SEO Tips and Advice

A large chunk of my time finding links is by looking through my competitor's link profiles. Essentially, you're piggy backing off of their success. While producing incredible content may get you some links, the truth is, you are going to have to do some "link building." This means reaching out to other website owners in the space to ask for links. A website redesign presents the perfect opportunity for you to analyze your backlinks
and remove the shady ones. If you use Google Webmaster Tools, you’ll see a “manual
penalty” appear if Google detects one of these low-quality links. You’ll then have the
option to make such links “no follows” so Google stops paying attention to them. It isn't just about the number of links that are going to a domain, but about the quality of those links. Unfortunately, this isn't something you can do quickly overnight. Consider writing a piece of guest content, not for your own site but for a relevant, external site. As part of the deal, agree that you may include a link to your site

Some keywords don’t deserve their own page

For a long time Google looked at the name of a particular website and the queries that were entered and might rank that site higher if the domain name had some match with the query. The more popular and important a site is, the more links from that site matter. A site like Wikipedia has thousands of diverse sites linking to it, which means it's probably a popular and important site. Pick a niche that has a large enough appeal to give you a big market but at the same time, pick a niche that won’t be too competitive for you to make any dent in. Look for subject matters that cater to a specific audience and that people can really get passionate about. Having quality inbound links is thus, a crucial SEO technique that only increases the authority and credibility of your website. Linking out is huge. Don't be a link hoard; you're going to create content, so use it to gain favor with other people. I'll go more into depth below with specific tactics on linking out, but in general, you only have something to gain when you’re linking out.

Use more than one search engine

For anyone monitoring their traffic from Google, it’s not really a revelation that a single page can rank for hundreds (or even thousands) of relevant keywords. Search engines have been tailored to predict the intent of customers, which explains why some searches have features such as local 3-packs, featured images or videos and Quick Answers. Understanding the intent behind searches allows marketers to create content messages and formats that will most likely appeal to customers. If you are still basing your SEO strategy around keywords you should probably start to think a little bit deeper around user intent. How to fix Google penalties. The truth is that links are still the most important component of the search algorithm. No matter how useful its content may be, a site without links is far less likely to rank highly in organic search results. Google is a very smart company. The sophistication of the algorithms they write is incredible; bear in mind that there are currently cars driving themselves around Silicon Valley powered by Google’s algorithms.

Content is King (for now)

Gaz Hall, a Freelance SEO Consultant, commented: "You should not only use social networks to acquire potential new customers, generate
leads and build brand awareness, but also keep in mind the SEO benefits of having a
brand presence on social networks." Your site navigation should be present and easily identifiable. Visitors
should be able to navigate your site with ease, and ideally, be able to
get to any page on your site with no more than 3 clicks. This provides a
quick and easy user experience and ensures visitors don’t have to spend
an eternity trying to find what they’re looking for. Focus on keywords that have higher search volume but don’t neglect long tail keywords. If optimized right, you can get more traffic from keywords with less search volume. It often takes time for the results to show in SEM. It doesn’t happen overnight. Keep the patience and continuously monitor your website. Really good SEO is a process and it requires a detailed and well thought out
plan. You cannot expect to execute quality SEO without listing out what
you’re going to do, documenting yourself along the way, and executing step
by step.

Estimate your contents longevity

Remember, the reason that website isn't bringing in customers is because you have given them no reason to come back. Another quick, and valuable SEO tactic – see what your competitors are ranking for. Go to one of the tools used to check out our own rankings, but put in a competitor domain. You’ll quickly see what terms they are getting traffic from, and can take the best for yourself! Search volume refers to how many times a particular phrase is searched for. It’s a handy way to gauge how much traffic you’ll receive from a specific query, though you should know that volume tends to fluctuate over time. Googlebot is the name of Google’s web crawler. A web crawler is an automated program that systematically browses the Internet for new web pages. This is called web-indexing or web-spidering. Your website’s health will not only impact your SEO results but will also have a hand in how well you’re able to convert your traffic.

Finding the 'Low-Hanging Fruit'

If you are focused on a local market, it is also important to get connected with local businesses and organizations. Title tags and meta descriptions are important elements of your website’s content. The title tag and the meta description tags should include keywords relevant to the content of the web page they describe. This helps Search Engines understand what the page is about and index your web pages accordingly for relevant keywords or keyword phrases. Scan through your website and make a list of all the relatable keywords.Then, make a list of all the potential keywords keeping your niche in mind. If you are already clear with your business/product/service offerings, then keyword selection is all the more easy. Make sure your backlinks appear to be natural. Don’t ask webmasters to link back to your pages with a specific anchor text since this can haphazardly result in a pattern that may get noticed by search engines and cause you to get a linking penalty. If your website or webpage suddenly or gradually changes focus over time (say from a carpentry guide to a best practice SEO guide – sounds unlikely, but you never know), then anchor text pointing to you will likely change in line with the different topic. Google may then decide that your page has changed so much that the old anchor text is no longer fresh and devalue those older links.