Posts

5 SEO Strategies You Can Implement Today

/in /by

seo

Search engines are constantly updating the algorithms they use to evaluate websites but by keeping up with the latest changes, following best practices and by implementing these 5 SEO strategies you will be setting your website up for long term success.

Here are 5 things you can start implementing to improve your website traffic and take your website to the next level.

5 SEO Strategies to Help Grow Your Business

 

1. Mobile Optimization

Mobile optimization should be one of your top SEO priorities. A recent study showed that mobile internet usage has surpassed desktop internet usage to become the new king. Google has made their stance clear by officially stating they prefer mobile-optimized responsive websites and have begun labeling search results with “mobile-friendly” if they pass certain requirements. It’s important to ensure your website is mobile optimized and ideally fully responsive.

2. Focus Less On Keyword Rankings

Don’t stop tracking keyword rankings entirely but you should be placing much more value on tracking ROI metrics. You might be ranking well for certain keywords but are those keywords actually producing any leads or sales? There are many keyword phrases that have little competition but provide little to no actual improvement to your ROI.

3. Quality Over Quantity

Google has always used inbound links as a ranking signal and this is not expected to change in the near future. The quality of your links is much more important than the quantity. For example a handful of relevant links from trusted sites that are considered an authority in their field hold more value than thousands of links from lower quality sites. Focus on slowly and steadily earning quality links from reputable sites.

4. Consider User Intent

Google has started handling search queries in a different manner after their “hummingbird” update. Google used to simply match pages to keywords but after the update it now takes into consideration the user’s intent by attempting to makes sense of the context of your pages. This means that your content should include keyword phrases that users would be likely to use when attempting to search for your products or services in addition to including traditional semantic search words.

5. HTTPS Instead Of HTTP

In August of 2014 Google officially announced that they will be using HTTPS as a ranking signal, HTTPS is a secure version of the hyper text transfer protocol and google stated they will give a minor ranking advantage to encrypted websites that use it. To use https instead of standard http, you will need an SSL certificate which is a relatively low cost and definitely worth considering to give your website an extra boost.

 

Things You Need to Know About Social Media & SEO

/in /by

social-media-image


Over the past few years the state of SEO has changed dramatically thanks to several massive algorithm updates from Google, this has resulted in a shift towards content becoming the new SEO king. In the past ranking for a particular search query could be as simple as focusing on singular keywords but now it’s far more important to focus on keyword intent and the search user’s needs using long tail searches.

In a marketing report published by Econsultancy entitled the State of Search Marketing, it mentions that 82% of agencies and 72% of companies surveyed stated social media marketing is an intricate part of their SEO & digital marketing strategy. Ironically, shortly after Econsultancy published the data from it’s report, Google released a video claiming that social signal metrics (Twitter followers, Facebook Shares/likes, etc) are not currently used to determine search engine rankings.

This claim by Google came as a bit of a shock to most marketers as there seemed to be a mutual assumption that social signals were in fact a significant factor used in determining search engine rankings as they help to reflect a companies trust and quality.

 

Some Things to Consider On The Impact of Social Media on SEO

 

Links on Social Media Sites Can Still Boost Your Search Rank

Many internet marketers believe that backlinks to your website from social media accounts do in fact have a significant impact on your rankings. Developing unique content and linking to your content from Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and other Social Media sites provides search engines more information that can be used to help determine a website’s credibility and how relevant they are for a particular search query.

 

Profiles on Social Media Sites Rank Well

Even though social signals, shares, likes, etc might not impact your website’s search engine ranking, social profiles most certainly do. Social Media profiles are typically among the top search results when searching for a company name or brand. When a person is researching businesses they’re not familiar with they will commonly go straight to their twitter or facebook page, so accordingly if a social media profile is among the top results they’re just as likely to click on the profile as they would be for the businesses actual website.

Social profiles make a difference with Google and also to the people who are trying to find your business online. Marketers should definitely take into consideration the fact that a Google+ profile is commonly one of the first things someone will see when searching for a business online and as a result it is important to not only have a Google+ page but also to ensure that it is current and populated with rich engaging content.

 

Social Media Sites Are Also Search Engines

In today’s internet it’s common for someone to skip Google and Bing completely and perform their search query directly from a social media site to try and find what they’re looking for. As such your SEO strategy should include focusing on the searches that happen directly on social media search engines. If someone wants to get a good feel for what your company is about, the average person will perform a quick search on Facebook or twitter to determine what type of online presence your business has.

How Google’s RankBrain Update Impacts Your Business

/in /by

google-rankbrain


Most people have heard of the new RankBrain algorithm and are familiar with previous updates such as Panda and Penguin but this update will be slightly more complex. The new algorithm will impact your business in several ways, so it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with how it works. The RankBrain update launched October 26 of 2015 so it’s still a fresh topic, but a lot of the inner workings have already been unveiled. One of Google’s top research scientists has referred to RankBrain as the 3rd most important factor Google takes into consideration when determining which results are most relevant for a particular search query.

What’s New In The RankBrain Algorithm?

Even though the new RankBrain algorithm update has been live for several months (October 26th 2015). It wasn’t until recently that Google actually confirmed there is a new aspect that incorporates machine-learning in the update.Huge amounts of search queries (Up to 15% according to Google) will be processed through the machine learning with a goal of better understanding the queries so that Google is able to provide faster, better, more relevant results. RankBrain is essentially the code name Google has given for the addition of AI (artificial intelligence) in the latest algorithm update.

Google hopes to gain a better understanding of it’s users and what their searches mean when they use Google and their new artificial intelligence algorithm brings them one step closer to achieving this. The primary focus is to be able to provide the most relevant results to a particular search query and by being the only search engine currently utilizing AI it puts Google light years ahead of their competitors. In a simple comparison test to evaluate RankBrain’s effectiveness several Google engineers were shown a list of websites and asked to estimate how Google’s algorithm would rank them, the engineers were correct approximately 70% of the time  while RankBrain ranked them correctly 80% of the time.

What does this mean for your business?

It means that keywords in particular will hold less value than context. Businesses should start to think about what questions or phrases their audience will use or ask as a whole instead of focusing on the individual keywords. A deep understanding of your target audiences and the triggers that drive them will be at the heart of any  successful digital marketing strategy, the way we look at SEO is changing.