What is Gated Content?
Gated content is anything on a website that requires users to complete a form or register for an account in order to access the information/resource. The form will typically require the user’s name and email address. Although, some gated content is behind a paywall.
Gated content is more ‘premium’ in nature as is asks users to trade valuable information in exchange for the website’s information.
One of the most common types of gated content used is a lead magnet. Another is a paywall, where users are unable to continue to access the information on a particular page, until there is payment made.
Why is Gated Content Important?
Gated content is an effective way to generate high quality leads. Where users can access content that is not gated, they can find the information they need and leave, where as gated content allows you to gather valuable information about your audience for potential future marketing initiatives.
Some websites rely on gated content as their primary means of monetisation – primarily subscription-based websites.
One of the major downfalls with gated content is that it makes SEO difficult. Search engines rely on the ability to see content, crawl it and then rank it. With gated content – Google can’t actually see this information on the page and may mistake it for spam content.
So it can become quite difficult for gated content to generate leads and rank online.
How to Rank Gated Content on Google?
Post a Summary
One way to help Google understand the purpose of your gated page content is to has a summary of its contents. That way you don’t have to give all the information away, but can provide Google and users with an idea of what’s to come if they continue.
Follow Google’s Recommendations on Flexible Sampling
Flexible sampling is when a publisher allows users access to a certain number of articles for free prior to putting up a paywall. This allows users to get a sample of the content before committing to purchase.
Indicate Gated Content with Structured Data
To make sure Google doesn’t mistake gated content for a manipulation tactic, you can add strategic structured data to your website.
Leverage “Noarchive” Robots Meta Tag on Gated Content
Sometimes even if you have gated content, users can still access the paywall or form by accessing the cached version of the page on Google. To prevent this from happening, you can add a ‘noarchive’ robots meta tag to the pages with gated content.
