Ever wonder how to pick the perfect keyword topic for your blog or website, or find one that will have the most value? Most SEO strategists and content creators focus on, at best, two of the eight dimensions they should analyze when creating a keyword strategy for a website. Much …

Knowing where to find good keywords and the proper way to work them into a website’s copy is important, but it’s only a small part of Search Engine Optimization process. Right now, if you’re an SEO specialist, you would want to have anything and everything you can …

Rankings matter. But they’re not the metric you should be focusing on. Google itself recommends that large numbers of links are only generated by unique content with added value for users. In the eyes of the search engine, links are automatically set to great content. They should not be …

Getting high-quality links from outside websites is key — especially if you can find a way to get .edu links. Google sees inbound links coming from websites ending in .edu as especially trustworthy. There's nothing like marketing in the minute. Over time, you’ll gather data that helps you determine which …

Millions of businesses and individuals are competing for visibility in search engines, and many of them are writing what is, subjectively, “good” content. But what makes that content “good”? Build a great series of appropriate backlinks on your site. Have your keyword phrases be in the titles of said links …

Find sites that are relevant to your website but are not direct competitors. The more relevant the links, the more valuable it will be and therefore the easier it will be for them to explain why they are linking to your website. Many SEO campaigns start with keywords – knowing what …

Most searches are short because of what economist and psychologist Herbert Simon called bounded rationality. We exert the smallest effort (short queries) to get an adequate result. We exert more effort (query refinement) only if the initial work didn’t get us what we needed. Google wants to see that …

Syndication takes the credibility of the site you’re syndicating it too and transfers all the link juice and credibility (as well as social proof) over to your website. Syndication is a great way as well to gain a lot more visibility for the same amount of work! Real value …

Don’t forget to tell Google your site is mobile-proof. You can add a viewport declaration – if you’re using responsive design – or a Vary header when using dynamic serving. When a user visits a search engine, they type words into the search box to find what they are looking …

Your blog posts shouldn’t be treated equally. Only select the posts that had the biggest positive impact on your business. Link building boosts your site link popularity, and for ensuring effective link building, you should submit your site in popular search engines manually, as automated submission does not offer …

It's important to quickly address reputation management because as part of the evaluation process Google will analyze what other people say about your website. Constant changes to Google’s search rankings to hinder exploitative techniques and an algorithm that’s as hard to crack as KFC’s herbs and spices …

Any link to another part of the same site is called an internal link. As well as links you'd expect to find (within a site menu bar, for example) you can also create internal links by linking to past posts within newer ones. If you are planning to have more …

How do you find people who value SEO enough to pay your prices? Reviews tell what other people, your customers, think of your product. If you respond to reviews, you show your (potential) customers that you care about their opinion. Each algorithm change brings the search engine closer to its …

Searchers often enter refinements when the initial search doesn’t provide satisfactory results, but the results do provide clues on what to search for. Rather than default to a generic, automatically-generated URL, take time to think about how users would search for your content and include one of those phrases …

Find relevant, high authority sites that partly or completely cover your niche. In Google search, the first 10 results probably belong to high authority sites. In social search, content that has a social connection to you in some way is prioritized. A social connection could mean someone you are linked …

There’s a debate as to whether or not this really matters. How do your competitors drive traffic to their website? What are they doing on social media? Do their posts actually get engagement or not? Importantly, Google is now looking for ways to improve its understanding of non-written words …

You may not want certain pages of your site crawled because they might not be useful to users if found in a search engine's search results. If you do want to prevent search engines from crawling your pages, Google Webmaster Tools has a friendly robots.txt generator to help you …

A great way to incorporate all those valuable local keywords into your website is to create valuable content. Fresh, unique content has great SEO benefits, but it will also help to establish you as a reputable, reliable and knowledgeable business. Plus, you can use it for link-building efforts and share …

Each listing on the SERP has three core components, which include the page title, page description, and page URL. You should refrain from writing articles that are too sensitive or controversial such as adult oriented articles and vulgarity. Keep it simple, keep it direct and informative. That is the best …

According to research by Google, smartphone users have a higher buyer intent than desktop users. They’re focused and ready to buy. It’s your job to be there when they are looking for your products. Two things stand out when it comes to technical SEO; the page speed and …

Consider dropping a link back to your main website in any other websites you may be running. Using one business platform to increase exposure for another is just a good idea, even if you don’t happen to be getting much traffic at those other websites. While many old-school SEOs …

Having a news section on your site is a really good idea. It gives you the opportunity to fit in lots of keywords and it means you are regularly updating your website (which the search engines look favourably on). Having a blog on your site is good for the same …

There are increasing opportunities to use schema markups, depending on your niche. There are numerous schema opportunities for news, recipes, and even fitness video. As time goes on, there will increasingly be more and more opportunities to use schema to enhance your website, tell Google more about your website and …

Going to the library is nearly a thing of the past, but do you remember asking the librarian to help you find a particular book? Well, that’s basically what a search engine does — they’re our modern-day librarians for the Internet. In our technology-driven world, we depend on search …

It’s important to target websites that are related to your niche, so their audience will enjoy and hopefully link to your content. A guest post on a relevant website will also help you attract leads. Search engines are starting to improve how they determine if a website is relevant …

Mobile searches have become more common than ever; which is why it is imperative that you ensure the compatibility of the different pages on your website with mobiles and other devices. Producing content for search engines is also content marketing, list building, and relationship marketing. The process is iterative, so …

Based on the types of backlinks you get, the ranks and traffic would vary. You can know the type of backlinks from webmaster tools. Search engines provide the modern information scientist with a hugely rich data set of search terms commonly used by people to retrieve the web pages they …

Links from longer form, evergreen content (a 1,000+ word article that’s been popular for a long time) will be higher value than short, news-based posts. In their official blog, Google shared some information about featured snippets. If your website is listed with a featured snippet on the search …

Check archive.org (Wayback Machine) or Screenshots.com to make sure the website has a clean history, particularly its most recent history. This has happened to me a couple times, so I look out for it now. If at any point it looks like the domain was home to a …

Once you have your site up and running, there are a number of sitemonitoring tools you can purchase or use for free on the web. In an SEO scenario, Google likes to trust sites that have links from high quality, relevant sources. For example, large news websites don’t generally …

Keyword research is a critical component of SEO. What search terms do people use when searching for products or services similar to yours? How do those terms match up with your site hierarchy? It’s also still worth pursing Wikipedia links when appropriate. Wikipedia is very picky about their references …

When you build a brand community on improving UX, your brand will always stand tall and stay ahead of search engines. Websites with fresh content added on a regular basis are given more authority, and rank higher in the search results. Fresh content tells Google you are maintaining your website …

SEO takes some time. There’s no legitimate way around that. But SEO is also not a one-and-done activity. You can’t SEO a website and call it good. If you want to stay competitive, then SEO shouldn’t stop just because you’ve started seeing results. Understanding which ranking …

As we discovered earlier, if your search result is more compelling than those around it, searchers very well may click on it if it’s within the cluster they’re evaluating, even if it isn’t ranked highest. The overall objective of SEO is to optimise a website for search …

People continually say that SEO is dead and that trying to rank in Google is futile. Then you get a sales pitch that points you to a social media product or some other type of paid traffic gimmick. As touched upon before - backlinks are simply links from other websites directing …

Although it may feel like Google is trying to make our jobs as inbound marketers more difficult, they ultimately want to provide the best user experience, which should be the goal of your website as well. Search engines also rate keywords in header tags more heavily. By including relevant terms …

SEO is here to serve not only you – a website owner, blogger, entrepreneur but most of all a user who, at the same time, is your potential visitor, follower, happy customer and dedicated brand advocate. With Google's mobile-first algorithm, it is very important that your web pages look good on …

A so-called website blocker is something that prevents search engines from accessing the site SEO means Search Engine Optimization – and refers to the process of creating and modifying a website so that it gets more traffic from Google and other search engines. SEO used to be simple and you could …

Sites built around user interaction and sharing have made it easier to match interested groups of people up with relevant content. My friend, if you want to get the top ranking in mobile-first indexing, you should closely watch the content of your website and ensure that the content is optimized …

Inbound links pointing from other websites to your website are critical to establish the credibility of your business in Google’s eyes. Make sure that the links you build are natural and that Google doesn't conclude that you're trying to manipulate its search algorithm. The readability of your content has …

Any business with a bonafide brick-and-mortar location is eligible for a Google My Business listing at that location. For businesses with two or more locations, each location would be eligible for a distinct GMB listing. Keywords should appear in important on-page elements like the page title, heading, image alt text …

Anchor text can take a number of different forms from keyword related anchors, to branded anchors, to normal URLs. Link building is hard and getting high-quality links is a time-consuming process. If you’re tempted by quick win strategies or tactics then don’t be surprised when your rankings start …

If you're a relatively new blog & would be willing to write a blog post for the sake of getting one solid, contextual link, then blog carnivals are a no brainer. Basically, blog carnivals are a blog community that writes about certain topics as a group. These posts then get linked …

With the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and e-readers, more people prefer using their mobile devices for searching the web and consuming content. Brands need to keep their websites up to speed. The most important thing to know about Google Answer Boxes is that they are powered by Google Knowledge Graphs …

Putting your individuality and personality across throughout the off-site SEO process (outreach emails, guest posts, social shares, etc.) makes others more likely to engage with you. Craft your unique selling proposition (USP) based on your own personality and the way you can best solve your customers’ problems. Fast web pages …

Many webmasters see Panda as a type of Google penalty—but it's not, really. Panda is a collection of measurements Google is taking of your web pages to try and give your pages a rating on how happy users are likely to be with those pages. A good page titles …

The meta keywords tag allows you to provide additional text for search engines to index along with the rest of what you’ve written on your page. Meta keywords can emphasize a particular word or phrase in the main body of your text. In Google search, a headline with a …

Effective search acquisition begins with learning more about your customers and what they’re searching for. From there, you can assess your site and make sure it satisfies the needs of those searchers. When optimizing for conversion, it is critical to gain some perspective into the psychographics of your target …

Research proves the importance of gaining a presence on the first three pages returned by the search engines. Being on the first page of the search engine results page (SERPS) should always be the target. Many marketers are now promoting that stuff like link building is dead and so on …

Like it or not, your business’s Google rankings can have a huge effect on its success, growth, and meeting your goals. For many content marketers, organic traffic earned through SEO is like a holiday bonus: It’s cool if it happens, but no one is planning their monthly budget …