One of the most common questions asked by SEO experts and business owners who want to rank better in search engines like Google is what do you have to do to have backlinks count as one of the ranking factors? If you are asking yourself this question, then let me explain first what backlinks are and why they are considered one of the ranking factors in SEO in the first place. Then I will tell you some effective ways to outweigh backlinks in SEO.

Google Algorithm Updates

Many people believe that Google has updated its algorithm and it doesn’t weigh backlinks heavily anymore. However, that isn’t the case, there are many ways you can outreach and link build your way to some high-quality, organic backlink growth. Plus, it never hurts to take a page out of everyone’s book who is good at link building (or guest posting) and do it for yourself. Link outreach might be something you have never done before but with some research and patience, anyone can succeed.

Linking Root Domains

In an ideal world, you could trust that backlinks alone would always be enough to help your site rank. That being said, we live in the age of link building, and there are too many people trying to game the system. The best way you can have high-quality backlinks is by utilizing outreach and working on quality link building with guest posts and other forms of content marketing. This way you can have links coming from your domains which will weigh more than any outreach or guest post.

Number of Links from Different Domains

Google uses backlinks from other websites to assess how valuable your website is. They track how many links point back to your page and make an estimate of how many quality backlinks you have based on the popularity of the site that is linked to you. While you can’t manually track this, there are ways for you to get more backlinks, which Google will then take into account when ranking your site higher. One thing that is essential for achieving better rankings is building up link equity. Link equity refers to the number of quality links pointing at a site as well as factors like reputation, popularity, and relevance. Essentially it’s just a numerical estimate of how popular or important someone thinks your website might be so they link it in hopes that others will come by and see it too.

Strength of Links from Different Domains

Ideally, you want backlinks from higher domain trust networks. For example, the New York Times or Harvard University will not be of the same value as a blog post on Tumblr. Generally speaking, if you want links from authoritative domains, it is best to create high-quality content that attracts them organically. Links are also weighted by how recently they were published; there is more value for a new link on your site than an old one.

Link Volume Data

Recently, there have been some studies done on the importance of backlinks. This led us to ask: just how important are they? If you have 2 backlinks and I have 10, will your site rank higher than mine? Will I get more traffic?

Domain Age and Trust Flow

You have likely heard that backlinks are still one of the top-ranking factors. For example, Domain Age and Trust Flow are both ranked as moderately important ranking factors. These measures will help you improve your site’s trustworthiness. This is one of the main reasons that backlink building should still be included in your SEO campaign. However, you don’t want to forget about other techniques like targeting long-tail keywords or writing blog posts on topics related to your niche– they’ll also help get your website discovered by people searching for specific things online.

Page Authority

A major component of Page Authority is linked domain authority (LDA), which essentially quantifies the power that a page wields on linking websites. Linked domain authority is a measure of how powerful an individual page is, or how much weight it has on other websites. The higher the DA, the more important the content is and should be treated with higher respect by other sites and by Google. 

The final element of Page Authority considered for ranking purposes is link quantity and quality. Each time another site links to your content, their DA rating is divided among any sites linking out; this number will decrease as more links are made from it, providing a baseline for how much weight that particular backlink brings with it.

7 Surefire Ways to Get High-Quality Backlinks

As search engine algorithms continue to evolve, content marketers are tasked with staying one step ahead of the game to remain competitive and relevant in their niche market. Many of the long-standing traditional methods used to obtain backlinks are no longer guaranteed to boost your rankings, and savvy content marketers are on the lookout for new ways to get high-quality backlinks that will help their sites rank well in search engines. Here are seven effective strategies you can use to get high-quality backlinks in 2020 and beyond.

1. Focus on Quality

It’s become all too easy for sites that don’t deserve the high rankings they hold, to climb the Google ladder and gain authority. If you’re just starting, you may have seen articles about something called SEO guest posting but never thought it would be an option for your business.

Backlinks are an important part of any search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. They are links from other websites that Google considers to be votes of confidence that your site is high-quality and user-friendly.

2. Focus on Long-tail Keywords

It’s now more important than ever before to get high-quality backlinks. The way you go about doing this might be a little different now that Google has put so much weight on user experience and relevance. One of the most effective ways is to create content that provides longtail keywords with information that they can’t find elsewhere, then contact them directly with your piece as an offering. You can also offer other people’s content if it offers any value or ties in with your topic of expertise.

3. Increase Your Chances by Using Influencers

Utilizing influencers is one of the easiest ways to get high-quality backlinks. An influencer can provide a new angle for your blog post and make it much more interesting or applicable to their audience. However, it’s important not just for you but also for them as well. If you want people on social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter to share your link then offer them a shootout in return.

4. Guest Blogging has Gotten Harder

Guest blogging was the easiest way for a business to grow backlinks when search engines were first created. Until now, most businesses use guest blogging as a way to generate links that allow their content or site more visibility on the web. However, Google has been cracking down hard on this strategy over the past couple of years and penalizing sites that have abused this strategy. That’s why if you’re looking for ways to start earning backlinks, it’s better that you focus on quality rather than quantity.

5. Link Building Doesn’t Stop 

This decade is just getting started and this means that 2022 isn’t going to be the same as 2018, either. With a new year comes new technologies, trends, and opportunities for internet marketers who are ready for change.

For external backlinks, various sources will help to gain some link juice and relevancy.

• Forum Profile Links
• Guest Posts
• Wiki Links

6. Track Your Results

• Use Medium – Create an account and publish quality content relevant to your target audience.
• Ask Influencers for a Link – Connect with influencers by sending them a quick message or Tweet, you could ask them for a link. Influencers are more likely to engage with you if you send a note of introduction and share some of your work first. 
• Guest Post on Other Sites – Reach out and submit articles as guest posts on other sites that are related or have an overlapping audience. 

7. Google Authorship is Dead, but Social Media Posts Can Do Well

Marketers all know that links are key to a good SEO strategy. To do well on Google, links need to be credible and from reputable sites. But there’s also an old technique of adding links with keyword phrases just for the sake of getting some words on the page and hoping for a backlink—and it can work in the short term. The reality is, however, that search engines are cracking down on these types of posts.

The post How to Rank Well in Search Engines Using Backlinks appeared first on SiteProNews.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of methods and strategies used to increase your website’s visibility on the search engine result pages (SERPs). As a result, it brings your website organic traffic, which is the main difference between paid advertising.

SEO as we know is an ever-changing landscape, so it’s important to stay in the trend if you don’t want to fall behind your competitors.

So we made a quick guide to help you improve your site’s rankings in 2022.

Here is what we’ll focus on today:

• Content Quality
• Updating Your Content
• Website Loading Speed
• Metadata
• Cross Linking to Relevant Sites
• Brand New Keywords

So let’s get started!

1. Content Quality

The quality of the content present on your page is probably the number one driver of your search engine rankings – so it’s not exaggerating to say with great content comes great respo …results.

Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance. Always try to fine-tune your web writing skills and present yourself as an authority on the topic you are writing about.

There are content optimization tools. With their help, you create high-quality, semantically-rich content that ranks higher in Google.

Using similar NLP algorithms as Google, these tools identify keywords, subtopics, synonyms, and even common questions search engine crawlers are looking for on the page when promoting content.

Keywords

Put yourself in the reader’s perspective, how would they come to your content? What combination of keywords would you have to use to reach your audience?

Another thing you could use is multiple Keyword phrases

Identify and target a specific keyword phrase for each authoritative content page on your website. Consider where it would be the perfect place to put your keyword for it to make perfect sense.

Things to look out for when considering placement;

Should you use it in the page URL?

Can the keyword phrase be in the page title?

What about placing it in page headings and subheadings?

All of these can seem a bit complicated, but a general rule of thumb you should stick to is to be natural and user-friendly. As we mentioned, content plays a very big part in search engine rankings. You can reuse your keyword phrase several times throughout the page (no more than 4 uses). Be authoritative. Strategically link to relevant sources and additional information—both within your organization’s broad website and even to other websites which are useful.

Don’t forget to use bold, italics, heading tags (especially an H1), and other emphasis tags to highlight these keyword phrases—but like with keywords, don’t overuse them. You still want your language and writing style to read naturally.

Summary– Good quality content is the best SEO strategy. The results will come naturally if your content is written for the user and not for the search engine.

2. Update Your Content

Let us emphasize this next sentence. Search engines feel strongly about content.

Regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevancy, so be sure to keep it fresh. Audit your content on a set schedule (semesterly for example) and make updates as needed.

Write additional content regularly, with targeted keyword phrases. This is where blogging comes in handy, as they are a great way to boost your rankings. Blog posts can even be shorter updates about the specific topics you are targeting. Interlink your related CMS web pages and blog posts when it helps give the reader a better picture or additional information about the topic.

3. Improve Your Website Loading Speed

Google has stated that depending on your website’s loading speed, it can have a direct impact on page ranking.

Check out this study by Neil Patel. The result of the study shows that pages that are at the top of the rank of Google’s first page usually load significantly faster than other pages that are positioned on the bottom part of page 1.

So you’d want to have a more quick response from the site rather than a slower one.

So what can you do to help you with your website’s loading speed?

There are tools that can help you ascertain your web’s speed and give you a quick benchmark of your site such as:

Google’s PageSpeed Insights

WebPageTest.org

Pingdom

They give you a measurement score (along with explanations for that score) which operates on how the page is doing loading wise, as well as a quick breakdown of which part of the page should be adjusted

In short, all these places will show you in which directions you should gravitate towards in order to fix your issues and optimize your website’s speed.

Here are some quick tips that we usually found to be helpful:

Use compressed images

Move to a better host

Try to cut down your website’s page file size

Remove all the unnecessary 3rd party scripts

4. Metadata

There are invisible meta tags on your pages which provide information. They are called “metadata” and while they are not displayed on the page itself, they can be read by search engines and web crawlers, and thus are a vital part of SEO.

Google uses this metadata collected from the meta tags in order to understand web page better. They can use this information for ranking purposes, to display snippets in search results, and sometimes they can ignore meta tags.

The Meta tags are placed in the <head> section of a HTML document, and so they need to be coded in your Content Management System (CMS). This can be easier or harder depending on the platform that powers your website: an “out of the box” solution like WordPress will have a dedicated section for meta tags like canonical links or meta descriptions.

In short, they make it easier for search engines to determine what your content is about.

As your site is going through occasional changes it is important for you to also review and update your metadata.

Here is our recommendation on which metadata you should focus:

Title Metadata

Title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. It is the most important metadata on your page.

This adds to the importance of using well-thought-out page titles rich with keyword phrases.

Description Metadata

Description metadata is the textual description a browser will use in your page search return. Think of it as your site’s window display—a concise and appealing description of what is contained within, with the goal of encouraging people to enter. A good meta description will typically contain two full sentences. Search engines may not always use your meta description, but it is important to give them the option.

Keyword Metadata

Keyword metadata is rarely if ever used to tabulate search engine rankings. However, you should already know your keyword phrases, so it doesn’t hurt to add them into your keyword metadata. You’ll want to include a variety of phrases. As a general rule, try to keep it to about 3-7 phrases with each phrase consisting of 1-4 words. A great example would be “computer science degree.”

5. Link Towards Other Relevant Sites

If you have a page whose content consists of objective, authoritative and rich information, or in short its content quality is high. it will most likely help readers learn about what they are interested in. Those high-quality web pages tend to attract links from other websites, which helps you place higher in the rankings.

Linking to other relevant sites increases your authority and credibility. One often mistake that people make when linking websites is having bland “click here” links. On its own, “click here” has minimal to no search engine value beyond the attached URL. Instead, try inserting the name of the destination, such as “trusted link building agency”. Not only can you improve your page’s ranking but you will also assist the page it’s linking to if the keyword is rich enough.

In short: Aim to use descriptive links by linking keywords as it gives additional value to the engine and your visitors which in turn helps your rank better.

6. Target Brand New Keywords

One of the ways to get your page to the desired rank is to use popular, yet low-competition keywords. But that’s easier said than done.

So how can you achieve this?

As you know, the majority of popular keywords are competitive simply because a big number of other websites are using them as they are trying to rank as well.

You can try to come up with new words that encapsulate the same meaning. With new terms, you’ll automatically compete with fewer people and usually skyrocket towards the top of results.

In short- aim for totally new keywords.

We hope this guide helped you to achieve optimized content for both your visitors and the crawl bots. By utilizing these quick tips and tricks you’ll have a clean, engaging experience, and should stand out amongst your competitors in no time.

The post 6 Creative and Actionable Ways to Improve your SEO in 2022 appeared first on SiteProNews.

Although SEO is a long process. By any means, if you are looking forward to ranking your site within a couple of months, you will need to understand the basics of SEO. Optimizing your site for search engines and letting search engines realize it for higher ranking takes time.

You will need to master some on-page and off-page strategies so that you will be able to optimize your website for better rankings in the search engine.
Without further ado, let’s move towards some on-page SEO techniques and see how you can master them with the help of amazing tools.

On-Page SEO Strategies

On-page SEO focuses on your website content and how it will look and perform. Optimizing the content of your website to be search engine friendly and user friendly is known as on-page SEO.

1. Intent Analyzation

The first step should be to analyze the intent of your visitors and identify your goal. You can divide visitors based on their intent.

Now, the question is, why is it important to divide visitors based on their intention?

The answer is simple. You will be focusing on keywords that suit the best intentions of your visitor according to the objective of your website.

2. Keyword Research

When it comes to keyword research, you should keep a few points in mind. Choose long-tail keywords with high search volume and lower keyword difficulty.

Long-tail keywords have a high conversion rate, and you can get better leads with such keywords.

3. On-Page Planning

You will need to be very accurate with your on-page planning. Consider a few points, and you can easily manage your on-page plan.

• Search different keywords for different pages. Make sure keywords targeted on one page are not conflicting in any way with the keywords on another page.
• All the pages are interlinked with suitable internal linking.
• Pages have a clear hierarchy and are categorized properly.

Along with these, have a space for suitable images with alt tags on all the pages. Embedding images and videos are an important part of your on-page plan.

4. Leveraging LSI Keywords

It is essential that you should add some keywords in your content related to your focused keyword. Those words and phrases that Google considers related are called LSI Keywords. Make sure to add them once or twice in a 1000-word content. Moreover, add LSI keywords in your subheadings as well.

5. Content Optimization

The content on your web page should be highly optimized against the focused keyword. For instance, if your page content is 1000 words, then you will need to add focused keywords about 8 to 10 times in your content.

Add the focused keyword in the introductory paragraph, last paragraph, two times in subheadings, H1, and remaining in your SEO content.

Along with this, you will need to care about keyword density. Make sure the focused keyword density is no more than 2 percent of the page content.

Density = (Nkr / (Tkn – (Nkr x (Nwp-1)))) x 100

Here is the interpretation:

• Density is for Keyword Density
• Nkr is for key-phrase number in the content
• Nwp is for a number of of words in a key-phrase
• Tkn is for a total number of words in the content

6. Page Optimization

In order to optimize your page for search engines, it is necessary to take care of the points mentioned below.

• Give a suitable title to your page. The title should be from 50 to 55 characters, and it should contain the focus keyword in the beginning.
• Add an intuitive meta description from 150 to 155 characters long. Add your focus keyword and one LSI keyword if possible. Meta titles should be engaging, so you can add questions to strive your reader to click.

7. Mobile-First Design

Google values websites that are focused on mobile. Most of the users are using mobile phones to search for their queries. So it is important that your website design is mobile-friendly.

8. Page Loading Speed

If your website is appropriately created but not optimized for performance and speed, Google will not value it. Low-speed increases bounce rate, and you need to be very careful about the speed of your website.

As summarized in a paper by personal statement help, use lazy loading, compressed images, low-size scripts, and proper coding to increase your website’s loading speed.

Best Tools For On-Page SEO Analysis

Here are some tools that can help you with the on-page SEO of your website.

1. Google Keyword Planner is the best for performing keyword research and searching for LSI keywords.

2. Ahrefs can help you with analyzing the keyword difficulty and search volume of the searched keywords.

3. Yoast SEO is best for page optimization, providing meta title, description, slug, and checking if your content is optimized against your focused keyword. It can also help you with increasing the readability of the content.

4. Google PageSpeed Insights & Google LightHouse are one of the best tools to check for your website performance issues and have suggestions about fixing them.

5. Copyscape, Grammarly & WordCounter will help you with checking the originality of your content, making corrections for grammar and punctuation, and analyzing the keyword density, respectively.

Off-Page SEO Techniques

Off-page strategies are basically off-site techniques that are performed outside of your website to improve the ranking of your website in SERPs. Let’s have a quick look at some of the most important off-page SEO strategies.

1. Shareable Content

It is essential that you should always create shareable content on your webpage. Shareable content should have social media icons so that the content can be easily shared throughout the internet. Google values a web page that is more shared on different digital media platforms.

2. Guest Article Submission

Guest posting is a way to create a contextual backlink for your web page. While submitting a guest article, make sure that the target website is of your niche. Create niche-based content and insert your link into it naturally.

Request a website to publish your content, and you will get a backlink from another website to your page. It is among the most authentic link-building techniques that experts suggest. Dissertation editing services adopted the same strategy, and they ranked for a very long period of time.

3. Other Link Building Techniques

There are several more link-building techniques, including blog commenting, web 2.0, forum submission, document submission, directory listing, etc. However, you need to be very careful about using these strategies.

Analyze the website you are creating a backlink on and check for its domain value by looking for DR or DA. Check how many external links the website is providing daily. And is the site open for publication or not? Websites open for public posting have more chances of getting spammy links, and you will not get great value from there.

Check for all these factors while guest post submissions as well.

4. Social Media Platforms

You should leverage the power of social media to market your content on various platforms. Depending on your target audience, select suitable channels, continuously market your web pages, and ask your readers to visit your website.

You can use video content, images, live streaming, and so many features available on social media platforms to market your content.

1. Influencer Outreach

Another way to market your content and increase its reach is by contacting some influencers and requesting them to share your content. Show them how it will value their readers, and they will do it for you.

Some Tools To Help With Off-Page SEO

There are some tools that can help you with your off-page strategies.

1. Ahrefs can help you analyze your competitor’s website and look for where you should create your backlinks.

2. Moz is another excellent tool that provides a complete report about your backlinks.
3. SEMRush is an amazing tool where you can create a campaign and add your competitors to it along with your website. It will analyze your competitors and suggest off-page and on-page changes.

4. You should utilize various social media tools to market your content on social media. These tools are BuzzSumo, BufferPublish, SproutSocial, Hootsuite, Canva, etc.

While Summing Up…

If you want to be an expert SEO and rank your website, you need to be patient. Apply the above-mentioned techniques and learn about these tools to increase your SEO knowledge and master on-page and off-page SEO skills.

Along with these tips, it is essential to have basic development knowledge to understand some on-page techniques. I hope you have enjoyed this post.

The post How To Master On Page and Off Page SEO Skills appeared first on SiteProNews.

Your website’s rank for the correct search queries will determine how much traffic you can drive to it. After all, many internet users — a whopping 75% — tend not to look past the first page of search results. SEO is a must-have part of any digital marketing strategy to grow your company. With so many people using the internet to search for what they need, it’s impossible to ignore SEO.

In our recent State of Content Marketing Report, 67% of content marketing professionals surveyed indicated that improving SEO performance is a top priority for their company. Another 73% stated that they use their SEO skills and tools frequently to improve content marketing results. To remain competitive, it is important to learn how to improve your search engine rankings.

Do you feel lost? Continue reading to learn SEO tips and search engine optimization strategies that even novices can use in their work. These non-technical SEO tips will help you see quick results.

1. Create Content Around Primary and Secondary Keywords

Keyword research is the heart of any SEO strategy. Keyword research is the key to creating great content. Searchers will find your site by knowing how to use both primary and second keywords.

Your landing page should have your primary keyword as its main focus. The page should contain a strong description and possibly connect to your brand. These keywords should be the main focus of your content.

Secondary keywords are words that support the primary keyword and can be included in your content in a natural way to improve your search ranking.

Start your keyword research by identifying long-tail keywords that are relevant to your audience. Say you run a DIY home improvement blog. Using our Keyword Overview Tool, you can start by searching for “DIY home improvement” as your target keyword and then expand to include more keywords from there. You’ll see the search volume and difficulty of ranking for your primary keyword in your area, along with related terms that you might be interested in.

2. Use Short, Descriptive URLs

There are also some not-too-technical ways you can optimize your SEO efforts when it comes to on-page SEO. For those just beginning in SEO, it is easy to improve your SEO rankings by structuring your URLs.

A URL that is effective should:

• Use keywords: Your URL should contain one or more keywords that you are targeting.
• Be easy to understand It should be easy to read and cater to the human eye.
• Be concise Using shorter URLs is preferable. Keep them under 60 characters. Search engines won’t accept URLs longer than 60 characters, which could cause you to be pushed further down the results pages.

3. High Authority Websites Have High Quality Backlinks

Link building is an important component of any SEO strategy. It’s also relatively simple to begin. Backlinks are an important ranking factor. They come in two types: nofollow and follow, with the latter having more ranking weight.

Backlinking refers to the linking of other websites to your website as a source for information. These links are a sign to search engines that you are an authority on a topic and should be pulled up in the rankings. Higher rankings in online searches will be achieved if your website has more quality links.

Bloggers, journalists, and other companies will recognize you as an expert in your field, and may link to your content. However, this doesn’t always happen instantly. You may have to do some research before you start.

You have many options to create links to your site. Here are some strategies to consider:

• If you have something to share or an interesting infographic, consider writing a guest blog post for other outlets.
• Reach out to publishers for any data or research you have done to support your site content.
• Look for directories and listings in your industry and get your company listed. It may mean joining professional associations, networking groups or business organizations. However, it increases your credibility.

How do you determine where to get backlinks? Use our Backlink Gap Tool to compare the backlinks for your site with four competing URLs. This will allow you to compare which websites link to your site more than your competitor, and vice versa. To help you target high authority sites with your initial link building efforts, you can organize the list by authority score.

4. Try to Rank for Featured Snippets

Google’s Featured Snippets are a highly desired spot that digital marketers want to reach when it comes search engine result pages (SERPs). Featured Snippets are at the top of Google search results, and they have a high chance of attracting lots of organic traffic. Optimizing your content is key to achieving this position.

First, decide what content you would like to be a featured snippet. Choose something that will make internet users click on the link. You should also carefully examine the keywords in Featured Snippets. Studies show that a piece of content that asks a question is more likely to have a Featured Snippet.

5. Format Your Content for Search Engines

While the words you choose are important, how you present your content is equally important. You want your content to be clear, concise, understandable, and easy to read. However, search engines will also require that you adapt your formatting. To improve your organic search ranking, you will want to use headings and subheadings in your content.

It is important to know how to organize your paragraphs and sentences. A sentence should not exceed 20 words. You shouldn’t have more than 20 words per sentence, but you don’t want your paragraphs to be too long either.

6. Do Not Forget Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

Keywords have a significant impact on the content you create, but did you also know that they should be included in page titles as well as meta descriptions? These two elements are basic HTML components that can help you optimize your page and pack a punch. They’re also easy to edit for beginners.

Most platforms offer an easy way for you to modify your page title or meta description. WordPress offers two boxes, “SEO title” or “meta description”, that can be edited.

These items will show up in search results. These short sections could be enough to convince an internet user to click on your site. This is a lot of power in so few words. Make sure your words are powerful.

7. Take Out Anything That Loads Slowly

Did you know that page load times can impact your SEO? Higher bounce rates are common for pages that take longer to load. 

Google PageSpeed Insights is a free SEO tool to check the speed of your site. You can add your URL to get a range from zero to 100 with 100 being fastest. You can also compare the speed of your mobile website to your desktop site.

Do yourself a favor. Take a look at your website. Do you have any plugins or elements that slow down your website’s load times? You’ll see an increase in traffic if you remove or restructure them.

The post 7 Essential SEO Tips for Beginners to Boost Traffic appeared first on SiteProNews.

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at some of the best content writing and editing tools that will help you create optimized content for search engines.

Let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?

Yoast’s Real-time Content Analysis

If you’re looking for a handy content writing tool, then Yoast’s Real-time Content Analysis is your best option. Basically, this two-pronged tool combines SEO advice and writing processor features.

Using this tool, you can easily create and edit your titles and meta descriptions and get a glimpse of what it would look like on the SERP. You also get an in-depth analysis of your content and editing suggestions. This way, you can create optimized content and fish out any SEO no-no’s from your copy.

The best part? It’s absolutely free.

SEMrush Writing Assistant

Most expert website content editors and writers swear by SEMrush Writing Assistant – and for good reason. This SEO content hero comes with high-grade features that can be roughly divided into four categories:

SEO recommendations

SEMrush Writing Assistant offers SEO tips and recommendations to help users create optimized content that will rank high on the SERP.

Usually, before you start writing with this tool, you’d need to put in your focus keywords. During the writing process, the target keywords will then pop up as green if you’ve used them in the text or gray if you haven’t used them yet. This saves you the trouble of having to double-check your content for keywords manually. You can also hover over any keyword to check for keyword difficulty and volume.

SEMrush Writing Assistant also offers insights into link building. For instance, it lets you know if you’ve included the optimal number of links in the text.

Readability

This is another helpful feature as it helps users make sure that in addition to using the right keywords and meta descriptions, they’re also creating readable content for their audience.

This feature is typically calculated using the Flesch readability score. You get a readability score of 100 points along with further insight into the aspects of your text that need improvement.

Namely, the tool alerts you when you have overly long paragraphs, complex words, and hard-to-read sentences. You can then click on the sentence to find out more about the issue and view alternative suggestions.

Originality

If you’re trying to rank high on SERPs, you need to ensure that your content is completely original and free of plagiarism. Fortunately, you can do this using SEMrush’s Writing Assistant. Typically, you can only perform five plagiarism checks a month, but if you create content regularly, you can purchase ten extra checks for just $5.

Tone of voice

The tool also offers suggestions and recommendations about your content’s overall tone. For instance, it shows you how formal or casual your copy sounds. The tool also lets you know if the tone of your text is inconsistent (i.e., if you’re mixing up formal and casual sentences).

Surfer SEO’s Content Editor

SurferSEO is a handy tool that’s just right if you’re looking for an affordable content editor. All you need to do is set up an account and click on “Content Editor”.

As you write, this tool scores your text and offers recommendations on what should be changed and what works well. The metric shows the number of paragraphs, words, headings, and images you should ideally use and displays the actual number you used in your text.

But that’s not all. Surfer SEO’s content editing tool also lists your potential competitors and offers focus keyphrase example recommendations based on competitors’ content.

Frase Content

Frase Content is one of the cheapest SEO writing and editing tools on the market, and is the perfect option if you’re working with a really tight budget. It comes with many handy features – not as exhaustive as in SEMrush’s tool, but it certainly offers great value for your money too.

Frase has in-built custom templates that can help you create a well-structured outline in no time at all. It also comes with topic suggestions that you can add to your content to make it better and more optimized.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking to rank higher on search engines without having to hire SEO writing services, the tools listed above will set you on the right track. SEMrush’s Writing Assistant is an in-depth tool guaranteed to give you the best results, but if you’re looking for cheaper alternatives, it’s advisable to go for Frase Content Editor.

Good luck!

The post 4 Content Writing and Editing Tools Adjusted for Search Engines appeared first on SiteProNews.

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. 

1. Optimize the website 

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.

Light architecture

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. 

Fast loading speed

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. 

Light images and videos 

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. 

Mobile optimization

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. 

Navigation map

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. 

Overall user experience 

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. 

2. Optimize your product descriptions and content

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.

• Include keywords on individual product descriptions. Once an interested buyer enters the keyword, the product description will be captured. 
• Include captions on every image and video on your online store. The captions should include keywords that potential buyers are using on search engines. 
• Optimize the length of descriptions added to your products or any other section on the online store. Long-form content will fit certain industries and products at particular seasons. Study SEO trends from time to time and align your descriptions to fit within prevailing trends. 
• Include captivating images and videos for your products. Video and image content is also taking a lot of prominence in online searches. Your products should appear on image and video results. 

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. 

3. Build links 

Build links to raise the profile of your online store on search engines. You have the option of two types of links.

• Internal links– they introduce a reader to other pages within the store. Link to related products as well as helpful information on the blog about the product a customer could be interested in buying. 
• External links– send visitors out of your website or use other websites to direct traffic to your website. Links act as referrals and recommendations that give a better impression of your store. They make your website more believable. 

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.

What Is Semantic Search?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Should Semantic Search Change Your SEO Strategy?

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

Focus on Topics Instead of Keywords

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

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

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

Take Voice Search into Account

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

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

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

Always Write with User Intent in Mind

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

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

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

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

Wrapping Things Up

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

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

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

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

White label is a wider concept. It covers a lot more than you could envision. Let’s find out.

What Is White Label SEO?

White label SEO comprises two concepts – white-label and SEO. White label is the concept where services offered by one company are used by a second company under its brand. While SEO is the total sum of activities that help your website to grow and gain organic traffic.

So, white label SEO (also referred to as SEO reselling) simply signifies that your agency offers SEO services to your clients under your own brand. But the clients are unaware that all the work is done by a white label SEO provider.

Benefits of White Label SEO

There are proclaimed benefits of using a white label SEO. But what can it offer to your agency? Why should you go for white label services instead of independent contractors (ICs), freelancers, or SEO experts? How would white labeling SEO have a positive impact on scaling your revenue?

To put it simply, if you possess all the resources to be able to afford an in-house SEO team then nothing like it. But if not, then you have white label SEO at your service. 

A professional white label agency can aid your business and serve the following benefits:

1. Scaling Revenue with No Extra Overhead

SEO is said to drive 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media does.

If you are an agency that isn’t equipped enough to offer proper SEO service to your clients, then hiring a white label agency is the best option. It helps you increase your agency’s revenue since there is no employee hiring, training, or customer enablement involved. Hiring a white label is much less costly than setting up a whole SEO team in-house. 

2. Experience and Expertise Hand in Hand

Collaborating with an SEO provider, you need not need to build a team infrastructure from scratch. You can take advantage of your provider’s experience and expertise as soon as you subscribe to their service. 

3. Mutual Benefit

One of the important aspects of an SEO partnership is that your agency’s success is directly proportional to the white label provider’s success. The more clients your agency pitches, the more your white label partner prospers.

This relationship is mutually beneficial. Your provider will serve you with all of the collateral you need to fish and retain SEO clients. The more clients you bring, the more work the white label gets. Thus both benefit from the partnership. 

How Do You Choose a White-Label SEO Provider?

Finding an appropriate white label SEO provider amidst the thousands of available options is crucial to the success of your agency. These are some questions that you must ask while looking for a white label SEO agency.

Are they equipped to provide all the services your clients may need? How reliable are their services? Will clients be getting value for their money? Do they maintain timely and reliable customer feedback?

With these considerations in mind, let’s find out what makes a white label service stand out:

1. Transparency in Communication

Your white label partner should communicate well and be transparent about their terms and services, reporting, pricing and campaigns, policies, etc. Bad communication is no communication. The SEO provider should be transparent while communicating with its client agency. 

2. Experience and Worth

Make sure the SEO team you’re going to work with has enough experience to be able to serve your clients in the best possible way. Talk to some of the members of their SEO team. Research their past success stories and case studies. 

3. Enquire about Processes and Deliverables

During your inquiry or demo call, make sure you ask about how they execute campaigns. What steps are demarcated in the entire process? Take reference to the expectations mentioned above as a guide to judge their actions. 

Do not forget to enquire about their deliverables. Ask them, what clients can expect from them? Always mention that the end goal of hiring them is– organic traffic growth. Their sole aim should be to improve organic traffic to your client’s website.

4. Check Online Reviews

Online reviews can prove to be useful while choosing a white label SEO provider. You can effortlessly find out how a company has been performing in the past by viewing what customers have to say about them. Success is equivalent to happy clients. Browse through reviews left behind by each service’s past clients and you’ll get a sense of how good they are at what they do.

5. Scale the Growth of Your Agency

The sole reason for hiring white label SEO is to promote your agency’s growth. Small agencies crave rapid growth for their brand, but unfortunately, they lack the resources required to maintain an in-house SEO team. Look for an agency that can prove their claim to pave your agency’s growth. 

6. Vision or Goals that Align with Your Agency

Every business has goals and vision. These goals need to be met for any business to expand and grow. When you opt for a white label marketing agency, you must check to see if their vision matches well with your business objectives or not. Since they are white labeling services to your brand, you vouch for them in the market.

7. Technical Prowess and Know-how

When looking for an ideal white label SEO provider for your agency, you must not overlook their experience and technical know-how in the field. You must consider their experience as an asset to your company. No matter how technically sound a company is, experience still counts because a new agency may not be able to perform well under arduous situations. 

Here, the experienced win the race. Experience and technical knowledge are both equally important. 

8. Performance Proof through Reporting

Reporting is the key to analyzing the success of any campaign. You must ask your prospective white label SEO agency to provide ROI to your clients through a Key Performance Indicator Report. Never opt for a white label that does not provide performance proof through timely and systematic reports. 

Wrapping up

It is paramount that you choose the right SEO reseller partner for your business. The research may prove to be a tedious job, but it’s all worth it since choosing the right white label SEO for your business may lead your agency to success.

The post A Complete Guide on Finding the Ideal White Label SEO Solution appeared first on SiteProNews.

Search engines evaluate the quality of the links that point to a website or webpage. A high-quality backlink can help to increase your site’s ranking in the search results. When it comes to backlinks they come in two different forms: do-follow and no-follow links. In today’s post, we take a look at the differences between dofollow and nofollow links as well as the importance of having a healthy balance of them when it comes to developing a powerful link profile.

What is a Backlink?

In order for you to understand the difference between no-follow vs do-follow links, you need to understand how most links operate in the world of search engine optimization. Whenever a given web page receives an inbound link – which is essentially a hyperlink to said page – the webpage gets a relatively small boost in terms of SEO value. 

You can think of this as a point. In general, the more points (high-quality backlinks) a webpage receives, the more favourable a page will appear in the eyes of a search engine. Search engines take note of the number of inbound links a given page has. They also evaluate the quality of the sites that provided the links.

In the eyes of a search engine, if an abundance of people are linking back to a specific page, then it must be of a certain degree of quality and thus, said web page will get preference in the search engine, compared to a similar page which does not have an abundance of quality inbound links. 

As mentioned above, each inbound link operates as a point, Google created PageRank in order to calculate said points. Many search engine optimization experts have referred to link points as being ‘link juice’. This link juice flows throughout the entire site and can flow into new sites via hyperlinks to other sites. 

In order words, the higher the quality of the site, the more juice its outbound links provide when it links out to other sites. So for instance, receiving a link from an established and reputable site such as BBC or New York Times would be the equivalent of getting a golden backlink which would hold more value, than a link coming from a relatively new and unpopular blog.

What are Do-Follow Links?

Technically speaking, every link on the internet is a do-follow link unless code has been customized to classify said link as a no-follow link. So for instance, if you create a new blog post right now and include a link to another website, it will be considered a do-follow link by default unless you edit the code. In shorter terms, do-follow links are essentially links that give you points as far as SEO link juice goes.

What are No-Follow Links?

In the eyes of a typical website visitor, no-follow and do-follow links look the same. But, no-follow links consist of a code that is called an attribute. This attribute essentially lets search engine bots know that they should not crawl the link. Google has proclaimed that PageRank juice, does not flow through no-follow links to the site that’s being linked to. What this means for you is that if a site inserts a no-follow link that points to your site, said link will not affect your position on the search results as opposed to a do-follow link.

Importance of Do-Follow and No-Follow Links

The history of no-follow links goes back to 2005, where two prominent individuals introduced the concept to combat comment spam. Essentially, the concept of no-follow links was created in an effort to prevent blackhat SEO individuals from getting link juice by spamming the comment section of high authority websites for the sole purposes of boosting their SEO profile.

With that said, when it comes to creating an excellent backlink profile and developing an effective link building strategy, you need a healthy ratio of no-follow and do-follow links. As a matter of fact, search engines have updated their algorithms to identify websites that only have do-follow links. Therefore, you need no-follow and do-follow links if you wish to create a more natural backlink profile.

Final Thought

When it’s all said and done, you need a healthy balance of do-follow and no-follow links in order for you to make your backlink profile more natural. Additionally, do-follow and no-follow links are indistinguishable in the eyes of the average web visitor and provide some of the same benefits such as increased awareness, increased traffic and a higher chance of eventually gaining do-follow links organically.

The post Nofollow vs. Dofollow Links – Why Should You Care? appeared first on SiteProNews.

Google is the leading search engine in the world in 2021 and is predicted to stay in this position for the foreseeable future. For this reason, it’s essential that now more than ever, your business invest in website SEO. 

Even Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, said that Google is a mountain; you can’t move it, but you can certainly climb it to reap the rewards of getting to the top of the peak. 

This blog will serve as your guide to increasing your organic traffic on a massive scale in 2021. 

Let’s start by clearing any misconceptions and defining what SEO is exactly.

What is SEO?

SEO is the practice of optimizing your web presence so that your website can rank higher on Google and other search engines’ pages for your desired keywords. This statement means that if ranking on Google is a game of archery, SEO is a highly fine-tuned bow that allows you to aim your arrow as precisely as possible and launch it accurately to pierce your desired bulls’ eyes.

Website SEO helps your business website rank higher in Google and other search engines, which allows your target customers to see your website more frequently, become familiar with your brand, and enter your sales funnels.

While SEO is the bow, keywords are your bulls’ eyes.

Have Your Websites’ Keyword Strategies Fine-Tuned

Keywords are the words that searchers type into Google and other search engines to find answers and information on what they are searching. If you think of your website’s SEO as an entire building, keywords are the individual bricks that make up the building and need to be strategically cemented in the walls and foundations.

This metaphor indicates that keywords need to be regularly added to your website’s SEO content. This content includes web content, pages, URLs, pictures, videos, titles, source codes, and more.

Keywords can be found manually using Google or through high-end tools that streamline the process when the user has the experience to use them. You can consult a top-notch SEO service for websites to find out the best keywords your website should incorporate to reach your target customers and beat out your competitors effectively.

The strategy that needs to be implemented for your website will vary depending on your website’s current size and reach.

If your website is already established and has a wide-reaching audience, you can have the most competitive keywords targeted, which also tend to have the highest user search volumes. 

If you’re just getting started or are in the middle of fine-tuning your website SEO, it would be in your favor to have lower competition, longer tail keywords targeted.

Low competition, long-tail keywords may not sound worth your time at first, but don’t be deceived. 

This is a powerful combination for small businesses that web SEO services can help you implement. It will be relatively more straightforward for your business to rank on Google compared to higher competition keywords.

Secondly, these keywords will be long-tailed, meaning visitors to your website from these keywords are far more likely to convert to customers.

Why is this?

The visitors from long-tail keyword searches are more likely to convert to customers because they’re searching precise search terms rather than general, short-tail search terms.

For example: if a person searches “pizza,” this is a very short tail keyword that will produce highly generalized results. 

So, even if a person visits your (hypothetical) pizza bagel website in New York after searching only “pizza,” they might not convert. Perhaps, they were seeking pizza recipes, or they live somewhere outside New York.

If, on the other hand, a person searches “pizza bagel places near Brooklyn in New York,” this qualifies as a long-tail keyword. You can easily see that this search term is far more specific than the first one, literally just “pizza.”

When a visitor searching this term visits your website, they’re much more likely to place an order on your website.

So, don’t let the “low” in “low competition” fool you because having these keywords targeted can significantly boost your website’s SEO. 

Once you’ve started ranking for the lower competition keywords, it will be significantly easier for your website to tackle the higher competition ones, winning your website even higher traffic.

You should consult with an experienced SEO service for websites to figure out the right keyword strategy for your business website as it currently is, including an implementation plan.

The website SEO service will create a highly valuable content plan for your business. Why is this content considered “valuable,” though?

Developing the Perfect Content

High-value content is helpful content. 

Content that is well-written and guides your target customers and those in your niche will help your business rise as a reputable authority in your field.

Think about it. When your business is providing consistent value to customers for free through valuable content, they think the following: 

“Dang, if I’m getting this much value from Business Website A without having paid them yet, imagine how much value they’d give me if I hired them!”

When a thought consistently goes through your target customers’ minds, your business will have regular conversions and skyrocketing sales.

That is the power of organic traffic resulting from SEO.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Increasing Organic Traffic in 2021 appeared first on SiteProNews.

These tips come from the office of fellow entrepreneur and busy Philadelphia bankruptcy lawyer David Offen.

SEO Tip #1: Optimize for Mobile

This is the first tip for a reason. You can perform all of the SEO possible on your site, rank well, and get clicks, but viewers will quickly click away and to your competitor’s site if your site does not load quickly and is not optimized for the device they are using.

Mobile devices are used for half of the web searches worldwide. If you do not optimize for mobile, you are losing half of your viewers and perhaps half of your business.

Besides the site’s structure and load time, the site should be easily navigable. Drop-down menus with short page titles of one or two words work best. Make your contact button or order now button prominent.

Be sure that the font size and type are easily readable on a mobile device. You’ve seen sites where the text is too small to read on your phone or tablet and know how annoying it is. Don’t annoy your potential customers.

SEO Tip #2: Create Location Pages

Google provides a map, locations, and a list of providers near you when you search. Go ahead and search for “[your product or service] near me.” Just below the paid ads and before the #1 ranked site there is a map and a list of local providers. You want your page to appear in that list for every location you serve.

Create a separate page for each town, county, or region you wish to target. Be sure to write unique content for each page and link internally to your service or product pages from those pages using the anchor text you want to rank for. 

Google will recognize that you serve the areas targeted by your location pages and will provide your company’s site as an option when people in that area search for your product or service.

SEO Tip #3: Use Your Blog to Help You Rank

You don’t have a blog? Create one on your company’s site. Blogging is the easiest way to get fresh content on your site, which Google likes, and to attract and convert viewers.

Don’t worry about having to figure out what to blog about – your potential customers are already telling you what they are interested in, and you can discover that using Google’s AutoSuggest and People Also Ask features.

AutoSuggest 

When you begin to type in the search field, you may notice Google trying to complete your query or offering several queries for you to choose from in a drop-down box. These queries are commonly searched-for, and you can base a blog post on a query related to your product or service. 

Include the exact language of the query, word-for-word, as the title or H2, so that Google identifies your post as answering that query.

People Also Ask

When you search for something, Google will offer you a “People also ask” field just below the #1 result. These are also commonly searched-for queries that can be used as a basis for a blog post. Be sure to include the query itself, preferably as an H1 or H2 tag.

Aim to write and publish a blog post that is relevant to your potential clients or customers once a week. Be sure to link to other blog posts and your product or service pages using the anchor text you want to rank for. Include a “call to action” at the beginning and the end of each post, directing the reader to contact you or purchase your product.

SEO Tip #4: Link Internally  

The pages on your company’s site should link to one another using the anchor text you want to rank for. This not only helps with rank, but the Google bot (and your viewers!) will navigate your site more easily. Your blog posts should link to one another and to one or more service or product pages. 

SEO Tip #5: Feature Reviews 

Solicit client or customer reviews using any one of the many inexpensive software programs that automate this process. Typically, your clients or customers will receive an email after the conclusion of their transaction, asking them if they were satisfied with your product or service. Those answering in the affirmative will be taken to a review-submission site where they can log their positive review. 

The software will then either post the review to Google or post it to your site. Be sure to feature a “Read What Our Satisfied Clients/Customers Have to Say” page on your site.

Implementing these five simple tips will increase rank, increase clicks, engage viewers, and help convert viewers to clients.

The post Five Essential SEO Tips for Entrepreneurs appeared first on SiteProNews.

The myths are so convincing that you are likely to miss the trap. Luckily, SEO experts have debunked the myths and provided viable alternatives that will still deliver the results you need. Here are common SEO myths and how to escape their trap while still achieving the best results. 

The Hummingbird Changed the Future of Keywords in Search

It is true that Google overhauled its search algorithm, altering the results you get during a search. Most marketers viewed the Hummingbird update as pushing aside the keyword at the expense of the search experience. As a result, some have ignored search engines, ending up in pages at the back of the queue. 

Notice that the Hummingbird update was different from Panda or Penguin. As a result, ignoring keywords becomes an expensive mistake. The truth is that keywords are still pushing websites to the first page. 

Do not ignore keywords and their place in search results. Hummingbird has, in fact, made it easier because you can now focus on a lower keyword ratio instead of spamming your articles with keywords. Understand search intentions so that your keywords can deliver the best experience by matching your content with these intentions. 

Penalty for Duplicate Content

That Google will penalize you for duplicate content is one of the most common myths you will encounter about SEO. There are ranking implications whenever search spiders find duplicate content and these implications are the clearest sign that you should avoid duplicate content. But the issue does not end there.

Duplicate content is only detrimental to your ranking if you have copied. Search engine spiders crawl the web to identify who uploaded the content first. The only penalty you get is the inability to rank as high as the original owner of the content. Do not waste time chasing websites that have copied your content. Put your resources and time into creating new content that pushes your brand ahead instead of worrying about penalties that will not affect you anyway. 

PPC Ads Boost Your Ranking

The fact that you have spent money on paid advertisements will not in any way determine your ranking during an organic search. The reason is simple; the algorithm for paid ads differs from those of organic searches. Consequently, your money ends where advertising ends. 

Ranking during organic searches depends on other factors aside from paid ads. Factors such as keyword, the architecture of your website, user experience, and loading speed take precedence. As a result, you must work on these factors to rank highly on organic searches. 

It is worth noting that user experience resulting from paid ads counts during organic ranking. Once a person clicks onto your website, his actions like commenting on pages, sharing, and clicking on other pages will boost your ranking during an organic search. It means that you have to give your website and content a multipronged approach so that organic SEO tactics complement the paid SEO efforts. 

Good Uses Domain Authority in Ranking

Google used to indicate page ranking with a number between one and ten. The trend stopped in 2013, bringing an end to the much-hyped PageRank. Still, the need to know how well you are performing compared to other websites did not disappear. In fact, it grew exponentially as more businesses went online. Consequently, many ranking platforms emerged. 

By 2016, Google confirmed that it was not using PageRank in its algorithms. The score given is used to determine the ‘value of a page.’ However, Google is not a party to such ranking numbers. 

But does this mean that ranking is irrelevant? Not at all! You must constantly check using the available tools to see how well you are performing compared to your competition. While the numbers do not matter to Google for ranking purposes, they give you an idea of measures you need to take to boost your digital marketing results. 

Longer Content Ranks Better

The myth about the length of your content is the easiest to debunk. Long or short content has no direct connection with your ranking. Content works to your advantage only when it is quality. It allows you to build links and keep readers longer on your page. 

Final Word

While you might not know everything about SEO and digital marketing, it is important to verify all the information you come across. Only use proven tactics, especially avoiding the illegal ones. When your SEO strategy is above board, you will enjoy the best value for money. 

The post SEO Myths and the Way Out appeared first on SiteProNews.

The most impactful simple fixes for better Google ranking

To reach the top of Google’s search results page and stay there, you’ll need a long-term search engine optimization strategy, including frequently published optimized content, quality website maintenance, regular updates, and more. But in the short term, there are specific SEO techniques that make a big difference, even though they’re pretty simple. By implementing them, you’ll boost your rankings without too much effort.

Fix errors and dead links

Error pages and dead links don’t belong on any website that takes itself seriously. Users hate them, so for Google, whose ultimate goal is to serve up exactly what its users are searching for, they are a big red flag. As such, they can negatively impact your rankings (to say nothing of user experience). Of course, mistakes will happen sometimes – an external link will stop working, or you’ll make updates to your internal link structure, and this will mess up some of your links. But that is why it’s so essential to run audits and maintenance on your website regularly. That way, you can quickly identify errors and fix them before they become a problem.

Optimize for mobile

Roughly half of all Google searches come from mobile devices, and the percentage has been steadily going up for the past couple of years. Consequently, Google introduced mobile-first ranking. This means that Google assesses your website’s mobile version even for searches that come from desktop computers. So if you can’t develop a mobile app for your business, at the very least, make sure your website is optimized for mobile.

Improve loading speeds

Research has shown that users expect any website to load within 3 seconds or less. If it doesn’t, they leave, increasing the website’s bounce rates and decreasing its Google ranking. To avoid such issues, make sure your website loads quickly. Use a simple and minimalistic theme, don’t overload your pages with unoptimized media, use caching, and employ other tactics that increase your page speed.

Add relevant external links

High-quality outbound links increase your website’s credibility and authority, which can, in turn, positively affect your Google rankings. Always link to relevant, high-quality content that adds value to your content. Even more importantly, always link to credible websites with lots of authority in the industry – this creates a connection between you and other quality websites, signaling to Google that you are a good source of information.

Optimize your images

Adding images to your content is a great idea – they break up the text, make it more visually appealing, and add value for the reader. But Google can’t see images the way your users do. So for Google to interpret images on your website, they need to be optimized. This primarily refers to using alt tags in your images. These brief and to-the-point descriptions of the photos will help Google interpret your content. Include a keyword in your alt tag, and you’ll even improve your rankings. Finally, by editing images to decrease their size, you’ll make sure your loading speed stays high.

Pay attention to your URLs

An informative and straightforward URL is easier for Google to interpret and for your users to remember, so start by securing a good domain name that represents your business. Follow that up with a clear and flat hierarchy of pages. Finally, use a static URL system that includes keywords. Avoid using stop words like “and”, “or”, “of”, “but”, etc in your URLs. Instead, focus on the main keywords in the title of the content to keep your links short and to the point.

Include headings in your content

Headings break up your content into smaller parts that are easier for both humans and search engine bots to read and understand. Using headings will add structure to your content. If you also include keywords in them, you’ll let readers and search bots know precisely what your content is about in a clear and obvious way. This can help improve your ranking on Google.

Get more backlinks

Quality backlinks are one of the best things you can do for your rankings. They create connections with other websites and add authority to yours. However, to boost your SEO with backlinks, you’ll need to place your backlinks on high-authority, high-traffic websites. Create a good pitch and start reaching out – a healthy, diverse backlink profile takes time and effort to build.

How long before you see a better Google ranking?

Google rankings don’t change overnight. Even if you make all these changes right now, it’ll take time for the effect to show. And it’s worth remembering that SEO doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your ranking doesn’t only depend on what you do – it depends on your competitors and Google’s algorithms. So it’s hard to say precisely how long it’ll take before you see an improvement in your ranking. One thing is sure, however: you’ll need to give it at least a few weeks, if not months, to see actual results.

Continuous improvement is vital for better Google ranking

Google rankings are not static. Things change all the time: your website changes, your competition changes, Google’s algorithms change. All this will affect how you rank on Google’s search results page. For a better Google ranking long-term, it will be necessary to follow SEO best practices and continuously improve your website. It is only through consistent improvement that you’ll maintain good rankings.

The post Simple Fixes for Better Google Ranking appeared first on SiteProNews.

If you are not already applying all five of these easy SEO tips, then you could be missing out on a lot of traffic. 

1. Optimise your website speed for mobile and desktop use

You’ve done all of the hard work and managed to get a potential reader on your site ready to enjoy your latest article, only for them to be met with a blank page and a spinning cursor. 

If they’re extremely motivated to read your post instead of the influx of others available on Google, then they may wait for a couple of seconds. 

Any longer, and you can guarantee they’ll be looking for something else, something faster. 

Not only have you lost a reader or potential customer, but you’ve damaged your SEO by increasing your bounce back rate. Not good. 

To make matters worse, Google will view your slow website as a red flag and penalise you for it.

Don’t let this happen to you! Prioritize loading speed before any other decision you make on your website. If it’s going to slow it down then it’s not worth it. Because nobody will see your beautiful theme, videos and images if they’ve clicked off your website before it’s even loaded. 

Google claims that over 50% of people are now searching with their mobile phones. That means it’s no longer good enough for your site to only load fast on desktop. Make sure that you’ve optimised it for mobile loading as well. 

2. Get backlinks from your images 

If you create unique images for your blog posts from original photos to commissioned illustrations or informative infographics, then there’s a good chance people are sharing them in their own posts. 

It takes time to create high-quality visuals to complement your articles, and many people will save time by sharing somebody else’s. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I would recommend making your visuals as easily shareable as possible and actually encourage others to use them. 

Just make sure that anyone using your work is linking it back to you. That means the more people that share, the more backlinks you’ll receive which is great news for SEO. 

Chances are, if someone’s enjoying your artwork on another site then they’ll also enjoy yours, which makes this the perfect place for you to backlink. 

Next time somebody asks to share your work make sure to tell them that they can, as long as they backlink to the original page where you posted it. You can also leave these instructions on your page and anywhere else you share them, such as your social media accounts. 

3. Keep your content fresh and up to date

Clicking publish on your latest post is a great feeling, and it’s tempting to see this as the end of your work. However, one of my top SEO tips is to regularly check back on all of your latest articles. Keep a spreadsheet to make sure you’re regularly refurbishing your pages. 

This doesn’t mean you need to do a complete rewrite every month. Just check that at the very least all of your information is up to date and relevant.

This also helps Google to see that you’re still there, still posting on and improving your website and that the content is still relevant and up to date.

4. Reduce your bounce back rate 

I mentioned bounce back rate above, but I can’t tell you how important this is to consider if you want to rank highly. 

Think of it this way. You find a shop that looked perfectly appealing from the outside and sold exactly what you were looking for. However, if inside it was falling apart and confusing to find what you needed, then you would most likely step straight back outside and find a different shop. Right? 

Don’t give that exact same experience to people clicking onto your website. They have tens if not hundreds or thousands of other articles or websites to choose from at the click of a button, so don’t give anybody a reason to click away. 

This will lose you the reader and Google will take it as an indicator that people don’t find your site valuable. Try the following methods to keep people on your site:

• Get clear on your search intent before you even begin writing and then make sure this is one of the first things they see.
  
• Make sure the information and website is visually pleasing and enjoyable to consume.
  
• Avoid clickbait titles at all costs. Outlandish claims may get people clicking your article but it won’t take long for them to realise they’ve been over-promised and quickly leave feeling annoyed. 

5. Write for your readers, not for Google 

You may have heard this before, but it’s the most important SEO tip of all. 

By all means, follow Google’s advice. Keep up to date with the latest trends and hacks, including all of the above, but whatever you’re publishing, it has to be enjoyable for real humans above all else. 

Algorithms may decide where to place you, but it’s real people that will read and enjoy your work. It’s them who will decide whether to tune in again or share it with a friend. They should always be your main focus. 

I think we’ve all been guilty of focusing so much on SEO that we’ve lost track of the original purpose of a post. Tried to jam in so many keywords and links that we’ve spoilt a sentence altogether. 

My best tip for this is to simply ask yourself before publishing anything on your site “Is this something I would like to read?”.

If the answer is no, then go back to the drawing board. Write first, optimise second. If people don’t enjoy your writing, Google won’t either.

Final thoughts 

I hope these handy SEO tricks can help you to increase your rankings and get more visitors to your site. You’re already putting in all of this work, so you may as well go the extra mile to make sure people see it. 

The post Five SEO Techniques that make more Difference than You Think appeared first on SiteProNews.

With lockdown and travel restrictions in place, people looked towards entertainment websites and communication platforms to entertain and educate themselves. YouTube’s data shows that certain genres of videos were getting a disproportionate amount of views post-march 2020 than their previous averages. Videos of meditation saw a 50% increase, cooking videos saw a 100% increase and workout videos saw the greatest uptick in views at 200%.

More users on the internet mean more ways for a website to generate revenue. However, how people access the internet and the amount of time spent on the internet has greatly changed. So what should SEOs of 2021 do to reap the benefits of this new decade? Let’s review!

1. Optimize for featured snippets

There is no denying the fact that the featured snippet implementation from Google has been a great success. Google snippet is the card that contains a short piece of content that appears under the search bar when you search for something.

You may have noticed the content in the featured snippet is relevant to your search query and may or may not contain an image along with the content.

Having your website featured in the snippets box is very advantageous. First of all, it will drive more traffic to your website, and, secondly, it will create a sense that your website is authoritative. There are a few ways to optimize your content for featured snippets:

• Make your content concise and informative: if your website can explain a concept in a few words, then it has a greater chance of being featured.
• Use short paragraphs and bullet points: There is a character limit to the featured limit. So if the content on your website uses large paragraphs, then the chances of it being featured are low. However, you can break up content to bullet points, which is a great way to present content.
• Add tables and lists: break down your content as lists or tables so that you can serve information in a much more effective way. Make sure to add schema markups for those tables and lists.
• Review competitor snippets, and write one even better: Review the current snippet that has been ranking on the search results page. Now write an even better piece with authoritative content and links hyperlinked.
• Make your website mobile-friendly: Mobile-friendliness is a great way to get your content recognized by Google bots because Google always gives extra points to websites that pay attention to user experience.

2. Online Video will continue to rise

Post lockdown, after movie theatres were closed, people looked towards the internet for entertainment. As mentioned, YouTube saw a significant rise in its viewership (4 billion hours of “how-to” videos watched over the past 12 months), and so did other streaming platforms like Netflix (16 million signups within the first 3 months of lockdown) and Amazon Prime (Prime subscriptions grew to 5.6 billion).

So the demand for video content is at an all-time high. And you can leverage the same for your SEO!

“Incorporating videos into your content is a great way to keep the users hooked and increase the overall dwell time on your website,” said Steve Brady from Allen Law Firm, P.A. “Since there are a plethora of videos available, you do not have to make your own video if there is a good resource material available.”

You can also create a channel for your website that hosts videos related to it. As people search for unique and interesting videos, make sure that you stand out. Use SEO skills to create titles and descriptions that are both google and user-friendly.

3. Google Passage Ranking

Google’s Search On Event 2020 unveiled their Passage based indexing update. In passage-based indexing, Google will show passages related to the search query in the SERP from a website, even if that passage is within a larger paragraph.

Essentially, Google is capable of indexing more than just webpages, it can now understand the context of different passages. The aim behind Google passages is to provide the most relevant information within a large website.

So if your search query is quite complex or niche, Google can still give you relevant answers even if those answers are buried deep within a larger content piece. 

And when you click on the Google Passage search result, it will open up the website and highlight the part that may be of use to you.

In essence, you can get straight to the point without having to read long intros or other information that are not relevant to you on that same page.

For SEO 2021, you need to make sure that the content you create is informative and answers the problem it is meant to solve.

4. Improve your page experience performance

Google values page experience because a higher score on page performance means that the page is very user friendly. Google plans to roll out page experience signals in May 2021. What does this mean for SEOs?

You need to make sure that the webpage you are trying to rank adheres to the best practice guidelines from google. While Google hasn’t let out all the details on page experience, there are some things you can do to increase your overall user experience score.

Mobile-friendliness: With more people accessing the web using their mobile phone than ever before, your website must be easier to view and navigate on mobile. You can check the mobile-friendliness of your website here.

Safe Browsing: Google Safe Browsing was introduced to ensure that users are safeguarded from malicious websites that may cause harm to the user or the device through the use of malware, virus, or phishing. You can check the status of your website using the Safe Browsing site status tool from Google.

Https Security: HTTPS or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure provides an additional layer of security over the standard HTTP module. You can get your website HTTPS status by installing an SSL certificate. Google gives more priority to websites with HTTPS because of the data encryption it provides.

Intrusive interstitial guidelines: These are more like best practices from Google when designing elements for mobile view. What this means is that the webpage you design must not have elements that hinder usability, like a pop-up that takes the whole screen. The experience should be such that the user can interact with the web content without having their immersion hindered by other visual or dynamic effects.

5. Focus on Semantic and Search intent

Stuffing keywords in the content was one of the effective ways for websites to rank on search engines in the past. However, that has changed significantly over the past years as search engines began to give importance to semantics and search intent.

In 2021, the content you put on your website must provide value to the user, and must fit the search intent.

Understanding search intent is easy. All you have to do is ask ‘Why is this person making this search?’, ‘What do they hope to find in a website?’ and ‘Does my website answer their query?’

If you can figure out all three, then you can create content that is tailored to help the user find what they are searching for on the internet. It is easier said than done, but the reward is definitely worth it! Google prioritizes websites that provide real answers to users rather than keyword-stuffed set pieces. The Attorney Brian White&Associates blog is a good example of this. They created content for relevant search queries to help users easily find them. For example, “Should You Ride Your Bike on the Sidewalk?”, “What Happens If a Dog Bites Someone On Your Property?”, or “Can You Sue for Emotional Distress?”

6. The importance of local SEO

Local SEO is very important in 2021. Websites rank much better for local SEO keywords than their more generic counterparts. This is because Google likes to point you to services that are much closer to you than the most famous one or the one with the most number of reviews.

This is the reason why searches for services like bakeries, plumbers, electricians, etc. show the nearest results to your location.

If you have a Google My Business listing, you can always improve it by adding more photos, or getting more reviews, or updating it with the latest contact information. If done right, local SEO can drive online visits to offline purchases.

7. Content Quality will still be the king

Google is constantly developing ways to give users the best results. Featured snippets and Google Passage are implementations that point towards that one goal.

So you must create quality content for users. If your website does not have content that engages the audience, then they are not going to spend time on your website, which hurts your Google ranking even more!

Review the content you create for EAT: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Ensure the content creator has expertise in the area for which he/she create content. The next step is to establish authoritativeness in your content by adding relevant information about the subject. The final step is to ensure that the content is trustworthy and it doesn’t mislead the user in any way.

And always remember that you are creating content for humans and not bots.

8. Rank for zero-click search results

One of the concerns of SEOs, when Google implemented Featured Snippets and Google Passages, was that it would lead to users finding answers for their query without clicking on the web links.

And it did hurt websites. After Google’s new updates, 34.4% of desktop searches result in no-clicks while the number escalates to 62.5% on mobile devices. In essence, people are getting their search intent answered even before they visit a website!

As you know already, websites generate revenue through traffic. If the user finds the answer to their query from the SERP itself, then there is no need to click on the link and visit the website.

So how do you do SEO for zero-click search results?

The best way is to make sure that your content ranks for Featured Snippets so that your website gets pushed to the top of the SERP page. Optimize your content so that it is authoritative which will prompt the user to learn more about it. In this way, you have a better chance of landing a click.

9. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is the method of marketing your products or services through social media influencers. The influencers can be celebrities, bloggers, or social media personalities with a huge follower count.

It is highly effective if you have a good strategy in place because you can reach your target audience much more directly. The global influencer-marketing platform is set to grow from USD 6.0 billion in 2020 to USD 24.1 billion by 2025.

Influencer marketing works because people tend to have more trust in the celebrities and famous bloggers they follow. So if they saw them recommend a product or service, it creates social proof that this is worth your time and money.

To create a successful influencer marketing strategy, you will need to:

1. Set a budget that doesn’t burn the bank
2. Find the right influencer who can represent your brand
3. Understand whether this influencer has followers that match your target audience
4. Create a strong message that can be delivered to the audience
5. Track changes and makes changes if necessary

Summing up

2020 completely broke expectations when it comes to user behavior on the internet. And in 2021, we can expect this trend to continue with people being more independent on the internet than ever before. With Google making efforts to deliver more meaningful results to  users, SEOs must think in that same line.

2021 is all about giving the user relevant and quality content with an emphasis on user experience. So you have to pay attention to the user experience on a website in addition to delivering quality content. And as always, things may change and the most important skill an SEO must have is the ability to adapt!

The post 9 SEO Trends: How to Win in 2021 appeared first on SiteProNews.