SEO

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.

All major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

SEO marketing also referred to as Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the visibility of a website on search engine results pages. ... The goal is to improve the relevance of your website so that it is indexed and well positioned by the search engines.

Every business needs to invest in search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website to maximize organic traffic from search engines. ... You are losing money every day your website is not optimized in the search engines.

4 Most Important Ranking Factors, According to SEO Industry Studies

1. Content

Content is one of the most important Google ranking factors, according to Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google. This shouldn’t be news — content has been an important ranking factor for a while — but in recent years, we’ve seen a shift away from keyword-focused content towards more relevant content written in natural language.

In fact, the SearchMetrics study cited above found that just 53% of the top 20 queries have keywords in their title tag, and less than 40% of landing pages have keywords in their H1. This number is dropping year-over-year, which “clearly demonstrates that Google evaluates content according to its relevance—and not by the inclusion of individual keywords.”

2. Backlinks

Backlinks remain an important Google ranking factor, but over the years, Google has learned to weed out the bad links from the good. More links will still result in a higher score, but only if they’re from a number of diverse and authoritative domains.

The key to a strong link building campaign is to create content people crave, and then to promote that content relentlessly. When other industry authorities read and link to your content, Google will read your backlink’s matching anchor text and consider your content more relevant.

When your content earns a lot of these high-quality backlinks, you hit three important ranking signals: number of backlinks, link authority, and link diversity.

Note that one of the main roles of social signals is to win you more high-quality backlinks. SearchMetrics found that ranking position and social signals strongly correlated across all social media channels — though Facebook is still the platform with the highest concentration of user interactions.

3. Mobile-First User Experience

One of the biggest changes we saw in 2016 was Google’s shift towards mobile-first indexing. This means that Google’s index will now primarily crawl the mobile version of websites as opposed to the desktop version.

Mobile optimization is an extremely important ranking factor. All of the top 100 most visible domains have mobile-friendly solutions, according to SearchMetrics.

Today, it will be more important than ever that your content is responsive on all mobile platforms and identical to the content on your desktop site. Mobile-friendliness is now the norm, and with 85% of all websites now meeting Google’s criteria for being mobile-friendly, it’s time to improve your website even more — think mobile-first, not just mobile-friendly.

A word of warning: according to Google, if you are in the process of building a mobile version of your site, don’t launch it until it’s finished. Releasing a broken or incomplete mobile version of your website might wind up hurting your ranking more than helping; it’s better to keep your website desktop-only until the mobile version is ready.

Page speed is another important ranking factor that ties heavily into a good user experience. Desktop websites should load in 3 seconds or less, while mobile websites should load in 2 seconds or less (according to SearchMetrics, the top-ranked mobile websites are approximately one second quicker than their desktop equivalents).

4. Other Technical Factors

There are many other technical factors which might play a big role in your website’s rank. These factors include:

Encryption: Backlinko still finds a strong correlation between HTTPS websites and first page Google rankings, and SearchMetrics confirms that 45% of the top websites all use HTTPS encryption (up from 12% in 2015). Google confirmed back in 2014 that websites with a strong HTTPS encryption will rank better than their HTTP counterparts, and websites that have not switched to HTTPS are now marked as unsafe in Google Chrome.

H1 and H2 Headings: There are more landing pages with an H1 and H2 in the source code this year. SearchMetrics found a strong correlation between the use of at least one H2 and a higher rank.

Anchor text: Exact-match anchor text still has a strong influence on rankings, but you risk a Penguin penalty if your links appear unnatural or spammy. Make sure your backlink anchor text is diverse and organic.

Interstitials: In keeping with Google’s emphasis on mobile-first optimization, they’re cracking down on intrusive interstitial pop-ups. That means any page with an ad or CTA that covers the main content or whisks users to a new page upon clicking might suffer a penalty. Exceptions to this include login dialogs, small banners that are easy to dismiss, and legally-required interstitials (e.g. age verification).

Monitor & analyze

Knowing both the percentage and exact numbers will help you identify weaknesses and give you a basis for comparison over time. For example, if you see that traffic has spiked dramatically but it comes from referral links with low relevance, it's not time to get excited. On the other hand, if search engine traffic falls dramatically, you may be in trouble. You should use this data to track your marketing efforts and plan your traffic acquisition efforts.

Measuring the contribution of your search traffic from each engine is useful for several reasons:

Compare Performance vs. Market Share

Compare the volume contribution of each engine with its estimated market share.

Get Visibility Into Potential Drops
Uncover Strategic Value

5 free SEO Tools to Analyze Your Website Like Google Does in 2018

1Google Webmaster Tools
Perhaps the best way to understand the way Google sees your site is to ask Google. Google’s Webmaster Tools are novice-friendly resources that explain the fundamentals of Google search.

For example, Google’s Fetch as Google tool allows you to see a particular URL as Google sees it, which is critical when troubleshooting for poor SEO performance. The information returned can help you modify the page in question for better results, and can even help you isolate problematic code when you believe your site's been hacked.

Each week users are allotted 500 fetches. If you come close to hitting your limit, you'll see a notification on the report.

Another great feature of Google Webmaster Tools is PageSpeed Insights. This tool measures the performance of both your desktop and mobile site in terms of speed. With mobile search queries surpassing desktop searches, page speed is becoming increasingly important to businesses that want to hold on to their visitors. 

"The PageSpeed Score ranges from 0 to 100 points. A higher score is better and a score of 85 or above indicates that the page is performing well. Please note that PageSpeed Insights is being continually improved and so the score will change as we add new rules or improve our analysis," according to Google Developers

2Check My Links
3SEO Report Card
4HubSpot's Website Grader
5Found's SEO Audit Tool

Webmaster

Webmasters oversee all the features of a website. They solve technical problems, approve site content, and work with designers to make sure the site looks great no matter what browser is used. Schools offeringGraphics & Multimedia Management degrees can also be found in these popular choices.

Webmasters for small businesses often do it all, from designing the website to search engine optimization (SEO) to daily maintenance. So, you need an adept, creative multitasker whom you can trust with the keys to your website -- the online gateway to your brand.

Submit your Site in search engines

Over 3.5 million people worldwide have used the Entireweb Free Search Engine Submission service to submit their sites to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and more.

The most popular search engines in the UK are Google, with around 90% of the market share, Bing, and Yahoo. It is a similar picture worldwide. All search engines serve nationwide results, based on the reputation of a website and local results, based on the proximity of the user to the business.

Just type your website address into the Google search box. If Google knows about your site, it will tell you. If your site doesn’t feature as the number 1 result, you may need to submit your site to Google.

Another way to check if a page is in either of the search engines is to lift a piece of unique text from the page, put it into the search box “in quotes”.

Your page should come up if Google is indexing your site.



How Do You Submit A Site To Search Engines?

You do not need a SEO (search engine optimizer) to present your site to Google, Yahoo or Bing. You don’t pay to get into any of the big search engines natural (free or organic) listings.

Google has ways of submitting your web pages directly to their index. Most search engines do.

I’d expect submitting your site through the following methods will certainly get you started:

hobo-web.co.uk

Amazing & Best SEO Tools You Must Try in 2018

1Ahrefs

Used for: Research and Analysis

Pricing: Freemium

Out of all the SEO tools out there, thousands of online marketers, small business owners, and SEO’s prefer to use Ahrefs to help them improve their search rankings.

Their Site Explorer is the best among backlink analysis tools.

They also have the Content Explorer, which searches the web for the most popular content for any topic or keyword.

And if you ask me, it’s just as good as Buzzsumo.

Ahrefs have one more tool, the Keyword Explorer 2.0.

This gives you a keyword’s search volume (global or country), SERP overview and position history, related keyword ideas, and the difficulty level.

The pricing starts at $99 per month with annual options. But you’re allowed to have a free account with limitations.

They also offer free trials for all plans.

2seobility
3Long Tail Pro
4SEM Rush
5Pitchbox

10 Questions to Ask When Hiring an SEO Consultant

1. How are you going to improve my rankings?

Rand Friskin, founder of Moz cautions to stay away from bogus SEO consultants who are unwilling to clearly and freely discuss their SEO strategies and methods they use to improve your search rankings. The consultants should tell you, clearly, how exactly are they going to optimise your website and how long would it take to realistically see an improvement in your online rankings.

2. Can you guarantee Number 1 Ranking for my website?
3. How are you going to measure the results?
4. How are you going to communicate and how often?
5. What are your fees?
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