Search engine optimization is one of the top choices for business owners who are interested in the growth of their company. The benefits of SEO are quite numerous however the reality is that this online marketing strategy has become more of a necessity than a luxury.
The number of companies that actively invest in SEO is growing. In fact, 61% of businesses have stated that SEO will have a place in their budget in 2020 (up from 44% in 2018). With more companies investing in SEO, the leaders will keep leading and putting distance behind those who aren’t following suit.
SEO isn’t a quick process and with most SEO companies you have to pay before you play. At the end of the day, the benefits will far outweigh the cost as the process is essentially adding value to your website on a regular basis.
Here is an infographic on how the process works.
Here are a few benefits of SEO that will put your mind at ease when you make that inevitable decision to invest in the future of your company.
#1-Increased traffic to your website
In order to drive traffic to your website, your pages need to rank highly. It also helps to have a lot of relevant backlinks that can send your site traffic from relevant sources.
There should be no doubt anymore that search engine optimization is a necessary function for competing in the search results. Google recommends that website owners seek the help of an SEO professional to ensure the correct development of a website.
Implementing a custom SEO strategy will target your audience, optimize your content to get a higher ranking and drive more traffic.
#2-Increased development in your niche
A great deal of SEO is publishing content about the major topics and subtopics of your website or company. The process for publishing SEO optimized blog posts identifies areas in which users are showing interest. By addressing the most commonly searched problems by providing solutions, you develop your website to be a major resource in your niche.
As you build on the quality and quantity of content assets on your site it triggers more appearances in the search results for keyword related queries. This drives more relevant traffic that converts at a higher rate.
#3-Brand recognition
Most people prefer to buy from a brand they trust and recognize. Search engine optimization creates more keyword appearances for search terms that are related to your niche. The more a user comes across your website while doing their research, the more likely they are to trust your company.
#4-More new clients
The domino effect is in play when you increase rankings for important keywords to your business. The higher your page ranks, the more traffic is generated. Increase the number of visitors on your site and that results in more leads and new clients.
#5-Reach a targeted audience
One of the biggest aspects of creating SEO content is keyword research. A consultant goes through a series of routine checks to make sure a keyword will drive the right traffic. During the process, many related search terms and topics become apparent and thus become included in the strategy for optimizing a page for a keyword topic.
#6-Higher user engagement
If you’ve done your research correctly, your pages should contain all of the topics that a user is looking for when they search for your keyword. Competitive analysis of the ranking pages will identify what content or multimedia is working best to hold the audience’s attention.
#7-More leads on a consistent basis
The primary reason to optimize your website is to drive more traffic that is interested in what you’re offering. As you develop more content that is specifically for users on each stage of the buyer journey, your site becomes more capable of converting visitors along their journey. The results are more leads on a regular basis.
#8-Improves site structure
The structure of your website plays a role is the experience your users have-which, in turn, sends ranking signals to search engines. It’s important to have a site that allows a user to navigate easily from wherever they are on your website.
When a site is organized by topic, it makes things easier for users to experience more depth within your topic. The organizational structure referred to as topic clusters contribute to higher rankings for a specific keyword topic.
#9-Blueprint for growth
An SEO campaign will target a specific keyword and develop a page or multiple pages around that topic. A great deal of research goes into identifying the best keywords to fit the website’s strategy.
One of the greatest benefits of SEO is having a plan in place for driving traffic. When your company has an established blueprint for achieving specific goals, success can be measured, adjusted and accelerated.
#10-Increased revenue
New leads, new clients and increased revenue all fit into the same overarching goal. The whole point in investing money into your website is to make more money from the increased traffic.
One of the benefits of SEO is the fact it provides one of the best ROI’s in the marketing industry. What could be better being found by users who are actually looking for what you offer?
Conversions are higher than those of paid advertising. However, unlike PPC campaigns, when you stop paying for SEO services, your site continues to drive traffic, leads and new clients to your business.
#11-Alternate stream of income
For companies whose sales have traditionally been in person, SEO can offer an alternate stream of income once they make products available for purchase on-site.
This additional revenue can overcome the inconvenience of distance for many potential clients. This can open up entirely new markets that would have otherwise been unattainable.
#12-Contactless service
Selling products online allows companies to continue making sales; even while regular store hours are closed. A website that ranks for transactional keywords can make money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Ecommerce is a quarantine-proof business if your products are also quarantine-proof. Another one of the benefits of SEO is that it connects customers and vendors despite any types of restrictions or limitations placed on physical interactions.
#13-Reach a larger audience
Search engine optimization allows your business to expand your audience. There are no physical limits. As long as your products or services are consumable by a global audience, the world is at your fingertips.
#14-Improve your online presence
When your company, brand or any keyword related search is made, you want your website to come up in the search results. Improve your online presence for anything related to your niche through a variety of platforms and practices. Options include but are not limited to content marketing, guest posting on high authority sites, expanding your social network, starting a YouTube channel.
#15-Enhance your local presence
As a local business, you want your neighbourhood to know about your company and think of your business when they need something you offer. Local SEO is all about improving your search visibility for localized searches of your products and services.
At least half of all searches made on Google are to obtain information on a local business. Local SEO in Toronto contributes to as much as 80% of businesses total revenue. This is one aspect of SEO that can’t be ignored by companies that offer local services.
#16-Explore a variety of traffic sources
Search engine optimization gives you the option to explore different sources of traffic. There are different search engines to optimize for, paid ads, local pack ranking, SERP features and social media marketing. YouTube, Amazon and even Facebook and other social sites are considered their own search engines, which gives companies more options for sources of traffic.
#17-Identify technical errors on site
Technical SEO can help your website by making pages accessible. Issues that affect your ranking are page speed, duplicate content and indexing issues. An SEO consultant will catch those problems and correct them before they snowball.
#18-Adapt to changes in the algorithm
Google is constantly updating its algorithm, which makes it impossible to stay at the top of a search result without proper maintenance. It is said the Google updates at least twice daily, with around four major updates a year.
An SEO professional can guide you in the right direction when major updates occur. If your ranking suddenly drops, you have someone to source the issue and get things back in order.
#19-Avoid/reverse search engine penalties
Many business owners will make mistakes that could cost them their website’s entire search visibility. For example, unnatural link building can result in your site’s removal from Google’s index altogether.
Ethical SEO experts are able to navigate around the penalties and filters that Google has set forth that would impede ranking and search visibility. It’s one of the benefits of SEO services provided by a professional. The steps to reverse a penalty are often more complicated than what an inexperienced person should undertake.
#20-Identify opportunities
The search results offer many different traffic opportunities that you can pick up on if you’re looking for them. SEO is the combined effort of a lot of smaller moving parts. Capitalizing on opportunities as they come can result in the top ranking, increased search visibility and a bigger bottom line.
Local SEO is a crucial part of any business whose clients are mainly sourced from a specific location. In order to take advantage of high converting local traffic, it’s important to optimize your website for a specific location. Build local links to improve your local search presence and drive more clients to your site from a specific location.
Building citations from directories and encouraging clients to leave a Google review will only get you so far. It’s important to acquire as many local links as possible to fuel your site’s local ranking ability.
The more ties you have to a locality with quality links, the more you’re able to demonstrate authority in your keyword topic and city.
Link building involves acquiring a wide variety of links that aren’t necessarily from high domain authority sites. The most important aspect of local link building is that your links come from relevant sites (niche specific) and are related to the area.
Major directory local link building
The best way to pursue link building is to build links in a way that is natural and logical. When a company first opens its doors for business, among the first logical places to get listed is in the city directories that locals are using.
Google Local Finder
One of the major directories that are obvious is Google’s local finder. The local pack (the three listings that Google highlights in a local search) is an excellent source of traffic for generating local leads.
You can sign up to be found in Google’s local finder by optimizing a Google My Business profile. Use as much information as possible so that your site will be eligible for as many different types of searches as possible.
Bing local places
Bing has the second-largest share of searches as far search engine market share goes. Listing your business here is not just for that fact, but for the validation that Bing provides to your Google listing.
In order to optimize locally, your site should be sending as many ranking signals as possible. Confirming your name address and phone number across major directories strengthens your local ranking in Google’s local finder as well as localized search results.
Use the option to synchronize your Google My Business account information with Bing. Any changes made to your Google account will automatically be updated in Bing. Not only is this advantageous to maintaining your ranking signals through identical NAP details but it saves you time from filling out all the information again.
Yellow pages business | Local business marketing solutions
This is another major directory that your business will benefit from being listed. Yellow Pages has a dozen other affiliate sites that collect your information from their database. If you’re listed on Yellow Pages you automatically get listed in other directories that will add to validating your local presence.
City-specific directories
The next tier of directories you should pursue is those unique to the city in which you are ranking your website. Create a listing in directories that receive traffic and which people are actually using to find local places.
You can search for city directories by typing in [your city] + directory. Vary your search by typing [your keyword] + [your city] to see what directories are ranking for that keyword. If a directory shows up in the first few pages of search results, it’s a good indication that there’s value in listing your business in it.
Niche-specific directories
The same concept should be applied to niche-specific directories. Be more selective about the directories in which you create a profile. Low-quality sites may have an adverse effect on your ranking. Search for niche-specific directories by typing in [your keyword] + directories to get a list of options.
Unstructured citations
These types of links are considered to be the most valuable for building a strong local link profile. An unstructured citation is a mention of your company on a site that doesn’t specifically have a place to fill it out.
You receive structured citations on directories, review sites and other sites that provide a specific place for listing your information.
If a company mentions your website on their blog, it’s an unstructured citation. It is much more difficult to acquire backlinks such as these which is why they are so valuable. They represent a true vote of confidence in the credibility of your company.
How to get an unstructured citation
It all boils down to outreach. To get another site in your city to mention your business, you need to ask the site owner to link to your site. This is most likely to happen from clients, vendors or businesses in a close vertical to your own.
Obviously a direct competitor isn’t going to want to send traffic to your site. Look for companies in the same city that offer related services and products. You can form a coalition of sorts to help promote each other’s business with a link arrangement or content collaboration.
For example, if you own a restaurant the bakery in which you get your dinner rolls would have no problem linking to your site. They have a vested interest in your success so they are an excellent link prospect.
In many cases, you may need to be creative with the ways you acquire your backlinks. One option is to create content for another site’s blog. Infographics typically have more leverage because of their visual appeal.
Discover local sites that have published resource pages that list links they have found useful to their business. Website owners will often link to their vendors, suppliers and other organizations that are related to their products and services.
You can use the search operator “inurl” when searching Google to display sites with a specific keyword in their URL. Most resource pages are titled “Resources”, “Links” or Resources and Useful Links” so the URL will typically reflect those keywords.
To find these pages type into Google searches such as:
[your keyword] inurl:links
or
[your keyword] inurl:resources
Choose sites that are relevant to your site and would be a good match for the link prospects list of resources. Having a resource page of your own can help leverage your success rate, however, keep in mind that too many link exchanges may trigger an unnatural link pattern.
Related reading: 9 Effective Backlinking Strategies for 2020
Local charities and organizations
There are many organizations that list the names and websites of sponsors who have contributed to their cause. Making a donation to these sites can earn you a spot on their list.
You can also donate products and services to those that will benefit from your offering. For example, if you’re a web designer you could offer to revamp a local charity website. The likelihood of the organization allowing you a link from their site goes way up with acts of generosity and kindness.
Job postings
Post a listing for a job offering on local sites. It’s an easy way to tie in your business with the city in which you’re trying to rank.
Host an event
Use sites like Meetup to host local events. Not only will you build local links from the event your posting on the site, but also it’s a way to build new connections with businesses in your area.
Local newspapers
If you have some newsworthy content to promote, local newspapers can be an effective source for local links. Whether it’s an event your hosting, or news that the community can benefit from, a link from a local newspaper will get your site in front of a local audience and contribute to your local ranking.
Review sites
Apart from the biggest review sites such as Yelp, every city has websites that are frequently viewed by locals who are researching businesses. Get your site listed here and encourage people to leave reviews about your services. These sites are specific to your city and will anchor your site as a local business in the area.
Build your local presence with local links
Local businesses do not typically have extensive high authority link profiles. It’s just not common for local businesses to invest large budgets into SEO content and link building campaigns. Most local businesses acquire natural links through directories and sites that are native to the city in which they do business.
Plan to build local links from a variety of the above-mentioned sources. Local links are the most powerful sources when it comes to appearing in local searches.
Don’t overdo any one type of link and maintain a natural acquisition of links throughout your campaign. Building 100 directory links in one day is not a natural link velocity.
As one of the highest converting sources of traffic, the local search results will contribute to the revenue your business generates.
Increase the number of local clients your business acquires with local SEO services in Toronto. Build local links to improve your local ranking for keywords that are vital to your business.
Broken link building is just one of many backlinking strategies used to acquire links to your website. The short summary of how to execute a broken link building campaign is:
Find a website that would be ideal to link from to your site,
Identify any links on the site which are broken (the target page no longer exists)
Create content to replace the link
Contact the site owner to have the link replaced with your own
In a recent outreach article, I asked Brian Dean what strategy he thought was the most effective link building strategies for 2020 and broken link building was his immediate response.
Brian, who is one of the industry’s most well known SEO’s, boasted a 10% conversion rate on his latest campaign. This is an important point because when you set out to accomplish your link building campaigns you should set some realistic expectations.
Most people do not welcome email that essentially is a request for a link. If you’ve ever run an outreach campaign, it can be frustrating at times with the response you receive. If a 10% conversion rate is an above-average result, you can expect to hear deafening silence from over 90% of the webmasters you contact.
This is what makes broken link building a more attractive method of acquiring backlinks. Your outreach email is based on providing value for all parties involved.
The best way to go about broken link building is to automate the process with software. Ahrefs seems to be the best option for identifying broken links because their software will scan an entire website and list every link that is broken.
The poor mans version of this process would involve a manual discovery whereby you would be required to go page by page and use an extension to highlight broken links. You can download an extension such as broken backlink checker (a bit out-dated) or check my links (recommended), both of which you can find in Chrome.
Build a list of prospects
The best option for the most success is to target sites that would have a lot of links pointing to their pages. You want to be able to find a broken link that not only one site owner will be happy to replace, but a number of site owners. If there is a missing page that 100 people have linked to, your chances of acquiring links go way up.
Make a list of the top sites in your industry. Shoot for the stars. Target domains with high authority and decent amount of traffic.
Plug your prospect site into Ahrefs and click on the inbound links. You can then click on the broken link tab to pull up a list of links that need replacing.
Choose topics to compliment your niche
When you’re looking at links to replace you will need to choose content that best suits your specialty.
Find links to pages that you are able to write quality content unless you’re outsourcing a freelancer to do your writing.
Although you are bringing a broken link to the attention of the site owner, you will still need to provide a good piece of content that will earn the link.
Hindsight is 20/20
If you’ve never used the Wayback Machine, get ready for journey back in time. This particular marvel of a site will show you what the page used to look like before it was deleted or moved. This is an important part of the process because you need to set the standard for the content your replacement page will need to cover.
Assemble the troops
Now that you have content that rivals your successor, you will need to get it in front of those who have linked to the page. Type in the URL of the broken link into Ahrefs and get a list of the sites that are linking to that page. You now have your list of sites to approach for link replacement.
Find the right email addresses
This part of the process can be automated with software like Hunter. Hunter offers a free option but if you want to find hundreds of email addresses in one fell swoop you can opt for the paid version and upload the list of websites.
You may want to rifle through your results in order to make sure you are sending your outreach to the right person. List your prospects on a spreadsheet in order to set yourself up for a template email approach.
Automate your outreach
Ninja Outreach can be your best friend for saving time in the outreach process. Your approach to contacting webmasters is already packed with value so make your email as simple as possible. Here is an example of what will get the best response.
Pay it forward
One twist to this method that many SEO’s overlooks is the potential to appease the fourth party. Everyone in the broken link building method seems to win-except one. The website who lost the link.
You can pay it forward and show appreciation for their loss by linking to their content. By giving the previous link holder a link from your content you really are creating a winning situation for all parties involved.
Conclusion
Consider the number of people who are spamming sites and asking for favours and this method of link building becomes more attractive by showing upfront value.
The truth is you can scale up your link building by using this strategy as opposed to the more time-consuming methods, such as guest posting.
As one of many tools you can use in your link building arsenal, broken link building tends to get a higher response rate than simply asking someone to link to your content.
Don’t be discouraged by dismal response rates. Outreach, in general, is riddled with a lack of response. The average conversion on an outreach link building strategy is somewhere around 8%. If you can get to that number or above, you’ve outperformed the standard, cleaned up the internet and acquired some juicy backlinks for your site.
The growth of your business is not something that should be left to chance. Take control of the future of your company by making sure those that are looking for your products and services can find you. Strong local SEO will get your site ranked highly on Google for local search results. Whitby local SEO is one of the go-to sources for lead generation and new clients for a local business in Whitby.
The value of appearing in the organic local search results is obvious. Why not be found by people who are actively searching for your product? No matter if you’re a new business or have been around for years, you can increase the number of people who find you by improving your SEO.
The fastest way to make this happen is to hire an SEO company in Whitby. However, if you’re feeling brave enough, here are two major tasks to accomplish to make your website rank higher in the local organic search results.
Optimize your website
Build local backlinks
Improve your on-page SEO for searches in Whitby
The process for optimizing your website starts by making sure you have adequate content on your website. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is making sure you have covered the content topics of your business. The ultimate goal is to answer every possible question a visitor may have who lands on your site by publishing local content about your company and what it offers.
Part of this process requires building a blog with linkable assets. Not only does this serve as a resource for your clients and potential customers, but also it gives other websites a reason to link to your site.
Google bases a large part of its ranking criteria on the trustworthiness of your site. Is your site credible, authoritative and considered a source for expert opinion? Building a blog that generates traffic and backlinks demonstrates these qualities.
If you are knowledgeable about your business and can publish content to teach people about it in an organized manner, you are about halfway to owning a website that ranks highly. The two biggest areas to spend time on will be your content and backlinks.
Use as many optimization tactics as possible to improve your on-page SEO. Once you have built an optimized website, the final task to improve ranking ability is to acquire quality backlinks.
Whitby local link building strategy
Competing on a global level allows you to find websites from anywhere in the world to link to you. The challenge is how to get the websites with the greatest amount of authority to link to your site. This is the same concept for local SEO but within your target city.
A local business can use links from around the world to build authority to a website, however, they don’t have the same power to create a local presence. Acquiring links from websites in your target city are the most powerful backlinks for ranking in that city.
Think of links as referrals
A link from another website is similar to a referral from another business. Collect the most trusted types of referrals for your website to see the greatest gains in your site’s ranking. The more quality referrals your website acquires, the more convincing it is to search engines to rank your site closer to the number one position.
Let’s assume that you are in the market to buy a swimming pool. You ask two people for referrals on who they believe to have the best reputation for quality. One of the people you ask runs a bakery, and the other is another pool manufacturer. Whose opinion do you think would be more knowledgeable?
Obviously the person who is in the same industry should have more insight into the business. Think of the links you acquire from websites in the same way. The more relevance your links have to the keyword you are trying to rank for, the more powerful they are in moving your site to the top of the search results.
How do I find local sites in Whitby to link to my website?
The beauty of local SEO is that you can limit your search to the city you are trying to rank highly in. Resource page link building is an effective strategy to find sites that have pages that link to useful sites, suppliers and vendors. Here’s how you can execute a resource page link building strategy.
Create a list of link prospects
There will obviously be a tiered level of the quality of links you will find, so your first task will be to make a list of prospective links to choose from. You can start your search by typing the following into Google:
[your keyword] + [your city] inurl:links
The search results will list websites that are associated with your keyword and city and have the word “links” in the URL. For example, if your company does landscaping in Whitby, this would be a search you could perform to find relevant links:
landscaping Whitby inurl:links
To produce these results:
If you take a look at the first result, it is a site located in Oshawa, which is next to Whitby. This means it isn’t the best type of link if you’re targeting Whitby however, it is extremely relevant because it’s the next town and it’s a gardening site. This is a link prospect you would want to pursue.
You can repeat this search replacing variations of your keyword to generate different results. You can also replace the word you tell Google to look for in the URL with another probable word such as “resource” or “resources”.
[your keyword] + [your city] inurl:resources
The goal is to get links from the sites that are closely related to yours. If there is a slight connection you can still use those types of links to tie in your website to your city for a stronger local presence.
Tier 1 vs. tier 2 links
Separate your list into two tiers based on the relevance of the link prospect. If the website is not in your industry but is in your city, you would consider it a tier two link. Your first tier consists of the websites you will contact first because they are in your city and relevant to your business.
Make contact with relevant sites
This stage of the outreach process is the first of a two-pronged approach. You want to make contact with the website owner first before you go asking them for favours. At the end of the day, you’re asking other sites to give you a link so you don’t want your first impression to repel the owner or for your email to be dismissed as spam.
Here is an example of an email that will get your prospect warmed up to the idea of giving you a link to your site simply because you aren’t asking for anything.
The ask
Once you’ve sent this email, follow up with a second email, asking for the link to your site. What is proven to do wonders for your success rate is to offer value to your prospect as a way gaining more favour and encouraging them to give you what you want.
Avoid link exchanges
Try to avoid reciprocal links. A few instances of where you link to another site and they link back may not harm your site, but too many link exchanges may have an adverse effect on your site’s ranking. It’s ok to engage in a few, but if your backlink profile is all link exchanges, you run the risk of being flagged for unnatural link building.
Offer value by finding broken links
One way to offer value is notifying the prospect of any broken links to their site. By using the Chrome extension “broken link checker” you can quickly identify any broken links on the resource page and let the webmaster know about it.
Example of using Broken Link Checker to find the broken links on a page
Your next email can go something like this:
“The Ask” email
Follow up
Make it a point to follow up on your link requests to make sure your emails were not in vain. It may turn out that the Webmaster has added your link but hasn’t bothered to respond. Check the resource page before emailing a follow up email.
In some cases, it may even work out better to pick up the phone and call. If you can get to the right person who makes the decisions on the website you can get a straight answer. It helps to add a little personality to your efforts-just make sure you aren’t’ too pushy.
Gauge your results
When you get a link to your site, gauge your results. It should only take a day or two to see the effects of your link. If your niche isn’t that competitive you may be able to see large gains in ranking with just a few links. At any rate, the number of relevant local links you acquire will have the greatest impact on moving your ranking.
Resource link building is a Whitby local SEO strategy that is highly effective in getting your website found in the local organic search results. Explore what your city has to offer in terms of the resource pages offered by local businesses. You may be able to form alliances and make the connections with the companies that will catapult your website to the first page of Google.
The way we do business has evolved substantially over the last decade. Most people are completely reliant on their cell phones for making purchase decisions. From researching a product or company, comparing options and then finding a location to make a purchase-it’s mostly done by searching Google. Your business can benefit from being found in hundreds of searches by investing in Cambridge SEO.
Spend time identifying how people search
The first major step in creating a site that generates traffic is to perform adequate research in finding the right keywords. Keyword research has become the new market research.
It’s not just finding high volume search terms but also finding out what keywords are closely related, what is most likely to be searched within the topic, and the most trending issues that are commonly searched.
Cambridge SEO is somewhat simple if you know how to get the most out of your website by targeting the right audience. You can come to a fairly accurate assessment of the most beneficial keywords to your company by performing some simple searches and using free tools available to everyone.
Brain storm a list of options
The first step is to list the terms that you believe your company will benefit from the most. This step should typically be a list that describes services and products.
Type each of those potential keywords, into Google
Immediately you should get a drop-down of other popular searches, however, those same keywords will appear at the bottom of the page after you hit enter.
There are two things you will need to check on a search result page that will indicate the relevance and difficulty of the keyword in question.
Qualify your keyword based on the competition
Are the list of sites that appear direct competitors with your company? If a keyword is truly valuable to the industry in which you compete you should see the search result listing populated by companies with similar offerings to your own. This would indicate the keyword is a term that will generate traffic that converts to clients.
The second indication that the list of sites will indicate is the level of difficulty that your keyword represents. Are the major competitors in your industry ranking in the top 10 spots? Have these websites been around for years? Do they have hundreds of backlinks that may prove difficult to acquire within an acceptable timeframe?
You can check the backlinks of any website using Ahrefs free backlink checker. It’s probably the best at producing the most comprehensive list of backlinks. If there are backlinks that you can also acquire, it’s one indication a top ranking for that keyword is attainable.
Google SERP Features
Another area of improving your Cambridge SEO is assessing the type of Google SERP Features (SERP=search engine result page). Google uses approximately 20 different features on the first page of results to make information easier to find.
The major features that are most commonly found are the Local Finder, Google Ads, Carousels (video, advertisements, shopping, images) and knowledge panels.
If any of these features appear for your keyword search, it is a consideration you have to make because each of these features affects how traffic distributed in a search. Each feature requires different optimization to get your company to appear in them.
Optimize your website by creating content for users-not robots
The easiest way to optimize for a keyword, is to create content that completely satisfies the user’s motivation for performing the search. Whether it’s on the informational level or transactional level, creating content that satisfies user intent is a major ranking factor that will have a large impact on your websites ranking.
Google will also take into account the content on your site that supports the keyword you’re targeting. For example, if you’re targeting toothbrushes then it would only make sense that you would address the topic of toothpaste somewhere in your content.
Why does this matter?
When people search for toothbrushes they are likely to be interested in toothpaste. It’s a part of the bigger picture in the keyword topic. You can’t brush your teeth without either so they are both related content topics.
The chance is if you’re an expert on toothbrushes, you should have something to say about toothpaste as well. Google loves expert opinion because people are more likely to find the best information from an expert.
A user-centric approach to content creation will lead you in the right direction. When you think of your clients, and what they want and need to read about, you’re able to map out the most effective content for your site.
Of course, there are many aspects of on-page optimization that need to be accounted for in order to break any barriers of communication with the search engines. There are dozens of ranking signals you can send to enhance the optimization of your page and make it more competitive in the SERPs for a target keyword.
Connect and promote your pages
When you’ve published content the next phase of development is to connect and promote your page by linking to it from websites that improve your ranking. Just as Google has become more accurate in determining the context of your content, they are equally as good at determining the quality of your backlinks.
The simplest approach to acquiring good backlinks is to link from websites your potential clients would likely be on. That means that even if you’re not sure about link metrics and how search engines view it, create links that will allow you site to be found by people who would be interested in your services.
If you’re a local business, acquire links that tie your site into your location. Links are meant to improve your credibility and authority. Link from sites that will improve your website in both departments.
Avoid linking from low-quality sites may be considered “spammy” as those types of links will have an adverse effect on your site. That means limit the directory links you build and avoid article directories or any “easy to get” backlinks.
Generate more business in Cambridge with an optimized website
The truth is, it is becoming increasingly difficult to rank highly for the best search terms that will bring in the most money without optimizing your website. Google itself recommends hiring a Cambridge SEO expert in order to make sure your website is able to be found.
There are so many ranking factors to account for when competing for a difficult keyword. Invest in SEO in Cambridge to ensure your website is on the right track to appear in searches that lead to new clients.
Almost everything we do on a daily basis is somehow integrated with a website, an app or Google search. For most companies, generating leads from Google is a major source for new clients. This article will show you how to improve on-page SEO on any website for any keywords in order to drive more traffic from Google search results.
The biggest ranking factors that dominate the search results are the content you publish and the quality of the backlinks that point to your website. Luckily for website owners, content is one of the things you have direct control over.
The following infographic lists 50 different ways that your typical SEO company will improve your on-page SEO.
Title optimization
Your title is the first thing that most people will look at in a search result. Include your keyword near the beginning of your title. Keep the length of your title at 60 characters to avoid it being cut off in the search results.
The title is the most important heading of your page and therefore should be wrapped in h1 tags. Most CMS software will automatically tag the title so you don’t need to worry about it if you’re using WordPress, Joomla, Wix or Squarespace.
Optimize your URL
The extension you give your page is an important descriptive detail for users and search engines. Use the postname option in your permalink settings and make sure your URL contains your keyword.
Users should get a sense of what your page is about by reading the URL. Limit the URL to five words to maximize the potency of your keyword description. Ideally, your URL should be kept under 90 characters to improve on-page SEO.
Use descriptive subtitles
Use your subtitles to segment your content into the most important parts of your page. Use h2, h3, h4 tags to signal to search engines the level of importance each heading represents.
When users scan through the page they should get an accurate summary of the content contained. What’s good for users is good for search engines.
Include your keyword and variations of your keyword at least once or more depending on the length of your article.
Publish keyword-rich content for users
Updates such as Hummingbird and BERT have allowed search engines to accurately extract the meaning from text. There is no substitute for descriptive, high-quality content. Despite this fact, it is still good practice to include your keyword in the first paragraph.
It would make sense that your target keyword would be repeated in a natural, conversational tone throughout your content. Your keyword should appear at least several times throughout the body of content.
Avoid over-optimizing your content by keyword stuffing. Any unnatural and forced use of a target keyword could trigger an adverse effect on the optimization of your page.
Content that satisfies search intent will rank highly. This means that when you target a specific keyword make sure you are covering the most obvious and most searched topics and subtopics that would satisfy the user’s query.
The goal is to make your website the last destination of a user’s search because you have adequately answered their query.
Images
Despite the giant leaps forward in a search engine’s ability to extract meaning, search engines still rely on your input to determine the meaning of an image.
Use keyword-rich descriptions in the image alt tags to give search engines the intended meaning your image represents and improve your on-page SEO.
Include your keyword in the filename.
Fill out captions and give your image an appropriate title to enhance optimization. This gives more information for search engines to properly categorize your image.
Outbound links
There is much evidence to support that linking out to authority sites improves the optimization of your page. Linking to a page that helps to enhance the user’s understanding of a particular topic adds credibility and signals relevance to your keyword topic.
Inbound links
The links that point to your page have a major influence on your optimization. Use descriptive anchor text to influence what keywords your page best represents for contextual links.
Guest posting is a popular method for optimizing the external anchor text links that point to your page.
Although keyword anchor text will enhance the optimization of your page, the overuse of keyword-optimized anchor text links will have an adverse effect on your ranking.
Webmasters should implement an internal linking strategy to achieve optimal on-page SEO. Use pillar page best practices for creating clustered content and an effective internal linking strategy.
Page speed
We are well into an era where page speed can mean the difference in making a sale-or even holding a user’s attention. Do you remember the last time you waited a minute for a page to load? Neither do I. No one waits for slow websites anymore.
If your page isn’t loading in under 3 seconds you are losing a percentage of the traffic that lands on your site.
If your site is super slow, then you’re facing a problem that is affecting your ranking because it contributes to poor user experience.
Keep your images compressed, reduce the number of HTML requests, inline JavaScript and CSS, use plugins and CDN’s to maintain an acceptable page load time.
Proper use of redirections
Whenever deleting or merging content it is advisable to use a 301 redirect to forward traffic from the old URL to the new. Avoid using 302 redirects as well as using redirect chains. Your redirections should take a user from one URL directly to the new page.
Broken links
When a user clicks a link and is taken to an error message it reduces their user experience. The accumulation of broken links will adversely affect rank. All links should take a user to a destination that enhances their user experience rather than undermines it.
Make site audits a regular routine to identify and repair broken links. Check both inbound and outbound links using software such as Ahrefs and Screaming Frog.
Use 301 redirects for the internal links that are broken. Replace all broken outbound links with new URLs to authority sites.
Accessible to search engines
Every page on your site should be accessed in less than 4 clicks from anywhere on the site. Your page should be able to be indexed by search engines, which can be impeded by the robots.txt file.
Site audits will identify what pages are indexed as well as those that are not indexable. You can also find this information on Google Search Console under the errors tab.
Incorporate schema
Use schema to make your page eligible for rich snippets. Using Schema better describes what your page is about to search engines and allows for a better understanding of the content.
Using JSON-LD is Google’s recommended script language and accounts for faster processing.
Responsive & made for mobile
Your pages should be made for mobile users-especially since the mobile version is now the first version that is indexed by Google.
Users should experience the same functionality on different screen sizes Your content should be easy to read and reformat its layout according to screen size.
Check your sites mobile score on Google’s Mobile Friendly Test and make any necessary changes listed in the report.
High-quality & shareable content
The term “high-quality” is a term we use a lot to describe how content should be written. The truth is that content should provide unique value and be compelling enough for users to want to share it with others.
We derive value from content that is entertaining, educational and informational. The use of images, video, audio and interactive media all contribute to a high-quality piece of content.
A high-quality web page is easily read by users at an 8th to 9th-grade reading level. The Fleischman scoring system scores content based on how difficult the page is to read.
In order for content to be shared easily, there should be social sharing icons that allow users to post to the appropriate social media platform.
Improve your on-page SEO
There’s no doubt that on-page SEO is necessary to rank your website on the first page of Google. As search engines continue to expand their capabilities, every aspect of optimizing your web page becomes less negotiable in order to maintain high rankings.
Incorporate each element of on-page optimization in your content creation. Create highly competitive, targeted pages that are built to last on the first page of search results.
Staying ahead of the curve in the latest web design trends for 2020 can give your company the competitive edge that makes you stand out from the crowd. As we venture further into a technological frontier, new trends are being set and it’s imperative to incorporate new features and functions that enhance the user experience of potential clients.
After reaching out to 18 web design companies, we came up with a list of 12 trends that every Toronto Web Design Company can agree will continue to take the spotlight in 2020.
Companies have gravitated towards a minimalist design for years because of its effectiveness in communicating whatever the main message may be on a site. Minimalist sites are essentially stripped of any flash or overly busy design.
Dominic Brault from 360 Nerds says “As a business owner who started in the early days of the Internet, I’ve seen design trends come and go… But one trend seems to remain strong from the end of the last decade and its minimalism. No one wants a website with a ton of flash anymore. Strong, simple with easily accessible call-to-actions. Simplicity is key for customers to convert on your site! Keep that in mind!”
Elvin Cheung from WittyCookie, explains, “Minimalism has been a popular design choice for mobile for a few years now. Still, it’s a reliable and long-lasting trend that has more than proved its worth and looks set to stay strong through 2020.
The point we want to emphasize here, though, is that minimalist design doesn’t have to mean boring design. You can still use bold, bright colours, overlapping sections, and heavy fonts – whatever suits your branding.
Minimalism is about cutting away any unnecessary excess to create a clear and easy user experience. Make use of white space, and focus on form and function to avoid overwhelming your visitors.”
Matt Balshin, CEO from MB Creative, also shares a similar opinion on minimalist websites but elaborates on how they work hand in hand with large typography.
Matt adds “Minimalist websites with very large typography…has been a rising trend over the past few years and is without a doubt here to stay. More websites are being designed every day with the principal of minimal, modern design at the forefront.
In 2020 we are going to see a progression of this minimal web design trend where a lot of websites will combine minimal design with maxi typography to make a stronger statement.
Image source: https://mbcreative.ca/work.php
Web designers everywhere are attempting to create minimal designs by removing unnecessary details, decorations and overall clutter, but unlike in years past they are using larger than life typography to make bold statements that can’t be missed.”
The time it takes a web page to load has undoubtedly been a priority since Google declared it a ranking factor in 2010 for desktop. In 2018, page speed became a ranking factor for mobile versions of websites and will remain a motivating consideration in web design trends for 2020.
Paul Bies, a partner at Mystique Brand Communications comments, “An important design trend that will continue in 2020 is the focus on website speed and performance to enhance the visitor experience.
While download speed continues to improve, it seems that visitor patience continues to wear thin for sites that take too long to download.
While this trend may be more of design philosophy, it is the driving principle behind other trends such as minimalist design, growing white space, and long scrolling pages.
Just the same, you’ll notice designers eliminating or at least minimizing speed sucking elements in an effort to make their sites download faster.
The reward from visitors for providing a better user experience will be higher engagement levels. And the reward from Google will be higher rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Nothing short of a win-win.”
Baljot Saral from Web Sharx backs Paul up by saying, “What I think is vital to creating and developing an effective website, is being able to build it to achieve the quickest on-load and full-page speed times.
We live in a fast-paced and demanding environment, and being able to bridge the balance between excellent design and seamless coding to have a fast-loading website is extremely important.”
Google has been urging website owners to create more mobile-friendly sites from before Mobilegedddon in 2015.
Hassam HessamiMQ Solutions says, “Go mobile or Go home! The mobile website is becoming more important than a desktop version. 51.3% of all internet usage originates from mobile devices, and this number will grow even more in the following years.
I think one of the most important aspects of 2020 is addressing the mobile usage of the website. A responsive website with unobtrusive popups is a crucial critical factor here.
Besides, all of the conventional website optimization best practices that apply to a desktop version of a website, also apply to the mobile version.”
Kirsten Hutchinson fromTotal Internet Marketing adds, “The top trend we see going into 2020 is the continued mobile-centric design, not just responsive but mainly built for mobile-first from layout to individual page design.
Data is supporting that most websites have more mobile visitors now than desktop so it’s building the design and individuals for that view first, then desktop.”
Over the last few years, YouTube has posted some incredible stats about the sudden growth of video.
Whether it can be attributed to the widespread increase in bandwidth and faster internet speeds, video is being shared and watched more often and playing a much bigger role in how people are learning about brands and making purchase decisions.
Adam Evans from Thought Media states, “One of the top digital trends for 2020 will be increased integration of video streaming and video headers for high converting landing pages.
Over 85% of total online traffic will be in video streaming. Web design agencies interested in capitalizing on this should consider producing more video content for marketing purposes, and for clients.”
When asked what he thought to be a major trend for 2020, Jermey Goldenberg, President of Pearl White Media confirmed “video headers using the latest and best WordPress themes/frameworks and plugins.”
Cassidy Krueger from Geek Power states “Our team believes that interactivity is the biggest web design “trend” (Probably just a rule at this point).
Even with boundary-pushing designs, one of the elements that remain pertinent is a visual feature to entice your visitor. Whether that is video background, parallax scrolling, or SVG animations, they play a big role in your website’s attractiveness.
Image source: https://useplink.com/en/
If you were to define a trend WITHIN that topic, I would choose 3D graphics. Those smooth, incredibly well-rendered videos that often get called “Oddly Satisfying” is a great example of this style of animation.”
Guillermo Figueredo, founder of Awesome Web Design shares a similar opinion and states, “Creative trends and techniques are increasingly demanding in web design, so it requires constant study and analysis to always stay updated. If I have to highlight one trend for 2020, I would make a remark about dynamic elements, such as animations, illustrations, gifs or flexible effects.
They have arrived in the web design industry to stay (at least for a while). These types of designs achieve very visual and creative results as long as they are combined correctly. If you decide to use this type of graphic resources, my advice is to make sure the illustrations are original and fully customized.”
It’s not new to mobile devices, but for desktop, there are more textless navigation bars trending. Ian Chapman from Leaf Design Inc. explains:
“A trend that is being driven by client input is the use of a single menu interface for both desktop and mobile designs.
Image source: https://www.leafdesign.ca/our-work/
With the “hamburger” icon being well understood to represent the menu on mobile devices, more frequently, it is replacing the traditional text-based navigation bars, even on corporate sites.
We are seeing many of our clients pushing for more unique and engaging menu designs that add an interactive quality to their site. However, this is a boundary that one must be careful to not overdo, as usability should always dump design.”
The use of illustrations in web design is contributing to more brand recognition and will continue to trend as an effective method of storytelling and defining a company’s brand.
“Images and videos are commonplace in many web designs and advertisements. But for web design specifically, we’ll see a trend in 2020 of designers moving towards illustration and animation to tell a full story.
Utilizing recognizable illustrations in web design means improving the brand’s image and helping it to be memorable with every click. The visual expression can go a step further with recognizable and memorable fonts.”
Alexander Plagiannakos fromThinkbound Inc. takes this concept a step further by stating, “We find an important trend this year is keeping users engaged with smooth page transitions and scrolling controlled animations.
Custom designed illustrations that match logo branding that helps tell a story, that a user can interact with during their experience makes their stay on pages longer and is a useful addition for reducing visitor bounce rates.”
As much as the visual aspect of a website plays a significant part in capturing the attention of its audience, the message conveyed is ultimately the most important aspect of design.
Robert Cairns, CEO of Stunning Digital Marketing reflects, “One of the biggest things that we see wrong with Web Design is too many people spend way too much time and budget on the design side of a web site project. My agency truly believes that the messaging on websites is just as important if not even more important than the design.
This means that more of the budget on a website project needs to be spent and time focused on the copy and messaging on the website.
Remember if your messaging is wrong you will not draw the right kind of clients. The messaging needs to be written from the point of view on why the potential client/website viewer needs your product/service.”
Jassmin Nicoloff from A.K.A. New Media says, “The purpose of most brand websites is to establish an online platform to attract, convert and deepen the relationship with its target audience. This should be done by developing an information architecture and navigational system that weaves all communication channels organizes the content and helps connect users with the information they seek while exposing them to the breadth of what the organization has to offer.
It’s important to inspire and educate a user as quickly as possible; many users don’t go beyond the homepage of a website, so a long homepage is a notable feature that gives organizations room to share a wide organizational overview and the opportunity to take advantage of authentic storytelling.
The Jack.org website, which was designed by A.K.A. New Media and integrates with AKA raisin’s donation platform, is a prime example of effective user design and navigation.
In addition to the beautiful modern design, it creates a linear path for visitors by explaining, educating and engaging. The long homepage both informs and inspires the user; for those who want to dive deeper into the content, the information is provided in a guided fashion.”
With the next level of the AODA law kicking in Jan 2021 (for organizations with more than 50 employees) building to WCAG 2.0 AA standards is now a must. But any graphic designer, web designer or web developer now needs to know how to build to WCAG standards.
Why be responsible for excluding any visitor to a website? Or worse yet, being responsible for building something that will soon open up your client to fines.”
Erez Elias, CEO and founder of All The Way Up Media believes that “Voice search is taking over not only the search functionality but also it will impact the design.
Local businesses will be impacted by this the most and they’ll have to start thinking in a way of how and what to include on the website and structure it in a way that it will appear on search engines and especially on Google Maps.
So, yes, this is not directly impacting the design (colour, font, ext) but it will impact a designers’ perspective when they’re working on a new website.”
Web Design Trends for 2020
Unlike effective SEO services in Toronto, design trends come and go, however, one trend that has not changed is the constant improvement of user experience. Every change in style and design that becomes popular, is accompanied with more thought and effort to create more enjoyable, practical features for everyday use.
There’s no doubt you will recognize many of the web design trends for 2020 as indicated by Toronto experts. Whether it’s a local business or a big-name brand, you should see a significant number of websites demonstrating a number of these trends throughout the year.
BERT has been an official update since October 1st, 2019. This major update is claimed to be the biggest leap forward in Google’s algorithm in the last five years.
In the past, the impact of major updates was very clear because rankings were completely shaken up. This time around, this “major update” has been rolled out and implemented with seemingly no real changes to search results.
Has BERT made the internet a better place?
Has Google done something good for everyone?
To make that decision you need to understand the challenges that have made BERT a breakthrough update and why it has revolutionized search forever.
So what exactly is BERT?
BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. The algorithm is a neural network-based technique for natural language processing that is able to assign more accurate context to phrases. To put it plainly, BERT helps Google better understand the intent users have when searching.
The algorithm considers the meaning of a word based on the words that come before and after it to better understand the context in which they are being used.
This differs from the older algorithm that processed each word in a sequential order, which in many cases would misinterpret intent. BERT allows search engines to understand how each word relates to each other in order to assign context.
So what does it mean for companies and website owners?
For most, there has been a very subtle change in rankings and therefore it has seemed BERT has come and gone as silently as a fart in the wind. Don’t be fooled. BERT is making a stink and after the update, it was reported that it affected 1 out of 10 search queries in the United States.
Many of the subtleties of the update are seen in longer phrases that use “to” and “for” because they completely change the intent a user has in a search.
An example from the Google blog from before and after the update is a search for “2019 Brazilian traveller to USA need visa.” Before the update, Google didn’t consider the word “to” as it related to the rest of the phrase and so it returned a result that was what the user was looking to find.
After BERT you can see that the search result is more accurate because it considers “to” in the query, which changes the context of the search.
Take the search term “math practice books for adults.” Before the update, the algorithm didn’t take into account that the word “for” would assign a different meaning to the search term. The difference is now a more useful result for the user.
Another example is the search term “parking on a hill with no curb.” In the past, search engines would not have recognized the change in intent made by the words “with no” curb. Instead, they used “parking uphill” and “curb” as the main focus in producing a result for this search.
There isn’t really any call for reform on behalf of website owners based on the update. There has always been a long-standing demand for high-quality content and that continues to be the case.
Common misconceptions about BERT
Now that BERT has been rolled out, there have been some myths that need to be debunked. Many people make assumptions and here are a few that warrant an explanation.
EAT principles will have more of an impact on search results.
This is false. The EAT (Expertise Authority and Trust) principles are a completely separate algorithm. This focuses on a completely different aspect of assigning value and credibility to articles and authors.
Google consists of thousands of layers baked into the algorithm and many of them work harmoniously with one another. BERT is about context, not credibility and is a completely different algorithm to the changes in EAT principles.
Site owners need to optimize for BERT
You can’t optimize for BERT because the algorithm is designed to provide more accuracy in the contest of search queries. If it isn’t clear what the pages on your site are about, you needed to make changes regardless of the BERT algorithm.
BERT is the biggest update Google has ever made
The BERT update was reported to be the biggest update within the last five years but has not been claimed as the all-time biggest update.
There have been quite a few updates that changed how Google assigned value to content and backlinks, however, this update was revolutionary because it changed how search engines assign meaning in a more human-like understanding.
Moving forward
As we move forward, BERT will continue to improve its understanding of how users search. The breakthrough update has changed the way search engines assign meaning and this is only the beginning. As learning and contextual recognition grow, so will the accuracy of search results for the user.
The best marketing strategies will take into account the current trends and statistics that have become key indicators for what is currently producing results. The following is a list of 60 SEO statistics indicating some of the most important trends and facts to assist in creating an effective marketing strategy in 2020.
Google generates 5.8 billion searches a day (Market.us)
Google handles 1.9 trillion searches per year (Intenet Live Stats, 2019)
Less than half of the total searches made on Google results in a click (Sparktoro, 2019)
16-20% of the searches performed on a daily basis have never been searched before on Google (Search Engine Land)
The typical user types in a search phrase of 3 words or more (Hubspot)
As of December 2019, 94% of all searches are made on Google product(Sparktoro)
There are over 200 ranking factors that are accounted for in Google’s search algorithm (Backlinko)
Top three ranking signals are content (satisfying search intent), backlinks and Rankbrain (Search Engine Land, 2018)
Only 9.12% of web pages receive traffic and the other 90.88% get zero visitors because they have no backlinks (Ahrefs, 2018)
Increase traffic 106% by updating and republishing blog posts with new content and images (Hubspot)
HTTPS pages (ranking factor since 2014) account for approximately 90% of browsing time on Chrome (HostingTribunal.com)
38% of people will leave a site if the user experience is unenjoyable and the format and content is unattractive (Search Engine Journal, 2019)
Page speed is an official ranking factor as of July 2019 on mobile devices and has been a factor for desktop since 2010 (https://webmasters.googleblog.com/)
On-page optimization has a huge effect on your ability to rank (Moz)
The first five results on the first page of Google accounts for 67% of the clicks from the total search traffic of a keyword. (Zero Limit Web)
70-80% of all searches are long-tail key phrases (search engine land, 2018)
In a study of 1.9 Billion keywords in Ahrefs database, it was discovered that 92.42% of keywords receive less than 10 searches/month (Ahrefs)
Keyword/topic clusters are your most powerful SEO weapon (SearchEngineJournal)
61% of businesses have declared SEO as their top inbound marketing strategy for 2020
Over 4.4 million blog posts are published every day (Statista, 2020)
Google-owned 95% of search volume from mobile devices as of September 2019 (Statista)
More than half of all video streaming comes from a mobile device. (Hostingtribunal.com)
Mobile searches for “image search” have grown by over 60% in the past two years. (Google, 2019)
Mobile searches for personalized have grown by over 60% in the past two years (Google, 2019)
Mobile searches for “podcasts” have grown 80% from 2016-2018 (Google, 2019)
“Best” + “right now” mobile queries have grown by over 125% in the last two years (e.g., best online sales right now, the best phone out right now).(Google, 2019)
Mobile searches for “stores open near me” have grown 250% from 2017-2019 (Google, 2019)
Searches that include the phrase “Where to buy” + “near me” have grown 200% from 2017-2019 (Google, 2019)
“on-sale” + “near me” have grown 200% YOY since 2017 (Google, 2019)
82% of people will use their phone to make an in-store purchase (Omnicore)
In almost every survey on link building methods, guest blogging ranks among the top three most popular choices. One of the burning questions that many business owners and SEOs want to know is “How effective is guest posting in 2020?”
What is guest blogging?
Guest posting, or guest blogging, is publishing content on a third-party website and linking back to your own website from that content. The process is usually initiated by the guest author pitching a website a content idea, or the hosting website asks a guest author to contribute content.
A brief history leading up to guest posting in 2020
In 2010, it wasn’t uncommon to see a 300-500-word article that linked to completely unrelated content. Like every link building tactic that worked to improve ranking, guest posting was heavily abused with low-quality guest posts because it worked where you could publish any piece of content and like to any type of website.
You might land on a post about banking trends that had a link to a cookware website. To top off the terrible contextually unrelated link, the article would offer little to no value to anyone who even bothered to give it a read. And yet, the cookware website would rank highly from the link regardless of the lack of contextual relationship and low-quality content.
The effectiveness of low-quality guest posting was for the most part eliminated in a series of Google Updates. The Panda update enforced better quality content. The Hummingbird update allowed Google to understand the context of a page more accurately. The Penguin update killed a lot of the link building manipulation that people were using to achieve high rankings.
It seemed that guest posting was one of the few methods of link building that wasn’t completely doomed by Google. Then the cryptic message from ex-Google employee Matt Cutts, who headed the web spam team:
Despite the ominous warning about guest posting, it has continued to prove effective over the last few years. One of the most recent success stories that were solely based on guest posting is Adam Enfroy’s story and his short rise to riches.
Guest posting has its success stories
In a 15 day experiment, Adam was able to secure 8 high-authority guest post links to his website. Although he continued to publish over 80 guest posts in a year’s time, his blog traffic increased to over 200k/month and his website hit a record high revenue of roughly $30k/month.
The most recent update was that he was able to get as high as $80k/month this year. So what’s the debate about the effectiveness of guest posting? Well, it’s not entirely a clear cut and dry case about how Google is viewing the SEO value of guest post links.
We’ve seen numerous warnings about guest posting
SEO software giant, SEMRush announced that they would be launching a guest posting service that would identify websites willing to accept guest posts, write the articles on your behalf and publish them with a link back to your site.
It was made clear by John Mueller that this service violated Google’s best practice guidelines in that it was essentially a service that accepted money for links.
That’s an unnatural link – the kind the webspam team might take action on. https://t.co/kfQQithCnK & https://t.co/q5GmAxx2YM have more. Making sure the links use rel=nofollow / rel=sponsored would still allow sites to get visibility without having to worry about manual actions.
Whether SEMRush saw it the same way or not, they kiboshed the service as it was clear there would be penalties issued. This controversial service rehashed many of the questions, doubts and fears about how Google views guest posting.
The other thing is that because this is so old, we have a lot of training data for our algorithms. I wouldn’t be surprised if the largest part of those links are just ignored automatically. If all that work is for ignored links, why not just do something useful instead?
He further indicates that there is a problem with the system for guest posting for links that improve SEO value. If you’re the author of an article and award yourself links to your own site, how can that possibly be viewed as earned links?
The part that’s problematic is the links — if you’re providing the content/the links, then those links shouldn’t be passing signals & should have the rel-sponsored / rel-nofollow attached. It’s fine to see it as a way of reaching a broader audience.
Hence the guest posting dilemma regarding whether guest posting for links improves ranking or has any SEO value.
Does guest posting work as an effective method of building links in 2020?
The short answer to this question is yes, guest posting is and will remain an effective method of building links. The longer answer is that it depends on what goal you hope to accomplish with your link building since some guest post links have less SEO value than others.
Guest posting is confirmed by Google to be good for branding and search visibility.
Guest posting will always remain an excellent way to gain search visibility and brand your business. Google has agreed on this. There are guest-posting sites that have a large readership and will send tons of referral traffic to your site (assuming you write a great article).
According to Google’s best practices, you can drive traffic to your site through guest posting and linking to content assets on your site with nofollow links. This will increase search visibility and attract backlinks to your outstanding content. In theory.
Guest post links are being devalued under certain circumstances
The reason for doubt in the effectiveness of guest posting are speculations on the SEO value that is gained from a guest post link. But what about when your website is mentioned in someone else’s guest posting article?
How does Google know whether your site is being used as a resource, or whether you’re awarding yourself links from your own guest posts?
To get the most SEO value out of guest post links it would seem that you’d need to mentioned or not be attached as the author of the guest post. The following is a detailed guide on how to guest post in 2020 and beyond.
How to effectively build links using guest posts in 2020
Many different guides will tell you much of the same information on how to go about the process of pitching and writing guest posts, however, it should be clear about what will really move the needle from your efforts.
Keeping in mind what has happened this year, it would seem to me that the most effective method of building links by guest posts cannot be done alone. You need either a) the help of a personal influencer network b) strategize how you acquire your guest posting links by avoiding the author link in the bio or c) Guest post for nofollow links with the goal of referral traffic to pages that people will link to because they have present high value as a resource worth sharing and referencing.
Form a PIN
A typical link strategy doesn’t end with one link to your website. In most cases you’ll need a few different websites linking to your page to get it moving in rank. If you’re going to be actively guest posting on a few different websites seek out those whoa re also guest posting actively.
Contact good authors or content writers who publishes content in your niche. Propose that for every link you send to their website, they send one to yours. This way you’re able to maximize on the number of links you acquire per guest post.
If you have 4 or 5 people you work with that means you would include 4 or 5 links in a guest post article to each of their websites. That also means for every article you publish, you would receive a link from your article, plus 4 or 5 links coming from your personal influencer network.
Working with a PIN makes guest posting more efficient and it builds valuable links that Google won’t devalue from the association of you as the author.
Avoid the connection as the author of a guest post
There are many websites that have manipulated guest posting by using fake names to make it appear that someone else is linking to their site. This circumvents the connection Google makes to you awarding yourself links in a guest post and results in a link that has more SEO value for your website.
I’m not recommending using fake names, merely stating a fact. This is also a reason why link building services will get you results as well as hiring a freelance content writer.
Google’s principle behind links as a ranking signal is based on the concept of votes and/or referrals be websites that have the credibility to impact your authority. By this understanding, guest post links to your website have SEO value as linked mentions.
Choose website’s where a nofollow link is valuable
It’s a hard pill to swallow, however, since John Mueller has recommended that all guest posting links be marked as nofollow but the upside is you have to consider guest posting on sites with relevant traffic. This perspective forces you to consider what websites have traffic that’s actually good for your website-all SEO metrics aside.
Why is this a good thing? Instead of posting to a website because of its authority, you’ll be looking for websites with real traffic that are highly targeted to your content. This is one of the best reasons to go after a link in the first place.
Keep in mind that Google has also stated that they are treating the nofollow attribute as a recommendation. Whether that means SEO value could be awarded or not isn’t clear. The fact that Google wants to have the option may point to some future changes in how links are viewed.
How to land a high authority guest post in 2020 and beyond
It seems like a lot to digest, but the truth is that guest posting is still working as an effective way to build links and get your website more search visibility. In order to have the most impact as a link building method, you want to stick to the websites that will have the most positive influence on ranking and referral traffic to your website.
Set your standards for quality guest posting websites
If you follow a set of guidelines for how to guest post, you can streamline the process of finding websites, pitching and writing content.
The first area that takes a large amount of time is prospecting your websites. Establish a minimum domain authority for the websites that you intend to pitch. The domain authority isn’t the most important aspect, but it can be used as an effective filter for sorting out who you spend time prospecting.
An effective tool for identifying a website’s domain authority is the Mozbar. It’s free to download as a browser extension and all you need to is an account on Moz (also free). This allows you to see the page authority, the number of links, domain authority and spam score directly from the search results.
Another valuable tool to use is SEMRush for identifying the organic traffic a website has flowing through it. This is important because it cuts through the vanity of domain authority and tells you whether the website is ranking for organic keywords and driving traffic. This is important if you’re going to benefit from any referral traffic offered by guest posting on the website.
In the following segments, you’ll learn how to prospect potential guest posting websites, pitch the editors and write guest posts that improve your search visibility.
How to find websites that accept guest posts
There are three ways to find websites that accept guest posts; browse published lists of websites that appear in the search results; search using command operatives and plain old outreach.
There are literally thousands, if not millions of websites that accept guest posts, but not all of them will be good for your website. For a guest post to have a positive influence on your business, it needs to improve the authority of your website and/or send you traffic that engages with your content.
Browse published lists of sites that accept guest posts
If you simply type in the search phrase “[your keyword] websites that accept guest posts” you’ll produce a lot of search results of published lists of guest posting sites related to your keyword. This isn’t the best way of finding guest blogging prospects, but it can definitely help identify some high authority websites that would be beneficial to your content.
The benefit of using a published list to prospect websites is that it’s already made for you, so it saves time searching. You can cut and paste the list to an excel sheet and work systematically through the list. Working on a spreadsheet allows you to make notes as you go.
The downside to using a published list is that it can be inaccurate with the information it provides. Many of the websites may have changed their guest posting policy or may no longer exist.
Some of the websites may not even be related to your industry or niche.
Regardless of the results you find, you’ll still need to qualify any potential prospects according to your own set of standards for quality. This can be done equally as effectively by using command operatives.
Search guest post sites using command operatives
Command operatives can be used to instruct Google to search for specific websites that contain keywords in specific places. To find relevant guest posting sites you can use the commands inurl and intitle to find websites that have your keyword in the URL or the title respectively.
One of the most popular command operatives used to find sites that accept guest posts is looking for the words “write for us” in the url or the title of the page. Adding the keyword in front of the search string makes the results keyword related:
[your keyword] + inurl: write for us[your keyword] + intitle: write for us
Here’s an example of a command operative you could use to find a dog training website that accepts guest posts:
Dog training + inurl:contributor
This method is preferable because more often than not you’re getting websites that are actively accepting guest posts. If you have the Mozbar setup, you can quickly browse through the websites that meet your minimum DA.
Plain old outreach
The goal for every website owner is to achieve a level of search visibility that allows more potential clients to find their website. Considering that publishing SEO content is one of the best methods for driving targeted traffic, it’s reasonable to pitch websites that aren’t publicly offering guest posts as well.
Most editors and website owners will publish content if it benefits their audience and represents an asset to their content strategy. Don’t limit the websites you pitch to just those that publicly accept guest posts. If there are websites you know that would make a huge impact on your search visibility, add them to your list of prospects and make them an offer they can’t refuse.
How to pitch content to editors and website owners
The email you send to editors will likely determine whether your pitch gets any attention or is handily ignored along with the rest of the guest posting requests. In order to craft the ultimate approach to a high authority website, you need to make a really good first impression. Here are some tips to improve the acceptance rate you get from high authority websites.
Make contact before pitching
If you really want to make a good impression, do some research on the website that you’d like to get your content on. Find out who the content editor is, or people in charge that could help you get published, like the owner or executive officers.
Linkedin is pretty good for finding out general details about a company. You can find just about any company on Linkedin and once you do, click on people to see a list of the staff working there. Pick the most appropriate person/people to make contact with before sending them a “cold outreach email”.
You can vary this tactic by commenting on articles on the company blog or on guest posts when you see them. Follow the company on social media and make comments and share their posts. Your efforts will surely be noticed when you’ve made four or five attempts to comment and share their content.
By making yourself more familiar you improve your chances of your email being noticed and taken more seriously than the rest of the email from other gust authors.
Read a few articles from the prospective blog
You can’t craft the perfect pitch without reading the blog itself. In order to offer something of value, you need to figure out what that is for the blog you’re pitching. One of the top reasons articles are rejected (other than low quality) is because the content isn’t a good fit for the website.
Read a few articles to get a feel for the content being produced along with the style, tone and topics that match your prospects’ blog.
Create catchy headlines
Think about it. The first thing you’re presenting to an editor is the possibility of writing an article based on the headline. In order for there to spark any interest in your article, your headline has to instantly appeal to the editor.
There’s a lot of rehashed content that lives on the internet so try not to be boring by putting a twist on your topic. For example, instead of Website Traffic Creation, try using How To Generate Explosive Traffic To Your Shopify Store.
The second title is more descriptive, more focused and more interesting than the first. Brainstorm title ideas by writing down a list of 20 different headlines. You can use tools like Coschedule’s headline analyzer to gauge how effective it is. Or just apply some headline strategies that are known to improve click-through rate.
Include a brief outline of your proposed article
Include, at a minimum, four to five bullet points on what you plan on discussing within your proposed article. This gives editors a sneak peek at the content you’re going to send them-which hopefully makes your article more appealing.
Include some title options
It’s best practice to send along a few other title options of another article idea you’d like to write about. Not every website owner will want the exact article you’re pitching. Giving them a few other options opens the door to more ideas, rather than shutting down your pitch completely.
Always include a few links to writing samples
Even if you’ve never published a single guest post, you can include links to content on your own blog. This establishes some credibility and proves to the editor that you’re capable of putting together a good article.
If you have previously published articles, send links to your best work on the most well known websites.
Write an article that will represent your business
Upon acceptance, write an article that will be an excellent representation of your business. Approach guest posting the same way you would write an SEO optimized blog post for your own website.
It’s not just about getting the link. The goal is to attract readers to click-through to your site. Whether you get a high volume of traffic from the article or not, the article itself is a form of advertising your company and teaching people what you offer as a business.
This is a form of branding for your company so treat it as a presentation to inform, enlighten and engage your readers.
Quality is key
To get the most of guest posting, you need to commit to publishing quality content on the hosting website as well as your own. There are no shortcuts to this. In order to get people to click on a link that goes to your site, they have to read and trust the content your publishing as a guest author.
Once they’re on your website, the content on your site needs to be link-worthy and should engage your ideal audience. The ideal outcome to guest posting is twofold; you receive traffic interested in what your business offers; you receive traffic that likes your content so much they share it within their network and link to it in their own writing.
To do this, make sure you’re publishing well researched, well-written content that links to content assets on your website.
Don’t forget your PIN
Remember to add links to your personal influencer network in order to get links from them.
Link to internal articles
It’s not always required but it’s always a nice touch to include a few internal links to the hosting site’s content. It shows you’re interested in improving their blog and that you’re willing to help out where you can. Building relationships with the editors and website owners you submit to can go a long way in your link building career.
8 benefits of guest blogging
#1-Increased referral traffic
As a guest author, you have the opportunity to publish an article on a website within your niche, with a link pointing back to your site.
A link on a popular blog site provides you with targeted referral traffic. These visitors are obviously interested in reading your content if they read your guest post and clicked on your link.
Keep in mind that the number of visitors that click through to your site largely depends on how much traffic the hosting site receives.
#2-Provides a targeted audience
Guest posting puts your content in front of readers who are interested in your niche. Aim to publish a guest post on a site that your potential clients visit. By limiting your guest posting prospects to highly relevant sites within your industry (or a direct parallel) you improve the impact your link building strategy has on your ranking.
This also improves the chances your guest posts will be read by visitors interested in the solutions your business offers.
#3-Promotes better branding
This form of link building is considered a branding opportunity because it allows you to demonstrate the expertise of your company. Problem-solving content can be a powerful way for people to learn about your business and compel readers to click through to your site.
A well-written guest post can communicate to people how your company is capable of solving problems related to their own. Successful guest posting strategies promote awareness of your brand and establish thought leadership within your industry.
#4-Increases visibility
As a guest author, you are allowed the opportunity to tap into a third party’s traffic resources. Many blogs have a subscribership/email list that receives every new article that gets published.
Your article gets sent to that audience and you can get your site in front of a whole new network you wouldn’t have normally had access to.
#5-Develops authority
A link from a guest post will pass authority to your site when it’s acquired correctly. A major reason for posting on a blog site is to gain access to traffic that is a good match for your website. The relationship between your site and the guest posting site should be clearly identifiable.
Acquiring links from sites within your niche will improve your site’s credibility and ranking ability if they are followed links and preferably awarded by anyone but yourself.
#6-Enhances optimization
Its best practice to link to the inner pages of your site with anchor text links.
In fact, you enhance the optimization of your pages by using your target keyword in a select number of your anchor text links.
This creates stronger relevance signals for keyword related searches.
Typically you want to use exact match anchor text sparingly to avoid any signs of rank manipulation.
Using a good blend of long-tail keywords, brand links and naked URLs is the best form of implementing a safe backlinking strategy.
#7-Improves ranking
The strength of a backlink profile plays a major contributing role in the ranking your page receives for your target keyword. Quality links will go a long way for moving the needle in the competitive placement of your page.
The more high-quality sites that link back to your page, the more authority and ranking ability your page accumulates.
High authority domains have more impact on your domain authority and ranking ability. The more popular the blog site, the more traffic and the more authority that is passed through to yours.
#8-Builds more entry points to your content
The more links that lead. to your website the better. Each link you build creates a bridge allowing more visitors to find your website. As long as you’re linking from relevant content on websites that receive a healthy flow of traffic you’re improving the number of entry points to your content.
As a method of link building, this is among the most popular because it allows you to cover the basic three essentials of acquiring quality links.
Links are most beneficial when they are:
Highly relevant to the content hosting the link. Since the article is being written on behalf of your company, it’s obviously going to have strong relevance to the content in which you’re linking.
The health of the site in which your link resides is another criteria for acquiring a quality link.
Choosing websites that have established traffic and strong readership is the third part of the criteria for acquiring quality backlinks.
Make the most of a linking opportunity
Although the linking criteria will differ from site to site,
be sure to fully understand what the site is allowing in terms of providing a
linking opportunity.
A contextual link is the most valuable type of link you can acquire because it provides a reference to related content. As far as search engines go, the sole purpose of linking is to share content that is deemed worthy of sharing.
If the editors allow you to link to your site within the body of your article, take advantage by linking to the inner pages of your site. Your links should be natural, meaning they are not forced and are referencing a relevant page on your site.
Try to incorporate as many relevant links to previous guest
posts since you can build on their authority and boost the value of the links
to your site.
Answer comments and responses
Respond to any comments or questions your article generates.
User interaction provides good ranking signals that give your article more
traction in the search results. Many webmasters will actually ask you to
respond under penalty of having your links removed from your article!
6 Tips & Tactics For Guest Blogging
#1-Summarize your article with subtitles
Use creative subtitles to separate your article into segments that give the reader an accurate summary of what your article is communicating. Many people (editors included) who read online tend to scan through content and if your subtitles can paint an attractive or interesting enough picture you can capture their attention to read further.
A good article will segment your thoughts and ideas into
easier to digest blocks of text. The added ease of comprehension is an asset to
any article and makes your article a more attractive possibility for
publication.
#2-Use Grammarly to proof your article
This app is extremely easy to use and highlights all of your spelling and grammatical errors. The corrections are as simple as hovering over the highlighted text and clicking on the option that is the most suitable correction.
This app is functional on an HTML editor or Google Docs, which makes it ideal for blogging. There is nothing more unprofessional than spelling mistakes and poor grammar. Use a tool like Grammarly to eliminate those errors. and raise your level of professionalism.
Even if you’re a great writer this tool will catch a lot of mistakes you might otherwise miss. Your writing becomes much more appealing to editors when submitting content for publication.
#3-Use images & media at every opportunity
It should go without saying how important images are to incorporate in your articles. People retain 60% more information when there is an image to associate with the text. Since some blogs will require images for your article and in most cases, they will add images to your article, you can save them time and include them yourself.
Make your article more enticing by posting some related images to prove points or illustrate examples. If you don’t own the rights to the image be sure to credit the source of the image with a link or proper attribution.
#4-Read a few articles from the blog
Many blogs have a specific style that can be discerned by reading a few of their blog posts. Get a feel for that style so you can incorporate it within your content. If you can nail the blog’s tone and format you’ll always be invited back to write gain for the blog.
#5-Read the guest posting guidelines for each submission
There is always valuable information that each site will offer in their guest posting guidelines-which is different for every blog site.
The linking policies are a major issue that should be understood before you pitch or submit an article to a site. If they are only offering nofollow links, it may affect your link building strategy as well as your contribution to your PIN.
Some sites will enforce strict protocols when accepting submissions. There are sites that won’t consider your article if you’ve missed one of their requirements. Editors will literally dismiss your article without notification.
For every website you consider, read the submission guidelines as a non-negotiable part of your routine. It will save you time and resources in the long run by having a clear idea of what you’re getting as well as what you need to provide.
Conclusion
When done correctly, guest blogging is one of many strategies for building backlinks that are considered safe and effective for branding, improving authority and building the strength of your backlink profile.
As long as guest blogging continues to get great results within an SEO campaign it will remain one of the most popular methods of link building in 2020 and beyond.
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