Resource Category: seo

Five Common Myths about SEO Marketing

Over the last 25 years or so, search engine optimization (SEO) has changed a great deal. In that time, many people have held on to false beliefs and myths that may be holding them back from reaching their true potentials. Below are five common myths surrounding SEO marketing and the evidence required to debunk them.

#1 – Google Won’t Rank Your Site Unless You Submit It

Believe it or not, there are still people out there who believe that they must essentially register their sites with Google in order to have them appear in search results at all – much less rank. This simply isn’t true. Google is sophisticated enough that it uses web crawlers to index the entire internet and there is absolutely no submission or registration required.

While link building certainly is important since it delivers more traffic to your website, there are other things that are just as important and perhaps even more important. In the past, SEO was much different. You could write nonsense, stuff in some keywords and links, and get noticed. These days, though, you should view link building as just one link in an entire chain of SEO considerations. The quality and even the frequency of the content is much more important than the number of links it includes.

#3 – Blogs Aren’t That Important Anymore

Once upon a time, a site’s blogs were the best way to climb through the search engine ranks, and without them, you may as well not even launch the site. With search engines like Google increasing the complexity of their ranking algorithms all the time, there are some folks who believe that blogs just aren’t necessary anymore. This is absolutely false. Blogs provide a dynamic source of content that helps to keep your site fresh. This will likely never change.

#4 – It Doesn’t Matter How the Site Performs

Google, Bing, and other search engines are businesses, and as businesses, their goal is to provide their customers (searchers) with the best product possible. Making sure your site loads quickly, looks nice, and is easy to use – factors involved in the overall user experience – is absolutely critical. If Google provides a list of links to slow, complicated websites, people won’t want to use Google anymore and they’ll go to a competitor. Google is aware of this, and that’s exactly why site performance and the user experience as a whole definitely matters.

#5 – Just Put the Keywords in and You’ll be Good to Go

In the early days of search engines, it was possible to type the same word over and over and over again until it filled the page, insert a keyword every few sentences, and appease the Google crawler with that. As previously mentioned in the other myths, keyword stuffing doesn’t work anymore, and it’s likely to significantly penalize your site. That’s right: if you stuff keywords in today’s day and age, Google will rank your site lower.

Search engine optimization is much better (albeit more complicated) than it once was, and that means you need to be diligent when it comes to keeping up with SEO news and changes to the major players’ indexing algorithms. Nothing ever stays the same on the internet, and this is a prime example. If any of these myths stood out to you, it’s a good idea to go back through the content on your website and optimize it the best you can.

Do Social Signals Really Exist in the SEO World?

Search Engine Optimization (more commonly referred to as simply SEO) is always growing more and more complex as search engines work hard to provide the best possible search results to their users. In doing this, many have begun to consider social signals in their SEO algorithms – including Google. Here’s what you need to know about social signals and how social media can affect your company’s visibility.

What are Social Signals?

In the SEO and marketing realms, social signals refer to instances in which visitors interact with your social media accounts in one way or another – either directly or indirectly. For example, sharing your post on Facebook is a direct social signal; liking a blog post on your website that has been integrated with Facebook is an indirect social signal. It may also include the number of times viewers share your webpage or blog post to their own personal feeds, whether that’s on Facebook, Twitter, or another social site.

Simply put, social signals point to overall social media visibility as viewed by search engines like Google or Bing. In recent years, social media has become a tremendous player in marketing, so it should come as no real surprise that it can also play a role in how the major search engines see your company, too. The more people interact with your content on social media platforms, the better.

How to Increase Your Social Signals for Insane SEO

Now that you know that social signals really do exist, you should spend some time thinking about the best ways to incorporate them into your marketing campaigns. In fact, you should meet with your marketing team and come up with a comprehensive strategy for boosting those signals. The number one tip to do this well is to stick to content that is valuable and informative – or even entertaining if that’s the message you want your brand to send.

Otherwise, some things you can do to boost your social signals include:

  • Being active on all your social media accounts. You should post at least once every single day on Facebook, Twitter, and others. You can even post to places like Reddit, too.
  • Using videos and photos to your advantage. Social media users prefer to consume their information via a video or photo, so don’t shy away from these. Make sure they’re high-quality and encourage viewers to interact with them.
  • Hosting contests or games. These are by far the best ways to get people to interact with the things you post on your social media feeds, which drastically increases social signals, and it’s also a great way to get your brand noticed even more.
  • Partnering with other brands. Look around for businesses with products and services that complement your own, and then reach out to those companies in an effort to form partnerships for a social media series.
  • Use Using social media monitoring software and apps. Some of the best social media marketing apps for tracking social signals across all your accounts are available for free, so look into them and choose the one that you like best. There are also tons of SEO tools out there to choose from, and when used in conjunction with social media trackers, the information provided is priceless.

There’s no denying that social signals have become an important part of SEO, and as social media sites continue to gain traction – and they are expected to do so – those signals will continue to play a huge role in your brand’s visibility. Fortunately, the tips provided here can work to your advantage when it comes to drastically increase the number of social media interactions your brand receives on a daily basis.

What Does EAT Mean in SEO?

eat seo

When it comes to search engine optimization, the days of inserting keywords to get high results rankings are long gone, and there are numerous considerations to keep in mind if you want your content to do well. Below, you can learn more about the EAT acronym, which is a great way to remember three of the most important facets of good SEO – Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. 

Why Does EAT Matter?

In the early days of search engines, landing on the first page of search results was as easy as loading a piece of content with keywords. The content didn’t need to be well-written or even factual; it just needed to have the right keywords. Over the years, though, the algorithms used to determine which webpages are shown on the first page of results has grown quite complex. Search engines like Google and Bing are businesses, too, and they earn their money by being better than their competitors. In order to do that, they need to ensure that they are providing their users with the best possible content based on their searches, and they utilize highly complex algorithms to do that for every single search.

Expertise

If you want your content to perform well in various search engines, you’ll need to make sure it’s written in such a way that your expertise is evident. If someone searches for “how to defragment a disk drive,” for example, that person expects to find an article or post that provides them with the right information and helps them get the job done. No matter what product or service you provide, it’s critical that your industry or niche expertise is very evident. Expertise is an important part of the algorithms search engines use to assign rankings, so if your content is not grounded in knowledge and facts, you’re only hurting yourself in the long run. 

Authoritativeness

Authoritativeness is different from expertise in that it shows you are an industry authority. To put it simply, search engines want to see that your company is an industry leader and that people genuinely look up to you or turn to you more often than your competitors. Things that will boost your authoritativeness include plenty of website traffic (and interaction wherever possible), backlinks to other authoritative websites, and more. Ultimately, if search engines see that people accept your content as a great source of information, their algorithms will boost your webpage higher in the search results. 

Trustworthiness

Last, but most certainly not least, is trustworthiness. This part of the EAT acronym refers to your transparency, accuracy, and legitimacy as it applies to not only your website and its content, but also to your business as a whole. One of the most important things you can do to improve trustworthiness and improve your search result rankings is to provide information that satisfies visitors’ curiosity about the company. This might include plenty of contact information, personal bios, and more. Content accuracy an also play an important role in improving trustworthiness, so be sure that everything you write is generally accepted as truth or supported by experts in the field. 

Search engine optimization can be tricky. In fact, it’s so tricky that nobody knows every detail of search engines’ increasingly complex ranking algorithms. By following the EAT algorithm across your entire website, however, you can rest assured that your rankings will climb over time and that your company will enjoy search engine success. 

5 SEO Marketing Efforts that Will Actually Make Your Life Better

SEO Life

Search engine optimization (SEO) seems quite complicated, and for some companies and marketers building solid campaigns, it’s time consuming, too. Fortunately, there are some simple things you can do that will drastically improve your SEO and make your life better. Below, you can find the top five – and some tips for implementing them, too. 

#1 – Write and Publish a Blog

If there’s one thing you can do that will make a tremendous difference in your search result ranking, it’s writing a blog. Rather than just typing out your thoughts and publishing them, though, be sure to focus on what’s most important for SEO:

  • Relevance: The content you create for your blog must be relevant not only to the keywords you choose to use, but also to your site and industry. 
  • Authority: Make sure your content is authoritative. After all, you want your readers to trust you, and you want to be known as an industry-leader. Authoritative content is a must. 
  • Professionalism: Don’t publish a blog filled with inaccuracies, misspelled words, or bad grammar. Write and edit carefully. 
  • Regularity: On average, putting up one to two new blog posts each week is the best way to improve your rankings. 

#2 – Use Photo and Video Content

It can be tempting to skip photos and videos for your site. They can be difficult to make and expensive to procure. However, photos and videos are important marketing tools, especially for SEO. People like photos, and if given a choice between reading an article and watching a video about it, most people would choose the video. Just make sure you’re optimizing the videos and images for search queries with the right descriptions and tags. 

#3 – Don’t Shy Away from Social Media

Organic social media content is one of the best SEO efforts of them all, and it’s as simple as it comes. Just update your Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account a few times a week with information that’s pertinent to your company. Just published a new blog? Tweet the link or share a link (along with a photo) on Facebook. Planning a big sale? Invite people using social media. 

#4 – Speed Up Your Website

There is nothing more frustrating than a slow website, and search engines know that slow-loading pages annoy their users. As such, if your site loads slowly, you can expect your rankings to take a significant hit. Speed up your website as much as possible by looking at some of the following:

  • Removing JavaScript where possible
  • Reducing redirects 
  • Enable compression
  • Optimize your images and videos
  • Improve your server’s response time or consider a new server
  • Use browser caching to your advantage

Finally, it’s important to build backlinks from other reputable sites. Doing this can be tricky, but there are several ways to go about it. One of the best – and the most cost-effective – involves writing a guest blog for a site that is popular within your industry. For example, if your company sells software designed for household budgeting, see if you can write a guest blog for a budgeting guru. You can also write articles and posts for various networks and link back to your own products and services. 

As you can see, SEO is about much more than just making sure your website looks nice and works as intended. You need good, relevant content that includes photos and videos, social media accounts, a fast website, and backlinks across the web. With these in place, your site will climb the ranks over time and lead you to success. 

Are You Asking Yourself “Why Does SEO Take So Long?” You are Not Alone

seo time

If you’re expecting good SEO to cause an explosion of traffic overnight, you’re probably going to be more than a little disappointed. If you want sudden traffic that may or may not be relevant, make a viral video. If you want relevant traffic that truly has the potential to grow your company with time, you’ll want SEO, instead. Here’s why it takes so long. 

SEO Must Satisfy Algorithms

Since Google launched in 1997, it has been tweaking and adding to its ranking algorithms to ensure it’s giving its users the best possible results when they search for something. In order to satisfy those algorithms, your website must be relevant to the search term. It must be dynamic and have content that changes regularly. It must have photos and videos with all the proper tags. It must load quickly and be easy to navigate. It must have all these things that simply take time to perfect, and it can’t happen overnight. 

You Have to Climb Past Competitors

Google is a lot like a popularity contest, too. Even if your site is perfect, you cannot and will not outdo another perfect site that has been around since 2002 – at least, not at first. Google knows that the competitor satisfies most of its users, so that’s what they keep showing. It’s up to you to be patient enough to keep making your site better and better while waiting to pass the competitor. After all, that competitor has been proving its worth for 18 years and you’re the new kid on the block. 

Technology Isn’t the Same

The technology people use today to search for a term on Google is a far cry from what we used 20 years ago, and this is something else that Google must consider. As technology changes, search engines also change, and those changes can negatively impact your results. For example, companies who ranked highly by stuffing keywords back in 1999 were quickly overtaken as relevance became an important part of the algorithm. Be steadfast and remember that changes in technology will affect the way search engines work – and that affects how you rank, too. 

Don’t Give Up

SEO can be frustrating, especially for those who are brand new to the concept of digital marketing. Don’t give up. You are building your reputation, and you want to build one that lasts  – not one that blossoms overnight, burns out, and then falls to the wayside like a one-hit wonder from the late 80s. Use the tools available to you to track slow growth, or hire an outside company to help you with your SEO if you so choose, but remember that it is not going to happen overnight. 

Search engine optimization is ultimately one of the best ways to put your brand in front of the right people at the right times, but it isn’t instantaneous. In fact, it can take months or even years to get to where you want to be with SEO alone. Make sure you’re marketing in other ways, too, and be patient with the process. It will pay off in the long run. 

6 Ways Link Building Will Deliver More Site Traffic

Link building may seem simple enough, but it’s actually one of the trickier aspects of SEO. If you’ve been avoiding link building in favor of simpler approaches to SEO, now is the time to start acquiring those links so that you can generate more organic traffic. Below are six of the most important ways in which link building delivers more traffic to your site. 

#1 – It Puts Your Content in Front of More People

When there are links to your content on other websites – especially if those websites are popular among your target audience – it is safe to assume that some of those people will click the link and visit your site. Simply put, link building puts your site in front of more people. 

#2 – It Boosts Your Site’s Authority

When Google’s (and other search engines’) crawlers see links to your website across the web, it pleases the mysterious Google algorithms. After all, Google is a business, too, and they want to provide their users with the best possible search results. If numerous websites link back to your own, then it must contain excellent content. The more authoritative your site becomes, the higher it will climb in the rankings. 

#3 – It Makes it Easier to Rank for Multiple Keywords

Once Google recognizes your site as an authority thanks to the numerous links provided by other companies and websites, it then becomes much, much easier to rank for multiple keywords. It’s likely that multiple websites – your competitors’ websites – also utilize the same keywords you do. Unfortunately, you can’t all be on the first page of search results. Because of this, as your site becomes more authoritative thanks to your link building efforts, it becomes easier to rank for multiple keywords, too. 

#4 – Referred Leads are Better than Cold Leads

Link building can also help you generate referral traffic, which is important for your overall success. A user who was referred to your site through a link provided by a source he or she trusts is far more likely to purchase your product or service than someone who simply stumbled across your site while searching the web. In other words, the traffic sent to your site through link building can be considered more “qualified”. 

#5 – Link Building Can Make Your Brand Memorable

Having a memorable brand is important in today’s digital marketing climate. While an outstanding logo and catchy slogan can go a long way, it’s also helpful when your potential clients see links back to your website in multiple places across the web. If those links are hosted on sites your potential clients trust, that’s even better. 

#6 – It Gives You the Opportunity to Solve a Problem

Finally, when converting your leads into buyers, the most important thing you can do is solve that lead’s problem with a value-added product or service. Link building gives you the opportunity to do just that, especially when the links take the reader to a blog post or product/service page that is directly related to the content the reader was already viewing. For example, if the lead was reading an article about common inventory issues and your company sells software designed to make inventory simpler, then the lead already expects your product to solve his or her problem. In other words, that lead is already primed to buy. 

SEO link building is one of the most effective ways to not only generate traffic, but to generate better, higher-quality traffic that is already primed to truly consider the product you sell. There are numerous link-building strategies that you can use to improve your traffic starting today. 

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