sem
SEO

What is SEM? How Search Engine Marketing Works

by admin
written by admin

What is SEM? SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing, or it can also be called search engine marketing .

Normally the SEM is used to designate paid search engine advertising campaigns, although the truth is that its definition could encompass all those marketing actions that take place within a search engine, whether or not they are paid.

SEM: What is search engine marketing

The SEM or search engine marketing generates problems in defining what exactly, since there are differences between the “real” meaning of the term and the way most people use.

In general, we call SEM the set of tools, techniques and strategies that help us optimize the visibility of sites and web pages through search engines . In short, what we are looking for is to appear more and better positioned among the search results of Google and other similar sites when a user searches for keywords related to our brand.

Generally, the search pages of Google and other sites show two types of results:

  • Organic or natural results (usually displayed in the center of the page). To find out which ones to show, the search engine uses an algorithm that tells it which websites can best respond to a given query. For example, Google’s algorithm is primarily based on relevance (web content) and authority (links from other pages). The set of techniques and tools used to position organically in the listings is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
  • Payment results. They are usually displayed at the top and in a column to the right. Unlike organic listings, here the advertiser must pay an amount for each click they get. To get traffic by buying search engine ads, you will have to turn to search engine advertising solutions , such as Google Ads. This system is also called PPC (pay per click) or CPC (cost per click).

Search Engine Marketing encompasses both SEO techniques and search engine advertising. However, in practice, most marketers use SEM to refer exclusively to search engine advertising, that is, paid results. To avoid confusion, in this case we will use SEM as a synonym for “search engine advertising”.

How can we help you with your EMS?

Today SEM is necessary for companies. However, it is much more powerful when used in combination with other tools such as SEO.

Of course: the study of keywords will be the fundamental pillars for our actions in search engines to be successful. The study of our Buyer Persona will also be essential to understand the intentionality of our audience when searching for certain keywords and, therefore, will allow us a more accurate segmentation.

These are the concepts that you should not lose sight of:

  • SEM and SEO . A combined strategy will help you achieve your goals. With the SEM in the short term and with the SEO in the medium-long term. In addition, with an intelligent study of keywords, you can impact the 2 strategies at the same time.
  • SEM positioning . When you launch your campaigns in Google Ads or in other search engines, you must bear in mind that your ads compete in a constant bid to appear. You must constantly optimize your campaigns and advertisements, to be able to appear in Google’s advertising spaces.
  • SEM campaign . Optimize your campaigns constantly, because many times it is not about who offers the most money in the bid, but who knows how to create the campaign that most interests the audience. With a good SEM campaign you can achieve your goals in a short time and reach new audiences.
  • Search Engine Marketing . The full name of the SEM abbreviation. It is all that marketing applied and focused on search engines. Learn how to run the best campaigns on Google and others like Bing. If not, put yourself in the hands of people who can advise you.
  • SEM Marketing . Learn the best way to apply search engine marketing and expert tricks that will help your SEM campaigns.
  • SEM on Google . What are the best techniques today to mount campaigns on the Google advertising platform, called Google Ads.

At Cyberclick we consider that a good SEM strategy starts from an in-depth analysis of the user’s needs, a good study of keywords and the creation of smart campaigns, grouping keywords by families and associated with short but hooked ads.

What can you get with SEM

There are many reasons to incorporate SEM into your internet marketing strategies . These are just some of the benefits that Search Engine Marketing can bring to your brand:

  • Get highly qualified traffic to your page . One of the bases of any digital marketing strategy is to attract the right users to your landing pages. Search engine marketing is very effective in attracting the attention of users and generating clicks and, by allowing users to filter based on the words they are looking for, it ensures that this traffic will be made up of people potentially interested in your brand.
  • Make your brand or company known around the world . Getting to the top of Google is a great way to gain visibility for your brand. Even if the user does not click the first time, seeing your page in the first place will gradually associate it with the need they are looking to solve.
  • Generate conversions . Google Ads offers all kinds of facilities to measure conversions and thus ensure that your ads are really effective.
  • Going far on a budget. Search engine advertising solutions combine a great potential reach with the possibility of adjusting the budget to your needs at all times. You don’t need a large initial investment, making it suitable for small and medium-sized businesses. And if your brand is growing, the sky is the limit!
  • Finally, with Search Engine Marketing solutions such as Google Ads, you can not only place advertising in the search engine itself, but also take advantage of the data and parameters available to you to place contextual advertising on other websites. The customization possibilities are very high: users who have already visited your website, interested in X types of products, from a specific city, etc. Combined with your search engine advertising campaigns, they can be a very powerful tool to grow your brand.

Advantages (and disadvantages) of SEM

Without a doubt, search engine marketing is a powerful and suitable tool for almost all types of brands. So that you can better assess when and how to include it, I will tell you its main advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage

  1. Highly measurable . Tools such as Google Ads provide you with highly detailed reports on the evolution of your campaign, so that you can always know what is happening with your ads. In addition, you can take advantage of the integration with Analytics to have everything perfectly controlled.
  2. Real time monitoring. The analytics interface allows you to see what is happening at all times and correct the course at the moment if you do not get the results you are looking for.
  3. Pay per click . In this way, you will only pay if you get results. You can control at any time the maximum daily budget that you are willing to invest, as well as the maximum cost per click that you can pay. In this way, you ensure that the campaign is profitable in all cases.
  4. Quickly . Compared to other techniques such as SEO or content marketing, search engine advertising allows for relatively fast and large-scale results to be achieved.
  5. Within everyone’s reach. Since the budget investment is scalable, this solution works for both large companies and SMEs. All of them compete on equal terms in the “fight” to reach the top positions for keywords.
  6. Segmentation . Finally, another strong point of this tool is its great segmentation possibilities. By targeting keywords, we will reach audiences that are actively interested in us. And also, we can filter it by other factors such as location, language, or behavior.

Disadvantages

  1. Higher long-term cost. Speaking clearly: SEM only works while you pay. Although over time you can optimize your campaigns and reduce costs per click, you will have to continue paying for each of the visits you get.
  2. High level of competition . Search Engine Marketing has become popular and many companies compete to position themselves for the same keywords. This competition makes costs go up and it can sometimes be difficult to get a good ROI.
  3. It is interruptive. Unlike other solutions such as native advertising, SEM involves “invading” the user’s space with content that the user has not previously requested. In fact, if the user you are targeting uses an ad blocker, they may not see your ads.

Basic concepts to create your SEM strategy

Now, we are going to go over the basics you need to navigate the world of search engine advertising. Given that in our country Google concentrates the vast majority of searches, we are going to base ourselves on the terms used in Google Ads.

  • Keyword or keyword: keywords are “the mother of the lamb”, the basis on which all search engine marketing is based. Simply put, they are the words, groups of words or phrases that will make your ad appear to users.
  • Text ad: The standard type of ad that is displayed in search engines. They generally have a title, two lines of text, and a customizable link.
  • Ad group: Ad groups are sets of ads and keywords. In turn, these are grouped into campaigns, in which you can define the daily budget and the countries or territories where the ads will appear.
  • Search network: the part of the search engine where your ads can appear. The easiest thing is to work with text ads at the top and right of the results page, but you can also show ads on other sites such as Google Shopping or Google Maps.
  • Impressions: number of times an ad has been shown.
  • Clicks: number of times an ad has been clicked.
  • CTR: percentage of impressions that generate a click.
  • CPC: average cost per click. We can define a maximum CPC to ensure that we do not go over budget.
  • Quality Score : score (determined by Google) of a keyword and an ad to determine its CPC. In theory, the higher the quality of an ad, the less you will pay for each click.

Start with your SEM campaigns and launch yourself to test the good results it can give you. If you are looking to get new clients for your products or services, we have a lot to offer you and we want to be part of your team. The expert partner that will help you attract potential clients, optimize your campaigns to the maximum and obtain the best ROI.

How to do a keyword study in SEM

When we plan an SEM campaign, the study of keywords should always be one of the first steps. We can say that keywords are like the “bricks” from which the entire SEM account, the ads and even the landing pages are structured.

To conduct a keyword study for SEM campaigns, take note of the following steps.

Analysis of the product or service (and in case it is already created, the landing page)

Keywords must always be relevant to the product or service that we are offering. So the first step is to make a list of two to ten top ideas that summarize the services or products we offer . In addition to studying our own offer, we can also take a look at the pages of the competition.

Using keyword tools

There are many keyword planning platforms on the market, such as SemRush or Google’s keyword tool. If we introduce the basic ideas that we have defined in the previous section, the tool will provide us with a list of related keywords . To filter the results, you can segment by location and by language.

The great thing about these tools is that they work as a true “brainstorming” and can give you a lot of suggestions that you would never have thought of. Of course, they often offer suggestions that are not very related to the original search. And this brings us to the next step …

Filtering and selection

Using as a base the list of keywords provided by the tool, we will have to carry out a manual filter to discard the little relevant words, group the related keywords and select those that have the highest number of searches and less competition (that is, that not many advertisers bidding on the same word).

And ready! You already have the definitive list of keywords to optimize your SEM campaign . To get the best results, these keywords should be present both on your landing pages and in your ads.

How to develop a SEM campaign step by step

Strategy and planning are essential to guarantee the result of your SEM campaign . We are going to see the key steps to launch a successful campaign.

Keyword research

Keywords are the basic foundation on which the entire SEM account is built. To carry out a complete study, we must pay attention to aspects such as:

  • The products and services we offer.
  • Analysis of our positioning and that of the competition.
  • Definition of the buyer person.
  • Search for generic and “long tail” keywords using specialized tools.
  • Cleaning and ranking of the keyword list.

Campaign creation

The time has come to define the different aspects of our SEM account and put everything in motion. These are some of the key aspects that we will have to define to launch a campaign in Google Ads or other similar solutions:

  • Budget and maximum bids.
  • Ad groups. Unless we sell a single, very specific product or service, we will have different sets of related keywords. The idea is to structure the keywords through highly targeted ad groups, to achieve maximum relevance.
  • Design, writing and optimization of landing pages. Ideally, we should have a landing for each product or service and for each target.
  • Ad creation. When setting up the campaign, it’s a good idea to launch different creatives so that you can compare the results with each other.

Measurement and optimization

The work does not end after launching the campaign, since SEM is based on continuous optimization . Therefore, we must regularly monitor the results of the account so that we can vary the keywords, creatives and other aspects of the campaigns in order to improve performance.

So that nothing escapes you, you can configure alerts for critical aspects of the account and set a schedule for periodic reviews.

Extra bonus: take advantage of SEM to do SEO

SEM and SEO are two closely related disciplines, since both seek to position in Google. Therefore, you can take advantage of the effort invested in SEM to improve your organic positioning .

Keyword research will have helped you detect keywords that can help you position your page organically, although they may not offer fast conversion results: it is a good opportunity to create related content. And in the same way, the first results of your SEM will help you to know which topics are most interesting for users and therefore can help you get more traffic and visits.

Most popular search engines where to do SEM

When we think of search engines, the first thing that usually comes to mind is Google. But the truth is that there are other SEM platforms that can also give us good results. These are the top three solutions for search engine advertising.

Google Ads

Google Ads is the main SEM platform , since this search engine covers most of the searches. These are some basic concepts to use this tool correctly:

  • Keywords : a keyword or keyword is a set of terms entered by a user in a search engine. It can be a single word, several words, or even a whole phrase, for example “buy dumbbells for sports at home.” Keywords allow Google to know which ads are relevant to a specific user at a specific time.
  • Match types: match types determine to what extent the term entered by the user in the search engine must match our keyword. In Google Ads, from broad to stricter, we have broad match, broad match modifier, phrase match, and exact match. We can also establish negative matches (searches for which we do NOT want our ads to show).
  • Ads : the advertising that is shown in the Google search engine is mainly based on text ads consisting of title, display URL, description and extensions.
  • CPC (cost per click) : the price we pay for each click on our ads, which in turn depends on the quality score and the bids we set.

Bing

Bing Ads is a very solid alternative to Google Ads, as it reaches a relevant potential audience (almost 10% of the market share) and has very good targeting and configuration options .

In general, it is a tool very similar to Google Ads, but there are some differences that you should know:

  • Negative keyword matching is stricter (we can only put negative keywords with phrase match).
  • Bing sets a minimum amount for maximum bids.
  • Bing’s location options allow you to specify a radius within a city or zip code.
  • You can schedule your ads to show in 15-minute increments throughout the day, or to appear only when the store is open.
  • Bing has specific image and action extensions.
  • You can configure different time zones within the same campaign.
  • It allows you to filter the reports based on the search partner and discard those that do not interest you.

Yahoo!

Yahoo Advertising or Yahoo Ads is Yahoo’s advertising solution , which allows you to reach users who use this search engine through different formats:

  • Search Ads. The most classic SEM format, which shows ads in the search engine when users enter a specific keyword.
  • Display Ads. These ads are placed at the top, bottom or side of a website or in the middle of content and can be used for remarketing.
  • Sponsored Ads in different formats: image, carousel and native video ads.
  • Email ads (Mail Ads), both integrated into the inbox and through banners.

Local SEM campaigns

The local SEM campaigns allow advertisers who have physical stores reach users who are in a location near them.

In Google Ads, the first step to be able to do local SEM is to configure the business listing in Google My Business .

To sign up for Google My Business, you just have to register using a Gmail email and create the listing from scratch (or claim an existing listing as your own). Google will ask you to verify ownership of the business via post, phone, email, or Google Search Console.

Once your company is registered in Google My Business, you can create local ads in Google Ads . These ads show your business to people who are close to it or who have shown interest in the area. Its objective is to increase visits to physical stores and achieve offline conversions.

Google local ads can show in different locations:

  • In Google search results: when users make a search related to the business and its location.
  • On Google Maps: through sponsored pins.
  • On YouTube: Local ads will show on YouTube when users are most likely to click on them.
  • On third-party sites (through display campaigns).

In addition to creating a local campaign from start to finish, having a business registered with Google My Business also makes it possible to add location extensions to standard Google Ads ads.

PPC for beginners

The SEM generally uses the advertising modality of pay per click or PPC , which consists of the user paying an amount (fixed or determined by auction) each time the user clicks on one of its ads to visit its web page.

For advertisers, this model has many advantages , since it allows you to pay only for the visits received, provides a lot of information about the performance of the ad, allows you to control the budget and offers good optimization possibilities.

Here are some PPC basics for beginners:

  • Impression : We call each of the views an ad receives an impression, whether you click on it or not. Typically, there are some requirements for an impression to be valid, for example, the percentage of the ad displayed or the number of seconds it remains visible.
  • CTR : the CTR or click-through rate is the percentage of clicks an ad receives compared to the number of impressions.
  • CPC : CPC or cost per click is the price paid by the advertiser for each click on the ad, that is, for each visit to its website.
  • Landing page or landing page : we call a landing page or landing page to the page within the advertiser’s website that the user reaches after clicking on an ad. For best results, this page should be optimized for conversions.

SEM most important metrics

As with any other discipline of digital marketing, in SEM we can only optimize what we measure . Therefore, before launching our strategy, we have to know what are the KPIs that we are going to follow to evaluate the performance of the campaigns.

Here are four key metrics to measure the success of your SEM campaigns.

Quality Score

The quality score measures the user experience with the ads , that is, the higher the quality score, the better the user experience. This metric is essential because Google Ads uses it to determine the cost and placement of the ads: the higher the quality score, the easier it is for you.

The level of quality depends on three factors:

  • The quality of the landing page.
  • The quality of the ad.
  • The expected clickthrough rate.

Impression share

Impression share helps us know if users are seeing our ads. It is calculated based on the impressions obtained by an ad compared to the total number they could get.

A low impression share indicates that we are not getting the most out of the ad. To remedy this, we have to raise the budget and the bids, improve the quality score, or both.

Click-through rate (CTR)

Click-through rate indicates how often users who see an ad end up clicking on it. To calculate it, we divide the number of clicks by the number of impressions. For example, if you have 5 clicks and 100 impressions, the CTR would be 5%.

We can check this metric for the different ads and keywords in our account. A low CTR indicates that the ad is not attractive enough to the user or is not really relevant to their search.

Conversions

The number of conversions and the average value of each conversion allow us to measure the performance of our ads , since it indicates how many sales we have achieved thanks to them. In this way, we can correctly attribute the ROI of our SEM campaigns and measure their profitability.

SEM Agency

SEM tools, like Google Ads, are very complex. It is necessary to manage a lot of variables and be aware of the results in real time to be able to optimize the account on a continuous basis. This is why it is often worth delegating this work to an SEM agency , which can carry out tasks such as:

  • SEM campaign design : definition of objectives and budget and creation of the structure of campaigns, keywords and ad groups.
  • Keyword planning and optimization – Selecting the right keywords and precise match levels is critical to SEM results. The agency will be responsible for both initial keyword research and ongoing monitoring of the results.
  • Ad creation : With SEM ads we have very little space to attract a potential customer, so it is essential to get the most out of your creativity to get the most out of your resources.
  • Campaign monitoring : the agency will carry out a continuous analysis of the data to be able to make decisions in real time and thus achieve the best results.
  • Optimization of the quality level : this parameter is one of the most important of the SEM, since it allows to maximize results and minimize costs at the same time.
  • Bid and CPC management : through a continuous analysis of the CPCs and the position of the ads, we seek to optimize the bids to the maximum to achieve the highest number of quality clicks at the best cost.
  • Conversion rate optimization : by analyzing and adjusting different aspects of the account, from keywords to landing design, the ultimate goal is to achieve more conversions and increase the profitability of the account.

To get the best results from this collaboration, we recommend that you look for an agency with the Google Partner certificate. 

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SEO

What Is SEO Expert?

by admin
written by admin

Any website that wants to reach the top positions in Google will find in an expert SEO consultant an excellent ally to achieve its goals and even exceed its expectations. But what exactly does a search engine optimization specialist do?

Today Webpositer Academy answers this question and many others because as SEOs we know what a professional web optimization must have to offer the best results both in their personal projects and in the websites of their clients. Don’t miss the detail of this post!

There is a lot of talk about SEO.

At Webpositer Academy we advocate training as the key premise to forge future specialists in an essential discipline to guide this digital transformation that is already being experienced in SMEs in our country, a revolution that has only just begun.

The main objective of this 1st SEO Master focuses on providing the student with the knowledge and tools necessary to become a real SEO consultant. So far everything is clear but let’s get to the point: What is SEO and what the hell does it do in your day to day?

Here are the answers to these and many other questions that will make you meet this specialist in his professional and personal dimension.

SEO Consultant: What Is It Exactly?

An  SEO expert is a professional with extensive experience in web page optimization, whose daily work focuses on the application of techniques that favor the improvement of a website, with the aim of placing it in the top positions of the most important search engines of Internet.

This web positioning professional knows perfectly the rules of the game of search engines like Google . This knowledge allows you to develop strategies and actions that enhance the visibility of a website in search engine results, increasing your web traffic and helping visitors end up turning into more sales .

Far from being a simple task, the work of an SEO analyst requires a magical combination of technical and analytical knowledge as well as the ability to find opportunities and know how to turn them into successful strategies.

Because it is one thing to do SEO and quite another to be an SEO expert.

What Knowledge Should an SEO Expert Have?

A search engine optimization consultant must know in detail all the aspects to improve SEO Onsite and SEO Offsite of any website . But he must also know how to manage projects with solvency, adequately advising the client and transmitting the achievements and looking for solutions to overcome positions that show resistance.

As staying on the surface does not go with a pure-bred SEO analyst, specialization is a degree and that is where it shows that key differentiation plus to take any project even further.

In summary, the Webpositer Academy syllabus includes all the know-how that an SEO consultant needs to face the improvement of a website every day. Check it out and you will see how much it can offer with so much knowledge!

Web architecture, keyword research , conversion, HTML5, WPO (Web Performance Optimization), SEO writing, domain and server management, internal linking, competitor analysis, link building, Geo SEO, positioning in mobile apps, SEM and many other techniques. that would require their own post.

However, we are going to choose those pillars of wisdom that every good SEO expert must have and cultivate over time.

KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE OPERATION OF INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES

It is clear that, if the job of an SEO consultant is to improve the search engine rankings of a website, his thing is that he knows with his eyes closed how Google, Bing or Yahoo, among others, works . Otherwise, it will be like sailing adrift in a sea that traps us with no apparent salvation.

SOLID KNOWLEDGE OF WEB PROGRAMMING

To be SEO Professional it is not necessary to be a crack at web page programming but you must have knowledge of this discipline.

Why? A simple reason. Your day to day will focus on working on website optimization . From improving its architecture, to optimizing its performance or installing elements within the code of the page are just some tasks that will be part of your work schedule.

Perhaps you will not develop them but the web programmer but you will have to guide him in that task, which makes it essential to master that language with ease .

KNOW WHAT MOVES IN THE MARKET

At heart, an SEO consultant is a business advisor specialized in the operation of the Internet who must be able to investigate the market to which the activity of a website is directed.

This knowledge will allow you to design strategies and actions that attract your target audience, turning their search needs into attractive solutions.

Monitoring and web analytics will play a decisive role in finding business opportunities in interesting market niches for your objectives.

GLOBAL BUT SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE OF ALL AREAS COMPRISED OF WEB POSITIONING

To make a competitive website and get it to sell more on the Internet, a superficial knowledge about SEO will not help.

An SEO expert must master all the techniques, tools and resources that are in his hand to offer solutions that are transformed into results of real success.

Only by controlling everything that Web Positioning encompasses as a discipline will you be able to do quality work . Here’s another difference between doing SEO and being a professional SEO.

What Tasks Does an SEO Consultant Perform to Improve the Google Positioning of a Website?

Next, we summarize the main tasks that an SEO expert develops on a website to enhance its search engine positioning.

There are many more but we assure you that these are ESSENTIAL in your day-to-day professional life. So get ready to know all the tasks that await you when you become a specialized SEO Consultant.

# 1 – STUDY OF KEYWORDS RELATED TO THAT WEBSITE

We are facing one of the pillars of any SEO strategy. As a consultant, you must determine the keywords that define a website and that are the most suitable to improve the positioning in Google.

The development of a professional keyword research as well as the concepts related to the activity of that page will mark the entire strategy, in addition to many other key actions to boost the SEO of the web: link building, content optimization, writing texts …

# 2 – WEB ARCHITECTURE OPTIMIZATION

An SEO consultant should be the one who analyzes the structure of a website in order to offer the best organization of the information.

Their knowledge must be applied to each of the pages so that the architecture of the web guarantees a good internal link with anchor text based on the exact and most relevant generic keywords to promote its growth.

This friendly structure must be adapted to the tastes of search engines , defining it carefully from the beginning. This task plays a fundamental role in achieving SEO objectives.

# 3 – WEB CONTENT OPTIMIZATION

The content of a website is essential to achieve an improvement in search engine rankings. SEO should optimize that content so that those important keywords are worked on for the positioning of each page, working hand in hand with the editors.

The SEO consultant is the professional in charge of marking the heading structure that the content displayed on each page should have. The editors will adapt to it to develop the optimized texts that will appear on the web, creating effective content from the SEO point of view, but also attractive for the user.

# 4 – DEFINITION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LINKBUILDING STRATEGY

Quality links help a website to enhance its level of authority , positive votes that Google values ​​by favoring the positions of that website in the search engine’s SERPs.

The SEO consultant must analyze which websites are ideal for obtaining links , how the linking should be done, while monitoring the link pattern of a website so that it is always natural , avoiding attacks that damage all the work done to date.

# 5 – WEBSITE AND DIRECT COMPETITOR MONITORING

The SEO consultant must ally himself with a multitude of tools that will help him to have a periodic and exhaustive control of the evolution of the positions of the web by certain keywords, as well as to analyze his inbound links. Or dive deep into the bowels of the web and activate all your technical SEO know-how.

For all this, you will need to know how to configure Screaming Frog or Netpeak Spider, as well as how to make the most of Ahrefs, Semrush.

But, as important as controlling the activity of our website, it will be to keep track of competing websites because from this analysis, opportunities for improvement can be obtained that enhance the growth of the page.

# 6 – WEB ANALYTICS TO MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF THE SEO STRATEGY

It is useless to do a thousand and one actions, if we do not verify what is happening in the bowels of a web.

The SEO consultant must be a specialist in web analytics, easily interpreting the information offered by tools such as Google Analytics .

Measure visits, time spent, bounce rate, conversion rate and many other aspects to polish the strategy with decisive tactics.

This data will be decisive to show the client what is happening with the page , both its progression and the points that need to be improved. Web analytics captures the results of actions, as well as opportunities that require special attention.

# 7 – PERMANENT STUDY OF THE NEWS ABOUT SEARCH ENGINES AND ONLINE MARKETING

A discipline as subject to changes and updates as SEO requires self-taught professionals who dedicate hours a day to studying new techniques that help improve the results obtained, acting proactively in the face of possible errors.

Moreover, these hours of study will serve to first apply these novelties in own projects, experiment and see how they work , in order to implement them in client projects. All in order to optimize the web to the maximum.

# 8 – PROFESSIONAL CLIENT ADVICE

All these actions and decisions that we make to place a website in the top positions of search engines must be communicated to customers.

In this way, the SEO consultant will keep you aware of the progress and results obtained, as well as the opportunities that the web optimization professional wants to attack to take the rise of the web to another level.

Communication between client and SEO consultant must be constant because it is the way in which the specialist will know how to transform the concerns, desires and needs of that company into an effective strategy .

In addition, this feedback allows you to have a deeper knowledge of the sector of activity of that business as well as its target audience, information without a doubt of great importance for making crucial decisions by the SEO professional.

Information on results, recommendations for improvement and opportunities must be provided by the consultant in a detailed technical audit that must be explained to the client so that he can properly interpret the data obtained.

[easy-tweet tweet = »Do you have what it takes to be a professional #SEO consultant? #DoYouSEO »]

The Skills of an SEO Consultant Are …

This is just a small list of the many knowledge and tasks that a web optimization professional exercises in their day to day life.

But, beyond what he does, we also want to dedicate this last part of the article to summarize those special skills and abilities that this specialist must gather to give his best in each project.

A GOOD SEO ANALYST MUST BE:

  • Analytical : You will be surrounded by percentages, figures, data and information that you must analyze with great care, using powerful tools.
  • Curious : Not only do you have to like SEO, but you must be passionate about what you do and the world around you. That thirst for curiosity will quench you by studying, learning, experimenting, asking questions, and sharing your progress with others.
  • Creative : An SEO is a professional with technical knowledge but where his ingenuity will be key to finding amazing solutions where perhaps others only see weak points. That creativity together with a good knowledge about search engine optimization as well as fields such as communication or web design will serve to make any project more powerful in areas such as, for example, web conversion.
  • Self-taught : Your curiosity invites you to learn on your own and learn about the latest developments in the sector, consulting both national and international sources of information. Everything learned will be the basis of an SEO strategy that makes a difference.
  • Ambitious : The professional SEO consultant works to improve the rankings of a website in Google. Far from settling for the work done, he always aspires to more by overcoming his own limits. Because, as Nelson Mandela said, “it always seems impossible until it is done” .
  • Empathetic : Your client’s concerns are their concerns. He puts himself in his place at all times so that each step of his strategy leads to better doing that project at hand.
  • Organized : The work of a SEO Professional is methodical. For this reason, it must have very well structured and defined work protocols to help manage the information properly, keeping an accurate record of all the actions, results and decisions taken. Refrain from being clutter-loving SEO consultants.
  • Communicative : As important as being an ace implementing the most innovative SEO techniques, is knowing how to transmit to the client each of the steps and actions that are carried out. This professional consultant acts as a digital business advisor and therefore must always be close to his client.

Now that you have entered their world for a few minutes, would you like to study SEO to be a professional consultant? In Webpositer Academy you have the knowledge and the ideal teachers, leaving in your hand the passion for this universe that requires true specialists.

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SEO

SEO Techniques: The 12 main you need to know

by admin
written by admin

If betting on SEO techniques is a necessity, how to do it the right way?

There we have a common problem for those who include among their marketing actions generating organic traffic through Google and other search engines.

When you optimize your website’s home , your blog posts and other pages, it opens the door to your business on the web.

In other words, it allows it to be found on the internet, based on searches carried out by users.

It is not magic, although the effectiveness sometimes even suggests it.

As he uses keywords related to his product or service in his search, the search engine indicates his article or page as a result suggestion.

Obviously, for it to be one of the first among these suggestions, it depends on a strategy that includes great SEO techniques.

And believe me: it does little or nothing to have an optimization job if you don’t aim at the first page of search engine results.

In addition, the challenge increases as it requires constant monitoring and updating.

After all, eventual changes to Google’s algorithms may require further adjustments to maintain or improve its position.

As it is easy to see, doing SEO takes work.

But it is not the time to give up.

To make your project closer to success, we have prepared this article on the best SEO techniques.

From now on, you will have all the information you need to be on top of Google and to be found on the web.

And the best: before your competition gets there.

Good reading!

What is SEO?

SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization , an English expression freely translated as search engine optimization.

It is a set of techniques applied to a website, with the objective of better positioning it as a suggestion of results from Google, or another search engine.

In practice, this means setting up your website and content to appear in the first results of an online search.

SEO starts from the logic that the public goes to the company , and not the other way around, as it happens in most marketing actions.

This happens precisely from searches performed on Google, always considering the use of terms related to your brand , products and services.

These terms are what we call keywords.

They correspond to the exact search made by users.

With SEO techniques, you work those same terms on your pages.

As a consequence, the search engine makes a combination of the content you offer and the user’s search, then ranking your page among the suggested results for that specific search.

What will determine your position among such suggestions is precisely your SEO work.

It may not be easy to get to the top of Google, especially for highly competitive terms.

But it is certainly a valid strategy.

After all, it offers the chance to be found on the web organically, without paying for it.

In other words, it does not require expenses with paid media, such as sponsored links, to occupy such a prominent position.

That’s why it’s no surprise that 68.5% of companies plan to invest more in SEO during this year, according to SEO Trends .

Are you among them?

So, you just need to build your strategy with the best SEO techniques.

12 SEO techniques to optimize your website

The time has come to check which SEO techniques are indispensable to optimize your website.

If you still don’t adopt one, or don’t do it with total dedication, make the necessary adjustments to the strategy and qualify your results.

1. Keyword research

The first step before creating content is to choose the keyword you want to rank on Google, or another search engine.

To do this, you need to conduct keyword research.

You have the option of using a free tool from Google itself: Keyword Planner .

There, you can search for keyword and ad group suggestions just by typing the top keywords you want to target.

Then, based on the terms that other users use to search, the tool provides a list of suggestions for use.

Another method to find what people are looking for is to type your main keywords into Google and check the suggestions based on the most popular searches.

In addition, you can still scroll to the bottom of the Google results page and see a few more search-related queries.

Finally, the important thing is to choose one or two main keywords so as not to over-saturate or over-specify the content.

2. Quality content

Whoever adopts digital marketing strategies , certainly realized that content serves as a bargaining chip in this environment, right?

So, regardless of your niche, after choosing the main keywords to work with, you should create highly relevant and useful content for readers based on them.

To write a quality article on a specific topic, do your research and check other texts that are already well ranked on Google for these keywords.

The important thing is that your article is original, easy to read, meets the user’s demand, answer your questions and add value to it.

No copying the content of other existing publications.

Even because search engines tend to penalize the practice of duplicate content.

Not to mention that, even if there is no penalty, there is no way to position well on Google an article that presents more of the same.

So be sure to also invest in lists, tables, graphs and question and answer formats.

Search engines value these elements, because they facilitate the extraction of relevant content.

3. Friendly URL

One thing is for sure: the URL of your website pages needs to be user friendly.

That is, it must clearly explain to its visitors what content they are about to see.

This is because search engines favor URLs that facilitate this understanding.

Did you notice the difference?

In this second moment, the categorization of the URL served to inform the readers where they are on the website (blog) and what is the theme of the article it offers.

No symbols, numbers or any unfriendly construction.

4. Page title

We agree that the title of your page is one of the main ways to get the user’s attention, don’t you agree?

It is the first step, both for the search engine and for the reader, to determine the relevance of your content.

Therefore, it is essential to insert some important keyword in it for your business.

It is worth remembering that there is a recommendation for the length of your title: the ideal is to keep it with less than 60 characters.

So be sure to include your keyword strategically within that amount.

But the title of the post is longer, what now?

Here’s a tip!

When you have a long title, the best thing to do is to place the keyword right at the beginning.

This prevents the term worked on the page from being cut in the SERP .

If this happens, it will end up affecting the relevance of your post.

Would you like it to be even clearer?

See as an example this same article you are reading now.

Note his title.

Did you see how it exceeded 60 characters?

It could be a problem if the main keyword (SEO techniques) was not positioned closer to its beginning.

So, take the same care in each of your publications.

5. Meta tag description

As with the title, there is a recommendation for your meta description: that it does not exceed 160 characters.

Remembering that this is the text that appears as a description on Google, just below the title also displayed as a result of a search on the search engine.

For it to be a good meta description, it is necessary that, within those 160 characters, you provide the information in the most clear and useful way possible.

After all, it serves as a summary, giving the user reasons to click and check what they will “win” if they read the article.

6. Page structure: h1, h2, h3…

Imagine reading a newspaper that has no headlines.

You would have to read half the article before you know what he’s talking about, wouldn’t you?

Adding headlines and subtitles is like adding headlines to a newspaper.

It gives context to your content before a user dives into it.

It also helps to organize and prioritize all information.

Google has noticed the tendency for website builders to typically use title tags more for styling purposes and, as a result, now considers how you format and place your information in this hierarchy, organizing your content from the most important to the least important.

Generally, you can choose title tags from h1 to h6, being recommended to use at least until h3 in your publications.

A common practice is to work on the keyword you are trying to rank right in the h1 header, as it refers to the title of the post.

In the other tags (h2 and h3, for example) you can also work with variations of this keyword to improve the chances of ranking.

Remembering that the appropriate markup of important information, such as date of publication, author and category, will also help to position your site well in search results.

7. Use a sitemap

A sitemap, as the name suggests, works as a kind of map of your site, containing links to all pages.

In other words, it helps Google easily crawl your pages and index your content.

If your website is hosted by WordPress, you can generate a website sitemap using a plugin. Among the most popular are the Sitemap XML and Google News Feed and Google Sitemaps XML .

If you are using a custom CMS, you can use an XML sitemap generator to create your map and then upload it to your site.

8. Image name and alt attribute

Many people forget to include the name of the images or the alt attribute when uploading photos and illustrations to their content.

However, among SEO techniques, the ideal is not to leave this concern aside.

After all, Google still can’t “see” your images, but it can “read” your alternate text.

By properly describing your alt text, you are explaining to the searcher what the subject of that image is.

In addition, it increases the chances of the content being ranked in the search results for the words it contains.

The important thing is to try to explain the concept of the image, as if you were describing it to a blind person, for example.

9. Internal link to other pages on the site

This technique refers to inserting a link on a page that points to another page on the same site.

Therefore, if you have previously written about a certain topic mentioned in your post, the ideal is to link that other content on that same page.

This is important because it helps to strengthen these keywords internally and allows visitors to browse the site more thoroughly.

The important thing is that these other links are relevant to that reading and that you use anchor text (the clickable words on any link) clear and objective.

This can help to reduce your bounce rates, which is when the user abandons reading without taking any action on the publication.

10. Implement the SSL / HTTPs security certificate

As we know, Google is always updating its search engine and prioritizing those pages that can adapt quickly to these new changes.

In 2014, the giant started to prioritize in organic results the sites that enabled the SSL / HTTPs security certificate.

There are already several companies that can make this migration safely and without decreasing the organic performance of your website.

There are even free options, like Let’s Encrypt and CloudFlare .

11. Optimize for Mobile First

In 2015, Google updated its algorithm to prioritize sites that perform best on mobile devices.

So if your site doesn’t yet have a formatting compatible with these devices in 2018, you may be missing out on ranking results.

In this context, your website can not only, but must have a responsive design.

With a responsive design, it detects the device used to view your website and its orientation on the screen, adjusting the layout according to that specific device.

If your site is already responsive, start considering how your elements are displayed on these devices.

Try using your site on different types of devices to see how your users experience.

To do so, use smartphones and tablets with different screen sizes.

Then, make changes that optimize that experience across all devices.

12. Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

Having noticed the growing number of users that access the internet through mobile devices, Google launched the AMP project, which in free translation would be something like “pages accelerated for mobile”.

Essentially, the goal is to optimize the structure of the page, creating an alternative version of it, without scripts or elements that delay loading.

Thus, decrease the loading time on these devices.

Obviously, Google has increasingly prioritized the pages that have this optimization.

Just do a search with your smartphone and you will notice that most of the first results have “AMP” in their description.

Bonus tip: avoid having 404 errors on your site

The 404 error indicates a broken link.

There may be an error in the URL or the content is no longer available at that address.

Whatever the reason, it is bad for ranking purposes on Google.

What happens is that 404 errors negatively influence the user experience, which, as a consequence, ends up affecting their SEO performance.

There are several WordPress plugins that can help you detect 404 pages on your website, such as Permalink Finder .

If you are not using WordPress, you can install the Google Chrome extension called Check My Links and use it to look for broken links on your site.

In addition, 404 pages need not be just frustration.

You can use this space to creatively interact with your audience, as in the example below.

Start capturing leads today with Pro SEO Expert

Good SEO techniques will drive many visitors to your website.

But what are you going to do from there?

If you don’t use that traffic to capture leads yet , you’re missing an opportunity.

As you chat with the user in articles, don’t miss the chance to get your contact and then promote more targeted approaches.

It can be an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter , receive news by email , download an e-book or sign up for a free course.

For all types of actions, looking at the landing page greatly increases the chance of confirming the conversions you want so much.

At that time, Pro SEO Expert is the ideal tool.

Here are the three basic steps to create your own:

  1. Choose your model : discover high conversion options proven by tests.
  2. Customize the page : edit the texts , colors and images , in addition to hiding elements that add little.
  3. Publish : finally, just publish on your own domain, without additional hosting costs.

Conclusion

In this article, we talk about essential SEO techniques for your marketing strategy .

For those who want to generate organic traffic, attract visitors and, from there, start a relationship with them, the sustainable path points to SEO.

As you may have noticed, it can seem quite challenging at first.

But it is necessary to persist and improve your pages.

By following the good SEO practices we mentioned, you increase the chances of your content being ranked on the first page of Google.

In fact, it is worth remembering: that should be the goal.

As rare are those who move to the second page, the closer your content is to the top, the better.

And for that, quality content, focus on the user experience and adjustments to the development of the page provide a shortcut to victory.

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SEO

SEO Agency: What is it and how to choose the best one?

by admin
written by admin

If you want your brand’s SEO to be in good hands, you will have to turn to experts. And often, that means hiring the services of a specialized agency.

Your  SEO agency  should be a fully trusted professional partner, since you are putting the visibility and reputation of your brand in their hands. We give you the keys to understand what an SEO agency can do for you and choose the best one for your brand.

First of all: why do you need to do SEO?

Hiring an  SEO agency  is not a decision to be taken lightly, as it can be a significant investment, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. But there are many reasons why it is worth it:

  • Because it multiplies your visibility . Today, Google and other search engines are the starting point for researching products online, so they are an essential source of users who might be interested in your product or service. If you manage to position yourself among the first results of the search engine, you will be putting yourself in front of thousands of potential customers.
  • Because you will get more out of your website . Creating a brand website is a significant investment of time and resources, but without proper positioning, you will be losing traffic and therefore opportunities to make that investment profitable.
  • Because it brings reputation, trust and credibility . In general, users attribute a positive value to being among the first Google search results and perceive those websites as more relevant, which contributes to improving the perception of the brand.
  • Because it is a fantastic long-term investment . Today’s SEO agency work will translate into organic traffic tomorrow. The sooner you start implementing your SEO plan, the sooner you will enjoy the benefits.
  • Because it improves your website . The goal of Google and other search engines is to offer the best possible result to users. Therefore, the techniques that help to position in search engines are aligned with improving the user experience and with it, the results in general.
  • Because it increases your impact on social networks . A secondary benefit of doing SEO is improving your social media results. Title and description optimization makes web link previews more user-friendly and therefore will encourage more users to click and share.
  • Because it brings measurable results . SEO positioning translates into concrete and quantifiable results, so it is very easy to see what results your strategy is giving and correct the course if necessary.
  • Because in the long run it will be more profitable . You may think that hiring an SEO agency is a very expensive investment. But if you value it in terms of how much it would cost to train your team and dedicate resources to doing SEO in-house, or the benefits that you are missing by not doing quality SEO, you will see that it can be a very profitable solution.

What is an SEO agency?

An  SEO agency  is a company that is dedicated to improving the  positioning  and  visibility  of its clients in search engines (in our country, mainly Google). To do this, the objective is to get your brands, products and websites to appear among the first search results when users enter related terms.

The  web positioning  depends on a multitude of factors, therefore it is normal that within an SEO agency find professionals specializing in various areas such as:

  • Content creation : the articles of a blog, the different pages of a website, the product descriptions in an ecommerce and even the YouTube videos of a brand channel must be correctly optimized to improve positioning.
  • SEO on page : here would enter aspects such as titles and descriptions or the structure of the pages. It also covers different technical aspects, such as ensuring good loading speed and avoiding URL duplication.
  • User experience : we must not forget that the audience for web pages is people, not robots. Therefore, SEO and UX should always go hand in hand.
  • SEO off page : focused above all on improving the reputation of a website by creating quality inbound links.

What does an SEO agency do for its clients?

You may be wondering what an SEO agency can bring you   in more concrete terms. Typically, your work takes place in a series of steps:

  • Preparation of an SEO briefing together with the client . Communication is very important for the relationship between client and SEO agency to work. Therefore, the first step is always to sit down together to draw up a document that sets out what are the objectives to be achieved, what products or services we are interested in promoting more and other issues.
  • SEO audit . The most common is that the brand already has its own website or other online content, so the first thing to do is to study how they are in terms of positioning and what are the gaps to fill. This study should also include the main competitors.
  • Preparation and execution of a positioning plan . With all this information, the SEO agency will be in charge of defining the actions to be carried out and carrying them out. Keep in mind that SEO is a continuous process: after the initial set-up, it will be necessary to carry out a series of maintenance tasks.
  • Measurement and communication.  The SEO agency will carry out a series of reports of the results achieved and will communicate regularly with the client to inform them and agree on the next steps to take.

How to choose an SEO agency according to your business goals?

Unfortunately, not all companies that sell themselves as ” SEO agency ” are capable of offering a quality service. We are going to see what are some characteristics that an SEO agency should have, as well as some warning signs that indicate that it is better to avoid it.

What should I look for in my SEO agency?

  • Comprehensive services . As we have seen, SEO covers different aspects, some more technical and others more related to marketing and content. A good positioning agency should be able to cover all the bases to offer full assistance.
  • Clarity . Positioning techniques can be very complex, but the SEO agency must be responsible for explaining to the client at all times what they are doing and why, in a way that is easily understandable.
  • Fluent communication . The agency should inform the client at all times of what it is doing, send them periodic reports and be available to answer their questions as they arise.
  • Customization . Each customer’s situation and needs are unique, so “cut and paste” solutions won’t work. The work plan and budget should always be personalized.

What should I avoid in my SEO agency?

  • Exaggerated promises . No agency can guarantee the first position of Google, and even less in the short term. So if they do, be suspicious.
  • Charge for keywords . SEO “to weight” does not work, and the evolution of search engines is more oriented to semantic and general thematic searches. So look for agencies that offer a full service and not for keywords.
  • Dubious policies  (especially  link building ). Many agencies make use of black hat SEO (unethical positioning techniques or even prohibited by search engines), but in the long term this always ends up being counterproductive. In particular, be very careful about agencies that promise to generate free inbound links.
  • Prices too low . Doing a quality SEO takes time, knowledge and resources, so the cheap ends up being expensive.
  • Undemonstrable results . A good SEO agency should always be transparent with what it is doing, so if not, run away!

Steps to hire an SEO agency for your company

Finally, we are going to see what would be the fundamental steps to  find the SEO agency you need  and establish a fruitful long-term collaboration:

  • Define your needs . We have seen some general characteristics that define a good SEO agency, but from there, each case is different. There are specialized agencies in different sectors, in some specific aspects of SEO, in large or small companies … So it’s about doing a little research to see which one can best fit your brand.
  • Be clear about what you want . A professional SEO agency will help you assess the situation and set specific goals, but it is always necessary to have a prior idea of ​​what you are looking for. Why and why do you want to improve your positioning on Google?
  • Search and compare . Finally, the time has come to choose your SEO agency. In addition to the aspects that we have already discussed, I recommend that you take a look at the opinions of other professionals and do not hesitate to call the candidates on your “shortlist” to see how they communicate and what kind of solutions they offer you. If all goes well, your SEO agency will be your ally for many years, so don’t rush!
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SEO

Ranking Top 10 of Google in 2021 (Complete Guide)

by admin
written by admin

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a set of optimization techniques for sites, blogs and pages on the web. These optimizations seek to achieve good organic positioning, generating traffic and authority for a site or blog.

One of the biggest goals of companies investing in  Digital Marketing  is to reach the top positions in search engines – after all, who doesn’t want free clicks and more visitors to their site?

But in such a fierce and competitive field as the Internet, making your website stand out among the millions of pages on the net seems like an impossible task. And I say it seems because it really isn’t.

However, being on the Internet is not enough to guarantee that your site, e-commerce or blog achieves a place on the first page of Google: it is necessary to invest in a specific strategy to optimize results and ensure that your business achieves a good position. web for the most important keywords in your segment.

With SEO or Search Engine Optimization – from English Search Engine Optimization – you can make your website appear in relevant searches, connecting your content with people who are looking for products or services like the one you offer.

It is the perfect operation!

But you should know that doing SEO requires a lot of study to understand terminologies, build strategies and apply practices that take you to the top of the Google results pages .

Do not worry! Whether you want to take your first steps in the world of search engine optimization, or you want to refresh your knowledge, in this complete SEO guide we will explain everything you need to know about the matter.

Read carefully and become a Pro SEO Expert!

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization, which means “search engine optimization.” It consists of a series of optimization techniques, disciplines and strategies that are implemented on the pages of a website or blog to improve its search engine rankings.

This Marketing strategy is essential for your company to gain prominence, visibility in the digital world and, consequently, more leads , customers and billing for your business.

How?

Optimizing sites and blogs through the use of techniques to improve the web positioning of your pages and positioning your company in the first results of Google, for example, increase (and a lot) your business opportunities.

At the end of the day, 90% of people who search on Google only click on the results that appear on the first page of the engine.

The main goal of SEO, therefore, is to increase the volume of organic traffic and ensure more visibility for web pages.

What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

We do not want to leave out of this article a topic that causes a lot of confusion among professionals who are starting in the world of Digital Marketing and this is the difference between SEO and SEM.

Although at first they may seem to refer to similar actions given the similarity of their initials, you should pay close attention because they refer to completely different actions. Let’s go one by one.

SEO = Organic positioning

As you may already know, SEO refers to all those actions that you can take inside or outside of your website to optimize your search engine positioning organically. This last point is key since organic means “no payment” .

With an SEO strategy you do not pay Google or any other search engine to gain positions in the SERP. It’s your valuable content and your optimizations that earn those spots in their own right.

SEM = Payment positioning

On the contrary, SEM —Search Engine Marketing— refers to those strategies that include the use of paid advertisements.

That is, with a SEM strategy you create an advertising campaign so that when a user types a search, your site appears before the organic results in the form of an advertisement, as long as it matches the user’s search intention.

Which to choose?

A complete Digital Marketing strategy should not opt ​​for one and exclude the other. That is, you must include in your strategy a combination of SEO and SEM strategies to increase your results .

With the use of SEM, results are generated instantly in a short term, necessary when you want to increase visibility or brand recognition quickly or when you want to launch products or promotions for a limited time. 

In addition, SEO is a strategy that works in the medium and long term, constantly bringing better quality visits.

But what are the advantages of this SEO strategy and how efficient can it be? Here are the main ones.

7 advantages of implementing an SEO strategy

1. Increase the visibility of a brand

Implementing an SEO strategy is one of the best ways to organically increase the visibility of your brand .

Imagine the following scenario: your business sells washing machines. A user, let’s call him Pedro, is having problems with his washing machine, so he does a Google search on how he can repair it himself.

Coincidentally, you have an article that shows a step by step to repair washing machines, so you conquer that visit for your website.

And although the article talks about repair and not sale, this is only the beginning of a customer relationship with your brand. It is what in Inbound we know as the attraction stage.

2. Attract qualified traffic

Like Pedro, many other users will come to your content to solve their doubts or find solutions to their problems. 

By creating valuable content, optimized for search engines, your website will be able to organically attract the leads you are looking for, at the right time.

In this way, the more visits you receive, the more people will know you and the more likely you are to close a sale, which leads us to the next advantage.

3. Generate sales opportunities

Imagine that, although Pedro repaired his washing machine, he definitely needs to change it, as it still has other faults. 

Since Pedro already knows your brand, thanks to the fact that he has found the solution to his questions in your articles, he will surely already trust your business and will think of you, as the first option, to buy his next washing machine. This is the decision stage in the Inbound methodology.

4. Positions a brand as an authority in the market

Continuing with our example, in Pedro’s mind and in that of many other users like him, your company will occupy their Top of Mind , that is, it will be the first brand that comes to mind when they think of washing machines.

SEO allows you to achieve this by facilitating correct indexing and improving the organic positioning of your content.

Thus, whenever Pedro or anyone else looks for information on washing machines, your website will be the first to appear, or at least the result they are looking for.

In this area, a concept that has been highlighted is that of EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), an acronym used to represent the three fundamental elements of quality content.

Recently, Google has looked favorably on content published by authors who have technical authority and recognized credibility on the respective topics.

For example, on a disease content website, you might want to have articles written by doctors, with an author page containing information about your professional history.

5. Educate the market

Users like Pedro have surely been educated with your articles on the operation, care and maintenance of their washing machines. 

They have also managed to understand what are the specifications they are looking for with their washing machine, according to their personal needs.

As you can see, the importance of positioning a content not only lies in closing sales, but also in educating the audience to make better decisions.

6. Triumph over the competition

Finally, if your brand produces the most complete and relevant content about washing machines, who do you think users will look for when they want to know something about washing machines? Who will they trust if they need to make a purchase?

Although it takes time and a lot of work to implement an SEO strategy, in the long term it generates constant and lasting results.

7. Better return on investment

SEO requires a much lower investment than other strategies such as SEM or traditional advertising.

The investment required by SEO translates into the payment of some tools such as the ones we saw earlier, the salaries of the SEO specialist or the content creator and the payment of the domain and hosting of the website, for example.

However, the return more than multiplies the investment and the best thing is that the work that was done once continues to generate returns in the medium and long term.

We are now going to explain to you, step by step, the most important SEO concepts and teach you the strategies we use to reach the top of Google.

And it all starts when the user does a search.

What types of search are there?

The psychology of search revolves around the user: their needs, their way of looking for answers, the results they expect when looking for something, etc.

It is convenient for companies that invest in Digital Marketing to respond objectively to all these doubts and needs.

One of the first steps to understanding the user’s search is to know the intention of their navigation, which is essential in order to attract the right audience to your site.

So we are going to explain what it is that takes the user to Google. There are three types of search:

1. Navigational search

This type of search – also known as a shortcut search – happens when the user already knows which site they would like to visit, but may not remember the full URL or may be lazy to type.

2. Informational search

As the name itself says, in the informational search the user looks for information, whether through news, product launches or explanatory articles.

Unlike navigational search, the user does not know exactly which site they will reach to find the content they are looking for, since it is not possible to clearly identify their search intention.

In an Inbound Marketing strategy , this organic visibility is essential to attract users to the pages of a business and start their journey to become customers.

Because they do not know exactly which site they want to visit, the user tends to use the organic results to find the solution to their doubt or need, and it is at that moment that the good web positioning of the blog or site is an advantage for business.

3. Transactional search

In this type of search, the user wants to execute a transaction, such as buying a product directly or finding a store. This search is extremely valuable, especially for e-commerce .

Now that you have understood the 3 types of search, in the next topic we will explain how the largest search engine in the world works, Google.

4. Local Search

Local searches are searches with a geographical component, within a certain region, for example, when the user searches for restaurants, cinemas, shops, hotels, schools, offices, among other types of establishments with a physical location.

Other types of search

There are also other types of searches that users can perform, such as:

  • news.
  • institutions.
  • songs.
  • academic searches.
  • specific information (weather, date, etc.).
  • images.
  • videos.

Keep in mind that, for each type of search, Google has increasingly tried to provide specific results.

In product searches (transactional), for example, it shows Google Shopping results or when searching for a music theme, it shows the clip on YouTube and the lyrics.

The intention is to improve the search experience with more agile and precise answers for the user .

Brief history of SEO and how the Google algorithm has evolved

Since people realized that the best way to deliver their content to Internet users was through search engines , they devised a series of techniques to conquer their first places. These techniques were baptized with the name of SEO.

However, in the 90s there were many content that cared more about positioning than about user experience. That is why Google began to constantly update its algorithm to deliver the most relevant results in each search.

Next, we will take a look at the main algorithm updates.

Google panda

In 2011 the first big update of the algorithm arrived. Google Panda began to analyze and evaluate websites based on the quality of their content, reviewing aspects such as grammar and duplicate content, and rewarding original and valuable content.

Google penguin

A year later, in April 2012, Google Penguin was launched to monitor the health of website link building .

Basically, Google Penguin checks that the external links that are sent to the pages are natural and of quality. Therefore, it stimulates the relevant backlinks and that add value to the user who reaches another website from them.

Google Hummingbird

In 2013, with Google Hummingbird, it began to classify content according to semantic factors and user interest.

It is with Hummingbird that Google understands natural language, expanding its way of interpreting content to variations of keywords or related keywords.

Google Pigeon

In 2014, with Google Pigeon, the search engine began to organize search results according to the geographical location of users. It is from here that local SEO begins to gain prominence.

Google Mobilegeddon

In 2015 comes the boom of mobile devices and Google adapts to it with Google Mobilegeddon. With this update, Google rewards sites that are mobile-friendly: those that have a responsive design and that optimize their loading speeds .

Google RankBrain

One of the most radical algorithm changes occurred with Google RankBrain, in 2015. With this update, Google delivers the most relevant content to the user according to their search intent. 

In this free infographic that we prepared you can find more detailed information about this story and how Google currently works.

How to put together a good SEO strategy and conquer the top of Google?

Now, it is time to know the step by step you must follow to create and implement a successful SEO strategy. Take note!

1. Define your goals

The first step of the strategy is to define what your goals are when optimizing your website, blog or ecommerce . For this, you need to know what SEO is, some possibilities are:

  • increase organic traffic.
  • generate more leads.
  • generate more sales.
  • reduce the cost of acquiring customers (CAC).
  • educate the market.
  • increase brand authority.

You should always align these SEO goals with your brand’s macro goals . If you want to increase your brand recognition, for example, SEO can help you with that by putting your company’s website in the first positions of Google.

When defining objectives, you can also identify goals and KPIs. If you want to have more authority, for example, you can use the Domain Auhtority and Page Authority metrics . You just have to define what score you want to achieve in these KPIs and in what period of time.

In this way, you can monitor the strategy using these indicators to be sure that you are on the right track to achieve your goals.

2. Create a buyer persona

The first step is to define who you want to reach with your content, that is, define who would be your ideal client. For this, the concept of buyer person will be of complete utility to you. In short, a buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer built from data.

Unlike the target audience, a buyer persona is a character with a specific and detailed description, created to better understand your customers, their interests, and their problems or needs.

Creating a buyer persona is the first step in implementing an SEO strategy because it allows you to define the communication language, the content you expect and the best content distribution channels.

That is, it will give a north to your digital strategy and will allow you to write for real people and search engines at the same time.

Remember this: everything that your brand produces must be directed to your buyer persona to make sense and lead them to move naturally through the stages of the customer’s journey until they conclude the purchase.

3. Install initial and basic SEO tools

To start an SEO strategy you must have, at least, the basic tools to make a diagnosis of your current situation, support planning, carry out the first optimizations and start monitoring the impacts of each action.

We are talking mainly about two essential tools for SEO: Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Google provides them for free and they will always help you monitor your strategies. Let’s get to know them better!

Google analytics

Google Analytics is a widely used data analysis tool that offers a wide variety of resources for evaluating the performance of digital strategies. In SEO, you can help in different ways:

  • get to know your audience better to build the buyer persona;
  • identify which are the most visited pages and with the best performance;
  • monitor the amount of organic traffic;
  • identify the channels that generate the most traffic (email, social, organic, etc.);
  • understand engagement (bounce rate, pages per visit, session duration);
  • monitor the conversions generated by the SEO strategy.

These are just a few analyzes that you can do with Google Analytics that can help you from planning to monitoring SEO. You will undoubtedly find many other information in the tool to help your strategy.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a tool that facilitates communication between a site and Google and offers valuable reports to apply SEO techniques. These are some of the features it offers:

  • find out if there are problems with the site’s indexing;
  • helps you know if the site has been hacked or penalized by Google;
  • monitor the average position of your pages in the SERPs;
  • identify the clickthrough rate (organic CTR) of your pages in the SERPs;
  • identify which keywords triggered your website in the SERPs;
  • identify which sites direct backlinks to yours;
  • prompts Google to rework questionable backlinks to your site.

Google Search Console is a bit more technical, so it is geared towards webmasters. But the interface is very friendly, so anyone can use it to make diagnoses and direct more complex demands to specialized professionals.

The tool can also generate various ideas for content optimization, as well as being the primary source for identifying queries that drive traffic to your pages and the click-through rate for your top keywords.

4. Do keyword research

Since you know who you are going to talk to and what are the topics that might interest them, it is time to land those ideas to create relevant content for your buyer persona.

What separates your content from your users is called keywords . A keyword is the term that users type in search engines to find content that solves their concerns.

For example, if a person is planning a trip to Japan, they will surely type “best destinations in Japan” or “cheapest destinations in Japan” in the search bar.

What I put in quotes are keywords, which have different types those terms that cover interesting topics for your buyer persona.

Doing keyword research is a complete process:

  1. you start with an idea on a topic,
  2. you use tools like SEMRush or the Google Keyword Planner to identify the keywords that you can use in your articles,
  3. you determine if your search volume is relevant or how difficult it is to position content for that word,
  4. you create a list with the best keywords.

In this keyword search, it is also very important to know the location of your audience, since this information will guide all the content production of your website.

If you have a company in Mexico but want to expand your operations to Colombia, you will have to do specific research to find out which terms are the most common in this country.

To achieve this territorial domain in Google for different regions of the world, there are the international SEO techniques , which you can learn more about in the last link.

Among them are the use of hreflang tags and the production of content adapted to each national market.

We recommend reading our article on keywords to fully understand how to perform this process.

Keyword tools

SEMRush

An indispensable tool in an SEO work kit is SEMRush. With this platform you can, among other things, analyze the general positioning status of your website and identify the keywords in your sector.

But perhaps one of the most valued features of SEMRush is competitor analysis. Thus, you can identify the strengths of your competition’s SEO strategy and adjust yours.

Ahrefs

If you want to know the state of your link building strategy and the health of your backlinks you should use  Ahrefs . This platform has the most complete index of links on the Internet.

Ahrefs, which now has a free version , allows you to perform different functions: find link building opportunities, find broken links on your website or that of your competition, find ideal pages for  guest posting  and analyze the  backlink profile  of your own page. 

To take care of your link building strategy, and avoid being  penalized  by Google Penguin, you should use Ahrefs.

MOZ

MOZ  is a whole suite of tools that, when used correctly, will boost your SEO strategy through its recommendations for optimizing positioning, defining the topics of your content and improving your strategy on  social networks .

For example, with the Crawl Test feature you can identify technical SEO problems on your website. In addition, only with MOZ will you have access to two metrics that are essential to understand   Google PageRank : the Page Authority and the  Domain Authority .

5. Analyze the competition to identify opportunities

Another essential step before starting content creation is to review what your competition is doing .

With tools like SEMRush you can identify which are your most successful keywords, which of your articles are the best positioned and how they are being found by users.

With this information you can make adjustments to your strategy, adopt their best practices or try to position with your keywords by creating more complete content.

6. Organize the contents with the Topic Clusters methodology

After identifying your best keywords with their different types , it’s time to write your articles.

It is necessary that you explore the main topics of your market with complete content, which must be reconciled with minor and more specific articles on topics related to the most prominent issues.

Once you have several specific articles on a general topic, you can organize them into Topic Clusters , which means gathering several related articles in a main post, creating interconnections between them.

It is important that you pay attention to this methodology since more and more, Google is paying attention to the user’s search intention and not only to the keywords that appear in an article.

With Topic Clusters, you give Google to understand that your article is the most complete on a topic and thus you will gain better positions in the SERP.

An example of the Rock Content universe is the pillar content we have on the concept of Marketing, which has almost 10,000 words. But to talk about this topic it is impossible not to cover related concepts, such as:

  • Digital marketing.
  • How to put together a Marketing strategy.
  • The 4 P’s of Marketing.
  • What is the relationship between Marketing and Advertising.
  • What types of Marketing exist.
  • among others.

The Topic Clusters concept tells us that it is advisable to write specific articles on each of these topics, making these contents send internal links to the “Marketing” page, and vice versa.

Thus the algorithm can better understand the semantic structure of the domain and reward you for this organized work.

In this free worksheet that we prepare, you can use this methodology to guide the production of your content. Download it for free!

What is SEO on Page?

Here it should be remembered that the On Page factors refer to what the website administrator can optimize on their own pages to improve the visitor experience and make the site easier to read by Google.

These optimizations must be integrated into the Content Marketing strategy, since a large part of them is implemented in the content published on the website or blog.

The SEO On Page has all the variables you can control directly within your website as:

  • title length. 
  • user intent.
  • content size.
  • author pages (EAT).
  • number of posts.
  • scannability.
  • meta description.
  • Friendly and easy to understand URL.
  • use of keywords.
  • image optimization.
  • loading speed.
  • subtitle formatting.
  • internal links between pages.
  • among others.

From now on we are going to break down the main SEO on Page optimization factors and their best practices:

User intent

SEO is not about what people search for, but what they want to find.

Therefore, on-page optimizations should focus on the user’s search intent, which varies with each search, so that your pages and content match what they want to find.

That is what Google focuses on to offer what the user wants and, for that, natural language processing and analysis of the user’s location are elements that help to decipher this intention.

Therefore, the challenge for an on-page SEO and Content Marketing strategy is to understand search intentions, as Google does, to deliver what users want.

And the best way to understand user intent is by turning to Google itself!

Let’s understand better with some examples:

After keyword research, you need to Google to analyze which results are in the top places. After all, these are the pages that Google considers to best respond to user intent .

Let’s look at the results page for the search “SEO”:

As you can see, all the first contents are educational, focused on teaching what it is and how to use SEO, therefore, to position yourself you need to have content following this line.

But what if my intention was to find a “Batman costume”? What would I like to find?

Exactly pictures of the products!

Can you imagine someone renting or buying a costume without seeing it? To get to the top positions you must use images!

Therefore, analyze the first results for the specific keywords and identify the topics that you need to address and how to improve your content with topics that those results do not yet address.

Overcome them and offer optimized and more complete content!

Content size

The size of the content generally has an impact on the ranking, although it is not a direct factor in the ranking of the algorithm.

Long content tends to be more comprehensive, detailed, and in-depth, and is therefore better able to answer user questions.

But, of course, there is no rule: for each topic and for each person, the ideal length may vary. Here at Rock Content we have super complete publications, such as this one about advertising .

It is a head tail keyword , with a lot of competition, search volume and that requires extremely complete content, due to the breadth of the topic.

In conclusion: the best size is the one that best answers the user’s question . To get insights on how long your post needs to be to reach the top of Google, you can also take a look at the websites that are already ranking well for each keyword.

Volume of publications

The volume of publications also usually favors positioning. After all, the more content you post, the more likely you are to rank higher.

However, you can’t just think about the number of posts, okay? We need to combine quality and frequency.

There is no point in posting hundreds of content that is not relevant or does not answer user questions. That would be a waste of energy. Publishing a lot at the beginning of a blog and then leaving is useless.

It is necessary to maintain the frequency of the publications to retain the public and to show Google that you always have new and updated content.

However, there is no ideal volume or frequency of publication. You must identify what the demands of your topic are, its identity and, furthermore, evaluate the content production capacity of your business.

Remember that the most important thing is that quantity and quality work together!

Featured Snippets

On the other hand, Featured Snippets are a type of featured snippet known for being Google’s famous zero position. They are boxes that appear above all the results with a specific answer to a user’s search.

In general terms, to win a Featured Snippet you must create very valuable content and presented in a simple way that fully answers a question in a small space.

Therefore, lists, definitions, and short answers are the most common content found in Featured Snippets.

As additional information, you should know that when you perform a voice search , the result you get will surely be read from a Featured Snippet. Hence, it is so important to try to conquer position zero.

There are three types of featured snippets:

  • lists.
  • boards.
  • and paragraphs.

Images for SEO

Google still doesn’t fully understand what an image says, so it needs your help. And how can you help him? With image optimization for SEO .

This strategy serves to provide data in the form of text on the images. We are talking about the alternative text (alt tag), the file name, the image title, the image URL and the context (environment words).

The most important thing here is the alt text, which is essential to the visually impaired experience as the screen reader reads the alt text to the user.

Therefore, the alt text should be a description of the image and, whenever possible, contain the keyword. Look at this example:

All these elements make Google understand what the image shows, index it for Google Images search and turn it into another source of traffic.

Image optimization for SEO also includes some attention to the size and format of the file, so that it loads and indexes quickly.

Rich snippets

The  Rich Snippets  are pictures that appear with expanded information on your website. They occupy the position that your website occupies for a certain search.

If Snippets are a combination of title, short description, and website URL, Rich Snippets are a rich version of these that include more detailed information that is relevant to users.

To enrich your website with these resources, it will be necessary to establish a solid and organized structure of information that can be understood by the algorithm. This is achieved by configuring the pages with the code snippets available in the  Schema Markup .

An example of a rich snippet is the rating of content in the SERPs. The positive evaluation of the users can help that others who come to the page have more confidence in a content and access it.

Internal links

Your website’s internal link network is also part of onpage SEO strategies.

Linking internal pages has a main function: to guide navigation and direct the user (and the search engines) to other content that may interest them .

But that action also fulfills a technical function in SEO. The internal link network helps Google find your content and better understand your site by showing the hierarchy between pages.

For example, the closer a page is to home and the more internal links it receives, the more important it is.

We link, in addition to our most important blogs and pages, the most relevant content directly from the home page of our website:

Another example of the internal link of Rock Content is in our super complete publication on ” Digital Marketing “, many other diverse contents more specific to the subject (email marketing, SEO, social networks, etc.) have links to that publication and, from that form, they strengthen their authority.

EAT

This acronym caught the attention of SEO professionals and stands for Expertise (specialty), Authoritativeness (authority) and Trustworthiness (reliability). Google uses these words as guidelines to evaluate the quality of search results.

They are presented in the document that guides the group of evaluators who carry out a manual analysis of the relevance of the results offered by the search engine. Therefore, they also show what Google considers important for the content to be considered quality:

  • the specialty of the content author;
  • the authority of the author of the content, the content itself and the website;
  • how trustworthy the author of the content, the content itself, and the website is.

Therefore, follow these guidelines in your content strategy and SEO optimization to be aligned with what Google thinks. To learn more about the subject, read our article on EAT .

What is SEO off page?

Now, it’s time to look outside of your pages for off-page SEO. What can you do to gain more authority in the market and show Google that you are a reference?

Here you need to realize that, unlike on page SEO, in off page SEO you do not have full control over optimization. The decision to give backlinks to your site and mention or directly search your brand depends on third parties.

What you can do is increase the chances of that happening by adopting a link building strategy, guestposting and redirecting broken links, among other ways to reinforce the backlink profile and generate more authority for the page.

You will learn more about these strategies below!

What is link building?

Links are the foundation of the internet. They connect one page to another and allow the user to navigate discovering content.

Like users, bots also traverse this interconnected network to index new content and understand which pages are the most important, as one transmits link juice and authority to the other.

That is why a link building strategy is so important in off page SEO.

Link building is the construction of a network of links that direct the user to your pages (called backlinks ) and strengthen your authority on the web. For the Google algorithm, the more quality links the page receives, the more relevance it will have in the market.

Keep in mind that quantity and quality must go together. There is no point in getting hundreds of backlinks from the same domain or from a questionable or out of context website.

For a link building strategy to work, you must be able to obtain quality links.

What are quality backlinks?

As we have already seen, Google makes a great effort to avoid actions of black hats.

Link building was once a widely used tool for artificially increasing authority, with systems for artificial link production and “super optimization” of anchor texts, for example.

A quality backlink, therefore, is the opposite of these actions, it is a link to your domain that you receive on its own merits and shows that you are related to trustworthy sites and references in your market .

Quality backlinks, therefore, are those that:

  • come from sites with domain and page authority;
  • they come from sites that Google trusts;
  • they come from several different domains;
  • they are naturally integrated into the context of the page;
  • use consistent anchor text;
  • they are in a privileged position on the page (at the beginning of the text, for example);
  • They come from sites related to your area of ​​expertise.

These are the main characteristics that you should look for in backlinks when designing a link building strategy.

Nofollow links

There is also an important point in the characteristics of backlinks: the difference between dofollow and nofollow links .

By default, all links are “dofollow”. This attribute tells the robot that it should follow the path indicated by the link and transmit the authority from one page to another.

The “nofollow” attribute, on the other hand, prevents the bot from following that route and assigning authority to the linked page.

It is used, for example, in blog comment boxes and social media links, which are often for spamming and creating artificial authority.

This does not mean that nofollow links are dispensable in off page SEO. While they don’t directly convey authority to your pages, they generate traffic and make more people aware of your brand.

Link building techniques

Let’s see, then, what link building techniques can you adopt to strengthen your market authority? Next, we will talk about the main ones. Keep reading!

Link bait

It is the most natural and efficient strategy. It is about creating content that is so good that it generates backlinks naturally, without having to seek or propose associations.

For this, you can invest in in-depth content, disseminate exclusive research data, create rich materials, offer your own tools, among other types of content that become assets with great potential to be linked or shared.

The interactive content are examples that usually bring backlinks natural, and that surprise the user with its immersive character and encourage them to share it on their social networks.

There are several types of interactive content , such as:

  • calculators,
  • infographics ,
  • questionnaires
  • and ebooks.

To better visualize it, I show you the example of the interactive calculator that Lansinoh made, in which the user can know how much they would save with breastfeeding instead of standardized baby feeding formulas.It is interesting to share it, right?https://en.rockcontent.com/gallery/lansinoh/?taxname=scribble_gallery_type&taxid=1522&term=&sort=date&page=1

Guest posts

The guest posting is a strategy to publish posts as a guest on an associated blog. Usually it is an exchange: you produce content for the blog audience and you can place one or more links to your website.

In this way, you attract new visitors and gain more authority, if the link is “dofollow”.

It is very important to adopt this strategy in moderation. If Google realizes that you acquired a lot of links quickly, it can understand that you are using black hat techniques and penalize your pages.

Brand mentions

Brand mentions, even without a link to your website, are already valuable for SEO. Google analyzes this criterion to recognize brands that really exist and have a good reputation in the market.

You can also search for these mentions without a link and identify opportunities to get a quality backlink . Just contact the admin and they suggest adding the link.

Broken links

What happens when a site’s URL pattern changes or content ceases to exist? Various broken links are created on the site.

That is, the user who tries to access that previous link does not find anything, falls into a 404 Error page and you lose both the visit and the authority that transmitted the link.

Also, you can find these links on websites with topics related to yours and display your content as a solution to that broken link.

You can find these links on other sites using tools like Screaming Frog and Ahrefs or using a free tool like Check My Links.

Link building tools

There are several link building tools on the market. Some are paid, others are free; some are specialized, others help with certain actions.

Tools like Majestic, Ahrefs, Moz’s Link Explorer, and SEMrush offer a complete analysis of a page’s backlink profile, from the volume of citations to the quality of the anchor texts.

Some of them have their own indicators that help in this analysis, such as Majestic’s Trust Flow and Citation Flow and Moz’s Domain Authority and Page Authority.

These tools are paid, but do offer some free features.

In addition, you can work with more specific tools for certain actions. Google Search Console , for example, should be used to ask Google to reject questionable backlinks.

The Google Alerts can warn you about mentions of your brand are good opportunities to get backlinks.

How does technical SEO work?

The SEO universe is vast and includes many technical aspects of the structure of a website, which is why a very important part of on-page SEO is technical SEO .

When we talk about technical SEO, we are referring to all the optimizations that you can make in the internal structure (that is, in the codes and architecture) of your website, in order to make it more secure , fast, understandable, traceable and indexable.

Next, we will tell you what the fundamental elements are and how to optimize them. Don’t stop reading!

Sitemap

A sitemap is a text document that numbers all the pages of a website , as well as information about them, such as the date of the last modification and the frequency of updates.

Its SEO function is to show this information to search engines so that they can easily find and index the URLs.

Although search engines already do this job when crawling, sitemaps make life easier for robots and ensure that every page is indexed.

You can create the sitemap manually or with tools and plugins and then submit it through Google Search Console.

Robots.txt

The robots.txt file is also a text document, inserted in the root folder of your website, that tells Google which pages of your website should not crawl so that, that way, they do not appear in the search engine .

You can use robots.txt to prevent Google bots from accessing sensitive pages, such as the administrator login form (the “/ wp-admin /” for WordPress sites , for example), scripts, or styles. that are not important.

Also, it is important to know about robots.txt in cases where your pages have a problem showing up in the SERPs. They may be in that file by mistake.

UX (user experience)

The experience of the user and SEO are concepts that must go together. We have already said that the priority of the engines is to offer the best search and navigation experience until the user finds what they are looking for.

And that includes their experience on your website.

But what does UX mean, User Experience (in Spanish user experience)? It is a concept used in the development of websites that centralizes all the measures in the actions and responses of the users to satisfy their needs.

According to Peter Morville, president of Semantic Studios, seven characteristics are essential for a website to have a good user experience. Needs to be:

  • Useful.
  • easy to be used.
  • desirable.
  • locatable.
  • accessible.
  • valuable.
  • trustworthy.

Loading speed

Loading speed is one of the main criteria for classification. Google itself has already stated this openly: in 2010, for desktop searches and, in 2018, for mobile searches .

It is very important to remember that, while speed does not make you gain positions, without it you will never reach the top.

A fast pagespeed will not rank you above your competitors, but with poor page speed you won’t even have a chance to compete.

For Google, the quality of the user’s search experience depends on the agility of the information , since nobody wants to wait more than a few seconds to find what they are looking for.

It’s no accident that the search engine provided a free trial tool: PageSpeed ​​Insights.

 The reports provide speed diagnostics as well as tips for improving website loading, image and code optimization.

Mobile First Index

If cell phones are already used more than computers, if mobile searches have already overtaken desktop searches, if traffic from mobile devices is already higher, what do you think Google should do?

Of course, the seeker is an excellent reality reader! Therefore, it began to prioritize in search results those sites that offered a good mobile experience .

In 2015 Google announced that mobile searches would become a ranking factor, prompting several sites to become responsive .

An impact that was also impressive was the announcement of the Mobile-First Index , beginning in 2016, which began prioritizing the mobile version of sites to rank them.

So if you still haven’t adapted your site to this trend, hurry up to improve the usability and loading of your pages on mobile devices!

Responsiveness

Creating a responsive website is one of the most appropriate ways to make your website mobile friendly. With this technique, the site only has one version, which is best adapted to the different screen sizes that users can use.

In addition to responsive design, you can also adopt two other techniques, although they are less indicated:

  • Mobile URL, where the mobile version has a different URL than the desktop version ( m . Domain . Com , for example);
  • Dynamic service, where the two versions have the same URL, but have different CSS and HTML for each device.

AMPs

The Accelerated Mobile Pages are another initiative to improve the mobile search experience. This is an open source project, spearheaded by Google, whose goal is to develop static content pages that load faster on mobile devices.

They are identified in the mobile search SERP with a seal, a small lightning bolt symbol next to the URL, and are prioritized in the ranking.

SEO audits

In technical SEO, one of the main actions is to conduct audits, especially at the beginning of an optimization project.

An SEO audit identifies problems with tracking, loading, usability (especially on mobile devices), among other errors that affect user navigation and website ranking.

These are some elements that an SEO audit can point out:

  • broken links;
  • tracking errors;
  • redirect errors;
  • duplicate content;
  • blocked pages (robots.txt, noindex, nofollow);
  • slow loading pages.

One of the most comprehensive tools for this is Screaming Frog which offers comprehensive reports on all those items we mentioned. But auditing can also combine other tools, such as SEMrush and Google Search Console.

What is local SEO?

One of Google’s priorities in recent years is searching with local intent. Understand the reason for this!

The search engine interprets that a user looking for solutions in a certain region should receive responses in a different way, with more practical and objective information, instead of a list of links as in a traditional SERP.

In this type of search, Google activates the local search algorithm, which prioritizes the results in the region in which the user is located or that he / she types in the search terms.

In the results, the search engine generally presents information from Google My Business directly in the SERPs, so the user does not always need to enter the brand’s website (in the same line that we explained about the featured snippets).

So, home address business optimization, called local SEO , has some quirks. What does this change in an optimization strategy? Please understand it better below.

Local keywords

To display local results in SERPs, Google tries to interpret the user’s local search intent.

If you type “hotels”, “nearest hotels” or similar terms, Google considers the user’s location at the time of the search to show them the options in that region.

On the other hand, if the user types “hotels in Medellín”, the results will focus on the region that they entered in the search, regardless of their location at that time. This can happen when we plan a trip, for example.

Therefore, keyword research for local SEO strategy must consider search intentions with all these variations, not just the one that includes your city.

Think about the following:

  • terms that identify your business, for example: hospitality, hotel;
  • modifiers of industry terms, for example: best hotel, best cost-benefit hotel;
  • geographic modifiers, for example: Medellín hotels, downtown hotels, hotels near the airport.

Google My Business

Google My Business is the top ranking factor in local SEO . At the top of the local search SERP, Google displays the Local Pack, which is a box with the top three results for the user, the information of which is pulled directly from Google My Business.

It is there, therefore, that you should strive to appear, for that it is essential to register your company in Google My Business. This tool offers various registration functions for local businesses.

You can put your name, address, telephone number, hours of operation and, also, receive comments, respond to users, post photos, inform your menu, among other specific functions for different types of businesses.

Take advantage of all this variety of forms of registration and interaction with users to have more chances of appearing in the Local Pack.

Google prioritizes companies that provide the most information on the platform, especially those with the most reviews and high ratings.

Positioning factors

Google uses three main ranking factors for local searches: relevance, proximity, and prominence. The search engine itself presents these criteria on its recommendations page to improve local ranking on Google.

These factors are analyzed and combined to provide the best answer. If a company is more distant from the user, for example, but is more likely to deliver what they are looking for, it may appear better positioned.

We will better explain each of these factors below.

Let’s keep going!

Relevance

Relevance criteria considers the match between the search keyword and the product or service that the business offers. If the user is searching for hotels, for example, they don’t want to see restaurant results, right?

That is why it is so important to complete the Google My Business registration with as much information as possible, since that is where Google performs this correspondence. For example, if the user searches for “hotel restaurant”, Google will only show hotels that have this characteristic.

Proximity

Proximity refers to the distance from the business in relation to the user’s location or geographic terms placed in the search. It is clear that Google understands that the best results are those closest to the user.

Prominence (stand out)

The standout criterion assesses whether the business is popular in its region, based on both online and offline factors. If the business does not have such a strong online presence, but is a well-known brand and is used offline, it may get a better ranking.

But user ratings and Google My Business ratings count for a lot too , in addition to the traditional on-page and off-page SEO optimizations the site adopts.

The more trust Google has in your business, based on these elements, the better your local ranking will be.

Conclusion and bonus

Although SEO is an extensive subject and subject to constant updates, with what you have learned in this post, you are ready to start executing your first web positioning strategies.

However, we recommend that you expand your knowledge with the articles that we have linked throughout the post to complement your learning.

After all, getting good results with search engine optimization depends largely on the correct planning, execution and measurement of your SEO strategy.

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SEO

Guide to Do a Complete SEO Audit 2021

by admin
written by admin

In this post I am going to discuss one of the most important and necessary elements of positioning work: the SEO Audit .

I am going to explain it to you step by step so that you understand each of the points well and I am also going to recommend free and paid tools , as well as information on the  price of the SEO Audit.

It is important to make it clear from the beginning that there is no single valid method to carry out an  SEO Audit, so we must have an open mind to learn from other professionals and incorporate interesting aspects into our own methodology, since SEO is learning and constant review of the postulates and theories themselves.

That said, I will try to provide my definition of what an SEO Audit is.

What is an SEO Audit?

It consists of the step-by-step analysis of each and every one of the SEO aspects or factors that affect the positioning of a web project, to make a diagnosis as accurate as possible and detect errors, problems, difficulties and SEO opportunities and thus be able to execute improvements in the future with the aim of positioning.

As I have mentioned above, in SEO there is no single valid way of doing things, that is, each professional or agency has its own method of analysis. However, an SEO audit should cover all the main aspects and key factors that affect positioning.

There is a certain consensus within the SEO world about which are the most important factors of positioning, although in some aspects there may be different points of view, hence there are different methods .

In this post I am going to try to tell you step by step our SEO Audit method as a result of experience , but of course we are open to you to leave us your point of view at the end of the post, because it will surely serve to enrich it even more.

How to do an SEO Audit step by step?

As I just mentioned, the SEO Audit must carefully analyze all the factors that affect the positioning, always from the point of view of who performs it, as a result of their experience and their vision on SEO.

Taking this into account, and following our criteria, we can group the Audit process into 5 phases or large main blocks of analysis:

  1.  Indexability / Tracking
  2.  Content / Keywords / CTR
  3. Inbound Links / Domain Authority
  4. Performance / Adaptability / Usability
  5. Code and Labels

1. Indexability and Tracking

Phase 1, Indexability and Tracking , comprises the following important points that must be analyzed:

1.1. Indexability

The analysis of the URLs of the site that are indexed , that is, that can be served by the search engine as a result of a search, or in a less orthodox way, the pages of a website that appear in Google.

This first factor is very important. A website must always have its relevant URLs indexed for SEO, that is, those on which there is real search intention and that have been optimized with the intention of appearing ranked for said searches.A website must always have its relevant URLs  indexed

Following this line, it is as important that the relevant URLs are indexed as that the non-relevant URLs are not .

By non-relevant URLs we mean all those pages of a site that do not provide relevant information for a specific search intention or that have not been optimized for SEO, or that offer poor content ( thin content ) or that have content that is coincident or duplicated with respect to other URLs on the site, which do not add anything new.

By tracking we understand the process of reading that Google does of the content offered by the URLs of a website. Google prefers not to crawl irrelevant URLs, as this saves crawling time that can be used to crawl other relevant URLs.

In the case, in addition to very large websites, from about 10,000 URLs approx. up, Google might have trouble seeing all URLs and index, due to the limited budget tracking or Crawl Budget .

This makes it even more necessary to spend some time analyzing potential crawling and indexing issues and fixing them once the reasons why URLs are or are not being crawled or indexed are discovered.

✖  Reasons why a URL might not be indexed:

  1. Noindex robots meta tag , marked within the web code or on platforms such as WordPress through plugins such as Yoast SEO or similar. In this case, the search engine crawls the content but does not index it, following the indication of the meta tag.
  2. Order Disallow in robots.txt. This indication in the robots file tells search engines which URLs or directories of a website should not be crawled. If they do not receive any links, the URLs in Disallow may not be indexed.
  3. URLs with duplicate / irrelevant / poor content . Sometimes these pages on the site might not be indexed if the search engine considers it so, even though they do not have any indication of noindex or disallow type.
  4. Orphan URLs , that is, they do not receive any internal links and therefore Google could skip them when crawling and indexing. This does not always happen and it depends on each specific case, but in general if a URL is important to you and you want to index and position it, you should link it internally.
  5. Problems of excess URLs that exceed the crawl budget .
  6. Very large and complex sites, with bad internal linking, and that also do not have a sitemap .

As you can see, even if you think that all your important content is correctly indexed by Google, sometimes it is not and it is very important that you analyze it and solve it as one of the first actions to be addressed in the SEO Audit .

How to analyze the indexing status of a website?

You can view the URLs indexed or not indexed, valid or with indexing problems, with the Coverage functionality of Search Console.

Google’s free tool is an excellent option due to its simplicity of use and, at the same time, its reliability and detail when it comes to detecting indexing problems and assessing possible causes in order to solve them.

Another option to see the indexed URLs of a site is to enter the command site: domain in Google. In this way you will be able to see the (approximate) amount of URLs that the domain shows in Google and you can also see how the SERPs  or search results boxes are shown to users.

Another excellent tool (although paid) for analyzing the status of your URLs is Screaming Frog . With this tool you will not only be able to observe if the URLs are indexable or not, but you will also be able to obtain a lot of very valuable and detailed technical information about each of the URLs of a project.

Remember

Do not forget that a website should not have all its content indexed in the search engines, but only that which offers a response to a search intention and is optimized for SEO, avoiding problems of duplication, thin content, poor optimization, etc …

1.2. Robots

As I mentioned above, the robots.txt file is used to give orders to search engines about which parts of the site should or should not be crawled. It does this using the Disallow command , followed by a relative URL of the type / directory or / url.

You can also add the Allow command to allow access to certain zones or URLs as an exception to a disallow.

In the robots file you can also define the exact location of the sitemap to facilitate the work of search engines.

In the SEO Audit you must check that there is a robots file and that it is correctly configured, depending on the areas of the site that must be blocked or allowed for crawling, according to the needs of the project in terms of indexing, crawl budget, pagination, content duplicate, etc.

How to view and parse the robots.txt file?

You can see the robots of any web page by typing the URL domain / robots.txt. It is a file that is visible to the search engine and also to users, so you can easily analyze it even if you don’t have access to the project’s backend.

1.3. Sitemap

The sitemap xml file  must contain a list of the site’s indexable URLs to facilitate Google crawling and indexing, avoiding errors when indexing and speeding up the crawl time, which can benefit the accessibility of your project by users. search engines and optimize your crawl budget .

Therefore, it is recommended that all websites, especially the more complex ones with a large number of URLs, have this file available and added by Search Console so that it can be read by search engines.

The sitemap should contain the relevant URLs that you want to index, not those that are irrelevant or do not offer content for a specific search intention.

There are several ways to organize the index of the sitemap for search engines: it can be classified by types of content (pages, posts, products, etc.), listed by dates, by areas of the web, by priority or most recent URLs, etc.

The important thing is that it is understandable for search engines and that it does not have errors in the list of URLs that it shows, that is, that the relevant URLs are always there and that the irrelevant ones do not sneak in.

How to view and parse the sitemap file?

You can see the main sitemap file at the URL domain / sitemap_index.xml. In this location you will find the index of all the sitemaps that you have for the domain.

 In the example you see below, each of these secondary sitemaps link to a list of URLs of that type (one links to the list of posts, another links to the list of pages).

If instead of checking the existence of these files by hand you prefer to do it through an application that gives you a simple and fast report, you can use the free SEOptimer tool  , which allows you to check in a moment if a website has the sitemap available  , like this like the robots file and many other basic elements for the SEO of a website.

2. Content / Keywords / CTR

Phase 2 comprises the following key aspects of analysis:

2.1. Content

The content is a key factor in SEO to be analyzed thoroughly to detect potential problems and optimize it to the maximum.

Some of the most important aspects of SEO related to the quality of the content and that must be analyzed are the Value it provides, Retention,  Permanence and User Loyalty , Scannability , Duplicate text and Cannibalization between URLs.

In addition, in this block we will also analyze the strategy of Keywords, Architecture, Internal Links, 404 Errors, Broken Links, Redirects, URLs and Image optimization .

  • Value

The value  that the content brings to the user, that is, the level of satisfaction that the user obtains when consuming the content to meet their specific needs expressed through search.

When the content is perceived by the user as value, it usually performs positive actions for the SEO of the site, such as placing links in a natural way (essential for SEO), staying on the page and visiting other URLs, sharing on social networks, adding comments , recommend it to other users, etc.

It is a somewhat subjective factor, since there is no tool that directly measures the value of a URL, but you can measure factors such as time of permanence, bounce , links , shares in networks, positive comments from users, etc.

Remember

Put yourself in the shoes of your user and think if the content you have created is the best possible that you could offer or if, on the contrary, it is one more content that does not stand out too much in front of others. If you are going to attack a keyword and if that keyword is also very competitive, try to create the best content that exists.

  • Retention, permanence and loyalty

The degree of interest and satisfaction that the content can generate in the user to make them stay on the page for as long as possible and consider the content as ideal.

The more value you bring to the user, the more likely they will stay on your page and even come back another time, generating more recurring visits in the future and preventing the bounce rate from increasing .

To analyze the degree of optimization of these factors, you have Google Analytics , which will provide you with exact data on how users interact with your content (dwell time, bounce, etc.).

  • Scannability

The ease that the content offers to be read and understood by the user in a first quick reading, prior to a later reading in a more detailed way. It is important that that first quick reading the user can read and see the essential and valuable content.

If we place texts and hierarchical elements in greater size and visibility compared to the rest, in that first reading the user will be able to understand and assess whether the content is going to be of value for them to stay and read it.

In those visible and large elements, you should place messages that bring interest to the user and make them make the decision to stay in your content. In other words, it is not only about adding value, but about reinforcing the appearance of value so that its value is evident to the user.

  • Duplicate

That the content is not literally duplicated or coincides in high proportion with other content external to the web or between the internal URLs of the web itself.

Google considers duplicate content as undesirable, that is, it prefers not to index the same content in many URLs so that each of them contributes value by itself and thus not have to show users the same content in different URLs, thus like not having to crawl URLs with very similar content to save extra crawling effort.

Duplicate content is sometimes unintentional, that is, it is not always a consequence of having consciously created similar or the same content, but it can also be due to:

  • Pages that group URLs with taxonomic or thematic criteria (category pages, tags, etc.)
  • Pages automatic on a list of items that will not fit all in one pages and distributed paging sequences
  • URLs with parameters of any type that are the same as the original URL and are not redirected
  • Not having the different versions of the domain redirected (domains that show the same under www or without www, http and https versions that show the same information as they are not redirected to the secure version, etc.)

How to fix duplicate content?

  • Generating different content (in all those URLs that are a real positioning objective and work different keywords)
  • De-indexing duplicate URLs if they are not necessary to position since they usually work the same keyword (cannibalization)
  • Using canonical to tell the search engine which is the main URL that it should index and take as priority among a set of similar URLs
  • Using the next and prev attributes in page URLs

With the free Siteliner tool you can easily analyze if there is internal duplicate content on the website.

  • Cannibalization

It is important that there is no more than 1 URL to work the same search intention on the site. That is, each search intention or keyword must be worked on a different URL of the site so that Google understands well which URLs serve each search intention, so that you can position better.

In addition, if you group in a single URL a whole global search intention (keyword and its related words), all the authority , links , shared in networks , traffic , etc., you group them in that single URL, instead of dispersing them in several , with which it is easier for you to achieve your positioning objective.

In this article about Search Console I explain how to detect if there is cannibalization between the URLs of your website, using the Performance functionality .

  • Content optimization (labels, density, etc)

In this section we analyze if the content complies with the correct structure of heading h tags , that is, that the content is structured following a logical format of tag h1 or title 1 for the main title, titles 2 or h2 for subtitles or headings main titles, 3 or h3 for subheadings, etc.

It is assumed that in these heading tags or titles h we are going to place enough relevant words from the content ( keywords and related words), which is beneficial for Google to understand that those words are important.

The <title> tag is also super important , which is usually the one that contains the title (and the keyword) and that usually coincides with the title of the h1 , although not always. This is the most important tag of all in terms of relevance to Google. Also, what you put in title then appears as a title in the Google Search Results (SERP) box.

Organizing content in this way is not only good for the correct understanding and scannability by the user, but also for Google, since the title h tags and the texts that you include within them are relevant to the search engine.

In addition, we must analyze the density of keywords within the content, that is, the total number of times the key expression appears written compared to the total number of words in the content. The keyword density should not be very high and should tend towards naturalness , to avoid falling into Keyword Stuffing .

Apart from these, there are other tags that you can add to your content to optimize SEO and improve how it is displayed to users on other sites apart from your website, to increase clicks and traffic. They are the social graph labels (open graph and twitter cards), which control how your content appears on social networks (images, titles, descriptions, etc). You can add them with the Yoast SEO plugin .

You can also add rich content tags or Rich Snippets from Schema.org, which optimize the appearance of SERPs on Google with additional content, which can increase your CTR (Click Thorugh Rate). About this factor I will talk more fully in another section.

Be careful, don’t forget that Google can only read content written in text format . The texts painted on images, multimedia elements such as video or audio, Slideshare presentations and other elements of this type will not be read by Google along with the rest of the content on the page. For this reason, always think about the possibility of transcribing into normal and readable text by Google.

A free and very easy-to-use tool to analyze these types of tags and many other important elements of your site is Seoptimer .

Important

Gone are the times when to position a keyword you had to repeat it over and over again within the content. Google values naturalness more every day . Write naturally, without thinking too much about repeating the keyword and without forcing anything, use lexical richness and synonyms. That is, write for the user … and you will be writing for Google.

  • Architecture

The architecture web is a very important factor and not always working correctly on the web. The way in which a website structures its sections and groups its URLs, the depth of the directories in which the URLs are located, how the information on the site is ranked, how the URLs are internally linked to each other, etc.

How does web architecture affect SEO? Its incidence is studied from three levels: on the one hand it influences the understanding and ease of navigation of the user on the web (essential for conversion), on the other, in the way in which search engines crawl and understand the site. And finally, in how the internal authority of the web is distributed among its various URLs.

Web architecture is not only worked at a structural level , but also from a semantic level . That is, the keyword research and the key terms that are going to be worked on on the site can determine its structure and organization to a certain extent.

When you analyze the web architecture in the SEO Audit, make sure that the site is well structured according to usability and semantic criteria .

Important sections, either because there is a broad search intention on them or because they are a priority positioning objective , are usually placed in main menus and upper areas, are usually very internally linked and are usually few levels of clicks (and not very deep in the directory tree) relative to the home page.

It is recommended that on the website the relevant information for SEO is not more than two or three levels of clicks with respect to the main domain, that is, do not put the relevant contents in URLs of the type domain.com/directory/directory/directory / content-slug. This will favor them in tracking ease and obtaining internal link juice .

Below you can see an infographic that shows a typical web structure with a well-organized horizontal architecture with a maximum of 3 navigation levels. (Be careful with creating excessively flat structures where all or almost all the URLs are hanging directly from the first level, as you would be dispersing the internal authority between the URLs without ranking by importance and offering a navigation that is not very structured and difficult to understand for the user).

Here is an example of a vertical architecture , less organized, with too many levels of navigation and even some orphan URL (not linked internally). This structure makes it difficult to crawl and obtain link juice on URLs that are at too deep levels.

Usually, websites created without taking SEO into account have been built following somewhat arbitrary or capricious criteria according to the will or personal taste of the client or the developer. This is common when a project is developed without the figure of an SEO from the beginning who makes suggestions or sets clear architectural guidelines .

When this happens, it is necessary to carry out a global review of the web with SEO criteria and restructure all the content and sections. Therefore, in all web development whose objective is to attract organic traffic, the indications and recommendations of the SEO professional should always be followed.In all web development, the indications and recommendations of an SEO professional should always be followed from the beginning, to avoid architectural problems that have to be corrected afterwards, with the consequent financial and time costs

You can easily analyze the web architecture and its directory structure with Screaming Frog , using the View> Directory Tree Graph functionality.

  • Internal links

The internal linkage is an important factor ahead of the SEO and must also be analyzed in the audit as an essential aspect for good positioning. Internal links convey authority between internal site URLs.

It is advisable to promote internal linking to give strength to the areas you want to be more relevant within the site, sending link juice to the URLs you want to reinforce.

As we have seen above, internal linking is also part of the web architecture and helps to organize and distribute the internal authority of the web, as well as to facilitate crawling by the search engine.

In addition, it benefits the decrease in the bounce rate by recommending other URLs of the site to the user to visit.

To analyze the internal linking of a website you can use tools such as Search Console (free) or Ahrefs (paid).

  • 404 pages

In the audit you must analyze the 404 errors that your website has. But, contrary to what some believe, 404 errors are not penalizing or generally as troublesome as you might think.

What is a 404 error ? It is a URL of the site that no longer exists or is incorrectly written in an internal link or poorly linked from another website, so that instead of content, what you see is a 404 status page, which you can customize as some sites do Web.

The reasons that you have a 404 error may be: that you have deleted or changed a URL, that it has been incorrectly linked externally from another site, or sometimes it may be that you have a plugin or application installed on your website that generates URLs of dynamic way that they disappear when you uninstall them.

The main problem with 404 errors is that there are relevant URLs on the site that users cannot see, such as important site content, product or service pages, landing pages, etc. In this case, the user could get frustrated by not being able to see the content and, as a consequence, leaving the site, not buying your product or hiring your service, not sharing, not linking, not commenting, not recommending. Ultimately, if there is no content in the URL, there is no user interaction or conversion or benefit for your brand.

Another possible problem, in the case of websites with many URLs, is that you have many internal links to pages with a 404 error, which would force the search engine to consume crawl budget unnecessarily. In other words, you would waste time crawling by following internal links that lead to error pages.

How to fix 404 errors?

Simply do 301 redirects from the error URLs to the desired site URLs. Generally, towards the equivalent or similar URLs, or failing that to the home page. 

You can make redirects easily with the free Simple 301 Redirects plugin .

It is important to note that it is not necessary to redirect all 404s . Only the relevant ones, that is, those that are generated by pages of the site that previously existed and that had a certain page authority, links, shares, traffic, etc.

You can monitor 404 errors with tools like Screaming Frog  and Ahrefs (paid) or Search Console (free). To customize your 404 pages like in the fun examples that I have put before in the link above you can use the free 404page plugin .

  • Broken links

The outgoing broken links (links from the site pointing to another site and that do not work because they have been mistyped or because the web or destination URL no longer exist) are negative for the user (because they can not access the link giving an image little care) and for Google (since it conveys the idea that the site is poorly optimized and provides poor quality)

Also, just in the case of a lot of broken links, you waste time tracking down links that are useless, and this can affect your crawl budget .

Linking to relevant sites with a similar theme is positive for Google because it helps it to track and also adds value to the user, therefore it is a factor that you must take care of and of course analyze it in the audit.

To detect broken links on a website, you can use the Screaming Frog tool . You also have a free tool called Broken Link Check that works very well for doing this analysis.

  • Redirects

The most typical redirects are 301 (permanent) and 302 (temporary). A redirect is used to send user traffic from an old URL that no longer exists to a new one. The redirect, if permanent, also transfers authority from the old URL to the new one.

In the SEO Audit we analyze the redirects that the web has implemented both at the domain level  (complete redirections from an old domain to a new one) and specific URLs (pages or entries that no longer exist, products, etc.).

When we do redirects we can slow down the loading of the web by forcing the browser to reload another URL, or even several if it is chained redirects. 

Obviously, the incidence in the loading time is only relevant for SEO if there are many redirects or there are specific problems in these redirects at a technical level.

It is advisable to carry out the redirects with the htaccess file on the server, since they are the ones that consume less resources compared to other types of redirects with javascript, HTML, etc.

Another important aspect of redirects is that they are made to the correct URLs, bearing in mind that with redirects you transfer authority from one to the other.

Redirects can be analyzed with the Screaming Frog tool . You also have free alternatives such as the Link Redirect Trace extension for Chrome, or the HTTP Status application that will return all the status codes that a specific URL has.

  • URLs

In the section on URLs we will analyze if the URLs are friendly and include the keyword of each page that we want to position.

Every URL of every page on the site has a slug . The slug is the part of the URL that follows the domain. In the example URL example.com/slug,  the slug is what follows the domain.

It is recommended for the positioning that the slug is friendly , that is, that it includes the keyword , word or key expression (separating the terms by means of hyphens) around which you will want to position each page of the site, and that it does not include characters strangers, numbers, stop words such as articles, conjunctions, prepositions * , etc. It is also recommended that they tend to be short .

* This aspect is quite debatable, because sometimes the inclusion or not of a preposition can change the meaning of the search.

You can easily analyze all the URLs on a website with Screaming Frog . You can also use the command o footprint site: followed by the domain to see one by one all the indexed SERPs of the site in Google, including the URLs. For example:  site: aulacm.com .

  • Images

How to know if the images of a site are optimized for SEO? Images are optimized, on the one hand, in terms of size and weight . On the other, in terms of its semantics .

The first of the optimizations seeks to speed up the weight of the image by reducing unnecessary resolution to be seen on screens. A medium-low quality of pixels per inch is usually sufficient. Also size is important. If an image is going to be seen on your page at a size of 300 × 300 pixels in width and height, upload it to that exact size so that it weighs less.

Regarding the second aspect, it is necessary that the image includes text data that can be read by the search engine, since to this day the texts overwritten in the image are not yet taken into account by Google.

The text fields that you can include in the images are title , alternative text (alt) and description . The first two are relevant and it is recommended that you include the description of the image and keyword. The description serves to display a short text in the search results box next to the image.

Another aspect that helps is the name of the image file . If this name includes the keyword next to the file extension, you are providing more data to the search engine and therefore helping it to be positioned based on that keyword.

The context of the image can also help , that is, the text around the image within the content. It is easier to position an image that is inserted within a text related to its theme than an image URL without anything else.

 As in many other factors, the Screaming Frog tool can be used to analyze how optimized the images are for SEO, that is, if they include these text labels necessary for positioning. 

To see if images are optimized for weight and size , you can use GTMetrix , which provides endless performance data for elements on a web page.

2.2. Keywords

What keywords does the project currently position or try to position? Are they correct according to the objectives of the company and the current possibilities of the project or should I be trying to position others? What keywords does the competition position?

Focusing SEO actions around the right keywords is crucial. If you are trying to rank for the wrong keywords, irrelevant to your business, too difficult to rank or with negligible search volumes, you are probably wasting time and resources for nothing.

Therefore, it is of paramount importance that before developing your content plan and even before structuring the architecture of your website, you do a thorough Keyword Research in which you obtain the appropriate keywords to position your project.

From this, you must develop your content strategy for the future and organize your website with main sections and articles based on the correct keywords.

A web project that has not done a keyword search before may not rank any relevant terms or may do so accidentally, which denotes little strategy and possibly will yield few results.

Writing content without taking into account the search intentions of users who could potentially be interested in your articles, products or services, is a waste of time and possibly a guarantee of failure in the short and long term.

As I have already told you in the content optimization part, once you have found the keywords  you must distribute them among the URLs of your site following logical criteria for the user and also SEO architecture. And always keeping in mind that each indexed URL of the site must work a keyword or search intention separately, to avoid cannibalization .

How to optimize your keyword within the content to improve SEO?

  1. Write naturally , do not force repetitive writing of the keyword
  2. However, write with a certain density of keyword, and place it in relevant places on the page (titles, headings h, alt, anchor texts, first paragraphs, etc.)
  3. Write a minimum amount of content at least, say 300 words but even if you can write more, do it. The key is to satisfy the user’s demand for information, not simply to reach a predetermined number of words
  4. Write synonyms of the keyword throughout the content, because although they seem different keywords, in reality they respond to the same search intention and probably also have certain search volumes, because although they are less searched than the main keyword, perhaps some users use them.

In this article I leave you with a lot of free tools to search for keywords, such as Keyword Planner and many others. With the free Yoast SEO plugin you can measure a lot of aspects of the content, including the appearance and overall density of the keyword in the URL. With Keyword Density Checker you can also measure its density within the content, that is, the percentage of times the keyword appears compared to the rest of the words in the content.

In summary

The analysis of all these factors can lend itself to a certain interpretation, regarding the undeniable factor of subjectivity involved in calibrating the value that a content offers without being the target user of that content.

Despite this, there are objective elements of analysis that can serve as guidance: the average time the user stays on the page, the bounce rate , the natural and shared links in networks that it has generated, the number of comments and mentions, etc.Good content makes you earn links in an organic way without having to buy or request them, it allows you to go viral on social networks, it allows you to increase the time the user stays on your website, increases user interaction and, very importantly, can help you to increase conversion rates .

This double objective / subjective dimension must be applied critically when assessing whether the content offered by a web page is really fulfilling its objectives: to attract , retain and satisfy users.

2.3. CTR

The CTR  (Click Through Rate) or clicks that you get on Google with respect to the total number of times your printed result comes out, is a very important factor that of course has to be analyzed in the SEO Audit, since it has a crucial impact on positioning.

If you detect that your results ( SERPs ) have a low CTR, you should ask yourself if they are attractive and explanatory enough to attract the attention of users and receive clicks.

There are studies that make approximate averages of how much CTR is reasonable based on your position. Although this obviously varies depending on the sector (existing competitors, user behavior habits, etc.) and the types of results that Google shows for the query.

Nowadays Google is already showing outstanding results that throw very low the first results that before were seen at the top. There are also results in map formats, rich snippets, etc., which in some cases change the rules of the game a lot.

Suppose that, in your sector, the normal thing is that the third result achieves an average CTR of around 15%. In that case, you must analyze if your results that are in that position are receiving the adequate or minimally acceptable CTR.Since CTR is a key factor, it pays to think about and develop strategies to optimize it as much as possible. 

How to improve the CTR of your results (SERPs) in Google?

  1. Place very attractive titles with words of value and calls to action for the user, using all the available extension
  2. Write attractive and explanatory meta descriptions about the value of content.
  3. Use prominent and attractive visual elements in your titles and meta descriptions, to catch the user’s attention, such as emojis, special characters, etc.
  4. Use enriched elements (rich snippets) whenever you can, to provide more specific and specialized content to the user and also visually stand out (recipe snippets, events, articles, reviews, star ratings, etc.)
  5. Remove the dates if your content is evergreen or timeless, to prevent the user from thinking that it is obsolete content and prefer not to click on you.
  6. Use copywriting techniques that work and have been tested by other professionals.
  7. Test , analyze, observe, try again and again changing your own SERPs until you find the most suitable formula for the particularities of your sector.
  8. Look at the SERPs of the competition and be inspired by what they do well (be careful, I did not say copy as is) and what they do wrong (so as not to repeat it).
  9. Arouse great interest with the texts of your SERPs, try to respond very clearly to a specific question or problem, be forceful and clear when expressing the value of the article (although without going over the top of the story).
  10. Offer valuable content that is perceived by the user as valuable, do not try to give a too commercial touch to the content that serves to provide pure value.
  11. Work on your brand image globally, create good content, be active on social networks, respond to blog comments, to generate a positive perception of your brand that users remember when deciding what result to click on.

With the Search Console tool you can easily analyze your CTR for all the URLs on your website. In this post about the new version of Search Console  you have a step-by-step tutorial to monitor and optimize your CTR through the Performance functionality , with which you can not only keep track of your global average CTR, but also of all the URLs separately.

Above all, it can be very profitable to optimize the CTR of URLs that are potentially good but have little worked SERPs , or of URLs that are already relatively well positioned (first or second page of Google) and that despite this are having less clicks of those expected, especially in the case of URLs that position for keywords with many searches (impressions).

In the example, there is a page that is between position 7 and 8 (7.5) but has a CTR of 1.5% (only 22 clicks) of the total 1502 impressions. 

In other words, optimizing the SERP of that URL for the keyword “how wordpress works” can achieve good results, possibly positions will be raised and that will continue to improve the CTR, for a keyword that can potentially get many clicks.

3. Inbound Links / Domain Authority

In phase 3 of the analysis we are going to analyze inbound links (backlinks) and domain authority :

3.1. Inbound links

The inbound links or backlinks  (links to get other websites to your website) are a crucial factor SEO forever and now, of course.

Since Google was born, the quality and quantity of inbound linking that a domain has is one of the most relevant and direct factors that Google uses to determine its positioning. Links transfer popularity from one domain to another, or from one URL to another.

Therefore, it is important to analyze that your domain has a good number of inbound links of a certain authority (see next section on authority), natural-looking, of the follow * type (those that transcend popularity) although not all, and in general that they conform a healthy link profile with references from as many relevant sites as possible related to your topic .

* A follow link is taken into account by Google for the popularity transfer. A nofollow link, on the other hand, does not transfer authority or very little. You can see if your links are follow or nofollow with Ahrefs  filtering by type of links or also by hand directly on the link, with the Inspect functionality of Google Chrome:

As you can see in this example, in the code inside the rel attribute the value nofollow has been placed , so that this link is not followed by Google from the site of origin to the destination.

For all these reasons, it is important to monitor the profile of inbound links that the domain has, to evaluate the quality of the links, and also their health or appearance of naturalness . A toxic or artificial looking inbound link profile could be penalized by Google Penguin and hurt your SEO.

Sometimes, especially if it has not been monitored before, the profile of inbound links of a domain can be full of undesirable links, either due to random reasons, either due to external attacks, or due to an own action of buying inappropriate links .Google says: make your links natural . This does not mean that Google can know that you have bought links, but it certainly does analyze your links to see if they are apparently natural or not.

Here is a very useful post to know everything there is to know about links in SEO . 

Above all, you must have a certain diversity  of follow and nofollow links, preferably from websites with a theme similar to yours and from the same language as your site, and achieved over time and not all at once, as this type of Links are the most natural.

You can analyze your inbound link profile with Search Console (free) or Ahrefs (paid). Another free link monitoring tool is Ranksignals .

3.2. Domain authority

The authority , relevance or popularity of the domain can be analyzed from different points of view and different tools. In general, an authoritative domain is one that has good links, signs of good SEO, and some age.

To evaluate the relevance of a domain, Google has always taken into account its own metric, the PageRank . Today it is impossible to know this value, which means that there are other metrics or criteria to estimate the authority of a domain.

You can measure your domain with the Domain Authority of Moz , a fairly reliable metric to determine the health and quality of a domain. 

You can also use payment tools such as Ahrefs , whose metric, Domain Rating or DR , is also quite reliable to estimate the quality of a domain.

However, you should bear in mind that these metrics are performed by tools external to Google and they are still estimates based on a series of criteria. Do not take these results as something absolute, but rather as an approximate indication of the current SEO status of the analyzed domain and its evolution over time.

4. Performance / Adaptability / Usability

Phase 4 will serve to analyze the performance and speed of the web (also called WPO , Web Performance Optimization ), and how is its responsive adaptability for different devices, as well as its degree of usability or ease of use for users.

4.1. WPO performance

In the SEO Audit we will also analyze the performance of the web page, that is, its loading speed . This is today an important factor that must be measured and optimized, as Google has already made it clear that websites have to be fast and load without problems.

There is no maximum load time that Google has defined, therefore the slogan is: try to make the web load as fast as possible, identifying and separating all the elements and components that, despite the fact that they may be weighing down speed, They are essential, and all those that are not so necessary and you could eliminate to gain speed.

There are numerous factors that can affect the loading speed of your web page, which I will list and explain below:

What are the main factors that influence the loading speed of a website?

  1. HostingThe server where you host your web page is one of the main factors that determine a fast or slow load. I recommend you host your website in specialized hostings for your system or CMS, with good performance and security, as well as good support.Changing from a bad or regular hosting to a good one is one of the simplest actions that you can take to improve the loading speed of a website and that you can recommend to your client before carrying out other optimizations on their project.Good hosting includes advanced features or enhancements such as Gzip compression, Keep Alive, advanced Cache systems, etc., which are excellent for improving performance. Here I leave you a comparison of hostings so that you can choose the most suitable for your project. In this other link you have an in-depth analysis of the best hosting for WordPress , in the event that your website is built with this popular CMS.With this tool you can see in which hosting a web page is hosted:  https://www.whoishostingthis.com .
  2. Template and pluginsIf you are using a content manager or CMS type WordPress or similar, it is also important what template or theme you use, as well as the plugins or modules that you add to the web to include extra functionalities. A slow template will make speed optimization quite difficult, as well as using very heavy plugins or installing too large a number of them.
  3. ImagesAnother simple aspect to detect and solve. Sometimes a website is slow because its images are not optimized in size and weight , and this is one of the essential actions that every web developer must perform. Do not upload images larger or in higher resolution than necessary. You have free plugins like EWWW Optimizer  or WP Smush that go very well to reduce weight.Regarding the size (width and height), never upload the images without first passing them through Photoshop or similar tools and leaving them in the exact size. If the problem is that your WordPress generates incorrect sizes automatically, you can use this plugin to redefine the automatic versions of size that are generated when uploading images: https://es.wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/.
  4. CacheInstalling a cache system is one of the most recommended methods to improve its performance and response speed. For this, there are plugins like WP Rocket  (paid)  Fastest Cache  (free), which do real wonders in the performance of the web. A cached web serves its static elements more quickly because they are already preloaded.
  5. Use CDNA CDN improves the delivery of your website data to the user thanks to the fact that it uses data centers spread over different geographical locations and all kinds of improvements to increase the loading speed and the fluidity of the server’s response.
  6. Minimize the codeReduce the amount of code on your website by cleaning up unnecessary code or reducing the space it occupies by minifying code, speeding up its reading by concatenating lines of code. WP Rocket works very well for this, although being paid I leave you a free alternative: https://wordpress.org/plugins/bwp-minify/.
  7. Asynchronous loadingLoading certain elements of the page in a delayed manner avoids a jam or bottleneck in the header of your website due to the excessive accumulation of requests to Javascript files and other types of files, by loading the elements a little after the start of the charges without the user being able to perceive it, but improving the initial charging speed. You can implement asynchronous loading with WP Rocket.
  8. Optimize the databaseIf you regularly clean the tables and unusable and obsolete contents of the web database , you will speed up the queries that are made from the web and in this way you will improve their speed. When you uninstall plugins sometimes tables remain in the database, also when you make revisions or save your content. With this plugin you can easily optimize the size of your database: https://es.wordpress.org/plugins/optimize-database/.
  9. Loading Images and Videos (Lazy Load)Make the images and videos not load all at once but load progressively as the page is scrolled, avoiding overloading the initial load with too many multimedia elements. You can implement lazy load with WP Rocket (paid) or with this other free plugin: https://es.wordpress.org/plugins/lazy-load/.
  10. Calls to external servicesAvoid installing too many elements on your website, especially if many of them are superfluous or not really important. Keep in mind that you slow down your website every time you insert content from social networks, videos (be careful, I’m not telling you not to embed them, but rather control the amount), plugins to connect with external tools or applications, code scripts to insert functionalities on your site, etc.
  11. Review and update the website periodicallyPerform optimization and update tasks of your CMS, your template and plugins from time to time, so that everything works perfectly, avoiding slowdown and security problems, as well as incompatibilities between the various components of your website, all of which are sometimes they can make it difficult for your website to load smoothly.

In the link that I leave below you have a lot of tips to optimize WordPress and make it work super fast. In this other link you have 4 real cases of WPO optimization .

You can measure the loading speed of a web page with free and very complete tools such as GTMetrix , Pingdom Speed ​​Test  or Page Speed ​​Insights .

4.2. Responsive adaptability

Google analyzes whether websites are  responsive as a factor for positioning, and this has been the case for a few years, so in the SEO Audit it is also essential to analyze how adaptable or responsive the website is.

In the SEO Audit, we are going to analyze whether the web adapts correctly to each screen size and device (desktop, tablets, smartphones, etc.), not only because Google takes it into account, but also for the user .

Don’t forget: many SEO factors are optimized not only to meet Google’s guidelines , but also for the user . Because the user, through their way of interacting with your website (dwell time, bounce, CTR, etc.) is sending signals to Google about the suitability and value of that content, and this influences SEO because Google attends to these signals of user to rank.

If the website is not responsive or not at all, there may be users who on certain devices do not have a satisfactory user experience , which could affect the time they remain on the web and the actions they take within it, how to interact with the sections, generate conversions, etc.We not only optimize the responsive versions of the web to please Google : we also do it for the user.

Therefore, it is not only about having a responsive website (nowadays, any WordPress template or similar platforms already come with the responsive versions implemented), but about how adjusted and optimized in detail those responsive versions are.

 Sometimes, you have to make some adjustments to the template you have used to make your website with CSS or plugins to make the responsive versions perfect.

How to analyze if a website is responsive?

You can do two things: one, monitor the web directly on real devices , observing with total precision how the content behaves on that screen size. Or two, you can monitor it with desktop applications that simulate various screen sizes, brands and models of smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc.

You can monitor how a web page looks on various devices and screen sizes with the free Screenfly tool . You can also use Google Chrome’s Inspect command , which lets you preview how your website would look on a bunch of devices.

To do this, click with the right button of the mouse on any area of ​​your website, then click on Inspect and then click on the mobile devices icon at the bottom left.

4.3. Usability and User Experience

The third point of this block 4 of the SEO Audit is going to focus on usability and user experience , which although they seem the same, in reality they are not exactly the same concept.

What is usability?

Usability is the ability of a website (or any application) to be correctly understood and used by the user.

 In other words, a usable website is one in which the user knows how to use its functionalities as easily as possible and without serious problems of understanding, operation and navigation through the different areas of the site. ? A usable website is intuitive and accessible to the user. 

A usable website does not require too many explanations of use and navigation for the user to navigate through the menus and find what they need without problems.

 A usable website has texts in an easily legible size, font and color.

 A usable website allows the user to understand the objective or purpose of the website, as it offers understandable and coherent messages for the user. 

A usable website loads smoothly. A usable website does not show interrupting or excessively invasive elements for the user. A usable website can be navigated and understood the same on any device or screen size, be it on a desktop, tablets or smartphones. 

A usable website allows a satisfactory user experience, and that benefits SEO because a satisfied user tends to stay longer on the page, interact more, ? An unusable website is not very understandable,  not very intuitive and not very accessible to the user. 

An unusable website can work abnormally or unexpectedly, load slowly, or make it difficult for the user to find the sections they want and the correct interaction with the menus, as well as any type of interaction with forms, buttons, applications on the web, etc. An unusable website makes it difficult for the user to understand the objective or purpose of the website, since its messages are contradictory or poorly explained.

 An unusable website displays elements that interrupt navigation or annoy the user. 

An unusable website has poorly legible texts in small sizes or with poorly legible fonts, in poorly contrasted colors with respect to the background, with insufficient line spacing, etc. An unusable website does not behave correctly on all devices and screens.

What is the user experience?

The user experience refers to the degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction previous usability factors generated on the user, prompting him to stay on the site, interact, perform positive actions for SEO and generate conversions if the site is usable, or quite the opposite if the site is not usable.

Therefore, if  usability refers to how the website favors or not the use of it by the user, the user experience refers to how the website has had a positive or negative impact on the user based on all those factors.

And consequently, a positive user experience is beneficial not only for your brand image and your sales or conversions, but also for SEO, since a user who is satisfied or who has managed to appreciate or understand the objective or value of the web, usually generates better signals or clues that affect SEO:

  • More time spent
  • Less bounce rate
  • More CTR
  • More visits to internal pages
  • Most shares or recommendations
  • More form submission
  • More natural links
  • More conversions (leads, sales, etc)

The usability and user experience derived from the level of usability can be measured from many perspectives and with different tools:

You can monitor the exact behavior of the user on the page with a tool like Hotjar, where they click most often, see their entire recorded sessions, etc.

More tools: You can check the color contrast of the texts with CheckMyColours . You can do a general test of various aspects related to the coding of the web with the W3C Validator . 

You can detect mobile usability issues with Search Console . You can measure the time it takes users to perform certain actions on the site with Usabilla . You can measure load times with GTMetrix . 

You can monitor how visually impaired people see your website with Vischeck . You can calculate the ease of reading and understanding of texts on the web with Word Count Tool, or the readability index withJuicy Studio . You can even collect user feedback on your website with UserVoice .

The goal of any measurement and analysis is always the same: that the website offers the most satisfactory user experience possible.

5. Code and Labels

Phase 5 of analysis is related to all technical aspects at the code level, specific coding problems in the different languages ​​or technical implementations that may be damaging or benefiting the SEO of the site.

5.1. Code and labels

In this section we are going to analyze the project from a technical point of view. On the one hand, we are going to scrutinize the exit code of the web (the one that Google reads in the public front part of the web), basically HTML, Javascript and CSS code .

We are going to start with the most common language of all webs, HTML . The HTML code generates the visual structure of the web page, and also uses meta tags to send information to search engines and browsers, as well as specific attributes within those tags.

What are the HTML tags and attributes that influence SEO?

  • title
<title> </title>

The most relevant tag of all and in which the keyword must be yes or yes, because it is also the title that appears in the results box that shows the URL in Google. It’s at the top of the page’s code and you can see its content if you hover over the browser tab for a moment. It usually matches h1, but it doesn’t have to. Title is a meta tag (but not to be confused with the meta title tag, which is no longer useful!), That is, it is not visibly displayed on the page but is to be read by the search engine.

  • meta description
<meta name = "description" content = "">

This tag defines the description that will appear in the Google results box, under the title. It does not have a direct importance in SEO (not by putting the keyword in the meta description you will reinforce it more directly), but it influences the CTR (Click Through Rate), with which you should optimize it for each URL that you are going to index of the site. Optimizing it means: filling the 155 characters it offers you with an explicit, attractive and persuasive description of the content, using rich and visually prominent elements. It is about winning the click against your competitors.

  • Headings or titles <h>
<h1> </h1>
<h2> </h2>
<h3> </h3>
<h4> </h4>
<h5> </h5>
<h6> </h6>

The h title tags (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6) mostly serve two purposes:

On the one hand, they visually format the content headings in a hierarchical manner, displaying them from largest to smallest size and thickness as you go from the <h1> tag to the <h6> tag. That is, the h1 usually looks very large because it contains the title, and the h6 is usually the smallest (although it does not have to, this could easily be modified with CSS). A correct visual hierarchy helps the content to be more visually scannable (that the user can understand the content quickly, in a first fast scroll reading) and this can benefit the dwell time, bounce, conversions, etc.

On the other hand, the title h tags have direct relevance in SEO (those with the most <h1> and those with the least <h6>), and it is recommended that you place important texts in them: keyword, synonyms of the keyword, etc. You can only have one <h1> tag per URL (in the title), then the content headings in <h2> tags, <h3> for subheadings, and so on down in relevance to <h6 <(not it is essential that you use them all).

  • alt and title of images
<img alt = "" title = "">

The alt and title attributes are used so that Google (and also the user in certain cases) can understand the images semantically, that is, they are the texts that Google reads from the images. Therefore, in alt and title you must put a description of the image with keywords, so that it serves for the accessibility of the site and also for Google.

  • og: (Open Graph)
<meta name = "og: title" content = "">
<meta name = "og: description" content = "">
<meta name = "og: image" content = "">
<meta name = "og: url" content = "">
<meta name = "og: site_name" content = "">
<meta name = "og: locale" content = "">
<meta name = "og: type" content = "">

Open Graph tags add valuable meta information for social media and other platforms about your content. Using the Open Graph of image, title, description, site, etc., you can define how you want your URLs to look when they are shared on networks. That is, you can define the content that appears in the snippet automatically when someone or yourself publishes a web URL on networks (be it a post, a page, a product or anything else).

The contents of a website tend to generate greater interaction and clicks from social networks if they are well optimized, with attractive titles, explanatory and persuasive descriptions, quality images, etc.

  • twitter (card, description, title, etc)
<meta name = "twitter: card" content = "summary_large_image">
<meta name = "twitter: title" content = "">
<meta name = "twitter: description" content = "">
<meta name = "twitter: site" content = "">
<meta name = "twitter: creator" content = "">
<meta name = "twitter: image: src" content = "">

In the case of Twitter , it has its own labels to show the content on the network, as the open graph does for the others.

  • lang
<html lang = "">

The lang attribute of the general <html> tag is defined at the top of the document, and is used to indicate the language in which the page is written. If the site has different language versions, this attribute must always declare the language of each URL.

  • hreflang
<link rel = "alternate" hreflang = "">

The hreflang attribute of the <link> tag declares, in the code of each page, what are the different idiomatic versions that a given page of the site has, and also indicates which are the URLs where these other idiomatic versions of that page are located.

In this way, Google can perfectly understand the internal structure of the multilingual site , to show each indexed URL in the correct language version of the search engine.

  • meta robots
<meta name = "robots" content = "" />

The meta robots defines whether or not a specific page on the site should be indexed or not, and crawled or not (using the index-noindex, follow-nofollow values ). If you insert the value index in the content attribute , Google will index the URL. If you also insert the follow value , Google crawls and follows the link trail. The values ​​are put in pairs separated by commas, as follows: ” index, follow”, or “noindex, follow”, and so on.

  • canonical
<link rel = "canonical" href = "" />

The link tag with the canonical rel attribute  defines the uniqueness or main relevance of a URL with respect to other similar ones or for having similar content, or being part of a series of similar URLs.

  • link title
<a href="" title=""> </a>

This attribute of the link <a> tag is used to provide additional information about the link, and Google also crawls it, as well as the anchor text. In both cases, using the keyword can be beneficial to boost the positioning of the destination URL around that keyword.

  • structured microdata
Example: <div itemscope  itemtype = "http://schema.org/Recipe" > ... </div>

The microdata structured each day are more SEO useful because help Google understand the content with high accuracy and thus to serve as a search result more appropriate and accurate for the search.

In other words, if for example I add structured microdata from Schema.org  to a recipe on my gastronomy blog, I am making Google understand perfectly that it is a recipe and possibly show it in its results in recipe format.

The benefit is twofold: on the one hand, it is information that helps Google better understand the semantics, and on the other, the attractive and specific appearance of the SERP for that search can lead to more clicks, that is, increase CTR and visits.

  • Attributes rel dofollow / nofollow / ugc / sponsored
Example: <a href="" rel="nofollow"> </a>

Links on a website can be marked with the rel attribute to understand the relationship of the link with the website it points to.

For example, a link with a nofollow attribute does not transfer authority to the linked site (although this will be debatable as of 2020 as it will go from being a directive to a suggestion), compared to a dofollow that does (or simply, if there are no attributes in the link , it is considered dofollow by default).

In March 2020 Google will also introduce other attributes such as ugc (links posted by users, such as links in comments and forums), and sponsored (to mark those links that are the result of a payment or commercial relationship that is not completely natural).

How do you know if you have the necessary tags for SEO and how to put them if they are not there?

To analyze a website and monitor whether the tags and other code elements are correctly implemented, you can use a tool like Screaming Frog (paid), or free tools like Woorank , Seoptimer , or extensions like SEO Meta in 1 Click .

As you can see, the options are multiple, and they make the task much easier. However, you can always go to the web, right-click on it and click Inspect to see the code in pure format.

In this way, you will be able to see if you have the correct title and heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc), meta description, image alt, lang and hreflang language tags, open graph, twitter cards, canonical and other elements of HTML code required. You will also be able to see the Javascript codes (especially to check the insertions of scripts such as Google Analytics, Tag Manager and other external tools that you implement on the site).

Another alternative is to right click> View source code of the page, and you will see all the code of the page (HTML, JS, CSS, etc).

What is the price of an SEO Audit? How much does it cost to audit a website?

The price of the SEO Audit depends on the size and difficulty of the project and the areas to be analyzed.

A complete audit of a website can be done or specific aspects can be audited on which there are suspicions that they are generating problems or that need improvements.

When calculating the price of the SEO Audit, you can ask yourself the following approaches.

  • How many professionals will be involved in the process?
  • How long will it take depending on the specific difficulties that the project presents?
  • What is the degree of difficulty that the diagnosis will have?
  • How many URLs does the website you are going to audit have and how complex is its architecture?
  • What will be the degree of detail and depth that you are going to apply in the study?
  • What is the system or CMS that the web uses and its degree of difficulty?
  • How many languages does the page have?

That is to say, it is not the same to audit a website that presents well-founded suspicions of having received a penalty than to do it on a project that has been taking little time and that has not yet been able to make serious errors.

In the same way, it is one thing to do a complete and in-depth audit of the site and from there to use it as a detailed roadmap for the execution of the improvements in the future, and another thing is to prepare an orientation document about the status of the web project as a first approximation for a later, more advanced analysis.Each professional or agency may have their own way of calculating the SEO Audit budget , and sometimes the prices vary a lot depending on other factors such as the technical level and prestige of the professional or agency, or the degree of responsibility that the project poses. depending on the size and importance of the client.

In general, analyzing the prices of agencies and professionals in the sector in Spain, the price of the SEO Audit  usually varies between € 200-€ 300 the cheapest, in which an approximate analysis of the general state of the web is made, and € 1000-€ 1500 or more depending on the complexity factors discussed above.

In some cases, especially at the beginning when there is still not much confidence or has not yet decided whether to hire your services, the client may have certain reluctance to give you access to their project from within, that is, to the desktop or backend of the web, analytics tools, reports, etc.

This means that on these occasions you have to be more inclined to carry out an approximate type of audit at first, until you get the accesses and keys you need to analyze everything more thoroughly.

With the SimilarWeb tool you can obtain approximate analytics and traffic data on any domain you want to analyze, the closest thing to having access to your Google Analytics account so that you can perform a rough audit if you still do not have access to the client’s Analytics account .

Should I do the SEO Audit for free?

I believe that there is a premise that we all share and that should not raise any doubts: no professional should work for free, since it is fair to receive compensation for your work and your technical knowledge. And an SEO Audit is a service of high technical level.

However, sometimes you can perform part of your services for free in a first phase in order to get a client to whom you will later do the rest of the work and, therefore, collect your fair remuneration.

That is, it is a strategy to attract your client by offering a less detailed demonstration of the service so that they can assess your ability as a professional, in a context that is undoubtedly competitive.

We can call this step pre-audit . You offer the potential client an approximate document as a first diagnosis about the obvious problems that you have detected on their website, so that it is clear that you know the problem of their project and the way to solve it.

It is important that this first document is complete enough to demonstrate your level of technical and strategic knowledge about the project, but incomplete enough so that it is not a valid roadmap that serves the client to use it to their benefit by hiring the services to another cheaper professional or run it himself.

Herein lies the key to this strategy: it is about contributing enough to win the client but without giving away your work.

List of 75 SEO Audit Tools classified by area

In this section you have a list of tools to do SEO Audits , free and paid, for each of the audit actions. I am going to give you the most important ones and the ones that we use most often, although of course there are thousands of tools and using one or the other also depends on the taste of each one.

In many cases, Google’s own tools , such as Search Console, Google Analytics and Ads Keyword Planner, allow us to analyze a lot of things for free and reliably. In other cases, for more advanced things, it may be interesting to acquire a payment plan for super complete tools such as Ahrefs, Sistrix, Semrush, etc (many of these tools are available for free during the Aula CM SEO Course ).

 Tools for Indexability and Tracking Analysis

 Tools for Content, Keywords and CTR analysis

 Tools for Link Analysis and Domain Relevance

 Tools for the analysis of Performance and Speed, Usability and Responsive

 Tools for the analysis of Code and Labels and other technical aspects

Do you want to ask any questions or give your opinion?

Leave a comment if you want me to clarify a specific aspect that you have not understood. You can also contribute your point of view on how to do an SEO Audit, or tell us if you know other SEO tools, tricks, tips and anything that serves to enrich the content and thus we contribute together ?

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SEO

The 20 Best Keywords SEO Tools

by admin
written by admin

In this post I am going to teach you 20 SEO tools  to find keywords in order to position and get traffic to your site when users search from Google.

A good keyword search, also called  Keyword Research, is essential in any SEO project, since positioning on irrelevant or very difficult words can be wasted time. On the other hand, getting the right keywords right from the beginning will allow you to make the most of your time and money.

Before getting to work on the other aspects of SEO, research thoroughly which keywords are the ones that interest you and thus position yourself in profitable keywords for your brand or business.

What keywords are the best for your strategy?

Ideally, in theory, you should find keywords that have  many searches per month because that way there are more potential users who can click on your results.

But of course, keep in mind that keywords with many searches are usually the positioning objective of many more websites, that is, they are more competitive and that makes it difficult for you to achieve the objective of positioning at the top.

Therefore, there is another aspect that you should assess: apart from many searches, try to find keywords with the least possible competition , so that you focus on a realistic objective that you can really achieve and also get the most traffic.

Is it better to work generic or long-tail keywords?

Sometimes, especially when you start, it is more profitable to focus on longtail keywords (more specific and include more terms) since there is usually less competition over them.

On the other hand, single-word keywords or those that are too generic can be attacked when the relevance and authority of your site are greater in order to have a better chance of achieving your goal, since possibly being very generic they have more searches and, as is logical, more  competition .

Why do you need SEO tools to search for keywords?

When deciding the keywords that you are going to work on your site, it is important that you use quality tools that offer you reliable information . Otherwise, you can make mistakes and waste time and money.

Be careful not to trust yourself too much for the simple fact that you know the sector very well, since sometimes you can get surprises : for example, when you think a priori that a certain keyword had many searches on Google and then in reality it is not like that.

And vice versa, there are keywords that you did not expect at all to be highly sought after in a certain sector. These keywords can be very  profitable since perhaps your competitors have not noticed them as they are less predictable and are not working on them, with which you rank first.

In short, the typical phrase “I know my clients very well and I know exactly how they look ” can play a trick on you, or make you lose very good opportunities to put yourself ahead of your competition.

To do good SEO, always apply data-driven methods

To focus your SEO strategy on the correct keywords, it is important that you do not leave everything to intuition or improvisation. It applies a rigorous and exhaustive method , based more on data than on mere intuition and preconceived judgments.

If you want to SEO like a pro, use keyword search tools  like the following:

List of SEO Tools to find the best Keywords

1.  Google Keyword Planner

Google’s native tool to search for keywords is one of the most used in the world, since it uses Google’s own data directly, which allows it to offer quite precise search volumes .

Another interesting advantage is its functionality to find ideas for keywords, based on a word, phrase or domain. Also, you can filter by country, language, etc.

But it has a handicap, and that is that it forces you to have at least one active campaign to be able to consult accurate data. Otherwise it shows forks too wide.

Regardless of the tool you use to search for keywords, a good idea may be to copy all the results and take them to Google’s Keyword Planner to obtain volumes that are closer to reality.

2.  KW Finder

One of the best free alternatives to the Google Adwords Keyword Planner to search for your keywords.

Its operation is very simple and similar to that of the Google tool. You enter keywords and it tells you how many approximate searches per month there are for that word or phrase, in addition to giving you other combinations of those words along with others that also have searches.

That is, you can get ideas for keywords and then find out how many monthly searches each of them have, which is very useful when you are out of ideas on where to start.

It also shows you the upward or downward search trend in recent months for that and the other keywords, the difficulty to position them based on the existing competition, the main sites that position and compete for that keyword, etc.

Something very good is that they allow you to download the keyword reports in CSV format for excel. So you can incorporate it into your own SEO plans and make your content plans.

In short, an excellent tool with  intuitive handling  and zero cost .

3.  Ubersuggest

A great tool for searching for keywords recently acquired by expert Neil Patel. Its operation is similar to the previous one. You enter a keyword or phrase , decide what type of results format you prefer (websites, images, shopping, etc.), select a language and that’s it.

Like the previous one, it is an ideal tool to search for longtail keywords related to the word or phrase entered. That is, more extensive and specific word combinations with their corresponding search numbers.

As with almost all free keyword search tools, the tool does not offer overly precise search volumes. For this it is advisable to copy the combinations of words and take them to the Adwords Keyword Planner.

Apart from the latter, which is common to almost all of them, it is one of the best SEO tools to search for keywords, due to its ease of use and the excellent way of presenting the data.

4.  Ninja Search Combination Tool

A curious and simple tool that allows you to make keyword combinations based on two groups of words that you can previously define.

Its usefulness is not in finding new keywords from an entered term, but in creating all the possible combinations with the words that interest you and then taking those combinations to tools such as the Keyword Planner.

Another tool that performs a very similar function is Mergewords.

5.  Tiny Suggest

Super simple tool that takes a large part of its data from Google suggestions that you can see at the bottom when you perform a search, although it also, as indicated in its landing, collects information from previous user searches to offer a richer result .

Like other tools, Tiny Suggest allows you to select the language to search. A simple and effective tool that does its job well.

6.  Soovle

Soovle is a very interesting tool that gives you ideas for keywords and directly allows you to consult the results pages of the main search engines.

You simply have to write a word or phrase in the central field and then the different combinations appear for each of the search engines, and then you can click directly to see their results in each search engine.

Simple, fast and very useful to analyze keywords and competitors in different niches.

7.  Long Tail Pro

Long Tail Pro is a keyword search tool that allows you to find interesting keywords for your niche and also offers you information about their degree of competitiveness . As its name suggests, it specializes in more specific long-tail search expressions .

In addition, when entering your domain, it informs you about the level of difficulty to which you should aspire according to your current relevance. And not only this, it also gives you information on inbound links , indexing status , profitability of keywords, Adwords data , etc.

A simple to use tool that offers at the same time a large amount of useful information for your SEO plan.

8.  SECockpit

SECockpit is an SEO tool that allows you to carry out advanced Keyword Research . Not only do you have suggestions for keywords and approximate search volumes, but it also allows advanced filtering based on various criteria.

For each keyword you can analyze which are the main competitors that are positioning at the top of the ranking and what are their strengths and weaknesses to try to overcome them.

In addition, in the more advanced plans it works as an integral SEO tool , which allows you to analyze links and make all kinds of recommended improvements step by step.

Another great option to carry out a more advanced SEO analysis of your website.

9.  Seed Keywords

Another great keyword search tool based on a great idea: it allows you to create a search need context and then ask for  feedback from a group of people you define to tell you how they would search.

For example, you create a search scenario based on the need to fix a computer. Then you send this question to your contacts so that each of them can write how they would do the search if they have this need.

Once the data is obtained, it shows you a table of results from which you can obtain very valuable ideas . In addition, it allows you to directly launch the search in Google to analyze who and with what content are positioning in first places.

The main value of this tool is that you can find keywords without being conditioned by your preconceptions as sometimes happens. Sometimes you think that you know your sector very well and that you should focus on one or another base word, which can lead you to error.

In this case, there is not so much subjective conditioner since you do not introduce any initial word from which to obtain suggestions, but rather you define a need and obtain real and spontaneous search patterns. Of course, the larger the sample of users, the more refined the results will be.

10.  Term Explorer

The great advantage of Term Explorer is its huge database  full of information on keywords and search expressions. This allows you to perform advanced searches that you can also filter based on various criteria such as pay per click, competition, search volume, etc.

It is a tool quite similar to the Adwords Keyword Planner, with the addition that it offers extended information on competitors, rankings, difficulty, etc. It even analyzes the way the keywords work for the different competitors within their pages.

In addition, you can filter irrelevant terms, export all the data in a CSV, analyze the authority of the domains that compete for keywords, etc.

The speed with which it is able to handle such a large amount of information to offer you results quickly is surprising, as well as the intuitive way in which it serves you the data. An excellent SEO tool.

11.  Keyword Tool Dominator

It is a tool to search for keywords that allows you to extract keywords not only from Google but also directly from Amazon, Youtube, Bing or eBay , which can be very interesting for certain positioning strategies.

The main value of the tool is that it is based on the long-tail suggestions of search engines, with which you can obtain very precise keywords for your positioning objectives. 

In addition, it is an application that works in a very fast and fluid way. Ideal for getting global ideas and starting to establish a comprehensive positioning strategy.

12. Hit Tail

Hit Tail is an ideal tool to find longtail search expressions (more extensive or specific) and obtain their search volumes to focus on the ones that interest you the most.

In addition, if you upgrade your account, it shows you the total number of URLs that are currently indexed in Google for each of those search expressions, so that you can make an approximate calculation of the number of competitors you have at the time of decide on one or another keyword.

Another interesting aspect of the tool is the My hot Keywords functionality , which analyzes your site and makes a list of keywords that are poorly optimized (obtaining the data directly from your Search Console) so that you can improve your positioning and gain traffic.

It also offers a useful application called SEO Checker in which you enter your URL and your target keyword and perform an audit of your site indicating how that keyword is working and detecting possible problems.

In addition, in the To Do section,  it gives you a checklist of things that you should start solving now to improve your SEO.

Another great SEO tool, powerful and usable, ideal for carrying out very complete analyzes of your website.

13.  WordTracker

A powerful SEO tool specialized in searching for longtail keywords , that is, not just generic keywords but more specific and extensive search expressions. Also, you get search data from different platforms like  Google, Youtube, and Amazon.

If we compare it with the Adwords Keyword Planner, Wordtracker offers many more keywords for each term entered, since instead of grouping you by sets of keywords it gives you all the results separately.

The free plan allows you to search only for the United States, but by upgrading your plan you can analyze searches in other countries.

14.  KeywordSpy

KeywordSpy is an SEO tool specialized in spying on which keywords the competition uses in order to use them in your project and try to position and compete on those keywords, or simply to analyze the positioning strategy they use.

It allows you to analyze by specific domains, keywords and specific URLs. Also, you can get copy ideas for your ads. A tool with a somewhat outdated interface but with enormous potential to find useful information for your keywords.

15.  Keyword Eye

Another tool to search for keywords on Google, YouTube and Amazon , and also to spy on the competition . In addition, it includes a search engine for the most common questions that people ask in their searches, which will give you a fairly approximate idea about search patterns in each niche, which is super useful to find new ideas for keywords.

Excellent to be able to discover, for example, which keywords are the most searched for on YouTube, and to plan an SEO strategy within the video platform, something increasingly interesting for brands and companies that want to gain visibility.

In paid plans it allows you to carry out more searches, obtain search trends, calculate the competition that exists for different keywords, manage and export data in an advanced way, etc.

You can also see how the competition ranks for the keywords that you are trying to position. In this way, you can analyze their strategies and get ideas to apply in your own strategy.

A lot of information in a free plan that you can expand to paid plans to have more functionalities. Without a doubt, another great SEO application.

16.  SEO Book Keyword Tool

Seo Book is a simple SEO tool that is used to calculate the density of the keywords you use on your website.

That is, you pass a check to your site and you get the words that appear the most times in your content, as well as the percentage of appearances compared to the total, that is, its density.

In this way, you can assess if you are including keywords with sufficient density (I recommend between 0.5-1.5% per URL) or if, on the contrary, you are going overboard, that is, if you are over-optimizing your content, which not good for SEO.

Another very cool detail: it allows you to analyze if you are making typographical errors when writing your keywords so that you can correct them. You can also find suggestions for potential linkers that use similar keywords to boost your link building, automatically generate robots.txt, compare keyword listings, etc.

Simple and very useful.

17.  Hypersuggest

With this SEO tool you can find many suggestions for your long-tail keywords, that is, more specific search expressions that include more specific terms, specifically for Google, Youtube and Google Shopping.

In addition, you can do reverse and combined searches, as well as find suggestions for search patterns based on questions: what, how, who, etc.

Once you get the suggestions for keywords you can filter by keywords for Google, Youtube or Google Shopping.

A simple and super useful tool, as well as very intuitive.

18.  Can I Rank

Can I Rank is a fairly complete SEO tool that not only serves to carry out keyword research, but also analyzes the general state of your website and creates a super useful list of actions to take to improve the positioning of your content.

The tool tells you which are the keywords in which your competition ranks and which are the potentially most profitable keywords for your site.

To offer you results, Can I Rank consults a database based on searches of more than two years, which gives it great precision to find keywords and assess their possible profitability.

Regarding the recommended actions from the initial analysis, the application offers you the information in a clear and well-structured way, which facilitates the execution of these tasks. Great SEO tool.

19.  SeoStack Keyword Tool

The particularity of this interesting SEO tool is that it is an extension for the browser, which makes it very comfortable to use since you always have it at hand.

The interface may seem a bit old, but it is really easy to use and interpret, with everything you need to do a successful keyword search.

You have various criteria to filter the results. You can get search data on Google, Youtube, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay, as well as search by languages ​​and countries and export in CSV format.

The search system is similar to Google’s suggestions , with  suggestions based on a word entered and combinations based on the initial letter of the long tail.

Actually, although it does not contribute much compared to the previous ones in terms of its operation, it stands out for the simplicity of its interface.

20.  SpyFu

An excellent tool to perform an analysis of the keywords that your competition uses and find websites of a similar level to be able to analyze your direct competitors.

Its operation is simple: you enter the domain you want and you get a huge amount of information about its organic keywords, keyword matching with the competition, ranking history , etc.

Apart from the above, you can know which are your exclusive keywords that your competition does not work and vice versa, the keywords that others work in a coincidental way but you still do not, which is very useful information to start working new keywords in which you had not repaired before.

In some things, it is reminiscent of more powerful tools like Semrush. In addition, in payment plans it allows you to generate  fully personalized reports for your clients.

Another excellent option to carry out a complete analysis of keywords and many SEO aspects that you can start to improve now.

What did you think of the list? Do you know more tools?

Leave me your suggestions, doubts and opinions in the comments below and I will be happy to answer you ?

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SEO

50 Questions about SEO

by admin
written by admin

I try to answer your SEO questions

Good morning, today I share with you these 50 SEO tips to solve the questions that my visitors ask on Google before entering my blog. With Google Analytics you can know what your visitors have searched on Google to find you and thus I have realized that many questions about SEO had not been answered in my previous articles.

I recommend my SEO Guide

If you need a Step-by-Step Guide to improve your search engine positioning, I recommend my previous SEO article in 75 steps.

50 Questions about SEO as you have written in Google

1. Is commenting good for website SEO?

It is very good for any page or blog to have comments enabled, at least in the news or blog section. Comments make your site constantly update and Google sees and classifies you as a page with continuous activity.

You may be worried that the keyword density on your page will be blurred by the new words in the comments. I would not worry much because search engines take the first words more into account. You can use some trick to maintain a similar density of words:

  1. Do not repeat the same words that are not your Keywords a lot; for example: Thank you. You will use different words to thank the participation so that Google does not think that your article is about Thank you.
  2. Use your keywords in the comments and take the opportunity to use new phrases and terms that could result in a search and search engine visits.

In addition, comments are essential to be able to connect with the reader and exercise two-way communication 2.0. You should use your page not only to count, but also to listen and participate. The same advice I give you as a reader: comment and share all the interesting articles you read.

2. Five things you can do so that your web page has good positioning

This one has amused me. You are not looking for 4 or 6, you want 5 things to have good SEO. It’s hard to pick and summarize just five things for your page to rank well in search engines, but I’m going to try.

  1. Choose your keywords well. The first step is essential, because you could rank first for keywords that do not give you any results or profitability. First you will need to know how many times each term is searched, for example with Google Trends . If you also want to know the competition of each search, use this Google Adwords tool . The second step is to study the conversion of each keyword to know which ones give you the best profitability. We would use Google Analytics .
  2. Use your keywords well. You will use them to create your titles, you will repeat them in your articles, you will put them from time to time in bold …
  3. Get good links to your pages. Search engines understand the links to your site as recommendations, therefore the websites with more and better recommendations will appear in the first results. The best technique to get quality links is to create great and ambitious content. Also the links obtained in social networks are of great importance.
  4. Take care of the loading speed of your pages. It is another of the most important factors since Google is determined to offer us the best possible experience on the internet. You can use the Gt Metrix tool and check out my 75 Steps to SEO to see what things you can improve.
  5. Good setup of the site and posts. Provide titles and descriptions of images; use Google Webmaster Tools to configure your page; edit a different Meta title and description for each page and study the conversion of each; avoid duplicate content; adapt your website to all mobile devices; avoid Google penalties …
3. Create a website that is visible on mobile devices

It is important for your positioning that visitors stay as long as possible on your page. If your website is not viewed correctly on mobiles and tablets, the average stay time and usability will drop a lot.

You can use a Responsive layout or adapt your current layout to make it one. Responsive or Adaptive design is nothing more than telling your website how you want it to look for different resolutions. With a few new lines of code in your CSS you can make any website Responsive. If you are looking for someone to help you with this, here I am. Check how your page looks on mobile .

4. How long does it take to improve my All in One SEO Pack page?

All in One SEO Pack is a WordPress plugin that I recommend. In any case, it is just a tool that we must use and configure to obtain results. Don’t expect that just by installing the plugin your website will jump to the top positions. With it, you must edit and perfect a title and a description of each of your pages.

If you have already worked on it a lot, when will you notice the changes? Well, very fast, in two days. You will see at least that your results in Google already come out with a different title and description.

5. How many SEOs can wordpress have?

This question also amused me and I am going to have to interpret a bit what it means. It is likely referring to the number of SEO plugins a WordPress blog can have. If they are generic SEO plugins with many functions, we can only have one. You will have to choose for example between All in One SEO Pack or SEO by Yoast .

Other small plugins with exclusive functionalities if we can complement them with another generic one. Some templates include SEO functions and most of the time it is possible and advisable to disable them if we use an SEO plugin with the same functions.

6. Where to place the javascript code to improve web positioning?

Javascript is one of the things that weighs the most on our website. Search engines appreciate that the java is loaded in the final part of the process, so visitors will not have to wait for it to be loaded. It would be recommended that the code be loaded through a JS file and not written directly in the Html.

To make the call to load that file, it would be best to put it as low as possible in your Html. Depending on the type of functions, sometimes it may be at the end of the BODY and sometimes at the end of HEAD .

7. SEO tool to see what people ask about a topic

Sometimes we try to find very complicated tools when the best is almost always Google . In this case, with Twitter you will also be able to know thousands of concerns about any subject. If what you want to know is the quantity, what they ask more and what they ask less, then use Google Trends .

8. Do the colors of a website matter for positioning in Google?

How nice, a short one! No.

9. Illegal ways to rank your page first of all

Well, look, I’m going to save this one too, because it doesn’t seem very educational to me, nor does it take me anywhere to explain things like this. Some malice and anecdote has ever escaped me with my students. Also, do not think that there is any method that is not counterproductive when Google catches you. Cheap and easy in SEO is expensive .

10. Page to automatically detect if there is good SEO

Again Google will tell us everything. Enter your keywords in Google search and see the results. If you come out on the first pages, you have good SEO. If you want to evaluate your website in different aspects of SEO and suggest possible improvements, use Woorank for example .

11. Steps to put a page to a search engine

Your pages will appear in search engines when another page that already appears in Google links you. If you want to shorten this step, you can directly send your URL to Google .

12. Who makes the sitemap, the programmer or the SEO?

Anyone because it sucks. In 1 minute for example with XML-Sitemaps .

13. Loss of positions in some keywords when increasing links to others

It is possible that you lose positions in certain keywords if you work on others from a different area and Google classifies you in another category. I think it’s more common for something else to be happening to you. Maybe you have used dubious techniques to get the new links and Google is penalizing you .

14. Where to hire SEO Madrid?

Hey !! Where did you go!! I see that the visitor who searched for this spent 9 minutes and 36 seconds reading my article of the SEO Guide in 75 steps . I don’t know if he learned enough in the end to do SEO on his own. If you have not been good at it, I will make you an SEO budget without obligation . To you if you want too.

15. Plugins to improve search engine rankings

I have already told you about All in One SEO Pack and I can also recommend: Seo by Yoast, W3 Total Cache, XML Sitemaps, JS & CSS Optimizer, P3 Performer, SEO Rank Reporter …

16. What does the SEO of your website mean?

We could define it as the set of actions that we can perform to improve the natural positioning in search engines.

17. SEO rules when making a website

If you are going to start a website from the beginning, you can keep two important things in mind:

  1. Speed: The template and design do not need a lot of loading time.
  2. Responsive: Make the design adaptable for mobiles and tablets.
18. SEO what happens if the posts are deleted?

If a post is deleted, it will immediately disappear from Google results and all the positioning that it could generate. What you can do is create a page with the same URL and content as the post. If you do not link this page on your website, it will be invisible to your other visitors, but it will continue to receive visits from Google.

19. Is it useful to repeat words to be better positioned in Google?

Well, although it seems very basic and very silly: Yes. As long as it is natural and without going too smart.

20. Time required to position yourself in Google

To go out on Google you need 1 day. 

To position yourself well is another thing, it can take a lifetime and not get it. Like everything, it depends on the competition you have. If you do things well and get natural recommendations from other websites, in 1 or 2 months you should have already noticed great results.

21. Does Cloudflare benefit SEO?

Cloudflare is a CDN and therefore benefits SEO in a number of ways. CDNs actually make the visitor enter a parallel copy of your blog hosted on a secure third-party server.

22. How to do SEO with two words?

I understand that you intend to position a keyword consisting of two words. The shorter your keywords, the more competition you will have to position them. The Long Tail theory shows us that it would be convenient to try to position different combinations of these words with others.

To give you an example: it will be very difficult to position “buy car”, and it will be easier and more profitable to work on the SEO of “buy cheap car Madrid”, “buy car that consumes little”, “buy discount car Madrid” …

23. How to position yourself SEO for real?

I have loved it. You’ve spent more than 13 minutes reading through the 75 steps to SEO, so I hope you didn’t find fake SEO.

SEO does what it does, and well done, it delivers guaranteed results .

Of course, we cannot expect miraculous results out of context. A good job of SEO can ensure you get out first for certain searches. If those searches don’t have enough volume and you don’t have a good conversion… then you may mistakenly think it was fake SEO.

24. Free SEO tools

There are zillion thousand. I’ll write an article soon teaching you how to use my favorites, but for now I’m going to give you this little collection that I remember right now: Internet Marketing Ninjas , Woorank , Google Keyword Planner , Cute Rank , Raven SEO tools , Sheer SEO , WebCeo , Nibbler , Authority Labs , SEOChat SEO Tools , SeoMoz , GtMetrix , SEO Book , Screaming Frog …

25. What is the future of SEO?

The future of SEO is going to be in greater demand and with subspecialties in different fields. There are already those who tell me that the SEO that I explain is SEO Off Page and that now it is no longer considered SEO but WPO (Web Performance Optimization). 

Well very good! And there is also the SMO (Social Media Optimization), the GEO SEO and more that will come out.

26. How to improve search engine positioning with Google+?

With Google+ you can publish with a personal profile or with a page profile, similar to Facebook. All the links to your site will help position you, as well as the popularity that the publications and shares could have.

Likewise, your links are being shared on Google+ by other people if you promote it from your blog. As you do on other social networks, it is a good strategy to search and comment on them to help them have more visibility. You have to use Google+ NOW if you are not doing it, and participate with those who share your content if you want to position yourself in Google’s favorite social network.

27. Does an SEO need to know how to program?

Let’s see, programming sounds very serious, but “programming” in Html and Css is learned in 4 afternoons. I understand that if it is necessary for an SEO to know the basics and understand the files. SEO works with the ins and outs of the Web and it would be a great disadvantage not to speak the language. I recommend learning the basics because you could do a lot better like SEO with them.

28. How to find illegal SEO?

I suppose you mean how to know if your website has illegal SEO positioning , and therefore you have lost or are going to lose all your visits with Google penalties. This is the easiest way to know if the positioning of a web is of doubtful arts. Look for the address of that website in quotation marks and see if it has hundreds or thousands of links with the same anchor text in foreign directories, low-quality websites, or meaningless platforms.

29. How to know if they are doing well the web positioning?

How others do SEO for you is easy to check. You will have reached an agreement on the searches you want to position and a compromise of results. Do that search in Google and if you come out first or in the position that you would have agreed, then they have done your SEO well. If you are looking for generic data you can use WooRank .

30. How to use blogs to improve the SEO of your website?

Very easy: Publishing valuable content about your keywords and your market areas. There are millions of people asking questions on Google and you have the opportunity to help them and have them visit you to find that information. Good content will give you inbound links and help you rank in many different searches.

31. Where to put links for SEO?

This is one of the most repeated searches and I have received it in many different ways. A few years ago I also went crazy in finding sites to link to my website, but believe me that SEO is not everything. Generally, the link freak forgets many other things that would give him better results. Still I tell you where to put links :

  1. Current directories and your sector
  2. Forums and discussion groups in which you participate. No spam.
  3. Solve doubts and questions that people ask themselves on the internet. Search with Google.
  4. Register in all social networks and tools, to study them … and to put your links.
  5. Social media posts from you and others are also links to your website
  6. News aggregators such as Meneame, MktFan, Digg, Reedit, Bitacoras, Globedia …
  7. Comment and participate in blogs in your community. Have you tried helping the blog owner respond to all his comments? I assure you that you earn it and it links you in an article. Do the test with mine;)
32. Pages to practice with Google Analytics

It is true that for beginners it can be difficult to practice Google Analytics if you do not have a blog hosted on your own server or hosting. I solve this problem with Tumblr in the Classroom CM Community Manager Course and the students test the Tumblr micro-blogs while practicing with Google Analytics.

33. Is Html good or bad for SEO?

: DGreat! The Html is the language in which are written all web pages. Google values ​​a clean, fast and correct Html, and if you work on positioning you should also value it and at least understand it. If you want to know if the Html of your page complies with the standards, you can use W3 Markup Validator .

34. Is it bad to have SEO twice at the same time?

It is bad to have 2 SEO plugins that do the same functions. If you mean if you can have two SEO workers … no problem as long as they get along and know how to work as a team.

35. Is SEO good to have links to other websites?

On the one hand, we always share our authority when we link to other websites. If we have many links to other pages, it could happen that we share our positioning with them too much. But on the other hand, Google values ​​that we offer valuable resources on our pages, and classifies as interesting content if we share articles or well-positioned and valued sources of information.

What we have to be very careful is to check these links from time to time. It is normal that you happen to have a broken link on your website and you have to be quick to correct them. You can use Internet Marketing Ninja Broken Links to discover the broken links.

36. Make a page for each city for SEO

A strategy to follow can be to position your content for different locations and work the Local S EO from different pages . It can be very laborious to do the same positioning work for many similar websites, so you can also do it within the same page with subdomains or different categories by cities.

37. When I change from Joomla to WordPress I lose positioning

When changing our publishing platform, it is very normal to lose part of the positioning we had. Google will have to reindex our entire site and as much as we put the old content, most of it will be different. You can try to replicate your previous page on the new one as much as possible. Copy the same articles and pages that you had and make sure they have the same URL as before. Also check the inbound links so that there aren’t any broken.

38. Is it good to buy SEO links?

There is a hoax that says that if you buy links you will be penalized by Google . You can only tell if you buy link packages, which I advise against everyone. Generally these 100, 500 or 1000 links are from low quality directories that give clues to Google that we are trying to get links in an unnatural way.

What you can do is make a proposal to any page in your sector to link you permanently or in an article. If it is a page that does not usually do it in a blatant way, the search engines will never be able to know it. Good SEO campaigns with a certain budget usually have the purchase of links and mentions in leading blogs in the sector.

39. More text or more images for positioning?

If there is a choice, more text. Remember to edit a title and description for each image, since Google is the only thing that will understand it. It is convenient that you use at least one different image for each page, and that you try to position it individually with Pinterest and other pages where you can link it.

40. Best SEO site for writing articles

If you mean which blogs you can write as a guest author : Puromarketing is one of the best that does it openly in Spanish. You can still propose it to many other blogs. If you want to write SEO articles and you don’t have a blog, you can also write in Linkedin groups, but I recommend that you create a blog and put what you know into practice.

41. Perfect template for SEO

You must configure and tune the template you use to get the most out of SEO. Your choice is very important since there are things that later it will be very difficult to change. There are two types of templates: some loaded with effects and cool, and others simpler. If we want to do a good positioning with few resources, use one of the second.

Check the loading speed of each template and discover which ones offer you what you need and are fast. With GtMetrix you can see what bugs they have, and if you are experienced you will know which ones you can fix and which ones you cannot. Once the template is chosen, try to remove the load of expendable javascript, even if you lose some functionality.

42. Position a single keyword in SEO

Single word positioning is the most difficult. The method is the same, but the competition is usually huge. Try to use longer keywords that include this word, following more or less the Long Tail Theory .

43. What happened to Google in May 2013 SEO? 

Well, it happened that Google Penguin 2.0 (or Google Penguin 4) is about to arrive and it will be an SEO Earthquake . Google conducted tests for 0.01% of searches and raised the alarm. Stay tuned for the new Google Penguin update and prepare to lose thousands of visits … or gain them.

44. In SEO 200 visits is little

Hmm … well it depends on what for, but yes, initially 200 visits is not enough, but everything is relative. If it were a commercial landing page, for which through ads you would pay $2 per visit … then 200 visits if they are something, exactly valued at $400.

45. Writing tips on web positioning and SEO

My suggestion is that you try to write your keywords between the first 200 words. You can even make a lead at the beginning of each article summarizing it. Generally we look for synonyms so as not to repeat the same words, but in SEO it does not matter that you repeat your keywords from time to time.

It is useful to have a list of your keywords and different combinations and variations, to help you write your articles. You will see how some ideas and phrases come out on their own when thinking about your keywords.

46. ​​Using multiple blogs to improve search engine rankings

I suppose you mean that to position a page you could create many blogs that would give it inbound links. It seems to me a quite laborious strategy if we do not want it to be very artificial and Google catches you. It could be a recommended strategy if it goes together with a good Content Marketing strategy. The contents of the blogs would attract visitors who could be leads and show interest in our products.

47. Does learning SEO have a future?

I think a lot. It is going to be one of the most demanded professions in 2013 and 2014. Many professionals like Community Managers and journalists have to learn some of these skills to get the most out of the web. The Marketing Content and Inbound Marketing will be a before and after for trademarks on the Internet and SEO is a crucial factor for the Community Manager and Online Marketing specialists will take advantage of content marketing.

48. In a WordPress, where are the keywords for positioning?

They are placed everywhere, especially in the titles and descriptions of each page. You can also write them in your articles, categories, tweets, image titles, videos, anchor texts …

49. Improve positioning with an alternative text to the image

It is essential that you put a description and alternative text to all your images. If you have many without filling in, you can use a WordPress plugin that does it automatically.

50. What pages are better to know about positioning?

Well, what am I going to tell you? Mine !! … Lie, ignore me. There are many better pages than mine to learn about search engine optimization , blog of Matt Cutts , Search Engine Watch , SEOMoz , Distilled and Search Engine Land 

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SEO

Step-by-Step SEO Guide

by admin
written by admin

A Step-by-Step SEO Guide

Today I am about to share with you 75 keys that you can easily make on your website to increase visitors from search engines. I have tried to order and classify all the steps that I myself follow and the tools that I use the most to do SEO.

I’m sure that with this SEO Manual you can significantly increase your visits. Because ultimately good positioning in Google translates into more visits, which is surely what we all care about. If you want to learn more about SEO , in this article I solve some doubts and answer 50 Questions about SEO .

Learn SEO and web positioning without being an expert programmer

I have tried to select those keys for which no great knowledge of html or editing your own publishing system was necessary. As the subject of programming your page is very important, in most of the ones I explain are simple changes, or you can help yourself from a Plugin. If you use WordPress you are in luck. 

As it is the most used platform, I have proposed several Plugins  to position in search engines. 

Positioning in Google through Keywords

1. Choose your keywords well: define what searches people are doing you are going to try to position for. Take into account the number of searches for each term to find your best keywords. You can use Google Trends to define your natural positioning strategy on Google.

2. Check the competition: You can use the following tool to check not only the number of searches for each keyword, but also the competition they have. So you will know which words are more affordable according to the popularity of your website: Google Adwords Keyword Tool 

3. Measure the density of words: Analyze your page and find out which words you are using the most. Try to repeat more those that you want to position well. Use this Internet Ninja tool 

4. Use keywords:  Use them in your texts, tags and categories. The first 200 words on each page have more value, so it is a good idea to write a lead summarizing the article. At the same time as encouraging the rest of the reading, you take the opportunity to position your words.

5. Keywords in titles and bold: If you can use them to create titles and incidentally to base yourself on them for your content. If you can highlight some bold in each article you will make it easier for Google to catalog you.

6. Measure and analyze your natural positioning for different keywords: Check your ranking in search engines for all your keywords. You can use the following free tool to install on your computer:   CuteRank  It will tell you the page number where you go to Google for each search.

Site configuration according to the SEO Manual

7. Meta description and title: Define for each page of your website a description and a title in the Meta tags of each <head> header. These will be the titles and descriptions that are seen on Google and with which you intend to attract attention. If you use WordPress you can use for example  All in One SEO Pack . You will have new SEO editing forms in each article.

8. Friendly and edited urls: Use a URL writing system that is like your titles. You can shorten and edit them to contain the highest number of keywords. In WordPress you can activate this feature in Settings, and you can edit each URL within the edition of each article.

9. Creation and submission of sitemap to search engines: Sitemaps help search engines to index your site and keep them updated in their cache. Google and Bing have their own pages for you to send them your files. You can use  XML Sitemaps Generator

10. Automate the sending of sitemaps: As we should do the sending of sitemaps every time there is a change, it is best to automate it. With WordPress we can do it with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin

11. Transcribe your audiovisual content: The content of your videos or presentations is not indexed by Google so it is a good idea to make a text transcription if you can and find the space.

12. Favicon:  The favicon is the small logo that appears in each tab and in favorites and identifies each website. You can create yours and upload it to your template: http://www.favicon.cc/

13. Avoid the use of cookies:   Unnecessary requests and problems with data privacy.

14. Use rel = ”author”: Set the authorship of your publications and show the author’s image in search engines. It will help draw attention to your articles and give them personality on Google.

Images in search engine optimization

15. Title and description: Include ALT and TITLE tags in all Images. Otherwise the search engines will not know what they are and will not be able to index them. If you are very lazy you can use  SEO Friendly Images  in WordPress to have them filled automatically.

16. Specify its size: Always define the size of the image, either in Html with its width and height tags, or in WordPress when publishing it. Otherwise the browser will resize the page as the image fills and it will not look all right until it fully loads. Google wants our page to see the sizes as they are going to be from the first moment, not to grow.

17. Do not scale images in Html: Decide what is the size of each image in the article and upload it of that size. If we make it small with html or the blog editor, it will still have to load large.

18. Image optimization for the web: Use a compressor or save for the web in Photoshop. The highest image quality is not required for the web and images take up a lot of download data. We want the page to load as soon as possible. You can use the Smush it tool on the blog , which automatically allows you to improve the compression of your images.

19. Combine images using CSS sprites: If your template or design uses many small images together, it is recommended that you combine them into a single image and define the links using the sprites in CSS.

Take care of the links for a good web positioning

 20. Diversified anchor text: These are the words they can click to visit your website. We must try to link us in a descriptive way, using keywords and not always the same, but varying them, making them seem like natural recommendations. You can use:  Backlink Anchor Text Analysis

21. Check for broken links: Google hates us if we make it visit links that don’t work. We should avoid it and check all our links regularly, every week. With this online tool it is very simple and it will tell us which ones do not work:  InternetMarketingNinjas 

22. Avoid redirects:  Both on our site and when linking to other pages. The above tool will also tell us which links have to be redirected to another address and suggests that we shorten the steps.

23. Automate the search for broken links:  We can use a WordPress plugin to notify us when a link stops working:  Broken Link Checker

24. Know the PageRank: It is the assessment that Google makes from 0 to 10 of each site on its positioning and authority. Know and measure the evolution of your PageRank and that of the sites that link you or propose link exchange. You can use  http://pgchecker.info

25. Do not link malicious or illegal content: Google penalizes pages that link content with viruses or declared pirates.

26. Look where your competition links: Learn from their strategy while finding new ways to get links and improve positioning.

27. Use internal links: Find where to highlight other parts of your website and get used to naturally linking your articles to each other.

We avoid duplicate content

28. Original texts: Check that all your texts are original. If not, Google will be the first to know and will score your page negatively. You can use Copyscape .

29. No-index to our duplicate content: We will add the no-index tag on our pages where our content is repeated: the category, file by dates and tags. With  All in One SEO Pack  we can configure it in WordPress.

30. Initial page with only sample: We will not include the full text of the articles on the initial page of our blog, only a sample part and a Read More link. Otherwise Google will have duplicate the same texts and the article itself. alone will no longer have exclusive content.

31. Description and Meta Title without repeating: In the descriptions for the search engines we cannot have any repetition because it would create another conflict for the search engines.

32. Canonical URL: Check that your web address is canonical: http://brunovd.com and http://www.brunovd.com

33. The same design for web and mobile  It is preferable to use an adaptive or Responsive design that allows us to have the same design for all devices. If we have two different versions, the search engines will find duplicate content and they will have to have two parallel copies of the site.

Your SEO Style Guide

34. Create fun and original content:  Make these make the reader spend more time on your page and see other pages of the site. Google is increasingly taking into account the factors of usability and permanence on your website, so the biggest trick is to be great and worthy of mention. Study the times and the bounce rate of each article to learn what your readers prefer.

35. Long content: If your page is 4 paragraphs, the reader will not last much more than 20 seconds. Try to make content more ambitious and you will be able to retain the reader for longer. Of course, without going overboard, because you could fall into the opposite error and significantly increase the loading time of the page.

36. Take care of your visitors from devices: Visits from mobiles and tablets are an important part of the statistics and you have to take care of the usability and presentation of your page for these resolutions. If you want them to stay longer on your page, you must have an adaptable design or, failing that, a version of the mobile web. You can check your website for all resolutions and devices with this tool: Screenfly

37. Publish periodically: Search engines value that your website is updated and alive. Try to post at least weekly to be listed as an active source of information. If your website is static, try to create a blog section that you can publish more frequently and create Landing Pages to attract different types of search engine searches

38. Participate and connect with your community:  It will be the best way to be linked and mentioned. Help others and solve the questions in the comments. Interact and participate with that community interested in your content. If you need to review ideas on Social Media.

39. Protocol after each article:  After publishing each article, execute a protocol of actions that you will improve over time. This should take about 20 minutes and it is very important to do it after publishing each article or page. We could publish on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, G +, Linkedin groups, forums in which you participate, comments on related articles, directories, bookmark aggregators … All the initial work is good to get some first links on websites and shared on social networks . Your articles are always more visible in search engines the first 4 days, so the initial push helps to increase visits on those best days.

40. Guest Blogging: Write an article on other guest blogs. You can make yourself known in other spaces and also get quality links to your website. In many blogs they accept it or you can propose it. For example, if you write about marketing and Social Media, you can send your articles to  Puromarketing .

41. Offer some valuable content:  Prepare and offer some content that you offer from a landing page that can be linked and you can monitor visits. Make sure it is necessary to go to your page to access the content. It is a good idea to combine it with the use of other tools such as Pay with a Tweet or subscription by mail with Mailchimp .

42. Landing Page: Do a specific SEO work for the different Landing Pages that you can create to find different ways to attract people to your website. Position content for certain keywords and monitor the visits you receive to that page through search engines.

43. Take care of the reader:  Remove for example that unnecessary advertising that is not giving you any money from your website. You will save loading time and improve the usability of your page.

Avoid Google penalties

44. Do not put keywords out of context:  Do not use a technique of putting keywords massively in text without any sense to increase density or receive visits.

45. Do not put hidden text: Google strongly penalizes the technique of writing text that the reader does not see, under images, videos or other layers, in order to position certain terms.

46. ​​Avoid as many code errors as possible: Search engines prefer pages with code that meets standards and will look correct for most situations. The best way we have to know how correct our code is, is to use the W3C Markup Validator tool 

47. Do not go overboard with the exchange of links: It is not bad to have some (between 5 and 20) exchange links with other pages, as long as they are of a subject very similar to ours and there is real participation between the two. I advise against creating large collections of links exchanged with other websites of various subjects or different specialties. The best of all will be the ones you win because you deserve them.

Reduce the loading time of your page and Google will love you very much

48. Measure and improve the speed of your page:  It is another of the most important factors for a good positioning and we can use several tools to measure it. With Google Page Speed ​​it will tell us many points where we can improve our speed. Another widely used tool is the Yslow Chrome application  , which will also give us many recommendations.

49. Do not abuse javascript codes: Check how many javascript your page uses and try to save on those that are not very necessary. We like to put many functions and effects to the webs, without taking into account the weight that that entails.

50. Remove WordPress plugins: Uninstall all the plugins that you don’t use and try to save the ones you can. Evaluate in each case the functions it offers you and the size and work that they give to the web each time they are loaded. From 600kb of data in javascript in the load of your main page, it already starts to be too much. You can know which plugins weigh more with P3 Plugin Profiler.

51. Put javascript at the end of the code: Try to place the javascript load as far back from the code as possible. If it has to be at the head, let it be at the end. If it can be in the body, in the end too. This will prevent the page from waiting to display the contents until the java has loaded.

52. Delay or defer javascript loading: You can use html and java code to force javascript plugins to load at the end. In WordPress we have this component that helps us load our heaviest plugins after displaying the page content: Lazy Widget Loader 

53. Save and clean your code: Your code is not what occupies the most, but it opens many times. You can clean your html, css and php files from unnecessary annotations and compress them with the help of some tool.

54. Minimize your Css and Java-Script: You can use the Minify tool for any web page to combine and reduce your Css and Java-Script files. In WordPress you can access it through the W3 Total Cache plugin .

55. Combine your Javascript: If you have more than 3 or 4 javascript that load on all pages, it is a very good idea to combine them in a single file and you will save requests and time. Perhaps it is the part of the article in which more knowledge is needed, but with a very very basic idea of ​​java they will know how to put together. In WordPress you can use  JS & CSS Script Optimizer

56. Use pagination: If your content is very long and for blog article presentations, we must paginate the contents so that they are not too long and heavy. The blog page should be limited to 5 or 6 articles, and always only a sample or a heading, not complete.

57. Reduce the number of DNS queries: Try not to link or upload images from many different domains. Try to make all the http requests to your same domain. Otherwise, it would take a long time to resolve the different requests and it would greatly increase the loading time

58. Few http calls: It is recommended that our pages make the fewest possible requests to the server. I recommend that you do not exceed 25. The GtMetrix tool  will measure and analyze this data.

59. Compress in gzip:  We must enable compression in gZip, which is like the Zip of the web code. Browsers download and process it faster so nowadays it is essential to use it. In WordPress we can enable it with the previously mentioned W3 Total Cache plugin  .

60. Use page cache :  The cache is like a copy of the page that is saved by the reader so they do not have to load it the next time they request it. There are several types of cache systems. With  W3 Total Cache  or other plugins they can help you, with images too. The speed of the page will increase noticeably in all cases.

61. Use cache for Java-Script: The java-script plugins are the heaviest part of the web with images, so if we cache them we will also save their load many times.

62. Determine a cache expiration date:  We can manually configure the cache validity, depending on the type of file. We will configure the variables with  mod_expires and .htaccess . If we don’t you may ask for the data too often or hardly ever. For images and javascript we can give you an expiration date of 3 weeks and for text 3 days. W3 Total Cache will help us in WordPress .

63. Using a CDN: A content distribution network is a system by which visitors enter a parallel copy of your website hosted on another server. We benefit from protection, speed, caching and more features. You will need to be able to make some server changes to your DNS names. We can use for example the free version of  CloudFlare

64. Do not use nested tables in html: It is quite common to fall into the error of using one table within another, but it can slow down our page a lot. Sometimes it is not easy to tell and we can find out with W3C Markup Validator

65. External CSS and no styles in the code. It is very common to apply the styles directly on the page and not in an external CSS file. If you use WordPress it will also happen to you. Try to use the predefined styles that you have to the right of the editor, and if not try to write in the HTML tab and apply the styles that you have defined in your Css. You will save loading time and efficiency to make changes.

66. Java script external and not inside the code. We are also used to seeing a lot of html and php code with javascript inside. It will always be preferable to link it from an external file, which in turn can be combined with others, cached and minimized if possible.

67. Check the load times of each page:  Analyze the load times and their bounce, and test and measure different alternatives to improve usability. You can use GtMetrix again  .

Essential tools to start with good SEO

68. Woorank: A very complete tool to analyze our website at first. WooRank.com

69. Web Ceo: A paid online tool, but with a fairly complete free version. It will help us monitor our links and keywords, at the same time that we can contrast the data with Google Analytics. Web CEO Online

70. Screaming Frog: A tool to install on the computer. It analyzes and tracks our website as if it were a search engine and allows us to improve bugs. Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool & Crawler Software

71. All in One SEO Pack:  The most complete plugin for your SEO WordPress. It will allow us to do a multitude of functions that we have talked about in this article. All in One SEO Pack

72. SEO by Yoast: Another alternative to the previous one, with many possibilities and functions to improve our search engine positioning. WordPress SEO by Yoast

73. W3 Total Cache: It is the most used Cache plugin in WordPress and a marvel. There are other alternatives, but this one is very very complete. It will help us improve the speed of our website. W3 Total Cache

74. SEO Chat Seo Tools: It is the largest collection of free online SEO tools. Surely testing your website you get some useful information. SEO Chat Seo Tools – Search Engine Optimization Tools

And the last step for a good SEO search engine positioning

75. Leave me a comment and link your blog:  Participation with the community is the most important point of all. If we want to obtain recommendations we will have to connect with the people who make them. If your contribution is interesting you will get visits from other readers. I will probably visit your blog and maybe I’ll link you or share you on social networks. And in any case at least Google will have linked our blogs and noted our relationship and participation.

I have limited this article to 200 comments , but I would love for you to comment and participate in any other. If you have any questions about SEO and SEO , I’ll be happy to answer them in the comments of the post: 50 Questions and Answers about SEO.

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SEO

The History of SEO

by admin
written by admin

The evolutionary study of information consumption on the web is known as the history of SEO . All this over a period spanning the last thirty years. A process where the implementation of different algorithms played an elementary role. This is an advance which was able to allow the search of data in a matter of seconds.

All these elements have acronyms that are translated as Search Engine Optimization . These advances built the internet that we have today. This has allowed the massification of innumerable services and web pages where each of them can now obtain clients and prospects. All this regardless of where they are on the globe.

According to multiple investigations, the history of SEO is a discipline that experiences a dynamic evolutionary rhythm. Element that changes progressively every year.

What are the main stages in the history of SEO? 

Main technical elements that motivated the emergence of this system. 

SEO has evolved in parallel with the contributions that the algorithms of its last three decades have been able to provide. This is how we initially came across the classic or rudimentary SEO of the 90s.

The subsequent decades were influenced by the presence of technology and the professionalization of content creation. Under these parameters, experts divide the history of SEO into three stages or phases. 

The study of this field of knowledge favors the current and future understanding of these systems.

Very important for the development of the Internet was the appearance of the first web pages during 1991. Their massification led to the need for search ranking systems . Initially the Excite system in 1993 was the pioneer proposal in its category.

Platform followed by Yahoo in 1994, Altavista and Google in 1995 and 1997, respectively. At this stage in the history of SEO , three parameters were used to favor the positioning of every site on the internet . The number of visits that any website received was the most important. The number of repetitions of the keywords and the backlinks were added to these elements.

The relationship between SEO and Sales Marketing: The unexpected effect of the arrival of the 2000s.

This stage in the history of SEO was marked by a reformulation of the concept of user. The user, previously a consumer of information, now becomes a consumer of services and products.

This factor unleashed a commercial competition among the nascent companies at the beginning of the new millennium. The application of marketing techniques shaped SEO as it exists today.

This decade also represented Google’s rise as the world leader in internet search. Initially, the system began to gain notoriety thanks to the launch of Google Toolbar , a tool for measuring PageRank. The launch of Google AdWords in 2002 allowed search engines to develop the concept of keyword density.

The arrival of the 2000s represented a shift in focus for SEO from programming to marketing . It differed greatly from the 1990s due to its inevitable commercialization. Among other important contributions that also marked the history of SEO, is the introduction of Blogger. This particularly from 2003 on. The introduction of XML Sitemaps also favored the administration and indexing of content.

The history of SEO and the triggers of its professionalization: Know the origin of the main penalties on the internet.

The third and last stage in the history of SEO begins with the arrival of 2010. At that time Google consolidated its position as the predominant search engine. Companies, given the high web competition, develop their work systems giving rise to a third phase: professionalization.

 The information to be indexed in the SEO positioning is built by a staff of professionals in charge of the content. There are also two fundamental facts that promote the control of fraudulent pages.

The first of these was the invention of Panda. After its launch, a 12% reduction in the amount of fake content that existed on the internet was observed. Panda represented a new way of dealing with over- optimization .

 A year later, Penguin allowed control over sites with low quality links. 

Under these reforms, a significant number of jobs began to be formed, mainly on content creation. Each effort was motivated by overcoming each of the SEO manipulation techniques. A detailed examination of these phenomena is provided below.

  • Penalties for Keyword Stuffing, The History of SEO: 

This point in the history of SEO marked a radical turn in its evolution.

The keyword Stuffing , formerly one of the main positioning techniques , became an illegal strategy. For Google this represented greater control over the quality of information. 

Thus, the concept of keyword density is developed to limit this process. All of this was rooted in the launch of Google Panda in 2011.

Previously, the market opened the possibility of jobs to promote this. In addition to over-optimization, the algorithm also penalized for sparse or duplicate content.

  • Appearance of backlink traffic sanctions

The year 2012 represented the end of the era of Black Hat SEO , more specifically, backlink traffic. For a period of more than ten years, companies had trained copywriters to spread background links. This was listed as a punishable act under the launch of the Google Penguin algorithm .

The idea of ​​the main search engine was to obtain fair web traffic based on the quality of information .

After the launch of this type of reform actions, the SEO story was never the same again.

  • Rise of content plagiarism, The History of SEO: 

The penalty on textual plagiarism was sanctioned following various modalities. The most common of them was made by citing the respective source. In another modality, the content was copied in its entirety, maintaining the identification of the original author.

A third variant of this strategy included translating the content into languages ​​other than the original.

The effectiveness of these strategies was in making it possible for the source being copied to exceed the traffic of the original author. During the last decade of SEO history , these were important contributions that Panda would also introduce. 

 What were the other formulas used by Google to combat this type of problem?

In addition to the development of different algorithms, the Google company forced the modern businessman to adapt to its emerging policies.

One of them was the adoption of the motto Don’t be Evil (Don’t be evil). This system was used temporarily but with important results in the history of SEO.

Another important strategy was the development of the Moz algorithm . This development will give a more personal touch to searches .

The system involved aspects such as search history and different business hours.

The Venice Algorithm’s participation: All the advantages for which this system allowed Google to never be the same again. 

Launched in 2012, the Venice algorithm represented a before and after in the history of SEO. All this came after its impact on the local search system. Prior to that, the SERP search for a company always returned results internationally.

This new search system allowed, after knowing the local IP address, to produce results that were geographically close to the user. Thus, the services found by the user would be mainly those of his own city. The inclusion of Google Maps within this process also favored web positioning.

During the years following this stage in the history of SEO, other important algorithms came to complement these elements. The most important of these was Google Possum in 2016.

Equally notable was the Hummingbird Algorithm, which affected 90% of global searches through semantic interpretation.

Another elemental change in the web was the migration from the Http to Https protocol . Thus, the SSL certificate allowed greater security to user data. In 2019, through the Neural Matching algorithm, the indispensable concept of neural sensitivity was introduced.

Main characteristics that define SEO today: How does the search for information work in the modern world?

Today’s SEO takes advantage of numerous strategies that have limited the degree of privacy of users. The History of SEO. Three important factors are directly involved in the process. The first of these is defined by the collection of search histories.

Next, the geographical location of the user is also something to consider. Finally, due to its importance, the field of mobile telephony is considered by Google. This last factor is what has allowed the rise of responsive content. Through all these data collection mechanisms, Google has played an important role in the history of SEO.

As SEO has become more interactive, search results show a greater degree of dynamism. The heterogeneous content thus enjoys greater importance than the homogeneous.

 This explains why descriptive pages for local service companies rank higher than a private corporate page. In the history of SEO this is because Google’s actions prevent the user from being saturated with advertising . All this because of the priority that Google gives to the user’s intentions.

The incorporation of optimization algorithms for the SEM system: Another important advance that managed to change the history of SEO forever.

SEM, for its acronym Search Engine Marketing , is today Google’s main source of income . It is an advertising system that, moreover, has not been excluded from the trend towards modernization. Automatic SEM optimization is part of that process.

Previously, manual programming had dominated the pragmatic framework of Google Ads . Today, tools such as Ubersuggest , KeywordShitter , DoubleClick Search have come to reformulate this concept. The participation of this set of tools has profoundly marked the history of SEO. 

The History of SEO. These systems have as a common element a connection in API format with numerous search engines. Such as AdWords , Bing Ads and Yahoo, in addition to Google. Its effectiveness lies in the fact of having the ability to provide real-time information on searches.

This data varies between elements such as campaign settings, performance metrics and main Keywords, which allows a continuous update of SEM campaigns. This also has the advantage of offering a system free of human errors and quickly updated.

Chronology of the History of SEO: (Year 1990- Decade of 2020)

Next, the evolution of SEO will be presented. We will show you how this industry has changed over time. We started with the birth of the internet as we know it today.

1990

The first search engine in the history of SEO is Archie’s search engine.

This was created by students at McGill University in Montreal.

Using the Archie system, you could find files that were on public FTP servers.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites are known as files for file transfers.

1991

Gopher appears, created by a student at the University of Minnesota.

Gopher was a protocol designed to store and distribute files on the internet. Two new search engines are created to search for files in Gopher.

These two search engines are Veronica and Jughead. The History of SEO. Notably, the search engine name Archie was not a reference to the comics of the same name. However, Veronica and Jughead do call each other in reference to the comic book characters. 

On the other hand, CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee develops and publishes the first website in the history of SEO. Berners-Lee made history by developing the HTTP protocol that is still used today to access and store web pages. It is thanks to Berners-Lee that the internet works as it does today.

1993

The first web robot appears. Created by Matthew Gray, this first robot is known as the World Wide Web Wanderer.

In other words, as the “Wanderer of the World Wide Web.”

This digital program is used to create an index of the network known as Wandex.

However, the World Wide Web Wanderer was only used during that time in SEO history to measure the size of the internet.

Therefore, this web robot did not serve to facilitate the search for content on the internet.

The Excite company developed an indexing platform for web pages.

Indexing platforms for web pages are the forerunners of search engines in the history of SEO. These platforms work differently from web search engines.

Not the entire internet is indexed, but the sites that voluntarily wish to participate.

1994

Based on the World Wide Web Wanderer, a private search engine based on a spider web, known as the World-Wide Web Worm, is developed. The first web search engine accessible to the general public appeared in 1994. This search engine was known as Web Crawler .

In the history of SEO, Web Crawler was the first search engine that allowed a page or site to be distinguished according to the identity provided by its domain. Later, this would become a standard feature of every search engine. 

 Yahoo !, Magellan and Infoseek are some of the search engines that were popular during this period in SEO history. People could use them to find web pages that were of interest to them. 

Although Yahoo! is a search service that was maintained over the years, this was not a search engine. What Yahoo! offered to users was a web directory like Excite’s.

1995

The Lycos search engine appears. This was an alumni project at Carnegie Mellon University.

LookSmart also appears, competing with Yahoo!

Both LookSmart and Yahoo! they were web directories. In addition, Altavista is launched.

Altavista was the first search engine in the history of SEO to allow natural language terms.

In other words, it was not exclusively based on keywords.

1996

Future Google creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin work on the BackRub system.

BackRub is the first algorithm in the history of SEO that can be used for online searches.

Larry Page’s spider web begins to implement the concept that outbound and inbound links influence ranking .  

1997

There are beginning to be significant changes in the history of SEO. Specifically for the search engine industry.

SEO is starting to become more relevant, but it is not yet profitable. Excite, a company that until then only had a web directory, buys WebCrawler. In this way, you enter the search engine market.

Also, Ask Jeeves appears. Ask Jeeves was a search engine with a system similar to Altavista. In other words, it was a search engine that could return results in response to questions in natural language. Years later, Ask Jeeves would become Ask.com.

1998

Finally, Google, the search engine giant, is born. Officially, the company appeared on the market in 1998. Its main product was Google Search. Today, Google Search is the most used search engine in the entire history of SEO. In 1998, Google Search was still considered a BETA. However, it was then listed as the best on the market.

By the end of 1998, Google Search already had an index of approximately 60 million pages. In an article, the Salon.com website noted that Google search results were better than the competition. In addition, he added that the service was more innovative than that of other portals, that is, Yahoo !, Lycos or MSN.com. This radically changed the history of SEO, since until then investors believed that the money was in the portal sites.

Another Google innovation was the implementation of a page ranking strategy . In Spanish, the concept means “hierarchy of pages”. In other words, the order of the pages was determined according to different factors. It is due to this development that the process that we know today as SEO begins.

1999

In 1999, Google continues to grow and expand, thus changing the history of SEO.

More and more people are using Google as their main search engine.

Importantly, then-giant AOL chooses Google as its primary search engine.

This means that all AOL users switched to Google as their search engine.

2000

Google decides that its method of generating profit is going to be ads.

It is established that advertisements must be textual to facilitate their interpretation by users. 

Not to create unrest, company initiatives are aimed at not cause interruptions in navigation of users.

The system was called Google AdWords and it showed ads related to searches made.

2001

The first Google API in the history of SEO is launched, which is very important for companies dedicated to optimization, as well as its subsequent evolution.

API is an abbreviation of the English term “Application Programming Interface”. In Spanish, we know the API as an application programming interface. What is an application programming interface? In the context of web development, it is a set of programming specifications.

A web API like Google’s is essentially a system that makes it easy to publish new websites. For example, it facilitates the representation of information on the monitor. The Google API makes it easier for web developers to analyze the information of the visits made to their website.

2003

The first massive Google Search update is released. This update was known as Google Florida.

The purpose of Google Florida was to combat spam, an increasingly common element on the internet. Google Florida is considered to have changed the then nascent SEO industry forever.

During the 90’s, SEO was mainly about filling a website with keywords. For that purpose, many sites were used for a single brand .

In the same way, invisible text and hidden links were added. This was a very important event in the history of SEO. Thanks to Google Florida, the way SEO was done changed.

On the other hand, Google AdWords changed the way it presented advertisements. This year they begin to use the ads with text and links, which are still used today. To expand in the marketing market , Google acquires AdSense. Adsense is a program that allows ads on a website to be directly related to its content.

2004

To give users even more relevant results, Google launches Google Local.

This is an algorithm that makes search results geographically close to the user. This will allow local restaurants to rank more effectively on the results pages.

Up to this point in SEO history, Yahoo was still just a web directory. In order not to be left behind, develop and adopt your own search algorithm. Although this reinvigorated his visits, it did not allow him to compete against Google. 

2005

A very important development for the history of SEO was the launch of Google Analytics by Google. This service provides webmasters with the information of the visits made to their website.

Using this information, webmasters can make the necessary modifications to make their page more attractive. Similarly, Google Analytics helps us determine weaknesses in SEO positioning. In addition, it is a useful tool to identify which keywords are most popular.

This year Google launches Google Mobile Search. Google Mobile Search was the mobile version of Google Search. That is, the version of Google Search that used larger fonts and other methods to facilitate searching on small screens.

2006, The History of SEO

Google Tre nds appears , an essential element of both the history of SEO and marketing. Using Google Trends, you can find out the most searched topics for a certain period of time. Thus, the popularity of keywords or of a product or service can be measured. Google Trends can be used both for SEO and to develop marketing strategies .

In this same year several search engines announced the development of supports for XML site maps, including Google. XML sitemaps allow webmasters to inform Google with an XML file.

This XML file includes all the pages that can be found within a domain. In this way, your position on the results page will be updated faster as the work of the spider is facilitated.

2007

Google advertises the universal search service, which allows the user to get results related to their search terms.

To do this, Google includes the results from all its search services.

A universal search results page includes results from Google Search, Google News, Google Images, and more.

This initiative represented an innovation in the history of SEO.

2008

Google makes two updates to its service to make it more accessible to users. The auto-completion and suggestions system is added, that is, the search engine will save the most popular searches.

In this way, it provides users with a greater number of options if they have little data about the type of information they want to obtain. 

In addition, Google launches the search system within a website. This system is of great help when you need to search for information within a single domain. Thus, websites can implement this service in their interface. Likewise, users can use it by adding certain commands to their search.

2009

Updates are made to make the use of Google Search faster.

One of them is the launch of the real-time search system.

This system performs the search instantly even if you have not finished typing the search terms.

Simultaneously, Microsoft acquires a strong presence in SEO history by competing with Bing in the search engine market.

2010

Google starts trying to get the instant search system to work on mobile devices.

A prototype of the feature is released, however the company is unable to make it work as intended. For that reason, the instant search function is eventually removed.

Google makes SEO history by adding another way to personalize searches to its SERP list.

In this new mode, it adds the geolocation search system. With this system, users will only be able to search for pages associated with a certain geographic region.

2011

This year Google makes a variety of improvements to its service, which increased its importance in the history of SEO.

The two most relevant contributions of that year were Google Images and Google Panda. Google Images results were dramatically improved. In addition, a new system for the search engine was created. This system was about image search. The user entered an image and Google indicated its origin.

For its part, Google Panda is a very important update for SEO. Google Panda was specifically designed to redefine the page organization system. In other words, it changes the way in which the hierarchy in which websites are displayed is determined on the results pages. Panda also penalizes pages that plagiarize information.

2012

In 2012 an update was made to  Google Analytics . This update presents the information graphically. Thus, webmasters will be able to appreciate in more detail the situation of their website.

In this way, they will know which are the elements that really contribute to the user experience and, therefore, to the development of any page on the Internet. 

Another very important advance in the history of SEO was Google Penguin. Google launches the Penguin algorithm in its search engine designed to prevent websites from spamming low-quality links. Now the relevance of the links is taken into account. Another important fact for SEO is a change in Google policy. In 2012, Google implemented a higher degree of penalties for sites that violate copyright.

2013

Google makes the Hummingbird update to its algorithm. Hummingbird was designed to improve the language processing system of the search engine. Thanks to Hummingbird the SEO story changed forever.

In this way, people can ask the search engine more complex questions. The search engine can, therefore, answer them appropriately.

Also, Google releases an update to Google Penguin, Google Penguin 2.0. Like the first Google Penguin, Penguin 2.0 was created to combat poor quality links.

In the past, many websites were filled with poor quality links to rank higher. The main purpose of Google is to improve the performance of its page ranking system.

2014

Google updates Google Penguin and Google Panda. Google Penguin 3.0 tries to improve the limitations of the previous version.

In this way, it seeks to combat the problem of links that do not direct the user to a valuable site. For its part, Google Panda 4.0 is an algorithm that helps Google focus on the content of the sites. Panda 4.0 was designed to improve the ranking of pages with good content. On the contrary, it penalizes those that are full of spam.

Some minor changes are made to Google’s protocols. First, the authoring system in Google Search is removed. The authoring system allowed content creators to link all of their work to a Google account. 

On the other hand, content marketing strategies use quality internal links to improve the positioning of web pages. 

It is in 2014 when one of the most important changes in the history of SEO begins. Google realizes that most users start to use Google Search on mobile devices. Due to this situation, Google begins to take into account the performance of web pages on mobile devices to determine their rank in search results. 

2015

This year Google Search makes a major update that will influence the history of SEO. This new contribution was based on its version for mobile devices and was launched under the name Google Mobile. It focuses on optimizing websites that are not easy to navigate on mobile devices. Using this tool, the content of these sites will increase its visibility in the Google ranking. 

A new algorithm is introduced in order to build an informative hierarchy based on the quality of the content. This algorithm is known as RankBrain and is based on artificial intelligence to search results. RankBrain helps Google process human language according to user intent. In this way, you can more easily identify the quality of written content.

2016

This year Google AdWords significantly changes the mechanics of search listings . Now the first four results are from Google AdWords . Before they used to be natural results.

That is, in the hierarchical order of results, Google ads are given priority over SEO results. The reason is that on most mobiles the first results of AdWords are only visible when the user scrolls over the content. 

Finally, more importance is given to mobile devices when it comes to Google Search. This algorithm gives priority to sites optimized for mobile devices. Another major update was the appearance of Google Penguin 4.0. In its version 4.0, Penguin becomes part of Google’s main algorithm.

2017

Google Hummingbird, Google’s algorithm for reading human natural language, is updated.

Google Hummingbird is currently used to recognize a web page filled with keywords inconsistently. That is, a web page in which the keywords are repeated merely for SEO purposes, without offering content of value to the reader. 

Simultaneously with the new Hummingbird proposal, Google updates the Penguin algorithm. In its new version, it penalizes pages with duplicate content.

This is due to the fact that Google realized that the content was repeated to forcefully improve the positioning of web pages . In the history of SEO, the need to create content with a high degree of originality begins to be accentuated. 

2018

This year the Google search engine is optimized for the reception of keywords by voice commands. Another change focused on optimizing the use of Google Search on mobile devices, since it is more common to use voice commands on mobile devices than on computers.

In addition, some changes are made to Google Search to improve the user experience. As of 2018, the history of SEO is marked by the relevance acquired by websites that make use of SSL certificates, since they positively influence the security of navigation.

Also, starting this year, the loading speed of web pages acquires a determining role for their positioning in search engines . In this sense, the faster a web page loads, the better the experience of the users who visit it. 

The UX Philosophy is introduced; philosophy based on the design of web pages focused on the user interface. The UX philosophy comprises a set of Google guidelines that indicate that websites should be designed for users. Therefore, the easiest sites to navigate will be the ones with the highest rankings.

2019 

The last year of the 2010s represents an important step in the history of SEO. This is a period of time where the consolidation of various trends is observed. The most important qualitative leap this year was the appearance of Google BERT. Optimized computer system that revolutionized the way SEO is managed. Its acronym comes from the English phrase Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers . The programming given to this system is the recognition of human natural language.

Currently the algorithm is only available in English. Despite this, it is already considered an innovation in terms of SEO searches.

Google BERT replaces the traditional search format. This gives the system a bidirectional approach to the semantic interpretation of searches. In this way, Google recognizes the context of each word.

These types of advances undoubtedly represent an excellent turning point in the history of SEO. For the first time in several decades, the ranking of SERPs results takes into account the natural expression of the user’s language. Therefore, these results exclude those web pages that have irrelevant content for the user. 

2020

In 2020, the history of SEO is marked by an important reformulation of web positioning strategies . Experts already establish criteria to predict the disappearance of the current SEO concept. The application of artificial intelligence in Google is the factor that has allowed this change.

The new system is identified through the phrase “optimization of the search experience”, where the investment of time made by the user in the search engine is defined as an experience. Several factors are what allow us to accurately measure the impact that the arrival of these tools will cause in the digital world. The BERT algorithm, for example, is based on the development of neural networks for identification and recognition in the foundations of language.

Very important in the history of SEO is the disappearance of the concept of Keyword. Old keywords are now replaced by search intent. Google currently prioritizes the informational genre called conversational writing.

 The reading of the texts by the tracking algorithms now uses the heat map system. This tool allows you to identify the most relevant ideas in a text. Therefore, the line between voice tools and textual searches will become increasingly thin.  

The arrival of May 2020 Core Update: Google’s strategy to adapt its algorithm to informational behavior in the world. 

The month of May 2020 is now the object of study for the history of SEO. In it, Google demonstrated the key that has allowed it to be the leading search engine on the planet. The consumption, search and flow of information were severely affected after the global public health crisis.

On the web, this represented an increase in the number of searches for content related to the treatment of the global pandemic. Other themes such as live music, tourism and international business were notably displaced. Thus, Google Core Update was put into operation on May 04, 2020. A period of 10 to 15 days is required in its entirety for its total integration to search traffic.

This adaptive behavior of the company has been recurrent during the last decades of SEO history. On this occasion, Google programmed this algorithm following certain criteria of quality and reliability on the content. For all the websites that reported significant losses, an average of a 50% decrease in their web traffic is calculated .

What are the main advances that the SEO world expects for the next decade of the 2020s?

The next decade of SEO history is predicted to comprise fully identifiable nuances. The vast majority of these aspects are concentrated in the development of artificial intelligence, without forgetting the set of protocols to be developed for search engine optimization in terms of the use of language.

All these strategies have as a common denominator the scope of content diversification. Done as a result of which there will be a greater number of web pages with more visual than textual content. The SEO of the future will be integrated by systems that favor the positioning of audiovisual elements. In this list are integrated elements such as the inclusion of podcasts, videos and infographics.

For the progress of the history of SEO the prediction of search intentions will be a prominent element. An example of this is the RankBrain algorithm .

The impact that the wide expansion of searches through mobile devices will have cannot be ignored. For the next few years, mobile SEO will be the recipient of elements of Responsive design, of structural aspects previously only used solely and exclusively for viewing on computers. 

The services of the marketing Pro SEO Expert are marking a before and after in the history of SEO.

During the last decade of SEO history, we have witnessed all the changes that have taken place on the internet. Given our extensive knowledge of the market, we offer a set of SEO services aimed at optimizing web pages adapted to the needs of our clients. All this has allowed the SEO Monterrey Agency to offer products fully adaptable to market trends. The speed, quality and efficiency of our services is what distinguishes us from the competition. 

Our Technical SEO team divides optimization services into two types. These are identified as On Page and Off Page. On the one hand, our team is trained to configure campaigns through the use of tools such as Google Ads . When it comes to organic positioning , our webmaster specialists combine a set of strategies. 

These tools give web pages a higher level of optimization so that they are easily crawled by a web spider . Our main lines of focus are related to programming, content optimization and design.

Advantages of hiring Pro SEO Expert: Find out what are all the plans and benefits that your marketing agency can offer you. 

Our Mexico web optimization service is based on responsive web design. Concept that Google has introduced in the digital market since 2015. This allows offering excellent quality in terms of On-Page MX optimization of the product.

The tracking frequency or Crawl budget is another value quantified by our specialists, which has allowed us to expand our experience with clients from different fields. In order to enhance your user experience, our talented team of professional writers will create quality content for your website. 

Another advantage of our services is the ease of reading our products. The proper order of the thematic sections of a website is a feature that directly influences its SEO positioning . This is achieved by conducting link ordering studies to allow their indexing to be successful. Another important advantage of our services is the correct tagging of web content . The use of HTML5 is used for this, a fundamental element in the history of SEO. 

Final Notes: Other important reasons why Pro SEO Expert is your best option in SEO positioning services.

In addition to optimizing the internal elements of a web page, Pro SEO Expert is also a leader in Off-Page Optimization Monterrey . This includes techniques to position your website outside of it, a factor that increases its competitiveness.

Our experts know, thanks to the history of SEO , that the use of Backlinks is an effective tool for measuring the popularity of a website. In addition to this, our positioning agency  stands out for its extensive experience in managing social networks .

Pro SEO Expert designs for you marketing techniques that involve platforms such as Facebook , YouTube, WhatsApp , Instagram , LinkedIn , Tik Tok, among others. This allows to attract users of different backgrounds, tastes and ages.

Our long history, backed by an unmatched international presence, makes it difficult for us to explain the scope of our services in a single article. We invite you to contact us to offer you more information about them. Our goal is to drive the success of each of our clients.

For this reason, we offer personalized marketing services that allow you to achieve a strong presence on the internet and attract more customers. Contact us right now! Our professional team will make both your services and your company an important part of the SEO story until 2020 !

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SEO

SEO Factors Most important for Google 2021

by admin
written by admin

Our experience in Web Positioning for more than 10 years allows us to detail a list of 200  SEO factors that Google , the search engine par excellence, uses to determine which pages should be in the first results , according to which searches, this year 2021.

List of SEO factors most important for Google

If you apply all these elements of web positioning on your pages, you will have many options to be in the first positions of the SERPs and improve the SEO of your website.

Domain factors

1. Age of the domain : Google takes into account the age of a domain when positioning, but does not give it much importance either.

2. Keyword in the domain : It does not have the impact of a long time ago, but having the keyword in the domain is still a sign of relevance.

3. Keyword as the first word of the domain : A domain that begins with its target keyword has an advantage over sites that do not use it or that place it in the center or end of their domain.

4. Domain registration length : Valuable domains are paid in advance for several years, while the rest are rarely used for more than a year. Therefore, the date a domain expires can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain.

5. Keyword in the subdomain name : If the keyword appears in the subdomain, it can boost the ranking.

6. Domain history : A site with volatile ownership (via whois) can tell Google to “reset” the history of the site, denying the links that point to the domain.

7. Exact match domain : It can be an advantage if the site is of quality. But if not, due to the latest updates from Google, it is vulnerable to penalty.

8. Public vs. Private WhoIs: Private WhoIs information can be a sign that “there is something to hide.” Therefore, the best option is to keep it public.

9. Penalized WhoIs Owner : If Google identifies a particular person as a spammer, it makes sense for them to investigate other sites owned by that person.

10. Country TLD Extension : Having a Country Code Level Domain (.es, .fr, .it) helps site ranking for that particular country… but limits the site’s ability to rank globally.

Page factors

11. Keyword in title : The title tag is the second most important part of the web page (besides the content of the page) and therefore sends a strong SEO signal on the page.

12. Title begins with keyword : Title tags that begin with a keyword tend to perform better than title tags with the keyword at the end of the tag.

13. Keyword in the description tag : Another sign of relevance. It’s not particularly important, but it still makes a difference.

14. Keyword appears in H1 tag : H1 tags are a “second title tag” that sends another relevance signal to Google.

15. TF-IDF : That a keyword appears more than any other acts as a relevance signal, as long as the keyword density is not very high.

16. Indexes of content : Organizing the content of your page in an index helps Google to better understand the topic you are dealing with.

17. Length of content : Google prefers extensive content to superficial articles. The length of the content is related to the search engine position.

17. Keyword density : Google uses keyword density to determine the topic of a web page, repeats your main keyword and synonyms of it.

18. LSI keywords: They are semantically related keywords. LSI keywords help search engines extract the true concept of words with more than one meaning. The presence of LSI also acts as a sign of content quality.

19. LSI keywords in title and description : As with web page content, LSI keywords in page meta tags help Google distinguish between synonyms. It can also act as a sign of relevance.

20. Page loading speed through HTML : Google and Bing use page loading speed as one of the 200 factors to improve rankings. Search engine spiders can estimate the speed of a site quite accurately based on the page code and file size. You can see the loading speed of your website with PageSpeed .

21. Speed ​​of loading pages through Chrome : Google can also use Chrome user data to get a better handling of the loading time of a page, since it takes into account the speed of the server, the use of CDN and other non-HTML-related site speed signals.

22. AMP : Using AMP for the mobile version of your website improves the loading speed and, therefore, your positioning in mobile SERPs.

23. Duplicate content : Identical content (even slightly modified) can negatively influence the visibility of a site. To check if Google sees your content as copied you can use the Plagium tool .

24. Rel = Canonical : When used correctly, the use of this tag may prevent Google from considering duplicate pages of content.

25. Image optimization : Images send a lot of information through their file name, alternative text, title, description and caption. So we must optimize images for SEO .

26. Constant content updates: The latest Google update favors recently updated content, especially for time-sensitive searches. To highlight the importance of this SEO factor, Google shows the date of the last update of a page.

27. Magnitude of content updates : Adding or removing entire sections is a more significant update than changing a few words.

28. History of page updates : The frequency of page updates over time also indicates to Google that the content of that website is periodically refreshed.

29. Keyword placement : Having a keyword in the first 100 words of content on a page is one of the 200 important SEO factors of relevance.

30. Keyword in H2, H3 : Having your keyword in an H2 or H3 subtitle also influences relevance, although it seems to be less so. 

31. Order of the words in the keyword : An exact match between the search and the keyword in the content of a page ranks better than the same keyword phrase ordered differently.

32. Quality of the outbound link : Many experts believe that linking to authority sites allows you to send trust signals to Google, so it would be one of the 200 SEO factors to consider.

33. Outbound link theme : Search engines may use the content of the pages you link to as a sign of relevance.

34. Grammar and spelling : A good use of grammar and spelling indicates quality in the content.

35. Syndicated content : Is the content on the page original? If it is copied from an indexed page it will not rank as well as the original.

36. Useful supplementary content : It is an indicator of the quality of a page and therefore helps Google ranking. Examples include currency converters, loan interest calculators, and interactive recipes.

37. Mobile usability : Leave enough space between elements so that the user can click on them, adjust the elements of your website to mobile … greatly improves your SEO.

38. Number of outgoing links : Too many dofollow links from our website can “spread” the PageRank, so the position of our own page will be affected.

39. Multimedia : Images, videos and other multimedia elements act as a quality signal of the content.

40. Number of internal links : The number of internal links to a page indicates its importance in relation to other pages on the site.

41. Quality of internal links : Internal links from pages with authority in the domain have a stronger effect than if we do it from pages with low AP.

42. Broken links : If you have too many broken links it will appear that your site has been abandoned.

43. Reading level : There is no doubt that Google calculates the reading level (basic language, technical terms…) of web pages.

44. Affiliate links: Affiliate links do not hurt your ranking unless you have too many.

45. HTML Errors : Many errors in the HTML code penalize.

46. ​​DA of the page : A page from a domain with authority will rank better than a page from a domain with less authority. To analyze the DA of your website you can use Moz .

47. Page PageRank : Not confirmed, but it is assumed that pages with higher PR tend to rank better than the rest.

48. Length of URL : The URL too long can hurt search visibility.

49. URL path : A page closer to the home page can get a slight increase in authority.

50. Human publishers : Although it is not proven, Google has filed a patent for a system that allows human publishers to influence SERPs.

51. Page Category : The category in which the page appears is a sign of relevance. A page that is part of a category related to it gets a relevancy boost.

52. WordPress Tags : Tags are the characteristic relevance signal of WordPress. It is a good idea to link posts on the same topic with these tags.

53. Keyword in URL : Another important factor to improve positioning in Google.

54. URL text : Google reads the category of the URL and can guess the theme of the page.

55. References and Sources : Cite your sources. The Google Quality Guides show that they are of the references when consulting certain pages. However, Google has denied that they use external links as a ranking signal.

56. Numbered lists : Help to break down the content for readers, making them easier to use. Google agrees and prefers content with sections and numbers.

57. Page priority in the Sitemap : The priority of a page within the sitemap.xml file can influence the ranking.

58. Number of other keywords : If the page ranks for multiple keywords, it can be seen as an internal sign of quality.

59. Age of the page : Although Google prefers new content, an older page that is regularly updated may outperform a new page.

60. Easy-to-use structure : Improving the user experience allows easy access to content.

61. Parked domains : A Google update decreased the search visibility of these domains.

62. Useful content : Most importantly, make sure you have unique and relevant content.

Site factors

63. The content is unique and adds value : Google has stated that they are chasing sites that do not contribute anything new or useful.

64. Contact page : Google and also users prefer sites with contact information. If we add to this that it matches your whois information, all the better.

65. Domain TrustRank : Site trust is an important SEO factor. It is measured using the inbound links from sites with high trust.

66. Site architecture: A well structured architecture helps Google organize your content by topic.

67. Site updates : The frequency of updates, and especially when new content is added to the site, is an SEO factor to consider.

68. Sitemap presence : A sitemap helps search engines index your pages faster, improving visibility.

69. Site uptime : Long downtime due to site maintenance or server problems can affect your ranking.

70. Server location : It can influence the location of your site in different geographic regions. It is especially important for geo-specific searches.

71. SSL Certificate : Google has confirmed that they index SSL certificates and use HTTPS as a ranking factor.

72. Legal notice and privacy : These two pages help to tell Google that a site is trustworthy on the Internet.

73. Duplicating the meta information on the site : Duplicating the meta information on your site can reduce the visibility of your page.

74. Breadcrumbs : This style of web architecture helps users (and search engines) know where they are on your page.

75. Mobile optimization : Responsive design is essential today. Google has also started penalizing non-responsive sites for searches from mobile devices.

76. YouTube : It is owned by Google, therefore there is no doubt that by improving SEO positioning on YouTube , our videos will receive preferential treatment.

77. Site Usability : A site that is difficult to use or navigate can hurt ranking by reducing time on site, page views and bounce rate.

78. Use of Google Analytics and Google Tools for webmasters : It is believed that using these two tools on your site can improve the SEO and indexing of your website. They can also directly influence ranking by giving Google more data to work with.

79. User reviews : They seem to play an important role in the algorithm. So it is important to know how to manage reviews on Google .

Link factors

80. Age of domain : Inbound links from old domains can be more powerful than from new domains.

81. Number of referring domains : It is one of the 200 most important SEO factors in the Google algorithm.

82. Number of links from different IP addresses : They suggest a greater range of sites that link to you.

83. Number of pages that link : The total number of pages that link to our website, even if some are on the same domain, is an SEO ranking factor.

84. Anchor Text : Use a good proportion of anchor text in your incoming links, varying between keywords (exact, in phrase, etc.), brand and generic.

85. Alt tag : Alt text is the image version of anchor text. Include in all your images a description of it in the Alt.

86. Links from .edu or .gov domains : It is believed that there are privileges for links from .gov and .edu domains.

87. Authority of the linking page : The authority of the referring page is an extremely important point within the 200 SEO factors.

88. Link domain authority: Referring domain authority plays a crucial role in the importance of a link.

89. Competitor Links : Links from other pages listed in the same SERP may be more valuable to a page’s rankings for that particular keyword.

90. Page shares: The number of social shares at the page level can influence the value of the link.

91. Guest Posts : External blog contributions can be a fundamental part of a white hat SEO campaign. Although a contextual link on the page is usually more valuable. If you want to participate in our blog as a guest author, check the conditions in our guest post guide .

92. Links from ads or paid : These links must be labeled “nofollow” or “sponsored”.

93. Links to Home : Links to the home page can be especially important when evaluating the authority of a website.

94. Links «nofollow» : One of the most controversial topics regarding the 200 SEO factors. According to Google, they do not usually follow them. But having a certain percentage of nofollow links gives your link network a natural look.

95. Diversity of link types : Having an abnormally large percentage of your links come from a single source will mark you out as webspam. Diversify brings naturalness.

96. Links «sponsored» or «UGC» : This type of links are treated differently from the «followed» or «nofollow», they can decrease the value of a link.

97. Contextual links : Links embedded within the content of a page are considered more powerful than links on any other site.

98. 301 redirects to the page : The links coming from the 301 redirects lower the PR if they are not done correctly, do not abuse this practice.

99. Anchor Text of the internal link : It is another sign of relevance, after all, internal links are still links.

100. Link title: The link title (the text that appears when you hover over it) is also used as one of the 200 SEO factors.

101. Referring domain country : Getting links from country-specific top-level domain extensions (.de, .es, .co, .uk) can help you rank better in that country.

102. Location of the link in the content : Links at the beginning of content carry a little more weight than links at the end.

103. Link location on the page : In general, links embedded in content are more powerful than links in the footer or sidebar.

104. Link domain relevance : A link from a site in a similar niche is stronger than a link from an unrelated site. That is why any effective SEO strategy today focuses on obtaining relevant links.

105. Relevance at the page level : The link from a page related to the content of yours is more powerful than a link from an unrelated one.

106. Text around the link : Google discovers if a link to your site is a recommendation or has a negative connotation. Links with positive terms around them are probably better for you.

107. Keyword in title : Google pays more attention to links from pages that contain your keyword in the title.

108. Positive link speed : A site with positive link speed helps your positioning.

109. Negative speed of the link : The opposite case to the previous one.

110. Links from reference pages : Links from pages that are considered the main sources of information on a given topic receive special treatment.

111. Links from authority sites : It is better to get a link from an authority site than from a niche.

112. Reference from Wikipedia : Although the links are nofollow, getting a link from Wikipedia gives you a little added confidence in the eyes of search engines.

113. Co-Occurrences : The words that appear around your links help Google to know what that page is about.

114. Backlink Age : Older links have more visibility than newly created backlinks.

115. Links from real sites : Due to the proliferation of blog networks, Google probably gives more weight to links from “real sites” than from fake blogs. They are likely to use branding and user interaction cues to distinguish between the two.

116. Natural link profile : A site with a “natural” link profile will rank higher and will last over time.

117. Reciprocal links : The excessive exchange of links should be avoided.

118. User-generated content links : Google is able to identify user-generated links versus those of the actual site owner, these must be tagged with “UGC”.

119. Links from 301 : They can lose a bit of authority compared to a direct link.

120. Schema.org Microformats : Pages that support microformats can be positioned on top of pages that do not support them. This can be a direct boost, as microformated pages have a higher CTR.

121. Site TrustRank : Determine how much “TrustRank” is transferred to your page.

122. Number of outgoing links on the page : PageRank is finite. A link from a page with hundreds of outbound links gives us less PR than a page with only a few links.

123. Links from forum profiles : Due to the current amount of spam, Google may significantly devalue links from forum profiles.

124. Number of words of content : A link from a 1000 word content is more valuable than one from a 25 word fragment.

125. Content quality : Links from poorly written content or do not transfer as much value as links from well-written content and with multimedia elements.

126. Site-wide links: Site links are “compressed” to count as a single link.

User factors

127. Organic CTR for a keyword : Pages with higher CTRs get a SERP boost for that particular keyword.

128. Organic CTR for all keywords : The organic CTR of a page (or site) for all keywords ranks well as a signal of human user-based interaction.

129. Bounce rate : It is a method that Google uses to know the interest of a site, the pages where people enter and exit quickly do not give a very good image.

130. Pogosticking : It is a special type of bounce. In this case, the user, when leaving the website they had initially entered, clicks on other search results in an attempt to find the answer to their query.

131. Direct traffic : Google is confirmed to use data from Google Chrome to determine whether or not people visit a site and how often. Sites with a lot of direct traffic have more visibility.

132. Recurring traffic : They can also see if users return to a page or site after visiting it. Sites with recurring visitors can get higher rankings in Google results.

133. Blocked sites : Google has discontinued this feature in Chrome. However, Panda uses this feature as a sign of quality.

134. Chrome bookmarks: Pages that receive bookmarks in Chrome see their positioning improved.

135. Google toolbar data : Google uses this, however, in addition to page load speed and malware, it is not known what kind of data they collect from the toolbar.

136. Number of Comments : Pages with a lot of comments can be a sign of user interaction and quality.

137. Dwell time : Google pays close attention to waiting time, that is, how long people spend on your page when they come from a Google search. If people spend a lot of time on your site, it is taken as a sign of quality.

Algorithm factors

138. Search needs something new : Google gives new pages a boost for certain searches.

139. Search needs diversity : Google adds diversity to a SERP for ambiguous keywords.

140. Browser history : Sites you visit frequently while logged in to Google will appear earlier for your searches.

141. User search history : Your previous searches influence the results of your new searches.

142. Featured Snippets : Google chooses content from Featured Snippets based on a combination of content length, format, page authority, and use of HTTPs.

143. Geographic targeting : Google gives preference to sites with a local server IP and a country-specific domain name extension.

144. Safe Search : Search results with words or adult content will not appear for people with safe search turned on.

145. Websites with a «YMYL» theme : These are those websites that speak directly about money or health. Google pays special attention to the pages of this topic.

146. DMCA Complaints : Google penalizes pages with DMCA complaints.

147. Diversity of Domains : For each SERP page, different domains appear so that there is variety.

148. Transactional searches : Google sometimes shows different results for keywords related to purchases.

149. Local Searches : Google typically ranks Google Local results above the “normal” organic SERPs.

150. Google News : Some keywords trigger a Google News box.

151. Preference for brands : Google has started to prioritize in the results to the big brands a boost for certain searches.

152. Purchase results : Google Shopping results are sometimes shown in organic SERPs.

153. Image Results : Google registers our organic listings of image results for commonly used searches on Google Images.

155. Disavow Tool : With this Google tool to disavow links, you can remove a manual or algorithmic penalty imposed on a site with negative SEO. 

But be careful, by using it you are telling Google that you have done something wrong.

Brand SEO factors

156. Brand name on Anchor Text : It is a simple but strong brand mark.

157. Brand searches : It’s simple, people search for brands. If people directly search for your site’s name, Google gives it the branding banner.

158. Brand search + keyword : Google improves your ranking for a keyword when users search for it next to your brand name on Google.

159. The site has a Facebook page and I like you : Brands tend to have Facebook pages with a lot of likes.

160. The site has a Twitter profile with followers : Twitter profiles with a large number of followers make the brand popular.

161. Official Linkedin Page : Most real businesses have company Linkedin pages.

162. Employees listed on Linkedin : Having profiles of Linkedin users who say they work for your company is a brand sign.

163. Legitimacy of Social Media Accounts : A social media account with 100,000 followers and 3 posts is not the same as an account with 100,000 highly engaged followers.

164. Brand mentions in the news section : Big brands appear on Google News In fact, some brands even have their own Google News feed on the first page.

165. Mentions without link : Brands get a lot of mentions without links, only with text. Non-hyperlinked brand mentions are likely to be viewed by Google as a brand signal.

166. Number of RSS subscribers : Google may consider RSS subscriber data as a sign of brand popularity.

167. Location on Google MyBusiness : Real businesses have physical offices. Google may use location data to determine whether or not a site is a large brand.

168. Your business pays taxes : Google can see if a site is associated with a business that pays taxes.

Social SEO factors

169. Number of Tweets : Like links, a page’s tweets can influence its ranking in Google.

170. Authority of Twitter user accounts : Tweets from older Twitter profiles with a lot of followers are likely to have more effect than tweets from new accounts with low influence.

171. Number of “likes” on Facebook : Although Google cannot see most Facebook accounts, it is likely that they consider the number of likes a page receives as one of the 200 SEO factors for positioning.

172. Shares on Facebook : Shares, since they are more similar to a link, have more influence than likes.

173. Authority of Facebook user accounts : As with Twitter, actions from popular Facebook pages can carry more weight.

174. Pinterest Pins : Pinterest is a popular social network with a large amount of public data. Google is likely to consider it within its 200 SEO factors.

175. Votes in other social places : Sites like Reddit or Stumbleupon could also influence SEO.

176. Acknowledged Authorship : Information linked to verified profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification.

177. Relevance of the social signal : Google probably uses relevant information from the account that shares the content and the text surrounding the link.

178. Site-level social signals : They can increase the overall authority of a site, which will increase the search visibility of all your pages.

On Page SEO Factors

179. Panda penalties: Sites with low-quality content (mainly link farms) are less visible in the results after receiving a penalty from Panda.

180. Request for Reconsideration : A successful request for reconsideration can lift a penalty, although it may take a while.

181. Redirects : If you are caught using “weird” redirects, you can be penalized and even not indexed.

182. Entry pages : Google wants the page you show to be what the user is looking for. If your page simply redirects to another, bad business.

183. Ads : Sites with a lot of ads and little content are penalized.

184. “Above the Fold” Ads : Sites with ads in the upper half of the page are penalized, those that appear before the content.

185. Pop-ups : Google penalizes websites that use pop-ups that are full-screen or large enough to cover up the content of the web, especially on mobile phones.

186. Over-optimization of the site : excessive repetition of keywords, abuse of heading tags … they end up having the opposite effect to what we are looking for.

187. Page over-optimization : Unlike Panda, Penguin targets the individual page and not the site.

188. Hiding affiliate links : Trying to hide affiliate links can result in a penalty.

189. Affiliate Sites : It’s no secret that Google isn’t the biggest fan of affiliates. And many think that sites that monetize with affiliate links are put under extra scrutiny.

190. Self-generated content : If you suspect that the site is generating content by computer, you could be penalized or removed from the results pages.

191. Excess of «nofollow» links : Try not to transfer authority by putting all the nofollow links, it is not fair game, neither for Google

192. IP address marked as spam : If the IP address of your server is marked as spam, it may damage all the sites on this server.

193. Spam in Meta Tags : Stuffing keywords in meta tags can also be prosecuted.

Off page SEO factors

194. Unnatural flow of links : A sudden and unnatural entry of links indicates that those links are false.

195. Penguin Penalty : Sites that have ever been penalized by Google Penguin are less visible in search.

196. High percentage of low-quality links: Many links from sites used for black hat SEO (such as blog comments and forum profiles) can harm rankings.

197. Domain Relationship : Sites with an abnormally high number of links from unrelated sites are more susceptible to Penguin penalties.

198. Warning of unnatural links : If Google sends you this message, you can hurry to remove the links that harm you or it will be followed by a penalty in Google Sandbox.

199. Links from the same IP : Obtaining links from sites with the same IP server may indicate the creation of an unnatural link network.

200. “Harmful ” Anchor Text : Having links pointing to your site with anchor text related to adult content, drugs … seriously harms you.

201. Low-quality directories : According to Google, backlinks from low-quality directories can result in a penalty.

202. Widgets : Google disapproves of the links that are automatically generated when the user embeds a “widget” on their site.

203. Press Releases : Press release sites have been abused for years to the point where Google now regards this link building strategy as irrelevant.

204. Manual Penalty : Google sometimes distributes manual penalties if they see something unusual on your site.

205. Selling links : Selling links can impact the PageRank of the toolbar and can harm your search visibility.

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SEO

HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF SEO

by admin
written by admin

At the risk of sounding nostalgic and seeing that it is increasingly difficult not to repeat SEO topics on the blog, I am going to write about the history and evolution of SEO , until we get to SEO as we know it today.

SEO of the past

SEO has changed a lot in recent years, that’s nothing new. That of requesting in a totally manual way, the inclusion of a website in the index of the search engine itself through a link that was in it, is now behind . 

Also left behind what worked before, as the onpage sobreoptimización through keyword stuffing and campaigns linkbuilding through backlinks with accurate anchortext, came from wherever … also worked the exact copy of contents and translate them automatically into other languages (this if done right it still seems to work).

 Everything was worth, yes gentlemen, and there was no mobile first index , or anything like that At that time, mobiles were only used to call and send SMS.

SEO as such, we could say that it was born back in 1993-1995, almost with the appearance of the first websites and search engines, although in its current sense, it began to be used in 1997, not yet established as a profession . 

An interesting fact: in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee and his team created “a registry” to record the websites and servers that were popping up. 

The first Spanish node on this list was the machine installed at the Jaume I University of Castellón, which created the first website in Spain.

 A few years passed and in 1995, as a top search engine practically all of us used Yahoo! which started as a directory and Altavista (Google did not exist yet, it was born in 1998). 

It didn’t take long for companies to detect perfectly that a search engine was the place where users spent a lot of time a day and it was a tool that was going to be used more and more , so having visibility in them was almost necessary for any offline business . 

Yes, I say offline because online businesses appeared later. It was no longer valid to include the web page in the business card to attract traffic.

When link building was synonymous with SEO

Starting in 2001, link building became a business and proliferated so much that buying and selling and exchanging links became fashionable . 

SEO was almost synonymous with link building at that time and this perception lasted a few years, until 2012 links were practically the most important thing to position, but over time, elements appeared that gave movement to SEO, such as indexing of the pages in Flash, the nofollow links, the canonical tag and the next and prev tags for the paginations. International SEO was not done yet and hreflang tags did not exist.

Important changes in Google and SEO

From 2010 to 2012 there were many websites that lived off SEO and had to park their businesses . 

Google put the batteries and with its eagerness to show relevant and quality results to the user in the SERPs, it began to improve its algorithm by bringing updates like Caffeine and hitting the table. 

The rules of the game were beginning to change and either you adapted, or you were out of their equation.

Caffeine was followed by Panda and Penguin in 2011 and 2012 respectively. If Caffeine did damage to the sector, it is said that Panda left between 12% and 15% of websites touched . 

While Panda was looking for quality content, pursuing duplicity and poor content, Penguin focused on spam and low-quality link building. 

There were many updates of both and in two years many websites fell along the way, which did not follow the guidelines set by Google. 

In addition, before, to get out of any of these penalties, you had to wait for the next Google update, which made it more difficult to float.

On December 16, 2014, Google News closed in Spain, just before La Lotería de Navidad .

At that time I was working at RTVE and for me it was a huge challenge to mark a historic milestone in that event. 

I still remember when I went in at dawn to prepare everything together with Nacho Delgado and yes, in the face of all adversities, that year we managed to break a historical record

There came a time when link building was no longer worth at any price and Google began to reward quality links, which came from sites of the same subject and with authority.

 It was no longer worth using the command “link: web” and “linkdomain: web” to monitor the offpage part of a web and Google learned that what was good for the user, would also be good for its search engine and therefore, it would prevail the quality of the content and the user experience ( UX ), although we should not forget about link building, especially in sites just out of the oven, with little authority or sites that do not work on their own brand, which by the way is each time a bigger mistake.

At one point, I don’t know exactly when, Local SEO also appeared, although like everything else, it has evolved and is now much more sophisticated .

 Before, it was worth mentioning the keyword in the name of the business, the exact location and little else.

Google’s algorithm update called Pigeon , in summer 2014, gave a considerable turn to Local SEO, once again changing the rules of the game and making signals such as positive reviews and opinions of one company prevail, instead of focusing on more traditional.

And social networks came into action more than ever, yes! It is always said that social signals do not affect the positioning of a website, but at least from personal experience, I have to say that the more viral “something” is, at least in a media outlet, it is easier to put a news item in News.

 I do not want to position myself on whether they affect or not, but even indirectly, the more visibility a website has, the more likely it is that certain signals will be generated and also that they will link you naturally. And this is still an SEO factor, so I leave it there.

The SEO of the present and the future

2016 and 2017 we can say that they have been the years of the mobile . The mobile-first has become essential with the arrival of AMP , voice searches , etc.

Loading times today are measured more than ever and we all seek to appear in a zero position snippet . 

A website is code and if content is king, strategy and technical SEO will always be king, let’s not forget it!

And with this summary of the evolution of SEO (quite brief, by the way), we can draw the conclusion that we have learned that the Internet is a place where things do not stop happening, where what used to work, we know it can stop, that we are in an ecosystem in constant movement, and therefore, we must never stop learning.

 Companies are realizing the value of digital marketing and increasingly see it as a leg of their business and not as a simple help, they no longer buy links or bulk content and they know that.

And what has been the best thing about SEO evolving so much? Well, what has given me to link a lot of posts with exact anchor text, because as you know, in the internal crosslinking it is worth.

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SEO

What is SEO Copywriting?

by admin
written by admin

Copywriting is the writing of promotional texts that persuade a reader to do something. But what exactly is SEO copywriting or SEO copywriting? In this article for SEO beginners, I will give a clear answer to that.

It starts with SEO

What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

From this you can conclude that SEO copywriting is the following:

SEO copywriting: writing search engine-optimized promotional web copy (that persuades a reader to do something).

The first part of the definition is especially important. The web texts that the SEO copywriter writes must be optimized for search engines: SEO texts. But what exactly does that mean?

Basically, you need to make sure a search engine (like Google, Bing and Yahoo) knows what your text is about. After that, the search engine can send traffic in the form of real visitors to your website.

You can also watch this article as a video:https://www.youtube.com/embed/7a8R9S-HrwM?feature=oembed

Why is SEO copywriting important?

If you do it right, SEO copywriting will help raise awareness of your brand, products or services. Your position in the search engines improves, making your company more visible. This is important because higher positions generate more attention and clicks and thus generate more visitors and sales.

Good SEO copywriting is also ‘just good copywriting’ and thus meets the needs and wishes of your target group and improves the user-friendliness of your website and the image of your brand. High rankings in search engines contribute to the trust people will place in your brand.

In other words: good SEO copywriting = direct more results for your online brand.

This way you help the reader and the search engine

How do you ensure that a search engine knows what your text is about? Basically in the same way as making sure a human reader knows what your text is about:

  • You ensure that you write in clear language and in short and understandable paragraphs.
  • You structure your text on the basis of a heading, sub-headings, enumerations, a conclusion.
  • And of course you mention the keyword (the keyword or keywords ) in the different elements of the text structure.

A good SEO copywriter does not exaggerate when creating SEO texts, but also uses synonyms of the keywords and other forms such as multiples or inflections. He knows that he must first and foremost write attractive and readable text .

Modern SEO copywriting is all about creating valuable and engaging content that people want to share and link to, so that the authority and trustworthiness of your website goes up and the pages you want to rank higher in Google.

But before you get to writing SEO copy, there is the most important aspect of SEO copywriting first and that is keyword research .

Keyword research

An SEO copywriter doesn’t start his job without thorough  keyword research . He deduces from such research whether people search for ‘dishwashers’ or ‘dishwashers’, for ‘copywriters’ or ‘copywriters’. He chooses the keywords that have a nice search volume, but that can still compete on.

With SEO copywriting, it may therefore be that you do not choose the word or words that are most often searched for, but the term with which you can beat the competition and get high in Google yourself. This is a must if your website does not (yet) have the authority to beat competitors. You have to start from the bottom up and build a good name with good content. Indeed, that is often a lengthy process.

Google the SEO copywriter

For example, over time I have ensured that this website (and especially this blog) is optimized for the search term ‘copywriter’. If you google for ‘copywriter’ my website appears high in the results of Google.

By the way, on the keyword ‘SEO copywriter’ I am in 1st place in Google. You will understand that I can therefore welcome many people who are looking for a copywriter to my website. And that is beneficial: after all, more visitors means more chance of fun assignments!

You understand that it is now not so easy to score on a short tail keyword like ‘copywriter’. Yet that in itself is not a reason to always choose keywords with little competition.

A strategy can also be that you directly attack the competition for their most important keyword . Provided you have built up sufficient authority with your website.

SEO copywriter or SEO copywriter?

Although there is often a difference between a ‘normal’ copywriter and a copywriter , this does not apply to people who call themselves SEO copywriter or SEO copywriter. An SEO copywriter also writes promotional texts optimized for search engines, just like the SEO copywriter. The difference in these terms is therefore only in the preference of the relevant writer. So yes, I am also an SEO copywriter.

In search engines it can of course make a big difference to choose a slightly different term, even if it means the same. For example, I optimized this article on the terms’ SEO copywriting ‘and’ SEO copywriter ‘(partly because I already have a good position on the general term’ copywriter ‘) but not on’ SEO copywriting ‘and’ SEO copywriter ‘.

If you google for an SEO copywriter you will come across very different freelancers and companies.

The above also applies to other descriptions of your own products or services. So it is good to be aware of that. SEO writing is making choices too!

An ongoing process

If you have a website or webshop, you would also like more interested customers who purchase your products and services. That is why you keep adding new content to your website, which is shown by search engines in the search results. And what visitors then click on, so that they end up on your website. And that is also a very good reason to blog .

Short and long tail

Now the keyword ‘copywriter’ is a really short tail keyword . A single keyword with a lot of competition. That is often the case if you only focus on one keyword.

For example, if you run a car rental company and you decide to focus on the search term ‘rental car’ with SEO copywriting, you have a lot of competition. Probably even too much to be able to appear in an acceptable place in the search results. Unless you have built up a lot of authority by now.

That is why it is generally more convenient to focus on the long tail with SEO copywriting . I have previously written a specific blog article about this. By building that long tail, you also score higher on more general keywords over time.

As I mentioned, it can also be a strategy to immediately launch the attack with a short tail keyword. In addition to a website that has already built up some authority, you will have to produce really excellent content to win this battle.

So an SEO copywriter writes for search engines?

No, a copywriter – and therefore also an SEO copywriter or SEO copywriter – never writes for search engines. At least not a good one. Search engines may be able to read, but they ultimately understand the balls of your text.

Moreover: search engines are not your customers. They will not buy anything in your webshop and they will not pay your invoice. It is good to realize that everything you write (yes, SEO texts too) is for people . People who can be enthusiastic or critical, disappointed or suspicious, happy or nervous… People with emotions.

So first write the best article you can write for your target audience and then optimize it for findability with SEO in mind.

Some frequently asked questions about the SEO copywriting profession

How do I find a good SEO copywriter?

Long live the internet! Googel or Bing on your own. Check which SEO copywriters emerge first. A high position on the term ‘SEO copywriter’ says something. 

Read a few articles on their website. Check out the work they have done for other clients. Does it feel valuable? Can you discover your own writing style in it? Or does it look like a trick with a lot of repetitive words and obvious SEO spam?

There you have the answer to your question.

Should I Get Into SEO Copywriting?

Anyone engaged in online marketing should know at least the basics of SEO copywriting. This helps enormously in setting up a successful business, even if you outsource the writing of web texts and blog articles. Plus, it helps you find the best SEO copywriter (see the question above).

Can’t I just write a really good article?

That is certainly a good basis! But because you also want to get your article in rankings from Google, Bing & Co, you have to take a number of things into account. Fortunately, search engines are also increasing when people look at articles. And then SEO copywriting increasingly comes down to the last part of the word.

I am a copywriter. Do I have to master SEO writing?

Yes. SEO copywriting is a service that more and more customers will demand from you. It is important that you know how to answer questions from searchers on your site and that you can write conversion-oriented. Knowledge of SEO helps you write better web pages, blogs and campaigns for your customers. Plus: you use it to direct potential customers to your site.

I have zero experience with copywriting, Can I become an SEO copywriter?

Yes, but you will have to learn a thing or two. At least the basic principles of (SEO) copywriting. Fortunately for you, I have put together a valuable course that you can take for the price of just one lunch.

Can I become a better SEO specialist or copywriter?

My vision: you can better focus on the profession of copywriter and then learn SEO skills. As an SEO specialist you are constantly chasing the facts in a landscape that is constantly changing. As a copywriter you master a profession that has been based on the same basic skills for decades and that you can also enrich with SEO knowledge.

How do you find work as an SEO copywriter?

You know what they say, don’t you? The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The best and most convincing is if you know how to attract customers to your website with SEO. For example, I score quite high on the term ‘SEO copywriter’ and that gives me a steady stream of customers. For the rest, the same things apply as for beginning copywriters .

But SEO copywriting is just using tricks, right?

Nah, not really. Well, it may have been for years. But a lot has changed in more than 20 years of experience with search engines. It is less and less about tricks and more and more about real copyskills. Add value, deliver sales arguments, convince. Fortunately. That’s why you should learn sales skills and consumer psychology in the first place.

Can you make good money as an SEO copywriter?

If you are good, you can certainly make a good living. Exactly what you earn depends on your experience, your location and the type of customers you serve. If you mainly want to service smaller companies, your rates will be a bit lower. If you position yourself high in the market, you have to ask more (but also offer more).

Is it fun to be an SEO copywriter?

Yes, that’s nice. Because you can immediately help customers with more (and measurable!) Results. Seeing the results of your work gives a lot of satisfaction and satisfied customers.

Do you have more questions about SEO copywriting or the SEO copywriter profession? Then let me know with a comment below. You always get an answer!

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SEO Myths
SEO

5 SEO Myths You Should Finally Ignore

by admin
written by admin

The field of search engine optimization (the activities aimed at improving the position of your website in search engines) is constantly changing. That makes sense, because Google likes to keep everyone on their toes by constantly making new changes to its algorithm.

But because the rules of the game of ranking in the search results keep changing, there are also quite a few SEO myths that keep haunting. Let me name here 5 for you that you should absolutely no longer believe.

1. Keywords are everything

There are still tons of ‘SEO specialists’ who believe in this SEO myth. But you should forget about spamming with keywords as soon as possible. 

Until recently, keyword density and the right keywords in every paragraph were sacred, so your ‘lorem ipsum strategy’ went a long way. With Google’s Panda update, such weak content that was obviously written only on keywords was severely punished.

Of course keywords still play an important role in SEO, but it’s all about relevance of the content and quality of the content. All of this has become a lot easier with good keyword search software, like KWFinder’s  (which I’ve been using successfully for my own copyblog for some time , but more about that another time!) This makes it easier for you to find niches and long-tail keywords that your competition has missed and on which you can take a head start.

2. SEO is all about becoming number 1 in Google

Your SEO strategy shouldn’t necessarily be about becoming number one in Google. If only for the fact that a top spot for competitive keywords has become next to impossible. Search engine optimization is now about building a solid foundation for your further campaign.

A good SEO strategy aims to increase the organic traffic to your website, as well as the engagement with your visitors. You also have to think carefully about the conversion of your visit to customers. If you only focus on that coveted first place in the rankings, you will pass this too easily. Position one as the holy grail is one of those SEO myths that you better forget about ASAP.

Instead, you now have to be smarter and formulate a clear campaign. What are you going to focus on? More visibility for your brand? Or on a better conversion? Maybe more involvement? Target the right target group and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly.

3. SEO is dead, forget about SEO

An SEO myth of disillusioned SEO specialists who also don’t know anymore: SEO is dead. Yes, you are right to claim that the old form of SEO is dead: spamming search engines with haphazard keywords in order to rank higher. In short, what I summarized above.

However, a misconception is that you don’t have to take SEO into account at all. A good SEO copywriter ensures top quality content in 2020. So yes, an SEO copywriter must actually be able to write. (You may need to rethink that one cent per word bulk content strategy. ) Top quality content is one thing, promoting that content is almost as important. Because how else do you reach your audience?

This has to do with the technical design of your website (can the spiders read your content?) And with your means of making the content known via, for example, social media (we’ll get to it later) or newsletters, press releases and other means that lead to are at your disposal. But it also has everything to do with your ability to present your content to your audience using the right terms and in the right structure.

4. Social media is separate from SEO

Nonsense. While social media may not play a direct role in your position in Google, they are incredibly important for increasing brand visibility and engagement. Likes and shares for your articles build your authority as a brand and are therefore essential in your SEO strategy.

Part of your SEO strategy in 2017 should therefore definitely include your social media approach. Facebook in particular offers extensive possibilities to make your brand visible. The fact is, social media marketing can make a significant contribution to SEO. Oh yes, don’t forget to ‘like’ and ‘share’ this article, eh? Exactly for that reason.

5. Building links is not allowed by Google

SEO gurus have predicted the end of links as an element of an SEO strategy for years. But just like SEO itself, links aren’t dead and Google doesn’t penalize you for using links in your strategy. Provided you do it the right way, of course.

This is what Google writes in its guidelines on ‘exchanging links’:

Links that are intended to manipulate a site ‘s PageRank or the position of a site in Google search results may be considered part of a link exchange program and violate the Google Webmaster Guidelines . This includes behavior involving manipulation of links to your site or links from your site.

Slightly difficult Google language for: links are okay, but by our rules. Of course there is plenty of manipulation to influence search results, also in 2017. Links are still one of the most important factors that Google uses to determine the ranking of a website.

What you should keep in mind is that you no longer sign up for pages with endless rows of links (‘link partners wanted’, you know it), but that you should aim for high-quality links from reliable sources.

Unfortunately, that does not always happen automatically, even if you write such good articles. There are several strategies you can follow to build a good link profile. I will come back to this in a later blog article. Be sure to read what the specialist in this field, Brian Dean , has to say about this.

Your SEO Myths?

They were. Five SEO Myths to Deal With in 2017. Do you also know an SEO myth that many people believe in? Then leave your comment below!

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SEO TIPS
SEO

SEO Tips: The 18 Most Important for 2020

by admin
written by admin

Looking for the Best SEO Tips in 2020? A lot has changed in the SEO field (search engine optimization) in recent years. From keyword stuffing to scoring on a single keyword per page, we’ve gone to truly helpful, well-written and interesting content.

An excellent development, as far as I’m concerned. And any serious copywriter will agree.

Nevertheless, SEO (the collection of techniques that focuses on making your website findable in the search engines) is still very much alive. There are always new SEO trends to respond to and new SEO techniques to discover.

Do you want to improve the SEO of your website this year? Then all you need is this complete guide with the 18 most important tips .

And of course some time to implement the tips in your website.

Let’s get started right away!

SEO in 2020

I describe the most important SEO fundamentals in this article, which is an adaptation of an article I posted in 2019 that I have completely revised and updated for this year.

If you want to rank high in the search engines in 2020 too, these are the ultimate SEO tips to keep in mind.

1. Create content that shows something new or that goes in depth

It is not for nothing that it is (still) number one. The single most important SEO tip I can give you is that your content should simply be of exceptional quality . So invest more time in research and look for more examples and current events.

Where do you start? Use the pages that currently score highest in Google (read: are on page one) for your intended search term to make your web texts  and blog articles even better and more extensive based on that.

Example of this SEO tip

With my own website, I have been scoring high on the search term ‘passive income’ for some time now. That’s because I’ve written an extensive article in which I give 21 concrete ideas that you can use to get started with building passive income . I don’t want to sell anything on that page, as many competitors do for this search term.

I am simply providing clear and honest information on the subject here (partly from my own experience) and I have made sure that my list is comprehensive and clear.

I have not created any external links to this page (but internal links). I show something new and I go into depth.

When I get new information or discover something new, I supplement this page with new insights. In this way he continues to expand and remains current.

Almost purely on content, Google rewards me with a top position in the search engine. Of course the authority of my domain name does play a role.

Spend time on good content

2. Build a brand of your website

If you’ve been studying SEO for a while, you’ve probably seen the acronym EAT from Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines.

Another buzzword that all SEO specialists chase after? Yes, but there is something much bigger behind this, which has long been known in the offline world: you have to invest in building a strong brand.

Don’t worry: if you take your brand seriously (and of course you do), you’ve always taken into account EAT: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness . Or in plain Dutch: expertise, authority, reliability.

But it is verse 2 to let Google also know …

Excerpt from Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines (source: googleusercontent.com)

These concepts from the EAT principle are each important for their own reason. Let’s take a closer look at it.

Expertise

In other words: expertise . Of course you (with your website) must be a specialist in your field. As an expert you are knowledgeable. You have to show that, for example by means of blogs, a podcast or videos.

Demonstrating your expertise starts with thorough keyword research . In your content you have to meet the visitor’s demand. You answer them in the best possible way.

You must show on your website that you understand the subject of your field. You can do this by describing in a readable and understandable way what your customers’ problem is and how they can solve it with the help of your products or services.

As the creator of the content on your website, you must be demonstrably an expert in your field.

Authoritativeness

Your website must be authoritative , possess authority. This goes further than just expertise. Every specialist is an expert, but not all experts have authority.

For example, the most authoritative brands have many links from reliable sources (such as universities, government websites, news organization websites). Getting links from these sources is not easy and Google knows it too.

Better to have one link from a highly authoritative source than 1,000 links from domains with little authority.

In addition to some of these authority links, you should also have regular “mentions” or mentions . As the ANWB (or Google, for my part) is also regularly mentioned without a link on websites. Just like I do here.

Google reads all these entries and knows for tens, hundreds or thousands of entries, even without a link, that an authoritative party is being referred to.

It is a strong signal when people start googling your company name or website. That means you have built brand equity!

Trustworthiness

So you have to offer expertise, have authority and you have to be thrustworty . Reliable . Too much negativity around your brand on social media or the internet has repercussions on your reliability score in the eyes of Google.

What can you do to demonstrate reliability? Here are a few points in a row:

  • First of all open and transparent communication: clearly state the contact details on the website, including a physical address.
  • Easily accessible terms and conditions and a privacy policy.
  • A secure domain name (with https or the lock in the address bar).
  • For web shops: a clear return policy.
  • Include all relevant (safety) information with products.
  • Links to reliable external sources (for example in your blog articles).
  • Mention of authors and their field on your blog (this is especially important for YMYL topics, see below).
  • The ability to leave reviews and include reviews or recommendations on your website.
  • Work on (bad) reviews by responding to them.

In particular, if your website and brand are related to happiness, health, finance and legal matters, you should take the above points into account.

Google calls this type of website Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) websites. And since the search giant doesn’t like to refer you to bad information or fake news , you better do everything you can to demonstrate your expertise, authority and reliability.

As for the rest, you should realize that much of the EAT evaluation of your website happens OUTSIDE your website. And that you are therefore dependent on others how your brand is perceived.

Pro Tip: Also study the Google Quality Rater Guidelines (a 168-page PDF!), Which use specially appointed people on behalf of Google to manually assess the expertise, authoritative and reliability of your website.

Example of this SEO tip

Do you have a website with – just to name a few – tips on copywriting and SEO? Then you should make this a real brand to make it stand out from all those other sites.

It starts with the fact that you have to be a copywriter yourself ( expertise ) and that ‘proof’ must be available in various places on the internet.

In addition, as a brand in the field of copywriting you should have various references from other sources ( authority ). Not only links, but also mentioning your name can contribute to gaining more value as a brand.

That’s why speaking at conferences or seminars or publishing a book can give such a boost to your authority and expertise.

It is also useful to include testimonials and reviews on your website and to ensure that people can easily leave reviews via Google or a review platform ( reliability ).

Pro Tip: Does your brand (and website) fall into the YMYL category? Then it is even more important to be an expert. Incorrect information or bad advice can cost you the proverbial headline here! If you are not an expert yourself, have your texts written or checked by a certified expert.

3. Take advantage of the power of social media

Have you created a great piece of content? Something you are really proud of? Congratulations, now make sure you properly promote it through social media.

Although shares and links are not a direct ranking factor in Google, there are many signs that they do influence the ranking.

And even if this were not true, good use of social media will still generate extra visitors (and thus potentially more turnover).

Here are a few tips so that you can use social media in a smart way:

  • Create valuable content that deserves to be shared.
  • Add clear share buttons to your articles.
  • Share your content yourself through the right channel and ask for comments .
  • Ask people to share your articles if they find them useful.
  • Tag or mention people you quote in your articles so that they too can share it with their followers.

Example of this SEO tip

Some time ago I posted an article that I previously posted on this blog as an article on LinkedIn. By posting it in its entirety, I took advantage of LinkedIn’s algorithm (which prefers to promote complete articles over links to external websites).

A lot of people saw it, and started to like and comment, so even more people saw it. Of course you must also have written an interesting and recognizable article, but without the active use of social media, few people see it.

4. Harness the power of images

‘Images’ is prominently listed in the search engine. Images have been an important part of search results since time immemorial. In some cases people even just search for images when they need something.

And that is why it is so important to optimize your photos and other image materials.

While Google is getting better at recognizing what’s depicted in photos , you can lend a hand. Provide the correct keywords in the name with which you save your images and in the alt texts .

‘Alt’ here stands for alternative. Especially in the early days of the Internet, these texts were essential because they showed what was in the images before they were loaded.

But alt texts are still used by, for example, the visually impaired or when images are blocked. And they are also read by Google to deduce what can be seen in the image.

In addition to these SEO tips for images that you probably already knew, according to Google itself , the following is also important from 2020 :

  • The authority of the website is a factor in displaying relevant images.
  • Google gives priority to pages and articles that have recently been updated.
  • Images that are centrally and in the top part of the content have a higher priority.
  • High-quality images that are at least 1,200 pixels wide are given higher priority.

Example of this SEO tip

Make it easy for Google and always add a clear file name, a description and an alternative text (alt text) to your images.

But also make sure to add an original, good-quality image to your page as visual content, whatever it is about.

Keep in mind that Google can read texts in your images and recognize subjects in the image.

5. Voice search and featured snippets

Google really wants to give a short and clear answer to a question from a user. Therefore, we see more and more so-called “abstracts”, formerly known as ” featured snippets ‘.

Now that users are slowly discovering the convenience of voice search , it is more important than ever to provide short and accurate answers to questions that potential customers may have.

Google often draws from the same sources that were allowed to provide the featured fragments.

Voice search: throw some bait for Google

Again, Google prefers information from websites that radiate expertise, authority and trust.

Make it easy for Google by including a paragraph with a clear definition in about 40 to 60 words (research by SEMrush showed that the majority of snippets are this length). Exactly, a bit of bait for the search engine.

The FAQ structure (a short question and a short answer) also offers smart starting points to make your article, page or website appear high in the search results and to make the result stand out.

Example of this SEO tip

You help Google choose the right fragments by maintaining a good structure with subheadings (H2, H3) and by adding readable tables in your content.

6. Provide nice URLs

You still come across websites that contain ugly URLs or internet addresses. URLs with codes, question marks and other difficult to fathom information incorporated. I am mainly referring to the so-called slug : the part of the url that comes after the domain name.

URLs that are difficult to read cannot always be avoided, but often they can. If possible, provide short and simple URLs that people can type over in a manner of speaking. Strip the url of all unnecessary words and only mention the keyword including 1 or 2 other words.

Example of this SEO tip

Beautiful, easy to read and shareable URLs. I also use them on doyoucopy.nl (although they can often be a bit shorter, which is better according to SEO specialist Brian Dean). An example:

Pay special attention to the title

In addition to urls, you should also provide pleasant titles, also known as SEO titles, page titles or ‘ meta titles ‘. The title is the largest and most prominent part of your website listing on the search results page. (This is slightly different from the headline of your article or page.)

In fact, a good title is one of the most important SEO tips I want to give you. A title with the right keywords does not only attract search engines. A well-written title also seduces people.

And that is desperately needed at a time when Google increasingly provides the answer directly in the search engine (see the recommended excerpts above).

Your website page should be so enticing that people have to click through it.

A title must therefore stand out from all those other titles on the Google search results page.

These are the best tips for writing better SEO titles:

  • Include your primary keyword in the url, preferably somewhere in the front, for 45% more clicks ( Backlinko research ).
  • Use dates (‘the most important SEO tips of 2020’) to keep your titles looking current.
  • You can also use numbers to make them stand out more (“the 13 best tips”).
  • And you can use Magic Words that are a back door to the human brain. Well-known magic words are: Free, New and Discover.
  • A step-by-step plan , manual or guide are also attractive to people who are looking for an easy to follow solution to a specific problem.
  • Make sure your title intrigues , makes you curious .
  • Don’t be afraid to put emotion into your titles.
  • Finally, a final tip for a better SEO title : make it a smooth-running sentence instead of a string of keywords.

Example of this SEO tip

You can use numbers, a year, magic words, symbols or other tricks to really make your title stand out. I use them for both my clients and my own websites. Just look at this example where I made the title extra striking:

8. Seduce your visitors with the meta description

In addition to the title, you also have the description of your page (the so-called ‘ meta description ‘) at your disposal to seduce. 

The meta description is the first piece of ‘content’ of your website that people see when presented with the search results page. Not taking advantage of this is a missed opportunity.

In your meta description you have a little more space to attract visitors to your page. Here too you can use Magic Words . Don’t forget to mention the keywords again in the meta description and include a call-to-action or promise.

Together, the title and description of your page are the best SEO writing tips . If there is one thing that has a big impact on your SEO, it is these two.

For the simple reason that they make your potential customers click on your result in the search engine. Of course, you must then ensure that the promise you make on the page is also fulfilled.

Otherwise, those visitors will immediately click back into their browser and that is a bad signal.

Example of this SEO tip

Just look at what I have done at another website that I manage. Say for yourself, this meta description is almost impossible to resist, right? You can copy the striking green check marks (and loads of other emoji) from Emojipedia .

Pro tip: little effort, great fun. Write attractive meta descriptions for each page and you will definitely get a higher click-through rate.

9. Remove anything that slows down your page and you don’t necessarily need

Do you remember? How did we sometimes have to wait longer than a minute for a website to be fully loaded in the time of dialing in to your internet connection? Fortunately, those days are far behind us!

Now it’s all about speed. If your website is not fast enough, a competitor is quickly found. It makes sense that Google has included the speed of your website in the list of ranking factors.

Many bells and whistles can slow down your website considerably. So think carefully about what you need and what you don’t. Furthermore, you can speed up your website by optimizing your images and by using a CDN .

A first step towards a faster website can also be that you switch from budget hosting to a good hosting provider.

Useful tools to check if your website is fast enough include Google PageSpeed ​​Insights , WebPageTest.org and Pingdom Tools .

Example of this SEO tip

I kept the layout of this blog as simple as possible to make sure it doesn’t slow down too much. For that reason, I also removed Disqus as a reaction platform some time ago. Now the regular WordPress comment field is back below the articles.

By the way, my website could be a bit faster with an even more speedy WordPress theme. For now, I have increased the speed through mobile devices by also offering an AMP version .

10. Make your website look perfect on a mobile phone

Where until recently the starting point of a website was the desktop version from which the mobile version was derived, nowadays it is the other way around. The strategy that is based entirely on the mobile user is called ‘Mobile First’ .

There are still significant differences from site to site in mobile use. B2B sites (which include doyoucopy.nl) have more desktop traffic than B2C websites.

In general, you can say that about 60 to 70% of all visitors come via a mobile device. That means that your website just has to work nicely on a smartphone or tablet.

The buttons must be large enough and you must be able to read all text clearly. In addition, it is important that images and videos are shown properly. Be honest with yourself: is the mobile version a stripped-down version of the desktop website? Or is it a variant that stands firmly on its own?

Example of this SEO tip

The Dutch Railways used to have a mobile website: m.ns.nl. Do you remember? This was a stripped-down version of the desktop website. But the vast majority of people use the NS site on their mobile. Because they want to check (on the way) when their train leaves.

The NS website today looks perfect for mobile. The buttons are clear and everything works as it should (now that the trains are running on time again ).

11. Link to other websites with relevant content

Unfortunately, this SEO tip is all too often overlooked. But it is recommended by all authoritative SEO specialists. By regularly linking to related content with authority, you also make your own content more valuable.

You also give a signal to Google in which category the search engine should place your content. Finally, by linking to others you can obtain links back to your content in an accessible way. Because you can bet that they see in their statistics that you are sending traffic to them.

Of course you have to pay attention to what you do. A link from a sales page to your direct competitor may not be useful. But a link in a blog article to a consumer test or an interview in a newspaper is often a powerful link that will help you rank better in the search engines.

Pro tip: it also applies the other way around: a link to a weak or even spammy website can also harm your website.

Example of this SEO tip

In this article, I link myself to authoritative SEO sources: Neil Patel, Brian Dean, Yoast. By linking to these resources, which in Google’s view are well known for important search terms, I add more value to this article.

As a result, Google will ultimately appreciate this article better. What are the possible sources in your own field?

Create links to authoritative online resources (source: backlinko.com)

12. Link to your own related content

In addition to external links, internal links are also of great importance. Provide a good site structure where you know what your most important pages are (the so-called cornerstone content ). Where possible and relevant, link to this most important content on your website. This way you can point out to your visitors and Google what content you cannot miss on your website.

In addition to links to other relevant articles on your page, you can also link to content further down the article on the same page. This is especially useful if you are writing a long article, such as this article (see below under anchors in your text ).

Example of this SEO tip

In addition to manual links to other pages, you can also install a plugin that creates links to related content. This way you let visitors view more pages of your website and they stay longer. This is beneficial for both your appreciation by Google and the building of your brand.

13. Invite other websites to link to you

It’s true. Backlinks from trusted websites to your website are still one of the most important ways to secure a top ranking in Google.

But you already knew: it is not easy to collect good links. That costs blood, sweat and tears. Yet that is precisely what you should pay attention to.

An overview of some clever ways to get high quality backlinks to your own site can be found in this blog post from SEO specialist Brian Dean .

Some of the successful link building methods that Brian suggests (so this isn’t like most link builders do!):

  • The Skyscraper tactic, where you make the current search results for your term much better and more extensive.
  • Sign up as a resource for journalists (in the English-speaking world they have HARO – Help A Reporter Out , but unfortunately I haven’t seen a good Dutch alternative yet).
  • Go after dead links and report them to the website administrator: the idea is that you then pitch your own website as an alternative.
  • Ask administrators who have unsolicited text or images taken from your website (that happens all the time, believe me) to link to you as the source.

Example of this SEO tip

With my articles on doyoucopy.nl I managed to obtain some interesting links. All the more reason for you to finally get started blogging next year !

Checklist: regularly send an interesting and newsworthy press release to professional media in order to get links to relevant content on your website in a ‘natural way’.

Other ways to get links are by conducting research or by taking and publishing photos and infographics about your topic.

Finally, don’t underestimate the power of comments on other people’s articles. This way you can easily focus attention on your blog or website.

14. Use text, images, infographics, videos …

Good content is of course more than just text. Much more. Earlier I talked about images that you should optimize. But you actually have to enrich your articles even further with other forms of content.

This is how best to use quotes, infographics, videos, social media and all kinds of resources in your article to make it a truly valuable resource.

This not only makes your blog post appear longer and more impressive and you make it more visually interesting, but it also really adds value. Especially with videos you can significantly increase the time that visitors stay on your page.

It is best if you can create infographics and other materials that others can take over (where they should link to your website), but you can also use media that you find elsewhere on the internet.

Example of this SEO tip

For an example of this SEO tip, just scroll through this blog article! And also take a look at this infographic from Backlinko (you will also find some of the tips from this article):

15. Make sure you have (and keep) insight into the statistics of your website

If you have no insight into the statistics of the website, you cannot actually make well-founded choices for improvements.

All major SEO improvements you want to make to your website start with an excellent understanding of which pages are doing well in terms of visitors, time on the page and bounce rate . And this is precisely different for every website.

Do you not yet have reliable data on which to base your conclusions? Then I advise you to add the Google Analytics code as soon as possible.

Example of this SEO tip

Thanks to the statistics from Google Analytics, I know, for example, that my website does best during office hours. But I also know which blog articles are popular and which content is languishing.

16. Add lists and headings

Do you see that this article is one big list? Fortunately, I also added several lists and subheadings, otherwise it would have become quite unreadable.

By including lists in the article and adding headlines with the most important keywords to the article, I make it a lot more attractive to both people and search engines.

Pro Tip: Make sure you have enough white space and try to keep attention through attractive layout and cleverly placed images.

Example of this SEO tip

Below you can see an example of my Italy blog. I use plenty of white space, subheadings, bold text and lists. That breaks up the text a bit and makes the article nice and readable. People and search engines love that.

17. Provide anchors in your text

An anchor or – in English –  anchor  is a link to a place on the same page or in the same document. These anchor links are useful to the user as you can use them as a table of contents.

You can see an example of such a table of contents at the top of this article. A visitor can view the table of contents and scan whether there is an interesting topic that he or she wants to read immediately.

Without such a table of contents, a visitor sees the article and can decide to leave because it is too much text. Ideally, he will save the article through Pocket for later reading. 

In the worst case, it never comes back and the visitor turns into a bounce , which is not good for your ranking in the search results.

But there is another advantage to using anchors . And that of course depends on the first advantage. Because what is good for the user is good for the search engines. These links on the same page are regularly shown by Google in the search results as so-called  sitelinks. 

Below the standard search result, another list of links appears that the user can click on to go directly to that section on the page. It goes without saying that these sitelinks make the search result stand out, resulting in a higher CTR .

A big, cool SEO tip!

Pro tip: You can create a table of contents manually, but it works as fast if you use the plugin Table of Contents Plus (TOC +) for WordPress. All headings of your paragraphs will then automatically appear in a neat list with links above the first subhead of your article.

Example of this SEO tip

For example, the sitelinks in action can be seen in this excerpt from the Google search results page. Google has taken the anchor texts from my article about writing a monster blog and shows them in the search result.

18. Search intent: write for people, not search engines

In addition to providing truly valuable content and Expertise, Authoritativeness and Thrustworthiness in 2020 and beyond , this SEO tip is probably the most important.

After all, you don’t write for a machine, but for a person of flesh and blood. You want your texts to solve something , to evoke something , to encourage action . That they really are a valuable addition to your website.

Texts that are only written to attract as many visitors as possible are of no use to you in the long term. Unless it is a first step towards a purchase .

In 2020 it is therefore more than ever about search intent . What exactly does the user want with his search query?

Sometimes that is immediately clear. If someone searches for ‘copywriter rates’, he wants to get an idea of ​​what it costs to hire a copywriter.

The most obvious and helpful content in this case is a clear table with rates for different copywriting services.

But what exactly does he want when he searches for ‘copywriter’? Does he want to know what the term means? Would he perhaps want information about the copywriter profession? Or does he still want to hire a copywriter?

It is immediately clear when someone searches for ‘buy watch’. And even more clearly if someone searches for ‘buy gold watch Cartier’. But what if the search term is just ‘watch’?

And when someone googles ‘houses’, what does he mean? Does he want to buy a house? Is he looking for information about the municipality of Huizen?

With thorough research into competition and keywords, you can find out what your potential customers really want.

Google not only sees a search term, but it increasingly knows what the search intention (buy, navigate, information) of the user is. Based on previous searches, for example. But also based on what others have searched for and what they clicked on.

And Google only wants the very best results.

That is still the business model of Google: the best result for the user (otherwise we would all be using Bing in no time!).

So especially as a person, look at what you write and have written. Be honest:

  • Does it match the user’s search intent?
  • Is your content the best content available in this area?
  • Would you be happy if you found your content?

You can make it easy for your website visitors and yourself by asking a short question via a tool like Hotjar (‘were you looking for this?’).

Your goal is to fully match the search intent of your potential customers with the content you create.

Pro Tip: See what’s on the first page in Google for the search term that is important to you. Analyze the results: are they mainly manuals, are they lists, are they personal blogs, are they examples? Chances are that you will meet the search intent if you cast your article in the same shape.

Example of this SEO tip

While doing keyword research, I discovered that there is a relatively large amount of search traffic on the combination of ‘vision’ and ‘mission’. While there were many sites that gave a definition of these concepts, few sites gave concrete examples. Or just the examples that everyone knows.

When I did more research, I discovered that users mainly want to get examples of good missions and visions.

I am making an article to which I added a large number of examples of missions and visions . That article managed to climb to the top echelons of the search engine in a short time.

Pro Tip: Take a critical look at older articles on your website that scored well in the past, but have now slumped in the rankings. Could the article be less responsive to the user’s intent? With a few small changes you can get the article back on the first page in Google!

Conclusion: Best SEO Tips in 2020

If you’ve gone through the list above, you’ll agree that the entire SEO world has shifted from quantity to quality in recent years .

Just think: what was the last time you clicked through to page 2 in Google? According to recent studies, less than 1% clicks through to page 2 . Essential to obtain a position on the first page.

Especially since the trend seems to have seen even more clicks on the first few search results in recent months, as shown by recent CTR data from Advanced Web Ranking.

Trend: higher CTRs at a number 1 position (source: advancedwebranking.com)

Today it’s all about – in the words of Google itself –  Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness (EAT).

Clearly, building an expert , authoritative and reliable brand takes time and money. There are no real short cuts anymore.

Maybe bad news for those looking to get a quick hit with some SEO tricks. Building a brand on the internet is exactly what it has always been in the offline world: a slow and laborious process.

But the good news, of course, is that once you conquer the hearts and minds of your target audience, you can hardly be beaten out of Google’s top positions.

So:

  • Rather a few blog articles on your website that contain a lot of information and are useful ( monster blogs) than hundreds of blogs of which there are already so many on the internet.
  • Better to invest (in time, effort and / or money) in a single, high-quality backlink than 1,000 backlinks from dubious home pages or moribund blogs.
  • Make sure that you become the authority in your field (or a niche thereof) through your blog articles and the other content on your website.
  • Always do keyword research before writing new content , but don’t focus on a single keyword for a page.
  • Use a smart SEO tool like KWFinder to come up with the best new content ideas that will drive your website into results.
  • Correct or remove content that does not meet the highest quality guidelines (be extra critical of your own content!).
  • Your site itself just has to work well, look well-organized, be pleasant to navigate and be super fast (think:  mobile first ! ).
  • Create content with expertise, authority and trust. If necessary, hire knowledge and expertise that you do not have.

If you follow all of the above SEO tips, I guarantee that you will create better content that attracts more visitors , ensures more conversion and ultimately improves your results spectacularly .

Sources: neilpatel.com , backlinko.com , yoast.com , moz.com , semrush.com , Photos: Pixabay and Unsplash.

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write articles for SEO
SEO

Do you write articles for SEO?

by admin
written by admin

How many times have you read an article on the Internet that was so paraphrased that you did not enjoy reading it? 

And introducing a certain number of keywords is the obsession of most people who write an article aimed at getting a certain positioning. 

Additionally, it is true that until a while ago it was very common to discover websites with poor or low quality content, over-optimized, duplicated and even with spelling errors. 

With the emergence of the Google Panda algorithm, SEO soon realized that one of the keys to appearing in the top positions of the search engines and what’s more, avoiding penalties, was content quality, original generation, updated and above all natural. A unique and valuable content for the user, able to provide an optimal answer to their questions.

In short, it is about writing articles that think of the user and not the search engines, that is, generating a unique content that adds value to the reader and is useful. Hence, common sense and naturalness are important aspects of writing good SEO content. Of course, we always have to take into account a number of technical aspects that decisively influence the positioning.

 Do you want to know what they are? We are going to tell you!

Tips for writing content for SEO

Consider your target audience

What is the type of your website? 

Depending on your site, you have one target audience or another. It is not the same to write content for an online store, where you will mainly talk about the descriptions and benefits of the products with a language aimed at sales, than a corporate website aimed at executives or commercials. The language, style and tone of the communication is different in each of the examples presented and, depending on this, we have to write our content.

Provide the volume and structure of the keywords

The user experience on a website has become increasingly important and texts that often repeat certain terms do not produce a pleasant experience.”

The keywords should appear in the text, but in a logical and structured way. In addition, it is essential to include the keywords at the top because it is when the most relevant information is told and ultimately what, how, when, where and why of the topic is resolved. Of course, varying the wording to make reading more dynamic and enjoyable.

One way to avoid repeating the keywords is to use semantic text , that is, to include synonyms for a keyword or variations on it, as is the case with medium or long keywords. For example, if our site is a pet store and the keyword to be placed on one of the pages is “small dog food” you can use terms like “small dog food”, “puppy food”, “buy puppy food” or “natural dog food “

Tips for writing an article that positions

Creating original, quality and attractive content for search engines is not always easy. Therefore, it is essential to take into account a number of technical aspects that influence positioning.

Here are some tips to optimize it:

Text optimization

  • Forget about SEO! The content should target the users and not the search engine. After all, they are the ones who read you and so it is essential to generate content that adds value.
  • Choose an eye-catching title: the title of the article is an important weapon to get the attention and interest of the user it is important that it is attractive and, what’s more, that it includes the keyword for which we are going to position that specific article .
  • Write original and relevant content: Sometimes we don’t know what to write about or how to focus on what we want to convey. In this case, it is advisable to visit different sources to get information, but never copy and paste as this is considered plagiarism and Google may punish us, be unique! In addition, it is essential to use bold letters to highlight the most important ones. For example, we can make the keyword bold.
  • Get the extension: The theory that a long text will position better, while true, can cause confusion. The optimal length for a text is simply that you have to cover a topic in depth and therefore generate a good user experience . That is, let the reader answer your questions and don’t have to search for information on other websites. Therefore, avoid the nonsense content that doesn’t add value and choose to write qualitative and meaningful texts that offer relevant and novelty. Don’t get obsessed with keywords!
  • Follow a structure: Although it may seem obvious, the use of header tags H1, H2, H3, H4… is a fundamental aspect to organize and structure the content. In addition, it is a way of showing Google the relevance of the content and thus defining the different sections and sub-sections of the article.
  • It contains internal and external links: it is essential to link from the article itself to the various sections or pages of the website itself, as well as external links to other authoritative websites.
  • Check and view !: Before publishing the content, check that the text is free of errors and that the links are working correctly.

Image optimization

When generating content, it is useful to use images or infographics because the presence of graphic elements encourages pleasant and dynamic reading. However, they must be properly optimized for search engines.

The aspects to consider for image optimization are:

  • Include alternate ALT text in the images. It’s how Google recognizes the image and relates it to its context.
  • All images must have a file name that describes it, otherwise the search engines will not know what it is.
  • Use the keyword in the file name and ALT in the alternative text.
  • Use high quality images. If they weigh too much and can slow page load time, we recommend compressing them before uploading to the CMS.
  • Separate the words of the picture name with dashes.
  • It is essential to choose a compressed format. For example, upload images in JPEG or PNG format.
  • Includes a caption for each image. It is a very useful option for search engines to relate the image to the content of the article.

What Should We Avoid When Writing SEO Content?

Just as important is knowing both what to do and what to avoid. That’s why we’ve listed some of the prohibited practices when writing SEO articles:

  • Keyword Stuffing: This practice refers to the misuse and unnatural use of a keyword throughout the text to gain a better ranking in the search engines. It generates a bad user experience and therefore it is a practice that can be penalized by Google.
  • Duplicate content: the content must be unique, fresh and relevant to the user. Hence, it is more than prohibited to include content that has been copied from other websites or generated automatically.
  • Plain text: The organization and structuring of content is just as important to the user as it is to Google. Therefore, avoid including plain text blocks and long paragraphs that make reading difficult. In addition, as we noted earlier, it includes H1 and H2 header tags.
  • Thin content: The thin content refers to the short, poor or poor quality content that does not add value to the user. Avoid it!

As you can see, there are many important techniques and aspects to consider when writing content for SEO. However, the important thing is to always keep in mind who your target audience is in order to generate quality content that adds value. 

We hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions or just want to share more tips with our advice on writing SEO articles , get in touch. We’ll be happy to read your comments!

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Writing SEO Texts
SEO

Writing SEO Texts With a Focus on More Customers

by admin
written by admin

When you write SEO texts, you want to score in Google, right?

In this article you will discover the latest SEO copywriting techniques.

The techniques with which we sent more than 27,769 visitors to the website every month in April 2018 and increased them to 38,555 visitors in November 2019. That is more than 120,000 extra visitors per year .View the visitor numbers

You will also discover THE SEO technique  for scoring on hundreds of keywords at the same time, with only 1 page:Check out the example

Before you touch your keyboard and write your next SEO text, I recommend that you be patient until you’ve read and discovered this complete article:

  • What is the easiest optimization strategy (not used by others)
  • How many keywords your SEO text really needs
  • How to write SEO texts with the focus on your customers
  • How to score on hundreds of keywords simultaneously with the TMZ method

Are you ready for these tips for better SEO texts and more?
Read on quick.

Before you start with your SEO text …

Are you writing for Google? Or do you want to achieve a completely different goal with your search engine friendly text?

Although it is important that your web text is well optimized so that Google gives you the best position , the most important thing about an SEO text is not what Google wants, but…

What your customers want.

Before we move on to the most important elements to make your web texts search engine friendly, I would like to discuss your customers together.

To ensure that your energy and time is rewarded and that your texts not only get a nice position in Google, but also actually generate customers, I want to reflect on your needs group.

“My need group?”

Yes, this is a group that is put together by getting deep into the brain of your customers. It’s like a kind of focus that goes deeper than a target audience or buying persona.

Why a needs group is important to your success in Google

Composing a needs group is a difficult task. A need group goes much further than a target group. If you want to clearly map out your needs group, ask yourself the following questions:

  • What result does my product or service offer?
  • Who are looking for that result?
  • What situation are my customers in before they feel the need for that result?
  • What problem do people have that they are looking for a solution for?
  • What’s the real need behind that problem?

Before you start writing SEO texts, I advise you to first map out your needs group.

Believe me, this is a very determining factor for your success.

Smart SEO copywriting is, in my opinion, not aimed at Google, but at your customers.

Now let’s look at how we find out your needs group.

Create your needs group and find out the buy button of your customers

So, and …

Is your needs group clear?

Have you mapped the buy button of your customers?

I know you are eager to start actually writing your SEO content.

Have a little patience.

Believe me, this patience will be richly rewarded.

Before we continue, I would like to get rid of some clichés and myths. This ensures that you finally get answers to all those questions you still have and …

You will finally know what DOES and especially what does NOT work.

To start, let’s answer the pressing question everyone has: How many keywords are needed for the perfect SEO text?

How many keywords does an SEO text need?

Writing SEO texts is more than combining a number of keywords in the hope that you will be found well. If you want to score well with your SEO text, you need to speak the language of your customers.

Sounds like a cliché?

Perhaps. Yet I still see web texts that are stuffed with keywords and then also the wrong keywords.

And…

I am regularly asked how often your keyword should appear in the text to ultimately score well.

Of course you want to take into account the keywords that are often searched for and you want to be found with your text on as many keywords as possible.

But…

Is that an invitation to stuff your text with keywords?

Believe me, there is a better way.

Focus on your customer. Write for your visitor, optimize for Google.

I will explain everything to you exactly how you do that. But before we can start optimizing, we first need the right keywords.

How do you find the right keywords for your SEO text?

Google is the only one that has keyword data. That’s why everyone starts with Google’s keyword planner or another similar keyword tool.

Google has valuable data, but not the right data for your SEO text.

The only one who has that data is you.

Use your common sense.

No matter how well those keyword tools work, you can do much better with your creativity and industry knowledge.

Try it.

Think about all the possible problems your customer faces. Consider your needs group and use common sense first.

A keyword tool is a great tool, but trust me, you can do it better. Make sure you focus on quality and finding the best and brightest keywords.

How do you find the best and smartest keywords?

Let me give you one more example to show you that you should always use common sense.

Suppose you sell razors.

Which keyword do you want to be found on?

Shave?

keyword-shave

Shaver?

keyword shaver

Both seem like a smart choice.

Shaving that is searched for 1,900 times a month and Shaver that is searched for almost 16,000 times a month.

Which keyword should you choose best?

I hope you don’t make a choice at all.

The real smart guy chooses a different keyword.

A keyword where everything becomes clear at once …

A keyword that makes visitors buy.

If you want to write smart SEO texts, use the right keywords. Choose a smarter strategy than your competitor, score easily and get a lot more visitors ready to buy.

SEO text that is smarter than your competitor

If you’ve already set a goal for your web copy and you’ve had the patience to save yourself from the myths and common mistakes, you’re already doing it smarter than your competitor.

But…

We will go a few steps further.

After all, you don’t want to compete, but dominate.

However?

How do you Dominate in Google?

By being smarter than others.

How are you smarter?

Think about your customers and use the best tool you have: your common sense.

Suppose I order you to sell vegetables. You can place your booth in one of three different places:

  1. The market, with five other vegetable stalls.
  2. A health fair where they talk about the effect of eating vegetables on your health.
  3. The Amsterdam Arena during an Ajax vs Feyenoord football match.

Where do you want to be?

At the stadium, where thousands of visitors walk?

In the monthly market?

Or would you rather speak to your customers at the health fair?

I hope you’ll agree that you’ll sell most of the vegetables (in all probability) at the health fair.

Why?

You may get fewer visitors to your booth, but the visitors you get are at least visitors who are interested in the theme of your product and you have fewer competitors.

While it all sounds very logical, it seems like we approach it very differently online.

Instead of looking at where we can best place our booth, we choose the place that attracts the most visitors.

Because …

A lot of visitors means a lot of customers.

Because many of your competitors have that thought and opt for the masses, there are opportunities for you.

Great opportunities.

For example, there are always holes to be found on the internet.

Places where your booth might get fewer passers-by, but just as many customers.

Sounds good?

Then let’s see how we find the holes in the market.

A keyword market research that beats your competitors

If you want to be found in Google in this time, you must also adhere to the rules that currently apply.

SEO has not been what it used to be for years. And since the Google Hummingbird and Rankbrain, the game has (finally) really changed.

RankBrain is used by Google to better understand search queries. The RankBrain also helps in determining the place that your SEO text will soon receive.

Search engines use hundreds of signals that are put together in an algorithm.

This algorithm weighs the information and factors and then determines which website deserves the best position.

Previously, the keywords, technical aspects and especially the backlinks were important for your position.

Nowadays an important factor has been added.

The relevance.

How does Google determine relevance?

Where Google used to look at the keywords, nowadays it looks at the intention and relevance.

What does the seeker mean?

What information is this person really looking for?

Google will use more and more data for this. Think of your search history, the information in your Google account and the experiences on the page of other searchers.

Determining the relevance of your SEO text with the information sought by the searcher is a learning process and Google will keep getting better at this.

As difficult as this may sound now, there is a huge benefit behind all these changes.

There are opportunities for the taking that even Google hasn’t even found yet.

Millions of unknown keywords per day

Fifteen percent of all searches are unknown even to Google. That means that more than 450 million keywords are used per day that Google has never seen.

If Google has never seen these kinds of keywords, it has therefore not yet mapped search volume.

If you do not use your common sense, but just like everyone else a few keyword tools for your market research, you will miss enormous opportunities.

What are the consequences of all Google Updates for your SEO texts?

Google is finally smart enough and will only get smarter to value a text instead of using the number of keywords or backlinks scored .

Google understands that a piece of wood for nails is the same as a hammer, or a yellow protection for your head is the same as a construction helmet.

Is this the end of the keyword era?

Not yet, although you will no longer get away with a few simple keyword research.

The better you map the market and speak the language of your customers, the better (and easier) you will score in Google.

What are other useful techniques to find the right keywords for your SEO texts?

Stealing keywords from your competitors

Great when others have done all the work for you. There are several ways to find out your competitors’ keywords. Later I will teach you how to strategically incorporate keywords into your web texts.

First, let’s see how to steal your competitors’ keywords.

If you want to use the keywords of your competitors for your keyword research, you will achieve this in three steps:

  1. List the top 10 in Google that rank for the keyword your SEO text is about.
  2. Research the relevance of the websites.
  3. Export the keywords and complete your own research.

Are you ready for it?

Let’s start by making a top 10 .

Make a top 10 in Google

Enter the main keyword (seed keyword) in Google that you would like to be found on. For this text I can enter ‘SEO text’ or ‘write SEO texts’ in Google, for example.

View all pages that are already in the top 10.

If you come across interesting keywords, copy them to a notepad or a Word file. You can investigate this further later.

Also copy all URLS from the websites so that you can use them for the next step.

Discover the keywords of your competitors

Go to SemRush or Ahrefs and paste the link of the website you want to analyze.

Do you see that this page scores on 68 keywords?

Do this with all of your competitors’ pages and make sure to export each result so that you end up with a complete database of keywords.

Have you identified the keywords of your competitors? Then go one step further.
Believe me, the more research you do, the better the result will be.

Have you stolen your competitors’ keywords? Then research the voice commands in Google to take into account the Voice Search SEO.

A keyword voice search (SEO) research

The rise of voice search is increasing at a rapid pace.

Thanks to the virtual assistants such as GoogleNow, Siri and Cortana, we have been used to talking to our mobile phone without anyone on the other end of the line for a long time.

The share of voice search searches continues to increase and voice search has now managed to conquer a 10% share of the global search volume.

That equates to 50 trillion searches per month.

This way of searching also means that we have to use new ways to optimize our texts.

I will give you some tips later on how to optimize your texts for voice search. First, let’s see how you can easily find out the voice search keywords.

How do you find out the voice search searches?

First of all, of course, you use your common sense. You know your industry best. Write down as many questions as possible that your customers have. What do they want to know? What questions do they have? What problems do they run into?

Have you already made a nice list yourself?

Then use the following keyword programs to further supplement your keyword list.

Keyword Programs for Voice Search Keywords

Use Answer the Public

Use Keywordtool.io

Have you made a nice list?

How do you choose the right keywords for your SEO text?

How do you choose the best keywords for your web texts?

Before you can make a choice for the best keyword, you first need the right information.

When you look at your keywords, what would you most like to know about them? If you ask me, you want to get at least an answer to the following questions:

  • How often are they searched?
  • What is the intention to buy?
  • How strong is the competition?

How do I find out the search volume of a keyword?

You can use numerous keyword programs to find out the keyword’s search volume. Whatever program you use, all data comes from Google.

Google is the only one who knows the search volume, so why not use the program from Google directly?

To use Google’s Keyword Planner you need a google ads account. 

Discover the buying intent of your keywords

Now I have already revealed that with your common sense, you will leave most SEO gurus and competitors behind. Yet there is one more step that determines whether you will really succeed with your Google-friendly texts.

The one piece that is so important to your marketing: the customers.

When I started around nineteen, I had numerous websites (for affiliate marketing ) that generated more than 40,000 visitors per month.

What did I earn?

A few hundred Dollars a month.

Yes, I got a lot of visitors. Only on the wrong keywords.

What matters to me is that you want to use keywords that are searched for. But this is not the most important. The most important thing is that you will soon get more customers.

How are you doing this?

A – Use the words that turn visitors into customers

Keywords that generate extra sales can be divided into two categories. Where possible, add extra words to your existing keywords to give them extra sales power.

Which words can you add?

B – Steal and learn from advertisers and use the best keywords

Suppose you pay eight euros per click. This means that each visitor costs you eight euros. When is this strategy effective?

If you earn more than eight euros per visitor.

Now we can test and map how much you earn per visitor. But why not just use the data that is already available?

To see what an advertiser is willing to pay per click, look in your Google Keyword Planner for the ‘suggested bid’.

You see that an advertiser wants to pay an average of just under four euros per click for the keyword ‘SEO texts’. Are they all stupid advertisers, or is this keyword apparently generating sales?

Keep using your common sense, but also keep learning (from others).

We are getting closer to actually writing, later you will discover how and where you place the keywords in your texts so that Google gives you that one beautiful spot.

But…

Before we can choose which keywords to target, we miss the last step: the competition.

How do I find out the competition for my keywords?

You want your web texts to be found well, so it is wise to take the competition into account. But……

Often it means that if a keyword has little competition, it is a keyword that you should skip. How do you find the best keywords and how do you find out about the competition?

The most important element that you can optimize for a good position in Google is the title of your page.

I will explain everything to you later on exactly how you do that.

If you find out how many websites in Google’s database have your keyword in their title, this gives you a good indication of how strong your competition is.

To find out the competition based on title, use the following search term in Google allintitle: your keyword.

We have developed a complete formula ourselves to map the difficulty score of a specific keyword. The difficulty score shows you exactly how difficult it will be for you to be found for that keyword.

To map this score, we look at all important factors:

  • How well are the pages of your competitors optimized;
  • How much link value has the page built up;
  • How many on-page optimization elements do they apply;
  • How much link value has a complete domain built up.

All these factors give a certain score and this together determines the difficulty score.

Before we start writing for SEO or even the optimization of a website, we first create a keyword success scheme.

This scheme contains numerous handy filters and all the necessary data to make strategic choices.

Now you can of course also follow the SEO Tips to collect even more data.

We have now done all the preliminary work. The time has finally come.

We will start writing and optimizing your texts.

Are you ready for it?

Let’s start.

How do you write the perfect SEO text?

What makes normal website text SEO text? How do you ensure that your text is found properly in Google? How often do you have to name a keyword? Are 2000 words really necessary to be found correctly? How do you make sure you do everything right while Google keeps changing?

We’re going to cover it all.

In this chapter you will discover the most important optimization techniques that will take you higher in Google.

The most important elements to score well in Google

Although many SEO copywriters and SEO consultants speculate that there are 200 factors that determine whether you will score well with your website, in practice we see that the following elements are especially important:

  • A search engine friendly and catchy title
  • A sharp meta description
  • Tantalizing SEO Headlines

A catchy SEO title

When a searcher places a search query in Google, he will be presented with different search results. Hopefully your website will be among those search results. How does the searcher determine which search result he / she clicks on?

Do you want more visitors and score higher in Google?

Then let visitors click.

Always include your most important keyword in your SEO title, but also pay attention to the click behavior of your searcher.

Make sure your title is catchy and that you invite searchers to click on your website.

This has two main reasons.

  • If the searchers don’t click, you won’t get any visitors
  • If the searchers do click, Google increases you

Increasing your website because visitors click on your website has everything to do with CTR.

What is CTR and why is it important to the success of your SEO text?

CTR stands for the Click Through Rate, the percentage that clicks through from the search results to your website.

The higher the CTR (so the more people click on your website), the more Google is convinced that you have the best information for the searcher.

If the user statistics show that your website is rated the most, what do you think Google is doing?

Exactly. It will rank you higher in Google.

How do you find out your CTR in Google?

Open Google Search Console . Click on search traffic> Search analysis and check the CTR option.

How do you increase the CTR in Google?

A better position in Google does not always mean that you also get more visitors.

Visitors still have to click first.

How do you ensure that searchers click and increase your CTR?

Provide the following parts:

  • A powerful and catchy SEO Title
  • A smart meta description

Did you come up with the title and meta description? Then let’s take another look at the most important elements for good SEO text.

The most important elements to score well in Google

Do you remember them? These are the main elements:

  • A search engine friendly and catchy title
  • A sharp meta description
  • Tantalizing SEO Headlines

You’ve already read all about a search engine friendly title and a sharp meta description, now let’s see how to come up with tantalizing SEO headlines.

How do you make search engine friendly headlines?

The headings in your text determine the structure. Think of it as a book. A book also makes use of titles, chapters, sections and sub sections.

Make sure you use the correct structure in your SEO texts. To make your web texts Google-friendly, it is best to use a few keywords here and there in your headings.

For the SEO headings you have the choices between:

  • H1 – Very important (can only be used once)
  • H2 – Slightly less important
  • H3 – Slightly less important
  • H4,5,6, etc.

Make sure you include your most important keyword in your H1 headline and pay attention to the stimulus level. Again, you need to keep the attention of your visitors. This only works if you stimulate them with the right cups.

You can see the H2 headings as sort of chapters. The H3 and H4 etc are again intended for the paragraphs and sub-paragraphs.

So you can see that I have put the sentence “This is how you create the best SEO texts without robot language” in the H1. The “How to find the best keywords for your SEO text” in the H2 and “3 Useful Keyword Programs” in the H3.

By making clever use of the H1, H2 and H3 I link the different text blocks.

Suppose I described it differently.

By placing the “3 useful programs” in an H3, it is clear to both visitors and Google that this is about the H2 headline “How do you find the best keywords?”.

So think about a good structure for your SEO text and don’t put all your headlines in the H2 because they just happen to get more value from Google.

You have the correct title, meta description and now also determine the headings for your website texts.
Now it is all about the content. A much-discussed question when it comes to SEO copywriting is how many words to use now.

Let’s answer this question once and for all.

How many words do you need to get high in Google?

When it comes to SEO web copy, how long should the text be?

300 words …

500 words …

2,000 words?

NO!

Your web text only needs one length …

* Drumroll *

Your text becomes valuable because of the content, not the number of words. So how long should your text be?

As long as it takes.

For example, calculatehet.nl scores with a single 1 page on more than 1.4 thousand keywords. Keywords that are searched for more than 50,000 times per month on average.

The number of words?

120.

Do not write your web texts on the number of words, but on the added value for your visitor. And YES, the more value you add, the better your position in Google will become.

By writing your SEO texts as if everything depended on it, you automatically create a lot of value. Rather write a complete article in which you share all the value, instead of many small articles.

How do you write better SEO texts, with the right number of words? Write them for your visitors.

This way you write for a visitor and you will be found well

What is the language your visitor speaks, or rather what keywords are they using? What does your visitor type in to find your web text?

Sometimes the articles that people throw on the internet don’t make me feel good. Or worse, texts written by so-called SEO copywriters who understand your niche

Very nice when your text will soon be found well, but isn’t it much more important that you offer your visitors value?

Your visitors determine in less than two seconds whether they stay on your website.

A text that is purely aimed at SEO, and not on the informative value, will not only score badly with your visitors, but (ultimately) also in Google.

Google knows when an article offers no value to visitors. If you finally have a good position in Google with your SEO text and visitors return to Google within seconds (after they click on your website in the organic search results of Google), Google will not find any reason to give you any longer the position you have now.

All of this has to do with your Dwell Time . In my opinion, the Dwell Time is the most important (and the most forgotten) SEO factor that determines your position in Google.

A little further on the content.

Strong SEO text is more than a page full of words. A web text that is written for visitors and that is intended to get high in Google cannot make it with just words.

Writing for Google is not only done with text!

Good SEO text is more than just text. People who read texts on the screen are lazy and prefer to be entertained with additional media. Think of images , videos or possibly sound fragments .

The richer you make your text, the more valuable forms of information you add, the more it will be appreciated by both Google and your visitor.

Search relevant videos on YouTube, post figures or facts via the CBS surveys, or use Pexels and Pixabay to find beautiful images.

Also think about your design. Pay attention to the design and consider applying SEO not only to your blogs, but also to your landing pages .

You have now really mastered the basics of SEO writing. Now is the time for the advanced techniques.

Now it really starts to get fun.

In the next chapter, we’ll cover advanced SEO copywriting skills:

3 Advanced SEO Copywriting Skills

There are few things you can do for a higher position in Google that take as little time as the techniques I’m about to share with you now.

It is such a shame (and perhaps only better for you and me) that these techniques are used little or not at all.

Everyone is talking about keywords, backlinks, social media , google ads , but nobody is talking about your DT standard.

Funny, because it does determine your position in Google.

SEO copywriting technique 1: Writing for the DT Standard

SEO copywriting technique 2: Use the TMZ Method

SEO copywriting technique 3: The ATC Strategy

What should a new article yield for you? Why are you writing the text? Do you want to be found in Google? Attract thousands of visitors to your website? Beautiful!

But what do you want to do with these visitors?

  • Do they have to subscribe to your newsletter?
  • Tell all their friends on Facebook about your company?
  • Or buy your new online marketing course ?

Without asking yourself what exactly you want to achieve with your SEO texts, your text is useless in advance. You might as well not be able to write text without an ATC strategy.

An ATC strategy (Aim To Convert) determines what you want to achieve with your article. What should every visitor do after reading the text? And how are you going to ensure that?

With the ATC strategy.

Get more revenue from your SEO text

In the last step of your article, you think about the call to action. What do you want your visitors to do?

Do you want them to leave a comment, share your message on social media or buy your product or service?

End any SEO text with a follow up action. Think about what you want from your visitor. For example, use one of the five smart closing techniques.

5 Smart closing techniques for all your SEO texts

1. Opt-In Form

2. Leave a comment

3. Share on Social Media

4. Promote Product

5. A Combination

How do you promote your SEO texts?

For a better position in Google, Google must know that you have written SEO text. If your website has been around for a while and you have already built up some value, then your new SEO web text will reap the benefits.

If your website has not existed for very long or has not yet built up enough value, ensure that your text is well promoted. You do this by bringing your article to the attention of your network, other websites and influential people.

If you manage to be listed on other websites, you will experience that your cherry-reserve SEO text immediately shoots up in the search results.

You will learn how to easily bring every SEO text to the attention of thousands of potential customers without much time in the SEO training course .

In addition to promoting your SEO text on other websites, you can use your own website to vote yourself up.

How that works?

Read on and discover the power of internal link building.

SEO texts and the power of internal link building

Writing good SEO text takes time. Time that must be recouped. There are plenty of SEO hippies who say that writing good blogs is enough to rank well. Sorry, but your website needs value to rank well. Registering with the Chamber of Commerce is also not enough to get customers .

Good content alone is not enough.

If you put a lot of time into your web text, make sure you get everything out of it. How do you do that? Help your other web texts via internal links. Any web text can build values ​​and pass them to other web pages.

When you link to other pages while writing your SEO texts, you automatically pass on value. If your SEO text builds value in the future, it directly helps (via your internal links) to the complete findability of your website.

So.

You came all the way here. Time for a high five as far as I’m concerned.

You really got enough tips and techniques to write the best SEO texts and the best of all?

You read it to the end.

But…

Don’t leave yet. Do you really want results with your SEO text? Incorporate it into your online marketing strategy .

Including SEO texts in your online marketing mix

Many people who start with search engine optimization , in whatever form, sooner or later encounter the same problem: no desired results and a lack of discipline. And to be honest, I don’t think that’s surprising.

When I started with online marketing , all gurus drove me crazy. My savings and free time were spent on courses, books, seminars, training and a lot of testing. I have gone on my record often enough.

It has now been more than thirteen years since I started and I have read, heard and experienced enough.

Although I have learned a lot over time and luckily still do, I see many entrepreneurs making the same mistake.

Although I believe you can learn from anyone, I would like to warn you. Choose one strategy, work it out, give it time and persevere. Monitor your results via Google Analytics and see for yourself what works and what doesn’t.

Are you running out of time?

Then work more productively and don’t give up too quickly. Especially when you start writing SEO texts, you are in the danger zone.

Writing texts takes a lot of time and can cause some irritation. Especially when you are dealing with writer’s block .

Nevertheless, SEO texts can generate a lot of visitors and a lot of extra customers through the right strategy. Have I made you enthusiastic about writing SEO texts and do you not feel like taking thirteen years to collect all the knowledge?

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SEO PowerSuite
SEO

SEO PowerSuite: 5 Quick Ways to Get Results

by admin
written by admin

Digital marketing is a facet of marketing that you just can not ignore – and at its core is SEO. You are probably aware of the impact that a good SEO strategy can have on your brand, but as a marketer as a site owner, your focus is often elsewhere, and making SEO a consistent priority can be tricky. The solution is to use digital marketing software that is flexible, high-capacity and highly effective.

Enter SEO powersuite – a full repertoire of tools that is designed to create maximum SEO. In this post, we will reveal five ways you can use SEO PowerSuite to boost the SEO of your brand.

  1. Make sure you are available

If you want your site to be indexed and ranked effectively, it’s important to make it as easy as possible for Google to crawl your site and discover the content. With that in mind, page structure plays a vital role in indexing. Quite simply, websites with a logical structure are easier for search engines to crawl and rank.

With SEO PowerSuite you can determine the quality of the structure of your site. Several factors come into play – for example, important pages should be accessible from the home page, and blog posts should be interconnected as contextually relevant. You can use SEO PowerSuite’s WebSite Auditor SEO PowerSuite to check such articles.

Go just to the WebSite Auditor tool, and click on the section column pages department. See the column internal links to page column to identify which pages on your site have no internal links that point to her.

This will essentially provide you with a handy list of posts and pages for which you need to find ways to link to other areas of your site.

  1. Make sure you load crucial web pages fast enough

Website speed has a major impact on rankings for two reasons:

  1. Site speed is a ranking factor, which means slower web pages are generally slower.
  2. The speed of your site has a direct impact on the bounce rate.

Google and other search engines place a lot of meaning on signals for user experience. One such signal is bounce rate, which can be dramatically affected by the speed of the page – most people will only wait a few seconds (at most) for a page to load before jumping.

With WebSite Auditor you can identify which pages are slowly loading on your website. Visit the WebSite Auditor Tool Page Audit module, and check the Page Speed ​​section to see if your pages pass Google’s speed tests:

Once you have identified which pages are loading slowly, you can take steps to resolve the issues .

  1. Check Penalty Risk for link

Low quality links can risk your site from a Google penalty, which in terms of SEO is your worst nightmare. If you want to avoid a Google penalty, you need to be able to detect malicious links and take steps to neutralize them.

With SEO PowerSuite’s SEO SpyGlass , you can automatically detect malicious links in your backlink profile and avoid Google’s fines.

All you have to do is go to the SEO SpyGlass tool and enter the domain of your site. Then go to the Link Penalty tab and click on the Backlinks section, which can be found on the left. There you get access to an abundance of vital stats, including the ‘penalty risk’ for your entire domain.

Below is a quick test for the Martech Zone, As you can see, there is hardly any penalty risk, well done!

Best of all, you can control the penalty risk for your links in just one click. So, if it is now for individual links as a group of backlinks, you can see your penalty risk with the push of a button.

  1. Run a test for mobile friendliness

As mobile searches begin to match the number of searches on the desktop, mobile friendliness has now become a small ranking factor for Google and other search engines. In other words, if your site is not optimized for mobile, it can negatively affect your rank (not to mention the user experience).

You can use WebSite Auditor to perform a mobile-friendly test on your website to verify that it meets Google’s standards. If your site fails the test, you will receive tips on how to make your site mobile-optimized – for example, the reader does not need to zoom in or scroll over on their mobile device to read the content of your page .

Go to the Site Audit section of the WebSite Auditor tool to check your site.

If your site does not score favorably, the most likely solution is to redesign your website to be responsive (if it is not already). Investing in design – especially mobile-friendly design – can pay dividends in SEO results.

  1. Perform a site check

There may be critical issues with your website that you simply are not aware of, or do not have time to diagnose yourself. These can affect the authority and ranking of your site. With SEO powersuite you can access tools, such as the Tool for that all major problems with your site all the major problems with your site automatically can solve that all major problems with your site automatically can solve tools, that all major problems with your site can determine automatically. Auditsite

Perform an in-depth site check , open the WebSite Auditor app, and start a scan of your website using the Site Audit tool:

This tool automatically detects any technical issues that may lower your rankings, teaches you how to resolve issues, and notifies you of issues on the site. It’s pretty powerful stuff.

SEO has such a huge impact on your brand that it is hard to ignore. However, if you are struggling to prioritize your SEO campaign, check out the arsenal of effective SEO PowerSuite tools.

They streamline the process of SEO, making it much easier and faster for you to identify issues that your site has, and can ultimately help you maximize your site’s ranking.

With SEO PowerSuite you can

  1. Make sure your site is optimally structured
  2. Make sure your website loads quickly
  3. Check your sites backlink penalty risk
  4. Run a mobile friendliness test
  5. Perform a full page check

In reality, we have just touched on the tip of the iceberg in this article, but the above should be enough for you to continue! You can download SEO PowerSuite for free on our official website.

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SEO

How Your Web Design Affects Your SEO

by admin
written by admin

SEO has many hidden factors, it is not all just great content and outreach for backlinks.

One of the most overlooked is the relationship between web design and SEO.

If you are not on top of things, you will find yourself waking up to a Google penalty.

Instead of just hoping, take a page from our book. If you want to understand the relationship between design and your SEO then you have come to the right place. Read on and we will split it so you can avoid fines in the future.

What factors take design into account?

The main focus for most people who engage in SEO is through on and off page SEO. The former takes the form of the content you have attached  to the site while the latter mainly consists of link building efforts.

The third factor is called  technical SEO. The factors include things like being mobile friendly, having a fast website, and various analytical factors.

This can be divided into two categories: analysis of user experience and true technical factors.

UX Analytics

One of the main SEO factors that Google takes into account is the “bounce rate” of your website , A jump occurs when someone brings your page and then leaves immediately.

Chances are good that you recently clicked on a result and the website that appeared was so cluttered that you did not even bother. reach design is one of the biggest trust factors behind a website. As surveyed 94% of people who distrust a website said that web design was a primary driver behind that decision.

A bad website probably also has a low “time-on-site” measurement. Google keeps track of how long people are browsing your website and their SEO analytics.

Building a great user experience can be time consuming, but it will pay off with a higher ranking. The most important ingredient for creating that experience is a heavy Fokje on the design of your site.

Technical factors

There are other obstacles to overcome.

For example, infinite scroll is currently a common element of design , many users’re sure, they do not need to the next page, click in order to get more information.

It also breaks away from the traditional website structure, which immediately raises a red flag with Google. Add in that your keywords are all grouped on one page instead of scattered and it is a loser if you do not structure it carefully.

Fancy design looks great, but it can also increase load times.

Studies show that a charging period of three seconds allows you to increase bounce rate by 32% , Six seconds charging will more than double the number of people leaving immediately. Actual loading speed is another factor taken in by Google, so you will probably take a double hit when you overload the site.

Other bugs do not include proper use of title as subhead tags , not optimizing your meta descriptions, and using too much foreign coding.

Design balance for SEO purposes

The biggest hit that most websites take over design is producing a bad user experience.

Google’s bottom line is not about you, it’s about the people entering the searches.

SEO has come a long way since the beginning. Keyword stuffing and strange tactics to hide things were once the way to go to rank. Then configure networks of links through shady means. Google has been constantly working to eradicate this tactic and has made some progress.

The goal has always been the same for Google: they want searchers to find exactly what they are looking for.

Your web design should focus on creating the best user experience possible, as well as the cost.

Clean design

Information overload is a serious problem for websites. Usually it comes from the webmaster who decides to jam in too many ads on one page.

People avoid making their websites look clean and an abundance of banner ads and other advertisements can drive people away quickly.

Avoid pop-ups as much as possible. They have a nasty reputation among web users and anything more than a simple opt- in form for your email list will hurt you in the long run.

Look at each element you add to your careful design for best results. Think of yourself as a potential user who wants information or a product and see how your site feels.

A simpler design can also make it easier to unify the aesthetics of your brand , Although not directly SEO related, brand recognition is a major marketing factor and it all connects together business cards , floors, and the site itself just makes you recognizable.

Stay mobile friendly

In the old days, when smartphones first came on the market, you had to zoom in to read basically everything on a web page. Those who want to optimize for mobile have essentially had to run two different sites.

That’s not the case anymore. Most web design platforms create automated site creation that display well on mobile platforms.

If you are unsure, check on your phone or tablet. If the screen is difficult to read when opening the page, it’s time to get things updated to a modern standard .

Site architecture

The architecture of your site can make it easier or harder for search engine crawlers to find out what’s going on.

Google  loves websites that are well structured in their URLs and internal links.

Different SEO experts swear by different designs, but most people will find that a  pillar-and-cluster architecture is the most effective and easy to implement.

Avoid excessive scripts

Both HTML and CSS are often used for the front end of web pages. custom code can add a bit of flair that your theme or base layout did not have in the first place.

Encoding can also take too long to load if you have too much of a line. If you are not an encoder, then you can just skip custom scripting completely 

When designing your web outsourcing, make sure that your programmer can optimize scripts for performance standards. A quick and dirty task can add seconds to load time and hurt the end user experience.

Graphic design elements

If you’ve been on the Internet in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, you probably remember the stream of .gifs, bad Flash work and horrible backgrounds regularly used on free hosting services like GeoCities and Angelfire.

In those days, “fancy” fonts were also quite common.

That Papyrus script in your headlines can make you look great, but it’s also so devastating that Ryan Gosling’s a Saturday Night Live sketch about it.

You want to avoid certain design elements that make people automatically trust your website.

GIFs, structured backgrounds and other elements can combine to make a page cheap and, at full power, unreliable. You can do better than pixelated art and rotating skulls, even with free software .

If you are lost from this factor then you may need to hire someone , Graphics design is a specific skill set and not everyone has it in them.

View your page

It pays to regularly check your website design elements. Times change and web graphic design changes with it, so you may also need to update every few years to keep up with the latest trends in reach design .

If you have the resources available, there’s an even better way than to look at it yourself.

Try to let other people go to your page and tell you what they think of the design , Make family members or others who might be inclined to just tell you what you want to hear.

One of our favorite ways to do this is to extend a survey to existing readers who request an anonymous review of the site.

There are some technical factors involved when it comes to design and SEO, but you usually try to keep up with the metrics that Google ranks important .

People have stumbled across multiple pages, or at least not leaving the page immediately will greatly increase your rankings. Design your site to create a great user experience and you’re on the right track.

Ready to learn about web design and SEO?

When it comes down to it, web design and SEO are intensely intertwined. It is not necessarily the coding of the site that brings you down, but rather a lack of focus on user experience.

Bringing a website to life while dealing with the limitations of SEO can be a bit daunting, but sharpening things up is extremely easy.

We think you are ready to reach the great times. If you are looking for more tips and tricks, check out our blog and learn more seo tips and tricks to help your design reach new heights.

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SEO dictionary
SEO

The SEO dictionary

by admin
written by admin

The SEO dictionary will be expanded in the near future with new terms, but also with links to knowledge pages.

On these knowledge pages we make a real deeper into a specific topic, so that you can gain extensive knowledge about specific SEO topics.

Alt text

The Alt text is the alternative description of an image and is important for SEO. It is metadata of the image. 

The alt text is originally designed for blind and partially sighted people.

They use a screen reader (or screen reader) to have a web page read aloud. 

The screen reader uses the alt text of an image to read what an image is about.

For many years, Google ‘s bots have also used the alt text to determine what an image is about.

It is therefore very important to fill this meta text with descriptive keywords.

Make sure that you do not use over-optimization. In addition, the alt text is also used when the browser is unable to load the image.

For example, because the location of the image has been moved, or because the image is no longer on the web server.

Anchor text

The anchor text of a hyperlink is the text that the visitor sees on the front of your website. For example, the word “over-optimization” in the paragraph below is the anchor text of a link on this page. It is important that the anchor texts of links to your web pages are natural.

When over-optimizing links, you see that most links have exactly the same anchor text. Google can easily review anchor texts on the web and punish over-optimized usage where necessary.

With internal links it is less important than with external links. Google understands that you may want to be consistent in linking on your own website. But the advice is to alternate the anchor texts every now and then.

Black hat SEO

Black hat SEO refers to all SEO techniques that Google (or other search engines) does not approve. These are often so-called tricks. At Pro SEO Expert we strongly advise you not to apply these techniques. They may (just maybe) work in the short term, but in the long term it will hurt your web traffic. Examples of black hat techniques are cloaking, keyword stuffing and the use of hidden text and / or links. You can read more about this on Google’s quality guidelines page.

(Search Engine) Bot

A search engine bot, also called a spider, searches the internet for new and / or changed content. This is called crawling . The goal is to index (visualize) the internet . The search engine bot follows billions of links to find new or changed content. Once the bot has found this content, parts of the code will be saved. These parts are used in the search results. Some of this information is shown to the viewfinder in the SERP .

Think of the meta title of the page, the URL and a description of the page; the meta description . More information about how Google works can be found on the Google explanation page.

Canonical tag

The canonical tag or rel = ”canonical” is used to tell search engines that one page is a copy (or almost a copy) of another. The canonical tag is important to solve duplicate content problems. These problems are often caused by your CMS or website platform. With the canonical tag you indicate that the page (or several pages) is / are a copy of an original. This tells Google which page to index , namely (only) the original. You also apply a canonical tag when a page is too similar to another. The choice is yours which is the original and which is the copy.

CTR – Click Through Rate

CTR stands for Click Through Rate. The Dutch translation is click-through ratio. The CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. When you link Google Analytics with Google Search Console , Google brings two forms of CTR into the picture:

  • The CTR of keywords (referred to by Google as searches).
  • Landing page CTR.

The CTR says something about the popularity and / or attractiveness of your content and search result (mainly formed by your meta title and description).

But perhaps more importantly, the CTR is an important signal for Google. The higher the CTR, the higher the chance that your web page will meet the search intent.

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. This language is used for the design (styling) of web pages. CSS has no direct relationship with SEO , but it is ultimately an influencing factor. One important determining factor of search engine optimization (SEO) is the user experience, or the user-friendliness of websites. The styling of a website influences the user experience and is therefore also an influencing factor of search engine optimization.

Crawl

Search engines, including Google, use so-called bots to image ( index ) the internet . This activity of the search engine bots is called crawling. What the bots do very simply by following hyperlinks. The links on the internet can be seen as highways. They connect more than 1.5 billion websites that are rich on the internet. When crawling, the bots follow the links and store the most important information of web pages found in the database. You will see some of this information when you search in Google. Consider the meta title of the page and a description; the meta description . More information about how Google works can be found on the Google explanation page.

Crawlability

The crawlability refers to the extent to which Google is able to index your website . You want to block some pages from Google, that’s normal. Think of the back of your website (the administrator pages). You do that with a robots.txt file.

Google reads this file and respects when you indicate that certain pages may not be indexed. But of most pages of your website, you want Google to index them. However, crawl errors can make the Google bot unable to index your website.

That is of course a shame! So always make sure that your website is as crawlable as possible. One way to discover and fix crawl errors is with Google Search Console .

Crawl Budget

The Crawl Budget translates to crawl budget and refers to the time spent by Google’s bots or web spiders crawling your entire website. The more time they spend crawling your site, the better. This will make it more likely that all your content will be indexed in the search engine … something essential for web positioning.

The best thing that can be done to increase the crawl budget is to work the link building to increase the authority of the site. It is also very important that the content is not static. It is avoided by scheduling an editorial calendar to update the text frequently and add new content.

Google Trends

You guess? Yes, Trends is another free tool from Google. This, in particular, is used to discover and compare search trends. You just have to enter a keyword and Trends will tell you its popularity over time. You can even compare up to 5 searches to find out which one is most popular.

If you’re not looking for a specific word, you can use Google Trends to discover the latest trends or most popular news, by country. And it also shows the most popular searches in previous years. As you can see, this tool is a gold mine to get ideas to generate content on your website.

Gray Hat SEO

The Gray Hat SEO defines the SEO strategies that do not become as aggressive as the Black Hat SEO but neither Google guidelines are taken very seriously, which basically prohibit any form unnaturally forced to get links. But, of course … if we rely only on creating good content and having a well-optimized website, it is very difficult to beat other sites, especially if it is a sector with a lot of competition.

The Gray Hat SEO is the most common profile among industry professionals who give much importance to the optimization on page but also devoted much effort in getting “natural” links.

Google Pigeon

Google Pigeon is the algorithm focused on optimizing the local search results. Just like the other algorithms, this one is in charge of showing the best Google My Business (GMB) results based on your location and your search.

For Pigeon to give you a cable to position your local business, you must take care of the SEO of your website but you must also register it in GMB and optimize your company file with all the data you can: address, hours, description, images, etc. . The more complete, the better the better.

Guest Posting

The Guest Posting is the art of getting published posts as a guest on other blogs pages, usually related to the theme of your site. 

They are usually articles of value for the users of the blog where you write and, in exchange, the owner or webmaster allows you to put one or more links to your website, in the text of the article.

This allows you to get a link to your website, which will improve the positioning. But it also serves to make yourself known to your audience and improve your personal brand or that of your company.

Duplicate content

Duplicate content means that there are multiple web pages that are identical or nearly identical to each other. 

This can be duplicate web pages on your own website, but it can also be duplicate content across multiple websites.

 In particular, solving duplicate content problems on your own website is an important SEO discipline. 

Because the search engines need to know which pages to index.

They obviously don’t want to index multiple pages offering the same thing. 

With a canonical tag you can solve any problems and tell Google what is the original and what the copy is. 

A web page that has a lot of duplicate content problems will penalize Google. Therefore, make sure you solve these problems in time.

Domain authority

The authority of a domain is determined by search engines through links from other websites to your website.

The number of links is important, but certainly not everything. Google also takes the quality of links and the relevance of links into account.

Google assesses the quality of the websites that link to you. When relevant, Google assesses to what extent the website that links to you has something to do with your work / field.

 In this respect, a link from a travel company’s website is not very valuable to an IT company. A link from HP or Dell could be. 

The Mozbar is a good way to get domain authority (DA) and page authority (PA) easy to visualize for your website, but also for that of your competition. 

Domain expired

Since you already know what a domain is, now it’s time to discover the potential of an expired domain .

After buying a domain, you have everything ready in a matter of hours to show your website to the world. You design the site, generate content and start working on SEO. The web is gaining authority and is positioned well in Google (watch out! After a lot of work, effort and investment).

But, when you buy a domain, you are actually paying a “rent” for it. So what happens if it’s time to renew and you don’t? That it becomes an expired domain and you lose the right to continue using it. At that time, SEOs are on the lookout for domains like these that have authority. They register them and use them to redirect them to their website or to set up another one and take advantage of all the SEO work and the authority of the domain. And you can get a lot out of it.

Domain Rating

The Domain Rating (DR) is a metric invented and patented by the Ahrefs company that is used to estimate the authority or strength of a domain. It is measured from 0 to 100 and the higher the DR, the more difficult it will be to increase, because it is a logarithmic scale.

Maybe it reminds you of the Moz DA because they look alike and seek the same goal. But the truth is that Ahrefs has greatly improved his formula for calculating DR. This is more difficult to falsify and is a little closer to reality. Although I recommend that you also not be guided only by this metric when analyzing a domain. Always keep the rest of the factors and metrics in mind

Dwell time

Dwell time is the time between the moment the user clicks from the search engine to a website and the moment he / she returns to the search engine.

Dwell time is therefore the time that a user has spent on a website before returning to Google.

Many SEO experts believe that dwell time is a ranking factor and that Google measures dwell time to evaluate user experience on websites.

Exact match domain

An exact match domain means that a domain name exactly matches a keyword, It called a ‘domain with exact match’. 

But this term is not used in the SEO world. Therefore the English variant in this dictionary. 

For a long time, these types of domain names have had an advantage in search engine optimization (SEO). 

This advantage was very large 10 years ago, but today this advantage is getting smaller. Google has also actively communicated this.

 In 2012, Google even implemented an EMD update in the algorithms, which penalizes exactly match domains with low quality content with a lower ranking.

 Nowadays the advantage of having a brand name that you can load and that people remember is greater than having an exact match domain. That is why the SEO advice is not to focus on this.

Exact keyword

An exact keyword means that the keyword you are targeting has also been entered exactly into Google to reach your website. 

This means that no extra words were added (before or after) and that the order was exactly the same. 

The term exact keyword (or exactly match keyword in English) actually comes from the SEA world. In Google Ads you have an option to set a keyword to exact . 

This means that your ad will only be shown if the keyword is entered exactly like this. Or nowadays unfortunately (?) Also with a very similar variant of it.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analysis program from Google that provides insight into the traffic on your website.

Google Analytics is a must-have for all marketers and / or entrepreneurs who take online marketing seriously. 

The key to improving online marketing (and therefore SEO) is measurement. Measuring is knowing is not said for nothing.

Google Analytics offers you so many insights that any overview falls short. But here are a number of important insights that you can gain with GA:

  • The number of people visiting your website.
  • When do people visit your website?
  • Important characteristics of people who visit your website.
  • The channels people use to land on your website.
  • The specific pages viewed (and how often they are viewed).
  • The rating of your web pages.

Create a free Google Analytics profile on the official Google Analytics website.

.htaccess file

A .htaccess file controls what happens to incoming traffic on a website.

The file has many functions, but for SEO the redirect is the most important. With a redirect, traffic is diverted from one page to another. Some relevant examples are:

  • Redirecting visitors who try to reach your site via an insecure connection (http) to a secure one (https).
  • Redirecting visitors who want to reach the wrong version of your website to the right version of your website. For example from www.youwbedrijf.nl to uwbedrijf.nl (or vice versa).
  • Last but not least: forwarding visitors who want to reach a page that no longer exists or has been moved. You will of course redirect these visitors to the correct page. You do the latter with a permanent redirect. This is called a 301 redirect.

Automatically rerouting visitors to pages that no longer exist or have been moved is an important SEO activity, but also a general best practice on the web for providing a good user experience (and that too is important for SEO).

HTML code

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is a so-called markup language and provides structure to web pages. This structure is very important for search engines such as Google. It helps the machines determine what the page is about and how it is structured. For SEO it is crucial that a web page has the correct HTML layout. For example, with HTML you indicate what a title is, or what a subtitle or paragraph is. This way, you help Google determine what your page is about and how valuable it is. HTML is not a programming language, as many people think. It is much simpler and easier to learn than a programming language.

If you want to take SEO seriously, basic knowledge of HTML is highly desirable. An accessible way to learn HTML is at W3Schools or Codecademy .

Hummingbird update

With the Google Hummingbird update, Google provides the searcher with the most relevant results. To do this, Google tries to figure out the search intent by putting the search query in a certain context. This is a complicated concept, so we’ll explain it with two examples:

  • The SERP is adapted to your location. So if you search for a restaurant in Amsterdam with your mobile, you will see local restaurants. Google estimates that your search intent is of a local nature.

Indexing

When a search engine indexes a web page, important information about this web page is stored in the database. This data can then be displayed in the search engine.

When indexing, information is stored about keywords , so that the search engine knows which pages to display for which query. But it also stores important metadata of the page itself, such as the title , URL and description of the page.

The process required to index a website is called crawling . Crawling is performed by search engine bots. More information about how Google works can be found on the Google explanation page .

Javascript

Javascript, like PHP, is a programming language for the web. When you seriously get started with search engine optimization or web design, chances are you will have to deal with it sooner or later. 

JavaScript is still widely used to make websites interactive. Consider, for example, animations that respond to your mouse.

If you use a CMS such as WordPress, you don’t need to have much knowledge of JavaScript. The basic knowledge is always a bonus, although it is better to start with PHP.

Keyword stuffing

Another word that does not actually have a common Dutch variant.

 Google defines Keyword stuffing as the overuse of keywords on a page. 

You have probably come across a web page yourself that clearly uses keyword stuffing. Sometimes it is so bad that the page does not even read well anymore. 

One of the many reasons for Google to punish it. The correct use of keywords is therefore not easy. 

It is important that keywords appear correctly on the page, but don’t overdo it! Some tools, such as the Yoast SEO tool use a certain percentage, but there are more and more SEO specialists who are largely abandoning this. 

The reason is that the Google algorithms are getting smarter and even apply AI to analyze pages.

Long tail

The long tail means that the vast majority of searches consist of long keywords. This means at least two words, but usually even three or more.

 A long-tail keyword is used much less often, but there are a lot of them. So much so that it accounts for 70% of the total search traffic. 

Another important characteristic is that they are more focused with a stronger intention .

Combine this with lower competition and you know why it is important not to ignore the long tail in search engine optimization!

Local SEO

The local SEO is a discipline of SEO that focuses exclusively on geolocated results, shown both in the SERPs and Google Maps. It is mainly aimed at getting businesses with physical premises to appear in these results.

The local SEO will hand the SEO onpage the web, but adds optimization company data such as address, phone number and hours. In addition, the Google My Business profile is optimized with extra details: photos, category, hours, customer opinions, etc. The advantage is that local SEO results tend to come out higher in the SERPs.

Link Baiting

Getting natural links, from authoritative domains and of the same theme is a challenge. Many companies, agencies and SEOs spend hours and hours looking for where to put or buy a link. But one technique that helps a lot is link baiting .

The link baiting is the technique to get natural links, not buy them or order them. These links are obtained when you manage to create valuable content for the user. Sure, it takes a lot of planning and strategy to get content that is useful, interesting, and easily shared. In this way, it will reach the ears (and eyes) of many people who will link you from their blog or website.

Link Building

How could we talk about links and not explain what link building is ? For many, it is the activity they spend the most time on, within SEO. It is basically about “building” or getting external links that point to your website. How is already such a broad topic that there are blogs and courses that only deal with link building.

Within link building there are many techniques, each one more ingenious. From leaving a comment on a blog, to taking advantage of web security breaches on some sites. It is said that to do a good link building you have to invest a lot of time or money, or both.

Link Juice

We speak of link juice when the authority of a site is distributed by it through the links. Typically, a site’s home page has the most authority.

If you link to ten internal pages, the authority is transmitted to these as if you spilled juice in equal parts.

The link juice is taken into account, together with the web architecture and the pagerank , to give more authority to the most important pages of a site. In this way, a good foundation is laid to position yourself well in Google.

Microformats

The Microformats are simple portions of HTML code that add meaning to the content of your website, to make it understandable also by web spiders. 

When you add these microformats to your website, you allow Google to read them and display it in search results with additional information such as the author, a photo or video, a physical address, ingredients of a recipe, etc.

Mozbar

The mozbar is an online tool created by Moz to display its metrics (DA and PA) in the browser. You can see Moz’s proprietary SEO metrics next to each of the search results. But you can also have them visible at the top of the browser when accessing a specific page. You can even easily detect nofollow and dofollow links (the normal ones).

You can use the mozbar for free and without registering. If you use it, remember to always look at other indicators such as the visibility index or the TF.

Metadata

In the context of SEO, Metadata is data about a web page or part of it. However, metadata is also widely used outside the SEO world and it is sometimes referred to as data about data.

You will (almost) not see metadata on the front of a website. But this data is in the HTML code where Google’s bots can read it. The most important metadata for search engine optimization are:

  • meta title of a web page
  • meta description of a web page
  • Alt text of images

Meta description

The meta description is a brief summary of what the web page is about. But you can also see the meta description as a business card of your web page. 

Because Google often shows the meta description prominently in the SERP. 

Therefore, make sure that you are short, but powerful and encourage the searcher to click through to your website, because the CTR is also an important signal for Google.

The above paragraph contains the word ‘often’ because Google does not always show your meta description in the SERP. Google will only do this if your description is relevant enough for the search query being used.

Sometimes Google finds that your page is relevant to the search query, but your meta description is not. In such a case, Google itself makes a description of (sentence) parts of your web page.

However, this is not a consideration not to use the meta description. The advice is to keep the meta description below 300 characters.

Meta title

The meta title indicates the title of a web page. An alternative name for the meta title is the title tag. This last name refers to the HTML tag containing the meta title.

The meta title is almost invisible on the front of your website. The only place where a visitor can see this title is in the browser tab. 

The meta title is one of the most important SEO elements of a page.

Therefore, a few advice (more or less in order of importance):

  1. The meta title may be invisible on your website, but this is certainly not the case with Google. Here your meta title is prominently present in the SERP . Therefore, make sure that the title is attractive so that people click through.
  2. Return the main keyword here.
  3. Where possible, also return a different keyword (provided this is possible in a natural way).
  4. Always end with the name of your website with a separator in front of it
  5. Make sure your meta title is no longer than 60 characters.

Natural search result or traffic

Google displays search results on the search results page ( SERP ). This results page consists of paid results and natural results. 

For the paid results, as the word says, is paid. 

This is not the case for the natural results. 

SEO focuses on the effort required to rank as high as possible in Google’s natural results with the right keywords. 

When we talk about natural traffic, we are talking about the visitors who end up on your website via the natural search results.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO means that you apply search engine optimization on a single web page.

With on-page SEO you focus on optimizing content. Some important factors for on-page SEO are:

  • The content itself: demand-driven, good quality, unique
  • The meta title
  • The URL
  • The meta description
  • Alt text of images
  • Links (incoming and outgoing)

Organic search result

An organic search result is synonymous with a natural search result.

Over-optimization

We talk about over-optimization when a website or web page makes too much use of SEO optimization. 

The most common form is the overuse of keywords on a page, or keyword stuffing . 

This ensures that the text is no longer legible and is therefore at the expense of the user experience. 

Google penalizes this with worse rankings , or in an extreme case with a penalty.

PageRank

PageRank is Google’s method of determining how much authority has a web page. The PageRank of a specific page is determined by links from other web pages to that page.

 In the early days of Google, only the number of links was important.

 As the Google algorithm evolved, the quality of links and the relevance of links were added to this, among other things. 

Until 2013, Google provided insight into the PageRank of web pages. 

Now this is no longer the case. They also stopped using the word PageRank, which is why many people say that PageRank no longer exists. 

However, having quality and relevant links to your website is still one of the most important factors for Google to determine your rankings.

Google sees every good link as a vote for your website. The more good voices the better.

Panda update

The Google Panda Update is a Google Algorithm Update that addresses the quality of website content. 

Websites with high quality content are rewarded and websites with low quality content penalized. The first Google Panda Update came out in February 2011 and had far-reaching consequences for millions of websites. Some quality features for the Panda update are:

  • Thin content, for example pages with only a few sentences.
  • Low quality content, for example pages with automatically generated or translated texts.
  • Duplicate content, for example websites with many pages that are very similar.

Penguin update

The Google Penguin update is an algorithm update from Google that addresses the quality of links to a website. The first Google Penguin update took place in April 2012. Where previously only the number of links was considered, the Google algorithms (partly thanks to Penguin) are now much more complex. Google brings:

  • Link quality: does the website linking to you have a good reputation? Does this website contain good content?
  • The relevance of links: does the website that links to you have anything to do with your field or industry?
  • Has a link been paid for? (this is not allowed by Google)
  • Is the link profile natural? Or, for example, is a link scheme active in which large numbers of websites link to each other?
  • Are the anchor texts natural?

PHP

PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is a scripting / programming language for web pages. Most websites use PHP to create (dynamic) web pages. The PHP language of your website is difficult to influence for marketers or entrepreneurs. 

Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to have your website checked for possible PHP errors.

 Because Google likes professional websites that contain as few errors as possible.

One tool you can use to determine if your website has PHP errors is Google Search Console .

Pogo sticking

Pogo-sticking means that someone clicks through to your webpage from a search engine and almost immediately returns to Google to choose a different search result.

Many SEO experts believe that Pogo sticking is a ranking factor and that Google uses it to determine if a search result meets search intent. 

When a lot of people pogo-stick, the ranking in the search engine drops.

Rank of tendrils

A rank is a certain position in the search results page ( SERP ) of Google after typing in a keyword. 

A rank from # 1 to # 10 in many cases means that you are on page 1 of Google. 

It is important to keep track of your rank on keywords that are important to your business. To set out a keyword strategy , you need to know where you are now. 

Only then will it be possible to determine what is needed to achieve your goals.

Redirect

With a redirect, your traffic on your webpage will automatically flow to another webpage. 

You do this, for example, when you have deleted a web page. Then you redirect to the most suitable page of your website. 

Or when you have moved a web page (then you redirect to the new location of the page). In almost all cases you use a 301 redirect. 

This means that the redirect is permanent. There is also a temporary redirect (302), but the general SEO advice is not to use this redirect.

Robots.txt file

With a robots.txt file you determine which pages cannot be crawled and indexed by search engine bots. 

In the file you can grant access (allow) or deny access to (disallow) search engine bots per website, per website folder, or per web page.

 A good example of a set of pages that you do not want to be indexed by search engines are your administrator pages of a CMS such as WordPress. In this case, WordPress will of course arrange for you that the necessary disallows are in the robots.txt.

SEA

SEA stands for Search Engine Advertising and actually doesn’t have much to do with SEO . Since both terms are often confused with each other, we have included it in this dictionary.

SEA can also be a good test pool for SEO. If you achieve a good conversion rate with a certain keyword in a SEA campaign, for example. Then you will probably achieve that if your web page ranks well in the organic search results .

Google’s SEA program is called Google Ads (formerly AdWords). Google Ads not only allows you to advertise in the Google search engine, but also outside of it, in the Google Display Network. More information on the official Google Ads website.

Do you need help setting up and / or managing your SEA campaigns? SEA is also one of Pro SEO Expert’s areas of expertise. We are happy to provide you with advice and that does not always have to cost you!

Search Console

Google Search Console is a Google website tool. Google Search Console used to be called Webmaster Utilities.

The goal of Google Search Console is to give you tools to improve your website. Usually on technical points such as crawlability , indexing status , blocked sources, etc.

But Google Search Console also provides important information about keywords and the findability of your website.

 You can link Search Console with Google Analytics so that this data can also be analyzed in your Analytics environment.

Create a free Google Search Console profile .

SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the discipline where you increase the amount of relevant visitors to your website via search engines.

With search engines you can almost say Google, In the above paragraph, the word ‘relevant’ is mentioned because when doing SEO you should always keep in mind that the traffic you attract to your website must be relevant traffic.

This traffic must fit within your communication target group.

SEO analysis

An SEO analysis can refer to various analyzes that you make with the help of an SEO research . Examples of an SEO analysis are:

  • Competition link analysis
  • Keyword analysis

SEO tool

An SEO tool is a software program that helps you in search engine optimization. There are various SEO tools on the market.

Some focus on a specific discipline within SEO, such as mapping rankings.

 Such a program is also called a rank tracker or rank checker.

There are also a number of SEO tools on the market that strive for all-in-one. Examples of this are Moz Pro and SEMrush .

SEO research

An SEO survey is a survey that you conduct with the aim of increasing relevant search traffic to your website. A good example is keyword research .

With a good keyword research you can do various keyword analyzes that identify opportunities for search engine optimization.

SEO strategy

In an SEO strategy you indicate where you are now, where you want to go and what it takes to achieve your goals.

When writing an SEO strategy, you can create structure by focusing on improving the four pillars of search engine optimization, namely:

  • Content
  • Authority
  • Technic
  • User experience

SERP

SERP stands for Search Engine Result Pages. The SERP is the Google search results page that you will see after you have entered a search query in Google.

The SERP has been reasonably predictable in terms of formatting for a long time. At the top you often found three sponsored results (SEA ads).

Then came ten natural search results . On the right side of the page you also found a number of advertisements (on a PC). 

However, nowadays Google regularly enriches the SERP with images, Knowledge Graph items, featured snippets, local search results (local pack), reviews, etc.

This makes it more difficult to determine whether a natural search result will be on the first page or not.

Spider

A spider is synonymous with a (search engine) bot.

Spam

The term SPAM is used in different areas, such as email. SPAM relates unwanted messages, comments or actions. People who comment on social networks or blogs do SPAM only with the intention of promoting something or leaving a link to their website.

In what has to do with SEO, all the junk links that point to your website from “junk” sites or those that the competition puts you to do negative SEO could also be considered as SPAM.

Spinear

In terms of SEO, spinear is creating variations of an already written text, using synonyms and similar semantics. Sometimes the order of sentences and even paragraphs is also interchanged. The goal is to generate content that looks original but taking advantage of what someone (or yourself) has already created.

There are very advanced tools that generate spine text thanks to their databases of synonyms. And, although it seems like a very useful resource, it is not highly recommended for serious projects. If Google detects the text as duplicate content, your website can be penalized. And, above all, when a user reads it, they will notice something strange because very forced expressions or phrases always slip through.

Snippet

The snnipet are fragments or extracts shown in the SERPs and help the user to get an idea of what you will find in a web before clicking. The ones that Google always shows are the title, the description and the url … although every two by three it is making changes. 

There are other types, as you saw in the definition of rich snnipets and if you optimize them well they will attract a lot of users’ attention and you can improve CTR, and eventually SEO.

Subdomain

A subdomain is like having a domain within another. In other words, just as you can have directories within the domain (eg: http://domain.com/directory) you can also create divisions at the domain level like this: http://subdomain.domain.com.

Subdomains are very useful. For example, they are used when you want the URLs of your website to appear with the “www” in front of the domain name ( www.yourdomain.com ). They are sometimes used in SEO to separate the blog from an online store. Ah! and Google values ​​subdomains as separate domains from the main one, with their own metrics and all.

Sandbox

The Google sandbox is a filter to prevent new sites from ranking better than old ones. You could say that it is a trial period that newly created sites go through to see how they react over time.

Google has never confirmed its existence. But, after many years, most SEOs have confirmed that many of the new websites they create spend the first weeks or months with almost no visits or increase in positions. And then all of a sudden they start to grow like they hit the SEO stretch.

Scrape

Scrape is another English term that is used a lot in SEO. It is the technique used to extract information from other web pages, for example, from the competition. We can extract all their contents, or very specific parts of them and analyze them to understand what strategy they are following.

You can also scrape your own website to detect problems and discover ways to improve SEO. You can extract specific data such as the title, description or even portions of code from a website, and there are different methods, techniques, tools and programming languages ​​to perform scraping . An example of the benefit that is obtained from scraping we have it in some price comparators.

SEM

The SEM ( Search Engine Marketing ) is a broad concept encompassing any technique related to search engine marketing. What happens is that this concept has been distorted until it is understood only as the management of paid advertising in search engines (this is how many people understand it).

Within the SEM we find activities such as SEO and PPC (Pay Per Click), which makes it a very broad branch of marketing. The normal thing is that people specialize in SEO or search engine advertising (the wrongly called SEM) and that is why this term has changed its meaning colloquially.

SEMrush

Semrush is a very useful tool to help you in the online marketing strategy of your website. You have many options to analyze the SEO of your website and those of the competition. With its advanced functions you will do keyword research like a professional and you will keep track of your positions in Google.

And if you have clients, you can send them very complete reports on their website analytics, new keyword opportunities, competitor’s Google Ads campaigns, etc.

Title tag

The title tag is the HTML tag for the meta title of a web page.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a valuable and widely used SEO tool . What Ubersuggest is good at is offering new keyword ideas. The tool uses the keyword suggestions that Google itself offers.

You can also see this yourself by typing in a keyword but not pressing enter. Also at the bottom of the SERP are keyword suggestions from Google.

 In addition, Ubersuggest also gives you keyword volumes. These also come from Google, namely from the keyword planner.

Page authority

The authority of a web page, like the authority of a domain, is determined by inbound links. 

However, not only external links are important here, but also internal links. Search engines also analyze how many links from other web pages of your website point to a particular page. 

The logic behind this is clear: if you don’t or hardly link to a certain page yourself, why should it be important?

The Mozbar is a good way to measure Page Authority and an excellent alternative to PageRank  that is no longer being updated.

XML sitemap

With an XML sitemap you give Google an overview of your entire website. The XML sitemap shows the structure of your website and shows the URLs of all the pages you want indexed.

 The sitemap is called XML sitemap because the file is in .xml format and uses the XML standard. XML , like HTML, is a markup language and therefore serves to structure data. 

Don’t forget to exclude pages from your sitemap that you don’t want indexed. 

Think of thank you pages or test pages. Submit an XML Sitemap to Google via Search Console.

Yoast SEO plugin

The Yoast SEO Plugin is the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress.

The tool mainly focuses on on-page SEO . It gives writers advice on keyword usage on the page and the readability of texts. In addition, the tool has many other functions, such as an XML sitemap , breadcrumbs and social media metadata.

Search intent

Search intent is extremely important to SEO . You must ensure that you meet the expectations of the searchers with your web pages. There are roughly three different types of search intentions. These categories were created by Andrei Broder in 2001, when he was still working for Altavista (a popular search engine in the 1990s).

  • Transactional – here the search is focused on taking action. This can be a purchase, but it can also happen that someone wants to download something or contact you. An example of a search is: ‘buy winter coat’
  • Information-oriented – these searches are aimed at gathering / retrieving information. You could say that people here want to become wiser, or want to learn something. A search query could be “what is SEO?”
  • Navigational – these searches are aimed at navigating to a website or a specific part of it as quickly as possible. A search can be: ‘Pro SEO Expert’ or ‘Pro SEO Expert contact’.

If your webpage does not meet the search intent , many people will start pogoing.

That is an important signal for Google not to rank you or to rank you lower .

Search intent is also important because it can say something about the stage of the purchase process the searcher is in.

If someone searches for ‘what makes a winter jacket waterproof’, then he / she is still in the exploratory phase. But if the same person later searches for ‘buy waterproof winter jacket Hugo Boss’ then he / she is probably ready to make the purchase.

Short tail

You already know what long tail keywords are , so guessing the meaning of short tail will not be difficult. This term refers to short searches, to searches of one, two or three words. They are characterized by having many monthly searches and because they are usually difficult to position, due to the amount of competition there is.

It is not bad to try to position yourself for this type of keywords . What happens is that they are very competitive words and that they do not carry a very specific search intention. That means that if you manage to position yourself, no one can assure you that the users who find you in the SERPs for that search will have a lot of value for the business behind your website.

Search volume

Search volume is an important factor in keyword research . It provides an estimate of the average number of searches per month for the given keyword . When combined with a keyword’s difficulty factor, search volume gives you insight into how valuable it is to focus your SEO energy on a particular keyword. You can retrieve the search volume of keywords with the Keyword Planner , Ubersuggest or other SEO tools.

Ironically, the word “search volume” does not have a very high search volume 

Keyword

A keyword is a single word or a combination of several words that are typed or spoken in a search engine to find content on a web page.

The American  SEO company Moz , which has their own bots / spiders to analyze the internet, divides keywords into three categories:

  • Fat head – 18.5% of all searches
  • Chunky middle – 11.5% of all searches
  • Long tail – 70% of all searches

Keyword analysis

A keyword research makes several keyword analysis possible. For example, with a keyword research you can analyze which pages rank reasonably, but where improvement is desired.

 Another example of a keyword analysis is showing pages that rank in Google, but not high enough to bring in traffic. 

The results of the analyzes form the basis for a keyword strategy  or plan.

Keyword research

A keyword research contains an extensive list of keywords that are relevant to the field in which your company is active.

These keywords are enriched with valuable information such as search volume, difficulty factor, current rankings , page performance and much more. An extensive keyword research combines information from various sources, such as the keyword planner , SEO tools , Google Analytics and Search Console .

Such keyword research forms the basis for making various keyword analyzes.

Learn how to conduct keyword research on our keyword research knowledge page .

Keywords strategy

In the keyword strategy you visualize for your organization where you currently stand in terms of keywords , but also where you want to go and how you will get there. 

You describe which keywords are your ambition, why and how you will rank higher on these keywords.

You set out all of this in a timeline. A keyword strategy does not have to be a grandiose plan, but must be concrete and practical in nature. 

The plan serves as a guideline for your SEO work in the field of keywords in the coming period.

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword difficulty is a factor used in keyword research . The figure indicates how high the organic competition in the search engine is for a specific keyword .

This factor generally runs from 1 to 100, where 1 means that there is little or no organic competition and 100 means that the keyword has the toughest form of competition possible.

The keyword difficulty factor in most SEO tools is based on the domain authority of the top 10 results in Google for the given keyword.

Keyword Planner

The keyword planner is a tool from Google Ads (formerly AdWords). So it is actually intended as a SEA tool, but the tool is also very valuable for SEO . The keyword planner is especially valuable for expanding your keyword research.

So to get new ideas for keywords. In addition, the tool also displays search volume for one or more keywords, but we must add a comment here.

 If you do not actively advertise with Google Ads, Google nowadays only gives a (too) rough estimate of the volumes.

For example: 1K – 10K. Don’t want to advertise, but are still looking for a tool that displays free search volumes? Then use Ubersuggest.

Keyword stuffing

The term keyword stuffing is used by Google itself to define the practice of overloading a website with highly repeated words. It is a practice that was used a lot before to improve web positioning, and believe me, it worked very well. But, in addition to being penalized, it is no longer effective.

Google claims that this does not help the user and is right. Reading a text in which an annoying keyword is repeated a lot and takes away the desire to continue reading. I do not recommend using it under any circumstances. Better to write for users, with an SEO twist, of course.

Negative SEO

You already know that SEO is to get visibility, visits and, in the end, more sales. But what usually happens when you get it? That the competition is fierce. 

And sadly, some people play dirty and use negative SEO to knock their competition out of the top positions.

There are some well-known negative SEO techniques. One is to create a lot of toxic backlinks with the intention of causing a penalty from Google. 

Another is to generate DDoS attacks to overload the server’s network. Other attacks are made using pogosticking or lowering the CTR.

 And they are not the only ones, there is much misused ingenuity used to do evil to others. You do well to know them to detect and deal with them.

Niche

We are not going to talk about anything funeral here. In the world around SEO, a niche refers to a small portion of the market made up of people with similar interests. By having their tastes and needs defined, they could be willing to buy certain types of products or services.

Many SEOs detect these niche markets to create websites with content aimed at these audiences in order to show them advertising or affiliate products related to that topic. Such a project usually has a higher profitability than a generalist one.

If you are interested in the subject, you can read the post we dedicate to SEO for niches .

PBN

A PBN is a private network of blogs, created in order to help position a web page. It is a strategy to get links with authority, without having to ask anyone or buy them directly. But that does not mean that you do not have to invest time and money.

The usual thing is to buy expired domains , or at auction, that already have antiquity and authority. SEO experts in PBNs register them with different companies and host them on different servers. All this with the aim that Google does not detect PBN, or a link pattern that discovers it. There is a whole science behind creating a PBN but this brief definition can give you an idea of ​​how useful it can be for improving web positioning.

SEO penalty

Google puts a lot of effort in making its search engine the best. It wants to give good results because that way we will continue to use it. And for this, it dedicates many resources to remove “bad” results from its search engine, making use of SEO penalties .

Some penalties are carried out manually by a Google quality rater , who detects a violation of its rules on that website. Other times the penalties are algorithmic, that is, a consequence of Google’s algorithms.

Pogosticking

The pogosticking occurs when a user enters a result of Google and leaves immediately to return to the results page to look for another responsive to your search. This effect is negative if it comes from your website.

Makes sense right? Google wants to offer good results in its search engine. You want them to be relevant. But if it detects that your website, even if it is first, does nothing more than cause users to pogostick , how do you think it will value it? 

Indeed, it will not help you stay in that position because Google understands that your website is not relevant to that search.

You can detect or intuit that your website is being a victim of pogosticking if you analyze your organic visits and see a very low dwell time or a high bounce rate.

Query

In English, the term query is translated as query and is used in SEO for the keywords or phrases that we search in Google. 

The search engine makes suggestions as soon as you start typing in it and that causes most of the search queries that are made to be those suggested by Google. These queries start up the Google mechanics and you instantly have the results on the screen.

301 redirect

A 301 redirect is a series of commands or commands that are executed on the server where your website is hosted to direct users (and web spiders) from one URL to another. It is a very practical resource in SEO, for example, to avoid duplicate content or remove 404 error messages.

Although someone with technical knowledge would tell you that there are many ways to do it, the best for Google is the 301 redirect (and the 302) because they transmit Pagerank to the URL where they point.

Dofollow link

A dofollow link is a normal link. It is a text or image hyperlink that conveys Page Rank and authority to the linking site. 

When Google’s web spiders crawl a web and find a dofollow link, they follow it and convey part of the authority of that page to which it is linked.

Come on, it is a link that we all like, of those that we want when they link us.

But if these are the good links, does that mean that there are bad links? Not so much, but there are other types of links that are not as strong, as far as SEO is concerned. I’ll tell you about it below.

Nofollow links

The nofollow links are those that are tagged with rel = “nofollow” in the HTML code. This tag is used to tell Google not to take that link into account, that is, not to transmit PageRank to the linked domain. PageRank is “lost” in nofollow links … let’s say you prefer to lose it to give it to others ?

It is advisable to use them in your link building strategy to give your link profile naturalness . Google says that “generally” it does not take them into account, that is, that it may do so on some occasions. Here’s a good topic for discussion.

Sponsored link

In September 2019 Google released two new HTML attributes for links. The sponsored attribute is written with the tag rel = ”sponsored” and is recommended for use for advertising or sponsored links.

By the way, if you are looking for means to buy sponsored posts, visit Publisuites.com that we already have more than 9,000 means at your disposal to improve your visibility.

UGC link

The other HTML attribute that Google published was UGC which stands for User Generated Content. It is marked in the html code as rel = ”ugc”.

The use of this attribute is recommended for backlinks in blog comments, in forums and in all those links generated by the user himself.

Link or link

We have already seen the dofollow and nofollow links, but many people do not understand the concept of link or link well . It is basically a link to allow the user to access another web page with a single click.

The HTML format for a link is as follows:

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a>

This is the code for a link, where you can see terms that you already know like the anchor text and the nofollow attribute .

Error 404

The 404 error is a status code in the HTTP protocol. This error message appears in your browser when you try to access a URL that does not exist. This happens by default on web servers when you get a request for a page that you don’t have in your files.

This is a common error that appears when you change the URL of a page but it is still linked to the old URL from somewhere else, be it from your website or another. It is very important to regularly check your website to avoid generating 404 errors, because it negatively affects web positioning.

H Tags

The H tags are HTML attributes used to define headers or text subtitles. Like other attributes such as article, paragraph, italic … H tags help style the text and make it easier to read.

Here is an example of H tag : < h1 > This is an H1 < /h1 >

The <h1> is used only once in each URL because it serves to identify the main header. The rest of the headings are labeled according to their importance, and in order: <h1>, <h2>, <h3>… until <h6>. Headings are used to let the user know what to read in the text below. That is why it is logical that, if you use keywords in the h tags, it helps you to position them in the search engines.

Footprints

The footprints are commands that are used to searching on Google to filter the results. Some are commands that Google makes available to us to locate content in a more specific way . 

For example, the “site:” command is used to find results from a single domain, related to a single keyword . If you want to search for content related to SEO on the Publisuites website you can do so by putting this in Google: site: publisuites.com SEO .

Also, there are other footprints to find sites where you can leave a link. This is because there are many websites that follow patterns in their source code or in the text, which can be found on Google.

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Best SEO Tools
SEO

Best SEO Tools of 2020

by admin
written by admin

Anyone who manages a website knows that it must be findable. If major search engines are unable to find the site and thus visitors are not directed to it, then you could almost say it doesn’t exist.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a method by which websites can be found by the search engines and by applying SEO you can ensure that your website is on the first page. To do this, there are several good SEO tools available that you can try or buy for free.

You can of course also outsource this and engage an SEO agency to make your website easier to find in Google and other search engines. Here you will find an overview of the best SEO tools of 2020 with which you can place your website in a high position in the search results .

All-in-one search engine optimization tools

  • SEMrush , organic and paid traffic analysis tool with rank tracking, keyword analysis, on-site SEO analysis, brand name monitoring, social media monitoring, link analysis, comprehensive competition statistics, reporting and more.
  • SEO PowerSuite , search engine optimization software for keyword rankings, keyword research, on-page SEO analysis, reporting, backlink tracking, social media popularity and more.
  • Search Metrics , extensive SEO tool for content optimization, backlinks analysis, (historical) keyword data, mobile findability, local findability, competition analysis and more.
  • MOZ , SEO tool for search term research, website SEO audit, monitoring, rank tracking, link analysis and local findability.
  • Ahrefs , track backlinks, search terms, brand mentions , view competition stats and more.
  • SERanking , tool for analyzing keywords, page backlinks and competitors, with option for reporting.
  • cognitiveSEO , backlink analysis, content analysis, competition analysis and keyword statistics
  • Sistrix , SEO tool for keyword data, backlink statistics, market share monitoring and more.
  • Lipperhey , free SEO tool with many functionalities.

Keyword tools

Rank tracking tools

  • AWR , automated ranking reports for desktop, mobile and local searches.
  • Accurate , fast rank tracking tool with extensive analysis options.
  • Wincher , user-friendly rank tracker with daily updates and alerts.
  • Pro Rank Tracker , keyword position tracking tool, also available as an App.
  • Rank Ranger , daily keyword positions for multiple search engines.
  • Rank Tracker , desktop software for unlimited keyword monitoring.
  • CuteRank , software for tracking keyword positions in various search engines.
  • Serpfox , daily ranking updates and various available functionalities

SEO tools for on-site analysis

  • Screaming Frog , comprehensive SEO spider tool for crawling websites and retrieving on-site elements.
  • Raven Tools , website auditor tool for analyzing SEO issues.
  • Deepcrawl , website crawler for detecting and checking technical problems and content improvements.
  • Netpeak , an SEO tool for checking important SEO issues and comparing websites.
  • Structured data testing tool , a tool from Google for testing structured data.
  • Pingdom , a tool for monitoring uptime, server performance and incidents.
  • Mobile-friendly test , this test from Google analyzes a page and reports whether the page has a mobile-friendly design.
  • Botify , a clear and simple website control tool for SEO improvement points.
  • ContentKing , tool for monitoring and optimizing content in the field of search engine optimization.
  • HTTP Status Code Checker , simple tool from SDIM for viewing status codes, redirect locations, redirect chains and response headers

Website speed analysis tools

Link analysis tools

  • Majestic , comprehensive backlink explorer with historical data, link topics, competition analysis and more.
  • Link Research Tools , link data platform for comprehensive link analysis, monitoring, penalty prevention / solving, competition analysis and more.
  • Link Assistant (PowerSuite), backlink finding tool, requesting backlinks and checking backlinks.
  • Open Site Explorer , MOZ’s link search engine with link tracking capabilities, detection of potentially dangerous links, and more.
  • Semrush , all-in-one tool with option to check backlinks and quality, suitable for competitive analysis and more off-page SEO factors
  • Search Metrics , all-in-one tool with option to check backlinks and quality, suitable for competitive analysis and more off-page SEO factors.
  • Ahrefs , all-in-one tool with option to check backlinks and quality, suitable for competitive analysis and more off-page SEO factors.
  • Open Link Profiler , free link analysis tool with filters, link topics and more.
  • Google Alerts , get mentions of new listings on the web.

Toolbars, add-ons, browser extensions and plugins

  • Web developer , very comprehensive add-on for Firefox with various options for website developers and extremely useful for SEO specialists.
  • SeoTools for Excel , extensive Excel plugin for online marketing, suitable for retrieving many different data.
  • Search Analytics for Sheets , Make automatic backups of Google Search Console data and easily retrieve data in Google Sheets.
  • MozBar , one of the first browser extensions for SEO with many different possibilities.
  • User Agent Switcher , add-on for Firefox for viewing websites from the view of different user agents such as search engines, mobile phones and more.
  • Redirect Path , Chrome extension for checking http headers and redirects and status codes.
  • Yoast SEO , plugin for optimizing WordPress websites

Conversion optimization tools

It got too much. So view the separate page with an overview of the most important CRO tools .

Which SEO tools are right for my business?

Learn more about which SEO tools and software are suitable and see what SDIM can do for your company in the field of SEO .

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SEO

Important SEO TRENDS in 2020

by admin
written by admin

We come from a year where Google news and algorithm updates have played a vital role in SEO everyday life. 

As we all know, Google updates its algorithm every week, but there are always one or two updates that mainly shake up the SERPs and get news above the rest.

In this year, the main updates took place in March and June, but we are also aware of many other developments, such as the labeling of the pages not being taken into account by Google or the publication of the Robots.txt code, with removing techniques such as using “No index” in this file.

You could say that all these developments in the SEO industry differ slightly in the way of acting in certain situations, but it does not radically change the landscape we face in 2020.

So, in this article, we gather a number of factors that, while we already know that they have started working in many industries, will play a critical role in 2020.

What are the SEO trends for 2020?

SEO Trend 1: Process Automation

It is increasingly common to attend conferences or events where the main theme is SEO and join meetings and attend presentations where different possibilities are discussed when automating day-to-day processes.

We are talking about routine processes such as debugging our websites, monitoring all kinds of results, initial keyword research processes, results reporting, etc.

These processes require a significant investment of time which, if we could save ourselves through automation, we can devote ourselves to better strategic planning or changing the application.

With a little imagination and with the support of a development department to generate scripts and functionalities, process automations can be performed that will ease us from day to day and allow us to dedicate our time to really important tasks.

SEO Trend 2: Artificial intelligence applied to SEO

It may be too early to speak in general terms about using artificial intelligence on SEO, but the truth is that those SEOs most interested in these types of trends are already applying them to improve your results.

Google has had to use these types of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques for several years, especially since the implementation of Rankbrain in 2015, but now we’re referring to its application by SEOs.

Artificial intelligence can help us optimize certain positioning factors, in particular those aimed at ensuring an optimal user experience , based on learning based on historical data that represents user behavior on our site.

SEO Trend 3: Voice Search

Voice Searches has become a classic of these types of articles where the SEO trends are collected for next year, but the truth is that they don’t finish as a fundamental aspect in an organic positioning strategy.

The arrival of voice assistants for the home has been added to the standardization in the use of virtual assistants such as Android, Cortana or Siri. With this disruption, these kinds of searches have multiplied and we assume a new trend in the search for information, very different from what we were used to.

This explosion of voice search is completely changing the way SEO is done.

On the one hand, the resolution of the user’s search intent immediately becomes vital. Comparing it to the traditional way of performing a search, the way the search is performed for the same answer is expanded significantly and the semantic context in which the keyword fits is further expanded.

So, in order for SEO to work to drive traffic from voice search, we need to quickly and clearly resolve user search intent, help us flag data with Schema or JSON-LD, have content properly structured and, for local searches, work with local SEO.

SEO Trend 4: SEO for JavaScript

It’s proof that mobile device traffic has been invading computer traffic for years, far outnumbering it, and monopolizing all of the attention. 

For years we have talked about a transition to responsive web designs, improvements in loading speed and optimization of web performance in these types of devices.

However, we are on the way to improving the user experience in terms of speed and load: the new progressive frameworks developed in JS that serve dynamic content, eliminating the loading processes that take place when navigating between the different parts of a website .

For Google, it has become a priority to develop display systems that allow you to perfectly track this type of website developed in JS, so everything indicates that it will not take long to consider this type of development important.

In early May, Google announced the update to the rendering engine performed by Googlebot, switching from using Chrome 41 to do this with Chrome 74.

This update is a major step forward in properly crawling content and ending the drawbacks of the websites developed in JavaScript when posting them to Google, so with this update, official Google resources are ensuring that bots can render content in the same way as browsers, but they still need to make these processes perfect.

On the other hand, other search engines cannot even properly render these websites yet, but sooner or later they have to follow the line marked by Google, the leading search engine leader in Europe.

So, one of the main trends for SEOs in 2020 is catching up with SEO applied to these types of programming languages.

SEO Trend 5: Structured data

While it has been a factor to consider for a long time, the use of structured data has become indispensable when information is presented for processing by Google in an organized manner.

Plus, over time, Google offers new options when it comes to data tagging, so we can see it as an opportunity for certain industries or types of websites that were unable to use it until now. Google provides its own Structured Data Marking Assistant where we can manually select the elements we want to mark and we will obtain the HTML code to integrate into our website.

The latest development in highlighting structured data is the inclusion of a new option for highlighting FAQS sections or FAQs.

Obviously, this option is for trying to appear in the snippet that Google provides in the SERPs before an informational search with a list of answers to frequently asked questions obtained from the websites themselves.

Obviously, using this kind of structured data offers visibility benefits. Maybe not at the rankings of the rankings, but when it comes to drawing more attention to search results with prominent snippets or rich snippets. In addition, this type of data marking provides information to Google so that its use is appreciated.

On the contrary, we could say that we are ‘feeding the beast’ and it is likely that this will gradually turn against us. 

Google’s ultimate goal in this aspect is to show its own rich results that resolve the user’s search intent without leaving the SERPs, so we are facing a potential loss of traffic that will grow over time as Google doesn’t seem to settle for a small fraction of informational searches.

SEO Trend 6: Local SEO is becoming more important

In October of 2019 , Google reported that there are 350x more searches than ten years ago on ‘local’ and ‘near me’ in combination with short tail keywords.

This is partly due to the rapid rise of mobile use, driving a whopping 500% growth for ‘near me’ terms in just a few years.

SEO Trends: Small Business Search Trends in 2019.

People know better what they want and / or how to use search engines to find what they want. By focusing on local SEO you ensure that you are found as soon as your target group starts looking for the services or products you sell.

Tips for local SEO

A few tips:

  • Include name and address details on your website. Add your contact and address details to (the footer of) your website and contact page.
  • Don’t have a Google My Business page yet? Make this as soon as possible, fill in all information and optimize. That’s how you do that .
  • Search for (and create content for) keywords in combination with where your company is located. For example ‘Lawyer Amsterdam’ or ‘Plumber Den Bosch’.
  • Generate local citations . In other words: online listings of your company with associated contact and address details.
  • And of course link building. Generate links on relevant external web pages. For example, if you are a plumber in Den Bosch, try to get a link in articles with titles such as ‘The 20 best plumbers in Den Bosch’ .

Would you like to learn more about local SEO? Then read this excellent guide from Ahrefs full of tips and explanations.

SEO Trend 7: The SERP is getting busier and busier

Moz’s Rand Fishkin already warned us about it in 2018: the SERP is getting busier!

In short, he says that Google tries to keep its users on the SERP and answer their questions directly there. For example in the form of a featured snippet . And above that are of course one to four advertisements …

Others also see this trend. For example, research from Jumpshot shows that more than 50% of all searches do not result in a click.

The trend is clear: Google prefers to help its users by answering their questions directly on the SERP. With new developments, such as the display of FAQ and answers below a result (see trend 4), it is expected that this trend will only continue in 2020.

Fortunately, there are also ways to respond to this. The advice is to no longer focus on queries that can be answered in one sentence in 2020. Focus on questions that you can talk about long and extensively. Like the 2020 SEO predictions… ?

Forget SEO tricks, go for quality

So far the trends and forecasts for 2020. Once again the most important developments in a row:

  • Google knows how to answer search questions (even) better.
  • Focus on quality.
  • Mobile is (even) more important.
  • Google will try to answer more questions directly on the SERP.

Forget about SEO tricks, but go for quality and a sustainable partnership with Google in 2020. Don’t think in terms of quick wins, but invest for the long term.

Research which questions are relevant to your target group and give the best answer possible, written in natural spoken language. Create a fast page with a nice design, a great user experience (both on desktop and mobile) and use structured data to give Google a hand.

Conclusions

In short, we can bet that these 4 key aspects we are talking about will clearly drive the SEO trends for the next year 2020. In addition, they are clearly related areas, especially between cases of process automation and the application of artificial intelligence to SEO, as well as between content tagging with structured data and voice search.

And you, what do you think are the most important aspects of SEO in 2020?

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SEO

Learning SEO by Yourself

by admin
written by admin

You can do SEO yourself, but to do it properly you need up-to-date knowledge. That’s what this knowledge page is for. To get started, you can read here what SEO is and what it means in 2020. A lot is changing within the field!

But the more advanced marketer will also find what he / she wants here. How about a guide to conducting thorough keyword research ? Or various analyzes to tackle content SEO in a smarter way? Read on below or follow an SEO course and start increasing your SEO knowledge! 

SEO explanation and advice

The articles below provide detailed explanations of crucial topics in the SEO field. Read them all to increase your SEO knowledge!

Tip! While reading, come across a term you don’t know? Then look it up in the SEO dictionary!

What is SEO and what does it stand for?

SEO is an online marketing discipline whose goal is to increase the number of relevant website visitors via search engines.

SEO therefore enables you to attract more visitors to your website. And the best part is: it’s completely free :-). You don’t pay anything to Google for it.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

With SEO you influence various factors that improve the rankings of your website on Google. Read on to learn the key SEO terms and what it takes to increase Google traffic!

How important is SEO?

We may be a bit colored, so take the following sentence with a little grain of salt, but if you ask us:

SEO is the most important channel for your website!

Why do we think so? Below are a number of arguments:

  • Most successful websites get more than 50% of their traffic from SEO (unpaid traffic from Google)
  • The organic (SEO) traffic is almost always of better quality than traffic from Google Ads (SEA) and Social Media. The conversion and average session duration are higher and the bounce rate lower. This is evident from practical experience with our customers.
  • You do not pay for every click or impression, as with advertisements.
  • It takes time and energy to get SEO going, but once it does it has a true flywheel effect: It takes effort to get going, but once it’s up and running, it can’t be stopped!

How Difficult is SEO?

Is it difficult to learn SEO you may ask? The answer is: it depends. Some people find SEO difficult, but that is certainly not the case for everyone. Why is it then? If you can answer the questions below with ‘yes’, then SEO is not very difficult at all:

  • Are you willing to regularly keep up with recent developments in SEO?
  • Do you have any technical knowledge or affinity with web technology?
  • Are you willing to delve into what your potential customer really wants and is looking for on the internet? 

 SEO can come across as dizzying when you just start: it involves quite a bit of technical jargon, it is sometimes at the intersection of marketing and technology and the developments at Google – including SEO – never stand still.

When you are willing to:

  • Take in the jargon (unfortunately this is necessary),
  • To really immerse yourself in the matter
  • Keep up with developments,

Then SEO is not difficult, we promise! However, it does take a lot of time and energy to get it right, but so does anything worthwhile in life, right? ;). 

How SEO works

We start at the beginning: how does SEO work? Is it a trick? Is it magic? If you think so, we unfortunately have to disappoint you. Long ago, SEO activities were indeed a kind of tricks that you performed as a marketer, it was not very difficult to achieve results. Today, however, search engines are so intelligent (yes, you read that right) that you can only succeed if you work hard and do a lot of good.

How to Apply SEO to Achieve Success?

How do you apply SEO to get it right, you may ask? In short, there are four things you need to do well to get visitors to your website through search engines.

 Main ranking factors

Below you will find the most important SEO factors (also called ranking factors more than once):

  1. Content , this is the content of your website. This can be anything: text, images, animations, videos, tools, products, etc. This is actually the core for which visitors come to your website. It is therefore important that the content of your website meets the expectations of the visitor. If possible, you should even exceed this expectation!
  2. Authority , your website needs to build authority with search engines. Google should start to see your website as an authority. You achieve this with qualitative links from other websites.
  3. Technology , your website must be accessible to your visitors and Google. To achieve this, the website must meet a number of technical preconditions.
  4. User Experience , last but not least: visitors must have an excellent experience on your website. They must be helped in what they are looking for. Google is increasingly able to measure this.

 We will elaborate on the above ranking factors later in this article, but first a few SEO terms that you should know the meaning of!

How fast does SEO work?

Many people want to know how fast SEO works. That is not surprising because we humans are impatient beings by nature. Better results today than tomorrow, right?

The short answer is unfortunately: SEO usually doesn’t work very quickly. 

The nuanced answer is that SEO is a real long-term strategy. Therefore, do not expect results overnight. 

This certainly applies to a starting website. The domain needs time to build authority in Google’s eyes.

 In addition, a starting website usually does not have much extensive content and this is usually necessary for SEO. 

With SEO, therefore, think more in several months than in days or weeks. 

That does not mean that quick results are not possible. This is indeed possible, but only when your website has been around for a while and has built up authority .

Do you want immediate results in the search engine? Then go for SEA, or search engine advertising, in the short term. You then have immediate results, but you pay for every click.

How do you pronounce SEO?

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. In English this is difficult to pronounce as a word, so they pronounce each letter separately. Phonetically that is: es-ie-oo. 

In Dutch it is a lot easier to pronounce SEO as a word, but SEO specialists are often American oriented. This is because the USA is still at the forefront of the field.

 Most seo specialists therefore pronounce SEO in English.

The well-known website Onze Taal has conducted a poll on Twitter about how the word SEO should be pronounced.

What are rankings?

When doing SEO we often talk about rankings. By rankings we mean: the position of your website in the Google search results page for a specific keyword. A position from 1 to 10 usually means that you are on the popular page 1 of Google.

It is good to know that the rankings of your website do not only depend on the keyword. 

Google adjusts the search results to include the location and search history of the searcher.

What is the SERP?

The search results page of a search engine is called SERP. This stands for Search Engine Result Pages. Google’s SERP consists of two types of results:

Organic search results

The SERP consists primarily of organic search results. There is no payment for these search results. Google uses advanced algorithms to determine which websites are most relevant to the search query.

All traffic that you get on your website from Google that you don’t pay for is called organic traffic. 

In SEO, the goal is to maximize the amount of relevant organic traffic.

Paid search results

In addition to the organic search results, Google also shows advertisements. These are also referred to as paid or sponsored search results.

In the case of Google, the paid search results are at the top and bottom of the page. Previously, the ads were also on the right side of the page, but Google no longer does this. You can recognize the ads by the abbreviation ‘adv’ before the URL.

Knowledge graph

In the image you see, in addition to paid and organic search results, an example of the Knowledge Graph. With this, Google tries to answer the searcher’s question directly in the SERP. The Knowledge Graph is part of the organic search results, because it is not (yet) paid to Google.

Search Engines: Why Only Google?

On this website we actually always talk about Google when we talk about search engines.

Bing (from Microsoft) is the number 2 with about 3.5% market share.

This fact does not make SEO worthwhile for other search engines, which is why Pro SEO Expert focuses 100% on Google.

The difference between SEO and SEA

Because there is a lot of confusion about it, briefly the difference between SEO and SEA. If you’ve read this page here, you now know what SEO is. SEA, on the other hand, stands for Search Engine Advertising. In the Netherlands this is also called search engine advertising.

So SEO is about increasing relevant traffic through Google’s organic search results and SEA is about increasing relevant traffic through Google’s paid search results. You pay for SEA, but not for SEO. 

When you outsource SEO, you obviously pay for the services you purchase from the marketing agency, but you do not pay to Google.

You can also learn SEO yourself and it will cost you nothing. It is up to you whether the amount of time and energy you have to put into this weighs against the costs of outsourcing.

SEA goes beyond advertising via the search engine. With Google Ads (formerly AdWords) you can also advertise on websites other than Google. Google calls this network of websites the Display Network. This network consists of thousands of websites that cooperate with Google. These can be websites owned by Google itself, such as Gmail or Youtube, but also other websites, such as Nu.nl or Weeronline.

SEO ranking factors

Many years ago there were only a few simple factors that affected rankings. Back then, SEO was little more than applying some tricks and the traffic poured in. Many companies eventually regretted this because years later they received a penalty from Google for not following their guidelines. This is also referred to as Black Hat SEO.

Although search engine optimization still has the ‘trick image’ for many, in 2020 the opposite is true. There are several complex factors that influence rankings. Today, good SEO is in many ways tantamount to doing good online marketing.

We divide the most important factors that influence SEO into four main categories. You can see these categories as the foundation of SEO:

User experience (UX)

Google ultimately wants to provide visitors with the best search results. That is why the experience that visitors have on your website is very important to Google. It must be as good as possible. The user experience on your website is called User Experience in English, often shortened to UX.

 User Experience is the most important ranking factor for SEO in 2020. However, it is also the most comprehensive and for many people the most elusive factor. For this reason, let’s go back to the basics and explain exactly what UX is and why it is so important to Google.

What does UX

User Experience is often confused with usability. Yet there is a lot of difference between the two. User Experience is a much broader concept. According to the well-known UX agency Nielsen Norman, UX means:

UX encompasses all aspects of the interaction that the end user has with the company, products and services.

The two requirements for an outstanding UX, according to Nielsen Norman, are:

  1. Meeting the exact needs of your customers.
  2. Simplicity and elegance so that your product is a pleasure to use.

How do you meet the exact needs of your customers?

Your website must therefore meet the exact needs of your (potential) customers. How do you do that? The answer is:

With the right content!

In fact, potential customers only visit your website for one reason and that is for the content you provide. It is therefore crucial that this content matches their needs and wishes. You can read how to achieve this later in the content chapter .

How do you ensure that your website is a pleasure to use?

Then you have to make sure that your website is a pleasure to use. Two factors play a role here:

  • Graphic design: the look and feel of your website.
  • Usability design: the user-friendliness of your website.

Graphic design

Giving tips and advice about graphic design is always dangerous. It is very time sensitive. Tips we give you now may be “outdated” by tomorrow. In addition, graphic design is also very subjective. What one likes, the other finds ugly. Beauty lies the eye of the beholder,  is the English proverb for a reason.

Choosing a timeless design is therefore the safest choice. Whether this is also your choice, we leave it to you. Know that when you go along with a bold trend, Your website will need a redesign more quickly. A rule of thumb is that your graphic design should never be at the expense of user-friendliness, let this be exactly what usability is all about!

 Usability design

Usability design is a completely different story. Usability is about the user-friendliness of your website. The rules for this are much less time-sensitive and there is little gray area. In addition, with the help of user tests you are perfectly capable of objectively investigating user-friendliness.

According to Nielsen Norman, usability is determined by five factors:

  1. The ability to learn : how easy is it for users to perform important tasks on your website?
  2. Efficiency : once users get to know your website, how quickly do they complete tasks?
  3. The ability to remember : if users have not used your website for a while, how quickly will they be skilled again?
  4. Error sensitivity : how many errors do users make on your website and what consequences do these errors have?
  5. Satisfaction : how satisfied are users with the use of your website?

Tips usability

  • The navigation of your website is extremely important. Think carefully about this and ask customers (preferably by means of user tests) if they can find what they are looking for.
  • Use a breadcrumb trail. Then you give visitors a clear overview of the structure of your website, where they are and where they come from.
  • Never use photo carousels or sliders that automatically switch photos.
  • Never use videos that automatically start playing with sound.
  • Analyze your website with Google Analytics and find pages that perform below par. For example, pages with a too high bounce rate or exit rate.

Does Google User Experience measure?

Yes! Google regularly emphasizes how important user experience is for the company. It is therefore a safe assumption that Google includes UX in determining rankings.

It is therefore not surprising that many SEO studies find strong correlations between high rankings and KPIs that say something about the experience of users on your website, such as:

  • Bounce Rate.
  • Average session duration.
  • Average number of pages per session.

No one knows whether Google also uses these metrics. Many SEO experts believe that Google mainly measures pogo sticking and dwell time , because for the above figures Google Analytics must be consulted. Google once said not to do this. However, there are other ways to find out this data, such as using click stream data.

Incidentally, not entirely coincidentally, pogo sticking has a lot in common with bounce rate and dwell time has a lot in common with average session duration.

UXO model

The user experience is so important today that we no longer have to be purely focused on the search engine when doing search engine optimization. In fact, the search engine should not be the start! By this we mean that in the content creation process we obviously have to take SEO into account from the first moment , but that it is no longer the starting point.

The starting point must be: satisfying your visitors and meeting their needs. In short: offering an excellent user experience. This may sound crazy because SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization after all. But Google – and with this also the SEO field – has undergone a major development over the years, making the literal meaning of SEO obsolete.

This means that the traditional SEO model is actually outdated. For this reason Pro SEO Expert has developed the UXO model. UXO stands for: User Experience Optimization. In this model, not the search engine, but the user experience is central. 

We believe that in 2020 this is the way to success in the search engine, but at the same time it contributes better to satisfied visitors and achieving your other online marketing goals, such as conversion.

Content

Content is king, it is sometimes said. SEO specialists mean that the content on your website is actually the most important thing. Without the right content there is no SEO and therefore no good rankings or organic traffic. By content we do not only mean texts. Images, videos, animations, etc. are also content.

Good for SEO learning to write

Below you will find the conditions for learning to write properly for SEO:

  1. Provides a clear need : there must be a search need for your content. Otherwise there is no search volume, so no search traffic.
  2. Unique : the content may not appear anywhere else on the internet. Plagiarism or copying will get you nowhere.
  3. High quality : Especially texts must be well written. For example, Google does assess the grammar on your website.

On page SEO

SEO optimization for content is also called on page SEO . This means that you optimize texts, images and other types of content for search engines. There are several on page SEO factors that influence your rankings. We divide them into visible and invisible factors on your page.

Visible SEO factors

  • The meta title: this is the title of your web page. You can see this in the tab of your browser.
  • Headings: these are headings and subheadings on your web page. In HTML they are called H1, H2, H3 etc.
  • The URL: this is the address of your web page, visible in the address bar of your browser.
  • The body text: the main text on your web page.
  • Internal links: relevant links to other pages of your website.

Invisible SEO factors

  • The meta description: a short description / summary of your page.
  • Alt text: description for images so that Google knows what they are about.

Important : we call the meta description invisible here because you cannot see it at the front of your website. However, the meta description is often visible in the Google SERP. If Google finds your meta description relevant enough for the relevant search query, it will be shown in the SERP under the URL of your page. It is therefore very important to write a good meta description for every page of your website!

Writing for SEO

Do you want advice for writing for SEO? Perhaps surprising advice:

Write first for your target audience! Content is created primarily for your (potential) customers and secondly for Google. Why? If your website visitors are satisfied, then so is Google. This is perhaps the only SEO advice that will be 100% the same in 10 years.

Concretely this means:

  1. Start with keyword research to understand search needs, competition and the current state of your rankings. You use this to visualize the demand of your target group and discover where SEO opportunities lie. An additional advantage: you also learn which terminology your customers use (how they search).
  2. Group several closely related keywords and write high-quality content for them that meets the search intent of your target group. So get into the viewfinder’s skin. When someone searches for word x in Google. What is that person really looking for? Make sure your page fulfills this need. Then the visitor is happy and Google is happy!
  3. Optimize the content based on the points mentioned above for content optimization.
  4. Create as much buzz as possible around this content by sharing it widely. Not only on social media, but also among your colleagues, customers, leads, etc.

In our SEO step-by-step plan for writing text , you can read step-by-step how to write for your target group and for SEO!

Authority & link building

The authority of a website is determined by hyperlinks. The billions of webpages on the internet are connected by links. Google highly values ​​these links.

If we take a political election as a metaphor, then Google sees every link to your website as a vote for your “political party”. In the past, the more links (so the more votes) the better. When this was widely abused, Google started improving its algorithms.

The SEO discipline aimed at improving links is called link building. At Pro SEO Expert we prefer to talk about link earning, because in our opinion links should be earned instead of requested (which is common in link building).

Why is authority not a pillar in the UXO model?

The attentive reader has seen that we have not given authority a pillar of our own in the above UXO model.

The reason for this is that authority is not a condition for a good user experience. When you offer visitors to your website an excellent user experience, high authority is ultimately a result of this. That is why authority has been given a place in every pillar in the form of a connecting element.

Conditions for good links

In 2018, the following conditions apply to links:

  • A link must come from a good quality website . This means that the website that refers to you must be of good quality. Think of good content (see above), but also that this website itself must also have good authority.
  • A link must be relevant . This means that the website that links to you must have something to do with your field or industry. The more the website is ‘up your street’, the better.
  • Your link profile should be natural . Google has several ways to determine whether the links pointing to the website were created in a natural way. For example, Google looks at the anchor text of your links and looks for signals whether a link has been paid for (which is prohibited!).
  • A link is in a prominent place : Google attaches less importance to links that are in the sidebar or in the footer of a website. Preferably a link is in the body of the page.
  • There are not too many other links on the page : the more links there are on the web page that links to your website, the less the influence of this link on your rankings. For this reason, a homepage link is less valuable than a link in an article or page where only a few times on the page are linked to other websites.

 Domain and web page authority

Both an individual web page and an internet domain have a certain authority. The page authority used to call Google PageRank, but they have not used this word for a while. There is a misconception that Google no longer attaches much value to PageRank or authority. The opposite is true!

Domain authority

The authority of a website as a whole is measured by domain authority. You can see this as a measure of the effectiveness of a website as a whole. So here we look at the total number of links, their quality, etc.

Page authority

We refer to the authority of one individual page as the page authority. To measure this, it looks for links that specifically point to that particular page.

Internal links also count

External links are the most valuable, no doubt about that. But internal links also count. The thinking behind this is quite logical: if you do not link (much) to a certain page, then this page will not be very important for your website. Therefore, never forget to link to (new) web pages yourself. However, only do this where it is relevant. Don’t overdo it!

Measure authority

You can no longer measure authority with PageRank. Google has simply stopped making this transparent. PageRank’s last update was in 2013.

The American SEO company Moz offers a good alternative. They have their own spiders that map the web in a way similar to that of search engines. The authority they calculate for domains and web pages they make transparent through their Moz bar for Chrome or Firefox. The Moz bar not only provides insight into your own website authority, but also that of your competitors.

Technic

The technology of your website is also an important SEO point. Google likes fast websites that are well structured and free of errors.

Some technical advice:

  1. Make sure your website has a short loading time . This means that you optimize the size of images and that your website uses techniques that ensure faster loading times. * Warning, technical terms now follow; -) * . Think of: browser caching, page caching, database caching, minification, a CDN and combining JavaScript files. Use PageSpeed ​​Insights to measure what Google thinks about your website loading time.
  2. Make sure your website is optimally crawlable for search engines. Google maps any crawl problems in  Google Search Console .
  3. Make sure your website contains as few errors as possible . Think of server errors, but also 404 pages (page no longer exists) or 403 pages (prohibited access). You can also find indications of these types of errors in Google Search Console.
  4. Minimize duplicate content . CMSs sometimes want to provide duplicate content. You solve this with canonical tags.
  5. Submit a sitemap.xml . Give Google an overview of your website by submitting a sitemap in Google Search Console.

Learning SEO by Yourself: 6 Extremely Helpful Resources

There are certainly more good sources than the 6 below. These 6 titles have helped me a lot to gain more information about SEO and eventually even make it my job.

Every week I listen to podcasts about SEO, read books, dig blogs or watch YouTube videos. Of all these sources, I think the 6 below are most suitable for entrepreneurs who want to learn more about SEO themselves.

Let’s take a look!

brian-dean

1. Brian Dean – Backlinko

Brian is one of the most respected SEO specialists today. With his own blog and YouTube channel he manages to achieve rankings with which he can beat large companies with a much higher budget in Google.

Brian is also known for his Skyscraper technique. He introduced it to the general public and now almost every marketing agency uses this well-functioning content strategy.

The great thing about Brian Dean’s articles is that you need little to no technical knowledge of your own to implement his SEO ideas.

Recommended!

Visit site

ahrefs

2. Ahrefs Youtube channel

If you prefer not to read too much, but prefer to watch a video, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Ahrefs Youtube channel . Ahrefs is a backlinks and SEO analysis toolset. It is widely used by SEO professionals who are serious about link building and competitor analysis.

I also use Ahrefs and experience it as a very powerful tool.

On the Ahrefs YouTube channel you will find videos like this that can fully update you on a specific topic in a few minutes: in this case SEO for WordPress.

They come up with a new video almost every week, so keep an eye on these folks!

Visit Youtube channel

rand-fishkin-MOZ

3. MOZ: Whiteboard Friday

Videos again. And that is something MOZ has understood very well. MOZ is the all-in-one toolset for SEO including keyword research, site audits and link building.

Every Friday MOZ publishes a “whiteboard Friday video” containing a different SEO topic almost every time. The videos are in English, but very easy to follow. They vary from beginner level to more advanced.

The videos are really worth it and usually last up to 10 minutes.

Visit the website

MOZ-SEO-Beginners-Guide

4. MOZ: Biginners Guide

Another part of MOZ. Unlike the Whiteboard Friday videos, this beginner’s guide is mainly text-based. But don’t let that deter you. Because a brief look at the guide will tell you that it is packed with valuable content and is also beautifully presented.

I can often be found in SEO groups and I read a lot of blogs in this area. Often when someone comes up with a question to learn the basics of SEO, they will be referred to this post.

In short, bookmark this guide and study it in detail. I am convinced that if you have studied this guide not once but twice, you know more about SEO than 95% of entrepreneurs.

View the complete guide

SEO-101-podcast

5. Pocast: SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.fm

As far as I’m concerned, a podcast should definitely not be missing from this list. If you don’t do it yet, I absolutely recommend listening to a podcast in the car or, for example, while exercising.

And how nice is it if you can combine this by finally brushing up on that SEO knowledge. With the SEO 101 Podcast on WebmasterRadio.fm this is perfectly possible. The great thing is that this podcast has already recorded over 200 episodes. This makes it a source of invaluable SEO knowledge for the beginner.

Hosts Dunn and Carcutt discuss basic SEO topics and really help improve your SEO knowledge, such as learning how to write for SEO, in a relatively easy way. So if you don’t like reading much and you prefer to listen to it, then you should definitely give this podcast a try.

Go to Podcast

yoast-seo

6. Free SEO training for beginners from Yoast.

Yoast is a household name in SEO Land. The Dutch company has developed an SEO WordPress plugin that has been downloaded and installed millions of times.

How great is it that they share their SEO knowledge through a free training?

With this training you lay a solid foundation for everything you can do with SEO. From content such as Keywords, SEO Copywriting and the structure to your site. But also a piece of technology such as crawling your site and so-called ‘ Rich results ‘.

View website

Need help with SEO?

If you are genuinely interested in learning SEO yourself and not outsource the basic SEO activities to a third party, the above references are really extremely valuable.

However, do you not like this?

Of course I can also help you further. I check whether your website has the basis for good positions in Google and come up with recommendations.

Because there are always recommendations.

Have you ever:

  • Checked the speed of your website ?
  • Did keyword research?
  • Checked if you have an XML sitemap?
  • Have you checked whether all your titles are unique and attractive?
  • Checked on 404 pages?

Not?

Then that is really time . This is really the basis of good SEO.

Would you rather someone else do this for you? Then contact us without any obligation.

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What is seo
SEO

What is SEO?

by admin
written by admin

All texts are on your website, the design is of high quality and everything works properly. Yet you have the idea that you can attract more visitors to your site.

 There has been a technique for this for years, under the name SEO. This is a form of search engine optimization, so that your website will hopefully show off on the first page of Google within a few months. But this does require a few things, such as extensive keyword research. 

These are the words you want to be found on. Have you not done anything with this strategy yet? Then it is time to optimize your website on all fronts. But what exactly is SEO and how does it work?

Keywords are the basis

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. You pronounce this as the letters themselves, but specialists sometimes say it without a pause between the letters. 

As indicated, SEO is the technique to give your website or a page a better place in search engines. Think of Google and Bing.

The basis for this is the use of keywords. These are the terms you want to be found when someone starts their search through Google. There are some important parts where you should definitely include these keywords:

  • Title of your texts (also called headings).
  • Subheadings.
  • The body of the lyrics themselves.
  • Blogs.
  • The title of your images.
  • Meta texts and meta titles.
  • Online advertisements.
  • Google AdWords.

On-page and off-page SEO

The above options come under on-page SEO, or everything that happens on your website itself. But there are also strategies outside your site that contribute to better online findability.

These fall under the heading of off-page SEO, a logical name given the method. 

An example of this is link building. With this you exchange the link with a relevant page, such as that of a competitor. Google sees this as a positive vote, as it were, giving you an edge over the rest.

Research on SEO

But how do you find these keywords? This is preceded by extensive research by means of a number of tools, such as the Google keyword planner or Ubersuggest. 

In this process you are really not completely dependent on tools alone, you can also come a long way yourself. Associate, use synonyms and see what your competition is doing. 

For example, look up a text from a popular company in your industry. Read the text of the homepage and focus on which words are more common. 

Please note that this own research is a time-consuming job. Especially if you are just starting with SEO, it is wise to read carefully about the application of this strategy. 

Are you too busy as an entrepreneur? Then hire a specialist. This expert not only searches for the best keywords, but also processes this directly in the texts. 

Also keep in mind that the world of SEO is constantly changing; after a few months, the user may use different keywords. The SEO specialist will then help you to implement this optimization in the texts of your website and the advertisements.

Why is SEO important?

For 95% of the search for a product or company starts in a search engine. To get to the attention of your target group and generate leads, you just have to be at the top of the search engines. 

Even if people end up making the purchase offline. Search engine optimization / SEO marketing is therefore essential for lead generation .

More clients with SEO

SEO is an ideal way to promote your business at the right time. There is (almost) no form of marketing that is so powerful.

Because search engine optimization lets you show your business when it really matters, you forge the iron when it’s hot.

Your customer is looking for your product or service and you are there, at the top of Google, waiting for him.

You get more turnover when you meet the needs of your customers in the right way and at the right time. The best way to do this is to answer when the question is asked.

And that is exactly what a good SEO strategy does.

What is the purpose of SEO?

With SEO you work on the positions in the search engines. At least that’s what is known about it. Yet an SEO strategy is not about your search engine rankings, but about supporting your business goals.

You only get real results if you have a clear idea of ​​what you are using it for.

Of course, it’s infectious to read other success stories about how great SEO is. But who says that the strategy used also works for your company?

The success story of someone else is never a guarantee for the same result. This is also the reason why many entrepreneurs put time, money and energy into SEO without success.

Before you start with search engine marketing, you need to immerse yourself in the buying phases of your customers. You can of course prey on the perfect search terms, the terms that your competitors are already found on and on which you would like to score.

But who tells you whether your competitor is using the right strategy?

A number 1 position in Google does not mean that she (or you) will get extra customers with it.

How does SEO help you get customers?

Consider your own purchasing behavior. What’s the last thing you bought?

How did that go?

You felt a need, you broke down, you were looking for change or you started looking for a solution to your problem.

Each customer goes through different steps before contacting you or showing one of your products.

If you want to use SEO for more customers, you need to find out which steps these are. What information do your customers look for before evaluating their choices.

How do they determine to be with you or your competitor?

By coming to the attention of your customers at the right time, you will not only gain their trust, they will also be more loyal and satisfied.

After all, we don’t want to sell something just once, but keep customers for life.

However?

If you keep the focus on your customer, respond to the right buying phase and choose smarter keywords than your competitors, then your sales will not only increase, you will also gain significant ground.

What does SEO mean in practice?

There are about 200 ranking factors according to our industry, but let’s be honest, only at Google itself are a few people who know exactly how many there are. What we do know is that all these factors can be divided into 3 main categories:

  • Technic.
  • content.
  • authority.

Where technology and content should mainly be tailored to the visitor of your website. If your visitor is satisfied and finds what he or she is looking for, then in theory the authority should naturally increase over time.

Technic

Your website must be technically in order. Things you should think about include:

  • the structure of your website.
  • the correct use of headers.
  • user-friendly urls.
  • fast loading time.
  • using an SSL certificate.
  • use of sitemaps.

Unfortunately, not every web builder knows how to take this technical basis into account for an easily findable website.

Content

The users of Google are / your target audience is looking for something. To contact details, a product, information…, content.

The better your website meets that content need, the better users of your website will appreciate it and send signals to Google that your website is ‘brilliant’. Consider those signals:

  • visiting multiple pages on your website.
  • do not immediately leave your website and return to Google ( bounce rate and pogo picking ).
  • sharing your content on social media.
  • or the for SEO’s ‘holy grail’ of appreciation: placing a link to your content / website.

Despite the fact that there are people who claim that Google is so smart nowadays that they can map your content to the information needs of your target group, you absolutely cannot ignore keywords.

So there are 3 steps to get to the ideal content:

  1. Analyzing the content needs of your target group. You do this in the content strategy
  2. Link that content need to a keyword research
  3. Processing those keywords in web text that is tempting to the reader .

Authority

Where Google used to have its own indicator for authority (namely PageRank ), nowadays we use Domain and Page authority or Domain Rating . This authority is largely determined by external inbound links.

Ideally , visitors to your website will find the content on that website so beautiful and your website so user-friendly that they will voluntarily link to your website. In practice , everyone knows how important links are to your ranking in Google and almost everyone nowadays charges money for them.

Something that Google struggles with enormously, because for the time being they cannot determine the authority of a website other than through links, but this is of course relatively easy to manipulate.

In our view nothing wrong with that, because all media is manipulated and PR agencies have been providing paid exposure for their customers for many years.

Hence,  link building is still an important part of search engine optimization.

Because a little organization can also find a web builder who can deliver a technically excellent website and optimizing content is no longer rocket science…., So how does Google know which website best matches the search query?

Make sure you have everything in order

Don’t be blind to technique, content or authority as something that stands on its own.

Make sure that you continuously serve your target group as well as possible through your website and also ensure that your website is mentioned on as many other relevant websites as possible.

Call it link earning, content marketing , link building or PR, but you need those links.

Also do not have the illusion that SEO is a one-off project or easy. SEO is something you have to keep working on, just like your target audience group.

SEO starts with keywords

Google is (especially in Dutch) still focused on keywords. A keyword analysis should therefore be included in every serious content plan .

After you have mapped out the information needs of the target group, you match it with the right keywords. Then you write good web texts around that information and keywords, so that your information is actually found and appreciated.

In fact, Google is not yet very smart in Dutch, this is because we are of course only a small country worldwide.

A good example of the limited knowledge of our language is the fact that this page, which you are now reading at # 1 in Google, stands for the search term ‘SEO meaning’ with the ‘curve’ sentence below highlighted as a snippet.

“The literal SEO meaning is Search Engine Optimization , so search engine optimization in Dutch.”

The real language purists therefore have to turn a blind eye every now and then if they want to reach the top positions.

A concrete SEO plan

The SEO strategy must of course lead to a concrete SEO plan. So that everyone involved knows what needs to be done to beat the competition in Google. Among other things, the SEO plan should state on which keywords the focus will be and how that will be achieved.

For example, is a landing page needed with good content, should content be created or optimized.

SEO marketing in practice

In practice, the technical aspect of SEO is usually tackled first. Is everything correct in terms of indexing, speed and encryption?

Then it is checked whether there is (sufficient) good content on the website around the keywords. And then the domain and underlying pages are strengthened in terms of authority through internal and external links.

The best SEO advice … Don’t just score in Google

Why would you only want to be found on Google, if you can keep in touch with your customers?

You are number one with that great keyword, your visitor clicks, but then what?

What do you do if someone doesn’t buy?

With only SEO, you can only hope that you will ever see that visitor again.

By incorporating SEO into your marketing mix, you know why someone has not yet bought.

Excite your visitors again via your newsletter, Google ad campaign or your LinkedIn message.

Really smart SEO participates in your complete market approach.

If marketers have shown for years that it takes several contact moments before you really convince someone to become a customer, then you will also understand that SEO will work, but never as effective as when you incorporate this into your complete marketing mix.

With social media marketing you ensure that you show your company in different phases. By not only focusing on your social media channels, but by incorporating the strategy into your marketing mix, you complete the picture.

Attract new visitors to your website with smart blog posts, stay connected with your social media strategy and use your advertising campaign for the final push.

A nudge in the right direction 

So SEO involves quite a few time-consuming strategies. Yet it is not impossible to apply all of this. Certainly not with the help of a specialist.

Via this website we tell you more about SEO, how you work per strategy and what the pitfalls are.

So we give you, as it were, a push in the right direction in the field of SEO. Would you like to know more? Read our informative blogs.

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