Having an appropriate title will increase traffic to your site. The placement of keywords in your title has a huge impact on determining where a search engine will place your site. The page’s title should include some of your site’s keywords to increase your ranking in the search engines. As recommendations from peers become more prominent online, the influence they levy will weigh more heavily into activity on search and social sites combined. For this reason, it’s wise to start thinking of your company or organization’s fans as extensions of your inbound marketing team. In the earlier days of SEO, sending out press releases with keyword optimized anchor texts would get you a dozens of backlinks. In some fortunate cases, this would even make your site crawl to the top positions on SERPs. So, eventually Press releases became a tactic to build links and rank high. If a given site targets users in a particular location, webmasters can provide Google with information that will help determine how that site appears in its country-specific search results, and also improve Google search results for geographic queries.

Use Google’s features and follow guidelines to avoid penalties

Keyword Research and Implementation is important for making any piece of copy shine, especially in the eyes of search engines. You can make sure you have chosen the right SEO phrase to win in two steps. First, think about what you would search for to find that content. We use search every day, but sometimes don’t pull on our own experience when writing for SEO. Even if the phrase sounds a little too detailed or random, remember that it came from a real human (you) — so it’s probably winnable. Second, test your phrases in the Keyword Planner of Google AdWords to see how competitive they are to win. Once you find the perfect phrase that straddles those two steps, you have a winner. There’s been some debate in the SEO community about whether or not “social signals” can affect your search rankings, and what, exactly, “social signals” are in the first place. This is mostly because Google has both explicitly confirmed and explicitly denied the presence of social signals in its search ranking algorithm. The hypothesis is that articles that receive a high number of social media shares will get an additional boost in perceived authority -- which makes sense on paper, but the empirical evidence varies. Longer URLs tend to look a little more spammy within the search engine results page, and this is amplified if there are a lot of numbers and symbols within them.

Identify your SEO keywords

The “About Us” section is often the most overlooked aspect of a company’s website. Often all the focus is put on your services or products, as these are the pages which most often affect your search engine results. However, sometimes in the pursuit of SEO, we overlook the user’s experience. This commonly occurs on the “About Us” page because it is a more content heavy page of a website. Successive Google algorithm updates have seen the nature of SEO change radically. Where once processes such as keyword stuffing – cramming words that are popular in Google searches into your website’s copy, whether they make sense or not – may have worked, now they can actually work against you. Keyword research can be time-consuming, but rewarding when done properly. An HTML sitemap (as opposed to an XML sitemap) is often mentioned as being useful for SEO. They certainly are if you use them wisely (and especially Bing seems to like them at times), but I like them even more for the fact that users like them a lot.

An interesting and useful copy is no longer enough

Aside from on-site optimization and content marketing, the most important element of your strategy is your link building campaign -- otherwise known as off-site optimization. Search engines are powerful because they provide targeted traffic. Or in other words, search engines bring users that are seeking what you offer or sell. Targeted website traffic provides revenue and exposure like no other channel of marketing. Investing in SEO can have a much higher rate of return when compared to other types of marketing efforts. Content gating is a popular strategy to boost conversions on your site. For instance, you can grow your list by blocking a small section of your content for subscribers only, which encourage your readers to sign up for your list. Gaz Hall, a Freelance SEO Consultant, commented: "Aside from offering users the best insights possible, high-quality content goes hand in hand with your backlink profile--a key element of SEO. The more links that you amass back to your website from other authoritative websites, the greater the likelihood is of improving the visibility your website receives in search engines."

Competitor Analysis and Opportunity Identification

Stop marketing to audiences and instead market to customers at scale. To rank locally it is critical to set up a Google My Business Account. Once you have signed up and submitted your business details you will be sent a post card in order to verify the account. You should be selective and ensure you pick the most relevant categories to your business, add photos and write up a unique description. Search engines have only recently started providing better tools to help webmasters improve their search results. This is a big step forward in SEO and the webmaster/search engine relationship. Google estimates that around 56% of mobile searches have local intent, and 50% of consumers who conduct local search on their phone visit a store on the same day. With local SEO you can showcase your business information directly to consumers who are actively looking for businesses like yours, and achieve an incredible reach throughout your local area.