There are literally hundreds of factors that contribute to your final rankings. On top of that, it can be hard to determine what kinds of trends Google may associate with your chosen keywords. Trends adjusts search data to make comparisons between terms easier. Each data point is divided by the …

Ensure the number of new site visitors arriving via organic search is growing, month to month and year over year. Google uses the date that a domain with which a document is registered may be used as an indication of the inception date of the document. The key is to …

In the early days of SEO, you could get a site to rank fairly easily by buying a bunch of low-quality backlinks, keyword stuffing (including the same keyword on a page a bunch of times), or by buying a domain address (website name) that exactly matched the keyword you wanted …

If over time your site has acquired an average of 5 links per day, and then the links suddenly start to come in at a rate of 10 per day, that could be seen as a positive ranking signal. On the other hand, if the rate of new links drops …

A web page can be given an immediate freshness score based on its publication date, which decays over time as the content becomes older. If you want to score the No. 1 position on Google, sit down with your teammates and brainstorm questions relevant to your brand, services or products …

Social networks are an important source of traffic. Good content significantly raises the probability of the posts being frequently shared organically on social networks which helps you expand your reach. At the same time, you can also generate additional traffic through social channels. Social interactions are also registered by Google …

Write about all those topics that are important to your audience. Use the words you came up with in your keyword research. You need to have content about the topics you want to rank for to start ranking in the search results. Search engines are very clever in reading every …

Analyze search engine rankings and web traffic to determine the effectiveness of the programs you’ve implemented, including assessment of individual keyword performance. Images, videos, slideshows and audio act as a signal of quality content to search engines… after all, you have put in the work to make your content …

If possible, secure your site’s connections with HTTPS. Encrypting interactions between the user and your website is a good practice for communication on the web. The days of stuffing keywords into bad content and having it rank are long gone. Now your content needs to focus on your target …

A good resource is more than just a long-form 1500 word blog post. It deep dives into topics and can stretch on for pages, combining data and insight that your audience would be hard pressed to find anywhere else. Link building is still an effective way to up your website …

To keep search engines from ignoring your site, only use original content. Copying and pasting product descriptions from your merchant’s site may save you time, but it will also lower your site’s page ranking. To assure your page rank remains high, take the time to write your own …

Brand mentions and co-citations are also very important to Google, in determining the quality and usefulness of a particular web page. One of the biggest challenges websites face today when trying to bring in and retain customers is the user experience on the site. You shouldn’t only target 1 …

The freelance world might disagree with me but frankly I do not think there is not an SEO in the world who can lay claim to having the expertise and experience to deliver, hands-on, every single facet of what makes up contemporary SEO. SEO and positioning your website to rank …

Google, now more than ever, don't just want more content, they want content that they feel is quality. 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 …

Term weighting refers to the importance of a particular search term to the query. The idea is to weight particular terms more heavily than others to produce superior search results. Websites that continuously pour their heart and soul into all facets of SEO will perform better than competitor websites that …

Limit each paragraph to 2-3 sentences at most. It’s even okay to use one-sentence paragraphs if necessary, but use them sparingly or your post will look like a bullet-pointed blog without the bullets. Linking out is huge. Don't be a link hoard; you're going to create content, so use …

A greater number of people will stick to voice search, so SEO specialists will have to adjust to this relatively new type of search. User-generated content can increase the relevance and freshness of a website. Users can interact with your website in many different forms. The most common ways include …

SEO projects require forethought and planning to obtain the best results, and SEO needs to be considered during, and incorporated into, all stages of a website development or redevelopment project. Take a moment to consider some of the most popular websites you already have links going to on your own …

You need to produce quality content that provides valuable insight. Google has enhanced its algorithms to weed out low-quality pages from its index. Therefore, if you are not part of Google’s directory, search engines will not include you in their results. And you can imagine what that can mean …

Google allows webmasters to geographically target certain websites or sections of your website to certain locations and regions via Google Webmaster Tools. You can find these settings by logging into your Webmaster Tools account, looking under Site Configuration, and changing your geographic targeting in the Settings tab. Needless to say …

Social media platforms have all but taken over, and when it comes to SEO, they are a huge part of the strategy for any campaign. In Google search results, you only have space for 70 characters in your title. If your title is longer than that, it gets truncated (meaning …

Everyone likes to see a nicely designed website, but given a choice between a great looking website with little/poor content and a poor looking website with great content, people prefer the latter. They aren’t searching online to look at pretty websites. They’re searching online for a specific …

Links and content are certainly at the top of your SEO strategy. However, Google identified CTR and user experience as major ranking factors. Increasing one will certainly increase the other as well. Links at the top of a page carry more weight than those further down. The main text content …

Targeting a hungry crowd can offer lots of benefits to your online business. This is because they are searching for immediate solutions to their questions or problems. Every “vote” or link to your site helps determine the value of your site. However, it’s not just the sheer number of …