Some SEO experts have turned to the video platform YouTube to bring the latest tips and advice on how to improve your SEO efforts. Here are some of Matter Solutions’ favourites that we think you should subscribe to today.
Brian Dean – Backlinko with Brian Dean is made for professional marketers to show them how to drive more to traffic to websites and get higher rankings. The videos are fairly short and to the point. His instructions are easy to follow too! https://www.youtube.com/user/backlinko
Charles Floate – Charles Floate’s SEO channel really goes into the depths of SEO. If you’re a beginner, start with his SEO for 2016 video. You can also find the topic you are looking for easily if you just need to focus on something specific. https://www.youtube.com/user/D4rkHacking/
Google Webmasters - Google Webmasters gives invaluable step-by-step advice with real-life examples that make it easy for SEO beginners to understand. This channel also gives insight into the search engine algorithms and what they are doing to help you better understand the process. https://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp
Chase Reiner SEO – Chase Reiner SEO is dedicated to bringing you a complete guide to the most updated SEO solutions out there including on and off-page SEO, social media marketing, the latest SEO tools and automation techniques. Some topics come in several parts so make sure you dedicate some time to learning with Chase Reiner. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6z07Hh9Muy6urJgA0F0azg
Neil Patel – This channel adds videos every day on digital marketing with the aim to teach one new thing each day with videos that are only a few minutes long. This channel is perfect for someone who doesn’t have a lot of time to watch full videos but can get something delivered every day to spend a few minutes on. The tips and hacks are aimed at getting your business seen quickly. https://www.youtube.com/user/neilvkpatel
Josh Bachynski – If you’re looking for full SEO courses, Josh Bachynski has got it. After one video you will have the skills and knowledge to apply to your page to start seeing a boost in rankings. https://www.youtube.com/user/jbachyns
Superstar SEO – Superstar SEO says you will see results after following their easy SEO tips and tricks. They go over the common mistakes people make and how to correct it as well. The 30 videos in 30 days challenge is a great way to become an expert in your own SEO by the end of the month! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfUV63cw0s9TYkiLJkqhQEw
Moz – With several videos on how to fix SEO, Moz is great for helping when there may be something that is giving you trouble. Everything from finding on-site errors with crawl tests to building link profiles are covered here. https://www.youtube.com/user/MozHQ/playlists
Ahrefs – Ahrefs will show you how to do an SEO audit and tips on how to fix mistakes. The advice is simple (or even “oversimplified” as they describe it) making it easy to understand and implement into your own page. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWquNQV8Y0_defMKnGKrFOQ
WsCube Tech – There are a plethora of topics on all things SEO on WsCube Tech’s YouTube channel. Learn all about important SEM terms that you may not even be familiar with yet before moving onto keyword research and analysis. There is a short video great for beginners to help you get started as well as several other videos on any topic related to SEO imaginable. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0T6MVd3wQDB5ICAe45OxaQ
SEO can be tricky, but Matter Solutions are here to help. If you rather leave your SEO to the experts, we’ll be there to help push your page up in the search engine rankings, putting your website in front of those who are looking for exactly what you have to offer. Call us today to speak to a member of our team on how to get started.
SEO is incredibly important and a necessity if you want people to be able to find your site through search engines like Google. In order to do well in organic search engine results, several tasks should be done on your website. At Matter Solutions, we perform the following seven essential tasks on your WordPress site that will help put it in front of those who are searching for the products and services you offer.
1. Installing and configuring Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager is a management system that allows tags and code snippets to be updated easily. From the Google Tag Manager user interface, you’ll be able to control AdWords, analytics, and third-party custom tags. You only need a Google account ID, and we’ll upload and activate the plugin. The code will add itself to your WordPress site. We can also make sure the user interface is ready to install other tags like for AdWords.
2. Installing and configuring Google Analytics
Google Analytics is necessary to be able to find out more about where your website audience is coming from and who they are. Google Analytics makes it easy to understand user behaviour. You’ll be able to use the data to work on your strategy. Once signed up to Analytics, Google will provide a tracking ID to put on the WordPress site. There are a few ways to install this on your site, including installing it in the WordPress theme where the code will be added to the header.php file and Functions File. Google Analytics reports can be viewed on the Analytics dashboard.
3. Scanning the site for broken links/images (quality assurance)
Having broken links or images can be detrimental to your SEO ranking. Google’s aim is to have the user’s experience run seamlessly from page to page. Having broken links or images can be frustrating as the user cannot continue to the page they wanted to. It looks like you have not taken the time to look after your page, and it also might affect sales. Matter Solutions will carefully scour your website for any broken links or pictures and fix or remove them.
4. Installing and configuring Yoast (plugin)
Yoast SEO is a plugin that will help you with the content side of your SEO efforts. It looks at both SEO keywords and readability. We put in the keyword(s) that we’re aiming for into Yoast and it does the rest. It looks at the content, URL, slug, and snippet for it. Yoast makes sure the keyword(s) appear in the first paragraphs of your content too. It also measures your content for readability, including making sure there aren’t blocks of text and sentences that are too long. Yoast is quite sophisticated and a must for your SEO content.
5. Mapping and updating 301 redirects
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirection to a different URL than originally requested. It keeps the page’s SEO ranking, so if you are moving from one URL to another, this is an essential feature to implement. A 301 redirection is important when you are switching domains but want to keep the inbound links on the old one (this helps your SEO). It also helps associate similar web conventions. For example, http://yourdomain.com, www.yourdomain.com, and yourdomain.com.
6. Ensuring correct reading settings are enabled
The reading settings on your WordPress site determine how your page is displayed to visitors. It can determine if your page remains “static” or if you have updated posts on it, such as from a blog or news. It also determines how many posts are shown on a page. It can show a snippet of text, inviting users to click for more or display full-text posts. Other plugins may affect how the reading settings work, so it is important to ensure they are correct and all working together, so the readability of your page provides a pleasant visitor experience.
7. Google Search Console setup and configuration
Google Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools, gives you data and configuration control. It lets you see how Google sees your website. It is here where you will find messages from Google regarding your website, such as any issues the search engine found like hacking or malware. These issues could hurt your SEO rankings and visitor experience. All site versions (http:// and www.) will need to be linked to Google and ownership verified before they give you the data.
These seven steps taken by Matter Solutions ensure your SEO is in top shape, giving your site a good chance to be seen in organic searches!
Are you looking to undertake some SEO work for your website? Worried about how much it might cost? If you’ve been looking up SEO agencies, chances are you’ve been quoted a lot of different prices. Here’s how you can find out the cost of SEO, and whether you’re getting good value for money.
How is the cost decided?
The first thing to know when figuring out the cost of SEO is what the variables are. The cost will vary depending on:
The goals of the business
The current position of the business
If there is a timeline on the completion of the business’ goals
A business that is ranking lower and wants to improve this on a shorter timeframe is going to find work may be more costly in the short term than those who have a longer timeframe. Knowing these variables can help businesses know how many links will need to be acquired and how many man hours it will take to complete the work in the required timeframe.
Cost will also differ depending on the business itself. The larger the business, the larger the profits per customer will be, and therefore the cost for SEO will also increase when compared to smaller businesses.
Quality
Once you’ve thought about the SEO variables, the next thing you have to consider is the quality of the work. Remember the old saying “you get what you pay for”? In the case of SEO, this is extremely true.
When you’re looking for an SEO agency, you’re bound to stumble across agencies who can offer their services for a low price. It is often tempting to go with these agencies, particularly when your budget is tight and you have limited resources. However, if you decide to go with a cheap agency, you may end up paying more in the long run. Work that is done for a relatively low cost can often mean it is black hat SEO. This means the agency will be using aggressive techniques which do not abide by Google’s guidelines. If this is noticed by Google, your business could receive a penalty. This means you could suffer a dramatic decrease in rankings on Google, or your listing could disappear altogether. This can result in a lot of man hours and money to fix, if it can be fixed at all.
Before you decide on hiring the cheapest possible agency, consider whether it will be worth it in the long run. Always remember, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. Make sure you do your research before choosing the agency with the cheapest prices. Remember - SEO takes a while to complete. No one is going to charge dirt cheap prices for work that takes a lot of time and effort to complete. If they are, that should ring alarm bells.
So what is the actual cost of SEO?
These factors don’t really answer the question you want to know - what is the cost of SEO?
It’s first important to know the fee structure agencies set up. Agencies will either charge on a:
Hourly rate
Monthly retainer
Project-based (fixed)
Project-based (variable)
Performance based
So what are the standard hourly rates for SEO work? Moz undertook a survey from 10 different countries to find the average SEO costs. Moz found the average agency offers services between $75 - $200USD per hour, with offshore prices being much lower. Within Australia, the average costs are between $100 - $200USD per hour. Agencies who offer below $75USD per hour were often less experienced or have less specialisation.
The cost of SEO will also depend on the duration of the SEO campaign. In some instances, agencies will require you to choose a minimum term. However, it is more common for agencies to have no lock in contracts. When deciding on the length of work you require your agency to do, remember that SEO work takes time. As much as we’d like it, you’re never going to see results overnight. Generally, you will need at least six months to be able to see measurable results. Remember to be wary of agencies that “guarantee” results - they won’t work at Google, and therefore won’t have a better influence over the search engine results than anyone else.
How can you get the best value for money?
So now you know what variables will change the cost, and what average costs you can expect in Australia, you then need to know how you can determine that you received good value for money. It’s always annoying when you don’t get what you were promised, particularly when you invested a lot of money into it.
To avoid being in this situation, make sure you know exactly what the SEO company is doing for you before they start any work. This way there won’t be any mixed messages and your expectations won’t be let down. Make sure they clearly know your goals and what you want to achieve. If these aren’t made clear, you could both be working towards a different goal, which will mean you won’t really make any solid progress.
Remember to always measure your results. In the end, it’s your ROI that matters more than how much the SEO work actually costs. Compare the costs and results of your SEO work to how much it costs for AdWords and social ads. This way, you’ll know whether or not you got real value for money, and whether the investment in SEO is actually worth it.
Despite the fact some people consider themselves to have a strong understanding of SEO, there are often aspects which are confusing. This can be even more overwhelming for people who don’t work in the industry and have little understanding of SEO.
So what are the most common things people struggle to comprehend?
1. What is SEO?
It may seem basic, but it is an important aspect to understand. If your understanding of what SEO is wrong, your strategy will suffer and you won’t achieve the desired results.
So what is SEO? SEO stands for “search engine optimisation” and is the process of gaining organic web traffic to boost search engine result positions. Think about how many times you have looked at a result on page two or even page three of Google. Chances are you don’t do this very often, if ever. This is why SEO is so important. You want to ensure your website is ranking on the first page of search engines in order to gain more web traffic which will hopefully result in conversions.
2. The difference between on and off page optimisation
On page optimisation is internal, with SEO workers required to constantly revise and update a business’ website in order to boost more traffic. On the other hand, off page optimisation is related to link building factors, and relies on external websites to boost the visibility of blog posts.
3. How long SEO takes
Clients of businesses who do SEO work can often expect the work to be done relatively quickly, and for results to be achieved right away. However, SEO doesn’t quite work this way. SEO work often takes between two to six months to achieve, depending on what your goal is. If you are wanting more substantial work, it can often take 12 months to see the wanted results. In fact, an analysis of 20,000 URLs published in 2016 found it took 3.39 months for the page to reach its top position.
To find out more about how SEO FAQs we still struggle to understand, check out this infographic by SEO JURY.
With the amount of time consumers spend online, reviews are becoming more and more influential over our purchasing decisions. Consumers are more likely to trust the opinion of someone they know, rather than be swayed by advertising. In fact, 68 percent of millennials trust online views the most. Only 34 percent trust television advertisement. Furthermore, 90 percent of people read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a brand. This highlights how first impressions matter, and how vital it is to gain positive online reviews. After all, 22 percent of consumers will not purchase a product if there is just one bad review about it. Businesses need to ensure they are taking the appropriate steps to gain positive online reviews and respond correctly to negative reviews in order to avoid losing customers.
Website Builder.org created the following infographic which highlights just how important online reviews are to businesses.
Colours can increase conversions? Yes. Different colours mean different things, read on.
We know some of the basic ways to increase conversions - on-site optimisation and the increase of urgency, to name a few. However, there is another way to persuade your audience that may not seem as blatantly obvious. This factor is colours.
QuickSprout found that colour accounts for 85% of the reason why we buy a specific product.
This highlights how influential colour choice is within marketing. Pick the colour that resonates with your audience, and you’ve got a winner.
Why are colours so influential? It all comes down to colour psychology. This is the science of how colour affects human behaviour. This is often a field that is not completely agreed upon, with colour psychology having many skeptics. After all, considering how subjective colour preferences are, how can it be possible for a certain colour to cause the same reaction with everyone?
The first thing you need to learn is what influence each colour has. You can then continue on to learn the correct way to use each colour, and select which colours are right for your brand.
Colours have different effects on men than women. Philip Cohen from the University of Maryland found 35 percent of women prefer blue, 23 purple, and 14 green. 33 percent of women said they did not like the colour orange. If you’re targeting women specifically, it’s best to avoid ‘earthy’ colours such as orange, brown or gray. It’s also tempting to lean towards stereotypically feminine colours such as pink. However, this is not a favourite colour of every woman. Instead, opt for blue, purple or green to increase your conversions.
There were some similarities, with men also preferring blue the most, followed by green and then black. These colours are associated with manliness, and are therefore most preferred. Men dislike brown the most, followed by orange and purple.
Symbolic colours
It’s important to consider what colours are symbolic of. Consider what the following colours symbolise and whether you would want that associated with your brand:
Pink: can be seen as feminine and romantic, and risks not being as appealing to men
Gray: neutral, but associated with loneliness and sadness
Black: can be elegant, but also symbolic of death
Brown: represents boredom
Yellow: optimistic and youthful.
However, it’s important to think about your target market when thinking about what a colour symbolises, as it can change in each culture. For example, white represents mourning and death within China, whereas purple is symbolic of death in Brazil.
Spending habits
So what colours affect your spending? Certain colours represent different factors, and then cause people to decide whether or not to buy a product. Colour representations include:
Black: sophisticated
Orange: affordability
Green: environmentally friendly, healthy
Burgundy: rich
Blue: trust, calming
People who are impulse shoppers will be mostly influenced by royal blue, orange and black. Those on a budget will be swayed by dark blue and green. Whereas traditional buyers prefer pink, light blue and dark pink.
Where to use colours
Now that you know about the importance of colours and what they are representative of, it’s time to know where on your website you should be using colours to increase conversions.
Rules to consider when using colour to increase conversions:
Have different coloured text for links which have and have not been clicked, and make sure these colours are different to the text colour.
Use brighter colours for call-to-action buttons. Make sure it stands out and contrasts with the background colour.
Avoid colours that are too bright or will hurt viewers eyes.
Make sure any text or headings can be read and contrasts with the background.
Align the text colour of your headline, call-to-action and value proposition with your marketing goal.
It’s clear to see how important colour is to a brand, and how using the right colour can increase conversions. Your business needs to choose a colour that will be an accurate representation of your brand, and something that it will be known for. After all, people clearly associate the golden arches and red with McDonald's.
When deciding on colours, it’s important to run some A/B tests. Unbounce’s 2012 Conversion Rate Optimization Report found 46 percent of marketers considered A/B testing to be the best way to increase conversions.
A/B testing allows you to see what impact a certain colour has on your conversion rates, and you can be using the correct colours. After all, there is no one colour that will always work and get conversions. For example, there isn’t a rule that says you should definitely use red for your call-to-action buttons.
You simply have to test these and find which colour works best for your brand. Just make sure you test one element each time, to ensure you know what caused the increase or decrease in conversions.
Testing your colour choices will ensure you can settle on the right colour for your brand and the one that causes the biggest increase in conversions.
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For one reason or another, there are various myths and conspiracy theories within SEO that just never seem to die. People seem to believe them and follow them, even though they are blatantly not true.
So what are some SEO myths and conspiracy theories you should be aware of?
1. Google AdWords means you’ll have higher organic rankings
There is the longheld belief that if you pay for Google AdWords, this will cause an increase in your organic rankings.
To bust this myth, you simply have to look at Google’s position on the matter. Google clearly states: “Investment in paid search has no impact on your organic search ranking.” Organic data you receive is based on domains that are linked to your account. Google currently does not have a way to filter organic traffic to a subset of linked domains.
2. You shouldn’t be guest posting
This myth came about because of a blog post by Matt Cutts titled “the decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO.” As you can guess from the title, the blog post details how guest posting is dead because it’s gotten too spammy. Matt Cutts recommends people do not accept guest posts unless they can vouch for the writer personally.
However, there is still evidence that there are many benefits to guest posting. You get more exposure for your name and brands name. It can increase traffic flow to your website. Getting an article published on an influential website can increase your website’s authority. You just have to make sure that your content is of high quality to ensure people want it to be published in the first place. Aim to have guest posts on authoritative websites, rather than low-quality, spammy websites in order to avoid damaging your reputation.
3. Content is king
Content is king...or is it? Content should be a huge part of your SEO strategy. However, it’s not the be all and end all. You need to undertake keyword research to ensure your content will rank. You also need to ensure you correctly optimise your content, as this can also affect your SEO efforts.
You then need to make sure you are spending enough time on promotion of your content. After all, if no one knows your content is there, they aren’t going to read it, and you’re wasting your time producing it. Make sure you’re sharing on your social media networks, and make it easy for others to do so by including social media buttons in your blog posts. It’s also worthwhile undertaking outreach to promote your blog and see if you can publish guest posts to increase your authority.
4. Updates increase revenue
Another consistent myth is that Google introduces algorithm updates such as Panda and Penguin to increase revenue, rather than reducing spammy practices. When an algorithm update is introduced, websites often experience a drop in traffic. This then causes websites to spend more money on advertising, such as through AdWords. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that these updates are purely for revenue raising purposes.
However, Google’s Matt Cutts offered some clarity on the situation. He stated that Google’s algorithm updates are not designed for the purposes of making money, but rather for the good of the internet community. He went further to claim Google even lost revenue because of Panda.
5. Social media affects ranking
This one can be confusing, as Google has previously stated that social media DOES have an affect on search engine rankings. However, Google has since reiterated on numerous occasions that they do not, in fact, incorporate social signals as a ranking factor.
Facebook and Twitter posts are treated like every other web page in regards to searches, but not for a ranking factor. This means Google doesn’t even attempt to index most social media posts. While Google can access every tweet published, it does not index them. In fact, a 2015 study found Google only indexed less than 4 per cent of all tweets.
It’s also important to consider how often information changes on social media pages. Google only periodically indexes websites. To ensure they had the most accurate information, they would have to be indexing far more frequently than they currently are. This is another reason why Google doesn’t crawl social media networks, and why they are not influential on search rankings.
Knowing these myths means you can spend less time focusing on trying to achieve them, and more time on SEO aspects that will positively impact your search engine ranking.
Got a myth that needs busting? Let us know in the comments.
You’ve joined WordPress and you’ve started to make your website. However, there are simple mistakes you could be making that could seriously damage your SEO.
Fortunately, you can find out what these mistakes are, and how you can fix them if you’ve already made it.
A sitemap doesn’t seem like it’s the most important thing to include on your website. However, you want to make sure you include everything possible to make it easier for Google to find your website. That’s exactly what the inclusion of sitemap does. Sitemaps will provide a list of pages from your website that you would like indexed. Google has even stated that you won’t be penalised for including one. If there are only benefits, why wouldn’t you want to include on on your WordPress website?
How do you include a sitemap on your website? You can manually create a sitemap. However, if you want a more automated process, there are plugins you can download and instal including:
This can be a simple mistake to make but can have large consequences. After all, most businesses aim to get a high ranking on search engines in order to gain traffic and conversions. You won’t be able to do that if you have blocked search engines from reaching your website. Often users will have made this mistake and won’t even realise.
So how can you make sure your website isn’t blocking search engines? Once in WordPress:
Navigate to the Settings > Reading section
Look for the “Search Engine Visibility” section
There will be a box with a statement that says “discourage search engines from indexing this site. It is up to search engines to honour this request.” Make sure this box is NOT checked.
If you need to uncheck the box, save changes
3. Poor use of categories and tagging
When writing a new post on WordPress, you’ll notice there are Categories and Tags options on the right-hand side. Utilising these offers a great opportunity to increase not only traffic flow but also engagement. However, if you’re using too many tags and categories, or they’re irrelevant to your post, it can actually have the opposite effect.
While tags and categories don’t have the biggest impact on SEO, it will help search engines understand what keywords and phrases are relevant for each post. So it’s best to avoid using too many categories and tags, and always ensure they’re relevant to what you’re writing about.
If you’re wanting to improve your SEO efforts on WordPress, it’s best to consider installing a plugin. Sure, you can try and make sure you do everything yourself, but having a plugin will help to double check that you’re doing everything correctly. Plugins can help you to optimise your content, add sitemaps and block pages, to name a few.
Correctly optimising your content will help you get your pages ranking. Things you have to consider when writing posts include:
Keywords: make sure you avoid keyword stuffing, or else you may end up with a Google Penalty. Always use keywords naturally, make sure your work still make sense and it is readable.
Headers: Make sure you use H1, H2, H3 correctly, don’t overdo the H1 headers. Make sure the headings and subheadings are relevant to your post, and may even include keywords.
Alt tags: search engine crawlers can’t see images, therefore you have to provide text that gives an accurate description of what the image is. This text will also be displayed if there is an error with the image and it isn’t displaying.
Images: the more readable your content is, the more traffic flow you will get and the chance of getting a conversion increases. To make your posts more appealing, you want to make sure you use relevant images. No one wants to click on a post and read a long page of content without anything breaking it up.
Meta titles and descriptions: you don’t want to just optimise your post for humans, you want to think about search engine crawlers too. Make sure you optimise your meta titles and descriptions. This will have to be done through an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO. Optimising this allows you to include keywords and increase your clickthrough rate.
6. Not using the right keywords
How can you increase your chances of appearing in search engine results? You need to make sure you’re using the right keywords.
To know what keywords you should be using, you need to undertake keyword research. This will help you know what keywords you can use to get people to your website and what will be found by Google.
To make keyword research easier, you can use tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner to find keywords you should be using.
By following these steps you will be able to ensure your WordPress website receives a higher traffic flow, more conversions, and a higher ranking on search engine results pages.
Got any more tips? Let us know in the comments.
Ever noticed your website has suddenly and unexpectedly dropped in rankings? Do you have an increase in links from untrustworthy or spammy sources? While not always the case, these can often be caused by a negative SEO attack.
What is negative SEO?
Negative SEO is essentially a series of activities which aim to decrease a competitors search engine rankings. These tactics are generally considered to be black hat SEO and in violation of Google’s Webmaster guidelines.
So what are some tactics that are perceived as negative SEO?
1. Scraping
Competitors can damage your SEO by scraping your content. This essentially means they are taking your content and copying it to other websites. Thanks to Google’s crawlers, generally the original version is found first. However, new content is often copied quickly after it’s originally published, meaning the duplicate copy may be crawled first. Duplicate content is a common reason for websites receiving penalties.
How can you protect yourself against getting your content scraped? You can use tools such as Copyscape.com. All you have to do is add the URL of your content, and you’ll be able to see whether your content has been published elsewhere.
2. Link farms
You want links pointing to your website to improve your SEO. However, the problem occurs when your website is connected to link farms. These link farms will often use the same anchor text. Often the anchor text will have little or nothing to do with the website that is being targeted.
So how can you tell if you’re being targeted by a link farm? The best way to do this is to regularly keep track of your link growth profile. This will show you how many referring domains are pointing to your website. If you notice an unusual spike in numbers of referring domains, you should try and note where they are coming from. Look for links that were created around the same time as your referring domains spiked.
Once you have identified the link, you need to create a disavow file. You can do this by using Google’s disavow links tool. This means Google will not take into account the spammy links when assessing your website.
3. Having your website hacked
Hackers may not be aiming to damage your SEO, but it may be the unintentional result. Google will note if your website is hacked, which can result in it being removed from rankings. Websites that are suspected of being hacked can also receive a “this site may be hacked” line in the search engine results below the domain name. While people can still visit your website, they may be less likely to after reading the warning on Google.
Once in your website, hackers can also implement subtle changes that can damage your SEO. Hackers can often add spammy links in your coding, or even redirect your pages to theirs. If their website is considered malicious by Google, your website could end up receiving a penalty.
To avoid having your website hacked, you need to ensure your website is secure. You can read our blog on five ways to secure your WordPress website for more tips to increase your website’s security.
4. Attacking backlinks
You want to make sure you protect your best backlinks, as these can easily come under attack. Essentially, a person will email the website with your backlink pretending to be you or your business, and ask if the link to your website can be removed. This is an effective method as you generally won’t even be aware it’s happening until the link is already gone.
There are a few ways you can prevent this type of attack happening to you. Always make sure to communicate through the email address associated with your domain name. Attackers will use a generic email address, such as @gmail.com or @yahoo.com. This makes it easier for people to see it is a fake email.
You can also keep track of your backlinks by using tools such as Monitor Backlinks. This will help you to see if a backlink gets removed. If you notice a backlink has disappeared, contact the business to ask why it was removed.
What are the best ways to protect your website from negative SEO?
If you want to avoid this happening to you, there are a few things you can do to notice when an attack is happening. This includes:
Google Webmaster Tools Email Alerts: Google will send you an email alert when your website is being attacked, you receive a manual penalty or your pages are not indexed. This can alert you to a problem you may have otherwise not discovered.
Monitoring backlinks: to avoid being attacked by link farms, or even being connected to low-quality links, it’s best to monitor your backlinks. There are several tools available which will help you to do this, including Ahrefs or Moz’s Open Site Explorer. Using these tools will allow you to manually check if someone is building links to your site.
Secure your website: you want to protect your website from malware and hackers. You can do this by installing two-step verification password, having a strong password, and backing up your files frequently.
Check social media: what does social media have to do with your website and negative SEO? Spammers may not only attack your website. Sometimes they will create spam social media accounts pretending to be your business. Before the accounts start to get traction, make sure to report them to get them taken down. You can use tools such as Mention.net which will alert you to where your brand is being mentioned.
Website speed: your SEO will be impacted if your website loads too slowly. Sometimes this can be an external attack on your server. To be notified of your server uptime and loading time, you can use tools such as Pingdom.com. You can sign up for email notifications, which will be sent when your website goes down.
Following these steps will help you to ensure your website is more secure and you are less likely to come under attack from negative SEO.
Got any tips? Let us know in the comments.
Once upon a time keywords were a dominant force in the SEO world. Day-to-day optimisation tasks involved how to best integrate keywords onsite and offsite. However, trying to use keywords as the driving force in your SEO strategy today would be considered to be a waste of time and a distraction from more important strategies.
Search engines have changed
One of the biggest reasons why keywords have begun to lose their relevance lies in the fact that search engines are constantly changing and making it more complicated to rank well.
Semantic search
The evolution of semantic search has seen an increase in long-tail queries and search engines striving to provide more accuracy and relevance to users.
Semantic search is achieved by understanding user intent and contextual meaning to generate more relevant results.
Intent involves the user explicitly stating what they are looking for, while context refers to everything surrounding the search (for example, what gives it meaning). By making a connection between intent and context, search engines are able to understand what motivates and what is expected of the queries.
Using the search query “Apple” as an example. If you are a fruit and veggie enthusiast with a search history containing search queries about “apple” as a fruit, it will direct you to that rather than the technology company Apple’s website. On the other hand, if many of your previous search queries involved the latest iPhone, then it would most likely be directed to Apple website rather than a blog about apples.
Do you need keywords to rank well?
Whether you even need keywords to rank on search engines depends on your domain. A high-authority site with great content and lots of high-quality inbound links relevant to a particular keyword might find themselves ranking well for keywords not specifically included on their page. Therefore, you should focus more on establishing meaning for your site rather than wasting time on repetitive keywords.
Does keyword ranking matter?
For many businesses and SEO specialists out there, keyword ranking remains a very important metric to track when measuring success. However, there is a lot more to it than you might think. While high search engine rankings can be an indication of success, this is only if the keywords drive traffic, conversions and improve ROI.
Your website might be ranking well for high-volume keywords, however, if your keywords don’t meet user intent, they will promptly leave your site as they couldn’t find what they were looking for. A bad user experience won’t do you or your site any good.
Search engines can look at contextual data, meaning they can sometimes determine the intent behind a keyword or phrase. For example, as well as taking the search term into consideration, search engines will also have a look at previous user queries in order to give a more personalised response.
We can also consider query expansion as an example, where exact keywords are not present on the page but are still relevant enough for a search term that you show up in the search results.
Search engines are becoming more intelligent by constantly updating their algorithms. They are able to establish these relationships, which is another way tracking keywords can get tricky. This means keyword rankings might not be a relevant indicator of success.
If keywords are no longer the driving force in gaining rankings, then what should we really be focusing on?
Adding more to your SEO strategy
Many people go overboard with their concern over keywords, however, the way search engines function these days makes it more complicated to rank well.
Keyword positioning
The location of keywords within a body of content matters much more than the number of times they appear. For example, more value is held in the page heading rather than in the middle of a big chunk of content.
Instead of worrying about how keywords exist around your overall site, it is more important to place them in page titles and focus on good quality, engaging content.
Content strategy
One of the biggest factors for improving your rankings is to develop a good content strategy.
You should focus on consistently creating good quality, shareable content and focusing on the needs of the user.
For example, if you are a business that remodels kitchens, you might develop a keyword list that looks something like this:
Kitchen remodelling
Custom kitchens
Modern kitchens
You should then think of these keywords in relation to user intent. You can use this context for content ideas which will be beneficial for your target audience.
So who is your target audience, and what are their search intentions?
To figure this out, you need to as the following questions about your audience:
What is their location?
What do they need from you (e.g. types of services)?
Are they only after some information on pricing (transactional), or are they also looking for tips on remodelling (informational)?
What does the user need? (e.g. is their kitchen completely destroyed or are they just looking to make a few small changes?
You should be able to determine whether your content should be educational, promotional, transactional, or acombination, based on the needs of your audience.
Link Building
It is considered to be one of the most grueling and time-consuming tasks in SEO, however dedicating time and energy into link building has the capability of doing wonders for your site’s rankings.
How do we know this?
A 2015 study by Moz which examined the top 50 Google search results for around 15,000 keywords found a strong relationship between external links and rankings.
Among the top results, 99.2% of all websites contained at least one external link. It was also found that there were almost no website’s ranking for competitive search terms which didn’t have at least one external link. From this, it can be concluded that external links are almost always present in high ranking websites. Furthermore, the study confirmed that a bigger number of external links held are associated with higher rankings.
There are many ways to get started on your link building process:
Promoting quality content: create high-quality, shareable content and tell people about it (e.g. blogger outreach).
Submissions: Submit your site to directories - just make sure you don’t spam low quality directories, to avoid undertaking black hat SEO tactics.
Reviews and mentions: Present your product or service to influential bloggers.
Once you get started, you can research and find more ways to build links. Ultimately it’s a trial and error process, however it could mean an improvement in your rankings.
Social shares themselves do not improve a website’s rankings, however social media profiles certainly influence the content of search results. You usually find that social media profiles are amongst the top results in search listings for brand names. Therefore, it can be argued that in some cases a user is just as likely to click on a social media profile as they would the actual website. Having active and engaging social media channels allows your audience to get to know your brand in a way that is fun and unique.
Furthermore, many people these days use social media channels as search engines.
In 2016, Facebook was receiving approximately 2 billion search queries a day
On the same year, Twitter handled 2.1 billion search queries a month
Because of this increase in popularity, businesses will need to start expanding their concept of SEO to include social search engines alongside traditional search engines.
There is much more to SEO than keywords
Nothing is worse than spending a lot of time and effort only to reap very little rewards. While keywords once held a great deal of relevance in SEO, search engines are constantly changing and so should your SEO strategy. In order to improve rankings, there is much more you need to consider than the number of keywords you have floating around on your site.
Got any other thoughts? Let us know in the comments.
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