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You built a website, but nobody’s visiting. It happens to the best of us. Just building a website isn’t enough. You need to get it listed with search engines and attract organic search traffic. Regarding traffic, more specifically, you need Google search traffic. Google accounts for nearly 78% of all organic search traffic according to Smart Insights....
Ever since Google made the announcement that HTTPS is a ranking signal, there has been a lot of discussion around that extra ‘s’. There are clear benefits to obtaining that sought-after green padlock, but there is also a lot of nervousness around actually making the switch. The apprehension is understandable; as with any big change to a website, mistakes have the potential to be extremely costly – both to the user experience and to search visibility. Any risk of a drop in rankings has SEOs quivering in their boots. However, this is not reason enough to avoid the change. There has been an almighty push towards creating a more secure web. There is a pressure for website owners to take responsibility for the security of their sites; those who do will be duly rewarded by Google....
We believed that rich snippets in SERPs would become more prominent — especially with mobile and voice search on the rise — and that, even without proper attribution, it would benefit our client to appear in these types of search results, especially if we were able to rank in long-tail, question-oriented searches. If we could rank in a featured snippet, where a potential consumer was asking a question about a service that we provide, it would benefit us to answer that question for them. Not only would we achieve the coveted “zero position,” we would position our client as authorities in their vertical, potentially increasing conversions. With this in mind, we began developing the strategy that would ultimately lead us to ranking in featured snippet searches. Q&A content Question and answer content on websites is fairly standard. Many companies will place Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) content on their sites to help users with any questions they may have instead of answering them directly. Noting the prevalence of featured snippets in SERPs, we used the Q&A format to create new content to find out: a) could we rank for these queries? and b) would it benefit our client to rank in these queries?...
The question isn’t whether you should invest in SEO, but more about which activities you should invest in to get the best results.
This article will take a closer look at what it takes to rank on page one of Google and where you should be investing your money.
When you think about improving your SEO, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Maybe you think of rewriting your web copy to rank better for certain keywords, churning out new posts for your blog, or making sure your website is structured in a logical way. All of these are important aspects of ranking well in search engines, but they aren’t the only ways you can optimize your web presence. If you want to rank better and get more traffic, you need to improve your off-page SEO, too. This guide will help you get started....
Keyword intent represents the user’s purpose for the search. It’s what the user is likely to do when searching for a particular phrase. Or, to be more precise, it’s what we think the user is likely to do, since we cannot always be sure. Intent is undoubtedly the most important concept when it comes to keyword research. It helps you meet the users’ needs better and match your content and landing pages to their intentions. Analyzing keywords by intent is thus your first step when diagnosing conversion issues when it comes to search referrals....
The craft that is your business navigates the local waterways. Whether yours is an independently owned natural foods store or a medical enterprise with hundreds of locations, it can be easy to get lost cresting all of the little waves that hit our industry, week by week, year after year. Google endorses review kiosks and then outlaws them. They pop your dental practice into a carousel and then disband this whole display for your industry. You need to be schema-encoded, socially active, mobile-friendly, voice-ready… it’s a lot to take in. So let’s weigh anchor for a few minutes, in the midst of these never-ending eddies, to evaluate whether all of the developments of the past few years add up to a disjointed jumble of events or represent a genuine sea change in our industry. Let’s see which way the wind is really blowing in local search marketing....
DA (domain authority) is measured on a scale of 1 to 100. The closer you are to 100, the more traffic and better ranking you’ll have. But––you guessed it––a low DA can result in huge losses of traffic and ranking. That’s why it’s important to have a good DA. I see lots of people having trouble changing their DA and that’s because it’s somewhat of a long-term process. You can’t just make a couple of changes and expect your DA to skyrocket. However, there are actionable steps you can take to improve your DA. It won’t happen overnight, but it’ll happen faster than you think. I’ve put together this plan that helped one of my clients increase their DA by 5 points in just 2 weeks. Take it from me. This plan works....
Imagine a world without search engines. It’s easy if you try. No more surprise Google updates. No more worrying about XML sitemaps, robots.txt, and content analysis and optimization. And perhaps most importantly, no more keyword research. That last one means you’re going to have to go old-school to figure out the language of your audience to reflect it back to them. It’s going to take a lot more work....
Want more people to find and read your content? Then you need to be visible on search engines like Google. That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) is so important—because search engines remain the web’s dominant traffic driver. Even if you know little to nothing about SEO, Google has made two things clear: - It’s important that other websites link to yours. Since the beginning, links have helped Google figure out how to rank all the content that exists on the web. - You need to publish relevant content. If you want people to link to you, you need great content. And it needs to match the intent of the person searching for the things you sell or know lots about. But Google is evolving....
Most web designers don't have a clue when it comes to true SEO. Find out about 10 web design mistakes that can kill SEO efforts and learn how to fix them. My point is that even the so-called experts often make mistakes that have a negative impact on SEO. Sometimes because of ignorance and other times because they overlook critical details. So today, I want to help you avoid that by sharing some of the website mistakes I commonly see that kill SEOefforts. 10 design mistakes to avoid Failing to set quantifiable goals and measure your results ↓ Not thoroughly testing all design elements ↓ Not prioritizing page speed ↓ Improperly sized/unoptimized media ↓ Not prioritizing responsive design ↓ Changes in URL structure ↓ Ignoring website security ↓ Failing to test mission-critical elements ↓ Making excessive http requests ↓ Skipping the final launch checklist ↓
SEO is ultimately in the hands of Google that’s perpetually tweaking and improving its algorithm for optimal user experience.
This means plenty of potential for those who stay on top of things and continually rethink their game plan.
And to me, success largely comes from planning ahead and always having a strategy in place for getting to where I need to go.
That’s why I brainstormed some key aspects of SEO that I feel are most important for 2017....
Not to sound like a sleazy used-car salesman or an obnoxious motivational speaker, but there’s definitely a recipe for crushing it with your keywords. During the years, I’ve experimented with nearly everything under the sun and have come up with a surefire formula for dominating the SEO game by targeting the right keyword and tailoring your campaign to reach your audience. Here’s how to do it step by step....
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In Episode #399, Eric and Neil discuss how to rank a 10-page website. Tune in to learn how you can slowly gain traction in spite of only having a few pages by placing massive emphasis on the quality of those 10 pages. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: How to Rank a 10-Page Website 00:40 – Neil picked 10 pages because a lot of people have small websites 00:45 – A 500-page website is easier to rank 00:56 – The more text you have on the page, the more likely you are to rank 01:03 – A 10-page website can still rank but it will never get as much traffic as a Wikipedia 01:10 – A small website should focus on link building and outreach 01:14 – Make sure your content is detailed and thorough 01:18 – Brian Dean of Backlinko started with only a handful of pages website 01:33 – The quality of his content is high...
You can bet your family jewels that the SEO scene isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. If anything, the landscape has grown to be such a ruthless, cutthroat, and merciless space where a business can easily be overtaken by their competitors in the blink of an eye. That being said, if you want to improve your search ranking, and remain relevant and competitive in your industry, then you need to stay abreast of the current SEO trends and techniques. Well… I want to help you with just that....
Small sites do stand a chance.In my SEO career, I’ve advised for more sites than I can count. I’ve worked with big and small sites on all kinds of budgets. And I found out that a lot of the SEO principles that apply to larger sites actually apply to smaller sites as well. As the title of this article suggests, you can do big-scale SEO on a tiny site....
SEO is not always the best answer for every business. There are thriving businesses that don’t rely on SEO at all – think about that tiny local bakery, bookshop, or hairdresser (there are plenty in my Italian town) who might have put up a Facebook page but not a website. If they have one, they only use basic on-page SEO and they don’t use it for customer acquisition anyway, because they get most of their clientele by word of mouth. So you might be wondering: When is it better to focus budget and resources on SEO? And when is that not a good idea? The short answer is: it depends on your business goals and on the psychology of your customer. For the long answer… this article is the answer....
There are plugins for just about everything, including SEO. (Right now there are 219 pages full of SEO plugins on WordPress.org.) So you might be wondering what the best SEO plugins are. I’m going to show you my 46 favorite plugins for all things SEO. Even if you only use a handful, you’re guaranteed to improve your SEO. To top it all off, it’ll be dead easy, so you don’t need to be an expert web developer to use these plugins....
Sometimes you do everything right, and it works like it should. Other times you do everything right, but nothing happens. But here’s the good news.If your rankings are stuck, there are things you can do to help them move up in the SERPs. It’s absolutely possible. Today, I’m going to show you exactly what to do to get your rankings up....
In this post, I have a look at how SEO should be an integral part of your website design (or redesign) process. We are going to look at what you need to consider to have a site that is built for search marketing and lead generation — and how focusing on happy users keeps the Google gods on your side. We will also take a look at some of the common pitfalls that can befall businesses looking to build a new website that is central to your digital marketing efforts. In brief, I am going to help you ensure your next site is a lean, mean SEO and digital marketing machine....
How much does page load time actually affect your conversion rates?If your website takes longer than three seconds to load, you could be losing nearly half of your visitors, according to data from Akamai. It's pretty simple: the faster the speed of your website, the happier your visitors will be. Optimizing page load time leads to noticeable improvements in customer experience, conversion rates, and ultimately, your sales revenue. In fact, reducing your website's page load time can have a surprisingly positive impact on your entire marketing and sales pipelines. Up to 79% of customers who are dissatisfied with a website's performance say they're less likely to buy from the same site again. But can big business issues actually be solved simply by shaving off a few milliseconds on your website's page load time? To see the real power of page load time, we at Skilled compiled 12 case studies from real companies in the infographic below. These examples illustrate the impact reducing page load time Take a look at the 12 case studies presented in the infographic below to learn more about the benefits of optimizing page load time....
More recently, Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller stated in a Google Webmaster Central office hours hangout that keywords in URLs are a “really small ranking factor”. But small can still make a difference in the grand scheme of things, and there are also compelling reasons from a usability standpoint to include keywords where they are relevant. A new study by HigherVisibility.com, whose findings were shared exclusively with Search Engine Watch, set out to investigate the relationship between the top ranked websites in various industries and the inclusion of keywords in their URLs. It found that nearly two thirds of top-ranking websites use keywords in their URLs – but this can vary significantly from industry to industry. So what can we learn from the findings about the importance of having keywords in your domain URL?...
SEO Tооlѕ If уоu аrе lооkіng fоr wауѕ tо іmрrоvе уоur wеbѕіtе’ѕ ѕеаrсh еngіnе rаnkіng, уоu сlеаrlу nееd thе bеѕt SEO tооl thаt саn wоrk wоndеrѕ! Wіth SEO tооlѕ, уоu аrе gіvіng аn еdgе tо уоur buѕіnеѕѕ, оvеr іtѕ соmреtіtоrѕ. Amоng аll thе tесhnіԛuеѕ uѕеd tо ѕtudу аnd dеtеrmіnе thе ѕtаtuѕ оf еvеrу wеbѕіtе, rеѕеаrсhіng hаѕ рrоvеd tо ѕhоw a rаdісаl dеvеlорmеnt іn уоur ѕеаrсh еngіnе rаnkіngѕ. SEO tооlѕ саn rеѕоlvе еасh оf уоur соuntlеѕѕ рrоblеmѕ....
Every site starts off small. When I started out, I was terrified no one was ever going to visit my site. I resisted SEO because I thought it wouldn’t help. How wrong I was! Today, SEO plays an important role in my marketing, and it’s one of the first things I suggest to people. If you have a tiny website that no one visits, spend some time doing some SEO. You might be surprised at the result. It doesn’t have to be difficult or take a long time. Here’s how to do SEO on a site with no traffic....
Ranking among the top Google search results is increasingly driven by dynamic factors, such as content relevance and user intent, rather than static factors, such as the number of keywords and links on a webpage, according to recent research from Searchmetrics.
The annual Searchmetrics ranking factors report was based on an analysis conducted in 2016 of Google search results for 10,000 keywords. The researchers examined which webpages were presented in the top 10 mobile and desktop results for each keyword and then determined which factors correlated to high rankings.
The presence of a few technical requirements, such as H1 tags and HTTPS encryption, help pages rank well across almost all keywords, the analysis found.
However, many of the other factors that influence high search rank, such as time spent on site and click-through rate (CTR), are dependent on individual searchers and pieces of content.
The fact that top search results for keywords are now driven less and less by universal factors led Searchmetrics to conclude that marketers should increasingly focus on topic-specific SEO/content tactics rather than broad approaches....
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SEO tips you can put into gear easily from Neil Patel.