsers are looking for online, the right meta descriptions should mean visitors are more inclined to agree to the cookie consent in order to stay on your website and navigate through other pages.

GDPR and analytics

The ways in which Google Analytics currently provide access to user data is compliant with GDPR legislation, as the data is anonymised. However, you should be aware that if you use an SEO analytics process which de-anonymises data, it will not meet GDPR standards and you run the risk of being non-compliant with the EU’s new privacy rules.

Will GDPR-compliance affect rankings?

There has been no indication yet whether Google will make GDPR compliance a factor when ranking websites. However, that’s not to say this won’t happen in the future. Watch this space, as we wouldn’t be surprised if Google does end up rewarding GDPR-compliant sites with higher rankings.

Penalties

If your business is not GDPR-compliant, it could be fined up to 4% of your annual turnover, or 20 million euros, whichever is greater.

If you are in any doubt about GDPR and ensuring your business is GDPR-compliant, take a look at the ICO’s recommendations on preparing for GDPR.

Meanwhile, if you need assistance with improving the rankings of your business on the search engines, using GDPR-compliant techniques, get in touch with Float Digital. Our team of SEO experts will work with you to create a bespoke, carefully-planned SEO strategy to put your business on the top of Google when people search for keywords that are relevant to your business.

Contributor

Helena Baker – Helena is a freelance copywriter based in London and has run her own creative business for close to three years. Providing cracking content with a smile, she has a proactive and efficient approach and works with businesses across sectors. Having created a seamless process she is able to offer polished and targeted content for all marketing collateral. When not meeting with clients she is busy writing her first novel, “Ungraduated.” And away from her trustworthy MacBook she enjoys reading (naturally), going to the gym (she’s a millennial) and consuming her body weight in Pepsi Max and Pick N Mix (it’s all about balance…right?)