March 6, 2019

2023 Google SEO Ranking Factors

Google SEO ranking factors are always changing, and while the core elements remain the same, we’re going to see SEO changes in 2023 that can affect your SEO rankings.

We did see a few SEO updates in 2022, this guide will be in compliance with that fact and what we’re seeing for SEO in 2023. The biggest 2023 SEO update we know of right now is how AI is involved in search engine optimization.

For 2022, we know Google rewarded content heavy websites. The trend has been toward benefitting content heavy sites for the last few years. When we saw that local sites were affected, it was a little surprising. But that’s why our readers subscribe – we’re ahead of the game and keeping you informed.

While Core Web Vitals and page speed (mobile and desktop) will always be important, you better start focusing on high quality, GREAT content right this minute. That’s a big key for SEO in 2023.

Before I start discussing the top Google SEO ranking factors list, let’s talk about my go-to SEO tool.

Google Analytics is great, some of the free SEO software programs are ok at best. You can take out an engine without the right tools, the same for SEO. My favorite, Ahrefs. You won’t find a better SEO tool. You need a great SEO software if you’re serious about search engine optimization.

1. Backlinks Are Still A High SEO Ranking Factor

Your top SEO ranking factor is no other than the most important SEO ranking factor, backlinks. Off-site links that is. While backlinks are enough to nearly rank the most competitive keywords in the world, there is some important elements you need to know before you get backlink happy.

Relativity is still important, look at Moz’s domain authority as a guide to who you link to and receive links from. Be smart, you know what sites are relevant to your own. You don’t need a SEO software to tell you that.

Forget pagerank, you do know PR is dead, right? Even though Google pagerank is flat lined, it still can be used as an indicator to quality websites. But you have to evaluate it and look at the link metrics to determine if the site is high quality.

How Can A Website With 123 Referring Domains Outrank Your 256 Referring Domains?

How many articles have you read that told you go to build more backlinks to outrank your competition? Ever wonder why site A is ranking higher than site B with 50 percent less backlinks? Remember, link building has changed, Google has changed, quit thinking quantity and start thinking quality.

How many of you are building backlinks to your ranking URL as soon as it drops 2 spots? You think,”oh boy, she’s dropping down, got to get some authority links pointing to her.” And then you do and it drops even more, right? Sound familiar? It’s not about quantity anymore, it’s all about quality and relative backlinks.

So if you have a dropping keyword, wait it out. Start focusing on pointing backlinks elsewhere. If you’re using Ahrefs or SEM Rush, I know you’ve seen global keywords increasing though out your backlink campaign. If you’re building backlinks and they look un-natural, you’re going to see keywords continue to fall. Focus your efforts elsewhere.

2. CTR Is A Google SEO Ranking Factor Or Not?

CTR, also known as click-through-rate, is also an important Google SEO ranking factor. However, I”ve read that Google doesn’t put a big SEO score on CTR.

Most of us knew CTR had SEO influence, but to what extent? No matter if CTR is a ranking factor or not, CTR is important.

If your search ranking is being passed up and not clicked on, your keywords will drop. Likewise, if your search snippet is being clicked on but users are not staying long on your page, your keyword can drop.

In many cases, higher CTRs usually represent higher keyword rankings. To my point: pay attention to your CTR and make changes when appropriate.

Think about your on-page SEO, the page’s design, content flow, all of these elements are important to SEO. While we don’t rank number one, we do rank number 5 on the first page. And to be with the likes of Backlinko, Moz and SEM Rush, that’s pretty good. Especially when you consider our own web metrics compared to those. Point? What I’m telling you works!

3. Mobile Friendly Is A SEO Ranking Factor

As I mentioned earlier in this guide, mobile is the top used device for searching Google. Mobile has been trending this way for several years.

Google has repeatedly told us that mobile is a part of the SEO ranking equation and we’re seeing it evolve right in front of our eyes. If your website and web properties are not mobile friendly, your site can have problems ranking high.

Make sure you site is mobile friendly.

The good news for WordPress users, most of the new themes (and older) are mobile friendly. Google Search Console now has a section focused on this very issue. so we know it’s important to Google. If you don’t have Search Console, make sure you get it so you can check that. Plus, there’s many more data points you can use for your SEO inside.

4. Core Web Vitals Still Matters

Google did announce that Core Web Vitals will become ranking signals in May 2021 in an update that will also combine existing UX-related signals.

The ‘page experience’ signal combines Core Web Vitals with the following signals:

Mobile-friendliness
Safe-browsing
HTTPS-security
Intrusive interstitial guidelines

Core Web Vitals were introduced earlier this and are designed to measure how users experience the speed, responsiveness, and visual stability of a page.

Specifically, these are defined as the Core Web Vitals:

Largest Contentful Paint: The time it takes for a page’s main content to load. An ideal LCP measurement is 2.5 seconds or faster.
First Input Delay: The time it takes for a page to become interactive. An ideal measurement is less than 100 ms.
Cumulative Layout Shift: The amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content. An ideal measurement is less than 0.1.

How much will impact your SEO results? We don’t know just yet, but definitely pay attention to it. You want a fast website anyway for UX and customer experience. Now, you ‘ll want it for SEO as well. I have a feeling site speed is going to be a more influential on your SEO now versus any other time in the past.

5. Relevancy Is Still A Major SEO Ranking Factor

Your backlinks can work magic but you need relevant links, not quantities of them. I use Ahrefs.com (by far the best software for analyzing backlinks) to determine keyword phrases that myself and other websites use. I’ll list a few hundred websites and begin outreach to see what type of opportunities I can come up with.

So you need to target websites in your niche, websites that are focusing on the same content topics as you. Use your backlink tools to determine the key link metrics that will determine who you target. Again, pagerank is dead, but you can use it to find authority sites. Look at domain authority, URL ratings, Domain ratings and Alexa rank.

Now, any advanced SEO knows that you don’t need all of your backlinks to be from niche relative websites. While the content needs to be related, the website theme does not. That’s right, a high authority baking site can link to a site about clothes, as long as the content in that page is relevant.

6. Social Media Shares And Signals Can Ride Your Keyword To The Top

Social media can be one of the most powerful SEO resources you have (when the activity is there). I’ve had (5) client pages that went viral on social media and everyone of their main keywords ranked in the top 3 first page. Each one went viral on Facebook, that matters. We saw good movement on Twitter also, so keep that in mind also.

We all know content is important for SEO. Sure, a top tier ranking factor. But as it pertains to social media, people don’t share boring content. You may be in a boring niche, per “online rules.” Not many people going to care about installing the JLX mechanical toilet seat, right? So if you want social shares to weigh in on your SEO (and it does now) you’ll have to get creative with your content.

Update 1/07/2020 – Social media signals are dead as a SEO ranking factor. They don’t matter nor will boost your SEO rankings.

SEO Expert Tip for boring niches: Try infographics, they work great for social shares and backlinks (win-win).

7. Give The Pages You Want To Rank High A Makeover And Update

In SEO, you can underestimate the value of a good looking website that is user friendly. User signals are important to ranking keywords.

A lot of so-called SEOs and webmasters take “fresh content” the wrong way. While you think you may need to publish new content daily, that’s not the fresh content you want. Rather, you need to revamp the content you already have published.

SEO Expert Tip on revamping content: ALWAYS map out your content. Nothing worse than having to go through hundreds of articles, cleaning them up, ect. Before you write ANYTHING, get it mapped out.

Design and speed matter. Not only for SEO, but for conversions, lead generation, sales and everything in between. Content can become outdated in as little as a few weeks. If you haven’t yet, go back through your best pages and make some edits.

And quit writing for SEO. Google’s system can pick up on your over-optimized SEO content. Google wants you to think about the user, not SEO. While I’m not telling you to forget using keywords, but add your metadata and links.

8. One Page, One Main Keyword – Don’t Compete With Yourself

This is something you’ll hear me preach over and over and over some more. SEO Site evaluations are often in my workflow and I don’t know how many times I get into content and see the same keywords being used in articles. You only need one URL to rank a keyword. If your content is in this nature, your own pages are likely fighting one another. I don’t know that I should list it as this, but man if I don’t see it a lot.

Here’s your strategy moving forward, one page, one main focus keyword. It works. Works great. You don’t need 20 articles targeting the same keyword. Now, you may list other secondary keywords to the topic. You want this to open up your internal linking strategies.

9. User Metrics Are Playing A Bigger Role Than Ever

Many of us saw this coming with Google’s algorithm changes in 2015. User metrics and user engagement is becoming a main stream SEO ranking factor and look for it to grow in 2016. Your content is everything. The topics you cover, the personality in your writing, the average time users spend on a page, genuine comments, social shares, all of these can influence the keyword rankings on any given page.

Point back to writing great content, the type of content that gets people to talk, share, interact and engage. Political topics are always great, if you have a political site, news site, government blog. Religion is another. Somehow, someway, your content has to make it happen if you want to rank first page for your keywords.

10. Content Is King – Now, It’s An Empire

SEO updates in late 2022 put big signal power toward keyword targeted content and we saw big improvements with content heavy websites. 2023 will be no different.

On-site SEO ranking factors, your content is the most important. Let me put this out there “like it is,” your content needs to be great. Too many articles are being published every day for mediocre content to rank or go viral. Out of everything you do in SEO, high quality content should be your main goal.

When you write high quality content, users find it useful. They become engaged. They talk about it, they share it. In return, this builds natural backlinks. The “natural cycle of SEO” begins to come full circle. Spread your wings and fly high kinda of stuff. In all seriousness, this is what you’e looking for.

Here’s how you evaluate your content. When you’re done, read it and ask yourself, “is this the best article online for the topic.” If your answer is no, “make it to be the best article online for the subject.” Period.

11. Go Make Some Bromance And Get You Some Friends You Too Ladies

What the hell? Yeah, I about erased that. But I have a point. I’ve been doing SEO for over 9 years. I still don’t have enough online friends in my industry. Do you know how valuable friends are when you need a backlink, guest post, a web favor? Damn near priceless. We’re all shooting at the same cow, just a different black spot. Bad analogy, sure. But we all have common goals and we can help one another achieve success.

I’m always open to new business relationships, new friendships and you should be too. Don’t view everyone as the competition as I did early in my career. I didn’t have no friends back them and having an awesome resource list is a nice go-to when you need a favor.

All I’m saying, be open to it. Quit being stuck up. (LOL)

12. Keyword Domains Are Worth Their Weight In Gold

How many times have you read about keywords in domains don’t matter? What bullshit! Don’t believe that, they matter. Anytime you can add a keyword specific in your domain, you have at it. It matters, always has.

Keyword specific domains are worth their weight in gold. And you can find them all the time, likely cheaper than what you think. I hit GoDaddy Auctions up all the time. And for those of you looking to achieve long-lasting first page rankings (everybody), finding a keyword specific domain with some age is like winning the lottery.

Don’t redirect it though, build it up. Give it some authority and grow it. It has more value to your network this way. If you ask, “well Ricky, that will get you in trouble.” Tell it to WebMD whom at least has a few hundred of these. Literally.

13. Traffic Is Becoming A More Important Google SEO Ranking Factor

Pay attention to your user metrics and traffic.

Traffic can also boost your link juice. IF your links have traffic and through traffic, we’re seeing those links have more value. Likewise, links with no traffic or engagement have less value. (We’re still learning how these correspond to rankings.)

We know that user metrics count as a SEO ranking factor. Over the last few years, Google has been valuing user metrics higher we feel. But traffic really never fell into this class, at least not as a very valued indicator. But with what I’ve seen over the first two weeks in 2016, there’s no question that it’s playing a role and maybe one higher valued than we previously imagined. Popularity drives traffic anyway, so that makes sense.

If you had some high SEO rankings in Google prior with little traffic, you may have noticed your keyword rankings falling. From our client base, I’m afraid I can’t call that for sure because I’ve seen mixed results. Adding to that is the fact that most of our clients that have low traffic are start-up websites, so we couldn’t get clear indications. But there’s no question that traffic is very valued in Google’s eyes and maybe more now than ever before. If you’re struggling to get traffic, check out these online traffic resources.

14. Anchor Text Diversity And Content Surrounding Links

Anyone stuck on page 2 of Google? I know, it bites. But have you been seeing it a lot more?

Two of my latest SEO case studies did just this. It was a strategy that I’ve been using for some time. After initial analysis and a full workup, I feared over-optimization of anchor text was to blame. It was not PBNs, only relative websites. It had some natural data backlinks, a few local citations. Trust flow and domain authority for both were good. Both over 20.

There’s a lot of different ways Google evaluates links to determine their worth, value and relevance.

Now, back to my point. You need to make sure your backlink profile isn’t over-optimized. Long-tail keywords shouldn’t be used as anchor text a lot, only a time or two. (Every situation is different). Let’s look at a quick example.

West Virginia SEO Services
SEO Services West Virginia
SEO Service WV
Logan WV SEO Services

We see different anchor text in this example, but we see the same root words. SEO, West Virginia, SEO Services. Natural or not, we see the same root words appearing. Most people think this is ok because the root keywords are different. From what I’m seeing, this can be viewed as being over-optimized. So what do you do?

West Virginia SEO
search engine optimization wv
online marketing
search marketing logan

The answer is diversify. Notice that the anchor text is all unique, root words are unique and it looks more natural. I see this being a growing trend. You have to be careful with your anchor text in 2017 or you’re going to be on the outside looking in. Go do some research, pull up some keywords from 11th place, 12th place. Check out their backlink profile and look at their anchors. Granted, there’s a lot more things that can cause you to be stuck on the second page of Google, but this is one of them.

Perhaps Google is just adding more value to this part of the SEO equation. I’m fine with that too, but we’re seeing more focus on anchor text and we already know Google pays a lot of attention to anchors anyway.

15. Video Is Blowing Up And Google Knows It

There’s no question that video plays a role in SEO. The question, how much?

Your videos need to be targeting the same keywords and appropriate variations. Make sure you’re including videos in your content. Now, that can depend on your content format or the SEO plan for any given page, but video is going to give you the upper edge for sure.

Live video plays a big role too, especially when you can get some awesome engagement on that video. Live video hasn’t been around that long, so I’m still running test and gathering data. I have seen live videos with great engagement benefit a content piece targeting specific keywords.

Then again, I’ve seen them not move the needle too. For marketing purposes alone, I’d highly suggest it and if you can get those videos in your content, more power to you.

SEO In 2023

SEO is always changing. My SEO ranking factors don’t come from others, they come from my own experiences and case studies. Some of you may know these all, others may not. I do suggest that you be different, try new things. Google doesn’t tell you everything and why would you believe them anyway?

Do your own case studies and document it. You’d be surprised at what works and what doesn’t. There’s thought to be over 200 ranking factors for SEO. I say much more because Google is complex. We only know a small percentage of what really counts.

I’m sure 2023 in SEO will bring new changes we didn’t see coming. I do wish us all high rankings. Of course, mine a little higher than yours. LOL

Join the conversation. One of the things I enjoy about my job is meeting new people. So I welcome your thoughts, ideas, questions, suggestions. So I hope you’ll leave me a comment. Thanks for taking the time to read our article, I hope it has helped you and you can start applying these tactics to your own domain.

Search Engine Optimization |

January 10, 2017

| by richardhale

Attorney SEO – How To Penetrate Competitive markets

We Help You Build And Scale Your Law Firm By Leveraging Google Traffic

Over the years, we’ve helped attorneys from around the world build their law firms by using white hat SEO strategies.

We get the business, you’re likely here because of 3 reasons (this is from our experience helping lawyers)

You’re ready to take your law firm to the next level.
You’re just getting started and want an online marketing plan.
You hired a so-called SEO guru and the results have been….flat.
Or you’ve been doing SEO yourself and just don’t have the time or results.

Sound familiar? It’s completely fine, you’ve come to the right place.

Simply put, we help you get SEO results. We make sure your attorneys can be found when potential clients need you the most.

Every day, millions of people take to Google to search for a solution. If your website isn’t listed, you’re missing out on new clients and money.

The sad part, most of the attorneys and legal professionals we help have had bad experiences with SEO. After all, seems like everyone is SEO. While it can be tough to find a real SEO that gets real results, it’s not impossible.

For me (By the way, I’m Richard, Hale Web Development Founder) I point people to my LinkedIn Profile. You can see mine here.

Attorney SEO Is Competitive

There’s no question that legal SEO, attorney SEO, law SEO, it’s tough to rank. This is why few attorneys are able to utilize SEO and leverage it to generate leads.

Most of the attorneys we’ve worked for have been from New York, Florida, Chicago and Dallas.

Search engine optimization (SEO) for attorneys is essential to bring in consistent leads from all of those that take to Google when searching for a lawyer. In SEO, it’s one of the toughest industries to rank keywords.

Attorneys often have a tough time with SEO and ranking due to the amount of competition they have, which extends to both local and national levels.

Since most attorneys are unaware of how SEO works, they often seek the help of an expert SEO or agency.

Nearly all of attorney related keyword traffic is organic. According to SEO software, organic attorney SEO keywords have a 92 percent rating over paid advertising. This means that 92 percent of attorney keywords are organic while only 8 percent is used for PPC advertising.

This is exactly why you need a law firm SEO strategy for your online marketing. Even if you do other marketing verticals, search engine optimization needs to be one of them.

Local SEO is different when compared to national or international SEO.

A great attorney SEO agency will help guide your SEO rankings despite your location

Law Firm SEO Process

Our legal SEO process is straight forward and allows you to achieve high search engine results for your investment.

Month One – Boarding And Evaluation

The first month of our attorney SEO service focuses on preparing your website to rank high in Google.

This process focuses on what we call on-site SEO strategies, which refer to SEO strategies and tactics involving your website.

From keyword research to correct keyword density and metadata, we ensure all of your service pages are properly optimized for best search engine optimization results.

It includes but is not limited to;

Keyword Research
Metadata
Permalink Formats
Heading Formats
Keyword Optimization
Sitemaps
Internal Links
Address/Maps

Month Two – Ranking Foundation

Once month one of your legal SEO services are complete, we begin to move into off-site SEO strategies. This refers to SEO ranking factors that are not done on the website.

This includes but is not limited to;

NAP Listings
Local Citations
SEO Outreach
Social Media Optimization
Link Building

Maintenance SEO

As we past 60 days, we position your website to have everything it needs to rank on the first page of Google.

We use white hat SEO strategies to give your website the trust and authority it will need to rank first page and have the ability to stay there for a long duration.

SEO Tracking And Conversions

We’ve learned that SEO isn’t enough to ensure you’re law firm is converting users. Due to this, we include conversion rate optimization as an additional service.

Your website may need changes to take advantage of all the new traffic your site will be getting.

Email Marketing And List Building

Some attorney leads will take time to nurture and you don’t want to miss out on them because you didn’t take the time to prepare.

We highly recommend having opt-ins to capture leads for your business.

Video Marketing

No other form of online content is more engaging than video.

Your videos can rank for the same SEO keywords you target.

We’ll also help you find great opportunities for video rankings.

Not The Same Old Law Firm SEO Results

If you’re tired of getting bad SEO results or tired of watching your competitors bring in new clients, it’s time to get started with Hale Web Development.

You can call today and we’ll find an opening to bring you in and audit your website absolutely free.

Every attorney website has different SEO needs and your SEO plan should be specifically designed for your needs.

We don’t have pre-built SEO plans. Instead, we audit your website, tell you everything you need and we build your plan around those needs.

Get Started Today

If you have questions or want to learn more – be sure to send a message through our contact form.

Here’s the link to the contact form to reach us.

We look forward to helping grow your business.

Search Engine Optimization |

January 3, 2017

| by richardhale

What Is SEO?

If you’re searching to learn about SEO, good for you! For some of you, it begs the question, What Is SEO?

Simply defined, SEO leverages free traffic from search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

SEO is one of the most powerful online marketing strategies you can use to grow your business.

Think about it for a moment. When you need something specific, someone specific, how do you find that information? Most of you take to Google. Years ago, we used a phone book. Today, we take to our favorite search engine.

Millions of people across the world are using search engines to solve a problem or solve a need. More than likely, there’s people searching for the same thing your business offers. Search engine optimization is the goal that connects it all.

SEO works alone but it can be implemented with different marketing segments to superpower your organic results.

SEO Definition

What is SEO? SEO, also known as search engine optimization, is the strategy of building organic search engine traffic by ranking specific keywords at the top of major search engines. With specific search engines, Google is the main

Search engine optimization is not difficult to learn, but it’s a complex topic.

There’s thought to be over 200 different SEO ranking factors. Does that mean you have to know them all? Absolutely not.

What you’re going to learn now is the fact that there’s only a handful of Google ranking factors that you’ll need to know and learn.

When we provide SEO services, we always do a full SEO audit to determine the planning for the project. Unlike other SEO agencies, we don’t have pre-built plans.

Every website is different, every scenario if different and pre-built plans for SEO are a joke. Be cautious if a SEO company is providing that service.

Learning SEO

You have (2) options for SEO, either learning SEO yourself or hiring a Google SEO expert.

SEO optimization can help you establish the foundation of your business and eventually help you scale growth.

Along with SEO marketing, SEO leverages the use of specific keywords to target your audience and avatars.

We have an extensive SEO library for you to learn search engine optimization. If you’d rather hire a SEO agency, use our contact form.

SEO Library

Keyword Research, Search Engine Optimization, Uncategorized |

May 19, 2016

| by richardhale

How To Do Keyword Research And Slay It

The advent of effective marketing tools has made the business setting nowadays a daunting arena for brands who want to gain a market spot and succeed.

More efficient tools would mean more opportunities in reaching a larger and broader market that no enterprise can obtain when exhausting conventional marketing methods.

On top of the list is– search.

Today, if people seeks info about almost anything such as getting news and updates or getting more facts about a certain brand, products or services – most depend on what the search engines show them. Most of these users wouldn’t even seek further than the first page of the results shown.

Now, as an entrepreneur, there’s no other option to survive in the modern marketplace than to rank high in Google.

How to acquire high rankings in SERPs then?

It may all begin in pursuing the right keywords to concentrate on your digital marketing battle.

Keyword research is certainly one of the most crucial aspects of a digital marketing campaign, particularly in SEO. The following will show you why.

The Importance of Excellent Keyword Research

The majority of online users use search engines in looking out for figures and information. They type in keywords. And in return, search engine’s complicated set of algorithms examines the vast amount of web pages indexed by the crawlers. These ‘spiders’ are software crawling through the contents of the web pages, then the search engine would match the keyword phrase used during the searches to give the users relevant answers.

Indeed, keywords are extremely significant in the course of matching the contents of your site on what your target audience are actually eyeing for.

The keywords must be targeted on the traffic that you want to come to your website, a traffic that eventually converts into profit generating customers. Otherwise, using wrong keywords will only entice traffic that isn’t going to contribute anything to your business.

Indeed, if few words are able to define what your site contents must be, that is probably because you are using right keyword phrases.

Ideally, you must hunt for keywords that the majority of people are using in their online searches but are used by a relatively small number of competitors. That is possible if you are able to know the following considerations in keyword research.

Vital Concerns On Keyword Research

As an entrepreneur, you surely would want to create a name in the marketplace, the proper keyword research procedure could be your best ticket to obtaining success in this field. We have listed few vital concerns while doing keyword research, take a look.

Create Your Preliminary Keyword Lists

By placing yourself on your targeted visitors’ shoes, you can have a list of keyword phrases that they are probably using in finding the kinds of services or products you are actually offering.

Primarily, this line of lists can come from guesses drawn out from squeaky air or things you assume individuals will be using to search for the things offered on your website. Consider thinking about where, what, why and how and other possible queries that your targeted audience are possibly using.

Restructure Your List With A Keyword Research Tool

Sometimes, keyword research can be a real pain. Looking out for good tools in making the entire process less time-consuming and efficient can be, too.

The research process is not really something you can just skip if you don’t have time or resources available.

After having your preliminary list, it will be important if you can surely come up with the most right keywords with the aid of a keyword research tool – the most used is the Keyword Google Planner.

In accessing this free software, you must have an AdWords account. The Google Keyword Planner will show you neat stats including average monthly searches, competition level, the average cost per click and so on.

Polish Your List Through The Aid of Keyword Suggestions

If you’re finished shortlisting an updated keyword phrases, polish your list more by utilizing various keyword suggestions offered by the keyword research tool. The tool could help you by giving healthier insights on the way targeted audiences arrange, subtract or words from keyword phrases in every actual search. But, you must be extra careful in your enhancement process to guarantee that your final selection of keywords aren’t just related to the contents of your website alone but must actually and correctly describe what your content is really all about.

Be Cautious About Utilizing General Keywords

Various online users may use general keywords such as “healthy ice cream” for the duration of a particular search, but again, be careful in using this type of keyword as this may put you in the ocean of rivalry. There will be also an influx of visitors that are not as targeted like you thought and thus cannot offer you any money. General keywords are deemed to be useful only for those businesses who wish to target customers internationally.

However if your business is situated in a specific city, adding in specific name of the place with your keyword like “healthy ice cream New York” can offer you better results. True, this kind of phrases may attract lesser search volume but these searches are the ones that every business website must be drawing – the kind that may convert into paying customers.

Do Separate Keyword Research For Precise Products You Offer

You may be proposing services or products that are under different classification or category. You must be able to do isolated keyword research of each of the categories. This could be a bit tiresome especially if you own an ecommerce site that that needs to feature numerous categories. But, being able to target your keyword on this manner will offer you a better chance of inviting more qualified leads that are exactly eyeing for the precise types of products that are featured in your site on a specific category.

Exploit Long Tail Keywords

Consider using long tail keywords. These keywords may not have too many searches however the people who are doing long tail searches may generally have specific concerns that they need to resolve. The critical idea is to target numerous and significant long tail keywords in your site contents to allow you have a continuous flow of highly targeted visitors to your site

Technically, to categorize long tail keywords related to your niche, you need to put additional words to your root keywords. For example, our original keyword is ‘healthy restaurant New York’, it may become a long tail if we put ‘where is the best healthy restaurant in New York’. Most SEO elites utilize long tail keywords with their posts to get higher ranking in SERPs.

Takeaway

Once more, in carrying out a successful keyword research campaign, it is essential that you are able to put yourself in your target audience shoes and try to see through their eyes and ideas. You must be able to figure out on how they pick words to use in doing online searches.

Certainly, keyword research has an extremely important role in this regard to help streamline your SEO campaign and carry in targeted visitors that offer profitable results.

Author Bio

Patrick P. is the CEO and founder of LinkVista Digital Inc, a company which provides cost-efficient online solutions such as content and SEO management.

Local SEO, Search Engine Optimization |

March 15, 2016

| by richardhale

10 Essential Strategies For Local SEO

Local SEO can be a very powerful thing if done correctly and there are a number of things that you now need to do to show up locally in the map pack and on mobile. We’ve added a list of these great strategies below – so take a look and start ranking now.

Take advantage of Google Places. This free listing service from Google can help drive traffic to your site. Make sure to fill out your profile completely. This includes adding information on the products that you offer as well as photos and videos. Use important industry-related keywords in the description box. Just be sure to avoid adding too many or it will come across as being spammy. Repeat this process on both Yahoo! Local and Bing Local. One added benefit of being listed on Google Places is that your business will be more likely to come up for mobile searches.
James Neal of SEO company SEO Organic suggests you choose geo-targeted keywords. This means including the name of your city in the titles of your pages, as well as in any headings or Meta tags. You should also periodically mention the name of your city or town in your content.
Make it easy for your customer to reach you by creating a “Contact” page that includes all of your contact information. Additionally, adding an “About” page can help increase trust, making your visitors more likely to do business with your company. If you own a restaurant, you should also post your menu online for people to peruse.
Do your best to encourage your customers to leave ratings for you online. For instance, you may want to request feedback through your social media accounts. People like to see a lot of positive reviews from other customers.
Keep your social media accounts active. They are a great way to build long-term relationships with your customers. Be sure to regularly post interesting content to your accounts so that your followers don’t wind up forgetting about you. Maintaining an active social media presence may also help your site get listed higher in the search results.
Think about creating a separate landing page for each location that you own if your business has more than one location. This will allow you to optimize the page for the specific city or town for each location.
Find other businesses in your community that may be interested in linking to your site. For instance, if you sell pet-related products, a local veterinarian may be willing to link to your site.
Enclose your business address in an HTML [address] tag. This helps solidify that you are a local business with an actual address, which can help boost your standings in the search results.
Make sure your site is mobile-friendly. These days, most people use their cell phones to look for local businesses. Because of that, search engines favor sites that have mobile-friendly designs. Either create a separate version of your site for mobile devices or use responsive web design to ensure that your site displays correctly across a wide range of devices.
Don’t forget about traditional advertising methods. Building your reputation in the local community is often best accomplished through newspaper or radio ads. These types of ads can help build name recognition. Then, when people find themselves in need of the products you sell or the services that you offer, your company’s name will be one of the first that comes to mind.

Mobile, Search Engine Optimization |

March 10, 2016

| by richardhale

Impact of Mobile Search Popularity On SEO

Gone are the days when internet used to be the darling of desktop users. Mobile devices now rival the internet usage and hence, it is only natural that search engines have updated their algorithms for Search Engine Result Page (SERP) listings. However, for this article we will be going forward with how the algorithms have been changed by Google and what it means for the users.

Mobile Searches

Just to put things in perspective, Google has revealed that it is receiving more search queries from mobile devices than from desktop/fixed device users. And this does make more sense. Although cell phones and tablets aren’t decades old, nevertheless, they have become an essential part of our lives.

Can you really imagine not using your cell phone just for one day? Couple this with a deep rooted thirst for information and you will get our point. In many cases we, have equated information with knowledge. No one wants to be bested out of a bargain, and we all want to get best value for money on our purchases. So, it is only natural that whenever we are in doubt, we reach out to the vast pool of information available to us via internet. And the most convenient way to do this is via your cell phone.

Why does this matter?

Whether you have just started a website to promote your product or are already an established business, it is important to track the traffic that is coming to your website. Google Analytics is the most common tool used for this, while other paid ones can be found at affordable prices via Groupon. If you filter your traffic according to mobile and desktop, you will find the number of users who reach your content via cell phones and tablets. Depending on the results, it can be really important for you to cater to the needs of these small screen users.

How does it affect your SERP ranking?

Google’s Mobilegeddon update, launched in April 2015, has introduced some changes to its mobile searching algorithms that may affect your site’s SERP Ranking for a number of reasons. The main effect of this update is that Google now checks your site for mobile-friendliness before displaying it in any of the top pages. This will affect any business to varying degrees, depending on the level of traffic coming from mobile users and the current level of mobile optimization already present in site.

Let us suppose that 40% of your traffic comes from mobile devices. This means that 40 out of 100 potential customers are reaching you through cell phone. If your site was in the front of SERP prior to this update, but is now featuring much lower; then you have lost most of those 40%.

Factors that affect SERP ranking post Mobilegeddon

Now that we have established that mobile SERP rankings matter, let us move towards the points that need your focus if you have been affected. Researches have pointed to two main areas for improving SERP mobile rankings: User Experience and Technical Elements.

User Experience

Generally speaking, it means how convenient it is for a user to access the content. Google algorithm now assesses fonts, links, images, length, and even proof terms to rank your site on its pages. This means that your site should have optimal arrangement of images and content for smaller screens; and that links should be easy to click. The average length of your content for mobile is shorter than that for desktops.

Technical Elements

These include factors such as speed at which your website opens and whether it is made in HTML5 or Flash. The results indicate that HTML5 may be the better platform for your site on mobile phones.

These were just some of the points that need to be kept in mind. We hope that we have introduced you to the basics, although the material covered here is just the tip of the iceberg. Nevertheless, if you have not already optimized your website for Mobile SERP ranking, then it is high time you start thinking about it. Google has a history of taking things along quickly and drastically. Although, this has not been as drastic as Google Panda update, still it has had enough impact to be taken seriously, and something which should be accounted for.

Guest Posting, Search Engine Optimization |

March 10, 2016

| by richardhale

Guest Posting Services

Are Guest Posting Services Worth The Investment?

It doesn’t matter what type of business you have or how many years of experience is under your belt, no one can deny the benefits of guest posting. When I was wrote an article talking about growing my IT business at Hale Associations, I discussed the importance of building meaningful relationships with your online peers.

One of your biggest challenges as an online business is search engine optimization. And anyone that knows how SEO really works knows that authority backlinks is what drives SEO results.

This is where guest posting services can be a big benefit to branding your business and growing organic traffic.

I recently did a search via Google on guest posting services. I found a lot of different companies offering guest post services. However, when I looked at the pricing for guest post, my jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

Google And Guest Posting

Google has not been shy about how they feel about guest posting. Google knows that sites that offer guest posting services are often involved in link building. Many guest posting websites, platforms, networks and companies have been penalized for it. So that leaves the big question, is there a right way to do guest posting?

If an article adds genuine use to a user, then yes. Here’s the thing, every website plays in these boundaries. However, it’s how guest posting is labeled that gives it a bad wrap. When we refer to guest posting as outreach (because in many ways, outreach is) we perceive it much differently.

If an authority website contacts you for an interview or you’re asked to contribute to their website, this differs over guest post. Now, you’re contributing. So I imagine there’s a difference Google views this differently. When Google refers to guest posting, they are talking about networks and platforms that advertise guest post. More so, they are referring to platforms that are without a question involved in link building schemes that add no real value to the end user.

Guest Writing Pricing

I won’t mention any names, but I saw many services offering $400-$500 for one guest post! Damn, I thought, “maybe I chose the wrong IT service.”

It looked like most pricing on guest writing opportunities used domain authority as a pricing indicator. And that’s fine I guess, DA is an important SEO metric. But remember, DA can be influenced by spam links. “That’s all I’m saying, I’m not knocking the metric.

It clearly shows that these guest posting companies know what drives SEO rankings.

There’s no question in my mind that link building remains one of the top SEO ranking factors. This is really why you see high pricing models. But you have to be aware of such services as they could risk your business. We know for a fact Google is against it. If you’re not appearing in results tomorrow, what will that do to your business?

Guest Post In SEO Today

Do guest post still work? Of course they do and very well. But there’s some key details to remember (and you better make sure you know this).

Topical trust matters (more so than DA)
Don’t post your content just anywhere (the site must be relative)
The more footprints you leave, the more risk involved
Aggressively using anchor text can get you penalized
Google is against guest posting tactics
End user has to be first, SEO last

High Authoritative Inbound Links

These high quality authority inbound links are very powerful and more the serps. However, these are one of the hardest backlinks to get. Through guest posting services and blogger outreach, you can get the opportunities you need to help your business thrive online. Consider quality always when guest posting and offering value to the visitors.

This goes back to the importance of building genuine relationships with others in the your niche and industry. It’s a crucial element in SEO, link building, guest posting and online marketing.

The quality of your backlinks plays a big role in where you website ranks in Google. You can have all the backlinks in the world, but if they’re not relative and of high quality, you’ll never achieve the SEO rankings you need to be very successful.

Not only are these backlinks hard to get, they are often the most time consuming. But effort can pay off as these will be the types of backlinks that can push your website up the leader board.

Is This White Hat SEO?

Honestly, it depends who you talk to. It can actually be a little bit of white, black and grey. The approach we do for guest posting is a white hat approach. All of the big SEO gurus do it, even down to your small business SEO’s. And for good reason, it’s effective at increase keyword rankings.

With guest writing, you don’t want to target just any website. You want to target platforms that are relative to your niche. Look at our 2016 ranking factors for Google. Relative authority links are positive serp movers.

Your focus should be quality and “real sites.” Let me explain. Your backlinks on sites that don’t have live signals are going to be less valued then backlinks from sites that have real traffic.

Brand mentions, social signals, traffic metrics, all of these give SEO value.

Honestly, I’ve never been big on the color sequences of SEO.. These are industry built terms that don’t matter. It’s either approved or disapproved by Google, it’s that simple.

Building Authority Relationships

Another big benefit for guest posting is the relationships you build. These genuine business friendships are priceless. At some point, all of us need someone. This is a great way to get your foot in the door if you’re new and it’s a great way to establish thought leadership if you’re a seasoned vet.

On day one, you should be doing outreach. Matter of fact, you should be doing it prior to your launch. You can build an Excel spreadsheet with contacts to keep track of everyone you reach out to.

There’s nothing wrong with targeting high authority leaders in your industry, but rarely will they reach out to someone that’s new on the block. But it can’t hurt, you have to start from somewhere.

Here’s some tips to help you build industry relationships;

Mention the person via social media
Mention the person via a video or article
Mention someone’s business
Review a person or company’s product/service
Ask to guest post on their website/blog
Ask them to guest post on your website
Do a top 10 list and ask for expert opinions
Interview someone in your industry
Offer your advice, expertise or help

Outreach Can Mold Relationships

Guest posting can be a bad term to use in this case, but the benefits of true genuine outreach can’t be overlooked. I think I’m in the right saying this, authentic outreach is effective when the the content published is for the user. That should be thought one. I know it’s hard not to think about the SEO perks, but in Google’s eyes, anything published should have the end user at the forefront.

So yes, guest posting can help you build relationships. But again, it’s risky business. Guest posting should be done in a white hat manner, which probably changes the terminology all together.

We know that authority platforms do this all the time. It’s no different than signing up with an authority website and publishing content. Sure, this may or may not be viewed as guest posting. Perhaps guest contributing is the proper terminology.

There’s risk and reward in all that we do and guest posting is just one that falls into this category.

Search Engine Optimization, SEO Ranking Factors, Web Development |

October 19, 2015

| by richardhale

SEO Results – Complete SEO Services

Your business needs SEO, we can agree on that. There’s a number reasons why, but ultimately, the early investment pays off later as you’re receiving free web traffic from Google.

Every company wants SEO results. What you really need is complete SEO services and there’s a difference. My partners come to Hale Web Development for (2) main reasons, they either received no results or bad results.

Most of you have heard about SEO, also known as search engine optimization.

SEO definition, It’s the tactic and strategy used to help your business and website grow organic traffic, free traffic, Google traffic.

SEO is so popular, nearly everyone that does online marketing or development uses it as pitch, an extension of their services.

How many claim to be 1st in SEO, utilizing the best SEO tools on the market and delivering top tier SEO results.

SEO is used to rank keywords on top of Google. Dealing with converting traffic, organic traffic is the top converting traffic in most industries, even higher than paid advertisement. SEO is a strategy that every business should be using because it works.

I define complete SEO services as the following: SEO services that include CRO. SEO is used to drive organic traffic. That’s half of the work, you still need to convert that traffic. Remember, it takes most buyers 6-8 visits before they make a purchase.

That’s just one example why you need a complete SEO solution and not just SEO. You need the works, the whole SEO and CRO combination.

SEO Services

An expert SEO consultant is extremely valuable to a business. A SEO expert with (CRO) conversion rate optimization and online marketing is extremely valuable.

SEO services vary from one agency to the next. Cheap SEO services are often cheap for a reason. Some SEO agencies charge upward of $10,000 a month. These are often the SEO agencies that are getting results.

There’s a lot of people out there that label themselves as SEOs. Most of you have likely had a bad experience or two, over 80 percent of our clients had bad search engine optimization experiences.

You should never use SEO pricing as a way to determine the quality of work at hand.

I always practice what I preach and our results speak volume to our talents and abilities to help your business grow using search engine optimization.

SEO Results Growing Traffic And Sales

We have seen consistent SEO results with this client over the past 180 days. Competitive industry where 16 out of 30 keywords rank 70 percent competition or higher.

42 Percent Increase In Sales, 18 Percent Traffic Growth

This client has seen continuous growth from high targeted traffic over the last 6 months. The business is in a competitive industry with 16 out of 30 targeted keywords are ranked at 70 percent competition rating or higher. SEO traffic growth alone is up 18 percent over that span and now accounts for 50.3 percent of the company’s total traffic. On top of that, sales have increased 42 percent during that span, 63 percent year over year.

This business had declining traffic when we were brought on. We stopped the traffic from falling and the business has seen consistent growth over that span.

26 Percent Increase In Sales, Stopped Company From Failing

This business was hurting when they came to us. Our SEO results show consistent growth when we took over the account. The business lost a lot of traffic and money at the end of 2014. We had to make a lot of changes due to bad SEO. It took 3 months of changes but once completed, the traffic took off. Using white hat SEO techniques only, the company is now mirroring the amount of traffic they had prior to falling organic traffic and rankings. Sales are up 26 percent and the company is back to expanding.

These SEO results reflect the results of growth in organic traffic and keyword rankings. 20 of 47 ranking keywords are 60 percent competition rating or higher.

455 Percent Growth In Sales, Traffic Up 68 Percent

This business came to us in July 2015 seeking SEO results. The company’s prior SEOs had failed. We started on this SEO project in July and the website had a low Domain Authority score of 14. Despite that, traffic surged after 30 days to levels the business had never seen. The company saw 68 percent growth in organic traffic, up from only 14 percent prior. More importantly, sales grew 455 percent! This SEO project was local, only targeting traffic from the state the business operates in. 20 of our ranking keywords were at 60 percent competition ratings or higher. In total, 9 ranking keywords were over 90.

In one of the most competitive industries online, we helped this company grow traffic and sales.

41 Percent Increase In Revenue

This business came to us after losing more then 72 percent of their online revenue. To makes things worse, the company operated in a highly competitive market online. Bad SEO and black hat tactics are to blame. We were able to get the bad links cleared up. And shortly after making changes, we started seeing growth spurts. But at the time, organic SEO traffic wasn’t consistent. It took a full month of work, over 80 SEO hours to see more growth and the consistent growth we like to see in the early stages. While we’ve only recovered around 41 percent of revenue, the company is well on their way to restoring revenue and seeing growth after.

Two things to look at on this screenshot is keyword competition ratings (in RED) and keyword rank to the right. These are very competitive keywords ranking high on Google.

945 Percent Growth In Traffic, 300 Percent Growth In Sales

SEO results for this client have been off the charts. Look the screenshot above, these are highly competitive keywords and we have them ranking very good. This clients has seen sales grow over 300 percent and traffic grow an impressive 945 percent! Very competitive keywords can rank high in Google, you just need a SEO company that can bring SEO results.

SEO Results From Complete SEO Development

I get asked all the time, Ricky, what’s complete SEO? Fair question since I used the terminology myself. What most SEOs offer is simply that SEO. In most cases, this is basic SEO. No where near what I call complete SEO. And on top of that, 9 out of 10 SEOs you cross are going to fail. Not good stats. The issue I’ve seen over the years is SEOs not relying on case studies and proven SEO techniques that work. You simply can’t grow a business online without complete SEO.

Complete SEO refers to using all known SEO techniques and their counterparts. We’re talking about strategies and techniques that work with SEO. We’re talking about social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, conversion optimization and so much more. You HAVE TO HAVE AN SEO EXPERT THAT CAN DO IT ALL. Without question. And if not, your business either fails or sees insufficient growth. Period.

What Are Search Engine Optimization Results To You?

Here’s the best question to ask. And I hope it changes your view on SEO forever because this is the truth. You need SEO results, right? What are SEO results? Think about it….

What was your answer? High ranking SEO keywords? What about highly targeted SEO traffic? For sure, someone guessed this. If you chose one of these two, you’re WRONG.

SEO results are NOT about high SEO keyword rankings or high traffic to your website. If this was the case, I’d be rich! No, SEO results are all about sales, revenue and profit. You can do everything in the world right, but if you fail to grow sales, revenue and profit, you’ll be out the door running or you’ll have a failing business.

Why You Need Complete SEO

See, SEO revolves around every tactic, techniques and strategy used to grow an online business. If you don’t know outreach, conversion tactics, landing page optimization, you’re going to be out of business. Bottom line, you need complete SEO and that’s the definition.

I’ve been fortunate enough to learn this very young into my SEO and Marketing career. See, you can’t have one without the other. SEO has evolved and new-age SEO is what works. I have the SEO results to back my claims. I’m not being self-centered because I can rank, grow and build revenue for any business. Rather, I feel bad for the small business owners that get crooked into unfaitful SEO services. If you’re a SEO, don’t be like this. Because if you’re are, you will fail.

Our reputation and my own, I hold this to the highest degree. My SEO results speak volume, but it’s my knowledge, experience and strategies (All White-Hat SEO) that gets me true SEO results, the results that build and grow a business.

If you’re ready to seriously grow your business and want REAL SEO results, we can help. Contact us today for a free evaluation and quote. Don’t pay out your hard earned money for SEO results that don’t matter and results that don’t bring in revenue. We can help with every area of your online marketing needs.

Search Engine Optimization, SEO Ranking Factors, Social Media Marketing |

July 11, 2015

| by richardhale

How Much Does Social Media Influence Play A Role In SEO And Keyword Rankings?

SEO, Social Media Influence And How It All Works

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past 10 years performing and consulting for SEO projects, it’s the fact that SEO ranking factors are always changing. While that’s so true, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We’ve seen some SEO ranking metrics stand the test of time, such as backlinks and publishing high quality content. In the same breath, we’ve seen design, user metrics evolve to add more weight to your SEO value.

But what about social media influence? How much does social media influence play a role in SEO and keyword rankings? The truth may just surprise you. Is social media signals enough to take a 10th page SEO rank to the first page of Google? The answer is yes.

Truckers Logic is a platform that delivers useful topics to truck drivers. Naturally, the keyword “deaf truck drivers” would be a term they wanted to rank for. While they did target the keyword, it was never higher than 6th-7th page. That changed when the article went viral for a few days.

Once the article caught fire on Facebook, it went straight to page one, position one. As you can see now, the page has over 7K Facebook signals. 2.4K when the page first appeared on the top spot of page one.

Facebook Is The Top Social Media Signal

While we see so many people say Google+ is the top social media signal, our case studies and experience tells us Facebook is. We’ve seen Google+ carry weight but off and on. Facebook remains consistent and most certainly the social signals you want to push to increase SEO rankings.

My team and I work on a variety of different SEO projects over the past year. From hands-on SEO strategies to search engine optimization consulting, we’ve worked at every end of the spectrum. I’ve seen social media influence peak and I’ve seen it fall. With our case study, it’s important to note that the domain had decent web metrics.

At the time, it had a 22DA. Over 23,000 backlinks. So we know that if website A has more backlinks and authority, social media influence is going to be higher. That’s probably more natural than influenced, but worth noting.

Social Media Influence Heavily Among Top Ranking Factors

Going back to the information in that article, we find that 7 out of the top 10 SEO ranking factors were related to social media influence. 4 social media platforms that drive results are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. I believe LinkedIn will certainly be included in 2016. The company is taking a great approach that I feel Google likes. LinkedIn has become a publisher and you’re hearing it now, in 2016, LinkedIn will have something to say about that as they try to become part of the big 5.

But right now, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest are the four social media platforms that play a role in your SEO efforts. Why is Google giving social media such an impact on SEO and organic results? I have a theory. I think it all relates to another major SEO ranking factor, “backlinks.” For years, backlinks have been a ranking factor for SEO. Not just a notch in the algorithm, we’re talking about a major contributor to how your website ranks in Google’s search engine results. Think about this, backlinks are often very questionable, they are no longer a trusted ranking factor due to spam and link building strategies. Does backlinks still have major SEO weight? Absolutely, but we’re seeing backlinks play less of a role in SEO and we’re seeing social media influence and social media signals reigning supreme over backlinks.

Why Trust Is Important To Google

There’s one major reason why social media influence is ranking above backlinks, “trust.” Social media influence is more authentic. If a webpage is being shared thousands of times, Google knows that the content is likely good. Before, Google would look at the backlinks to that domain. Now, social media signals can be enough to pull first page ranks in Google depending on the level of competition for the keywords associated to the page. But no matter what market you’re in or what type of niche you operate, social media signals is a strong ranking factor for your search engine optimization.

See, it’s much easier to get a backlink than to fake a social media share, like or tweet. Backlinks can be created on autopilot with the right software. But social media signals are often authentic and a much higher trust rating than backlinks. Authority backlinks are still important, so don’t get me wrong. Backlinks are still a strong ranking factor, but social media is pushing ahead because for the most part, Google can trust the data given.

Google Favors Social Media As A Ranking System

I thought carefully about this, but I feel confident that this is fair enough to say, Google favors social media as a ranking system. In SEO, we’re taught that backlinks were like a rating system. Popular content gets backlinks, these backlinks are like a positive vote for a website. Think about it, if you’re publishing content on your website, do you link to just anyone? Perhaps back a few years ago, but now? You don’t. Unless, you know the link you’re sending is going to a trusted website. Why? Well, if you link to bad websites, sites that Google view as spam, it can hurt your rankings. And this still holds true today, you can’t link to just anyone.

The subject of link building, we can go on and on for days. But we’ll leave that for another article. Now, SEO 2015, we’re seeing social media signals as votes of trust. Why? Because we just don’t share anything, unless we’re marketing for someone. We only share things we like, things we find an interest in, articles that we feel connected with. We’re not the only ones that know that, Google does too. And due to this, Google can measure a large percentage of the quality of any given webpage by social media metrics alone. This is due to the fact that Google views social media influence as a heavy weight SEO ranking factor.

The Keys To Success On Social Media

For those of you that have played your hand in social media marketing, you likely have some insight into how social marketing works or doesn’t work. And keep in mind, every social media platform is different, markets are different, there’s no one approach or solution to successfully making a webpage go viral. There’s a lot of strategy and techniques that go into the process of marketing on social media. But none the less, there’s a lot that is in your control and you can make your website successful on social media. And in return, you get that extra SEO benefit.

If you’re selling a product or service, you just can’t approach your social media platforms expecting people to buy. It doesn’t work. You have to build your social media platforms and following with real authentic users. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Let’s take Facebook for example. When you get on Facebook, are you looking to go shopping? While some of you may be thinking “or course I do,” the majority of people don’t visit Facebook to buy. Yet, Facebook is full of potential prospects in all markets, age groups, classes. The key is turning a non-buyer into a prospect, lead or sale.

Again, think about how you use Facebook. How many times have you been looking through your Facebook feed and see something that catches you eye, catches your attention? This is where we make our living. Your content has to be interesting enough to capture the attention. Once you have them, you can control where they go, send them to a offer, a product, or landing page. What ever it’s you do. But the hardest part is the first step, getting that click, gaining the attention of another.

What about emotions? We’re taught in marketing that emotions do play a role in the buying process. Those who promote on social media successfully knows this. So in the end, there’s a lot of different ways that you can see success in your social media marketing efforts. Companies have seen great results with polls, free giveaways, engaging content and other techniques. The key is finding what works. And in turn with SEO, you want to make sure you use your hashtags. You should be using the same keywords you want to rank for in your hashtags.

Social Media Influence And Signals Matter

If you don’t have social media sharing buttons on your website, the time is now to add them. This is going to give customers the opportunity to share your content. If you’re on WordPress, there’s a ton of great social media plugins that can give you these features. Make sure you make a genuine effort on all of your social media accounts.

If you’re an active reader to my blog or have read other articles onsite, you may have read me talking about one of the biggest mistakes I made in social media marketing. I failed to make real connections to others. I failed big when I first started my career in SEO and Web Development years ago. Connecting with authority social accounts and influencers is very important. Building last-longing relationships is important to anyone trying to grow and develop a name or brand.

SEO Is Only One Piece Of The Puzzle

For those that truly don’t understand SEO, search engine optimization alone will not get you where you need to be. Can you see good results from our SEO efforts? Sure. However, it takes a total effort of all online development phases to see a high level of success online. Working both SEO and SMM is a good start to achieving maximum results. Social media and SEO work together, and the better you understand that relationship, the better off you’ll be.

Learn how to grow your online business, learn all the different strategies and techniques that can be applied to your development plans. If you’ve struggled online with your SEO rankings, this may be the reason why. Those who are achieve the highest level of success online are the companies that have the complete package, working SEO, SEM, SMM, SMO, PPC, online marketing, content marketing, digital marketing, email marketing and all the other strategies that can be used to grow an online business. When you

If you want to see the best results in terms of both SEO and social media, the two have to work together. It doesn’t matter if you want to choose one or the other, you now need them both. And as we’re quickly approaching 2016, don’t be surprised if social media influence, signals and engagement have more value as a SEO rank factor. I just can’t see why anyone would not want the added value of SEO and SMM working together.

Don’t Forget Your Social Media Tools

Lastly, it’s so important that you respond to your engagement. Look for genuine conversations. Try to answer questions in a reasonable time. Treat your social media as a form of your customer service. You ALWAYS want to keep customers happy, so do make that effort.

There’s a lot of great tools out there to help you with your social media marketing. I’m not referring to a tool to help you post, but rather a tool or SMM software that allows you to know engagement, social signals, social media mentions and so on. This is for those of you that want to make a serious effort on social media. Take the time to do your research and find the needed tools and software within your budget. You won’t regret it.

Search Engine Optimization |

June 20, 2015

| by richardhale

Successful SEO Strategies: 11 Advanced Tactics For 2017

Highly Effective SEO Strategies That Bring Results

It’s a new year, depending on when you’re reading this. Yet, we know SEO is always evolving and changing.

As we continue to see changes in search engines, our Research & Development department at Hale Associations is always out there in action testing, optimizing and analyzing.

What can we tell you about SEO in 2017? What can you expect? What are the most important SEO strategies and techniques?

If you’re a business owner, an executive, webmaster or blogger, you’ve likely heard of SEO. If not, you may want to read What Is SEO.

It’s a common strategy that everyone needs to know to achieve organic results, keyword rankings and organic traffic. SEO, also known as search engine optimization, is a broad subject. We can spend months on SEO and still not cover every area. For now though, we’re going to discuss successful SEO strategies that are proven to work.

In total, there’s thought to be over 200 different SEO ranking factors. You’ve likely seen these SEO guides listing over 200 actionable SEO tactics, but who has time for that?

I know I don’t and I know you don’t need to worry about all of them. In fact, you don’t need to worry about 100 of them, nor 50.

(1) CTR (Click-Through-Rates)

Metadata, particularly meta descriptions are now more important than ever. I’m referring to the meta description you use in your metadata for any specific page or post.

Your meta descriptions need to be optimized for SEO, but also enticing to be click on in search results. A low CTR can de-rank your ranking keywords and pages.

The meta description needs to include the targeted ranking keyword in the paragraph(s) as well as being valuable and engaging to the user. After all, we can rank as high as we want, if our description is boring, you’ll find users skipping your listing. Proven, a low CTR will lower your keyword ranking.

However, if you’ve worked with SEO long enough, you have a good general idea to what works and what doesn’t. SEO has been around for years though and through SEO case studies and working SEO strategies over the years, we’ve been able to learn what SEO techniques work and which work the best. If you happen to be a SEO, always keep your data. Record everything. I was fortunate enough to do so. I don’t publish many case studies, but having past data, analytics and results to go back on is always helpful. Especially when you begin working niche SEO and market SEO.

2017 SEO ranking factors have changed from the previous year, they often do. Not really in terms of technique but rather importance. So you certainly want to pay attention to these successful SEO strategies that we’ve used with great results. If you follow them through, you’re going to see improvement and growth.

(2) Social Media Influence And SEO

Social media influence, social media signals, social media mentions, all of these are playing a role in SEO rankings.

There’s a lot of theories behind this approach. We know Google is using social media signals as a trust factor and ranking factor. Social media influence has been a SEO ranking factor for a few years now. The difference in 2017, more weight and value for your social media engagement,

What does it mean for you?

Focus on building engagement on ranking pages, pages you want to rank and your social media profiles. Make sure all of your profiles link back to your website. Get people to engage with your social properties, this should be your goal in 2017.

Make sure you’re using hashtags, ideally these would be your keywords. Make sure you’re using keyword variations, don’t just focus on the same old hashtags. Bringing in new hashtags will help you reach new users. Lastly, make sure you’re sharing your ranking pages consistently.

Want to learn more about how you can make social media work for your business. Read my guide to social media marketing.

(3) Backlinks And Anchor Text

Backlinks have been the most important SEO strategy for years and 2017 will be no different.

While backlink and link building strategies have changes, referring domains are still your top target.

First, how about we look at the backlink myths so you know what’s really working in link building and what is not.

Myth 1: Have To Get Backlinks From Relevant Websites

How many times have you heard this? While relevance is important to an extent, this claim is false.

Google knows websites have different purposes when it comes to linking to one another. While it makes sense for a marketing website to link to another marketing website, that’s not always the case.

It’s normal for websites to link to other websites that are not closely related.

Myth 2: I Need A High Percentage Of Exact Match Anchors To Rank First Page

Here’s another link building myth, SEOs saying you need exact match anchors to rank first page.

Sure, you’re going to have one or two exact match keywords, but don’t focus on only that unless you want a penalty.

What you need is a good mix of backlinks, using multiple anchor text variations with your targeted keywords.

Backlink Software

If you don’t have backlink software, I would suggest getting one. Ahrefs.com is one of the top tier backlink and link tools out there.

Yes, this is a paid backlink tool but well worth the investment.

It allows you to see the value of links pointing to your website. Why is important to know the value of a backlink? Backlinks that have high value passes a majority of that value to your website, depending on if the link is a dofollow link or nofollow link.

Dofollow links pass along the value of the referring website while nofollow links don’t. Even though nofollow links pass no value from the linking website, they still carry a little SEO value. Ahrefs’ software tells you which links are dofollow and which are nofollow.

(4) Internal Link Building

Internal links are still vital to achieving high search engine rankings.

The number of internal links varies and I’ll include outgoing links also.

Usually, you want to start with a few internal links to your most relevant pages. You also want to add an outgoing backlink or two.

Internal links play many roles, so correctly utilizing them is very important.

Your visitors should have no questions about where to go on your website. If they find navigating your website difficult, you’re going to lose leads, sales, subscribers, what ever your trying to accomplish. Your site navigation should be clear. In the same token, you should be building internal links with your targeted keywords. You want to make sure all your internal links are relative to the content. Internal links are also a great way to build organic search queries, which can be tracked by Google Webmaster Tools, now known as Google Search Console.

There’s a number of different analysis on link building. You see so many articles online telling you this and that, it can be tough to know which link building strategies do work. Through link building case studies, we know that having a natural and diverse link profile is the best strategy. Having a good mixture of branded links, branded links with keywords, exact match keywords and URL links is needed to obtain the highest possible SEO rankings.

(5) Keyword Location

Where you place keywords in your website matters.

Best SEO practices, we’re told to include keywords at the main beginning of our titles. It’s also best practice to list your keyword in the first paragraph of the article.

All links have weight, so using your main target keywords in your main navigation menu (first level) can influence keyword rankings.

Keyword density (from what we’ve tested) should be around 1-2 percent, which means 1-2 times per 100 words.

(6) Outreach For Backlinks

Backlinks are the most important SEO ranking factor, believe it. Your ability to build relationships for backlinks is going to be critical.

Take it from me, we don’t build backlinks first, we build relationships first.

Go out and begin connecting with industry leaders and influencers. Your objective is to help them, what you must become is a valuable asset.

Once the relationship is built, then you can approach them for backlinks, not a second before.

Unless you want the low valued backlinks that will give you minimal results at best, you need strong, powerful links.

You need authority backlinks to your domain from domains that are trusted by Google.

Start your outreach campaign today, right now, that’s how important it is. Take the time to meet people, build genuine relationships, don’t just do it for the backlinks. We all need them, most people understand that, but they will be more willing to link to you if they know you. Common sense.

(7) Using Proper Heading And Subheadings

Knowing how to structure content for SEO is important. Another techniques that we include in our SEO strategies is proper heading tags, H1-H6 tags. While your H5-H6 tags can be overated, your H1-H4 are important to proper SEO content structure. It’s important to note that your page’s title often counts for your H1 heading and you only need one main heading or title. In your content, you should start with your H2 and H3 tags.

I know what some of you may be thinking, how do I use all these tags when they have different sizes and make my content look terrible? You can change the size of your headings/titles and subheadings/subtitles. You’ll need to do this with your source code. If you’re on WordPress, your theme if you chose to go with one may have options to change the text sizes.

(8) SEO Content Structure And Pages

The structure of your content and the elements added to your pages play a vital role in how a specific page is valued and keywords ranked. If you ever can find time, take a few minutes to look at the top ranking pages for competitive keywords. Review those pages and check out the different elements that are on those pages. This will give you a general idea of what can add high value to increase page authority and keyword rankings on that page.

Images are one of those elements that can be added to increase the SEO value of your pages. Search engines can’t see pictures at this time, so they rely on alt image text. This is an area that can be used to store a keyword that describes the picture. If you’re not using the alt image tag on images, we suggest you do immediately. Videos are another element that can add SEO value to an article. Audio files is another. The more you add, the better chance you give your page and keywords to rank.

(9) Keyword Density

We’re quickly heading into 2016 and from a few recent SEO case studies, I can say keyword density is still important to ranking a specific keyword. If your keyword pages aren’t ranking, you may need to add more keywords to your article. You’ve likely heard of keyword density before, ranging from 1 percent up to 8 percent. From my experience, you want to be on the upper spectrum of that range. At least 4-5 percent.

I recently worked with a client rebuilding content for a relaunch and most of our keywords were around 1-2 percent. We aimed for 5 percent (and I know some thing this is high) but we’ve seen organic traffic grow to the tune of 67 percent on a high traffic volume website. (At the beginning of October 2015)

(10) Targeting Your Keywords

I can’t count the number of clients we bring on that have published multiple pages targeting the same keyword. Never do this, never target the same main SEO keyword more than once. This is a common mistake and you’re left with your own pages fighting to rank for the keyword. Honestly, you may be better off keeping the best performing article or best written article, deleting the others. You don’t need 50 pages on “SEO Strategies” to rank for the keyword. Likely, you’re not ranking now because your pages battle one another for ranking.

Only target one main keyword per page. Open an Excel spreadsheet. Document the URL and the potential keyword ranking. Keep track of this and make sure you don’t target the same main keyword twice. It’s ok to use that keyword in other articles. but not as the main SEO keyword.

(11) Content Is The Most Important On-Site SEO Strategy

Content is still king of SEO and maybe more so now than ever before.

Your content has to be many things;

Informative
Valuable
Accurate
Based on data (works best)
Written for a purpose
Engaging
Visually appealing

It’s getting harder to rank for keywords, competition is at all-time highs and always growing. How can your website stay competitive against industry giants? I know how, great content! Your content can take you from the valley to the mountain top but only if it’s great.

Content that has 2,000 or more words has been proven to rank higher in Google.

Your content should be very informative, organized well and it should serve a purpose. Content without a purpose is often a waste of time. It should contain several images that are related to the topic. It should contain relative internal links to add value to the user. All of these are important. And enough with the 100-200 articles.

At the least, you should be pushing for 2,000 words or more to rank for competitive keywords. In most cases, the content that is more informative and longer in length have the biggest upside when search engines consider where to rank your page.

Proven SEO Strategies That Work

The proven SEO strategies above not only work but are quite effective in helping you achieve high search engine rankings. It all starts with great content. And after you publish that content, it’s all about backlinks. Great content and authority backlinks are big SEO components and enough to take your business to new levels. It’s not easy though, there’s great effort that goes into writing quality content and building relationships. But if you do, you will see SEO results, I guarantee you that.

1. Backlinks Are Still A High SEO Ranking Factor

How Can A Website With 123 Referring Domains Outrank Your 256 Referring Domains?

2. CTR Is A Google SEO Ranking Factor Or Not?

3. Mobile Friendly Is A SEO Ranking Factor

4. Core Web Vitals Still Matters

5. Relevancy Is Still A Major SEO Ranking Factor

6. Social Media Shares And Signals Can Ride Your Keyword To The Top

7. Give The Pages You Want To Rank High A Makeover And Update

8. One Page, One Main Keyword – Don’t Compete With Yourself

9. User Metrics Are Playing A Bigger Role Than Ever

10. Content Is King – Now, It’s An Empire

11. Go Make Some Bromance And Get You Some Friends You Too Ladies

12. Keyword Domains Are Worth Their Weight In Gold

13. Traffic Is Becoming A More Important Google SEO Ranking Factor

14. Anchor Text Diversity And Content Surrounding Links

15. Video Is Blowing Up And Google Knows It

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(1) CTR (Click-Through-Rates)

(2) Social Media Influence And SEO

(3) Backlinks And Anchor Text

Myth 1: Have To Get Backlinks From Relevant Websites

Myth 2: I Need A High Percentage Of Exact Match Anchors To Rank First Page