What is GDPR?

by | May 21, 2018 | Digital Development

What is GDPR?

What is GDPR?

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which is new upcoming EU law intended to provide control consumers over their data. It was received on the 27th of April 2016 and will become valid on the 25th of May 2018. It is expected to enhance and boost consumer confidence with stronger control over their data. Also, making it both less demanding and more secure to utilise on the web.

How will it impact on digital marketing and SEO?

On the off chance that you maintain a business or are in charge of the SEO agency, there are high chances you are already aware of the GDPR law. If you are not fully aware of it, you may learn about it now, as it is going to leave a considerable impact on the SEO agencies.

Undoubtedly GDPR can likewise directly affect various issues identifying with SEO. Regardless of whether you work with an SEO firm or do the majority of your digital marketing practice in-house, it’s crucial that you ought to see how GDPR will influence your organisation.

Newsletter/ emails

Once the rule comes into action, you will need to take care that you are just using the data for the purpose; you have made clear to your customers. To tell the truth, if you are asking your client for his email address for newsletter signup, it is strictly for the specific purpose only. You are no longer to use it for any other purpose or general use.

Cookie policy

Consent is another essential element covered in GDPR. If your site is currently working with cookie policy popup, or if there is a form of message there, “by using this website, you agree to our cookie policy”, it is no longer active, after implementation of GDPR. An active form of the message will work rather than the passive one.

Analytics data

Undoubtedly you are using analytics data for various purposes.  You may locate that internal procedure, for example, agencies sharing client’s data with employees through email marketing or some other marketing form may repudiate the standards. To prevent severe, hefty fines and other penalties, ensure you are GDPR compliant with google analytics:

Audit your data

Personally, identifiable information can no longer be collected under GDPR law. If you do gather data, it must be with users consent.

 

Tips

  • Work on your page URLs and page titles.
  • Analyze your data dimensions
  • Address the concern at the code level

 

The Turn on IP Anonymization

If you are familiar with Google Analytics, you do know, that it collects visitors IP automatically. However, it is no longer possible under GDPR regulation.

Tips

  • Turn on the google anonymisation feature in Google analytics.
  • Modify the settings in Google tag manager.

 

Modify your privacy policy

You have to make sure that your privacy policy consists of content which provides user privacy and right over his data. It is high time for making updates in it.

Tips

  • Do mention the type of data you are collecting and why you are collecting it.
  • Make it clear that who is receiving it and if you are going to share it with any other party and for what purpose.

 

Could GDPR will affect the website ranking

Not to mention this, Google and other top search engines always give the top position to the websites in the search results which are safer for the users. According to a most recent example, “HTTPS” become essential for all the websites, rather than “HTTP” which was not considered very seriously in the past. Although it is not yet clear from the Google, that GDPR compliance will affect the website ranking or not, still there are high chances for it in the nearby future.

How to prepare for GDPR and data protection reform?

Raise awareness

  • Ensure that key players in your association know that the laws of information security are evolving. You must guarantee that your business is consistent with the GDPR laws.
  • Don’t leave the changes to the last minutes.
  • Not following GDPR compliance may get you in trouble.

 

Clear consent

  • Moreover, marketers need to make it clear why they are collecting the customer’s data at the point of receiving.
  • No longer will assumptions and difficult pop-up boxes work.

Ensure that use of data is straightforward however after permission of the person.

 

 

 

Check right for individuals

  • Practice the procedures which give rights to individuals as promised under GDPR compliance.
  • The reasons include access to the shared data and inform the individuals about the use of data for a specific activity.
  • Also, secure the erasure and objection right to individuals.

 

 

The right to be forgotten

  • New GDPR compliance provides the rights to individuals to ask for deletion of their data if they ask for it.
  • Companies must store, and utilise data and if asked for data erasure, they must do it before telling the individual.

The right to be forgotten is mandatory and not optional!

 

Hire a data protection officer

  • To ensure you are ready for GDPR compliance, you must have an expert and specialized person with you.
  • Hire a data protection officer before the rule is implemented especially if you are a public authority or if you carry out regular and systematic monitoring of individuals!
  • If you do processing and take care of special categories of data, you must not ignore hiring DPO.

 

 How can we help you?

Unlike other marketing techniques, SEO is already GDPR compliant. It is not about collecting individual’s data before practising it out, in fact, it is to provide the best user experience. We as a leading UK SEO agency is aiming to drive more traffic to your website without practising any technique which is not GDPR compliant.

Here are some of the ideas:

Metadata

To ensure right visitors end up on your web page, sharp and clear Meta title and description will help. More visitors from the search engines will end up on your web page.

Craw

lable pages

If you utilise content that web indexes can read, and add pictures and recordings with appropriate alt labels, it will help web indexes to rank your website pages. Also, it brings along users to your websites, who are explicitly looking for it.

Increase website security

As already announced, it is high time to change your website security certificate from HTTP to HTTPS, if it is still not done. To boost the ranking of your website in search engine, we recommend updating it to HTTPS so that your website ranking will not drop in the search engine.

Short URLs

To give the individuals good guess about where they are heading to, we help your business by using short and keyword-rich URLs. Moreover, it will bring more traffic to your website and reduce the bounce rate automatically.