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You are here: Home / Archives for Link building

Link building

Jan 27 2021

7 Advanced SEO Strategies To Grow Website Traffic

Everyone has a website these days, but not everyone is ranking on the first page. How do you send droves of traffic to your website when thousands of others are competing for the same keywords? Here are some well-known advanced SEO strategies that are proven to increase website traffic for more leads and new clients.

  1. Repurpose content
  2. Re-evaluate your keyword strategy
  3. Build high-quality links
  4. Update, Merge, Delete
  5. Invest in video marketing
  6. Optimize, optimize, optimize…
  7. Optimize for local traffic
Reasons to repurpose content as an expert SEO tactic

Repurpose content

Choose one of your top-performing pages and repurpose the content into another form to take advantage of existing interest and the traffic already flowing to the page.

What does this mean exactly?

Let’s say you have a blog post on 7Advances SEO Strategies that get a high volume of search traffic. Use the content from that post and turn it into a video, podcast, infographic, slideshow or anything you believe will get a good response from your audience.

Why does repurposing content generate more traffic?

Using an alternative form of content gives you another way to deliver your content. Users all have different preferences on how they choose to consume content and so by providing multiple versions you open up new channels of interest.

Those that may have skipped through or skipped your blog post entirely may choose to watch a video or listen to an audio version.

The bonus of repurposing content that it’s not as hard to do as producing content from scratch. A good deal of the work is already done since you have a finished product. The content is already there it’s just a matter of putting it together in a way that users can consume.

Repurpose your blog post into a new infographic

Turning a blog post into an infographic is a popular method of repurposing content. Visualized data has a much higher retention rate for people because it is a combination of images and facts. Images help visitors retain the most important points of a blog post.

Step one: The first step is to determine your key data points. 

What do you want readers to remember when they see your blog post? This will form the skeleton of your infographic.

Step two: Organize your infographic with sections and headers. 

The key to a good looking infographic is to make it look extremely organized. If everything is balanced and aesthetical it will make more sense to users when they read through the content.

Step three: Keep your text brief and to the point. 

The idea behind making the infographic is to give your audience the most important data points. Don’t try to transpose the entire blog post onto your image. Otherwise, they could just read the blog post.

Step four: Include notes for the designers. 

Be as descriptive as possible when making notes for the designers. You want your ideas to materialize as close to your vision as possible. Tell designers exactly what to do when it comes to branding, colours and images.

Here is an infographic from Venngage that walks you through these exact steps:

Infographic on how to repurpose content which is considered one of the advanced SEO strategies

Publish a video

Hey, have you heard about that new website called YouTube?! It should be obvious by now that if you’re going to publish a video, you’ll want to do it on YouTube. Not only is it the second-largest search engine in the world, but also, videos rank on Google all the time for high volume keywords. 

(Click here to learn about video trends in 2021)

Add YouTube traffic to your monthly search volume

Drive traffic from both Google and YouTube by publishing a video optimized for an important keyword that will drive traffic. YouTube is not as competitive as Google when it comes to ranking for keywords, which is something, you can capitalize on.

If you’re shy about being on camera, use the images from your infographic to make a video/infographic. You’ll need to be the narrator and be super engaging if you’re not going to show your face on the video.

Tips for optimizing your video

Make sure your main keyword is in the title, filename and tags. Take your video optimization to the next level by including a keyword-rich video transcript in the description. Add Chapters within your description to break up your video into segments. Take note of the top ranking videos and duplicate the tags they use since it also plays a big role in how YouTube sees your video.

This image highlights where keywords are located in YouTube video optimization. This is an advanced SEO tactics that will earn you a lot of traffic

Keep in mind that if people get bored and leave your video before it finishes, it will sink your YouTube ranking. Make sure there are no flat and boring segments. If you can’t help but be super boring then make your videos into short clips. Engagement is the key here.

Publish a slideshow

Slideshows are. away to repurpose content
Slideshare logo

If you’re going to go as far as publishing a video, you can easily import it to Slideshare to publish a slideshow. That’s not the only option for creating a slideshow. PowerPoint presentations convert perfectly and you can always make a slideshow from scratch.

Slideshows allow you to separate your content from the masses by providing a form of multimedia that isn’t as common as infographics and videos. They require user interaction which entices visitors to stay on your page longer and boosts engagement statistics.

Slideshare also has an average of about 80 million unique visitors a month with approximately 38 million registered users. This option can serve as an excellent source of traffic for B2B marketing.

Create bite-sized information for social media marketing

Divide your blog post into the most important points and post pieces of it on your social media one piece at a time. This can give your posts a longer lifespan for capturing interest and driving traffic to the blog post on your website. Oberlo does this really well with its infographics like this stat that was cut from their social media marketing infographic.

Example of making bite sized info for social media. Another advanced SEO tactis

Rather than one post of your entire blog article, you can use multiple posts that are more like teasers to get people to visit your page to read the whole thing. Not to sound like a broken record, but infographics are perfect for this type of social media marketing.

If you’ve turned your blog post into an infographic already you can use each segment as a social media post. Each post will be one of the main data points you’ve chosen for your infographic. With this already done you already have images and the most important messages ready to post.

Save time, resources and boost traffic with repurposed content

If you’re producing content regularly, repurposing content should be a regular part of your routine. It’s not easy to go through years of producing content regularly without experiencing overlap in topic and ideation.

Why not improve the quality of existing content and expand the reach it has by using multiple sources of traffic?

Re-evaluate your keyword strategy

There’s a common misconception that your keyword strategy is a “one and done” type of task. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Your keyword strategy should be re-evaluated periodically to expand on areas that are working to improve your bottom line.

Re-optimize for keyword variations

If there are keywords that are bringing in high converting visitors, you’ll need to pay closer attention to those phrases to build more content surrounding those issues and topics.

Why settle for one high-converting keyword when you can optimize for four or five similar phrases that work to produce the same results? There are many cases where you can get the same page to rank for more keyword variations by making small adjustments to optimize the page. To capitalize on those opportunities, you have to be aware of the keywords that are working to boost your business.

Publish relevant content

The content you publish is heavily influenced by the topics that are important to your audience as well as weighing in the business value the target keywords represent to your company. What you decided were the most popular keywords 5 years ago, heck, even one year ago may have changed in priority and almost most definitely in volume.

It’s important to stay updated on what is being searched the most to continue producing relevant content for your audience. Refreshing your keyword strategy is a way to ensure you’re up to date and delivering fresh and relevant content that drives traffic.

Steal ideas from your competition

An effective keyword strategy is not complete without doing a competitive analysis. Just as you may review popular terms being searched by your audience, you also want to check in on your competition to what terms they’re driving traffic from as well.

You can get ideas by running a competing URL through analytic software to see the both paid and organic traffic that is flowing through their site.

SEMRush software screenshot

If they’re executing an optimized PPC campaign, then paid traffic can speak volumes about what terms are making money for their company. Why else would they be paying for traffic if they weren’t making money from it?

The organic traffic that’s being driven is an indication of the content that’s being produced. If there are keywords they rank for that you don’t, take a closer look at the pages that rank to analyze the content and see if it’s a good fit for your audience.

If there’s business value in the search terms, you have new keywords and fresh content ideas to add to your keyword/content strategy.

A keyword strategy is a living entity

Think of your keyword strategy as something that is constantly evolving. Just as your rose bush needs priming and pruning, your keyword is also in need of fine-tuning to get the best results. Don’t stop adding keywords that work and taking some away those that don’t from your overall strategy. As your website develops over the years, re-evaluating your keyword strategy maintains relevant content and boosts traffic.

Build high-quality links

There’s no doubt that one of the advanced SEO strategies, high-quality backlinks increases the traffic to your website. Consider what makes a high-quality link and it’s a guaranteed fact that if you’re acquiring high-quality backlinks, you’re increasing search visibility.

If the link is on a highly relevant website that receives a lot of traffic, you’ll receive referral traffic with highly engaged visitors.

If the website has massive domain authority then that domain authority is transferred to your website, thereby raising your ranking ability. With improved rankings, the click-through rate from the SERP skyrockets.

IMage showing the CTR for SERP positions

To be in the top 5 (top 3 positions are the bulk of the traffic) you need backlinks. The argument of what comes first, the chicken or the egg can be applied to this situation. Some debate that being in the top 3 ranked position leads to more backlinks, whereas others might say you need to acquire the backlinks to get to the top 3 positions.

Chart showing the relationship between backlinks and Google Ranking

Regardless of how you see it, it’s important to make high-quality link building a part of your routine for developing websites that rank at the top of the search results.

What’s the best way to build high-quality backlinks?

In an ideal world, the content on your website would naturally attract high-quality backlinks. Producing good content is a non-negotiable requirement to compete in the top 3 spots, but it’s not enough to acquire backlinks in a reasonable amount of time.

For a page to accumulate a high number of backlinks naturally, people have to know about it. It needs to be promoted through the proper channels and (ironically) have links built to it to get traffic flowing. Here are a few ways to build links to your pages to get your content in front of the right audience.

Outreach campaigns

This is one of the few methods reproducing natural link building at an accelerated rate. The concept of natural link building is people find your page, they like it so much that they link to it from their web properties.

In its simplest form, outreach campaigns are you reaching out to other website owners and telling them about your content and hope they like it enough to link to it. The major problem with this tactic is that it gets an abysmal conversion rate. Most simple outreach campaigns average an 8% conversion rate.

Here are a few themed outreach campaigns that boost your conversion rates to result in more links built to your page.

Broken link building

Broken link building is identifying broken links on your prospects page, contacting them to inform them of it and offering your link as a substitute for that link.

This tends to get a higher conversion rate because website owners care about the user experience of their pages. If there is a link that leads a user to a deleted page then it’s considered the link is contributing to a bad user experience.

By offering a page with content that is similar to what used to be there, you have more leverage by offering more value in linking to your website.

Read more on how to execute a broken link building campaign here.

Unlinked mentions

This form of outreach is themed to contacting website owners or authors who have mentioned your brand without linking to it. This receives a higher conversion rate on average because if your brand was worth mentioning, to begin with, most website owners won’t have a problem linking to your website.

Read more on how to execute an Unlinked Mentions link building campaign here.

Link reclamation

This type of campaign targets website owners that have linked to your website, but for some reason, your link was deleted. Links are deleted all the time, whether it by mistake, through updates or moved pages-it happens.

You can save a high percentage of lost links by simply reaching out to owners and asking them to replace your link.

Guest posting

This form of link building is probably among one of the top choices for business owners and SEO companies because it allows the opportunity for branding. Publishing an article on a popular website allows a company to demonstrate their expertise to an outside audience as well as a link back to their website.

Guest posting can land some high-quality backlinks when the websites you link from are highly relevant and have high domain authority.

Editorial links are also considered the crème de la crème of all the types of links you can get.

Read more on how to Guest Post here.

Update, merge, delete old blog posts

As a way to keep your blog content fresh, relevant and ranking highly, it’s important to update, merge and delete underperforming content. This is one of the advanced SEO strategies to add to a periodic routine for improved search visibility and high volumes of traffic.

Chart showing the impact of one of the advanced SEO strategies Hubspot used which was updating old blog posts

First off, Google prefers fresh content to stale content. There are some niches where fresh content is a ranking factor because of the continuous changes that can occur in the niche.

SEO is a prime example of a niche where things can change dramatically over a year. In many cases, there’s content that becomes irrelevant and out-dated making it completely obsolete.

Update old blog posts

Look for opportunities to update older blog posts that have slowly lost the traffic it once generated. The chances are that newer posts have been published that cover more information, cover new information, are more updated or just have more multimedia and value-added features.

Merge underwhelming blog posts

There are often situations where you’ve published blog posts that target similar keywords and answer similar search intent. If these blog posts are not ranking in the top 5 spots on the first page, you merge the two to create a monster blog post with more capability of ranking highly.

Combine the content of both pages to make your article a more comprehensive version. You will need to choose which page to keep and which one to delete based on the keywords within the URL and the backlinks that point to each page. It’s necessary to use a 301 redirect to tell search engines that content has moved from the deleted page to the merged page.

Google has made 301 redirects very clean in terms of transferring power from one URL to another, however, err on the cautious side and consider keeping the page that has more backlinks pointing to it. You can also use the volume of traffic and the keywords in the URL as part of choosing which page to delete.

Delete old posts with no traffic

It’s been proven that deleting pages that do not receive traffic can help increase your overall website rankings. Find pages that don’t rank well, or don’t drive traffic and delete the ones that aren’t contributing to your business.

The reasons to delete pages from your blog should match the following criteria:

  • The page has not received traffic within 90 days.
  • No backlinks are pointing to the page.
  • It’s a low-quality blog post.
  • There’s no business value associated with the post.

Use a 301 direct redirect to send users to new pages in case external links are pointing to those pages. You also want to save the link juice and send it to a similar page on your website.

Invest in video marketing

Video marketing boasts a slew of statistics that are pretty hard to ignore. One reason that stands out is that videos increase conversions by 80% when you add them to a landing page. This is backed by the fact that almost 90% of marketers are using video marketing in their digital marketing strategy.

Capitalize on social media traffic

Videos have been the preferred form of content for some time now by over 70% of people. The beauty of publishing a video is that once it’s on YouTube not only can you benefit from YouTube traffic but you can use it across multiple social media websites as well.

Facebook reports that video is the most shared form of content. Facebook stories, Insta stories are proving to be some of the most popular ways to get users’ attention.

Incorporate “Stories” for high engagement rates

The FOMO effect (Fear Of Missing Out) seems to be strong with most social media users. The idea of losing out on the opportunity to view a video (as such is the case with Stories) has proven effective for generating higher engagement rates.

Increase ranking on Google search

There’s evidence to support that incorporating video on your ranking pages can help push your ranking higher. Higher engagement statistics create a positive ranking signal and if you’re already ranking on the first page, it could be the added boost that pushes your website towards the first position.

Rankbrain image of the AI assessing user engagement and assigning rank

Rankbrain factors in the user engagement statistics of a page to help determine what page satisfies search intent at the highest level. The most noticeable engagement statistic that increases is the average time spent on a page after adding a video. With more users spending more time on your page, the message is being sent that they are enjoying the content you’ve created, making your page more popular.

Increase traffic from Google SERP features

Your video can also appear in video carousels, the video tab on Google search, featured snippets, and the PAA box. As long as you have a link from your video to your web page, your video provides additional traffic to your website.

Optimize, optimize, optimize…

There’s always room to enhance optimization and get your page to generate more traffic. Optimization can occur in a few different areas both on-page content and building off-page.

Target featured snippets

Featured snippets are continuously appearing more frequently on Google, which is creating more opportunities for traffic and branding. Optimizing your content to appear in this feature is an absolute must when it receives the highest CTR. The fact that Google displays your website as the featured result contributes to the excellent branding of your company as industry leaders.

To learn more about optimizing for featured snippets click here.

Target PAA boxes

People Also Ask Boxes can also add a substantial number of visitors to your monthly volume of search traffic. If you rank for one of the questions in the PAA box, there’s a good chance you rank for several variations of that question.

You can optimize for the PAA box by answering popular questions that appear in the box. Tag your question using an h2 or h3 tag and use short, succinctly summarized answers directly after the question.

Optimize for search intent

Optimizing for search intent is a continual process. Make sure your content adequately covers the same topics as any of the competing pages in the top 10 results.

You can create a better page by expanding your topic coverage or improving your multimedia.

Optimize using anchor text links

The number of optimized anchor text links pointing to a page affects the page’s optimization. You can enhance the overall optimization of a page for a specific keyword by concentrating or diluting the anchor text ratio of the keyword you’re targeting.

(Read more on anchor text optimization here.)

Optimize for local traffic

Capitalize on high converting local traffic by optimizing your website with a local SEO strategy. Whether you have a brick and mortar business or not, it makes sense to pick up on searches being made within your area that can land you some extra business.

Creating a Google My Business profile is non-negotiable. It’s one of the easiest things to do-although optimizing your profile can be a little more involved.

Local SEO strategy includes Google My Business (image is the logo)

How to optimize your GMB profile

The first order of business is to fill out the basic information about your business. Make sure you enter data on every single field that’s available. The more information you provide to Google, the more searches your listing can appear for.

Small details count

Some businesses fail to enter their store hours. Let’s say that your store is open late yet if someone searches “X type of stores open late” you won’t appear because you didn’t enter store hours. Make the effort to include the small and simple details since they can land you more traffic.

Categories

Choose the categories that most applicable to your business. Search for important keywords you want your website to rank on the first page. Double-check what categories the companies listed in the local pack have declared. The difference between being a men’s tailor and a men’s clothing store can have an impact on how high your listing is ranked for specific keywords.

Add citations

To rank as a local business you need to have links from local websites and local directories. List your business in the top directories that are well known, such as Bing. You can transfer your GMB profile directly to a Bing account.

Use other websites like Yelp, Yellow Pages, Foursquare to get local traction in the search results. See more on the local link building here.

Increase traffic systematically using expert SEO tactics

The traffic generation ideas mentioned above are considered advanced SEO strategies and can be used to increase the volume of traffic your website receives regularly.

If you don’t have time to implement these SEO strategies yourself, feel free to send us a message for professional assistance. We’ll give you a full site analysis free of charge and let you know which of these tactics will help you generate the most traffic to your website.

Written by Christian Carere · Categorized: Content strategy, keyword research, Link building, Local SEO, On-page optimization, SEO strategy, Technical SEO

Jan 25 2021

6 Different Types Of SEO Techniques

SEO is a practice that consists of many different tactics, strategies and efforts. It’s an umbrella term that can cover a wide spectrum of different types of SEO techniques that will make your website more optimized for search engines.

Types of search engine optimization techniques

Some websites will need more than one type of SEO than others. Knowing which types of SEO techniques your website needs puts you in a position to improve your search visibility for target keywords.

The following are some of the major types of SEO techniques that you should be aware of. All SEO practices can be classified into one of three categories: White, Black and Grey hat SEO. 

Although it would be rare to find an SEO company that operates using black hat SEO, it’s important to know what it is and how it can affect your website.

#1-Black hat SEO

Black hat SEO has a very negative connotation attached because it consists of SEO practices that deliberately break the rules search engines try to enforce. Black SEO is any practice that is considered to “game the system” such as sneaky redirects, doorway entrances, automated link building, paid links and type of activity that provides an unfair advantage in the ranking.

Is blackhat SEO considered unethical?

Blackhat SEO is considered an unethical practice in the context of a client and SEO provider relationship unless the provider is being upfront with their practices and explains the risks. If not, the provider could be taking on high (and unnecessary) risks for a quick gain, jeopardizing the status of the clients’ website.

The penalties for violating Google’s SEO best practice guidelines and terms can range from a mild slap on the wrist (decrease in the ranking from an algorithmic filter) to a full-fledged de-indexation of your website (Google exile enforced by a manual penalty).

The only way to recover from a manual penalty is to reverse any wrongdoing and submit an appeal for re-evaluation. Even if your re-evaluation is approved, many violators have said their rankings are never the same and it’s more difficult to gain Google’s trust again.

For this reason, black hat SEO is not an option for most legitimate SEO companies.

An image of two types of SEO techniques: black and white hat seo

#2-White hat SEO

White hat SEO is all of the recommended practices for developing a website and improving its search visibility that fall within Google’s guidelines. White hat practices include publishing high-quality content, natural link building, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization.

White hat SEO is usually a longer process because it takes time to develop content and even longer to accumulate links naturally. The fact that pure white hat link building takes so long has influenced even SEO companies to dabble in grey hat link building.

#3-Grey hat SEO

Grey hat SEO is just as it sounds. It’s the in-between area or “grey area” that neither completely falls within the guidelines, but is not exactly punishable by definition.

Link building, for example, is an issue that many SEO companies struggle with at scale because it’s important to get results for clients in a relatively short amount of time.

Grey hat SEO are the types of SEO techniques that are in between white and black hat SEO

Google’s perspective on link building

According to Google, links should be acquired naturally, which means users not only have to find your website but like it so much that they link to it to share it with others. This is all good in theory but with 2 million blog posts being published every day what company wants to wait around hoping people are going to link to their website?

Outreach is a white hat SEO practice that is still heavily favoured by SEO companies because it’s reaching out to people asking them to link to your website. This can take an enormous amount of effort and time and at the end of the day,  you’re at the mercy of other website owners to give you a link.

Enter grey hat SEO.

The devious nature of PBN’s

Many SEO companies will build their websites and link to their client’s websites. There are already a few of your reading this, pointing your finger and screaming,

“Witch! Black Magic! That’s a PBN! Private blog networks websites are illegal” 

Fine. You may be right however, there is a grey area that this falls into when the website is built, developed and nurtured as a real, purposeful website. How can Google tell the difference between a PBN website and a normal website?

Example of how PBNs are set up to raise authority and ranking ability

PBN’s were targeted a few years back when they were extremely effective and working to rank websites quickly. All you had to do was buy an expired domain, slap an article on the homepage and link to your website. 

Here is what a bad PBN website looks like that leads to a Google penalty.

Bad PBN website example

What about this website? Is it a PBN or a real website?

A good PBN website is one of the many types of SEO techniques that are used today

If a website is publishing articles regularly and has real traffic flowing through it, who’s to say it’s being used solely for link building?

That is an example of grey hat SEO link building-when white hat practices are bent to give more control over the links that a website acquires. It happens all the time and it works very well if you’re good at it.

#4-On-page SEO practices

The optimization of a web page can go into many different degrees of compliance. There’s the technical aspect of optimizing a page to account for what search engines reward as well as the overall user experience that it provides. After all, what’s good for users is good for search engines.

Keyword optimization

One of the more infamous forms of optimization is keyword targeting. To influence a stronger appearance in the search engines for a target keyword, the keyword should be placed in specific parts of a page to enhance on-page optimization. These areas include but are not limited to:

  • Title
  • URL
  • First 100 words (the first paragraph is even better)
  • Keyword synonyms in subtitles
  • Image alt tags
  • Meta Description

It’s important to note that this method of optimization is not as powerful as it used to be. The days of ranking pages according to keywords on-page is now over. Search engines will use the topical optimization of the page as a larger ranking factor.

keyword optimization has been replaced with topical optimization as one of the newer types of SEO techniques

Keyword topic optimization

It should be noted that search engines have evolved past the point of relying on keywords in the metadata to define what a page is about. The ability to provide information in a way that users engage with is a major aspect of how well your page ranks for specific search terms.

To improve the way your page performs in a search query it should have the ability to satisfy search intent by covering a keyword topic in its entirety (as it pertains to the search). This type of coverage creates a resource for users and makes the page relevant to related searches since it is likely covered within the content.

Search intent optimization

The true intent the user has for initiating a search is referred to as user intent and/or search intent. When a user can end their search on a page it is considered to have satisfied their need to search further and thereby satisfies search intent.

To enhance the ability of a page to satisfy search intent you can link to related content that enhances the user’s experience. The connection your page has to relevant resources improves the amount of information you’re providing to the user. This helps the user in their search and therefore contributes as a positive ranking signal for searches related to your keyword topic.

Search intent optimization image that shows the steps to solve and satisfy user intent

User experience optimization

One of the aspects of optimization means making your page more user-friendly by providing an enjoyable experience. This task can sometimes be fairly technical, while on the other hand there is a creative aspect to improving the user experience.

Technical improvements

Page experience can be accounted for systematically since Google provides the exact formula for performance. Your website needs to perform in the following categories to be compliant:

  • Core web vitals
  • HTTPS
  • Safe Browsing
  • Mobile-friendly
  • No interstitials

Creative improvements

On the creative side, the user experience improves according to your decisions regarding the uniqueness of your page. For instance, the type of multimedia you choose makes a difference to how the user interacts with your content.

Video content

If you have a video to explain your page, it provides an additional way for your content to be consumed. Since 0ver 70% of users prefer video as a means of learning about something, it means you’ve improved the user experience for at least 70% of your audience.

Videos are the most popular form of content to see from a brand on social media
Slideshows

In some cases, having a slideshow may work even better than a video. As an alternative form of content, you can create a unique experience for users and in effect, separate your page from the masses.

Audio files and podcasts

Podcasts have taken off over the last few years and more and more people are gravitating towards them as they’ve found a place for them in their everyday lives.

Adding multiple types of media can improve the quality of your content and therefore help to rank higher in the search results. One way of looking at is to ask yourself,

“Would the world miss my content (or website) if it were to suddenly fall off of the face of the universe?”

If it would leave a gaping hole in your niche, then you know you’ve done a great job in providing users value in your content. If your pages are easily replaced and are as similar as everyone else’s, you have room to improve the quality of your page and content.

#5-Off-page optimization

Optimizing your site off-page is one of the more well-known types of SEO techniques. Search engines, especially Google, consider off-page optimization to be a highly relevant ranking factor that can heavily influence where your website appears in keyword searches. PageRank is what Google uses as one of the major indicators for determining the order in which websites are displayed in the search results.

Establishing credibility and authority

PageRank refers to a page’s ability to rank based on a scoring system that is designed to reflect the popularity, credibility and trust of a website. PageRank is often misinterpreted as domain authority, which is also a term that alludes to ranking ability. 

Example of PageRank visualized by a web of websites linking to one another

Domain authority is primarily based on backlinks, but rather than using Google’s proprietary formula, it is based on the quantity and quality of backlinks by third-party companies. These companies provide a metric for the authority of the domain as well as a page itself. It can be measured in a few different scales of measurement:

  • DA/PA (domain authority and page authority) was invented by Moz.
  • DR/UR (domain rating and URL rating) was invested by Ahrefs.
  • TF/CF (trust flow and citation flow) was invented by Majestic.

Why is domain authority important?

The ultimate goal of any search engine is to provide the most relevant and helpful results to a user when they type in a keyword. To do this the search engines not only need to assess the relevance of the content, but also the authority and credibility of the website that has published this content.

How to improve domain authority and credibility

Authority and credibility are measured by the overall number of websites that vouch for their content by linking to their pages. The quality of the linking websites plays a big role in the impact of the links that are acquired. 

To improve the authority your domain has in its niche you need to acquire backlinks from other quality websites that have authority and credibility in the same niche or a close vertical to it.

Link building is one of the most powerful types of SEO techniques to use for increasing search visibility.

Build citations

One of the first steps to building links is to acquire citations from popular directories and review sites. These types of sites are already trusted by search engines such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, Manta, Foursquare, etc. They provide the first layer of trust and can be considered a natural way of acquiring backlinks.

Build high-quality links

As the name “The web” infers, the internet is a web of linked websites. The PageRank theory precludes that the most credible and popular websites should have the most backlinks because they are being shared the most because of the quality of their content. 

The secret to a higher ranking is to therefore build high-quality links from websites that are relevant to yours.

HIgh quality link building means moe time spent on quality content

What is a high-quality link?

A high-quality link comes from a website in which its visitors would be interested in your content. That would prove the relevance between websites and therefore be good for both users and search engines.

The linking website will power up this type of link if it has a high volume of search traffic or a high number of quality links (from websites that would be a good fit to link to yours). 

The effects of a quality link should do one or both of the following;

Provide quality referral traffic: The visitors that arrive on your site via the link should be engaged with your content for the link to be effective. Engaged visitors eventually lead to a goal conversion-which can be anything from an opt-in to an email list, on-site purchase or a phone call.

Possess powerful authority: When a website’s authority metrics are powerful enough to lift your website’s authority metrics, it can be considered a good link. Higher authority means more ranking ability.

The off-page optimization is not only limited to external links. Internal links can also be a powerful form of optimizing a page for a keyword topic or specific search term.

Internal link building

You can optimize a page for a specific search term or topic by linking from other internal pages within your website. Internal links are a way of pointing users to relevant pages that relate to the content they’re currently consuming. 

Internal link building is an SEO technique that leads to improved user engagement statistics
Image source

Make use of optimized anchor text

By linking with the keyword as anchor text you can enhance the optimization of a page. When search engines see that a specific term is being used to link to the page, it directly communicates the importance of the term. 

There is the possibility of over-optimization so the use of keyword synonyms is highly recommended.

Share link equity

Internal link building spreads link equity. A page that has a high number of links, and therefore a high page authority, will pass on authority when it links to another page on your website. 

Increase authority by sharing link equity via internal links.

Build topic clusters

Topic clusters are an effective way to create a content hub that links related content together. The structure of linked content will often point to one core page, known as the pillar page, which covers the topic in breadth. 

Example of a pillar page with cluster content which forms a topic cluster.

Linking to a pillar page within a topic cluster improves the authority of the page, which contributes to higher rankings.

Technical optimization

Not all off-page optimization comes in the form of content. There are also things you can do to improve the technical performance of your website and its pages.

Page speed

The time it takes your pages to load is a direct ranking factor. Off-page optimization tactics could include the implementation of a CDN, choosing the best hosting options and leveraging browser caching-all tactics to increase page speed.

Indexing issues

The issues that affect indexing can often be found off-page. For example, search engines use the robots.txt file as an instruction manual for which pages to index. If there’s a mistake in that file it could stop your pages from being indexed-which means no one will see them at all.  

#6-Negative SEO

Negative SEO is a way of attacking the credibility and authority of another website by linking it to unrelated websites. This unethical practice is one of the types. of SEO techniques that usually come in the form of automated link building where the victim site is targeted and the software will automatically build thousands of links to its pages.

Google has become fairly good at detecting malicious attacks and will for the most part ignore massive amounts of links when it’s obvious they aren’t aimed at manipulating ranking.

The more devious attacks can be successful when the attacker uses relevant anchor text repeatedly and links to sites that will negatively impact credibility.

The solution to negative SEO

The solution to negative SEO attacks is to use the Disavow links tool. Google provides this tool to exclude links that are being built to your site which you can’t control.

Disavow tool is used to exclude links from being counted towards your backlink profile

Upload a disavow file to the tool and once it’s processed, the links will be discounted from your backlink profile.

This tool is a must if you’re issued a manual penalty for link building and can’t get the website owners to delete your links (as is commonly the case when links are automated).

Choose the types of SEO techniques that works best for your website

As you can see, there are many different types of SEO that are available to improve your search visibility as well as SEO practices to hurt your or other people’s websites. Not every website will require the same approach so it becomes necessary to prioritize a list of goals and assign the correct strategies and tactics to achieve them. 

If you have any questions about the SEO strategy your website should implement, feel free to call or send us a message for full website analysis. Our team will develop a custom strategy to include the exact types of SEO techniques that make your site rise in the SERPs and dominate the competition.

Written by Christian Carere · Categorized: Link building, On-page optimization, SEO strategy, Technical SEO, Web development

Dec 30 2020

14 SEO Myths To Eliminate For 2021

When you look at the bigger picture, the internet is still in its infancy. We’ve seen many drastic changes since Google emerged as the dominant search engine and they continue to make changes to its algorithm daily. Every so often algorithm changes can shake up the entire SEO industry. Constant turnover in what works and what doesn’t can give birth to SEO myths and cause them to circulate.

The truth is that Google’s algorithm is proprietary, making it impossible for anyone other than Google to know with 100% certainty how exactly it operates. Much of what we do know has come from large amounts of data and results in which we have drawn our own conclusions.

To this end, many people are still catching up with the times and are only now learning what search engine optimization entails. With so many years of changes, it makes sense that there are a lot of SEO myths circulating. This article will bust a few of these SEO myths so you can count on creating a reliable SEO strategy for 2021.

  1. Anyone can do SEO.
  2. SEO is primarily about keyword optimization.
  3. More links are better than more content.
  4. Longer content ranks higher.
  5. There’s a secret SEO recipe that ranks your website.
  6. SEO is a “one-time” operation.
  7. A guaranteed #1 position on the first page of Google.
  8. It’s better to hire an SEO company in your city.
  9. Cheap SEO services save you money.
  10. All backlinks are created equal.
  11. More website traffic means more revenue.
  12. You need exact match keywords to rank highly.
  13. Syndicate content gets you penalized.
  14. All SEO companies offer the same product.

#1-“Anyone can do SEO.”

The belief that anyone can do SEO is true in the sense that you could say “Anyone can be a doctor.” Sure, if you work hard, study hard and learn what you need to know, you can become anything you want to become. But if you think that an untrained and inexperienced individual is as capable as an SEO professional, this is a big fat SEO myth. 

Anyone can learn SEO and at a basic level, understand the concepts and even apply the fundamentals of search engine optimization. Like any skill you practice, there is a learning curve to expect where you’re guaranteed to make mistakes and encounter situations that only experience and knowledge can solve.

Google recommends using SEO consultants

When you’re working on a website that earns you money, some things are best left to the professionals. Google itself recommends that every website owner at least consult with a professional.

Google start up guide image recommending the hiring of professional SEOs (one of the SEO myths being busted on anyone can do SEO)
Image source: Google SEO Starter Guide

There are mistakes that an inexperienced person can make that will cost your business more than it would to hire a professional in the first place. 

For example, link building can be extremely dangerous if you’re not following Google’s best practices and guidelines. If you’re using the same words as anchor text to link to your pages, you may wind up beyond page 10 of the search results due to an algorithmic filter penalty.

Optimize your earning potential

Navigating around potential disasters is only one side of the equation. The other aspect of hiring an experienced SEO expert is that they know how to get the most out of your website. SEO is a continuous effort where making small adjustments for a few percentages more here and there add up to a lot of extra revenue.

For example, if you knew how to create a rich result you might be able to increase the click-through rate by a few percentage points. If your keyword gets thousands of searches a month, this translates into an enormous amount of additional revenue.

Luca Tagliaferro published his case study on the difference in click-through rate when adding a FAQ rich result to one of his pages. A small snippet resulted in 1.5 times as many clicks.

Graph showing the results of a rich snippet case study on how small improvements can make a big difference which busts the SEO myth that anyone can do SEO.

Hire specialists to get the best results

You wouldn’t ask your local butcher to get rid of a mole on your body just because he’s good with a cleaver. 

via GIPHY

You ask a specialist to remove it. 

In the same way, you wouldn’t ask an IT guy (or web designer for that matter) to come up with an SEO strategy for your business. They may know a thing or two about SEO but when it comes down to getting the most out of SEO,  it is a process best left to the professionals.

#2-“SEO is primarily about keyword optimization.”

This myth could also be phrased as “SEO is all about ranking” or “SEO is primarily about lead generation.” The truth is SEO encompasses a large segment of digital marketing. Most people don’t realize how far-reaching SEO is when it comes to anything search engines, making this statement a complete and utter SEO myth.

So what exactly is SEO? Search engine optimization is the process of making a web-property more likely to be displayed by a search engine for a specific search query. SEO is not just about ranking, lead generation, or keyword optimization. 

Image showing the many different aspects of SEO

It includes competitive analysis, technical improvements, conversion rate optimization, keyword research, link building, public relations, networking, revenue generation, content creation, on-site and off-site optimization and the list goes on.

SEO plays a role in almost every aspect of generating revenue from your website, social media, content marketing and/or paid advertising.

#3-“More links are better than more content.”

There was a time when the websites that had the most links ranked the highest on Google. Many SEOs reflect on this time as similar to the Wild West era when outlaws were able to get away with breaking the law.

In this period of time, software systems were developed to build thousands of links overnight which made it easy to game the system. 

Image of SEOnukeTNG as an example of automation software

This method of ranking was eliminated by a series of updates (Penguin Update) and technological advances that allowed Google to assess the quality of backlinks. 

The quantity of links is no longer the only variable in the ranking equation.

What is true is that the more quality links you have the more authority your pages gain. 

The key phrase here is quality. 

If there are any unnatural links or irrelevant links, they are ignored. If there is an excess of poor quality links, the authority and trustworthiness of your website is devalued.

This is reflected in your ranking and overall search visibility.

Content is still king

If your content is written for users and gets a good level of engagement, the backlinks will come naturally. If you campaign to acquire backlinks to good content, the process is much easier and faster.

It’s better to have more quality content on your site that users are reading through than it is to have backlinks to poorly written pages. At the end of the day, even if your pages manage to make it to the first page of Google because of your backlinks, it won’t stay there for long if your content doesn’t answer search intent.

#4-“Long-form content ranks higher than short-form content.”

One misconception in how to publish content that outperforms what’s ranking is to make it longer than the competing pages. The truth is that word count is not what makes a piece of content outperform another. In fact, word count isn’t a ranking factor at all.

Why would a search engine use word count as a metric?

— ? John ? (@JohnMu) August 31, 2020

What lends merit to this notion is that in creating a longer piece of content, you are forced to go deeper into detail or cover more topics within the page. Depending on your keyword, the more information you’re able to provide to your audience, the better you’re able to satisfy search intent.

The ability to satisfy search intent is what search engines will value the most when displaying search results. If the search query is an informational search that has multiple levels of depth to the answer, then creating a more detailed article will result in a higher ranking.

On the flip side of the coin, if the search query does not require depth to satisfy search intent, then creating a longer article would be an exercise in futility.

Why this myth is so confusing

The general trend that has become the norm is that content is becoming longer. The average first page search result is 1890 words.

Average word count of the top 10 ranking pages

There is evidence that Google values depth, but it must be taken in stride with what the intent of the user is when performing the query. It is not word count specifically that determines whether a page is better quality, but the ability to satisfy the users intent of the search.

#5-“There’s a secret recipe to rank a website.”

Many people have the belief that there is a secret sauce or some sort of magic bullet that will rank a website. SEO is quite the opposite in regards to transparency. There are no secrets when it comes to traffic generation or improving search visibility.

Transparency offers the best value

The best SEO consultants can break down an SEO strategy so that it makes sense to the client. The concept of search engine optimization in its simplest form is to create great content that users are searching for and make sure search engines can find that content for specific search terms.

The strategies and tactics that work for long-lasting results are not secrets. Anything that sounds like a magic bullet should be ignored since there is a shelf life for stuff like that-which usually falls into the realm of black hat SEO.

Practice white hat SEO

White hat SEO is the practice of adhering to Google’s best practices when developing a website. Link building is best done through any means that allows a webpage to accumulate natural and high-quality backlinks.

There’s no substitute for producing quality content and natural link building.

Anything else is short lived and could ruin the quality of your website.

#6-“SEO is a “one-time” operation.”

Many people are confused about the process of SEO and what it actually does over time. It’s common to hear someone ask to have their site optimized thinking it will be a one-time job. 

This a complete SEO myth! The SEO process is multilayered and multidimensional.

SEO is a one-time operation is a complete SEO myth because it is multilayered and a long-term process

On-page optimization is one of a few different aspects in developing a website’s content to drive traffic. There are four large groups you can label as part of the SEO process for developing content; keyword research, content creation on-page optimization and link building. 

It took Ahrefs four years to build their blog to drive massive traffic. They were able to achieve such huge success in driving traffic by publishing top-notch, evergreen content and then ranking it to the top of the search results.

Ahrefs traffic growth with evergreen content

That doesn’t even touch on the technical side of SEO to produce and maintain a high functioning website.

And we haven’t mentioned the monitoring and tracking side of SEO that incrementally improves search visibility, quality of traffic and conversions. 

SEO is far from a one and done operation and is nothing short of a long term investment.

#7-“A 100% guarantee to rank in the #1 position on Google.”

Let’s start by saying that unless you own Google, it’s impossible to guarantee the #1 position with 100% certainty. Search engines are changing all the time and no one but Google can account for changes in the algorithm that could result in the rise or fall of a website’s ranking.

Having said that, it’s possible to estimate rankings based on experience within the industry or experience in ranking the keyword itself. A 100% guarantee on a #1 ranking is impossible for anyone who doesn’t control Google, however, a seasoned professional could speculate ranking to a close degree of accuracy-especially if they’ve done it before.

FYI, it’s much easier to estimate entering the top ten results than to guess how long it will take to make your site first on Google.

#8-“It’s better to hire an SEO company in your city.”

The beauty of SEO is that it can be done from anywhere. Digital properties can be accessed and worked on from anywhere in the world. The location of your SEO Company does not matter if they are experienced and good at what they do.

Choose your SEO company for the right reasons

Choosing the right SEO company should be based on several factors such as experience, referrals, results and reputation. If you’re in Toronto and you had the choice of ABC SEO Company Toronto or. Rand Fishkin, The SEO wizard of Moz (he’s a big deal in SEO but based in Seattle if you didn’t know already), who would you choose?

Let me help you with this one-you choose the legend of SEO, Rand Fishkin. Why? Because Rand Fishkin will turn your website into a monster moneymaker. So what if you pay extra money every month. If you knew your earnings would increase by 30% at the end of the year wouldn’t it make sense to invest the money on a sure thing?

Let go of traditional ways of doing business

Location can be beneficial to some people for peace of mind. It’s nice to know you can run and bang on the door of a company if you need to go looking for them. At the end of the day, you should be deciding to hire an SEO company for the right reasons so you’ll never need to bang on their door.

Settle for zoom meetings if you’re the traditional type who likes to meet in person. If you want your business to grow, you also need to grow with the times. Your website lives in a virtual space so distance has no boundaries when it comes to choosing the right company for your business.

#9-“Cheap SEO services save you money.”

Finding the right people to work on your website for the right price is an important factor in making the best decision for your business. There’s no problem in choosing an SEO company that’s less expensive than another but it’s important to note that SEO services aren’t cheap. Choosing an SEO company because they’re offering cheap SEO services could cost you way more in the long run.

There are no such thing as cheap SEO services-they are one of the SEO myths to avoid falling for when choosing a an SEO company

You get what you pay for. Be wary of cheap SEO services, as they do not include the same benefits of hiring an SEO company that does all the right things for your site. There are thousands of “SEO professionals” that will offer you prices that are too good to be true. Many of these services will submit your site to low-quality directories or link your site to their private blog network, both of which will ruin your website over time.

These companies can reduce your search visibility and cause more harm to your site than good. There’s no substitute for a professional, accurate website assessment and strategy session with an SEO specialist. Why leave the future of your business in the hands of someone who doesn’t have good references or a strong reputation for getting good results?

If you work with the right SEO company, you will make more money than you would without them. It’s the reason you hire a professional for these services. They make you more money through strategic planning and execution.

There are no shortcuts when it comes to SEO. Make sure your provider is up to par when it comes to putting in the work that will ultimately increase the revenue your website generates.

#10-“All backlinks are created equal.”

To the untrained eye this may seem like the case, however, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Some backlinks will help your website, some backlinks do not affect your website and backlinks that will harm your website. Knowing how to tell the difference can make a huge impact on the search visibility of your website.

For example, imagine you’ve started a small business that develops custom POS software for retail stores. Would you prefer a link to your website from Entrepreneur.com

Entrepreneur homepage

or from bargainballoons.ca?

Bargain balloons homepage

First off, Bargain Balloons (yes it’s a real site) isn’t even in your niche. It’s unrelated to your product and therefore a link from them will be ignored. In fact, if you continued to get links from websites like this, your website would start to lose search visibility. Google would downgrade the trustworthiness of your site and push it back in the search results.

A link from Entrepreneur.com however is an incredible link to acquire. Not only is this backlink from a website that specializes in entrepreneurial content, but the audience consists of the exact types of visitors you would want on your site.

A link from Entrepreneur would send other small business owners to your site that in many cases would be interested in your product. 

This is the first huge win. 

The second is the massive volumes of traffic the site generates. Your site would receive a substantial boost in referral traffic for the life of the article your link is on.

The last huge bonus is that Entrepreneur.com has massive domain authority. A link from them would transfer domain authority to your own site, giving you more ranking ability.

The following image is an visual example of Google’s PageRank theory. It shows how all websites are assigned their own values of PageRank, which Google uses in its ranking algorithm.

All links are definitely not created equal.

Consider the type of website the link is coming from

Another factor to consider is the different types of links that exist. First off, there are followed and nofollow backlinks. A followed link transfers domain authority, a nofollow link does not. 

Besides this very important detail is also the issue of where the links are coming from. 

A link from a directory will not carry the same weight as a link from another business within your industry. There is a value assigned to a link according to the relative ease in which it can be obtained. Anyone can get a link from a directory, but not everyone can get a business to agree to link to their website.  

#11-“More website traffic means more revenue.”

Website traffic alone does not guarantee an increase in revenue. However, more targeted website traffic from high converting keywords will generate more revenue.

For example, imagine you sell men’s athletic wear on your website. If for some reason your website began ranking for the term menswear, it would have mixed results since this keyword has multiple possibilities of intent. Not all users that type this keyword will be looking for athletic clothing.

In fact, if we look at the SERP, it suggests this is a broad category. The first two results are local websites that list the top menswear stores (none of which are specifically athletic).

SERP for keyword "menswear?

The majority of the results that appear for this keyword are higher quality casual and formal clothing.

Example of a search results for the keyword "menswear" proving the SEO myths that more traffic does not always mean more revenue

Find the true intent of a keyword

Keyword research is one of the first components of SEO because it helps publishers understand whether the user’s intent for the search will result in a desired action on your website.

Some keywords represent mutliple intentions. 

For example, the keyword French press could mean that a user wants to buy a French press, learn how to make coffee using a French press, learn what a french press is exactly and so on.

You can determine a great deal of search intent based on the search engine result page. The Google SERP features indicate intent.

A local pack would mean that people are looking to pick up a French press in their area.

Local pack indicates the keyword "french press" has local search intent

If you see Google Ads appear, it’s an indication that people are making money on this search term because they’re paying to appear in the result.

SEO myth busting session for "More traffic creates more revenue" proving search intent with Google Ads for commercial value

Videos indicate there is a demand to learn more about a brand or how to do something.

A video pack in the SERP indicates that adding a video to your content will increase the optimization and drive more traffic

Not all keywords result in an immediate conversion. 80% of keywords are considered to have informational intent. Not everyone who visits your website will buy something when they get there, however, they may become clients at a later date if you’ve established an effective marketing funnel.

Target different stages in your marketing funnel to move visitors further along the buying process.

When you can optimize your website for keywords that have a specific purpose in your marketing funnel, increasing traffic from those keywords generate more revenue. 

Without testing, measuring and tracking your key performance indicators it’s difficult to know how well your website is performing in converting visitors into clients.

#12-“You need exact match keywords to rank highly.”

There is some truth in optimizing content with exact match keywords; however, it isn’t necessary to rank highly. Google ranks pages by keyword topic, not just whether a page has the keyword posted within its content, which makes this statement an SEO myth.

There are millions of examples where Google has ranked a page in the number one position without the page using an exact match keyword. This is because Google understands context and will rank pages according to how well they answer search intent.

Look at the top websites that rank for the term SEO content writing. Only one title in the top 4 results contain the exact match keyword.

If your target keyword is SEO content writing and your article is an ultimate guide on how to produce SEO content, it’s possible to rank for your target keyword because your page shares the same search intent.

Your title could be “How To Produce SEO Content: The Ultimate Guide.” If it’s the best piece of content and offer the most expert SEO writing tips, you’ll rank for the term. 

Even if other sites have the exact match keyword within all of the expected places, your content will rank the highest of it is the best match to search intent and offers the highest quality of content.

Does adding an exact match keyword help with on-page optimization?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, it’s considered best practice to optimize your pages for a target keyword in which you would include that keyword in the places search engines use to categorize your content.

The requirement for an exact match keyword to rank highly is an SEO myth

Including your exact keyword in the title, URL, image alt tags and within your content will contribute to a highly optimized page with more probability of ranking higher.

#13-“Syndicate content gets you penalized.”

There is a big difference between syndicate content and duplicate content, the latter being the one that gets you penalized. Syndicate content can actually benefit your site by amplifying good content. If the content you syndicate is being read by a lot of visitors on your site, it improves your user engagement metrics-which is a good thing for your ranking.

Take Medium for example. There’s so much content on this site that is directly imported from other websites. It still ranks for a lot of top keywords because it uses the correct method of assigning attribution.

SEO myth that syndicate content gets you penalized is officially busted with this screenshot of an article on Medium giving attribution

Absolve yourself from all chances of a penalty by placing the correct canonical tags on the content you produce (WordPress does this automatically for you).

Credit the original website as the author for any content you syndicate. Use the `rel=”canonical”` attribute on the anchor tag that links back to the original article. This tells search engines you aren’t the original author, which means you’re not claiming the content as your own.

Example of the rel=cononical tag in action

Where you get into trouble with duplicate content penalties is when you’ve copied another article and published it as your own. If the content is a match to another page-which would have been indexed before yours, your site will experience an algorithmic filter penalty.

Spun content is just as dangerous as duplicate content

The same algorithmic filter kicks in for spun content. If search engines detect that you’re spinning an article that already exists they will demote your page in terms of trust and authority. This is most obviously reflected in search visibility and ranking.

Always give credit where credit is due. If you’re posting someone else’s content, give them the link to attribute them as the original author and avoid the duplicate content penalty.

Your content will then be considered syndicate content, which is a perfectly acceptable practice when proper attribution is given.

#14-“All SEO companies offer the same product.”

Most SEO companies are capable of addressing the major aspects of search engine optimization, however, not all will offer you the same package. Some companies are better at certain things than others. Almost every company will promote the strategy that they’re good at because they know it will get you results. 

This doesn’t automatically mean it’s the best strategy for your business. Make sure the company you choose offers a strategy that matches your business and industry. An SEO company might be absolute wizards in PPC campaigns. 

Example of SEO vs PPC

That doesn’t mean it’s the best SEO strategy for your company website even if they get your business turning a profit. You may have bigger opportunities in developing your organic traffic.

It pays to interview three to five different SEO companies before deciding on who to work with.

You will do much better in the long run if you can find an SEO company whose strength lies in a process that is tailored to your operations and offer you the most long term growth.

SEO myths can make or break your strategy

The emergence of SEO myths is an inevitability that should be expected. No one knows what the Google algorithm is with 100% certainty. The truth is it continues to change on a daily basis.

Constant vigilance is required in order to stay on top of the SEO trends that are verified truths as well as the trends that become obsolete. Read industry websites and follow SEO influencers that report major changes to search.

ICYMI: Google is testing people also ask with question mark icons https://t.co/hBXjNAtkkX pic.twitter.com/OlOjspW8Lv

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) December 30, 2020

Being an early adopter to new SEO trends can mean the difference in making thousands of dollars in revenue. 

Identifying obsolete practices before you make the mistake of using them can save you an enormous amount of time and resources.

If you have any questions about the validity of an SEO myth that hasn’t been mentioned yet, feel free to contact us via email. We’re happy to share our thoughts.

Written by Christian Carere · Categorized: Content strategy, keyword research, Link building, On-page optimization, Web development

Dec 10 2020

Domain Authority & What It Means For Your Website

You may have heard the phrase domain authority being passed around quite a bit and it’s probably for good reason. Many SEOs use the term to describe the likeliness of a website to rank since it refers to the aggregate link equity a domain possesses.

The truth is that domain authority or DA is a term and value that has been formulated and branded by Moz. Other companies have their own versions of how they measure it but the entire concept is a proprietary metric Google used in its algorithm called PageRank.

What is PageRank?

To be honest, no one knows for sure what exactly went into the PageRank calculation, but what we do know is that it had a lot to do with external backlinks. Google used to disclose the PageRank of every page on the internet. This way you would know how powerful a page was and whether it had a strong ability to rank.

Google's old display of pagerank which is now replaced by domain authority

PageRank is based on one of Google’s earliest patents. It states that the popularity of a site could be measured by how many websites linked to it. This is baked into the Google ranking algorithm and remains true today since backlinks are among the top three ranking factors.

The more backlinks a website possesses from relevant websites, the more ranking power it gains. This flow of “link juice” is commonly referred to as “authority.” When a website accumulates thousands of links from related websites, its authority grows.

The concept of pagerank visualized by numerical values of interlinked websites. This somewhat resembles page and domain authority

In 2016, Google stopped publicly displaying PageRank because it contributed to rank manipulation. People would focus on PageRank rather than relevance when linking to other websites in an attempt to boost the ranking ability of their page.

When PageRank stopped being published, a few companies developed their own system for assigning a similar value to web pages. Moz was among the first to come up with DA or domain authority, which measured the aggregate link equity of a domain.

Page authority vs. domain authority

Page authority represents the aggregate link equity of a specific page. Google doesn’t rank domains in the search results it ranks pages. This makes PA or page authority a more accurate measure of the ranking ability of a specific page.

The content on a page is what counts as being relevant to a search. This means that even if your domain authority is considerably lower than another website, you can compete with their pages if you have enough support from other websites linking to your page to bridge the gap in authority-assuming your content is a better solution to search intent.

Advantage of high DA

Keep in mind that a high authority domain has a head start on low authority domains when they publish a new page.

For example, a website with a DA of 80 can publish a brand new blog post whose page authority automatically starts at 45 DA.

Whereas when a website with a DA of 33 publishes a new blog post the new page will start with a DA of 18.

Therefore it will take more backlinks for the lower DA website to even out the page authority when competing for the same keyword in the search results.

The importance of domain authority

The truth is that the higher the authority, the easier it is to rank. It’s easy to get hung up on page authority and domain authority because there’s a specific value to compete with, however, it’s not the only thing that will rank a web page.

Google has actually stated that domain authority doesn’t exist.

we don't really have "overall domain authority". A text link with anchor text is better though

— Gary 鯨理/경리 Illyes (@methode) October 27, 2016

Here’s a video of John Mueller actually stating they don’t use overall website authority scoring.

That may be true for them but for SEOs and businessmen, it helps to know what you’re up against when you’re considering keywords to target. If you see 8 out of 10 websites on the first page with a DA over 80, you know you’re in for a long battle to get anywhere near the first page.

Domain authority places your domain in a general category that’s comparable to other websites. It gives you an idea of how close the website is in terms of credibility and authority.

DA in link building

Link building is not an easy task these days, so having a high domain authority is a big advantage to ranking in the search results. Linking from high DA websites is a big advantage because they drive your DA up higher.

PA in link building

Page authority is more accurate in measuring link authority when it comes to ranking for keywords. It gives pages a chance to compete with high DA websites. When there is good content on a page that serves the intent of the search and other websites are linking to it like crazy, it’s going to move up in the search results.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s only because of the links and actual value of PA. It’s a combination of the fact that people are linking to the content because it’s obviously worth linking to in the first place.

There are plenty of instances where low DA sites rank on the same page as high DA websites. It just depends on the content, the optimiztion and how many links the lower DA site has to compete with the higher authority websites.

Here’s an example of a website with a low DA and NO links ranking on the first page with high DA websites:

Low authority website ranking on the first page grouped with high DA websites

Other measures of DA

Moz was not the only company to come up with a measurement for authority. There are several companies that use a similar system to measure the quality and quantity of backlinks that a page and domain possess.

Here are a few:

Ahrefs: DR and UR (domain rating and URL rating)

Majestic: TF and CF (Trust flow and Citation Flow )

SEMRush: Authority score

Conclusion

In an effort to gauge the competition, many companies have come up with their own systems for measuring overall authority. Although it does not represent the actual value of PageRank, they are a measure of the aggregate link equity that each page or domain possesses.

Domain authority is not an exact measurement for determining rank, but a tool that is commonly used to gauge the level of difficulty in acquiring a similar number of backlinks to compete and outperform competing pages.

The takeaway here is that although it’s an important ranking factor, it not the measurement of DA that matters most since it’s a combination of ranking factors that make up a ranking. Use DA as a general guide for determining the strength of competition and as a way to look deeper into what makes a page rank highly.

Written by Christian Carere · Categorized: Link building, Web development

Nov 11 2020

How To Use Anchor Text Links

If you’ve ever attempted building links to your website you may have already come across one of the textbook conundrums regarding how to use anchor text. If you want to make sure that you don’t over or under optimize pages you’re trying to rank organically, continue reading to learn how to find the perfect blend of anchor text for your website.

Hero image of for article on How To Use Anchor Text

What is anchor text?

Anchor text is the words that link one page to another. In most cases, you can see anchor text because links are normally a different font, underlines, or bolded. This isn’t always the case, but the fact is that if it’s text that links to another site, that text is considered anchor text.

The html for an anchor text link looks like this: 

<a href=”https://digitalducats.com” <Digital Ducats Inc.></a> 

This links the company name to the homepage like this: Digital Ducats Inc.

Google and every major search engine use anchor text as a way of assigning contextual meaning to a page. By using descriptive words to link to a website, you enhance the optimization of that page for those keywords. Using your keyword as anchor text is called an exact match anchor text link.

In fact, prior to 2012, that’s exactly what people were doing to push websites to the number one position on the first page of search results. 

Since Google used anchor text links as a way of establishing the relevance a page had to a search query, people would build a massive amount of exact match anchor text links to their page.

The more links you had with your keyword, the higher you ranked.

Enter the Penguin

Of course, Google did away with this type of link manipulation in a series of updates. The most infamous of updates was the Penguin update in which they targeted websites that were over-optimized with anchor text links.

The Penguin update issued an algorithmic penalty for link manipulation. If your site was clearly attempting to manipulate your ranking through link building, your pages (and entire website in some cases) was banished a number of pages back in the search results. 

If the link manipulation was severe enough, your website was removed from Google’s index altogether.

Fast-forward to today’s link building environment

Since the initial Penguin update, there’s been a series of anchor text ratio theories and practices that have worked for a period of time only to fall by the wayside. 

The truth is that all major search engines have been continuously evolving and advancing their ability for detecting link manipulation. There are no set standards to abide by other than trying to make your link-building look as natural as possible.

In order to get the best guidance on how to structure your link building strategy, you need to see what the top ranking websites are doing to rank for your keyword. 

Every keyword in every niche can be different, which makes analyzing the top-performing pages your first step to establishing successful anchor text ratios.

Establish the average number of optimized anchor text links

This procedure is simple and effective for establishing the standard. You’ll need to use software to get a list of the backlinks of the top websites. Ahrefs is the best for this job as they have the freshest results and seem to pick up the most backlinks compared to other tools.

Export the backlink reports of the top five competitors for the keyword in question. You can toggle the reports any way you please but it would be beneficial to export the reports that summarize the anchors from each page.

Make sure you’ve selected to report the anchors from one domain only in order to avoid counting site-wide links.

You’ll want to count every anchor that has your keyword or a partial match within the text. Get the number of anchors that include your keyword for each of the top five websites, add them together and divide them by five.

You now have the target number of anchor text links that will include your keyword in your link building efforts.

Exclusions and considerations

There can potentially be websites that do not provide a good comparative analysis. Make sure you’re taking into consideration the number of links, the size of the website, the type of website and any other factors that would make your result less accurate.

For example, if there’s a high authority website that only has a few links and every other site on the page has hundreds, ignore this site and use the next one down on the SERP. These types of websites will throw the accuracy of your average way off.

If a website is a directory or some other type of site that doesn’t match with your control group, exclude it from your average.

Top practices to include in your anchor text link building strategy

  • Make your link building natural
  • Never use the same anchor text repeatedly
  • Avoid over-optimization

Make your link building natural

Build links that make sense to the reader. By forcing the keyword into your text you raise red flags regarding link manipulation.

Local keywords are commonly used improperly when linking to a local website. Consider this sentence:

PaintWorld is your premiere paint shop Boston.

As opposed to:

PaintWorld is your premiere paint shop in Boston.

Google knows the money keywords that people are using to find websites and it also recognizes natural speech patterns. The entire algorithm is now built around search intent so it isn’t necessary to force the exact match keyword into your text when it doesn’t fit naturally.

Never use the same anchor text repeatedly

Vary your anchor text and avoid repeating the exact keyword in excess. Consider the following keywords:

Boston paint shop

Paint shop Boston

Paint shop in Boston

Paint store in Boston

Paint supply store Boston

They all have the same intent behind the search. Vary the anchor text to keep your links looking as natural as possible. This also goes for naked URL links to your site.

Everyone is wired differently and therefore will link to websites differently. Change the way you’re linking to your site each time when using a naked URL link.

For example, consider the following URLs to the same domain:

  • Paintworld.com
  • www.paintworld.com
  • https://paintworld.com
  • https://www.paintworld.com
  • https://www.paintworld.com/
  • http://paintworld.com

These are just a few variations. Each of the above URLs can be mixed and matched to create dozens of versions of the same link. What are the chances that 100 people will link to your URL exactly the same way?

It would be a miracle if half of the people that linked to your site using the exact same naked URL link. Vary your anchor text in every type of link in order to maintain the most natural looking link profile.

Avoid over-optimization

It’s necessary to use exact match anchor text in your link building strategy but it’s better to err on the side of caution. If you have an exact match domain, this gives you less flexibility in the links you send to your website.

For example, if your keyword is bespoke suits Toronto, consider the following domains:

  • Customtailors.ca
  • Bespoketailor.ca
  • Bespokesuitstoronto.ca

The first domain gives you the most flexibility with the anchor text links you send to the site. It doesn’t contain any part of the keyword you’re trying to optimize for allowing you to link using exact match anchor text.

The second domain has a partial keyword within the domain. This means you’ll need to see how the site reacts with the types of links you send.

The third domain gives you the least flexibility and presents a delicate situation in the type of links you send. The domain is already highly optimized meaning that it won’t take much to draw an over-optimization penalty.

Exact match domains will typically do better by linking the naked URL since they already contain the keyword within the domain.

The keywords already included on-page will affect the amount of keyword-optimized anchor text links you send to your website.

Use a partial keyword in your anchor text

There are no absolutes when it comes to optimizing your page. No one can say for sure what the factors are that affect how Google ranks your page. Consider the option of linking to your page using partial keywords.

For example, if your website is a local business, you can link using the city or the service on its own for your anchor text. Use this tactic when applying exact match anchor text is having no effect on the position of your page.

Use un-optimized anchor text

It’s always wise to use un-optimized anchor text to mix up the types of links that are pointing to your website. Use text like click here or visit the website or any type of text that doesn’t have your keyword. It makes sense that links would naturally build this way so include them in your strategy.

Conclusion

The most important part of using anchor text is that you establish a guideline based on the pages that are currently ranking for your keyword. Be willing to adjust your strategy based on the reaction your website has to new backlinks.

There are no absolutes when it comes to optimizing your anchor text. Find the balance through analysis and adapting to the unique optimization factors your website possesses.

As a major part of your link building strategy, it’s important to get this aspect right. It can make or break the success you have in ranking highly for your target keyword.

Related reading: Why Doesn’t My SIte Show Up On Google?

Written by Christian Carere · Categorized: Link building

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