Website speed is critical, particularly if it serves a business function and definitely when it supports the selling of products or services via ecommerce. If your primary target audience is local, you should be familiar with the phrase local SEO. Local SEO, as opposed to traditional SEO, increases your presence in search results within your local audience. Although the functioning of local SEO is similar to that of conventional SEO in that it includes an umbrella of strategies, ranging from content marketing to page speed optimization, to assist your Small and Midsize Business (SMB) to obtain a top place in search results with local intent.
To put it simply, if someone looks for “best salons near me,” the results will be based on a local intent, whereas if someone searches for “Grey denim jacket,” the results will come from any user within five miles or fifty miles.
Local SEO, on the other hand, necessitates a far more complex discipline than one might expect.
So, if you want to reach the most people in your area, the best solution is to hire professionals who will assist you reach your target audience while you focus on your core business.
Given the degree of skill and variety in the SEO sector, selecting the “Right” team of experts might be difficult. With so many SEO professionals to choose from, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
That is why, for the finest reach, you need a competent SEO agency that not only assists you with local SEO but also completely knows your business. We’ve compiled a list of factors that will assist you in selecting a reliable SEO company for your SMBs.
While any SEO business attempting to pitch your SMB and promote their services will mention the number of cases and value they provide. They will tell you exactly how they have assisted other businesses in achieving local visibility online and growing their company.
Most SEO firms have their case studies posted on their website. You may head over there and do some research on the past firms they’ve worked with, which will give you a good indication of how well-versed and capable they are for your SMB.
Local SEO firms, like any other business in the same industry, employ a number of tactics to reach their target audience. Each firm will approach local SEO in a somewhat different manner depending on the nature of the business and its target market.
Some may only have one customer in each vertical, but others may have multiple customers in each vertical. Various SEO agencies employ a variety of models.
The company you’re thinking about should, on the other hand, have a broad approach to local SEO that includes sectors and markets. Request that your local SEO business explains it to you.
There are a variety of SEO tools available to assist SEO experts in their tasks. Discuss the tools used by the firm you’re considering with them, as well as why they use them. You’ll learn about their overall strategy for SEO techniques.
Expect to hear about tools like Moz Local, Yext, Advanced Web Rankings, SEM Rush, and others when it comes to local SEO.
The greatest approach to know an SEO company’s understanding and how well versed they are in local SEO is to examine their SEO knowledge.
Allow your prospects to demonstrate their experience and know-how by inquiring about the most recent updates to Local SEO.
After all, they are the Local SEO experts and should be able to amaze you with their vast knowledge.
Google My Business is the most convenient approach to reach out to your local audience. It is the most effective strategy to boost your local presence and rating. However, the local SEO business you are looking for may or may not have expertise with GMB.
It is a rather simple SEO strategy, so let your SEO professionals explain how they use GMB for local SEO.
The Google local map pack refers to the first three search results that appear on the search page when anything related to an industry or work is combined with a specific area. For example, if a user searches “electricians” and enters a city, the top three businesses in that city display beneath the ad. This boosts the number of people that visit your website.
That is fantastic digital real estate for your local business. Inquire with each of the companies you’re considering how they aim to propel you to the top of the rankings.
Your firm should be featured in more than just the local 3-Pack. It should appear in organic search results as well. Organic search results appear right below advertising or the local 3-pack. You want people to find your business even if it isn’t listed in the three-pack.
Inquire with each of your local SEO business competitors about their plans for ranking your site in organic search results.
As a Local SEO marketing agency, they should be able to clearly articulate their methodology and how they intend to use it to your benefit.
When evaluating how to select the best SEO agency for your Local SEO requirements, evaluate what the company will provide you in reports.
Local SEO reports are commonly distinguished from national SEO reports, so be certain that they have these aspects.
What you should look for in a good Local SEO report is as follows:
Knowing how and where your money is spent is the greatest approach to learning about a firm. You’re investing in a local SEO business in the hopes of seeing a return on your investment. But, before you can calculate the ROI, you must first understand the “I.”
Inquire about the payment arrangement of each firm. Make sure you have a good sense of how much money you’ll need to invest to optimize your site for local visitors.
To achieve organic traffic, placement in the local 3-pack, and other benefits, you must first grasp the SEO agency’s definition of success and how it aligns with you and your SMB’s goals.
The easiest approach to assess it is to give them an open-ended question, such as “how do you define success?”
The responses would fluctuate based on the SEO agency’s competence in the sector and the value they bring. However, This will provide you with a good sense of the company’s intelligence and skill to be recruited as your SEO professional.
An SEO expert firm should be able to comprehend your particular business and the best technique to provide the proper set of visitors to your website in this high-end and tight competency.
The greatest advice we can provide you to help you select the proper SEO firm is to interview them while keeping the criteria listed above in mind. You should not select any SEO company without first properly knowing their strategy for moving your business ahead. Get several consultations so you can see which provider is offering you the most value for money.
The post How to Choose a Reliable Local SEO Company For Your SMBs appeared first on SiteProNews.
Planning a business takes a great deal of care and attention to detail. It is easy to skip a few steps or ignore something significant if you rush to get your business going. Any one of these omissions could turn your business into a failure before it has even started. Here are 7 significant things ignored when planning a business that can result in failure.
Unless you write a business plan, you will be unable to assess the viability of your new business, let alone whether or not it would be profitable. There are several components of a good business plan, most of which are mentioned below. A good business plan is the foundation of your business blueprint: your justification for starting the business, how it is to be developed and its ultimate objectives.
If you are constructing a piece of furniture, you need a plan to follow. A list of materials and how they are to be put together is crucial. You will likely use this plan to establish whether or not it is cheaper to buy the piece or make it yourself. The same approach applies to planning a business. You need to define a course of events from concept to completion. You need to evaluate your cost and establish whether or not you need financing. If so, you will have to present your business plan to prospective lenders such as your bank.
Financial planning is a critical aspect of a business plan. Therefore, you must consider the following:
– and more. Check over your initial business plan and the cost of each step.
Many people who are starting a new business fail to take financial planning seriously until they circumstances force them to do so. Every new business needs a cash flow projection, particularly if you are looking for financing. You will have to assess your income and expenses. Also, you have to be able to present a projected balance sheet. You must prove that your business is worth investing in, and that you can repay any business loan offered.
Before you do anything else, you must make sure there is a market for your product or service. Many businesses fail because people have ignored market research and end up finding that they have no customers or clients to sell to. You can easily avoid this. Simply carry out some market research – this can often be done online. Market research is a critical aspect of planning a business, no matter what your business is offering.
Check out forums and social media. Ask “what if you had…†and look for responses. Check out Amazon for products similar to yours, and then look at their reviews and questions asked by users. This may give you ideas on how to adapt your products to provide solutions to the issues people are having with existing products.
You could use a Facebook Business Page to present an online questionnaire. Design the questions to find out the potential responses to your new product. Never ask for personal details – just questions that can help you analyze the potential market for your product or service. It is absolutely crucial to ensure that your business has a market and that you have people interested in your type of product.
Choosing to ignore the competition when planning a business is a fatal error. If your competitors are selling the same products or services as you, how do you intend to compete with them? If your business plan and financial analysis say you must sell at $20 and your competition is selling the same at $16, who will they end up buying from? You see why ignoring the competition should be avoided at all cost, right?
Another aspect of the competition is the market saturation of your area. Before even considering starting up a business locally, you must check out who else is offering your product or service in your projected geographical area. Find out who those businesses are, what they charge and whether or not there is any possibility of you competing with them at their price level.
Also, keep in mind customers tend to be faithful. If your competition offers a good and reliable service, why should they switch to you – unless you are undercutting them with the same or better service? You have to offer an excellent reason for them to switch to you.
That could be a price advantage, a better product or a more comprehensive service – or even all of these. You could offer better guarantees or warranties, more design or higher specification or some other reason to persuade them to buy from you. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes: “What would someone have to offer you in order to persuade you to choose another supplier?â€Â
Ignoring online marketing when planning a business is a cardinal sin in this electronic age. Many people – in fact, likely most – will look online for what they are seeking. Whether they’re searching for a service or a product, they will check Google Local for businesses that provide them with the desired means.
Many will go straight to Amazon for their product needs! You must get registered on Amazon and get your own Facebook business page. Advertise on Facebook and sell on Amazon. Increasing numbers of people go online to find what they want.
Many people use Amazon and get free delivery in many cases (without paying for Amazon Prime.) They can check out the reviews for their product and make a purchasing decision based on these reviews.
You don’t need to have a website, although that would be beneficial. What will help you is to:
Never underestimate the power of the internet. You can be sure your competition is using it.
If you decide to use a website or blog to promote your business, then you need to understand some basic SEO principles. The focus of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) lies on to the improvement of your website design and ensures that your site’s content is listed on Google as well as other search engines. Keywords are essential, but you should not overuse them. When planning or running a business, you should be able to elaborate about your passion for said business and draw your audience in this way.
SEO is necessary, and Google itself will teach you a lot about it. Check out the Google Webmasters Support site to learn more. It is not difficult to follow, but if you feel you need help with SEO, then include some expenditure on it in your business plan.
Here Are Some SEO Techniques That Should Not Be Ignored:
Google will use its LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) algorithm to establish the theme of your web content. This tool analyzes the vocabulary used on each web page to decide for itself what that page is about.
However, it would help if you never write for search engines. Write for your readers, and Google will decide itself what you are writing about. Excessive use of keywords gets punished, and in many cases, all you need is about 1% keyword density. If you keep using the same keywords repeatedly, you won’t just annoy Google but also your readers.
Never ignore the power of social media. If you don’t have a Facebook business page, then get one. Also, make sure you have a Google+ page. Not only does social media connect with an ever-increasing number of potential clients or customers, but they can also connect with themselves.
People talk about what they see and also Retweet or Share specific posts that interest them. Not only can you use social media to connect with people interested in your product or services, but they can share also that information with others and vice versa: have your content go viral and you will receive a massive amount of free advertising.
Not just that, but make sure you have your website links on your posts and tweets. You may then get links passing all around the web – that is impressive SEO!
These are just two SEO techniques that are used to ensure that your web pages are displayed when potential customers are searching for products or services that you can offer. Never ignore SEO – but use it wisely to make better use of what it can offer.
Ignoring financing can end your business before it even begins. You must make sure you have enough money to start. If you need to borrow funds, then your business plan must be good enough to persuade banks that you are a reasonable risk. Only ever get financing from banks or recognized business angels or financiers. High-interest short-term loans can result in you losing everything.
That’s why your business plan should be adequately prepared – even if you have to pay to have it done. Financing is crucial, but never borrow more than you need to get started. Check whether you qualify for any “startup†government business loans. There are of course other ways to acquire financing for a new business: Check here for some more ideas.
When planning a business, it is vital to give yourself the best possible chance of success. Your plan should certainly take into account the reasons why some businesses have failed, but it should also consider why many have succeeded. Avoid failure and follow proven success.
The 7 tips discussed in this article should help you avoid the major factors ignored by those who failed, but they should also point you in the right direction for success.
The post 7 Major Things Ignored While Planning a Business appeared first on SiteProNews.
Did you know that you can get so much more out of your SEO strategy with simple tweaks, like paying more attention to the way you organize your keywords?
Since the BERT update, Google started getting gradually better at understanding natural language. In other words, it got better at understanding how humans speak.
This means that search engines can now understand synonyms better. And they understand what falls into a broader topic. This is where keyword clusters come into play.
As the name suggests, keyword clusters are groups of keywords that speak to the same topic and, more importantly, to the same search intent.
For example, “rustic decorations†and “farmhouse decorations†or “rustic home décor ideas†are different keywords but someone looking to change the look of their home might search for any of these phrases.
A good question! Should you add all the keywords in a cluster to a single piece of content or spread them out on several pages? Modern SEO says to go with the former.
Here’s why:
Topic clusters are a good way to get the best of both worlds: you can have different blog posts for different topics. Then, you can group them on a single pillar page with a neat table of contents and create a mega-guide. Each sub-topic will link to the pillar page, so when one subtopic ranks well, it will lend its “SEO juices†to everyone in the cluster.
Let’s see keyword clusters in action.
Before you say clusters may limit the keyword opportunities out there, hear me out. You can build keyword clusters around almost any long-tail keyword you’ve identified.
So, to begin with, identify a profitable keyword that matches users’ search intent and your business goals. Let’s say I want to sell SEO courses and, to begin with, I need to establish my expertise and attract SEO newbies. I would begin with “what is SEO?†as my seed keyword.
The cluster may look like this: what is SEO? -> introduction to SEO -> the basics of SEO -> what is SEO and how does it work?
And so on. You got the point.
This is definitely not the only keyword cluster I can create for SEO beginners. Here’s another example: SEO tips and tricks -> SEO best practices -> on-page SEO tips -> off-page SEO tips.
How can you come up with the keywords in your cluster?
Start with a good old Google search. In the “related section†or “people also ask†boxes you’ll find suggestions you can add to your cluster. You can also use Google Ads for this or your favorite paid SEO research tool.
Once your tool of choice comes up with suggested keywords, find the ones that bear some similarities:
All these factors are equally important. If you miss the semantic relevance, your topic cluster will not make sense. If you optimize for keywords with widely different difficulty or search volume, you risk some of them not ranking at all.
For example, if I want to create a topic cluster for a company searching for social media marketing tools, I get these suggestions from Google and from my Keyword Surfer plugin:
See all those keywords with a volume of 3600? They can all go into this cluster. But I would definitely skip “social media management†or “best branding tools†– these are great starters for other topic clusters.
Google and other search engines have spent years (and billions of dollars) getting their solutions to “speak humanâ€Â. And they’re just getting started. This is what the future of SEO looks like – semantic relevance and search intent all wrapped into a nice blanket of high quality content.
Topic and keyword clusters are strategies that keep on giving because you can easily add to them. Spotted a new keyword that works for one of your best pillar pages? Create a blog post around it and add it to the page. It will rank much faster (and better!) than anything your competitors may write from scratch and betting only on that single keyword.
The post How to Level Up Your SEO Strategy with Keyword Clusters appeared first on SiteProNews.
Ranking at the top of Google’s first search results page is the ultimate goal for all businesses today. As research by Backlinko indicates, the #1 result on Google accumulates nearly 31.7% CTR, while the second pages generally tend to receive 0.78% of clicks.
Whether you own a thriving online business, work as a digital marketing manager for someone else, or are an SEO specialist at an agency, you’ll have to manage, monetize and promote online content through Google.
Search engine optimization may look like small modifications to a website. However, the combined impact of these minor changes on your website’s performance and user experience is massive.
The secret behind creating a high-ranking website resides in your ability to satisfy the users by offering them an above-par experience on your platform. One of these users is a search engine, which helps you reach other users with your website. Let’s look at some effective ways you can improve your Google ranking.
Whether it’s John Mueller or Gary Illyes, every successful Google executive states that Google frequently changes its algorithm and a majority of these changes are not announced publically. According to Moz, there are about 500-600 Google algorithm changes every year.
The primary purpose behind keeping these changes is to prevent black hat SEO strategies and shortcuts to maintain the authenticity of websites.
However, some notable algorithm updates you may want to know include page experience updates, core updates (related to the content quality), and mobile-first updates.
You can keep yourself updated with these changes by regularly keeping a check on Google Webmaster Central.
Targeting a single keyword across different pages of your website is certainly a bad idea! Instead, you need to rank for a maximum number of keywords, with the same amount of work and effort.
This is only possible if you come up with smart strategies. Start with keyword research and carefully choose your target keywords. Your targeted keywords directly impact your probability of success.
Here are a few important things to consider while selecting keywords:
People tend to search for the same things in a billion ways. Look for a keyword seed and then search a list of keywords that represent the same theme.
To grow your keyword theme, try to identify your seed keyword. Seed keywords are basically the most obvious keywords relevant to your topic.
If, for instance, you sell handmade jewelry, your seed keyword can be “buy handmade jewelry.â€Â
To come up with good keyword seeds, you need to do some research and then brainstorm different ideas based on your services, business objectives, targeted audience, and keywords you want to rank for the ads you’re planning to purchase.
Once you finalize your seed keyword, grow it into a theme by listing out all the related keywords. This approach will help you expand your opportunities and rank for multiple keywords at the same time.
Long-tail keywords can be a major help in this regard. The number of long-tail keywords used on a website is typically directly proportional to the amount of traffic directed to it by the search engines. You can use several paid or free keyword research tools like Semrush.
However, at this stage, you need to be mindful of your business goals and hence, keyword specificity. Make sure they’re not out of context or irrelevant to your industry.
Your website content gives you an edge over your competitors; make sure it’s spectacular, relevant, and well-researched. Before you share any blog piece, infographic, or any other report on your website, make sure that it offers something more to your recipients than they’re already getting from other content, raking on the same keywords you’re using.
Google provides guidelines and some clues regarding its content evaluation strategy. Try to comprehend it and create your content accordingly.
By creating the best content on the internet, you can establish your business as a trusted brand, build more links, increase user engagement and protect your website from uninformed algorithmic changes.
If you’re here, chances are, you’ve already started taking your Google ranking seriously, and congratulations, that was your first step towards improving your rank.
Don’t worry if all the SEO technicalities make you feel overwhelmed, you’re not alone.
If you’re looking for reliable SEO optimization services for small businesses, feel free to check out Search Berg, an established platform offering content writing, lead generation, paid marketing services, and premium SEO packages for small businesses to their clients at affordable rates.
The post A Beginner’s Guide to Ranking High on Google Using SEO appeared first on SiteProNews.
Google Trends is one of those platforms that is often ignored by SEO content writers. And it’s a shame.
First of all, it’s a completely free platform. More importantly, it’s the place where you’ll find data based on actual search volumes.
Paid SEO tools usually offer estimates extrapolated from various data providers. I’m not saying that they are useless – not at all! They offer more than search volume data, so paid tools are always a good thing to have in your SEO arsenal.
But if you want more data (and more accurate data) try pairing the information from your paid SEO tool of choice with a few Google Trends queries.
Not sure where to begin? Here’s how we use Google Trends in my SEO content writing agency:
SEO is a game for the long term. Unless you’re optimizing for time-sensitive content (like a new app release or a piece of news), you’re going to want to have your article rank high for years to come. But search volume matters here too.
So find out if what you’re going to write about will be of interest in the future. For instance, since I work in SEO, I might be interested in my own industry’s outlook:
In the last year, there has been a growing interest in this term. While SEO is not a new concept by any means, it’s good to know that it can still spark interest. Even more interesting, you can see how SEO fares against a known “competing†industry, like PPC ads:
When working on new topics for my agency’s blog, my team and I often have to decide if we should add SEO to the mix or stick to content writing or copywriting in general. Google Trends can shed some light on what our audience is more interested in.
This 5-year overview clearly tells me that there is more interest in content writing than SEO content writing:
Now you might say that the choice is obvious. But bear in mind, search volume isn’t everything. If keywords related to SEO content writing have more business value, then I can definitely live with less, but more meaningful traffic. What matters here is that the interest in both seems to be constant.
This is why it’s important to constantly check with Google Trends. As marketers, we need to know if the products or services we are selling are beginning to lose traction. Remember DVDs? Fewer and fewer people do:
This is how the demise of a product looks like. And Google Trends can make you aware of it before it’s too late.
Yes, you can do that in plain, old Google search too. But Google Trends adds data to this information. You can see which search terms are more popular and which other topics are usually associated with yours.
This can help you plan your SEO strategy for the long run, as well as your current piece of content. The related queries section can be an SEO writer’s goldmine if used properly. For example, you can turn all the related queries into subtitles and thus increase your chances of ranking higher for a wide range of keywords.
More importantly, the results marked with “Breakout†have recently had a huge increase in search frequency, usually due to them being new topics or due to recent changes in the industry. This is another opportunity you shouldn’t miss out on.
Content writing is very popular in a few states:
In other states, people seem to have almost no interest in the topic. If I were to promote my articles about content writing on social media, for example, why waste money on audiences who have no interest in what I’m trying to sell?
But even if you don’t plan to use paid ads to promote what you write, you can use this information to refine your articles. Let’s say you have an article that already ranks well on a topic that’s popular in Kansas, like mine is. You can add a few references to the state or a few elements of local pop culture to appeal to your Kansas audience even more.
Google Trends is a great way to get started on your topic and keyword research. In fact, with a bit of experience with the platform and within your industry, you may not need any other tool to help you put together an SEO plan.
Try it out!
Need help with that plan or with implementing it in articles that rank high and convert readers into leads? Talk to my team of expert SEO content writers, we can help!
The post 4 Ways to Use Google Trends to Take Your SEO Content to the Next Level appeared first on SiteProNews.
The SEO industry is highly unpredictable. It makes it harder for marketing strategists and professional writing services to rank their content. The algorithms and trends keep changing. And before we know it, there’s a new set of rules ready to dominate the online world in a mere few months.
Similarly, 2021 was also ready for the SEO changes like every year before it. In this post, you will learn about new trends and find some old ones still standing in the SEO game. If you are ready to make your mark this year, check out these SEO changes to improve your content.
It does not matter whether you are an online marketer interested in improving your inbound marketing strategy or a person just starting a new website. SEO guidelines do not prioritize one over another. The set rules are the same for everyone who is interested in ranking high in search results.
Take a closer look at the most significant SEO changes made for 2021 that will help you improve your search engine rankings!
MUM is the latest Natural Language Processing (NLP) model created by Google, 1000 times faster than BERT. Now that says a lot about how crucial SEO is for this global company!
When Prabhakar Raghavan introduced MUM to the world at Google I/O 2021, he said that the model was capable of analyzing online content like images, text, and videos in 75 different languages. This is supposed to be ideal for complex search queries.
He further mentioned that MUM can understand languages, generate them, and train across 75 languages simultaneously. MUM is still in the testing phase, but Google will soon be letting it out of the lab for all users like professional writing service providers, video content creators, etc.
The SEO trend prioritizes page speed over any other website factor in 2021. Core Web Vitals are three SEO metrics that measure user experience about loading, visual stability, and interactivity.
Loading: How fast can the page load?
Visual Stability: How stable is the page while loading?
Interactivity: How long does it take to get interactive?
If you are looking to improve your inbound marketing strategy by content development, you can use the Core Web Vitals to your advantage. If a new user finds your website but does not stay, it won’t be good for the ranking. So, invest in user experience as it is directly proportional to SEO success.
If you have written long-form content before but failed to get ranked on the greatest search engine, then, this SEO trend will be your new best friend!
For many professional writing service providers and bloggers, it was tough to spend hours finding the right keywords and writing thousands of words per blog post. Yet, the result was no ranking.
However, passage indexing will change the old methods of web crawling and improve SEO ranking. Google has introduced this NLP feature that will index web pages and analyze the meaning of each passage. It will help long-form content creators to get ranked on Google. based on specific sections of their posts.
While those interested in inbound marketing strategy and optimization are working hard to rank on Google, the search engine keeps updating its methods to answer queries.
With Featured Snippets, related questions with answers, and Google’s business listings – people do not need to click on a link to get what they were looking for.
This is why keyword research is becoming increasingly important as SEO practices advance. To improve your search ranking, you can target long-tail keywords and write specific articles/blogs about topics.
SERPs are the best place to find the keywords that you want to try. Invest more time in searching for the keyword than any other SEO practice. It will benefit your website or business in the long run.
Smartphones are becoming smarter, and people are trying out new features to improve their tech experiences. Similarly, voice search is becoming a trend on its own for SEO optimization.
Let’s say, you provide a professional writing service to clients who want to target voice search queries. You’ll have to search for long-tail keywords that are very focused. Keyword research depends on your target audience and the topic. Therefore, voice search queries will be more specific and to the point.
Still, voice search optimization is new, so you can take your time learning as an SEO content creator.
Despite all the changes to SEO practices in 2021, this one hasn’t changed. No method is better than writing original content to reach a good SEO ranking.
If you want to create a killer inbound marketing strategy to increase sales or bring in new customers, original content is the best way to do it. If you want to promote an old business online, authentic content is the way to go.
Google will look for keywords and page speeds, etc., to rank a web page, but if the content is bad, it’s going to disregard it anyway. Their AI web crawlers are more efficient now as they understand language and interpret it better than they did before.
Although there are many more SEO changes in 2021 that are equally effective, the six mentioned in this article are the core features. They will help you prepare better content for search engine ranking. Let’s recap them!
The first one was the newest NLP model from Google to improve search results. This can help you search audiences of different languages and prepare more global content.
The second one was Core Web Vitals metrics to improve user experience through page speed. Ultimately, happy visitors return.
The third one is an improved Google feature for ranking long-form content. So, if you want to write valuable pieces, instead of keyword-stuffed articles, this feature will be helpful.
The fourth and fifth are for keyword research, one for text and another for voice search. SEO writing is incomplete without keywords, but finding the right keywords for the right audience is crucial!
The last one is the ultimate feature that will help you rank on search engines. With the help of the other five, you can write great content prices with original and new information for your audience.
The post All the Latest SEO Changes in 2021 appeared first on SiteProNews.
Google handles an average of 6.9 billion searches per day. Every. Single. Day. Before the pandemic, the number was closer to 3 billion, but with most of us spending so much time indoors we’re pretty much googling everything now.
Do note that this is just one search engine. Granted, it’s the biggest one but it still doesn’t account for all the searches in the world.
When people spend more time online, SEO becomes more important…again. With a looming crisis on the horizon, you want every competitive advantage you can get while the getting’s good.
If you’re a regular on SiteProNews, you know I’ve written a lot about SEO intent and choosing the right keywords, so I won’t rehash this. Today, I’d like to talk about something seemingly basic because as it usually happens with basic things, it often gets overlooked.
So, you’ve found the right focus keyword. Now all you have to do is make it shine. Where do you place it for a maximum impact?
Here’s the roadmap my agency uses to get our clients’ content on the first page of Google:
Adding your focus keyword in the URL is probably the first item on the list of overlooked things. If you use WordPress, for instance, you’ll see that the editor automatically creates an URL for you.
Don’t assume that the machine is smarter than you. Double-check it and make sure it has the entire keyword in it, especially if you’re using a long-tail keyword (which I highly recommend).
Having your focus keyword in the URL tells both Google bots and human readers that they’ve landed in the right place for that topic. You’d be surprised at how many human readers analyze the URL before clicking on it.
Not everyone reads the URL. But everyone reads the title, so this is a key placement for your keyword. If possible, try to use an exact match of your keyword.
However, don’t sacrifice readability or a punchy, sexy title just to fit in an extra-long keyword. You’ll have plenty of other opportunities to use it.
Ideally, start your meta description with your focus keyword. The more prominent its spot is, the more clear it makes the topic of your content. Again, this works wonders for both human readers and search engine bots.
This is what one of our high-ranking articles looks like in SERPs:
The keyword (in bold) is at the very beginning, promising users an in-depth look at exactly what they were looking for. This is one of the factors that attracted a lot of readers to our article and even a lot of new leads that easily converted into clients.
Yes, we’re still in the realm of making things clear as soon as possible. Try adding your focus keyword in the very first paragraph or at least before you hit 200 words.
Not possible? Add a close variation of your keyword.
Finish strong. Add the keyword in your last paragraph, as close to the end as possible.
For extra points, add it to your final CTA too, but make sure it’s not part of the anchor of a link that leads to another page.
The relevance of keywords in image alt tags has been quite a controversy in the SEO world. From my experience, it never hurts. At the very least, it will take your image higher in SERPs, if not the entire article.
Additionally, fill in all the fields in the image description. Don’t repeat the same keyword. Add variations of it instead or LSI keywords.
For legibility purposes, your content should always have subheadings, especially if it’s over 300 words long. And these subheadings should have the focus keyword in them.
If you use more than one type of subheading (H2, H3, H4) add your keyword in at least one of each. Again, don’t overdo it – the keyword shouldn’t be everywhere.
Sprinkle your entire text with your focus keyword. But (and this is very important!) don’t overdo it. Gone are the days when a 5% keyword density was acceptable. Stick to less than 2%, ideally less than 1%.
This is more than enough if you use it in all the other places mentioned above and if you also use variations of it and LSI keywords.
As always, my recommendation is to aim for balance and, most of all, readability. If you feel like your keyword doesn’t sound natural in any of these places, ditch it without remorse. Never sacrifice readability and a good flow for SEO purposes. Readers hate it and, ironically enough, so do search engines.
Need help with striking this balance AND ranking high in SERPs? My team of expert SEO writers and I are just a click away. Let’s talk!
The post SEO 101: Where Exactly Should You Place Your Keywords in Your Content? appeared first on SiteProNews.
Suppose you are at a construction site.
You see the site engineer using a measuring tape to find out the length of a wall. A little later, he tells his colleague to note down 30 feet.
Using your senses, you quickly understand that ‘feet’ here refers to the unit of measurement and not the human body part.
But, search engines are not capable of this.
They don’t have sensory organs to help them differentiate between the feet used to measure and the feet used to stand.
So, LSI keywords come into the picture.
LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing.
It was developed in the late 1980s to extract precise information from large data sets. However, over the years, it has improved tremendously.
Almost ALL search engines use it to understand the content on web pages and rank them better. (Even if they say there’s no such thing as LSI keywords!)
LSI keywords are simply terms or phrases related to the main keyword on a web page.
They are semantically (contextually) related to each other in one or more of the following ways:
Thus, relationships exist between the keywords, and search engines use them to understand a web page’s content better.
LSI keywords bring out the context and define the main topic of the page.
Let’s say you have created a web page about a bat and written a good 1500 words about it.
But, a bat can either be a small animal that flies and hunts at night or wooden playing equipment used to hit the ball.
How would the search engine gauge it?
They will look for different LSI keywords in your content.
Once they understand the main topic of your web page, they will rank it for relevant search results.
LSI keywords impact SEO by helping your page rank for:
Thus, they increase your ranking potential and enhance your site’s SEO.
When you have expertise and knowledge about a topic, you will unknowingly include semantically related keywords in your content.
But, to be on the safer side, you must perform exhaustive LSI keyword research before you start writing.
There are 3 ways in which you can find related words and phrases for your content:
While typing a search query, you must have noticed that the search engines try to guess it.
It looks something like this on Google and is known as the Autocomplete Feature:
You’ll also find it on other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and Duck Duck Go.
They all highlight the words they are adding to your search query for a quick selection.
But, if you take a moment to analyze them, you can get many LSI keyword ideas.
For example, your main topic is chatbots.
When you type chatbots in the search box on Google, you get a lot of autocomplete suggestions.
Looking at them, you can find LSI keywords like ‘artificial intelligence‘ and ‘user interface‘.
Next, if you use autocomplete feature of other search engines, you can get even more suggestions.
All search engines display searches related to your query at the end of the search results.
When you look at them, you find multiple phrases containing your search query and additional words before or after it.
For easy differentiation, the other words are in bold.
Look at these searches related to ‘credit card application’ on Google:
You’ll notice several highlighted words in these search queries.
When you look at them closely, they give you hints about potentially related terms to use in your content – the LSI keywords.
In this case, ‘apply online’, ‘online application process’, and ‘charges’, are some LSI keyword ideas.
And this is from Google alone.
You can examine related searches on other search engines as well to get more ideas.
Bing:
Yahoo:
Duck Duck Go:
Each search engine gives you different suggestions, and so you’ll have plenty to pick and choose from.
If you don’t want to spend time with the search engines, you can use a free keyword research tool to discover LSI keywords.
It will give you thousands of keyword suggestions and also list common search terms and phrases.
So, you can use the tool as your own free LSI keyword generator!
Here’s how it works:
Scan through the keyword suggestions to identify semantically related terms.
In this case, you can use the following words as LSI keywords:
With that, finding LSI keywords for your content becomes a cakewalk.
The selection of LSI keywords demands using your instinct and common sense.
You don’t need to use all the LSI keywords you find in a single piece of content.
Only the ones that make sense and go well with your topic must be used.
Simply pick keywords with maximum relevance to your content.
If you are writing a listicle on ‘women handbags’, your LSI keywords list will include:
If you are giving information, words like shop and buy will confuse the readers. So, you shouldn’t pick or use such words in your content.
On the contrary, if you expect users to buy handbags, shop and buy will be the most important words.
So, the selection criteria will change based on the intent and context of your write-up.
Use your instinct and common sense while making a choice and prevent any possible blunders.
With that, LSI keywords should be simple and easy to use.
Search engines have one goal: to provide relevant and valuable results to their users.
They can understand your page’s content ten times better with the help of LSI keywords.
Thus, you can achieve higher search rankings and decreased bounce rates by spreading semantically related keywords throughout your content.
Dropping out LSI keywords or randomly sprinkling them whenever and wherever in the content can cost you big time.
To see their power, use them wisely.
The post What are LSI Keywords and how do They Impact SEO? appeared first on SiteProNews.
Domain Authority is a measure of the number of relevant backlinks. It is calculated by taking into account the number of sites that link to your website. As you can imagine, websites with authority will enjoy better rankings than other domains. It’s important to note that these are quality links, not just any manual or automated backlinks gained through backlink services or software.
You should try to get only high-quality backlinks from relevant websites. Remember that Google Search evaluates not only domain authority but also user experience when ranking web pages. So, in order to boost your traffic and increase brand awareness for people who are already reading content on your site, it’s best to work on improving its aesthetics and functionality before trying anything else.
However, if you feel that you don’t have the resources to do that, try increasing your domain authority with backlinks. The more quality links you get, the higher you’ll be in search result rankings.
There are different ways you can improve your search engine ranking. People have been using backlink services to boost their domain authority, but that is not the right way to do it because Google penalizes websites that acquire links by using link services. The truth is, there are more organic ways of gaining high-quality backlinks without being detected by Google.
It’s best if you have a good plan on how to get these links so you don’t look fishy or spammy in the eyes of Google’s spider crawlers, which crawl the web looking for things they consider wrong with your website. If they think your efforts are focused on acquiring as many low-quality links as possible with no regard for quality content development, they will demote your site’s ranking.
If you’re not sure how to do it, then hire a reputable SEO agency that can help you with your website backlinking campaign. Look for an agency that has good reviews, credible testimonials, and solid experience in search engine marketing. They should be able to show you past projects they have done so you know the caliber of work they are capable of doing for your website.
Domain authority is an important component of Google Search rankings, so make sure your website gets high scores on this scale by getting only relevant backlinks from other websites online. If you find it hard to do this on your own, just let professional experts handle promoting your domain authority for you. They have the resources to get your site to the top of the first page by increasing its authority without getting detected.
Here’s how you can increase domain authority score in two ways:
On-page SEO is another method of optimization. This deals with factors that revolve around the website content and design. It’s best to leave this to experts who know what they’re doing when it comes to SEO. However, you should make sure you understand the basics in order not to break Google’s rules and get your website penalized. Here’s how you can do it:
1) Get links from relevant websites that are also considered authoritative in their respective niches. Make sure the topic of the site is closely related to your own industry offerings, like technology for a site about cooking, or music for a news blog dedicated to graphic arts. If the topics don’t match, avoid these sites as they will cause more harm than good.
2) You can also employ guest blogging on other high-quality sites so you can establish authority in your industry for other web pages to reference. Publishers are always looking for strong contributors, especially those who write about topics related to their own niches. When you get published on other websites, make sure you link back to your site so people can see where the articles came from. Also, use high-quality images in your blog posts because these will be used by publishers when they post your articles online.
3) Optimize website conversions. Try A/B testing or multivariate testing to find out what elements of page design encourage more audience engagement with the site’s content. This way, you can discover what works best for boosting conversion rates and increasing brand awareness due to increased traffic flow through your website.
4) Get links from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. These sites get mentioned a lot in articles about increasing social signals which Google considers as authoritative ranking factors. If you’re not using these social media platforms, then register for new accounts and start sharing your content. You can also join popular conversations on certain topics and offer insightful comments that will boost authority and attract attention from high-traffic areas online.
5) Submit an XML sitemap to search engines like Google. You need to do this so Google can index the site faster for any user who wants to find information on it through their search engine’s search bar or directory pages. Google has an advanced algorithm called Caffeine which is responsible for crawling web pages at lightning speeds compared to its predecessor, dubbed PageRank (PR). It takes only 2 months for Google to process an average of two million pages. PR, meanwhile, could take over a year to index the same number.
Crawl errors need to be fixed in order for search engines to find your content when they crawl your site’s links. Search engine bots usually look at different areas of a website like sitemaps, templates, code repositories, and social media presence. All these elements are optimized for fast loading times, or else it can lead to patchy rankings due to slow crawling speeds even if you have great content on the site.
Bounce rates are one way of gauging how many people are leaving your website without finding what they want after visiting only one page. If there is something wrong with your website’s design and navigation, then fix it by adding a new site map or redesigning your site content to focus on the most relevant information.
You should also check out where your traffic is coming from by looking at various analytics tools like Alexa and Google Analytics. This way, you know what keywords people are searching for in order to find your website, as well as how they’re finding it through social media platforms or referrals from other websites with high authority.
The way to increase domain authority is through sharing social signals through posts and official channels. You should also engage in social media conversations to demonstrate your site’s authority in the field. Providing useful information through these channels can make other relevant websites link back to your site. This is how you build strong relationships with other publishers in terms of web ranking and organic search engine optimization, or SEO.
You should also create quality content on your site regularly over time to keep readers interested in what you’re writing about. This can boost traffic flow to your websites and increase the number of linking root domains pointing back at your website. Link building is not just about quantity; it’s also about quality, so getting links from sites with high authority is important for SEO.
High-quality content is the best way to improve search engine rankings because this will make Google see your website as an authority on certain topics, which means people will trust what you say (even if they don’t know who you are) and visit often for more information.
If they find posts that are full of inaccuracies or factual errors, then their opinion of how reliable your site is will drop. So make sure to use relevant keywords but still write with an engaging style that keeps people entertained or educated about certain things without overselling your product or service.
Linking with the right people in related industries, guest blogging on other sites to expand your own fame, and getting proper backlinks through article directories are some of the best ways to increase your website’s authority score through links, which is also one of Google’s ranking factors.
You can also do private blog network (PBN) link building by creating new sites that pass off as legitimate publisher websites so you can get high-quality content for these networks without having to worry about getting banned from search engines like Google. Be creative when it comes to link building.
DA can be increased by using 3 tactics: increase dwell time, use external linking, and remove toxic backlinks.
Dwell time is the average length of stay on a site. If your site has longer page loading times, then people will not be able to spend as much time on your website as they would with other sites that have faster loading speeds. Make sure to keep up with Google’s recommended speed guidelines at Search Engine Land. In addition, make it easy for your readers to navigate your website by making good use of natural linking. Read up on the topic of natural link building at Search Engine Journal.
You should try to get backlinks from high-authority websites because these links can increase your rank quicker than links from lower-ranking domains. You can also build relationships with influential bloggers and business owners in your target industry so you’ll have an easier time getting higher quality link-building strategies for free or at a reduced price compared to hiring an SEO agency. Don’t forget that blogging about topics related to the services or products you offer is one of the best ways to establish yourself as an authority, which can help you expand your business faster than before.
When someone leaves a link pointing to your site on their personal blog or website, it could lead to potential customers visiting your pages and checking out what you’re selling. If the person just left random links without purpose then these are known as toxic backlinks. These types of links can actually hurt your site because they might be linking to spammy sites that contain malware or plagiarized content that Google sees as manipulative. You should avoid paying for anchor text-rich backlinks from link farms because these are low-quality links that can make search engines like Google lower your site’s page rank.
Monitoring Domain Authority is important for SEO success. If your domain authority is high, then you have a better chance of getting more organic traffic. Having a high Domain Authority can help increase the number of backlinks pointing to your site because other people are more likely to link to trusted sources. For example, if you were looking for information on how to lose weight, then you would want to go to Pinterest or Shape because they are usually considered reliable sources for health-related topics.
So how important is it?
Domain Authority is one of many ranking factors that search engines like Google use in their algorithm when determining which websites should come up first for certain keywords that people type into the search box. It has been used by search engines since 2012 and it’s NOT the only factor that matters when determining page rank.
Thus, DA is important for SEO success because it can influence the amount of traffic that you get from search engines. If you have higher domain authority, then people are more likely to link to your site without being paid to do so. The factors that determine how much authority your website has is based on the age of your domain name, backlinks pointing to your website, and information pages with high keyword density for specific keywords.
You need to know how Domain Authority is calculated. Since 2012, the age of a domain name has been used to determine how much authority it has. It was initially used as a way for Google to look at how legitimate a website is. Sites that have been around longer might have more credibility than newer sites because they have had time to build up trust with their visitors and clients.
This is why you might notice that some websites that offer fake “miracle” diets or bogus beauty products often use a .tk extension instead of a .com extension – because those types of websites are not seen as being as trustworthy as an established brand like Amazon or Shape.
When calculating domain authority, search engines like Google also look at the number of backlinks pointing to a site. In order for someone’s website to be considered an authority, they need to have other websites linking to them through their content.
Links from trusted or well-known sources are known as do-follow links while paid links that include anchor text might be called no-follow links because search engines won’t use those types of links when calculating domain authority.
Even though more recently added pages might not rank as highly as older pages, they still help build up your site’s overall page rank. This is why you often see web pages with thousands of keywords increasing in ranking over time because older articles with less targeted keywords might start getting less traffic after newer articles get published and indexed by a search engine.
When it comes to calculating domain authority, Google also uses metrics like keyword density in information pages. One of the best ways to increase the amount of traffic that you get from search engines is through targeted keywords because then people are more likely to find your site when they are searching for related terms.
If someone types in “how to lose weight” for example, they are probably looking for articles on Pinterest rather than an article at Shape about how many calories are found in cheese. This is why sites with high Domain Authority often have content covering popular topics that include lots of relevant keywords when describing what their article will discuss.
If you want your website to be considered as an authority, then you need it to have high domain authority. Domain Authority is one of many ranking factors that search engines like Google use when determining which websites should come up first for certain keywords that people type into the search box. It has been used by search engines since 2012 and it’s NOT the only factor that matters when determining page rank.
With that, it’s important to have a lot of backlinks pointing to your site along with targeted keywords for each page on your website.
The post How to Increase Your Website’s Domain Authority appeared first on SiteProNews.
Content marketing works. The statistics all say the same thing: content marketing has incredible ROI: 72% of marketers say it has helped them get more leads.
And why wouldn’t it be so? 42.7% of people use ad blocking software, so the only way to get to them is through content. Not using content marketing in your strategy is the first mistake.
Assuming you are using it (congratulations!), let’s see what other pitfalls you can avoid and how you can improve your content marketing ROI:
Most content marketing strategies aren’t, in fact, strategies at all. It’s just one or more people brainstorming ideas about what seems to work for their blog.
Brainstorming ideas without a data-backed foundation is great for when you’re trying to decide where to go camping with your friends. But not when you expect real results from the effort you put in.
Instead of “cold†brainstorming, borrow some ideas my content marketing agency uses for our clients:
Data is everywhere. All you need is one decent analysis tool (and there are dozens of those, both paid and free) and a goal-oriented mindset to analyze that data and turn it into actionable insights.
SEO may not be at the top of your list of priorities. You may have found another way to bring in leads through content marketing and that’s perfectly OK. But I urge you not to ignore it altogether.
SEO can have an ROI of up to 1,381% (!), depending on the industry you are in. So, even if you don’t get the full SEO treatment for your website, at least try to:
You published four blog posts and one whitepaper. You got some new leads in the following weeks. Congratulations!
But where did those leads come from exactly? Which of your blog posts was the most successful in attracting them? Or was it the whitepaper? Which blog post fell flat and brought in zero leads and a mere dozen hits?
Unless you answer these questions, you’ll never find the formula that works for you. Simply publishing new content pieces without a reason why will only result in you wasting thousands of dollars.
Good content is expensive, whether you create it in-house or outsource it to an agency or a freelancer. $5 articles are irrelevant today so if you really want results, be prepared to invest at least a couple of hundred in each piece of content.
Please note: I said invest, not spend or waste. This means that you should expect results. Just because a piece of content is expensive, it doesn’t mean it will bring results. Oftentimes, the piece in itself may be great, but it just doesn’t align with your goals well enough.
This is why you have to measure everything you publish. Set goals in Google Analytics. Monitor those metrics weekly. Go back to the drawing board when you don’t get the results you wanted. Rinse and repeat.
You may have found a formula that works. But even if a certain type of blog post has worked for a while, it doesn’t mean it will work forever. People get bored, their needs change, and their preferences evolve.
Plus, if you get stuck on a single type of content, how will you know you’re not missing out on an even better option? Most marketers (myself included!) swear by evergreen content. It is the kind of content that brings you the most traffic and the most leads over time. It’s an investment that keeps on giving.
But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also publish case studies or articles about recent developments in your industry. Sure, they may be obsolete after a while, but they will show your readers that you are connected to everything that happens in your industry and that you can stay ahead of trends.
Ready to take your content marketing to the next level? We can help! Check out our case studies to see how we helped other companies meet their goals and let’s talk!
The post 4 Content Marketing Mistakes to Avoid (Unless You Want to Waste Thousands of Dollars) appeared first on SiteProNews.
How often are you adjusting your SEO strategy – monthly, yearly, never? It’s tempting to say “why fix it if it ain’t broken?â€, but with SEO you should never wait until something truly breaks to switch things around.
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:
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.
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 coffeeâ€.
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 meâ€. 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 priceâ€. 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 coffeeâ€.
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.
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.
If you want your site to get found, then SEO is probably at the top of your list when it comes to how you build your site. But did you know that your images play a … Duration: Publisher: HostGator You can watch this video also at the source. Google is not the only search engine. But when it comes to ranking factors, it’s pretty much the only one that matters. By handling 90% of the worldwide searches, Google is the go-to source of information for search engine marketers.
There’s a tiny problem, though: Google is also notoriously stingy with releasing official information about what helps with ranking and what doesn’t. So the SEO community is left picking up crumbs and trying to pull words out of Google officials in every interview.
However, we do have some facts that come straight from the horse’s mouth.
Google handles more than 5.4 billion searches per day. Every day. To keep their huge market share of 90%, they absolutely need the results of those searches to be relevant. And they are.
The crux of relevance is the content the websites that rank high offer their users. If the content is not what the user expected, they will bounce back to search results and look for another option. If this happens too often, they will eventually switch search engines altogether and move to another one that offers better results.
Of course, Google does not want that to happen. So they make sure the websites that rank in the first positions have excellent content and a great user experience – the two major pillars of SEO.
In Google’s words:
There you have it.
Right on Google Search Central, you can find out that content will “likely influence your website MORE than any of the other factors discussed hereâ€Â.
Content and SEO marketers will tell you the same thing, myself included: if you change one thing to your website to make it rank better, make sure that thing is content. I’m not saying that the user experience doesn’t matter or that a mobile responsive website is just nice to have. Not at all.
But all things being equal, content is the starting place of the SEO revolution for any website.
I’ve noticed this time and again with my agency’s clients. They hired my team to create new content and that we did. We never touched the technical part of their SEO. Still, one of our oldest customers now ranks in the top three positions in Google for ALL the keywords they aimed for, while another generates 50% more organic leads in a very crowded industry.
We’ve seen the same happen to our own websites. The better our content got, the better our ranking got too. Today, my agency generates 95% of leads and new customers from content. Some of it is on our own websites, while other is from guest posts like this one that trigger people to contact us. No paid ads, no influencer marketing.
How can you get similar results? Well, the recipe itself sounds simple enough. The implementation, however, is a bit more nuanced. Let’s take a look:
The Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines speak at length about how your content is supposed to be written to win Google’s favor. There are two acronyms that you should never ignore:
One important note here: for “regular†pages and articles, almost anyone can be an expert with enough research. Or, they can at least produce well-researched pieces of content that are factually true and offer valuable information to the reader. For YMYL topics, though, “official†credentials are important. Think of it this way: not everyone writing on a medical topic should be an MD, but it never hurts.
At my agency, for instance, we hire engineers to cover technical topics for this precise reason: we want to make sure that every article we create and our customers publish is factually accurate and valuable. Even for “lighter†topics like beauty, home improvement, XaaS, or marketing we have specialists who may not have a university degree in the field they cover, but have spent years writing on these topics.
One last aspect that I consider to be crucial but that’s rarely covered in SEO writing guides: ranking is just part one of the task. If you write commercial content, it means that your ultimate goal is not to rank in SERPs or to have millions of visitors each month, but to sell your products or services.
Thus, besides SEO-friendliness, your content also needs a marketing edge, a way to get the reader to take the action you wanted – subscribe to newsletter, download an eBook, buy, or share on social media.
I learned this the hard way, sorting through dozens of writer applications that look great on paper but who fell short during the hands-on assessments each of our staff members have to pass. In a nutshell: they were amazing writers, but their work had no spark. At least one of them could well become the next Hemingway, but they couldn’t sell a bottle of water to a man walking in the desert.
This is why we never hire writers with zero marketing background anymore. We can easily teach them the SEO guidelines and how to conduct their own research, but teaching them how to understand and implement basic marketing principles in their content takes much longer.
Bottom line: never create content that just ranks. Unless your business makes money from AdSense-type services. Otherwise, traffic is not going to pad your bottom line.
Focus instead on content that does three things:
Need help with content that checks all three boxes above? My team of expert SEO writers and I are just a click away. Let’s talk!
The post How Important Is Content to SEO (According to Google)? appeared first on SiteProNews.
Infographic Courtesy of: WebsiteBuilderExpert.com
In this guide, we’ll look at exactly what Core Web Vitals are, how they’re impacting website builders, and how you can test your website. We’ll also provide tips on how to improve your Core Web Vitals scores, and boost your site’s rankings while you’re at it.
The post Website Builders and Core Web Vitals Insights: What’s the SEO Impact on Website Builders? appeared first on SiteProNews.
Simply said, Google’s algorithm is updated several times a year and doesn’t necessarily target specific concerns. A broad core update is a change to their main search algorithm that looks at a website’s expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness (E-A-T), and quality in a more holistic way.
Because of all of these many variables, Google can’t honestly tell us what has to be changed on a website without divulging the most crucial components of their algorithm. It’s common to be impacted by an algorithm update, especially if your website still has a lot of potential for development.
Here is everything that you must know about the recovery process from Google algorithm updates.
Check these tips to know what to do after the latest Google update strikes. Here are all the tricks that will help you get through the core updates:
Use the guidelines of Google’s broad core updates to the benefit of your website. They provide you with an idea of what your website could do better. Make the most of it. It might take time and work, but it will be worthwhile for the success of your SEO. You can also read Google’s revised Search Quality Raters Guidelines to better grasp Google’s criteria for a high-quality, helpful website.
One common suggestion for improving E-A-T is to ensure that all authors have bios attached to their bylines in their articles or on a separate author biography page. What’s more crucial is that your content is written with the assistance of objective specialists.
Expert reviewers, such as doctors, psychologists, and nurses, are used by many of the winning websites to audit information and guarantee it is correct. While utilising professional reviewers is not a Google-verified ranking criterion, it does improve your content by making it more accurate and hence trustworthy.
Sites that are open with their users and clear about their mission tend to perform better in organic search. This is why it’s essential to have clear editorial and advertising standards that explain how your content is reviewed, who writes for you, what types of ads will be displayed, and how those ads are chosen.
It’s no accident that the majority of Google’s algorithm update winners have the best content quality. Content should be well-researched, balanced, and well-edited, and should include citations to reputable sources. External links aid Google in making connections between your sites and the content from which you get your information.
On pages meant to provide advice or information, it’s critical to avoid mixing informational and transactional language. This mix of informative content and a call to action may cause the user to doubt the rest of the page’s information. A page regarding “rosacea” should not, for example, push the user to buy the author’s book as a rosacea remedy.
This remedy is powerful to get through the latest Google algorithm updates. It was also one of the compelling connections discovered in the latest research between losing websites and page elements: losers are 433 per cent more likely than winners to include calls to action on pages with medical material.
After algorithm-related performance declines, addressing E-A-T, content quality, and user experience is critical, but technical SEO cannot be overlooked. All of your other efforts may be in vain if Google has problems crawling, indexing, and presenting your material.
Following a core change, here are several options for enhancing your technical SEO:
Consider all the search results for your query and check that the keywords you believed were “generic” aren’t suddenly being classed as “local” in intent. For example, the keyword “mattresses,” for instance, could cause Google to pull up local results. If you see city names, map packs, and localised pages ranking for a query, it’s a good indication that you’ll need to develop a strategy for it.
It’s difficult for you to spot the flaws in your website as the owner because you have your perspective to work with. However, suppose you seek assistance from a community that shares your interests or is knowledgeable about the same topics as you; in that case, you can ask them to provide feedback on your site, and you will be able to see flaws that you were previously unaware of. It will only help you improve and get well in the core update recovery times.
That is all there is to it. It may appear simple, yet completing these tasks can be difficult. The result, however, will undoubtedly be satisfying.
The post 7+ Tips for Recovering from Google Core Algorithm Updates appeared first on SiteProNews.
If you work in the competitive fashion industry, odds are you already know it’s important to take all possible steps to stand out in the crowd. This is particularly true in the digital age, when you may be selling your products online.
When selling fashion online, you need to optimize your conversion rate. In this context, your conversion rate refers to the rate at which customers buy products from your website.
A proper SEO strategy can play a very significant role in improving your conversion rate. The following points will help you better understand how:
It’s a basic point, but it’s an essential one. When your SEO strategy is strong, your pages are more likely to rank high in the results pages when users perform relevant searches. The more people see your pages and click on your links, the better the odds your conversion rate will be high.
Don’t overlook the importance of ranking high in search results. Research indicates pages that show on the second page of search results account for a mere 6% of online clicks.
This may sound similar to the point above, but to a degree, it’s a separate point.
The fact that many people visit your site doesn’t guarantee you’ll have a desirable conversion rate. There are plenty of reasons you could have a relatively low conversion rate despite your pages attracting a fairly high amount of traffic.
For instance, maybe the people who find your pages and click on them aren’t the types of people to buy your products. They click on your pages because they get the impression that they’ll find what they’re looking for on them, but when they see what you’re actually offering, they may realize they were mistaken.
A proper SEO strategy won’t merely attract visitors. It will attract visitors most likely to be interested in what you’re selling.
Did you know that mobile Internet browsing is now more popular than desktop browsing? Similarly, it’s becoming increasingly common for people to make purchases via their mobile devices.
SEO specialists account for these types of trends when developing and implementing their strategies. For example, a smart SEO professional will know it’s important to optimize a page for a mobile device by ensuring the content can easily be scanned on a small mobile screen and confirming the page functions properly on a smartphone or tablet. When your SEO strategy involves optimizing your site for mobile, naturally, you’ll be more likely to make sales to customers shopping via mobile devices.
That last point touched on an important detail that some overlook when developing SEO strategies. Although including the right keywords and formatting content appropriately are certainly critical elements of an SEO strategy, they’re not the only factors to consider. SEO also involves a technical side. You need to ensure your site performs reliably for your SEO strategy to deliver ideal results.
It’s easy to understand the role site performance may play in your conversion rate. A visitor is simply far less likely to make a purchase than they otherwise might be if your site is laggy or otherwise has performance issues. An SEO strategy should address this.
When developing an SEO strategy and researching which keywords to use in your content, it’s important to consider user intent. People use different types of keywords for different types of searches.
For example, someone typing in “red dress†may be searching for a red dress to buy, but that might not necessarily always be the case. Maybe they’re looking for images of red dresses. Maybe they’d like to buy a red dress in the future and are thus looking for ideas, but they don’t plan on making a purchase anytime soon.
On the other hand, a search for “red dress on sale†or “buy red dress†will likely be made by someone ready to make a purchase. An SEO strategy will leverage these types of keywords to ensure the guests your pages attract are prepared to buy a product.
All that said, SEO can be complex. You might not have the qualifications or time to develop and implement a strategy yourself. If not, strongly consider hiring a marketing agency to help. Experts will work with you to ensure your strategy yields optimal results. For more information on this topic, check out the article “20 Digital Marketing Tips for Fashion Businesses.â€
The post How SEO Can Boost Conversions appeared first on SiteProNews.
SEO offers the highest ROI for online stores. However, only a few stores have mastered the use of SEOÂ to push their ranking. Most rely on expensive social media marketing and paid ads. Once you rank, you can place your account on autopilot and maintain the top position without recurring expenses.
Online stores can employ numerous SEO strategies to push ranking. However, the most productive of these strategies do not require payment. They revolve around the structure of your website and how you organize products in the store. Here are three steps that will give you the best ranking for your online store.
Your online store is a website like all others competing for the attention of search spiders. It will only compete with other sites if it is optimized. Optimizing a website requires attention to its architecture. Here are simple onsite strategies that make a website internally optimized for search engines.
Choose a light website template. Avoid too many pages with heavy content so that your page loads fast on all devices and operating systems. Upon landing on your page, the graphics should be clear and comfortable to the eyes. Once people love the appearance of your landing pages, they will want to spend more time on site. Work on your graphics so that they are impressive to visitors.
How fast does your website load? The accepted threshold is two seconds. If the website takes longer than two seconds to load, the chances of abandonment increase.
The loading speed depends on the content on your website and the bandwidth offered by your host. Increase the bandwidth based on the expected traffic. Your host must also ensure that the server is always up. A decent loading speed allows visitors to click on more pages, scan through your catalog, and buy in the shortest time possible.
The size and format of your content on the website will affect its loading speed. Choose light images and videos so that they take a short time to load regardless of the device the visitor is using. Light images and videos could come in poor quality. Engage a professional graphics designer to ensure that the content is light without compromising its quality.
E-commerce stats indicate that more than half of online buying is taking place on mobile. Search engines are, therefore, giving preference to mobile-enabled sites during ranking. Ensure that your website can load seamlessly on mobile. Content should be easy to read on mobile. The images and videos should restructure automatically to fit within the screen of a mobile phone.
Provide a navigation map on every page. The map is available on top or sidebars. It makes it easy to move from one page to the other instead of having to return to your home page.
How comfortable does it feel to be on your site? It begins with the first impression upon landing on the page. The graphics on the page should be attractive to the eyes. They should give the visitor a reason to stay longer and explore what your store offers.
User experience also demands ease in navigation from one page to the other. In case a visitor has a question about your products or services, he should find the answers fast.
SEO for online stores takes the same route as that of a blog or any other website. However, your strategies will be targeting individual products. Treat the product description and all other content on the website as a candidate for SEO in the following ways.
You may also consider adding a blog to the store to generate traffic. All these strategies make your content attractive to search engine spiders. They make the website more competitive whenever a potential buyer searches for related products.
Build links to raise the profile of your online store on search engines. You have the option of two types of links.
SEO for online stores requires constant evaluation. For instance, renew your product descriptions so that you can capture new keywords. Such SEO will push your website to the top and sustain its favorable ranking without much effort.
The post SEO Promotion of an Online Store: 3 Steps to the Top of Search Results appeared first on SiteProNews.
If you’re an online marketer, you must be familiar with SEO. It’s been around for years, and it’s been important since the day it arrived. However, keeping up with it is getting more and more difficult. There are always updates that change things from their roots, and keeping track of them alone is a tedious job. On top of all that, these days, there are more smart people in the game. And this means that it’s harder to stand out. So, if you want to reach more potential customers, you have to push the envelope. The best way to do it at the moment is by learning how to use search intent in your strategy.
This is the new kid on the block, but it can help you increase your conversions both via content marketing and SEO. As a matter of fact, if you want to build a successful SEO strategy, you shouldn’t go without it.
More and more online marketers are focusing on search intent. And it’s safe to say they don’t do that without reasons. Although it won’t necessarily help you get more visitors to your site, all the audience you capture will be the kind you want. Let us explain what we’re on about.
You’ll get people with a specific intent to your site. In essence, you’ll be providing your target audience with the information they need. And best of all is that they’ll find you at the right time. If you learn how to use it effectively, search intent will keep users on your site for longer. And on top of that, it will make it easy to funnel them down into sales or leads. It really works in your favor.
But let’s see how exactly.
To put it as simply as possible, search intent is what people are trying to find when searching for something online. So, your job is to provide them with the most relevant information based on what they need. We’ll use an example to clear up any confusion.
If a user wants to buy a new phone, they’ll type queries like ”buy smartphone”, or ”buy phones online”. These are called transactional queries since the intent is to buy something. But more on types later.
When people use search engines today, they want to get concise and relevant results right away. And here, we get to the most important thing – relevance.
Google is working on improving search results so that they’re as relevant as they can be. Their users are what’s important to them. And that’s why you need to optimize your pages so that the content satisfies the intent of keywords people use. This is how you’ll get more people who need your products to check out your site.
To use search intent in your strategy, you need to understand the different types. And in our experience, there are three kinds you need to know about.
No matter how big or small your business is, understanding these three types of search intent is essential. We get how you might think that if you’re a small company, it would be enough just to put up a shiny banner or lower your prices to get customers. However, these are only myths about small businesses. You have a higher chance of closing deals if you focus on getting to them at the precise moment they need you, and search intent helps you do just that.
If you want to have an effective content marketing strategy, here’s a simple guide for you. Focus on quality content and proper use of keywords with the right intent. The more time you spend optimizing and targeting your content, the better results you’ll get. You’ll be able to convert more traffic into paying customers, and that’s what you want to achieve.
However, keep in mind that this tactic takes a lot of work. You’ll need to optimize and update your blog and site at all times. The reason behind this is simple. Customers want to get relevant and up-to-date information and chances are that the freshest content out there will be the most relevant. At least that’s how Google’s algorithms ”think”.
So, you did what you should and spent a lot of time discovering how users interact with your website. You know how they behave and what they’re looking for online. With that in mind, you optimized your site and managed to capture an audience with the right intent.
And that’s great. Now, you hae people who you can potentially convert into paying customers. But to do that, you need to make a call to action to motivate them.
Luckily, this shouldn’t be a problem, since you already have the right audience. On the other hand, there are some rules that you should follow to optimize for transactional search intent.
So, here are some focus points for your CTAs.
In the past, people were using demographics to target their potential customers. They were looking at things like gender, location, income, and so on to determine who they should market to. However, marketing has evolved. Now, you can target shoppers in smaller segments. And all of them will be likely to take action immediately.
If you use search intent in your strategy, you’ll draw people to your website who are looking to take some specific actions. And that’s why there’s so much potential here.
You’ll position your business to deliver the information your customers need in the moment they need it, which will significantly impact your success.
The post How to Use Search Intent in Your Strategy appeared first on SiteProNews.
Search Engine Optimisation is important for businesses that want to operate online. Many of us have this notion that SEO is something that is to be “added later†after creating the website. However, SEO is something that needs to be built-in while designing your website. After all, it is your website that showcases the first impression of your business on users and search engines. But this first impression is not just about how your website looks but also about how optimised it is. This article shares 6 major SEO factors to consider in web design
We live in a mobile-first age. No matter whether we are searching for a restaurant or a local store, we browse websites with our mobile phones first. According to Oberlo, 53% of people who shop online every day rely on their smartphones. Therefore, the first factor to consider in web design is mobile friendliness.
To create a mobile-friendly design, you must consider the needs of your user. The way users interact or want to interact with a website on their mobile phone is quite different from how they interact with a website through a desktop or any other device.
Moreover, Google has also been considering mobile-friendliness an important factor for SEO. So, creating a mobile-friendly website will not only provide a better user experience but will also enhance your search engine rankings.
By “usability†we mean how easy it is to use your website – whether a user can perform various tasks on your website such as navigation, signup, placing an order et cetera without getting confused and whether first-time users can understand the purpose of your website easily.
Usability directly affects the SEO of a website. If a website is difficult to navigate, users will abandon it quickly. Also, it will prevent them from returning to your website. Your website must be designed in a way that satisfies their search and provides them with what they are looking for. Google understands that well before users while indexing a website and hence would never rank an “inefficient†website on the search engine.
Where you place your content and what kind of content you place on your website, all these things matter a lot in your search engine rankings. No matter how clear the layout of your website is, if the content is not eye-catching and valuable, users might not be interested in your service/product. Here are different types of content you need to present on your website for better SEO:
John, who offers dissertation help in business management to college students says, “creating content for your website that caters to bringing awareness, driving conversations and showcasing your purpose will not only make your website easy to understand for your customers but will straightforwardly solve most of their queries. In all, enhancing your search engine rankings.â€
Images make things easier. They are attractive and allow users to understand and remember your website. But, search engines appreciate text over images when it comes to ranking a website. If you add any important information about your website in the form of animation, videos, images, graphics or JavaScript, it is likely to be ignored by search engines. Therefore it is recommended that all key information should be added as HTML code rather than an image.
But, how do you enhance your website if you do not add images?
You can add supplemental information like caption, transcript and metadata to help search engines determine the value of the content and hence drive more traffic to your website. Always provide alternate text or descriptions for images. You can also add OpenGraph and Twitter Cards, so the images can be used in social shares.
Not only alternative text is required for all your images, but the name of your image files or any other media files also matters. For instance, instead of leaving the file names as IMG001.jpg, IMG002.jpg etc, you can use more contextual names like Web_vital_Statistics.jpg. etc. This will help search engines understand the context of your images.
Similarly, you should choose to upload small file sizes and thus contribute to site optimisation. Large files can slow down your website thereby increasing bounce rates and poor user experience. This can drop your search engine rankings. Samantha, who works as an SEO expert for online dissertation writing services says, “if you are using large-sized files and videos, you can choose lazy-loading, where necessary information or pages are loaded first to enhance the user experience and decrease the site’s bounce rates.â€
Do you know that website navigation is important for SEO? In fact, search engines crawl and know more about your website through website navigation. Steve, who offers onlinedissertation proposal help in e-commerce says, “if you have designed a well-structured website that can take the search engine crawlers to the most important pages of your website, it can help enhance the authority of your website.â€
Conversely, if your website has no proper navigation system or it is overcrowded with too much information scattered all over the website, search engine crawlers will not be able to identify the important pages of your website.
Steve has many dissertation examplesthat showcase that a website’s navigation structure also enables users to find the information they are looking for. In all, it enhances the search engine ranking of the website.
SEO should be your priority while designing your website. Create a mobile-friendly design and work upon enhancing the user experience as much as you can. File optimization also plays a major role in enhancing the SEO of a website. Prioritise uploading smaller files, keep contextual names of all your files and use lazy-loading. Always provide descriptions for the images that you upload and ensure that your website has smooth navigation. Hope these 6 tips will help you design a search engine-friendly website that not only impresses many users but also the search engines!
The post 6 Major SEO Factors to Consider in Web Design appeared first on SiteProNews.
Disclosure: We are a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review. We are independently owned and we have spent time and effort doing our best to offer you the most relevant and accurate information. All the "customer reviews" are posted by real webmasters (hosting customers) and we're not responsable for their opinions. Purchasing any service from the hosting companies listed on our site is your solely decision.
| Stats Panel | Last 24h | Last Month | Total |
| Articles | 0 | 0 | 5166 |
| News | 0 | 0 | 18356 |
| Hosting Sites | 0 | 0 | 2452 |
| Reviews | 0 | 2 | 1810 |
| Coupons | 0 | 0 | 561 |
