The most important targeting decision is to figure out who the target actually is. The experiments! A 2016 WordStream survey found that 72 percent of people who searched online for something local visited a store within five miles. As smart and sophisticated as search engines have become, they still understand …

Today, due to the way backlinks are evaluated based on different industry-related ranking factors, it is less quantity focused and more about the quality of sites from which the links are coming. Every vertical market and type of product is unique. When you get higher website traffic, your chances of …

Make sure that your code is valid, in some instances bad code can lead to search engines not being able to properly read a page. Use the W3C validator to check your markup. Always think about the user and why they are visiting your site in the first place. Search …

Google only show sitelinks for results when they think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow Google's algorithms to find good sitelinks, or they don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, Google …

The more people that search engines see being interested in your content, the more weight they’ll give it and the higher it will rank. But many applications that previously were remote to what we used to judge SEO no more are. In the top five, where most users look …

Local SEO is all about promoting your site at the exact moment potential customers are looking for your type of product, and in your area. It’s about appearing in the main search results or within the map listings when your audience uses a local search term, such as plumber …

If you do make manual changes to an XML file that has been automatically generated for you, you may wish to visit a sitemap XML validator to check its correct formation prior to moving on to referencing and submission. Arguably, one of the most crucial aspects of on-page SEO is …

Creating content is an art form which can take up a huge amount of your time. Repeatedly building over-optimized, spammy backlinks overtime will lead to a penalty. A particular web page or content can be retrieved from the database by using a keyword or a related search string. Search engines …

Keyword research should be the starting point for any SEO campaign. Why? Because if you don’t know what people are actually searching for in your niche, you’ll be relying on luck—rather than data—to guide your decisions. In practice, an SEO consultant generally looks after other areas …

The key is to know your audience. I think one of the great SEO myths is every site should have a blog. I have seen sites invest in filling passionless blogs with content to feed the SEO machine. It’s like riffing to your favorite jam on the radio and …

Google recognizes that a site might have two versions on the same page (web version and printer friendly version), and this duplicate content is actually meant to make for a better user-experience, and not trick the search engines. There is nothing like this in Google. That’s why you need …

Build backlinks by using forums and blog comments. You can become an authority in your niche, by using forums, and engaging with others with blog comments. The key to become successful is to be present everywhere. You can find terms by entering the URL of a competitor site into the …

When you write headlines, it is not absolutely mandatory that you use keyphrases, but you get a decent bump in the search engines for putting them in headlines which are bolded with a larger font than the other text and capitalized. While content and digital marketers have spent years honing …

Google regularly makes new updates to their ranking algorithm, and the changes made by Panda are still a major determining factor between what ranks on the first page of their results and what does not. Consider adding this to your terms when working with affiliates and other vendors, to ensure …

Users don’t like to wait, and we are becoming more and more accustomed to the fast load times, which means your site will be left in the dust when a user must wait. Google penalizes web sites that have “thin” content, low-quality pages that are merely designed to build …

Google’s emphasis on links is the most significant area of overlap between its organic and local ranking algorithms. Google displays featured snippets in search when they believe this format will help people more easily discover what they’re seeking, both from the description and when they click on the …

Not too many years ago, content quality really didn’t matter. As long as what you wrote was somewhat relevant and you used all of the right keywords (and lots of them!), you could get a pretty good SERP placement. Fortunately, that’s just not the case anymore. Search engines …

Keyword cramming is old news and will probably result in a penalty anyway So, don’t do it! Instead, focus on creating real, interesting and valuable content. SEO’s journey to a technicality driven practice of giving priority to the subject-matter elucidates how content marketing fits the bill. As the …

If that’s too long for you, then get the hell out of my office. SEO can be a frustrating activity. Yesterday your website was on the first page of Google. You were delighted. Flushed with your SEO prowess, you performed the same search today and found your site was …