So, what can you do to help move the needle forward? Most people invest their time and resources into planning and executing various SEO (Search Engine Optimization) initiatives. However, with so many different variables to focus on, knowing how to prioritize your efforts can seem like an impossible task.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the most common misconceptions about SEO work and what you should focus on to help your website rank higher, depending on where your current pages are ranking.

Addressing Common SEO Misconceptions

Most people are already familiar with the benefits associated with SEO, especially when it comes to helping to bring in more organic web traffic to their website. However, there are many so-called “SEO experts” out there who all think they have the secret sauce when it comes to getting a site ranked higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) in half the time.

Unfortunately, this leads many people to go down a slippery slope of spammy activities that actually do more harm than good. Below are some common misconceptions surrounding SEO and areas to avoid:

You Should Use Your Keywords As Many Times As You Can

Keyword research and targeting is a core component of SEO. By finding the right keyword or phrases associated with your niche, you can potentially start to rank for various terms that can equate to a large amount of search traffic. However, the thought that you should use as many of these keywords in your content as possible is inaccurate.

While it is helpful to use keywords in strategic places throughout your site and in your content, the necessary density % of these keywords has changed considerably over the years. Search engines have become wise to the tactics that many SEO practitioners have used over the past to try to improve their rankings and have changed their algorithms accordingly.

Today, search engines use literally hundreds of factors to help determine the relevance of a website to a user’s query, but keyword choice and placement are only a small part of the larger puzzle. Placing too much emphasis on keywords can harm an effective SEO campaign.

The More Backlinks You Gain, The Better

Acquiring backlinks to your website can be an impactful way to start building authority for your website domain and play an important role in helping you rank your content much faster. However, over the years, there have been a number of black hat SEO services and techniques used to gain as many backlinks as possible to a website in an effort to scale rankings much faster.

When trying to gain as many links as possible to your website, it’s almost always doomed to fail, considering the strict guidelines search engines like Google now have in place when penalizing websites that participate in black hat SEO practices. In fact, having too many links to your website from anything but reputable or high-authority websites can actually have the reverse impact on your rankings.

Although establishing backlinks to your website is an important element of SEO, quality vs. quantity is the key here. It’s better to have one link from a reputable publication or blog than it is from ten unreliable sources. 

On-Page SEO Is The Most Critical Element

On-page SEO is a critical part of a holistic digital marketing strategy. However, it’s not the end-all and be-all of efforts that can help you bring in more organic web traffic. While it’s important, it shouldn’t monopolize all of your time and resources improving.

Most people place their primary focus on on-page SEO due to its relative accessibility. It’s much easier to make changes on your current website and see some quick results when compared to other external efforts. These other off-page SEO efforts, like link building and social media, often take time and prospecting efforts, which don’t always offer the most immediate benefits.

Still, ignoring other important SEO factors and instead prioritizing only on-page SEO is a mistake. It can make it much harder to rank your content effectively in the long-run.

Strategizing Your SEO Based on Keyword Rankings

Because there are so many variables involved with planning and executing an SEO campaign, it’s only natural to feel a bit overwhelmed by the process. But rather than feeling like you need to throw darts while being blindfolded, there are effective strategies you can apply depending on the current positioning of your keyword rankings on certain pages.

Below are some guidelines you can follow while adapting your strategies as your pages start to rank:

Not Currently Ranking or Higher Than 50

All new web pages you create will take time to be indexed and start ranking. In fact, some never rank at all – it really depends on how well you’ve optimized your site and other elements to support your SEO efforts. However, there are steps you can follow when you see your page not currently ranking or in the 50th or higher position on SERPs.

The most critical thing you can do at this stage is take a better look at your keywords and the type of search intent associated with them. Knowing this information is critical and helps search engines prioritize their results based off of how relevant you are when answering this intent.

The various types of search intent include:

• Navigational – This type of search intent is made by users that already know the type of product or service they’re interested in – they simply want to find a specific website or rand. These types of searches usually have a brand name in the keyword phrase.

• Informational – The majority of searches online are informational in nature, with users looking for answers to specific questions. This might mean you’ll want to format your continent into a how-to guide or more educational content around a particular topic to answer this intent effectively.

• Transactional – When a user has a transactional intent to their query, this means they are close to making a purchase. These types of search terms are generally much more competitive to target, considering that they are closely associated with increased conversion rates. An example of a transactional search intent would be “best 60-inch TVs” or “top marketing software.” 

• Commercial – Someone who is using a commercial intent is typically comparing various brands before moving to a decision-making stage. This is typical when looking to review several types of services before committing to one in particular.

Gaining Some Visibility and Ranking Between 11-40

Once you start to see your rankings climb and rest somewhere between the top 11 and 40 results, you’ll want to start shifting gears in your SEO approach. At this stage, a balanced focus on on- and off-page SEO is preferred.

One of the most impactful things you can do at this stage is to put more priority on your link-building campaigns. You’ll want to invest the time and resources necessary to prospect high-quality, reputable websites and design outreach programs to try to connect and secure new partnerships with these sites.

Although this can be time-intensive, the web authority that you can build over time can pay off considerably and start to help improve your rankings even further.

Achieving First Page Rankings Between 1-10

Getting your website pages to the first page of Google’s SERPs isn’t easy by any means. If you’re able to get to this point, you should take comfort in knowing that your hard SEO work is finally being rewarded. That being said, your work isn’t over yet.

It’s important to look at the state of your website and individual pages of content and focus on ways you can improve the user experience. Search engines like Google highly value websites that keep users engaged and avoid high bounce rates and disconnected experiences. Look for ways you can improve your site’s navigation and incorporate elements that help users stay on your website longer.

The more you can avoid users becoming uninterested in your content, the less chance that they’ll abandon their search prematurely. This gives impactful ranking signals to Google that can improve your website rankings and keep them there.

Maximize The Impact of Your SEO Efforts

By implementing these strategies and focusing your SEO efforts in the right areas, you’ll be able to see more consistent rankings on your website, improving your visibility and increasing your organic web traffic over time.

The post How to Know Where To Focus Your SEO Efforts appeared first on SiteProNews.

Be Aware That Algorithmic Change Is Constant

SEO is not something that ever remains stagnant or unchanging. As a website owner, such as a self storage website owner, you must be aware that constant change in regards to how Google does things is always on the horizon. For example, in May 2024, there were two separate algorithm updates on May 6th and May 14th, respectively. These updates weren’t insignificant. The May 6th update regarded “reputation abuse” that could get sites de-indexed from Google all together. The May 14th update involved the implementation of AI into search engine results to produce automated summaries.

Both of these updates could have big impacts on websites, and they were only launched eight days apart. While there may be larger gaps between updates, that all can change quite suddenly when Google decides to launch significant updates back to back. This is what you should come to expect from Google. There will always be change, and the next change will not be that far into the future. Treat SEO as a continuing business process. It is never a one-time investment.

Prioritize User Value Over Gaming the Algorithm

In the past, website owners learned “tricks” that allowed them to “game” Google’s algorithm by doing little things that allowed them to obtain a high search engine ranking without actually publishing content that users wanted to see. This produced a lot of spam-like websites with little actual value to users. While these so-called tricks may have worked for a period of years, Google eventually became wise to the strategies implemented.

In direct response to this abuse, Google’s algorithms were tweaked to the point that they are now designed to use different means to assess the actual quality and utility of the content provided to users through a particular website. No longer is SEO only about things like keywords and meta tags. Instead, it’s more about the user experience. If your website does not provide value to users, it will be de-emphasized in Google search results. In more extreme cases, your site may be de-indexed altogether.

Obtain High-Quality Links

Beyond quality content that provides value and utility to users, one strategy that is still proven to work in regard to building strong SEO is obtaining high-quality links to your website. Google still sees this as an indicator that your website is trustworthy and considered valuable to the wider internet community. However, the key here is that the links have to have what Google considers to be “high quality.” Alternatively, a lot of “low-quality” links could have the exact opposite effect of the algorithm punishing your website.

The difference between low-quality and high-quality links is not too complicated to understand. One of the metrics Google uses to judge links is something known as “authority.” Authority, in this instance, is the authority, perceived by Google, of a website that links to another website. If a website is highly ranked on Google already, say on the first page of search results, chances are that getting a link on that website will greatly benefit your own.

However, this will not be as easy as simply signing up for Twitter and spamming links to your website. Google is obviously aware of how easy it is to do so, and social media links are certainly judged differently than a very popular independent blog would be. Simply linking to your site in the comments section of that blog won’t work either. The links should be presented in a way that again provides value to users, as opposed to a simple advertisement, and obtained in a way that appears to be a legitimate endorsement from that website.

Rely on Authorship Instead of AI

One thing that has certainly created a lot of hype recently is artificial intelligence. Many business owners may assume that the benefits of AI are limitless and that it can be successfully used to slash costs and increase efficiency across the board for any application. This, of course, includes website content generation. While the idea of producing website content like blog posts and the like through AI may seem novel now, Google is already accounting for it. Google is already aware that AI-produced content can be used as another simple means of gaming the system. This is especially true if the AI-generated content is not actually useful to actual human beings, which is certainly the case for a lot of the generic, boring, factually incorrect, and, at times, nonsensical AI-produced content.

Instead, Google, anticipating the negative impact of current AI’s impact on website content, has begun to emphasize something known as “quality authorship.” What this means is that whoever is credited with creating, writing, or producing a website’s content will now be taken into consideration in determining how a website is ranked by Google. This means that value will be added in regards to SEO when you credit actual authors. Authors who are assessed by Google to be popular or experts may receive a more favorable boost in rankings.

Overall, Google’s number one criteria these days is assessing the user experience. If your website tries to game the algorithm without providing much to users in exchange, you can expect the algorithm to eventually catch up with your strategies. While they may work today, the probability is that they will not work forever.

The post Tips for Keeping Your SEO Strategy Current Throughout Google Changes appeared first on SiteProNews.

1. Know Who Your Customers Are

Before you try to implement any SEO tactics, you should first stop to consider who you are trying to target. Do research into your target demographic and try to understand your customers. Many businesses believe that marketing is about selling products; however, if you plan on creating an SEO strategy for SMB, we recommend that you change your mindset.

Marketing is about understanding the needs of your customer. Realize that your products are there to help customers solve everyday problems. Take a moment to think about what kinds of issues your users may face and how your products can help. Make a detailed profile of your perfect customer, and have them in mind when designing your entire SEO strategy. A customer-centric approach can yield excellent results, especially for small and medium businesses, where it’s much easier to have direct communication with your customers.

2. Do Keyword Research

Now that you have a good idea of who your customers are, it’s time to understand better what they are searching for online. Keywords are the cornerstone of any SEO strategy, and they bring users from simple browser searches to the pages of your website. Don’t let keywords intimidate you if you are beginning to learn about SEO. Researching and understanding them is relatively easy. There are plenty of free keyword research tools available to help you find the relevant search terms for your business. It’s also advisable to check up on your competition. See which keywords they are ranking for and how well they are performing. That is going to be the benchmark you will need to beat.

Once you’ve found your keywords, you’ll need to implement them in your pages naturally. Many inexperienced marketers try to fit too many keywords on a single page, or perhaps they repeat the same keyword far too many times. This is known as keyword stuffing, and it’s a practice that should be avoided. Search engines consider that to be a black hat technique, and they will give you an SEO penalty if you try to abuse the system.

3. Set Goals and Measure Your Current Performance

Most businesses are out there to make a profit, and SEO can help with that. However, SEO can be used for a wide variety of purposes, such as building awareness for your brand, increasing your website traffic, or generating leads. A vital step to creating an SEO strategy for SMB is to plan out the goals you want to achieve. Of course, it’s possible to do multiple things at once, but you should be careful that you don’t spread yourself out too thin.

We also recommend measuring how your business performs before adopting an SEO strategy or implementing any changes. You’ll want to know how effective your strategy is, and for that to work, you will need to have a baseline. Know what kind of traffic you are currently generating and where it’s coming from.

4. Create and Optimize Pages

The chances are that your current website isn’t optimized for your SEO needs. You could rework your existing pages to fit the keywords you have researched, but most often, it’s simply better to create new pages. It’s essential to ensure that individual topics you want to cover get their pages and that every page serves a purpose. You’ll also need to have a plan for optimizing your current content. Make sure that articles are structured with headlines and that your pages have meta descriptions and alt-tags. You can use internal links to help users navigate your site and find the topics they might also be interested in.

You should also take the same approach that we previously mentioned regarding keyword stuffing. Often, it’s good to show a little restraint, and when it comes to SEO – less is more. Make sure that you keep the needs of your users in mind when you are building pages for your site. Try to use SEO techniques naturally and organically.

5. Utilize Local SEO

An often overlooked part of SEO is optimizing for local searches. Small businesses get most of their customers from their local area. Therefore, SMB needs to have a plan for local SEO. Getting on Google’s map pack can hugely boost your visibility in local searches, so you should claim your Google Business listing. You can also post your listing on other websites that have business citations.

Another good idea is developing a plan for hosting or supporting local events. Anything that can directly connect you to your local community will positively impact your SEO. If there are any local publications, you can contact them with a press release.

6. Get Users to Participate

Search engines will reward you with a better rank if they realize that your website has good user engagement. There are many ways to engage your audience. Still, one of the most important ones for small and medium businesses is having a section of your website dedicated to customer testimonials and reviews. This will directly get users to interact with your website. However, there is an additional benefit to having reviews publically visible. When other users look up your business, they will see how many existing customers you have—seeing your positive reviews can be the nudge they need to decide to do business with you.

In Conclusion

As you can see, developing an SEO strategy isn’t too complicated. Just follow our list of six important steps to creating an SEO strategy for SMB, and you will be on the right course for achieving a high rank in SERPS and getting more organic traffic to your website.

The post 6 Important Steps to Creating an SEO Strategy for SMB appeared first on SiteProNews.

SEO evolves because user preferences evolve. However angry you may be at the latest Google algorithm change, keep this in mind: much like yourself, Google also wants to keep users engaged for as long as possible. They definitely have a bigger budget and a bigger database than you do to research and implement the changes users need. So, instead of hating the latest changes, I suggest you look at them as opportunities to keep your users engaged for longer – and buying more.

If you are unsure whether your SEO strategy is up to date, take a look at the things you shouldn’t be doing anymore:

1. Keyword Stuffing

Modern SEO has (thankfully!) moved away from keyword stuffed articles that are illegible by human readers. You can now write naturally, without fearing that you won’t rank high enough.

The advantage is clear: your content can now rank in search engines and convert users because it’s well-written! Check out this case study of how my agency has managed to meet both these goals for a client of ours through naturally-written, high-converting content.

2. Bad Keyword Matches

User intent should be at the very core of any marketing strategy you create and SEO is no exception. In the olden days, SEO specialists would try and optimize their content for generic keywords, like “best coffee”.

Today’s SEO writers (the good ones, at least) know that generic keywords are very hard to match with user intent. For instance, is someone who types “best coffee” into the search bar looking to buy it or are they just looking for information on what the world’s best coffee is?

Moreover, are they looking to buy ready-made coffee or do they want coffee beans for home use? Depending on what your business is, these distinctions are crucial.

A coffee shop would need to optimize for “best coffee in Tampa Bay center” or make sure their profile on Google Maps is up to date so they can pop up when someone looks for “best coffee near me”. A shop selling specialty coffee beans would need to optimize for “best coffee beans delivery Tampa Bay” or, better yet, target a more specialized audience with “best Colombian coffee beans price”. Finally, if you run a website for coffee aficionados and/or use affiliate links, then you can try and optimize for a high-volume, high-competition keyword like “best coffee”.

3. Content Spinning

10 years ago, article spinning was a lucrative industry, whether it involved software that would spin content automatically or humans who would do it manually. The principle was simple: find an article online that matches your goals and spin it so it’s not duplicate content. Then publish it on your website as if it were your own.

This came with several problems: the ethical one (of course!), the fact that automatic spinners simply replaced some words with their synonyms (and not always the best matches), which resulted in illegible content, and the fact that readers catch on when they see “reheated” content.

If you’re still doing that, it’s time you stopped. It’s not just ethically wrong and bad for your brand, but it’s also useless. Today, search engines look beyond individual words to find duplicate content, so you’ll be severely penalized.

4. Link Buying

Yes, links are the lifeblood of SEO. The more links from high authority domains that point to you, the higher your own authority will get and the higher you’ll rank in SERPs. This is why, until a few years ago, buying links was a common practice.

Web directories were major sellers. But search engines caught on to this and now consider these sellers spam domains. When you have a lot of those pointing to your domain, you will be considered a spammer, too.

In other words, buying links will do more harm than good. If you have spammy links pointing to your website (whether you bought them or they just appeared without your involvement), go to your Search Console account and disavow them immediately.

Ready to take your SEO game to where it should be – in 2021 and beyond? Talk to my team and I about SEO content that brings you results with no ethical compromises or obsolete practices.

The post 4 Obsolete SEO Practices You Should Ditch Right Now appeared first on SiteProNews.

What Is Semantic Search?

Semantic search refers to search engines’ ability to take the intent and the contextual meaning of search phrases into account when delivering results. In other words, it’s an attempt by machines to understand human language and all its nuances.

Back in the day, search engines only looked at phrases as a collection of words, never looking at the meaning or the possible intention of the user. Today, as we understand that different people speak and write in different ways, search engines try to incorporate their newly-acquired understanding of human speak into the results of all queries.

Some of the factors that semantic search takes into account are:

• User’s search history
• User’s location
• Spelling variations of a phrase

Let’s say two different users search for “chocolate cake”. Based on their history, the search engine will know that one of them is an amateur baker, so it will offer chocolate cake recipes. The other user is a traveler and a foodie, so the search engine will offer lists of the best places nearby to buy a chocolate cake.

If both users are amateur bakers, the search engine will take into account their location to offer recipe results that use either ounces (if the user is US-based) or grams (if the user is based in Australia). Similarly, each user will receive recipes from websites in their own country because, most likely, it will be easier for them to find the ingredients this way.

Semantic search isn’t brand new. It started to take form back in 2013, with Google’s Hummingbird update, the first time NLP was used to help the algorithm understand phrases in their entirety instead of offering results based on the meaning of each individual word. The RankBrain update in 2015 took the understanding of user intent to the next level by using machine learning and a query analysis AI.

How Should Semantic Search Change Your SEO Strategy?

Why should you care about all this? Well, because users care. Here’s how to leverage it:

Focus on Topics Instead of Keywords

Forget about creating content based on the keywords with the highest search volume. In fact, forget about basing your content on keywords altogether.

Instead, focus on topics that are relevant to your audience and build in-depth, authoritative content on those.

This doesn’t mean that you should stop doing keyword research. Keywords are still relevant, but they should be secondary to the topic, not front and center. Their primary purpose is to act as beacons that direct traffic to the relevant pages on your website based on what the user is looking for (more on that below).

Take Voice Search into Account

Almost 40% of internet users in the US rely on voice search. Even those who type in their searches are prone to use longer phrases and full sentences.

As a content creator, your first task is to answer questions simply and effectively. See the first headline of this article – What is semantic search? The question is followed by a quick definition that’s written in the right format: semantic search refers to… This is something that a voice assistant can easily read back to the user. It’s also something that a user who typed in their search expects to find. A quick answer that’s clearly formulated as an answer – otherwise, they will search elsewhere.

Aside from definitions, you can also offer clear lists of tips, items, movies, and so on – something that can be read at a glance. Plan to detail every item on that list? Go for it, but add a separate basic list in the beginning of the article, so it can be indexed easily.

Always Write with User Intent in Mind

Told you we’d be back to keywords! This is where your keyword analysis gets to shine. Use keyword analysis tools to group keywords by search intent and write separate pieces of content for each type of intent.

If you sell snorkeling gear, for instance, you will have to accommodate beginners, experts, and people who are only thinking about trying snorkeling. 

• “What equipment do I need for snorkeling” is a keyword that you can target the last category with.
• “Basic snorkeling gear” matches the search intent of a beginner.
• “Floating valve snorkel” is definitely something an experienced snorkeler would search for.

Feel like the keywords are too long? You shouldn’t! Search intent is best reflected by long-tail keywords. And remember what we said above about people using voice search or typing queries that sound like a conversation? Long-tail keywords are the new normal.

Wrapping Things Up

Semantic search helps users find what they need faster and easier. For content creators, it’s a breath of fresh air – it helps us finally write the way we speak, without forcing a keyword into a phrase it should never be in.

If there’s only one thing you remember from this article, make it this: write the way you’d speak to a friend and you’ll win the hearts of your readers and even the cold hearts of the algorithms.

Need help with winning those hearts over? My team of expert content writers and I can help you rank in SERPs and get excellent ROI from your content. Check out the stories of the companies we’ve already helped meet their goals and let’s talk!

The post What is Semantic Search and Why Does it Matter for Your SEO Strategy? appeared first on SiteProNews.

Whether you’re focusing on SEO for dentists, real estate developers or other industries, relying on hearsay and guesswork is NOT an option. 

If you want your SEO strategy to work, follow two rules. Rule number one is staying on top of the most recent SEO developments. Rule number two is not believing in misconceptions. 

In terms of the second rule, here are the five things people commonly get wrong about SEO.

1. SEO is a Scheme or Gimmick

The way most people talk about search engine optimization, it’s natural to think that it’s some sort of trick. Some “newbies” in the field may have been presented with the idea that SEO is a sequence of tricks designed to get your website to rank high on the search engine results pages (SERPs). 

This, however, is only partially true. 

White-hat search optimizers and local SEO services are not actively trying to deceive Google’s search algorithms. Instead, they’re figuring out which website content and features are more valuable to users and search engines. Most of the time, the results are well-intentioned and organic website improvements — not hacks, short-term tricks or spam. 

2. It’s All About Rankings

Many people will automatically think that rising in the search engine ranks is a sign of SEO success. But this upward movement will be in vain if your visitors do not convert into leads and buyers. 

With SEO, it’s not always about the rankings; other metrics will help you gauge your success. For instance, if you want to rank for the most expensive Starbucks drink, refrain from focusing on what rank your website is; what are the metrics surrounding it?

Focus on the factors that deliver organic search traffic growth: which pages people engage with, which keywords bring people in and which pages need more work. But more importantly, track conversions and determine the most efficient keywords. 

3. Google Penalties Will be the Death of Your Campaign

The way some people write about Google’s penalties, you’d think they were handed speeding tickets. On the contrary, the most severe penalties are due to manual actions; that is, Google responds to serious SEO sins that all webmasters stay away from. Temporary ranking drops often happen, but they aren’t always severe.  

If you follow the best SEO practices, you need not worry about Google penalties. 

4. It’s All About Links and Keywords

Keywords do play an important role when it comes to SEO. Also, links are important search engine ranking factors. But the approach to keyword research, as well as how search engines use them, has evolved over the years. So if you hear anyone talking about keyword spamming or keyword density today, then chances are they are outdated with their techniques. 

Search algorithms have evolved to read keywords and website context. This means they can detect manipulation, even when it’s subtle. If you’re creating your strategy or working with an SEO company, keyword research should be part of your strategy or packages. 

Content strategy is also important. It should go beyond aiming for keywords. A good content strategy focuses on reader engagement, as well as how to stay within a theme that promotes organic keyword insertion. 

5. SEO is Too Complex or Too Easy

Some newcomers think that SEO is too technically complex. It’s true that SEO has many technical components. To a first-timer, things like canonical tags and robots.txt file are intimidating. But even without a coding experience, you can still learn the SEO basics within a few hours. SEO is highly learnable, as long as you’re patient enough to master it. 

On the other hand, SEO isn’t too easy. You can’t do SEO without experience. You can learn many SEO concepts in an afternoon, but there are so many strategic directions and variables to remember. It can take years of practice before you earn the SEO master rank. You’ll need to keep up with the latest industry changes if you want to remain relevant.

Other Common Misconceptions Concerning SEO

Since SEO is a broad topic, it’s common for people to get other aspects of the optimization wrong. Consider the following.

The Less You Spend on SEO, the Better

SEO is a cost-effective strategy that guarantees a high return on your investment. 

Many SEO newcomers think the best approach to optimization is to spend as little as possible to maximize long-term returns and avoid risks. Low budgets, however, come with minimal strategic execution and amateur work. In most cases, it’s better to spend on high-quality services. 

Link Building is Spamming

Link building can be a spammy activity — if you execute it without strategic planning. Capable link builders know the tactic doesn’t focus on stamping as many links as you can. It’s all about creating valuable and relevant content that people would want to read. The content should include natural and informative links within the content to boost your search relevance.

In addition to creating compelling content, understanding the landscape of digital marketing tactics is crucial. For instance, strategies like improving online visibility through innovative marketing techniques, when executed correctly, can elevate a website’s authority and relevance in a crowded digital space. This approach, when combined with ethical link-building, ensures a balanced and effective SEO strategy.

The Process is Always the Same

One of the biggest SEO misconceptions is people think that SEO uses the same process repeatedly. Some people expect their SEO agencies to use a standard procedure and get the same results for all clients, within the same timeframe. 

The truth is that is impossible. SEO is an art and a science. Different clients require different execution methods, targeting strategies and investment levels to get comparable results. 

It Takes a Long Time to Get Any Results

Depending on the competition and research, you can get results quickly. Some articles can rank keywords within minutes. If you want your website to maximize the perks of SEO, get indexed by Google first. This means different indexing programs, such as spiders or crawlers, follow all links that lead to your website. 

Your website, pages and content are indexed and analyzed based on different criteria and algorithms set by different search engines, giving your website its ranking. Top SEO experts have techniques and tools that simplify the process and guarantee immediate results. 

SEO is Too Expensive

If you optimize your website, there will be a significant change in the number of visits to your website. If you can increase the amount of web traffic from people that are searching for your service or product — how would that benefit you? How many visitors can you convert into customers? What is their lifetime value? 

Keep in mind that making your website easier to find makes a huge difference in your company’s success. Organic traffic reduces your overall marketing costs. So scrimping on your SEO budget isn’t always the wisest decision. 

Level Up Your SEO Game

Instead of listening to misconceptions, it’s best to practice SEO according to recent trends with users and search engines. Also, a proper mindset of SEO protects you from getting SEO wrong. Remember, search engine optimization is optimizing for people in all the places your content and brand could possibly appear. 

SEO goes beyond nuts and bolts; it requires marketers and businesses to create brand experiences, using the search results to establish relevance. 

Contemporary SEO strategies require creativity to gain visibility:

• Consider news and social content. Google News and social content are areas where you can improve your content’s visibility. In order to rank in these areas, gain a good understanding of your space, as well as how Google responds to a query. Not every query will show social content or news, so understand how keywords react in different ways. 
• Consider what “People Also Ask.” The People Also Ask For is a search feature that involves content directly pulled with the search results. These are queries people use to search. Content from websites are also pulled into these results. Use this search feature to identify content optimization opportunities to target the audience you want to reach. 
• Apply SEO to different platforms. Apart from optimizing for different parts of search results, apply different SEO methodologies to any platform that people use to search on. Some optimization opportunities could be:
  • Social media optimization
  • App store optimization
  • YouTube video and channel optimization
  • Vertical search engines and third-party sites 

In SEO, you have to be visible as much as you can. Use each part of the results to create better search experiences for users. Finally, assume that SEO swims in a much larger pool. Don’t just focus on search engine optimization; go for search experience optimization. 

It’s OK to make mistakes during your SEO journey. The key is to identify and learn from those mistakes. Then determine the best SEO practices to solidify your success in optimization.

The post 5 Things Most People Get Wrong About SEO appeared first on SiteProNews.

However, if your business isn’t known to them, your chances of getting recognized will be close to zero.  Fortunately, you can easily market your business today with the help of internet technology. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most popular ways of getting your business visible over the internet. In using this marketing strategy, you can apply numerous techniques, that when used in the right way, can result in your business website landing at the top of search engines. One of most effective, and popular methods to achieve this is by guest blogging. 

What is Guest Blogging? 

Guest blogging is an SEO strategy that helps you generate backlinks for your website. It’s also a helpful strategy that lets Google determine whether your website is worth ranking up or not. When you do guest blogging, the goal is to create blog content that is then posted on a website that attracts a great deal of attention and generates a lot of online traffic back to your website. 

Although guest blogging is one of the most effective ways to build your website’s credibility and customer base, it has to be done strategically and efficiently. This means your content should be thought out carefully and your message should be clear and presented in a manner that the audience will understand.  

How to Find the Right Website 

While you’re developing your content, you also need to consider your audience. Of course, you want to write an informational blog post that relates to a specific group of readers. In short, you have to make sure that you’re guest blogging on the right website. 

The following four tips will help you find an ideal website for your posts: 

1. Get a List of Websites that Accept Guest Posts

Guest blogging has become one of the most important SEO strategies for many bloggers today. 

Fortunately, you can find a lot of niche blogging websites that accept guest posts. These websites can be categorized according to topic, so you can easily find one that will welcome your content. 

Again, thanks to technology, finding websites that accept guest blogs is now easier than ever. You can use search engines to find sites that allow guest blogging. However, you also have to be sure that the website is still accepting guest posts because some may no longer be accepting guest posts. 

2. Know Your Purpose in Guest Blogging

Before you can start guest blogging, it’s extremely important you determine what your end goal is. Are you doing it to gain backlinks or to make your business known to the public, or both? Knowing your goal is an important step in finding a website to post your content on. 

3. Determine Who Your Target Audience Is

In developing content for your guest blog post, it’s also vital for you to determine the people who you want to relay your message to. This means, knowing the type of people who would want to buy your product or avail of the services you offer. 

Once you have an idea of who your audience is going to be, you’ll have a clear picture regarding the choice of subject matter for your posts, as well as how you’re going to structure each one so they will appeal to, and help, your targeted audience. 

For instance, if your main topic is about business loans, you would want to find a website that focuses on helping start-up entrepreneurs establish their companies.

You can also find websites that cover different business-related topics. Since these sites are still trying to build a strong foundation for their business, they need and welcome any help and advice they can receive from someone with experience. 

4. Ask to Submit a Guest Blog to an Influential Website in Your Niche

When you’re guest blogging, one of your main goals is to get your message in front of a wide audience. By tapping into one (or more) of the most influential websites in your industry, you receive an opportunity to leverage the hosts’ established audience and website to promote your own. 

If readers find your post to be informational or helpful in any way, chances are they will head to your company website and, if they find your content worthwhile, they will return again and again.  

An important point to remember is to find a reputable website. 

This means skipping paid ads and focusing more on ones that generate organic traffic. As you look for influential websites on which to publish your content, be sure that any site you choose has a blog. Remember to also use target keywords. This will make your search easier. 

In Conclusion…

Guest blogging is a powerful tool in improving your business’ visibility over the internet. Since most people from around the world are turning to the internet to search for needed information, improving your online presence is one sure way to gain online traffic and generate leads for your business. 

With the help of business loans and other available resources, it can be easier for entrepreneurs to leverage digital marketing, specifically guest blogging, which will attract more customers to your business. 

The post 4 Best Tips on How a Business Can Find a Website for Guest Blogging appeared first on SiteProNews.

What does this mean for the future of the country? No one can be sure — it is a tumultuous time.

But what does this mean for your SEO strategy? Read on to find out.

You Need to Pay Close Attention to Audience Attitudes

Because SEO is so closely tied to other digital marketing strategies, like social media and content marketing, you need to be aware of, and respond to, ever-shifting audience attitudes. In February and March, before most states went into lockdown, a large number of people were not at all concerned about the spreading coronavirus — but those attitudes rapidly shifted as the danger of the disease became more obvious. Just a couple months later, attitudes are shifting again as many consumer groups have grown exhausted of isolation and fearful of the economic impact of a continued shutdown. As these attitudes shift, audiences’ desires and expectations for companies will shift as well.

It is incredibly important that you know exactly how your audience is reacting to the crisis from week to week. A good way to stay abreast of consumer outlooks is to stay connected to your audience via social media, especially Twitter and Facebook. You might pose a question to your following once or twice per week and evaluate responses for a pervasive feeling. Then, you should modify your content for the next week or so to suit your audience’s needs.

You Should Be Creating More Content All the Time

Speaking of content, you should be making as much of it as you can. 

 Right now, audiences almost across the board are starved for entertainment; they have more time and fewer responsibilities than ever before, which means the content you create right now is likely to garner more attention than it would normally.

Even so, you shouldn’t be happy to put out any low-quality, irrelevant swill. You aren’t the only business ramping up content production, so you need to prioritize creating content that appropriately addresses audience desires, is more compelling than competing content and fits neatly into your long-term content and SEO goals. If you aren’t well-equipped to generate more content, especially during this time when you might be furloughing workers, you might consider relying on an SEO marketing agency with a content creation team on staff. Then, you can benefit from a continuous stream of high-quality content to deliver to your eager audience.

You Might Want to Drastically Alter Your Strategy

Depending on your goals prior to the crisis, you might need to drastically change the focus of your SEO strategy. For instance, if your traffic and conversions have dropped off considerably, you might need to pivot your tactics to address this shift. Then again, if you are seeing a swell in traffic, you might not worry about that and instead concentrate on optimizing your website.

Data is the key to determining whether a change to SEO strategy is necessary. Again, it is wise to work with a qualified SEO firm to gather and analyze certain metrics as well as to make your SEO strategy more agile through the coming weeks. It might be wise to survey other aspects of your larger digital marketing scheme as well — just because SEO is looking good doesn’t mean your marketing across the web is a runaway success. It is important that you continue to closely monitor the technical aspects of your SEO and marketing and investigate any changes, so you can stay on top of the changes that threaten your business success.

As the COVID crisis has developed, SEO has become among the most important business activities, and that will likely remain to be true. Even so, no one can predict with any certainty what the next few months — or few years — will bring in terms of health, economic activity or consumer behavior. The best strategy for every business is to stay alert and be able to act swiftly to address the shifting environment in the near future.

The post What the Current Uncertainty Means for Your SEO appeared first on SiteProNews.

It was a lot easier to maintain a good reputation before the internet. Today, data travels very fast through the internet. One simple rant on social media about you will get tons of retweets, become a trending topic, get picked up by major news outlets, and the next thing you know, everyone’s talking about it.

So, how do you combat negative press? Well, you counter it with positive publicity. Sounds simple, right? Trust me, it’s not as easy as it seems. In this article, I’ll reveal the right SEO strategy to counter negative publicity. But before we go any further, let’s first learn about the sources of negative publicity.

The Sources of Negative Publicity

Fake News

False reports, fake news, and hoaxes are everywhere on the internet. It’s not a big problem until someone believes it and starts spreading it, especially when that someone happens to be a major publication site.

Negative Photos

With technological advancement, it’s easy to create fake photos these days. That’s dangerous because Google shows all images related to you when people type your name. Not to mention the number of people who will spread it on social media like wildfire.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia on planet earth and it consistently ranks high on Google. The problem with Wikipedia is that the information on the site can be edited easily by anyone. To keep your reputation intact, you have to regularly monitor any change that’s been made about you on Wikipedia.

Fake Sites

There are tons of malicious websites on the internet. Some of them are created by trolls just to spread false news and some others are made by competitors to destroy your reputation. Either way, these kinds of sites are dangerous when they find a way to rank on the first Google page.

Bad Customer Reviews

Review sites like Yelp are created to make it easier for customers to pick the best services based on previous reviews. No matter how many positive reviews you get, one negative comment can ruin it all for you. After all, 85% of consumers trust online reviews just as they trust their family’s recommendation.

Forums

Forum sites like Reddit and Quora have become so popular in the last few years. People can ask questions and comment on just about anything. The problem is, they also consistently rank high on the search engines. Imagine when people search about you on Google and find negative comments. 

Social Media

Just like forums and Wikipedia, social media platforms also have high domain ratings (>90). This makes them easily rank first on the SERPs. And, just like forums and Wikipedia, anyone can say whatever they want on social media, including bad things about you.

SEO Strategy to Counter Negative Search Results

When people hear about a brand for the first time, they’ll check it on Google. When people want to buy something online, they’ll search for the product reviews on Google too. Through the search engine, most people have their first interaction and initial impression with your brand.

Imagine when people search for your brand, the negative news and reviews are the ones that first appear on Google. To counter this we use SEO strategy. The main idea of using SEO here is to boost positive results to rank higher and push down negative results. Here’s how:

Set up Google Alerts

First, do a little research to identify which keyword is showing negative results. Certain keywords have the potential to trigger negative search results, so you need to test all keywords the audience might use to find you.

After you’ve found the keywords, set up those keywords in your Google Alerts account to closely monitor them. Now, every time new content that carries one of those keywords appears, Google Alerts will send an email to notify you.

Optimize your Website

After collecting the negative keywords, the next step is to optimize your site using those keywords. The idea here is that when people search for those keywords, your website will rank ahead of any negative result. Here’s how to optimize your site:

-Create a long-tail article for the negative keyword.

-Fill the article with that keyword.

-Write guest posts on other websites and link back to that article. High-quality backlinks will help build authority and relevance to the webpage.

-As long as Google sees that your webpage is more relevant than the negative content, you will still rank higher.

Use Other Domains

Using only your site to counter negative results is not enough. You have to use other domains as well, especially with the current Google Algorithm which favors more variety. It’s rare these days to find two web pages from the same domain in the search engine results because Google prefers to show 10 different pages from 10 different sites.

Do you have any other domain that you control? Think of something like a sister or parent company website, your investor or business partner website, and even third-party blogs where you frequently write guest posts. 

Optimize Your Social Media Accounts

Like I said before, social media platforms have high domain ratings, making them more likely to rank on the first page of Google search results. That’s why it’s essential for you to make sure that all of your social media accounts are ranked first when people search for your name. Here are 4 social media networks that you should optimize:

Twitter

Twitter is a great place to connect deeper with your audience. Not only that, Google regularly includes the Twitter account of a person or a brand on the first page. I did a little experiment by searching Neil Patel and his Twitter account is ranked number 2 in the SERPs, just below his site.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the place where business owners, marketers, and thought leaders collide. Share your thoughts frequently here to build rapport and reputation. Like Twitter, the LinkedIn profile of someone is usually shown on the first page. Neil Patel’s LinkedIn profile is ranked 4, below his site, Twitter profile, and YouTube.

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media network in the world. Most viral hoaxes and fake news come from Facebook. So, what’s a better way to counter hoaxes than posting positive content frequently here? Facebook also regularly sits on the first Google page.

YouTube

Ever since Google purchased YouTube, it seems that the search engine giant has been giving more priority to YouTube videos. It’s evident in the Neil Patel case, where Google shows 3 of his YouTube videos.

Wrap Up

People love negative news and controversies, and the media knows this very well. They will publish bad news about well-known figures and brands the second they make mistakes. Because that kind of news gets the most clicks.

The post How to Counter Negative Publicity with the Right SEO Strategy appeared first on SiteProNews.

Being so focused on Google as their primary search engine, people tend to forget that others can also be useful. But who are Google’s competitors and what makes them different from Google?

The Ruler – Google

We use Google as our primary choice without much thinking. Even though this search engine is undeniably most used, you need to know the facts about it in order to make a comparison to others. 

The company was founded in 1998 and has held the title of the number one search engine for decades. 

Web traffic data firm Alexa ranked Google as the most popular website in the world as of October 2019.

The primary source of profit for this company is selling online advertisements. 

It is the first choice of marketers because it leads with a worldwide market share of 92.25% with over 3.5 billion searches per day. 

Some of Google’s search statistics that prove its success are:

• Google handles over 75,000 queries per second.
• Google’s share of mobile search traffic is over 85% globally.
• Local searches account for 46% of all searches on Google.
• Moving up one spot in Google’s search results can increase CTRs by up to 30.8%.
• Users are 4 times more likely to click on a paid search ad on Google compared to any of its competitors.

Okay, so we must agree that Google is pretty amazing. But is there something we can gain by using other search engines? Let’s find out.

The Competitors

The search engines that are mostly used and most often mentioned besides Google are Yahoo, Bing, and Baidu. They all have their benefits that work in favor of marketers or website owners who want to explore other options and improve their website traffic. 

1. Bing

One of the ways that Bing and Google differ is that they value keywords differently. Google uses context to determine which search results are the best for which users. Bing, on the other hand, is still ranking websites based on targeted keywords. Those who use targeted keywords have a better chance to improve their ranking on Bing. 

Google has made an open statement that they do not use meta keywords as a ranking parameter while Bing still takes them into consideration. 

When it comes to backlinking, Google puts the emphasis on quality. Aiming at quantity can only hurt your results. Bing has a different approach. It especially prefers when the backlinks come from domains such as .edu, .org and .gov.

Bing and Google differ in the target group section as well. Google prefers younger Internet users, between the ages of 18 and 44.

Users who use Bing for their search mostly fall into the 45–64 years bracket. However, users between the ages of 25 and 34 still use Bing as their choice, even if they prefer Google. 

Bing also prefers diversity when it comes to content. This search engine values images and videos that you have on your website. With Google, you should just keep your focus on text because the more engaging and high-quality it is, the better your results will be. 

2. Yahoo

While Google and Yahoo differ in many aspects, Yahoo has similarities with Bing since Yahoo has been powered by Bing since 2011. 

Yahoo favors authenticity. For that reason, it prefers older websites that maintained their popularity with original content. This is important because if you have a new website, you shouldn’t expect that it will show up on Yahoo, regardless of your SEO efforts. Google looks at this differently and focuses on content rather than how old the website is.

Like Bing, Yahoo also values targeted keywords and meta-keywords even though Google doesn’t. 

Unlike Google that is used by younger people (mostly until the age of 44), Yahoo is the favorite choice of older people, especially those who are over 65 years old. These users are least fond of the number one search engine. 

The similar underlying technology in Bing and Yahoo is another important benefit because you can use the same SEO practices to achieve better search results on two search engines rather than just one. 

3. Baidu

Since Google can’t be used in China, Baidu is ranked as the second most used search engine. Within China, this search engine powers 3.3 billion searches per day. 

When it comes to adding your website to the search engines, the time you need differs on Google and Baidu. Google completes the addition process much faster because Baidu’s algorithm is very detail-oriented and it checks whether the content respects the rules of their country. 

Like Bing and Yahoo, Baidu also values the number of backlinks for a website. Only Google focuses more on quality, while its competitors all consider the number of backlinks as well.

Baidu prefers websites that have vibrant and interesting content. Meaning that the website with images, videos, music, etc. has some advantage. This differs from Google, which values engaging and informative content above all else. 

The aspect in which Baidu has the upper hand compared to Google is recognizing SEO changes. Baidu does this much faster. This is great for new websites that have optimized content because their page can get a good ranking position quickly. 

Conclusion

The volume of consumers that Google has explains why marketers and website owners use this search engine. The vast amount of information, search result accuracy, and speed are why people love Google. However, Google’s competitors have a different audience that you can also reach out to if you think outside the box. The only trick that you need to remember and use is to adapt the optimization to the search engine you use and these differences can help you out with your SEO strategy.

The post 3 Google Competitors and How They Differ from Number One Search Engine appeared first on SiteProNews.

Now the question is – How does one create quality backlinks that help a website rank better?

Well, if that’s what you’re thinking right now, we’ve got exactly what you are looking for. Here’s a list of the best tips and tricks that’ll help you create quality backlinks and make your SEO strategy successful:

Go for directory listings and third-party review sites

You’ll find a lot of directory listings and third-party review websites on the web. There, you can easily create a listing with a link to your website, free of cost. However, you need to be very careful while doing that because not every directory listing or third-party website is trustworthy. So, it’s better to search and identify those directories that list your competitors and get yourself listed if you are not already a part of them. 

Leverage the power of WOM

Nothing is better than seeking the guidance of a senior in your field. Their expertise in the area can contribute to the growth of your business. Only if you have the will to ace your business, you can employ the skills of your seniors to climb the walls of success. Escape the fear of being wrong, and exhibit your abilities to manage them and get a potential link.

Try to earn backlinks through infographics

Today, some top-ranking websites like tech crunch, mashable, and others use infographics. With Visual Data gaining considerably more attention than reading a 2000 word blog post, these top ranking websites are dedicated to raising much-coveted traffic and backlinks. Therefore, drawing readers’ attention by creating infographics with stunning images is a piece of cake. It also aids in the proliferation of your post and site link across the internet.

.Edu resource pages can be a good option

.Edu sites are popular in SEO, contributing to the boost of your ranking and generating substantial traffic for your website. The only task you need to suit up for is providing universities with something to which they wish to link. 

Offering a scholarship is one of the most common approaches to generating considerable traffic. Making the job effortless for you, a majority of universities have created resource pages for student and public use. All you need to do is to identify these reference pages and track down the most relevant post on your page. Once you have succeeded in synchronizing those reference pages with a relevant post on your page, you can contact the webmaster via email. Now, you only need to present your website appropriately and warmly refer to your resource. The most crucial point you need to keep in mind is that you can suggest (not insist) the significance of your post for their reference pages.

Make use of content collaboration

Joining forces with a huge brand is one of the most popular methods to achieve high-quality backlinks. Be it a webinar, an e-book, or even a podcast, your job is to generate unmatched content that might prove useful to big brands. Practicing this technique makes it much more likely you will acquire quality backlinks.

Promote your best content everywhere

How can great content prove its significance if its existence is unknown? It’s imperative to find people who are interested in your content and willing to share it on social media.

Keeping content promotion in mind, an influencer research tool might come in handy. According to experts, the more you interact with bloggers, the higher the probability of your content becoming popular.

On a special note, establishing good links with some of the renowned bloggers can dramatically raise the chances of your content being shared.

Add that audio factor to your strategy

One of the most widely practiced methods for generating backlinks to your posts is to record and embed them on relevant pages. According to numerous studies, a majority of people can grasp information more efficiently when they hear it, rather than reading it.

Also, this technique can prove to be beneficial in cases where users have dyslexia. Such users face difficulties while reading long posts, especially those comprising technical terms.

Use press releases to their best 

Writing press releases can help you earn backlinks, but it comes at a cost (other than your time). A decent press release can guarantee you some backlinks, at least from a handful of high-authority websites.

Reach out to website feedback sites

Adding your website to numerous feedback sites is an excellent technique to boost your backlinks. An approach like this not only contributes to increased backlinks, but might also help you to understand the different ways in which you could improve your website’s user experience.

This method plays a crucial role in helping website owners be proactive, leading to a growth in their business. The best part about this technique lies in its simplicity. All you have to do is to create an account on different feedback websites and wait for the reviews. You can add a small description of your site and request suggestions on how to improve it.

Test the power of career pages

One of the most effective ways to promote your open positions is by using career pages. An open position page is nothing but a recruiting page available on a company’s website. A page like this makes it convenient for users to view different listings all-together. Free job boards play a significant role in acquiring backlinks.

The above are some of the coolest tips and tricks you can use to earn quality backlinks. Which one do you plan to start with?

The post 10 Smart Ways to Earn or Build Backlinks to Your Website appeared first on SiteProNews.

From competitive link analysis to third-party outreach, there are many factors to continuously tweak and improve in your link building strategy. Most importantly, generating highly valuable backlinks relies on producing high-quality, valuable content. But that’s not going to be enough because your success depends heavily on strategically promoting that content. 

And what’s the first platform you think of when you hear “strategically promoting content”? That’s right, social media. 

That’s why aligning your content and social media strategies with your link building efforts is a vital approach to a smart SEO strategy. In this article, we’ll give you some useful tactics, tips, and insights to help you integrate all your efforts strategically and harness the power of social media for more successful link building. 

Creating the right type of content

Content and link building efforts need to be aligned from the very beginning. 

In other words, before you actually start producing content, you’ll structure your content strategy in regards to your SEO campaign. That’s how you’ll be able to create content around strategic topics and keyword lists, making it highly relevant to your target audience and able to satisfy searcher intent.

This type of approach sets you up for success because you will be producing content that your key targets will value and want to share with others. This includes your wider audience as well as bloggers, industry influencers, and any third-party website worthy of guest posting. 

That’s why you want to do plenty of research and keep your finger on the industry pulse to come up with link-worthy topic ideas and write content that truly provides value. 

Some worthy tactics include sharing:

• useful tools and resources. Determine which topics your audience needs help with and then share with them useful tactics, guides, tools they can use, and other resources. The more actionable your piece, the more compelled audiences are to share it with others.

• research. Creating research-based content is a great addition to your link-building efforts because people can reference it in the future in their posts. Stats are particularly link-worthy, just make sure you’re focusing on a relevant topic to align it perfectly with your SEO efforts. 

• influencer insights, which we’ll cover in more detail in a moment

It’s important to gain an understanding of your audience, what you can offer them that will meet their needs/expectations, and which type of content they’re most receptive to. With this understanding, you’ll be able to produce valuable content crafted for a specific audience, and that’s really what bloggers and third-party websites want from you. 

Sharing influencer insights

Craft content around the unique ideas promoted by influential people within your industry. These could be certain experts or key industry influencers – the point is that you will be referencing their authority and sharing their insights. 

An interview with an industry influencer is clearly a big boost to your content strategy, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that. You can feature influencer insights in roundups or by referencing their ideas and quotes in your articles. Get creative – and don’t hesitate to use social media to ask your audience what type of content they would like next from you. 

How does this tactic work?

This type of content is highly valuable and interesting to readers, who are eager to learn from someone that’s well-established as a trusty person within the given industry. Basically, you’re borrowing their influence. Consequently, another thing you’re borrowing with influencer-centered content is their audience, and that’s where social media comes in. 

By reaching out to these people either for collaboration or just to let them know you’ve featured them in your content (which can be done directly or through social media mentions), you’ll encourage them to share your content with their audiences – which are highly targeted and valuable for you. So this is not only valuable and highly shareable content, but it also taps into social media power. 

How will you identify the most valuable industry experts?

Start with your link building targets. You can also use FollowerWonk, which will pick out for you the credible profiles that are relevant to the given topic. This handy tool will sort them by social authority and the number of followers to find great opportunities. 

Get visual

Statistics show that infographics are one of the most often shared types of content – which really comes as no surprise, given their rising popularity over the recent years. Visuals are more digestible than textual content, we learn faster with them, and thus they’re bound for more shares and links. 

Now, creating infographics would certainly be a phenomenal boost to your link building strategy, but don’t overlook the basics either. Make sure to include compelling as well as useful visuals in your content – everything from featured infographics to charts, graphs, screenshots, and inviting or even humorous (depending on the context) images that pique the reader’s interest. 

Lastly, get visual when promoting your content via social media, especially Twitter. Research has shown that tweets with images get 150% more retweets than those without.

Give before asking for shares in return

Social media marketing runs on this motto. 

Now, social shares may not be a ranking factor, but they are most definitely beneficial to your link building efforts. It’s simple – the more your content is shared, the more people will see it, visit your site, and hopefully stay on it for a while and convert into subscribers. 

But you can’t just churn out post after post about yourself and what you’re doing. Nobody will be listening. Social media is about establishing authority, participating in a community, and building relationships. No matter the size of your enterprise, you need to approach social media as a valuable community member. Be a part of the ecosystem by engaging your audience, sharing helpful content, staying active, facilitating conversations, sharing others’ posts (with credit, of course), etc. 

Then, when you actually do post something promotional, such as your latest guest post, and tell people “hey, check it out and give it a like or a share” – you’ll have a loyal and engaged audience to take you up on your offer. 

Connect with bloggers before pitching

The previous point sums up to one vital tip: build social relationships before building links. The people you especially want to focus on are the ones you hope to collaborate with. Get acquainted with them on social, follow and share their work, and make yourself known to them. Facilitate conversation by mentioning them in your posts and engage with them by replying to their tweets. 

This will open the doors to collaboration and make them more trusting of you so that when you send them a pitch email, you won’t be a complete unknown. If you’re cultivating a genuine and interactive social media presence, they’ll have seen how collaborating with you is beneficial to them even before you send out your pitch. 

Ultimately, by properly aligning your efforts across these fields, you’ll give momentum to your entire digital marketing strategy. And remember – it’s all a continuous effort. None of it is set-and-forget. Focus on building relationships with industry influencers and providing value to your audience, and the tactics you do employ will have a lot more gravity. 

The post Boosting Your Link Building Efforts: How to Align Social Media and Content Strategies appeared first on SiteProNews.

1. Your laptop or phone with your Instagram account.
2. Internet access.

Let’s get started!

Defining Your Goals:

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” T Robbins.

In order to achieve success, we must define the goals that you are working towards accomplishing. Here are three questions to help you define your objectives for your social media strategy:

1. Are you trying to establish a brand? Or are you a brand?
2. Are you trying to, or do you, currently sell products?
3. Are you working towards becoming an influencer?

If you are establishing a brand, do you have a link to your website in the bio? If you are selling products, is your Instagram account shoppable? Becoming an influencer? Do you have a blog or a means of capturing leads from your account?

All of these goals have different call to actions. Ponder what your goals are and how your account can serve you better.

Action item: Implement one of the following onto your Instagram account that best suits your needs:

• Lead capture form or lead magnet
• Shoppable feed
• Website link

Implementing SEO on Your Instagram Account

Now that we have clearly defined goals let’s see how we can incorporate a search engine optimisation strategy into your Instagram account. We will be focusing on your Biography, Username, developing keywords and Handle when implementing a social SEO strategy.

Let’s start with your bio. The biography in your Instagram account is a space where you want to tell your user what to expect when they follow you.

Here are a few key points to consider when writing your biography:

1. What is your Instagram account about? Fashion, Marketing, Health or Fitness? Define your niche and stick to it.
2. Establish your authority! Do you have credentials? Perhaps experience? If so incorporate it into your profile. Give users a reason to increase their trust in your recommendations.
3. Where are you located? This is great to note because other influencers and brands will want to collaborate with other users in the same geographic location. You will also find that when people develop a relationship with your online profile, users will feel more connected if you are in a similar geographic location.
4. How can you be reached? This is really important. I know so many business users that do not have their contact details on Instagram. If you want to make sales or close brand deals, you need to provide a way for users to contact you. Either place your email address in the bio or switch to a business profile on IG so that users can contact you with the click of a button. If you need help in changing to a business account, check out IG guide here.

Refining Your Instagram Handle

Does your Instagram handle show who you are and what you are about? For instance, is it Vanessa123487 or is it StylistVanessa. Tell people exactly who you are and what you are about. Give them an immediate reason to follow you.

Social media SEO Tip: Instagram handles are searchable. What does that mean? If a user is looking for a stylist and the keyword ‘stylist’ is in your username, your profile will rank in the search engine when the word stylist is entered.

This also applies to your Instagram name. My personal profile name is Aerialist Vanessa. Why? Because I want to come up when people are searching for Aerialists or Aerial arts.

Take a moment to think about how can you make your username come up in search rankings? What keywords is your target market using to find information on Instagram?

Notice how health and fitness leader Emily Skye has fit in her username? That is no coincidence! She is using SEO optimisation in her username.

Finding Keywords

If you are stuck finding keywords you can use https://answerthepublic.com/ to help you brainstorm keywords in your niche.

Action Item:

1. Implement keywords into your profile whether it is in your name, profile or user handle.
2. Bonus points if you can incorporate it into all three!

I hope you enjoyed our tips on how to incorporate a search engine optimization strategy into your Instagram account. If you are looking to grow your Instagram account you can take our free Instagram Growth course.

The post Implementing an SEO Strategy into Your Instagram Account appeared first on SiteProNews.

1. Backlinks are the number one ranking factor on Google

The top three search results for every keyword invariably have a large number of backlinks. Several studies have proven this and hence many tend to believe that getting more backlinks will mean ranking high. The truth is, great content and several other SEO factors help them get a lot of high-quality backlinks that helps high ranking on the SERPs.

Search engine optimization involves several factors that have to be worked upon. Framing an SEO strategy for a business and constantly monitoring it to see the results is what helps to rank on the search engine. Link building is one of the factors in SEO that works along with the others in order to bring up the website ranking. 

2. Penguin does not trigger negative site ranking

Penguin is an algorithm that catches malicious links on websites. These malicious links are caused by spammy link building resulting in negative SEO. To avoid this, remove the links that are qualified as spam on your website, avoid link farms & networks; pursue good linking strategies to recover from negative SEO.

3. Domain authority determines the quality of a link

Domain authority (DA) is not a ranking signal. Websites that are link farms can also have a high DA, which proves it is not a ranking signal for a link. Domain authority is one of the many criteria that determine the quality of a link. 

Quality of a good link is determined by:

• Linking domain has high traffic value
• Linking domain offers content that is relevant to your offerings
• The page linked-to offers value to users
• Anchor text is contextual

4. Link exchange is spamming

Exchanging links between websites or asking a domain owner for a link is spamming – this is a common myth. People do reach out to directories, publications, etc. for a link. The activity between all the parties is the same – to exchange links. The only criterion is to reach out to sites that will benefit you.

There is a lot of content floating around the internet that says when you get a backlink from a website that reaches out to other sites for a link – it will lead to a manual penalty. The only activities to be avoided are – resources link building and broken link building. Building quality backlinks helps to improve website ranking. 

5. Several backlinks to a single piece of content can attract a penalty

People who misunderstand the concept of link building acquire many links for a single piece of content, even if the links are of low-quality. They concentrate only on acquiring links regardless of quality. When Google bot reads their website and constantly finds such links, the search engine slaps the site with profile devaluation and a manual penalty. 

Acquiring a link requires checking for certain factors to ensure the link will impact positively on your SEO. When the content on your web page is of high quality, it will obviously attract high-quality backlinks. Constant creation of high-quality content creates a cycle of high-quality link building for your site. This is what every business aims for – organic link building.

When your site has constantly low quality and irrelevant links, this is what attracts penalty. Good quality links to good quality content do not attract penalties.  

6. Guest post adversely affects link building

Guest posting demonstrates your domain’s authority. When you publish content regarding your products and services on other websites that offer something similar to your offerings, the visitors to that website or directory get to know your brand. This establishes brand value and awareness.

The myth that guest posting has a negative impact on link building came into existence because people started guest posting only to get a link. This distorted the purpose of the guest post, hence the search engines penalized when irrelevant links were placed. Such actions were mistaken by the public at large to an understanding that guest posting was inadvisable. 

Now that the myth is clarified, we understand that guest posting is still important. Guest posting gives you no-follow links which benefit digital marketing by increasing your brand visibility. Guest posting is the right way to market your business in a highly relevant and trafficked publication. 

7. Link building is all about increasing the number of backlinks

Link building is not only about increasing the volume of links to a website. It is about building relationships with other websites for marketing. When you reach out to sites relevant to your business, you build long-term relationships with other businesses and key influencers in your industry. Just like companies get to know their competitors and other businesses in their industry when they have a brick and mortar office, similar activity is performed online to build relationships. 

Building good relationships within your industry will help build your brand. When you create content based upon industry data and publish it on another website that is relevant to your industry, it shows your expertise. You can showcase this piece of content while reaching out to new business and establish a similar friendly relationship.

Here are a few benefits of link building:

• Helps in getting indexed quicker in search results
• High-quality incoming links bring more visibility to your blog
• Increases a brand’s visibility across the web 
• Showcases the brand’s value and authority

Link building can be performed using:

• Guest blogging
• Infographics
• Videos
• Directory submission
• Writing high-quality blog posts on your website 
• Dofollow blog comments
• Dofollow social bookmarking websites

Link building is an important part of any SEO strategy. Formulating a link building plan involves choosing the form of content to be created based on the audience. The next step would be to reach out to the platforms/websites that accept the kind of content you want to market. Reaching out to other businesses in your niche might require modifying your plan. 

Just like any strategy, a link building plan also needs to be monitored constantly to see if the results match with what was planned. Any intermittent changes should benefit the SEO in the long-term. Search engine optimization is a long-term process, and so is link building. It takes a few months to show results, but it is the organic way to constantly improve your website ranking.

Conclusion:

Link building strategy has to be customized time and again based on your SEO strategy. Link  different pages of your website to other sites and refrain from linking only to your home page. It is a good idea to keep a note of all the sites reached out to and linked to, so you can check on the linked websites frequently. Always follow the best practices of link building to see the best results for your online marketing campaign.

The post 7 Worst Link Building Ideas Holding Back Your Campaign appeared first on SiteProNews.

We get it, though. Link building is yet another task you need to cross off in your already huge SEO to-do-list. Not just this but link building — despite being just one of many SEO strategies — itself requires lots of time, dedication and effort from you.

Fortunately, it’s a lot easier when you know exactly what needs to be done. In this article, we’re going to take you through 7 of the best link-building techniques and show you how to implement them.

Guest Blogging

Let’s begin with arguably the most popular link-building technique there is. Back in 2014, Google’s main man Matt Cutts basically said that guest blogging was dead. Eh? Fast-forward to 2018, and it’s still as popular as ever.

This is because links and ranking are still inseparable, and guest blogging is a great way to acquire more links.

Essentially, your aim as a guest blogger is to get more authoritative, high-traffic, related websites to link out to you. Guest blogging is the reason so many brands want to get published on The Huffington Post, despite the Huff Post’s former infamous stance on not paying most of its contributors.

Who the heck cares about $$$ when you can get a link from the Huff Post?!
To launch an effective guest blogging campaign, you need to first come up with some blog ideas related to your niche. Then, you need to identify a clutch of websites/blogs before pitching them your idea. Upon acceptance, you’ll write the blog post — while including a link within the content to your own website — and wait for the website to publish it to their page.

Once it’s published, you’ve secured a strong link and you’ve also exposed your website to a whole new audience. It’s literally a win/win, but the key is coming up with great blog ideas and actually writing an awesome blog post that’s stuffed with value. If you do that consistently, more and more websites will want to work with you.

Offer Lots of Value to Forum Communities

An easy peasy way of securing more links is to start posting regularly on forums.

However, there’s a right and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way is to join a forum related to your niche, before adding a link to your website in your signature right away. Then, you literally add your link to every single worthless, 2 sentence comments you make in the hope that people will check you out.

They probably won’t, and it’s highly likely that you’ll get kicked,

The right thing to do is to join a forum and to focus on giving as much as you can. This means commenting loads, offering lots of value, and sharing your expert opinion with people. Be a shining light in the community; become a voice people can trust.

Then — and only then — add a link to your signature, and start adding it now and then to your posts.

Create Skyscraper Pages

Skyscraper pages sound awesome! But what are they?

A skyscraper page is when you take an existing piece of content (not yours but someone else’s) that’s already performing well — and make it even better. This means adding more value, more tips, more data, more facts.

Basically, more everything.

A skyscraper page is a long-form piece of content, and research has shown that long-form content outperforms short form content. The reasons for this are varied, but one of them is that long-form content gets shared more — and thus linked to more.

We share long-form content more simply because it offers us more value. It educates, informs and engages us.

Moreover, the more data-filled your content is, the higher the chances are that other websites related to your niche will link out to it when citing research/sources.

To find content that’s performing well in your niche, you can use a tool like Buzz Sumo. Then, you need to go through the content and spot its weaknesses. What areas can you improve on? What tips and statistics has it missed out?

The beauty of a skyscraper page is that you’re taking a piece of content that you already know people want to see. Then, all you have to do is expand it and make it better.

Create Infographics

90% of the information that’s sent to the brain is visual, while research has shown that infographics can boost your web traffic by as much as 12%.

More importantly, infographics are shared 3x more than any other type of content on social media.

This means that infographics create opportunities for backlinks. They educate and inform your audience in a fun and engaging way, and because they’re so rich in data, facts, and figures, they help to position you as an authority in your niche.

You can also submit your infographic to infographic sites for more links. To find these sites, simply type “submit infographic” into Google.

Steal Links

This sub-heading is a tad provocative, but stealing your rivals backlinks is an often-used link building technique that can really see you climb the rankings.

It might sound devious but it really isn’t — at least, not in the dog-eat-dog world of SEO.

It is going to require some major time and effort from you, though.

Essentially, what you’re going to do is find out where your rivals get their backlinks from… and then you’re going to steal them from them.

To do this, type your main keyword into Google. Then, copy and past the top ten search results (their URLs) into a spreadsheet.

Next, use an SEO tool that comes with a backlink analysis feature to discover where each website is getting their backlinks from.

Identify your best targets and then spend some major time reaching out to them via email. Basically, your aim here is to convince them with a personable, friendly and short email that, while the website they’re linking out to is okay, you’ve just produced an even better, more up-to-date and more relevant piece of content that they should be linking to instead!

If they care about relevance, there’s a good chance they’ll swap your rivals link for yours.

Identify Resource Pages

What is a resource page? A resource page contains a list of resources that a website believes will be most helpful to their readers. For example, a travel website might have a list of resources of the best hotel comparison blogs.

What you want to do here is to find resource pages related to your niche, before getting your own website included on them. It’s easier — but time consuming — than you might think.

Start by using a search string like this in Google:

“Keyword” + “helpful resources.”  

This will bring up a page full of useful resource pages related to your keyword/niche.

Next, you need to find the right website that’s the best fit for your content, before reaching out to the webmaster. Send them a polite and personable email that briefly explains why you think your blog should be included in their list of resources. What value can you offer their readers?

If this sounds super simple, that’s because it is. But it will take some time.

Find Broken Links

We’re going to end on a really easy but oh so powerful link building technique.

Broken links exist and they’re a real pain. If a website is linking out to a page that no longer exists, it reflects badly on them and their ranking might take a hit.

Because you’re such a nice person, you’re going to find broken links for people before offering to replace them with a link to your amazing, up-to-date content.

How to find broken links? It’s easy — all you need to do is use a tool, such as Check My Links, a Chrome from Google. Then, input a phrase like “Travel top articles” (if you run a travel-related website) before checking all the relevant pages for broken links.

There will definitely be a few. Once you’ve found them, it’s time to shoot the webmaster a friendly email that highlights the broken link, before offering to replace it with yours.

Most — surely all! — webmasters will be so grateful to you for highlighting the broken link that they’ll definitely link out to you. Well, provided that your content is awesome that is!

These are 7 of the best link-building techniques that you should include in your SEO strategy. Implementing these will take time and effort from you, but the rewards can be huge. Remember that it’s all about creating value for people — both for your audience and other websites. Once you start putting in more effort, the links will come.

The post Top 7 Link-Building Techniques You Should Include in Your SEO Strategy appeared first on SiteProNews.