Instead, many of these online shops rely on paid ads or social media to increase their sales. Both of these are brilliant, but they take a lot of work to set up and maintain. SEO, on the other hand, takes minimal effort to keep once it’s set up.

Keep reading below to find out how SEO can increase sales in your eCommerce store.

What is SEO?

SEO can be used to increase the number of visitors to your website by improving your rankings in search engines. Sites that are located at the top of search engines are likely to be more successful. Remember, eCommerce stores need to produce a website which not only ranks highly in search engines but also encourages people to spend their money once there.

Is SEO Easy?

SEO isn’t easy, mainly if you’ve never done anything like it before. It takes a lot of work to make your website rank highly in search engines, but it can be done, and it’s definitely worth the effort. If it’s your first time setting up an eCommerce store or you’re trying to increase sales, but don’t know where to start, then you should consider an eCommerce marketing agency like CAKE commerce. They will help you to come up with a strategy that increases the success of your store. They can also help you with things like SEO and social media marketing.

Why is SEO Crucial for eCommerce Success?

Lots of people are under the impression that their online stores don’t need to use SEO to rank highly in search engines like Google, but this isn’t the case. Sites that use SEO will rank higher in search engines than those that don’t, so if your competitors are using SEO, they will rank higher in the search engine than you.

Increase Your Success by Improving Your Website

SEO can be used to push traffic to your store, which can lead to an increase in sales. However, it’s not only the traffic that you need to think about. An increase in traffic doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll make lots of sales. To do this, you will need to create a website that is attractive and user-friendly.

You’ll also want to make sure that your site loads quickly and works correctly. Once your website or store is complete, make sure you update it regularly.

Search engine optimization can be used to increase the number of sales made in an eCommerce store. If your online store isn’t ranking highly in the search engines, then why not give SEO a go, or ask a professional for some advice? It’s definitely worth the time and effort you put in.

The post Why is SEO Crucial for eCommerce Success? appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

While SEO deals with improving the overall experience of a searcher, content marketing deals with the creation of content that the searcher is looking for. Using them together can give a huge boost to your marketing and help you achieve online success.

Here’s how you can use a combination of SEO and content marketing to grow your brand:

1. User Experience

Search engines strive hard to give their users a better experience. They do so by ranking websites that provide accurate information and good experience to their visitors higher in search results.

SEO thus involves steps that you need to take to improve the quality of your website and offer a seamless browsing experience to your visitors.

One of the most important parts of SEO is the content that’s on your website. It should be well-written and accurate. At the same time, it should be able to satisfy the searcher’s intent. When people find content that they were looking for, they will more likely return back to your website.

Creating this high-quality content can increase their time on page and decrease your bounce rate. Both of these factors will positively affect your website’s SEO and help you rank higher in the SERPs. This, in turn, will get you more visitors.

2. Keywords

Keywords are essential for the success of your SEO strategy. You need to use relevant keywords in your content to ensure that your rank for those keywords in the SERPs.

First, you need to find those keywords through keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner and KWFinder.

Your keywords need to be used judiciously and naturally in your content, and that’s where content marketing comes into play. You also need to add keywords to your headings, URLs, and meta description to improve your SEO.

This way, SEO and content marketing both work together to help you rank higher in search results.

3. Backlinks

Backlinks are like the backbone of SEO. Each backlink that you earn will help your website rank higher in searches if it’s from a reputable source.

One of the best ways of getting backlinks is by writing guest posts. However, guest posts will only be accepted if you write high-quality content.

Additionally, you can expect to get some traffic out of the guest posts if the audience of that website finds your content useful. This, too, will only happen when you’ve written informative content. That’s where content marketing helps improve your SEO.

Another way of getting backlinks naturally is by creating great content that people will want to link to. Such useful content can earn you some valuable backlinks that can positively impact your SEO.

One method which many brands use to improve their SEO is by partnering with influencers. Influencers are adept at creating quality content for their audiences and, thus, can help drive traffic to your website.

A backlink from their website can also help boost your SEO. However, finding influential personalities can be a tough task. To make it simpler, you can use tools such as BuzzSumo, Influence.co, and BuzzStream.

4. Competitor Analysis

Using SEO tools like Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Majestic, and others you can get insights into your competitors’ content strategies. You can find out which of their pages get the most traffic and which ones have the most backlinks.

This will help you find topics that your target audience is interested in reading about. By identifying your competitors, you can get ideas for your blog posts. At the same time, you can find the best keywords for your niche.

5. Internal Linking

Another way you can align your SEO and content strategies is through internal linking. By adding internal links, you can redirect your website visitors from one web page to another. In this way, your visitors can read more content on your site.

At the same time, internal links are helpful at improving your site architecture. You can also help Google’s crawlers understand what your web pages are about by adding appropriate anchor text. In this way, it can help improve your SEO efforts as well.

Final Thoughts

SEO and content marketing may seem like two different modes of marketing. However, they can work together to help you accomplish your business goals. Keywords are necessary for SEO and can only be used well through content marketing.

Similarly, you can only expect to earn backlinks when you write quality content. Lastly, both of these marketing methods are aimed at giving a better experience to your visitors. And, only when both are done well, will the experience be good.

We’re listening.

What other ways do you use content marketing and SEO to grow your brand? Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post 5 Best Ways to Make SEO and Content Work Together to Grow Your Brand appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

Among the leading SEO tactics, content is by far the most crucial. It can make or break your SEO strategies. SEO and content make a great team at their best. The opposite is also true. When at their worst, they can cause a string of Google penalties that can paralyze any online business.

The purpose of this article is to try and give you a good understanding of what SEO content is and how to leverage it to “move the SEO needle”.

What exactly is SEO content?

Even if you are new to the online world, you must have come across the word, “content” at one point or another. A simple definition of SEO content would be information found on the internet that is consumable therein. It can also be said to be content developed with the goal of attracting traffic through search engines.

Everyone is well aware that Google and other search engines take content very seriously^[1]. As a result, there’s an enhanced hype around content in today’s world. With the hype comes a heightened competition among website owners. To stay on top of things, you have to be a master at the game. Sometimes this means hiring an SEO expert^[2] to help you stay ahead of the pack.

What SEO content strategies are worth being considered?

Many people over depend on SEO writing forgetting other facets of the coin. Sure, robust keyword research is the key to SEO success but if not carefully checked, one may end up with rather dry content—the kind that makes the search engines happy but does very little to engage the target audience. SEO writing can easily become an attraction tool more than a tool for creating dedicated customers.

So, what should you do about it? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Appropriate Keyword Research

Despite keywords being the enemy of online marketing, it can be the greatest strategy if only it is done right. According to Neil Patel^[3], keyword research done the right way is the best aspect of digital marketing. You cannot ignore this important step if you want to move the needle with your content.

Here are tips of success with keyword research:

• Run away from extremely competitive keywords that have massive search numbers
• Use long-tail keywords^[4]
• Employ a dependable keyword research tool
• Your topic and keyword should match

2. Optimize Images

Images should make a huge part of your SEO content strategy. Although many would consider them as decorations, images are actually content according to Premier SEO Ninjas and the Search Engine Journal^[5]. Images help the reader better understand your article. Long text can be dull and boring but images always draw the eyes. Be sure to throw in one or more images in every article you develop on your website. There are a few rules to be followed when optimizing images:

• Use appropriate formats when saving images
• Make the images simple and compressed
• Keep colors on the minimum
• Don’t mix photographic images with graphic elements and fonts
• Contextualize the images
• Blend the images with the content

3. Support Your Content With Videos

Our world is now more visual than it has ever been. According to Hubspot, 54% of internet users want to see more videos from marketers (Hubspot, updated 2019)^[6]. On top of images and powerful content, you need videos to further explain what you are all about to your customers.

4. Keep Things Organized

Many times, website owners rely on inspiration to add content on their website. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that. It might just get you to your destination albeit much slower. It can also make for a messy website that repels both users and search engines.

Yes, go ahead and write during moments of inspiration but work with a specific structure from the very beginning. With the help of Premier SEO Ninjas, you can create an outline as you start your website including your titles, headings, and the outlook of your page. Additionally, ensure that your content is broken down into sections that keep the attention of the reader to the end.

5. Blog, Blog, Blog

You have heard all about the power of blogging in the past but how about something little to cement that? A study done by Hubspot in 2018^[7], concluded that businesses that harness the magic of blogging experience higher lead growths (126% higher) than non-blogging businesses. A good blog strategy guided by Premier SEO Ninjas helps you target the right kind of audience.

Read Next: Try These 6 Content Marketing Strategies To Never Revamp Again

Conclusion

Content is no doubt an important element as far as search engine optimization is concerned. If you get it right, the sky will be the limit for you. You will drive unimaginable traffic to your site and in turn, convert it into huge bucks.

The post Moving the Needle with SEO Content appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

Apart from all these basic things, your business website should feature various other innovative as well as contemporary options to make your website performance to get better.

All these things fall under user experience category. Previously developing a website was mostly focused on developing the attractive or eye-catching user interface.

Things have changed these days drastically. Today, website development means taking both user experience and user interface under consideration. These two factors will help your business website to gain better recognition.

It will help your business to gain better brand value. Eventually, it will make your site more popular among the targeted audiences. With enhanced user experience, the satisfaction level of customers increases.

As a result, they turn out to be loyal customers for simple customers. When a business starts having its own base of loyal customers, it can be considered that the business has started doing well.

In this article, we shall mainly focus on user experience enhancement for business websites. Well, thanks to the internet, various user experience enhancement strategies, as well as tactics, are not unknown to the users.

However, one thing that every user should understand that the enhancement of user experience will eventually lead to better business marketing results.

Your overall business marketing campaign will be benefitted with seamless user experience enhancement strategies and tactics.

The Relationship Between SEO and UX

Search engine optimization^[1] which is basically a business marketing strategy has often been used for the purpose of excellent web marketing.

It is a lesser known fact that user experience^[2] of a website shares a close relationship with search engine optimization.

A blend of these two elements will fetch excellent business brand marketing result. So, how user experience enhancement can help in the process of search engine optimization.

1. Responsive Website Designing for Better User Experience

Today, it is not unknown to us that responsive website design is vital for every e-commerce business if the business wants to draw more potential customers to its website.

Today, internet users have been categorized into two sections in terms of their attempt of accessing the internet.

The first type is known as Smartphone users. They use handheld devices to access the internet.

The second type is known as a conventional internet user, and they basically access a computer from desktops as well as laptops. You can find both kinds of visitors on your website.

However, to give a better experience to mobile users, you should consider transforming your site by applying the responsive model.

Responsive website designing helps a business to maintain a single site which is easy and seamless to be accessed by all kinds of users.

When you have a responsive website, you are actually giving a better user experience.

Mobile users can visit your website without facing any hassles. Similarly, desktop or laptops users will also find convenient.

A responsive website is minimalist in terms of graphical arrangements. Instead of heavy image files or heavy graphical elements, it uses lightweight graphic icons to generate a simplistic yet eye soothing website interface.

So, not just user experience but the user interface has been enhanced with responsive website designing. To know more, you can check with Big Drop Inc.

Another benefit that is ignored when it comes to talking about responsive website designing is the SEO benefit.

Responsive website designing enhances user experience score of a website. As a result, search engines prefer such sites.

So, if your website has been designed to deliver better user experience through responsive website design, you shall get default SEO benefits.

Search engines will rate your website in a better manner and as a result, you shall attain better search engine search page ranking.

2. Contents for Enhancing User Experience

Contents play a significant role when it comes to discussing the user experience of a website. Content is the key thing that can give more satisfactory experience to users when they visit on your website.

Perfectly written contents should offer essential or crucial information that visitors are actually seeking.

Nevertheless, content gives guidance that users need to understand certain features of your website or e-commerce store.

Now, we all know that perfectly optimized contents add a lot of SEO benefits too. With better contents, it is possible for a business website to achieve top spots in the Google search engine search page result.

3. Enhancing Content Readability

Adding good content to the website is one thing and enhancing the readability of the content is another thing. For increasing readability, you need to make a few arrangements.

The most important thing is to check graphical arrangements or graphics interface of your website. The website should not use too vivid color as colors cause distractions.

As distractions are caused, content readability decreases. As readability decreases users are left unsatisfied on your website. To enhance user satisfaction, enhancing readability is imperative.

Another way of enhancing the readability is to opt for better website design. Perfectly designed website and proper arrangement of the texts will make the website content perfectly readable. Sometimes, texts remain too small to read on the sites.

Enhancing text size or font size will help. It is crucial to use default fonts, like Verdana, Times New Roman, Calibri, etc. using special fonts can be a little daunting, and web visitors would find default font if they do not have the special fonts installed on their systems.

All these minimal changes or alterations to the website will enhance SEO score. Your business will become more successful with its SEO campaigns.

3. Visual Appeal of the Website

The user interface is vital to enhance the user experience. On the other hand, the User experience is essential to score better in search engine marketing.

Your business website will be optimized for the search engines when you give stress on enhancing the overall visual appearance of your website. It will add convenience, and it will provide your web visitors with better experience or more satisfaction in using the site.

Read Next: Don’t Be Slow! 5 Ways Social Media Marketing Can Help Your Business Grow

So, user experience and SEO are interconnected. To do well with the user experience of your business website you have to follow search engine guidelines.

Similarly, for better SEO campaign results, you need to revamp the user experience of your e-commerce store. To know more about web design you can visit Bigdropinc.

The post How is User Experience Enhancement Interconnected to SEO? appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

Pizza places and franchises like Pizza Hut have dedicated sites that represent multiple storefronts in a locality. There are several types of business sites, but they share a common factor – the user intent.

People searching for brands and products are mostly looking to browse and buy. Therefore, the search optimization goal of almost all e-commerce sites has to include user intent.

Earlier, local people in business were content by sharing their business name, address and phone number (NAP) on Google Maps and Google My Business.

Now, it is no longer enough. When a person searches for falafel or sushi during lunchtime, it is just not enough if Google shows a list of all sushi places in Philadelphia.

The search result needs several points of modification depending on the person who’s searching, his or her exact location and their search preference depending on their regular search trends.

That has created a dynamic shift in the marketing world. More companies are now paying attention to the intent and interests of their potential customers rather than investing their SEO budget on demographics-dependent strategies.

How have Search Trends Evolved Over the Years?

Initially, Google was a search engine that fed the inquisitiveness of the human mind. Queries like “How big is the Sun?” or “How many people have gone to the moon?” were more common ten years ago than they are today.

In 2018, the search intent is more purchase and lifestyle driven than it ever was. More people are searching for “pizza places near me” and “quick drive-in options in my location.” This change is due to the entry of mobile devices in the Google search domain.

In 2017, over 51% of the Google searches came from mobile devices. Find out more about the search trends you need to follow from visionsmash.

Recent stats show that 57% of the people, who are engaging with businesses from their mobile devices, are interested in visiting a store.

About 39% of the users call related companies, and 10% of them end up buying something. That is possible because when a person is searching from his desktop, he has a different intent.

He is at home, probably lazing around on social media sites, reading blogs and news articles. During this time, he is more likely to use Google for generic queries that satisfy his curiosity.

When a person uses his mobile, he is more likely to be out on the road, already searching for a particular establishment near him. That’s why a search like “quick haircut options around me” elicits a salon visit and business profit.

Over the last few years, searches including the terms “nearby” and “near me” increased by at least 80%. These are the “I-want-to-go” micro-moments of search according to Google. This kind of a search always precedes an action from the user.

How Can You Cash in On The Search Micro-Moments?

As you can see, optimizing for general searches are not enough anymore. You need to work on perfecting your hyper-local micro-moment SEO.

It might sound like a mouthful, but breaking it down shows us that it involves technical and non-technical SEO features that optimize a website’s content for hyper-local search results as well as these micro-moment SERPs.

It includes many factors and sets of intricate metrics that a professional SEO service can help you monitor. With the help of a dedicated SEO team, you can achieve better CTR, higher traffic, lower bounce rates and enhanced conversion.

Besides the conventional local SEO tips^[1], you will need to remember the following for optimizing for hyperlocal micro-moments –

i. Mention Local Features – All the top search results from Google pay attention to user intent and micro-moment. These include a salon, spa, hotel, restaurant and shopping mall searches.

Whether it is Philadelphia or New York, the intent of these searches does not waiver. Irrespective of the type of business you run, do not forget to include your location, contact, and words like “cheap,” “luxury,” “top rated” and “best.”

ii. Works With a Mobile- First Target – Almost 51% of the current Google searches now come from mobile devices. Working with a mobile-first mindset is imperative for all local businesses. Do not forget to include visible CTAs and Click-to-call buttons wherever eligible.

iii. Customize Landing Pages According to Location – You need to carve a niche audience for each locality you serve. Your storefront might be in the city center, but that does not mean all your visitors and buyers reside there. Include your ZIP code, local neighbors, local landmarks and address in each landing page.

iv. Pay Attention to Structured Markup – There is no way you can expect excellent performance from your website unless you are investing some time and effort in your site’s schema markup.

Data markup gives the vital information a structure that Google bots can access with ease. It should include your company name, product, service type, address, contact number, operation hours, longitude and latitude.

What are Some Off-Beat Ways to Utilize The Micro-Moment Trends?

There are instances when the brand in question does not have a storefront in the locality.

Instead of misguiding people by giving false location updates, you can leverage the user intends to turn your brand into –

i. A local information catalog, where people can find products and services in their relevant localities.

ii. A repository for “How to” guide videos.

iii. An inventory for products from the local market that they can buy from the respective sellers through an instant buy option.

When local businesses aim to attract local customers through the web, they need to work hard to keep themselves visible to the target communities.

Read Next: 11 Most Important Tips To Get Your SEO Moving For 2018

Visibility affects the complete performance of any website irrespective of its purpose. Sometimes, you will need to step into the world of enhanced SEO practices to be able to stand out from the crowd.

The post SEO Trend is Getting Amended by User Intent & Hyperlocal Searches appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

It is important to be aware of the benefits that are linked to working with SEO companies rather than dealing with search engine optimization for your website in-house.

Outsourcing SEO

Outsourcing your SEO offers several advantages in the long run and will outweigh the savings that may be experienced when attempting to do your own SEO especially if you lack experience or time.

There are a number of major benefits that are associated with hiring an SEO agency that will work with you on your site.

Business owners should learn more about the ways outsourcing SEO reduces general marketing costs significantly, increases customers and leads and improves rankings.

Improving your Site

More people have become aware of how crucial search engine optimization is for websites. Previously, only the businesses in certain industries with a lot of competition might have required SEO in order for their websites to take the top positions in the pages of search engine results or SERPS.

Virtually every industry has become competitive and SEO continues to be an essential aspect of reaching potential leads or customers.

Without implementing SEO, your site might not be able to gain the level of exposure that it needs for high rankings.

Unless a site has been properly optimized to compete directly with other entities in the industry, target relevant keywords and load quickly, it may be very difficult or impossible to increase online sales without investing large amounts of money in other marketing strategies.

An SEO agency can help with the process of implementing the tactics that are necessary for enhancing your visibility during searches and improve the prospects of reaching potential leads or customers while minimizing the funding you require for marketing.

Experienced SEO Agencies

Although you may be familiar with the basic aspects of search engine optimization or have spent time reading blog posts and articles about the subject for some time, you may not actually have a lot of experience in optimizing your site.

Alternatively, you may be trying out SEO and different methods o your website to find out what works.

• Being successful in your business should not be determined by assumptions or experiments. If you are not certain about what you are doing SEO may end up damaging your site instead of helping it. For instance, link buildingis beneficial for credibility but the wrong links can lead to penalties for your website and being removed from the results of search engines.
• SEO agencies are equipped with the experience and knowledge that are required to make the best decisions for your website that can lead to increases in visibility and ranking rather than decreases. The agencies also usually have experience with different clients in various industries, which will make it possible for them to handle your specific ranking expectations, needs and situation appropriately. Click here for Kotton Grammer Media.
• Working with an experienced SEO agency also ensures that you are able to deal with unexpected changes such as penalties and algorithm updates. SEO companies have experienced these situations several times before and they can guide their clients through a variety of potential issues quickly and smoothly.

Favorable Results

No one wants to leave their business success to chance or face the risk of damaging their site.

Even if you do a lot of research or have good intentions it is highly possible that you will be unable to accomplish the level of online success that an SEO professional can guarantee.

An SEO agency that has years of experience will have the ability to assess your site, objectives and competitors and come up with a comprehensive plan that can increase your online visibility.

SEO companies have the ability to monitor your progress and change their plans to make sure that you remain on the right path towards accomplishing the best results possible regardless of how long it may take.

Focusing on your Business

If you have researched SEO for some time, you may be concerned about how you will get the time to build links, create new content and optimize your website. You might also be wondering about whether you have the knowledge that is necessary to deal with these tasks or not being able to achieve them fast enough to make a noticeable difference in the visibility of your site.

Beyond SEO

• Working with a professional SEO agency enables you to focus on what you do best, which is running your business while the experts take care of everything else. You will also be less anxious about your website’s performance in searches because you can rest assured that a team of SEO professionals is handling the tasks for you.
• Making the choice to working with an online marketing agency rather than a company that may only be focused on SEO services ensures that you can rely on them for a variety of your internet marketing needs. Whenever you need assistance with web design, inbound marketing, advertising, website content or any other issue, you know who to call.
• Companies also provide discounted rates for customers and developing business relationships with them will make it easier for you to achieve your goals in a timely manner. Bundled packages include website redesign, content marketing, inbound marketing and performing SEO.

Read Next : 10 Basic Steps To Conquer Social Media Marketing Strategy

Finding an SEO Agency

• Finding the right SEO partner for your business can be challenging if you have not worked with on before. An online search for an SEO company returns several results that include a wide range of companies and locations.
• One of the effective ways to find a professional and reputable SEO agency is gong through client testimonials and reviews. You can find the reviews on the company’s website as well as other professional sites that provide insight into the experiences clients have had with them previously.
• You can consult the company about how they handle specific situations or projects. This is a good way to find out how working with a certain agency will be. A company that is willing to answer your questions and address your concerns is likely to be a good choice and can pave the way for a beneficial working relationship.

The post Can an SEO Agency Improve Online Marketing Results for Businesses? appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

Certainly, SEO has changed over the years just like all of the marketing has. What once worked well for many SEO specialists today does not. Those days of stuffing keywords on your posts and pages are long gone. If you try to do that today, you will surely not be found online.

What has Changed with SEO Recently?

Keyword Density

Gone are the days you could have 10% keyword density on a page of your website or blog. Today 2-3% is more in line what Google wants. You need to have several keywords per article or page now to use for your keyword strategy. I love using the Yoast premium plugin as it calculated this for me as I wrote each new post or page.

Google Brain Rank

Google now uses a machine learning artificial intelligence system to sort through the search results. It helps Google to process the search results. It’s not the only way Google ranks content in its search results, but it does have an impact today. Search Engine World explains in depth how this works with Google’s other ranking like Panda, Hummingbird, etc.

They do say that Brain Rank is the 3^rd most important factor out of 100’s for Google ranking in the search results. They go on to explain “RankBrain is designed to help better interpret those queries and effectively translate them, behind the scenes in a way, to find the best pages for the searcher.”

How We Search Today

The way people search today is different too. Many are doing it from their mobile phones and by voice. Searches are no longer done via a desktop anymore. Look at your Google analytics to see where people are searching from now.

If you haven’t looked in a while, you may be amazed how many are searching from their mobile devices or speech tools like Alex and Google Home.

Mobile Friendly is a Must Now

If your website is not mobile friendly you are being penalized by Google. They did warn about this for some time, but it has taken effect now. Your site must be able to be found on all devices and be ready for users to look around. This is the #1 factor now for SEO in 2018.

Website Speed

This one is important today more than ever. People have the attention span of a goldfish which is just 8 seconds. If you don’t have someone’s attention in less than 8 seconds, it’s over. They move on to another site in their search. No one wants to wait for a website to load anymore.

Your Website’s Security

Your site must be secure from hackers. Have the HTTPS for any website that does sales on it is a must today. Be sure you use a reputable company where you can have the keys to your SSL certificate. Read more on Inspire to Thrive about SSL certificates. Not only is this one important to SEO but it’s important for your website users. They will not want to enter in any fill forms without a secure website that is reputable.

Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords are generating more in search today than ever before. This levels the field for many smaller businesses today. What exactly are they? Long tail keywords are three and four keyword phrases which are very, very specific to whatever you are selling.

You see, whenever a customer uses a highly specific search phrase, they tend to be looking for exactly what they are going to buy.

Therefore, long tail keywords can help you generate more SEO authority and increase your ranking so your content can be found organically.

If you need help researching keywords Neil Patel has a new tool called Ubersuggest. It is a free tool and is easy to use. I highly recommend trying this one out!

Local Search

Some small business can do well via local searches. If their websites are optimized for local business those near them will find them in their searches. One of the ranking factors for this is to claim your business via Google. This is one I see many small businesses overlook.

Smaller Subtle Changes vs Big Drama Changes in SEO

This is great news to most of us. If you don’t keep up your site won’t totally vanish, but it will decrease in the rankings gradually (unless it is not mobile friendly). Back in the day some websites that were on page 1 vanished altogether. Now one may notice a drop to page 2 or 3 more gradually.

Backlinks Are Still the Backbone of SEO

The links that are incoming to your website are still considering a ranking factor today for SEO. But the quality of them matters today more than ever.

Therefore, if your backlinks contain authoritative websites it will give yours a better ranking.

When you produce great content, people will automatically want to link to it. ShoutMeLoud recently had a Twitter chat about backlinks that gave some great tips for generating backlinks.

Schema Markup

What is this? Schema Markup is a semantic vocabulary of tags (or microdata) that you can add to your HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent your page in search engines pages.

This helps the search engines understand your content and provide the best results for those searching. These work well for products, events, place, person or organization. These are recognized by Google, Yahoo, Bingo and Yandex.

There is no clear data saying that schema markup points to higher rankings, but many believe if it doesn’t now it will in the future.

Meta Keywords

These have been around a while but in 2009 Matt Cutts of Google said he doesn’t use them at all. They are basically useless now and since 2009.

You may notice others still using them, but they are of no use today in 2018. They hold no SEO value so why use them?

Excellent Relevant Content

The type of content you produce today is not only good for you but good for your website’s SEO. Quality content is a ranking factor today. If you are writing blog posts they should be at least 900 words long.

Likewise, there should be a structure to your posts with internal links. Outbound links must be relevant to your readers. Links should not be there for linking sake.

This excellent relevant content will be shared more among the social networks. That type of content will signal that the content is sharable, and that people are reading it.

Updated Content

Content should be updated regularly for Google to crawl your website. Whether your website is a blog or a retail website it should be updated on a regular basis. Google crawls sites that are updated often. It is now part of SEO to have fresh content.

Gone are the days of making a website and leaving it there for years. It must be changed and refreshed to compete with newer websites being made daily.

Having a blog on any website is a great way to have content updated on a regular basis. The same goes for a blog, you should be updating your older content with fresh content. This will allow Google to crawl that post again as a fresh piece of content.

SEO is Not Just for Google

Don’t forget Bingo, Yahoo and Yandex. Google is not the only game in town when it comes to SEO. Many people use Bingo and Yahoo and some even use Yandex. Bing is run by Microsoft and their phones and computers run off the Bing network.

Analytic Tools

After you have put these SEO tips to work be sure to check your Google and Bing webmaster tools and analytics. SEO is like housework – the job is never DONE.

It’s ongoing. Doing SEO for your website is a daily or at least weekly task. Things change rapidly today online, and you must be ready to make changes rapidly as well. Gone are the days of put the site up and forget it.

You can now have emails sent to you from your Google Analytics. Just be sure to ask for the specific questions you want to know about. It could be about a specific audience’s behavior on your website. Track how they are going from one page to another.

If speed was an issue on your site, it could be the new methods you implemented to improve them. Get the emails on the page speed weekly so you know if it has changed for you.

Read Next: 11 Most Important Tips To Get Your SEO Moving For 2018

In Conclusion – Is SEO Worth It In 2018?

The answer is a definite YES. SEO is still very important in 2018. Most online activity today starts with a search today. (3.5 billion searches alone on Google per day!)

If you want your content or products to be found online, you must use SEO methods that are relevant today to be found quickly. Like with most things in life, you either have to spend time or money to implement these strategies.

Otherwise, you’ll end up NOT on page of one of Google and all your hard work will be not be found. People no longer have the patience to search for more than 8 seconds.

Be aware of that when you write a new page or post for your site. Make sure it can be found in search when the question is asked.

Therefore, with so much competition online today SEO is worth it more than ever before!

The post SEO in 2018: Why SEO will and Should be more Important to You this Year appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

So, if you want your website to be ranked high on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) related to your product niche on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other important search engines, you need to get a lot of one way backlinks pointed at your web pages from high-quality sources.

Here then, are ten quick and easy ways to create backlinks so you can get your website ranking higher on Google and other search engines.

Beta Testing Forums

If your business creates software, there are many beta testing forums online where people are willing to test out your products prior to launching them to the public. To get high-quality backlinks, register on these beta testing websites and connect with testers.

This has the double benefit of being able to get informative advice on the quality of your software that you can then use to improve your products, as well as getting one-way backlinks from the forum when users write about your software on their own websites.

Helpful Hint: Some of the best beta testing sites to use are BetaNews, ieXbeta, and FlexBeta. If you are looking for links that will improve your ranking rather than driving traffic to your pages, make sure you check that the “unfollow” attribute is available on any given forum.

Tap into Tech Bloggers

Another great link building option, to increase your website ranking, is to send your products to tech bloggers and ask if they would be willing to review it. When it comes to getting publicity for your products, you need to be proactive rather than reactive. So rather than waiting for the biggest and most influential tech bloggers to discover your software on their own, send it to them and ask if they can include a one-way backlink to your website in their review.

Charitable Donations

Want to gain valuable one-way backlinks from a reputable website and help other people out at the same time? Then make a charitable donation to an organization that thanks to its donors on their website and include a link to your web page in the thank you section.

Google may assign a lot of weight to a backlink that comes from a recognized charity. So their backlink can give a boost to your website ranking more than what you can expect from a non-charity site.

Speaking of giving back to the community, if you are web designer, work with SEO, or programmer, one option is to offer your talents to non-profit organizations for free – especially those that have a website that ends in the authoritative .edu or .gov suffix. Then ask that they include a backlink on their site to your web pages.

Event Sponsorship

Another way to get high-quality one-way backlinks and improve your website’s ranking from an authoritative website, is to be a sponsor of an event with an educational or governmental institution. Many of these agencies will display their corporate sponsors on their web pages and when they do, you can include a backlink to your web page.

Sponsoring an event also has the benefit of building your business’s profile and reputation in front of industry leaders. You also may get an invitation to the event, where you can mingle and network with people within your industry.

Participate in the Conversation

Interact with thought leaders in your industry by posting questions and comments on their blogs and websites, and interacting in forums related to your niche. Always remember to leave an electronic signature that includes a backlink to your web pages. This can definitely help in raising your website’s ranking a few notches in search engines.

You also can use these opportunities to attract new customers and fans, especially when you post information that is relevant and useful.

Target Local Business Forums

Create a thread about your business on a local forum that allows posting of information about area businesses. Make sure to include information about the products and services you provide, your location, high-quality photos and other images, and important information such as contact numbers, email addresses, and hours of operation.

Don’t forget to include a link to your website as well.

Offer Free Samples

Offer free samples of your products or a free trial of your services to your clients, vendors and other contacts. In return, simply ask for their honest feedback … as well as a backlink on their web pages. This is another quick way to bolster your website rankings.

Don’t Forget Your Local Chamber of Commerce

The purpose of local Chambers of Commerce is to promote local businesses. So don’t forget to make contact and participate in your chamber. Usually, they will allow members to post links on their websites and other relevant materials.

Partner with Local Businesses

Look for mutually beneficial ways to partner with other local businesses, such as posting each other’s links on your websites.

You May Also Like: Why SEO Audit Is Mandatory For Your Website?

Use Citations to Promote Your Business

Citations are badges that include your business’s name, address, contact information and other relevant information. These citations can help get you ranked higher when they are posted on other sites, even if they don’t have direct backlinks to your pages.

To generate your own personalized citation, Whitespark Local Citation Finder is a free tool you can use.

So, now that we have shared the list of top 10 ways to create high-quality backlinks to improve your search rankings, do let us know in the comments section below as to which technique or a mix of techniques worked best for you.

Good luck!!

The post 10 Ways To Boost Up Your Website Ranking By Back-Linking appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

SEO experts spend time speculating about what Google wants.

It’s true.

They write in forums, Facebook groups, and LinkedIn groups, for example, about how to achieve dominance on Google.

I can tell you what Google wants:

Many links pointing to your site and quality content.

Is this post over?

No!

Quality content is easy to come up with.

If your company can afford a team of professional writers or to outsource to freelancers, this part of the SEO equation is a piece of cake.

The more difficult part of genuinely mastering SEO and getting links to your site involves others.

According to Google, other people need to link to your site for your visibility in search engines to rise.

They can’t be any people. They have to be people with such quality websites, such a high Domain Authority score, that your Domain Authority will rise, and in turn, your search engine visibility.

Is this post going to tell you how to build links to your site from just anyone?

No.

This post will tell you how to build links to your site from marketing influencers.

How To Build Links To Your Site From Marketing Influencers

1. Mention influencers in your posts. Let them know you mentioned them either in an email or through Twitter. Ask them to retweet your post. If they do, and your traffic improves, this could favorably affect your SEO rankings.

If you need to, create content around long-tail keywords that influencers are associated with.

If there is low competition for readership on the internet, you’ll boost your SEO by boosting traffic as well as beating the online competition.

2. Guest post for influencers. Make sure you’re allowed a link in your bio back to your site.

3. Create link-worthy content that influencers will want to share with their audience. Influencers shared my expert round-up interview with readers on Quora.com.

4. Include the influencer in an expert roundup interview or individual interview. Many influencers will list the interviews they’ve been included in on their About Me page and link to your site.

5. Ask the other participants of the expert roundup if they would link to the post. You’ll build links to your site from them as well. Odds are probable that many will agree.

6. Spend time where influencers spend time. Influencers spend time in many places online: Reddit subReddits, Facebook groups, forums for serious bloggers and marketers. Of all these places, I’d recommend LinkedIn. Several LinkedIn forums include marketing; some are exclusively devoted to digital marketing.

You can engage with the influencers by commenting on their posts. You’re also allowed to leave your own link in LinkedIn forums. This will build your Google power and let other influencers learn about your content that way in case they want to cite your work in a post and link to you.

7. Build relationships with the influencers in other ways. For example, share influencers’ tweets on Twitter. When they want to conduct an expert roundup, they may remember you. If they include you, you’ll get a link from their authority site.

8. Comment on influencers’ websites. Not only will it further let the influencer learn about you, but you’ll get a link to your site from their blog. Check to see if the influencer has Comment Luv. Links from sites with Comment Luv will provide more “Google juice” than those without.

9. Collaborate with influencers. Remember Google’s second request? You need to create quality content. Marketing influencers know how to do this. They’ve already mastered the art of storytelling in order to enhance marketing copy.

In addition to pleasing Google with your awesome content, the marketer should link to your site in the byline of the content as a co-creator. Another reason to partner with a marketing influencer relates to a third criterion Google likes.

Google likes to show search engine users posts with a variety of media. Video combined with text definitely qualifies. Many marketing influencers often post videos.

10. Write a testimonial for an influencer. Marketing influencers will convince consumers of their authenticity with testimonials. Linking to you will provide credibility to your testimonial. They should rush to publish your testimonial on their website.

11. Now that you know how to build inbound links to your site from marketing influencers, you need to know which influencers to choose.

This article already explained you need to pick influencers from websites with a higher Domain Authority ranking than yours.

If you go to Hubshout^[1], put in the name of the influencer’s website, and you’ll discover their Domain Authority ranking. Hubshout even allows you to compare several websites at the same time.

Read More: 9 Best Successful Influencer Marketing Trends of 2017

In conclusion

Many articles explain how to build links. This post explained how to get inbound links from influencers who have high authority sites. Getting a link from a site higher than yours will improve your SEO.

A link from a high-authority site such as an influencer’s site will definitely boost your SEO and ultimately search engine traffic and sales.

Link building is not a tip. It is an art. If you follow the steps in this article, you will have mastered it.

The post Insider’s Guide To Build Links To Your Site From Marketing Influencers appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

It is not that black hat techniques do not work, but the price that you pay for being on the wrong side of the law is something that no marketer can agree.

Google has always strived for providing a level playing field for all and any attempt to circumvent the rules for unlawful gains lead to black hat practices that attract heavy penalty.

Although Joomla websites are easier to implement SEO and make it faster, for achieving success in search engine optimization you have to fall back on white hat link-building^[1] techniques.

Link building has always been a vital cog in the SEO wheel, but its importance has fluctuated according to the various algorithm changes that Google introduced from time to time.

However, there is no denying that link building still plays a vital role in influencing search rankings and can push up ranks while also helping the cause of brand building.

Top 4 Link Building Factors to Consider in 2018

In this article, we will have a look at the factors that impact link building.

1. Guest Posting Still Works

Although you might sometimes hear that guest posting is passé, the ground reality is different. Let there be no doubt that you can still gain mileage in link building by adopting the age-old practice of guest posting. It is nice to see your blogs appearing on other valued websites, in the same niche as yours, with whom you have entered into a reciprocal arrangement of promoting your site.

By posting on an authority website, you get the opportunity of featuring the post on some of the most popular blogs on the web. It is an efficient way of attracting more traffic to your website. Featuring on the popular blogs enhances your credibility, and the hosting site could propagate the content on the social media that gives more exposure to the post. Gaining the outreach helps to draw the attention of other websites thereby increasing the possibilities of linking with them.

2. Focus On Content

Content is still the King of online endeavors and gives enough reasons for other websites to take an interest in connecting with you. The process of link building begins by drawing the attention towards your site because unless others know about you why should they be interested in communicating with you.

Creating and publishing quality content allows you to demonstrate your value and authority in the niche in which you operate. Others would recognize your worth through the content you present and get interested in remaining in touch with you by sharing links.

Create content that is unique and relevant to the target audience and carries authentic information that is useful for them. Avoid keyword stuffing and refrain from creating content for the sake of content only.

Quality content that conveys useful information carries good value and draws the attention of search engines too that helps to enhance the search rankings.

3. Build Upon Popular Content

Creating unit content is not easy because it takes time, resources and money and maintaining a steady flow of content is even more difficult. To make it easy, you can pick some popular content in your niche and then develop the idea to add new dimensions to it.

By using your creativity and innovative skills, you can produce fresh content along similar lines. It is a surefire way of building on popular content that invites attention and brings in links.

As you are creating content on a theme that is already popular, you gain mileage from it. Since you know the reason for the popularity, it becomes easy to make the content even better that earns more value and garners more attention.

Above all, you have an assured audience who has already tasted similar content and would be eager to accept your offering. As the content has already attracted Google’s attention earlier, your attempt at giving something more would meet with better success with search engines.

4. Stay Relevant

Google relies on backlinks to evaluate the quality of websites. The links that you earn show how valuable your site is to others and the search engines use the lead in its search algorithms.

If your website were not relevant to others, they would not have felt the need to stay connected with you. Since others think that the content is useful to them, it will be apparently relevant too. The attention that you get from others helps to impress search engines who elevate the website in its ranking.

Besides earning backlinks, keep close track of the links through continuous evaluation because you have to focus on the quality of links. Weed out low-quality links as it can affect your ranking prospects.

The post 4 Link Building Factors that Still Work for 2018 appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.