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What Is More Important For SEOs To Understand; Guidelines Or Algorithm Updates? http://bit.ly/2HCo9vz Tomorrow at SMX West I am moderating a panel called Machine vs. Man: What Really Matters For SEO Success. One of the panelists is Frédéric Dubut from Bing and he posted a poll asking what is more important for SEOs, understanding the search quality raters guidelines or the ranking algorithm updates? SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 January 29, 2019 at 07:10AM
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Google Recommends To Disavow Links That Can Trigger Manual Actions http://bit.ly/2sT90Mr Google's John Mueller said in a hangout last week that he would recommend that you not just disavow links that have already resulted in manual actions but you can also disavow links that you think would lead or result in a manual action. This is in addition to what John said about how it can help algorithmically with trust. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 January 29, 2019 at 06:58AM Google: Sitemap Files Don't Need To Be Indexed To Work http://bit.ly/2G4UJE9 This is a bit heartwarming - to see John Mueller back up Joost de Valk and Yoost when someone incorrectly claimed their was a bug with the Yoast SEO plugin causing major Google issues. John from Google came in and backed up Joost, confirming Joost and telling the plugin creator his plugin is not needed. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 January 29, 2019 at 06:47AM
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Myth Busting: HTTPS Not Required For Google Indexing & Ranking http://bit.ly/2TkBVof Google's John Mueller did some myth busting this morning around HTTPS. There are always some SSL providers trying to use Google's HTTPS ranking signal in their marketing efforts. One said that "Without an SSL Certificate Google is likely to drop your website in search results." That is not true and John Mueller said so. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 January 29, 2019 at 06:31AM
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Riding the wave of AI: Is your marketing campaign as smart as it can be? https://selnd.com/2RoCzPD As 2019 gets underway and your marketing plan unfolds, you’ve probably set some goals for the coming year: We’re going to break down the data silos that keep us from understanding our customers. We’re going to improve our messaging relevance. We’re going to target customers more accurately on their preferred channels Sound familiar? What if you could just find the time to make any one of these resolutions a reality? Although the promise of one-to-one marketing has been around for many years, brands still send customers too many marketing messages that are irrelevant, generic or only slightly personalized. The problem is that marketers today have too much data and not enough creative time to respond to soaring customer expectations for a personalized buying experience. Enter artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning-based marketing tools that are changing the nature of how marketers make decisions and deploy campaigns. For example, an AI-powered marketing assistant can help you quickly analyze campaign performance with simple verbal commands. An automated content management system can tag images, allowing you to easily create better content for your campaigns. An AI-powered software enables you to see what your customers are doing along every stage of their journey. The list goes on. Machine-driven innovations save time and enable marketers to be creative strategists again, rather than spreadsheet jockeys. The result is that you can course-correct campaigns faster than ever, ending underperforming campaigns sooner and executing new ones that are more personalized and perform better. Let’s take a closer look at how AI streamlines marketing processes across the customer journey and helps marketers work smarter. Unified data across all channelsMarketers continue to be inundated with all types of data – from third-party demographics to real-time behavioral data. The challenge is making the data unified, actionable and effective when it often resides in department silos and is spread across too many systems and platforms. You spend so much time tracking it all down that you’re left with no time to make sense of it, let alone act on it. Like many leading retailers, HSN (Home Shopping Network) relied on separate processes and systems to drive its marketing strategy for each channel. However, this approach made it complex and time-consuming to integrate data on customer interactions across different channels. It was difficult for the brand’s marketers to know which products would appeal to which customers or what kind of messages would inspire them to make purchases. To break out of its channel-by-channel mentality, HSN worked with Watson Marketing to develop an AI-driven marketing platform that would integrate data across all of its channels, including online, mobile, email and direct mail. The goal was to use AI to create a ‘boundaryless’ experience for its customers. This new approach enabled the company to build a more complete and accurate picture of individual customer preferences based on all of their brand interactions. HSN marketing teams now craft omnichannel, multi-wave campaigns that reach customers on their favored touch points at the right times. Improved personalizationConsumers expect personalized brand experiences, and 94 percent of companies agree that personalization is critical to their current and future success. Yet a common obstacle to deeper personalization is the ability to create multiple versions of content and determine the right combinations at the right time for thousands or millions of customers. Growing numbers of AI-based systems can process marketing rules and directions and then create and deliver individualized content on the fly to each customer. This hyper-personalization is increasingly based on the predicted behavior of the individual rather than conforming to a statically defined segment. AI makes personalization easier for marketers by learning through each interaction and delivering the right content in the context of the customer’s previous interactions with the brand. When you know how your customers engage with your brand, it becomes much easier – and more effective – to deliver the right message at the right time. The Georgia Aquarium sought to harness the growing popularity of digital channels to send more personalized communications to its visitors. The nonprofit’s marketers knew that increasing numbers of guests were using their smartphones and tablets to connect with the organization before, during and after their visits. But because data was stored in siloed systems, it was difficult to build a 360-degree view of guest interests and preferences. The solution was to deploy an AI-based centralized marketing platform based on IBM Watson Campaign Automation, which would house a comprehensive range of customer data, including first names, ZIP codes, visit histories and memberships. Machine learning enabled the marketing team to segment audiences into distinct personas, such as non-purchasers, non-members, members and donors, and to execute highly personalized campaigns that were more relevant to each member of its audience. The result has been an 89 percent increase in email open rates and a 288 percent increase in engagement with those messages. More importantly, the Georgia Aquarium has experienced a 21 percent increase in revenues attributed to the digital channel. It’s all about the [customer] journeyIn fact, customers want the quickest and most intuitive path to get to what they need. As a marketer, you want to provide a better path to customer purchases and satisfaction. Seems simple, right? But as we all know, it’s not. AI can help you analyze the entire customer journey across multiple touch points, pinpointing and alerting you to friction spots so you can diagnose the issues and fix them before they affect your bottom line. Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC) is the leading supplier of air travel intelligence and commerce services in the U.S. The company’s martech stack included several best-of-breed platforms, but no straightforward way of connecting them to form a coherent view of individual customer journeys. ARC marketers wanted to better understand what was happening during each step of the customer journey, for example, if customers were having trouble navigating the site, finding information or signing up for services. The company implemented IBM’s Universal Behavior Exchange to translate customer data from multiple source systems into a shared language, and combine it into a single view of the customer journey. The data is then passed into the Watson Customer Experience Analytics platform, which uses AI to automatically map out customer journeys from beginning to end — even when customers jump back and forth between channels. This approach has allowed ARC to create a rich view of customer interactions across all channels and eliminate blind spots when it comes to understanding the customer journey. Its marketers have already discovered that customers are browsing on tablet devices far more than they knew, which has led them to prioritize experience improvements on the mobile channel. AI-powered marketing = Smart marketing in 2019You know what you want to achieve in your marketing, you just need the time to do it. With AI, you can work smarter, and gain a holistic, real-time view of your customers and their relevant interactions throughout the entire journey. AI lets you act quickly on your data and makes it easier to focus on higher value work. Being able to get fast, actionable insights will give your team the time to focus on strategy and drive business results. About The AuthorIBM Watson Marketingis a leader in AI-powered digital marketing platforms. Our open, integrated tools help marketers understand and personalize the customer experience. From real-time analytics and insights to omnichannel marketing automation, Watson Marketing dives deep into consumer behavior, enhances workflows and drives conversions. With Watson Marketing, marketers can harness the power of data to build lasting engagement across the entire buyer journey. SEO via Search Engine Land https://selnd.com/1BDlNnc January 29, 2019 at 06:31AM
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Google Fixing AMP Errors; Nothing To Fix On Your End Now http://bit.ly/2DG9jjS Yesterday we reported on widespread AMP errors with Google Search Console and Google mobile search. As we suspected, it was an issue on Google's end - not an issue with the the configuration on the webmasters/developers end. At least, in this particular case, there is nothing for you to do - Google will fix it on their end. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 January 29, 2019 at 06:23AM How to Use Ego Bait Content to Attract Links & Generate Leads by @https://twitter.com/seocopychick1/29/2019
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How to Use Ego Bait Content to Attract Links & Generate Leads by @https://twitter.com/seocopychick http://bit.ly/2Umw7KQ Who doesn’t like a little ego boost? When it comes to attracting high-quality links to your website, it may feel like you have tried everything in the book. From mammoth evergreen content to good ol’ cold outreach, if you are running out of ideas (or simply aren’t seeing the results that you want), it may be time to get creative. Fortunately, there’s a link building strategy that relies more on human psychology than it does SEO technique. Enter Ego Bait Content – a smart, imaginative way to both attract quality links and generate new leads for your business. Here’s how to create content that catches the attention of influencers in your niche and entices them to engage with your content like never before. What Is Ego Bait Content?As the name implies, the success of ego bait content involves “stroking the ego” of whichever influencer or website owner you want a link from. In a sense, it’s content that says “If I scratch your back, you’ll scratch mine”. While many link building methods aim to create content that appeals to a wide audience, ego bait takes a highly targeted, more personal approach. The key here is creating content that oriented around a specific person, business, or group of people. How Does Ego Bait Content Work?Ego bait content is an example of how human psychology and marketing can intertwine to bring in some pretty amazing (and lucrative) results. Influencers and website owners alike want to be recognized for their accomplishments, products, and skills. By sharing these with your audience, you inspire them to share your content with their own audience and even link to it from their website. This content can take the form of commending them for their work, including them in a “best of” post, featuring them in an interview, or anything else that says, “You’re awesome. Here’s why.”. In fact, there are many types of ego bait and the approach you take both depends on whose ego you are trying to bait and whether your goal is to generate backlinks, leads, or both. Types of Ego Bait ContentThe most important thing to keep in mind before jumping into creating ego bait content is that it should put the recipient – not link building – front and center. While this may seem backward, it’s just too easy to slip into the mindset of link building that aims to reach a wider audience in hopes of attracting as many links as possible. Successful ego bait content is personal, focused, and intentional. That’s why choosing the right type of ego bait content will depend on who you are trying to target. The main types of ego bait content are:
Below is a quick summary of each type of ego bait content. Later on, you’ll learn how to pick the right type of content for reaching your SEO goals. 1. InterviewsA featured interview is one of the best ways to get influencers to share and link back to your content. Interviews allow you to put them in the spotlight – which is a huge ego boost. By taking the time to ask them questions, highlight their expertise, and share their story with your audience, you build a relationship that encourages mutual benefit. They’ll be happy to share their own interview across social media and even link back to it from their own site. Interview content is also easy to put together. Simply reach out to the influencer or business owner to make sure that they’re on board, send them a list of questions, and then publish the questions and answers on your site. No need to spend hours researching and writing a mammoth piece of content. With this type of ego bait, you can create quality content quickly and generate traffic and links potentially overnight. 2. Round-Up PostsMuch like interviews, round-up posts feature experts in your industry and share their expertise or stories with your audience. The difference here is that a round-up post features several influencers and typically includes shorter quotes rather than extensive interview questions. When creating a round-up post, you’ll first want to think of a topic that’s of interest to your audience. For example, if you are a family law attorney, you may want to call on experts that help people cope with divorce, such as psychologists, motivational speakers, and authors. Then, you will build out a piece of content that allows the participants to share their top tips or stories on the topic. For the example above, that could be “10 Experts Share How to Get Over a Divorce” or “How These 8 Divorcees Found Love Again.” Once published, you’ll want to reach out to participants to encourage them to share the post and link to it from their own content. 3. ListiclesA listicle, or list article, is a piece of content that typically highlights the “best of” for a certain niche, or creates a comprehensive list of resources, products, or influencers for users to read/buy/follow. An example of a listicle could be “10 Best Meditation Apps”, “50+ Ways to Grow Your Business in 2019”, or SEJ’s 140 Top SEO Experts You Should Be Following in 2019. These kinds of articles are highly informative and beneficial to users. In an ego bait listicle, you will be referring to multiple influencers or business owners in order to stroke their egos and get them to engage with your content. The goal is to create content that they would feel honored to be featured in. That’s why your content should be well-researched and irresistible. Again, you will want to choose a topic that’s of interest to your audience and will attract links from quality websites in your niche. Then, you’ll reach out to webmasters before and/or after you feature them to encourage them to share or link to your content. 4. DirectoriesBelieve it or not, directories can be a type of ego bait content as well. Not only are directories helpful to users, but they’re a way of highlighting other businesses in your industry. Directories can also be a great source of lead generation for your business. For instance, if you often generate business from local contractors, you may want to create a directory of contractors in your local area. That way, you can build partnerships with these contractors and help them generate traffic through your directory. Then, you can reap the rewards through referral business. Of course, you may not want to give too much limelight to direct competitors, so be careful in choosing who to feature in your directory. It’s best to create a resource of businesses that will send leads your way and won’t be put out by linking back to your website. 5. AwardsNothing is quite as enticing when it comes to ego bait as giving awards to those businesses you value the most. Awards can be an authentic way of calling attention to amazing organizations, thought leaders, and businesses in your industry. To be effective as a link building strategy, you will want to take the time to research each recipient and take note of what makes them unique. Highlight their years of experience, how they have served their local community or the results they have gotten for their clients. Put them in the spotlight. The award may be as simple as a featured post on your website or could include a custom-designed graphic to commemorate the moment. Just be sure that the award fits with what your business values and benefits the recipient as well. Note: Don’t use awards simply to generate a backlink. Most businesses will be able to see right through your efforts. Instead, see it as an opportunity to grow your network and bring attention to businesses that are doing great work. When executed correctly, this type of ego bait content is likely to drive traffic to your website and even attract some backlinks in return. Using Ego Bait to Attract Links & Generate LeadsOnce you familiarize yourself with the different types of ego bait content, it will be easier to determine which type makes sense for your goals and the influencers you are trying to reach. But, before you get to writing, it’s worth taking the time to create a list of contacts that you want to “bait” and developing a strategy on how you are going to generate shares, links, and leads. Step 1: Make a ListAs with any link building effort, you want to be sure that you are targeting high-quality, niche-related websites. It’s not in your best interest to reach out to influencers or webmasters that will have no interest in your content or won’t benefit your site in some way. You will want to choose websites that are strong SEO-wise (high ranking, high authority, niche related) and that have an audience that is likely to engage with your content You can use SEO tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush to find websites that are worth targeting in your ego bait content. Some things to factor in are what keywords they are ranking for, how much traffic they get, whether their site is relevant to your industry, and how authoritative their site is in the eyes of search engines. Once you have made a list of websites to reach out to, you can move on to pick the topic of your content and the type of ego bait you want to create. Step 2: Pick Your TopicYou should already recognize some trends and similarities in the websites you have included on your list. This will help you determine which type of ego bait content will be most effective. For instance, if most of the websites on your list are those of industry experts, you may want to create a series of interviews or build out a round-up post. If, however, most of the websites are businesses, sell products online, or feature tools and apps, it makes sense to create a listicle or directory to feature several websites at once. Next, you will want to choose a topic that both makes sense for your own website and the websites you are targeting. The topic should be of interest to your audience and enticing enough to encourage participants to link back to and share your content. You may also want to do keyword research to make sure the topic is conducive to generating organic traffic. Step 3: Reach OutBy this point you should:
Depending on the type of content you chose, you will want to reach out to those contacts in order to get more information from them. This is also a way to break the ice and encourage them to link back to your content later on. If you have decided to conduct an interview, reach out to potential participants to confirm that they are onboard. Then, follow up with the interview questions and collect their replies. For round-up posts, directories, and listicles, you may require additional information from participants. This could include collecting their “best tips” for your chosen topic, an image for their bio in your article, or contact information for their business. Also, it’s worth giving them a heads-up on what the content piece is about, when it will be published, and how you would appreciate them engaging with your post. This could be as simple as saying, “Once the article comes out, we would love it if you would share it with your audience or mention it on your website!” Step 4: Create Your Ego BaitEgo bait content is a form of content marketing, so it makes sense that much of its success depends on the content itself. If you are creating an interview or round-up, much of the work will have already been done for you after you collect the responses from participants. I also recommend including an engaging introduction, some high-quality images, and short summary at the end. Other types of ego bait content will be more involved – requiring you to write much of the content yourself, sourcing images, or building out a directory. Since this content aims to serve multiple purposes, it’s worth taking the time to do it right. If you need help writing content or marketing your content, consider hiring a professional content writer or content marketing expert to make your ego bait content top-notch. Step 5: Follow UpIf you gave participants a heads-up before creating your content, they should already be expecting you to follow up after the content is published. This should be your final attempt at asking for a link or a share. To help you out, here is a simple email template to ask websites for backlinks and social shares:
Finally, follow up with businesses that are featured in your directory to see if they have any referrals to send your way. This is a great way to build a lasting partnership that’s a win-win for both of you. Bonus tip: Ego bait content is a great way to grow your professional network. Even if you don’t end up getting a link from a website, it opens the door to future partnerships and collaborations. Keep your eyes open to the opportunities and discuss how you may work together in the future. ConclusionEgo bait content isn’t simply meant to be an ego “boost” to business owners. It can serve many purposes and can, in fact, be mutually beneficial to both you and the people you are trying to target. The success of your ego bait content depends on creating content that puts the participant front and center – highlighting their accomplishments, sharing their expertise, and telling their stories. Not only is ego bait content interesting to your own audience, but it entices participants to share your content like wildfire and link to it from their own websites. Plus, it can open the door to future partnerships, collaborations, and more. Get creative with your content and use ego bait to attract links and generate leads for your business. More Resources: Subscribe to SEJGet our daily newsletter from SEJ's Founder Loren Baker about the latest news in the industry! SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh January 29, 2019 at 04:59AM
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Weekly Wisdom with Ross Tavendale: Super Fast Keyword Research http://bit.ly/2sQaTtd VIDEO This video is part of our Weekly Wisdom series which features experts on a variety of topics. Modified Transcript Need to find all the keywords that your customers are looking for, as well as everything your competitors are ranking for, and I need it fast? Thankfully, with a couple of tools, it is easy to get this information very quickly. Okay, let me orientate you with this sheet. Essentially the green tabs here are all of the output tabs you are gonna use to actually get the information all cleaned and ready to use. For example, we can see here, we have got all the keywords, how difficult they are from a score of zero to one, how many searches every month you're getting, and then some real basic analysis on how much money we think we're gonna make from them every month.
Next up, we've got seasonality so I can see when I need to post my content based on the month. Then, of course, the keyword list itself plus working out if we actually rank for any of these terms or not. For example, this term has got this associated landing page, so we're fine, but you can see all of these terms do not have landing pages, so we probably need to make them. How It All Works: An Example The first tab is the setup tab. Here, what we want to do is we want to take all of the major keyword categories that we want to rank for. This is a homewares brand so what I'm gonna do is take some of their top keyword categories and put them in here. The way that I find keyword categories is really easy. First and foremost, I go to Search Console, the Performance Report, go to queries, and then I simply just download their queries. Once you've got your queries, all you're literally doing is taking the big list of them, copying them, going over to an aggregate tool called Keyword Grouper Pro. All you're doing is putting them in there, giving a minimum group length at the amount of keywords, add any keywords you want to exclude (maybe it's the brand name, for example - it should be put in here), set excluded words, and process. What we can see here is the top-level groups of all the products that this particular person sells. We have got bedside, floor, lights, pendant lights, etc. I am going to export this, and I'm going to add it into my main sheet. Now we are going to take those top-level categories from Keyword Grouper Pro and put them in here, and then we are gonna do something slightly magical — we are gonna use Supermetrics, and we are going to click the big "Refresh All" button, and that is going to pull all of the information we need from SEMrush. Phrase Match Now that all that is done, let me walk you through the raw data sheets by going first to ph_SEMrush (ph stands for phrase match). This has essentially pooled all the phrase match queries for each of these keywords inside of the keyword categories tab, and it added them into columns here. So, this is just a big, massive dump of the first 5,000 keywords of our phrase match related to the term lamp, sofas, tables, etc. Related Searches Inside of the related searches, we can see that we have got all the terms that SEMrush think are related to all of these keywords. Again, the exact same format, top 5,000 just dumped straight into columns, but what we need to do is get it into one single column, so we let's start editing it and cleaning out the data. Cleaning Up the Data
You will notice here that when you click on this "Error. No data found." it is using a formula called UNIQUE. All UNIQUE essentially does is it goes to each of the phrase and related match, and it pulls it into these columns. If we were to redo this formula, you will notice it has got squiggly brackets, that is because it is an array formula. So, it is UNIQUE({, then we're literally gonna go to our first one and we're gonna select from column A to E, semicolon, and then select column G to K, and we are essentially just gonna rinse and repeat this process for not only the phrase match but also all of the related match data as well. You can see it has taken all those columns and columns of data and put them into one single column, which makes it much easier to work on. It also attempts to tag. All this is doing is a nested, IF ISNUMBER SEARCH. So, it's kind of like a little auto-tagging thing just to kind of help us along. What we are gonna do from here is we are literally just going to copy all of that out, and there is an option called "Edit these keywords", which is literally just a clean copy/paste. We are going to delete the old data in there first, and we are going to do Ctrl+Shift+V to get everything pasted in as it should be. Next step. We have got all of the seasonality data in here, but it is in one column. You need to go Tools, and then to go Data, and split those text into columns. This option will allow you to name them as the different months. Reducing the Keyword Data Collection Once we are happy with the general raw data collection, what we now want to do is edit these keywords. Let's say that you see a bunch of stuff that either your client doesn't sell or is really just not related to them. What you want is to take out big chunks and delete the keywords that don't matter, and also tag keywords for organization purposes; this is the only real manual bit of the process that you need to go through. So, go through, get rid of the stuff that doesn't apply to you, and tag the rest of your terms. It is literally as simple as that. The Final Keyword List and Landing Pages When we now look at our keyword list, we can see all of the different terms that matter. For the example of houseware, we can see that for the term bedside tables, we already have a landing page, but it is /table-lamps not /bedside-tables. So we could probably make another one that that says bedside tables and perhaps enhance the rankings for this particular phrase. We can see for a bunch of their other keyword phrases that don't actually have any landing pages for them. Now, you may be thinking, "Well, where am I actually getting all of this landing page information?" Well, it is super simple. Review your SC keywords (SC stands for Search Console). So when we go up to the top of the table in this example, what I have done is pulled it in the data via Supermetrics again. You can do this by going to Supermetrics, then into the sitebar, then select Search Console as the source. I put my client's website in there, looked at the last 90 days of data, and here is the most important part, "Split to rows by Search query", and the full URL. You will not get this when you just download it from the main interface. I want to see all the queries and all the landing pages side by side. The reason why I want that is because inside of the keyword list all this is doing is an index match. All it is saying is, look for the keyword football tables, inside of this Search Console dump, and if it exists, put the URL in there. If it does not exist, say "No Landing Page". What you can see here is we are very quickly able to crosswalk all of the keywords that we can see in the marketplace with all of the keywords we are currently ranking for and the related landing page. And that is it. That is all the information you need to tell you the pages you need to create to rank better inside of search. All you need to do is the hard bet and actually go make the content. Super fast keyword research, done. SEO via SEMrush http://bit.ly/1K8Zzbp January 29, 2019 at 02:16AM
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SEO Guide 2019: Your Strategy for This Year by @webceonews http://bit.ly/2B99i6l If you did the smart thing and designed an efficient structure as seen on the picture, the next step is to turn it into an even more powerful SEO asset. How?
Navigation BarYour navigation bar has links that point to every major page on your site. It’s normally placed at the top of the screen. It’s also common to put it on the left side, but this option is less mobile-friendly. Footer BarIt’s just like the navigation bar, but at the bottom of a page. Note that this doesn’t go well with infinite scrolling: if more content keeps appearing as you scroll, it pushes down the bar away out of view. This can be a problem if you actually want your users to click on the links in the footer. Search BoxAn absolute must for all websites with too much content to sift through. Search engines can’t use a search box themselves, but they can definitely acknowledge it as a bonus to user experience. 3. Local SEOHow is SEO for a local business different than for any other site? Simple: location is a major factor. Online user traffic isn’t the end goal in local SEO; you want users to show up in person and be your customers in real life. This is true even when you have the option of delivering your goods to their homes. What do you need for successful local SEO? Location-Based KeywordsThey are like your ordinary keywords, but with the name of your location included (such as “bowling club in London“). Keywords with “near me” or “nearest” in them can also work but note that Google will mostly use the phrase “near me” to show users something close to their known location. Listings in Online Directories Signing up on Google My Business is an absolute must, but don’t stop there: the Internet has a myriad of directories where your business would fit right in. Always make sure your business is relevant to the directory and keep your information consistent across them all. If you change something, you should change it everywhere you are registered! Backlinks from Local Sites Backlinks from relevant and authoritative sites are always good, but votes from local sites carry even more weight (not to mention visits from local users). Research the websites in your location whose backlinks could really benefit you – and then earn those backlinks. Positive Customer Reviews It’s as straightforward as it gets: if many customers like you, that means you must be good! Enable customer reviews on your site and always ask customers to leave a review. Structured Data If you mark up your site with structured data, Google will be able to display additional bits of information about your business in search results. Phone number, open hours, customer reviews – all this information helps users decide if you are good enough for them, so it’s definitely good for you as well. Tracking Your Local Rankings You need to know the level of your site’s performance in case there’s something that needs improvement – and most of the time, there is. Check your business site’s rankings with WebCEO’s Rank Tracking tool and remember to choose your location in the settings like in the screenshot. 4. Voice Search OptimizationHave you heard that voice search is expected to be the source of 50 percent of all online searches in 2020? Only one year to go until we know if that comes true! It’s crazy how fast time flies. Even crazier what the future holds in store for us. In the meantime, the best we can do is to prepare for that massive change. When it happens, the web will never be the same – and by extension, neither will SEO. Here’s how you optimize your site for voice search. Voice Search Keywords Use long-tail question keywords that start with words like who, what, why, where, when, and how. For local SEO, you will definitely want your site associated with your location’s name, county, state, and nearest cities (“near Wichita Falls”). Answer the Questions Right Away Voice search results usually aren’t very long (around 30 words), but are still concise enough to provide satisfying answers. Aim for Featured Snippets Voice search takes the result from the very top, which sometimes is Position 0. Ranking first is no longer enough! Raise Your Domain Authority This is another way to become the top search result. Backlinks from reputable sources are the best means to get there. Keep yourself safe from poor quality backlinks by using WebCEO’s Backlink Quality Check tool. 5. Mobile OptimizationMobile traffic rises, and the mobile-first index to meet it. How did that happen? While desktop computers remain important, Google prioritizes the web on mobile devices now. All it took was for one to be more portable than the other. The cell phone industry realized its potential, and now you can access the Internet from almost anywhere. A mobile device isn’t exactly the same as a PC – it will provide a different user experience. And Google takes user experience seriously. What does this mean for you? The key to making your site rank in the mobile-first index is this: make the user experience excellent for mobile users. That’s in addition to the above-mentioned SEO basics, of course. And here’s how you do it. Implement a Responsive Design Doing so will give your site the ability to automatically adjust its content to a mobile screen, no matter how big or small. Reduce Your Images’ File Sizes The fewer kilobytes in them, the faster they’ll load. Do whatever it takes.
Keep Your Page Load Time to a Minimum Optimizing your images is not the only way to affect your loading speed. You can also:
Naturally, there are also things that will hamper user experience. Here are some don’ts in mobile optimization:
Be sure to test your site with WebCEO’s Mobile Optimization tool to see how well you’ve done – and what else you can still do. Want to See Steps 6-10?For the complete list of the most effective SEO methods, tips and strategies, please download the SEO Guide 2019: Your Strategy for This Year below. This guide was created exclusively for WebCEO users. Sign up now and make 2019 the year you blow your competition out of the water! SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh January 29, 2019 at 12:38AM |
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