How GDPR Can Impact WordPress SEO Strategy

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in effect since May 25, 2018. This European Union regulation is designed to protect the data privacy of EU citizens and has far-reaching implications for businesses of all sizes around the world.

If you use WordPress to run your website, then you need to ensure that your site is GDPR compliant. It’s also important to make sure that your SEO strategy is optimized for GDPR compliance. This can be a daunting task, but don’t worry!

In this post, we’re going to help you navigate GDPR and provide you with valuable tips on how to optimize your WordPress SEO strategy to comply with this regulation. From understanding the basics of GDPR to optimizing your website for search engines and user experience, we’ve got you covered. So let’s dive in!

Why Is the GDPR So Important?

People who live in nations that are part of the European Union will have their personal data protected from companies that are malicious thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

These recommendations are applicable to any business that collects and processes personal information from inhabitants of the European Union. The regulation applies to companies located outside of the EU as long as such firm’s service clients located inside the EU.

This regulation intends to transform the way businesses think about data privacy as well as provide customers more control over the data collected about them.

When you own a website built with WordPress, you could find yourself wondering whether or not this legislation affects you. Yes, it does. If a company’s customers are located in the EU, then that company, regardless of how big or small it is, is required to comply with these standards.

How Will the GDPR Affect Businesses That Have an Online Presence?

When you think about client data for an online company, the first things that automatically spring to mind are things like a customer’s name, email address, purchase history, and telephone number. Data may also be found in forms that you would not immediately recognize, such as the following examples:

• Cookies used for remarketing
• IP addresses
• Cookies used by AdWords

The collecting of data is very important to the operation of an internet company. Without it, there is not much that can be done in terms of marketing and promotion.

The recommendations provided by GDPR are likely to have an impact on the way in which you gather and handle consumer data. Website users have a legal right to be informed of whether or not their data has been collected, as well as the purposes for which it will be used.

Although it may seem to be a lot, adhering to the standards of the GDPR is really not that difficult. You primarily need a privacy policy that explains how you gather data, what you do with it, and who you share it with, as well as who you share it with.

You may guarantee that you are in compliance with the standards of the GDPR by being familiar with the best practices for safeguarding customer data.

The impact of GDPR on SEO

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. It affects how businesses collect, use, and store personal data of EU citizens. As a result, GDPR has had a significant impact on SEO practices for businesses operating in the EU or those that collect data from EU citizens.

One of the biggest GDPR Impact WordPress SEO Strategy is the use of cookies. Before GDPR, many websites would use cookies to track user behavior and improve their SEO.

However, under GDPR, websites must obtain explicit consent from users before placing cookies on their devices. This means that businesses must be transparent about the cookies they use and allow users to opt-in or opt-out of cookie collection.

Another impact of GDPR on SEO is the use of personal data for targeting and retargeting ads. GDPR requires businesses to obtain explicit consent from users before collecting and using their personal data for marketing purposes. This means that businesses must be transparent about how they use personal data and allow users to opt-in or opt-out of data collection for marketing purposes.

Overall, GDPR has made it more important than ever for businesses to be transparent and ethical in their data collection and usage practices. By being transparent and allowing users to control their data, businesses can build trust with their customers and improve their SEO in the long run.

What you must not do?

All of this can give the impression that it will hinder your efforts to improve your international SEO. As a result of this, several strategies might be under consideration at certain companies in order to sidestep the requirements of the GDPR. The most prevalent ones are as follows:

1. Putting a Stop to Traffic Coming From EU Countries

Taking this drastic course of action will have a negative impact on your company. It indicates that you will be unable to extend your company into new markets abroad.

Aside from that, you will be restricting bots and crawlers coming from nations inside the EU, which may result in the loss of prospective backlinks as well as your domain authority. Doing so will, in the end, have an effect on where you stand in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

There is also the possibility that a client who is not a citizen of the EU and is visiting our nation would have a negative interaction with your website while they are here, which will result in consumer unhappiness.

2. Turning All of the Traffic Over to the Compliance Page

There are more folks than simply those that go to your page. Additionally, Google will crawl to your website. Because of this, sending everyone to a compliance page will ultimately have an impact on the rankings you get in the EU.

3. Providing Google Customers in the EU With a Different Page

This practice, known as concealing, is not recommended since it will have a detrimental impact on the search engine optimization of your website and may result in penalties. People will trick search engines in this way, but it will have no positive impact on the search engines in the long term.

Best practices for optimizing your WordPress site for GDPR compliance

The importance of GDPR Impact WordPress SEO Strategy and its rules are not anticipated to undergo any changes in the near future. Your only option is to conduct an SEO audit on a regular basis to guarantee that you are maintaining compliance with applicable standards while putting your SEO plans into action.

The failure to adhere to these requirements will result in monetary penalties. Depending on how severe the infringement was, this may be anywhere from 2% to 4% of your company’s sales.

There are strategies that have been shown to be successful, despite the fact that it is probable that these restrictions will have an influence on the campaigns you are now running. These are the tried-and-true methods, often known as the conventional procedures.

1. Create meta titles and descriptions

Users examine the titles and descriptions of the Meta tags before selecting the links they will click on. You may increase the likelihood of more people visiting your website by writing a meta title and description that is compelling, in addition to being truthful, relevant, and engaging.

In addition, verify that the material is unique, since plagiarism may have a negative impact on your search engine optimization.

2. Include Keywords Inside of Your Target URLs

If your company services customers that come from a variety of regions, this is an essential strategy to implement. Even a little improvement in your rating is possible as a result of doing so.

3. Design a website that is responsive on mobile devices

The number of individuals accessing websites using their mobile phones has surpassed that of laptops and desktop PCs. If your website is not optimized for mobile use, you will most likely have a lower ranking on the pages of search engines.

4. GDPR Safety and Security

Even if the GDPR requirements are intended to safeguard the data of users, there is something that you can do to boost your website’s level of safety and visibility.

Search engines like Google have acknowledged that websites that use SSL or HTTPS obtain a ranking advantage as a result. As a result, you may improve your results while also maintaining in compliance with GDPR.

5. GDPR with Google Analytics

This is yet another technique that may improve your rating while also guaranteeing that you are in compliance with GDPR. The main problem is that it gathers data, which may be in violation of the restrictions established by GDPR. You may avoid this by adjusting the settings for your Google Analytics account to ensure that it complies with the GDPR.

Bottom Line
We hope that this article on navigating GDPR and optimizing your GDPR impact WordPress SEO strategy has been informative and helpful. With the new regulations in place, it’s important to make sure your website is compliant and that your SEO strategy is optimized for success.