Examples uses of SEO tools

Article Written by : Host Edition

There are so many applications and tools available in the SEO space that it is difficult to figure out what you can do with each tool. There are several industry professionals that give a list of each tool they use. However, the problem is, none of them will tell you what you can do with each tool. Here is a list of some of the tasks you can accomplish with many of the paid SEO tools available today:

Duplicate content

Looking for duplicate content on your website, or others are as simple as using Copyscape with each of your articles. What if you had thousands of pages? Checking an entire site is one area where a tool can speed up the process and save days of work.

Redirects

It is crucial to get a handle on all the redirects of a website. One small mistake can seriously affect the ranking of other pages. Once again a tool can aggregate all that information in one place. You can establish a baseline and then compare against that to make sure that there are no unauthorized changes.

Meta tags

Meta tags are still important. Use a tool and figure out which titles and descriptions lack length or content and fix them.

Log analysis

Very few people analyze web server logs. Instead, they look at Google crawl stats. However, if you use a good log analysis tool, you will be able to spot crawl issues before it appears on the search console. You might even be able to fix the issue before the next crawl.

The basics of gated and ungated content

Article Written by : Quadra Design

Gated content is when we ask a visitor for something, like an email address or to fill a form, before allowing access to certain content. You will come across this all over the web, with lots of content behind walls of some form. The gated content is easy to identify, with a button that says “Download Now” or something similar. According to Starfleet Media, respondents to a survey said that they keep 80% of their content gated. The question is, should content be gated?

Supporters of gated content say that it helps generate sales leads, reflects the value of the content and filters out those who are just browsing. This is a common argument many make against
people’s expectation that everything on the internet should come free.

There are those that do not think any content should be gated. They reason that by doing you build trust with prospects and viewers, remove road blocks for consumers and as a side effect will improve SEO.

Then there is the question of what should and should not be gated. Examples of content that could and should be gated are: webinars, demos, live content, white papers, downloadable books, quotes, newsletters, etc. On the other hand content like blogs, videos, podcasts, tips, infographics and archives.

Ultimately, the decision of what to gate and when will depend on the vertical, the content in question and the marketing plan. Regardless, it is a tool that can and should be used to further market the brand.

The most counter-intuitive SEO facts

Article Written by : SEO Web Online

With the hundreds and thousands of SEO websites and tips online, most online marketers elect to follow gut feel and guesses to avoid confusion from too many competing ideas. What is even worse are the thousands of case studies showing how a single tactic changed the fortunes of a website. However, there are some SEO truths that seem counter-intuitive, here are some of the more popular ones:

Content promotion

One of the most counter-intuitive facts that exists between marketing and content promotion is that content promotion is more important than the content. People talk about how “all you need is good content” when the truth is that without a similar or greater effort in the promotion, nobody will ever get to see the article. The phrase “content is king”  exemplifies this problem.

More content

Another one that is counter-intuitive is that when it comes to content, less is more. Too many believe the myth that You need to create content on a regular basis to rank better. To that end, some sites will create hundreds of articles when they should doing an audit and cleaning up. There are blogs that get millions of visitors posting just once a month. Quality and promotion are the keys.

SEO

Probably the most counter-intuitive truth about SEO is that not everyone needs it. There are sites and business categories that do need it. At the same time, there are sites, categories, and niches that would gain more from putting that money into promotion and other outlets.

 

Google Ranking system

Google’s top three ranking factors

Article Written by : Web Marketing Tutorials

An entire an industry has been built on ranking better on Google. For years, every SEO professional has speculated and theorized as to what matters most to ranking well. Is it the number of links? Is it the anchor text? Well, for the first time, we actually know the top three ranking factors and it came from Google itself.

Google previously revealed that RankBrain was the third most important ranking factor. At the time, however, nobody would say what the first two were. Until now. In a Q&A, Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google said the following: “I can tell you what they are. It is content. And its links pointing to your site.” He did not elaborate which one was more important, but we have the top three now.

LINKS

Many SEO professionals still rate links above content. Mostly due to Google’s own patent filings. In addition, links are still the best indicator of what others consider good content. More links from authoritative sources will lead to higher rankings. There is no evidence that a well-written article will outrank a well-linked one.

CONTENT

There is a high likelihood that content and links work well together as ranking factors. It is not difficult to imagine that the content score is a way to differentiate similarly authoritative sites.

RANKBRAIN

RankBrain is a machine learning-based system that identifies similar keywords and serves the results from the better one. The easiest way to understand this is to think of two searches. One is a long tail search and the other is a normal two-word search. RankBrain identifies which major keyword phrase should be shown for which other combination of keywords.

4 SEO Strategies to Focus on in 2015

2015 presents new challenges for businesses, especially on the web. With the rising use of mobile devices compared to all other devices, the target audience has changed. SEO has specifically gotten much tougher, specially with the new Google algorithms in the past 3 years. Google is purposely making hard for sites to rank better with SEO, mainly to cut down spam, but many legit sites are having trouble getting rankings. The following strategies might help you boost your SEO initiatives in 2015. Continue reading

Improving SEO through Quality Content

The best way to rank up on Google’s search engine is through quality content. The content should principally provide visitors with useful information. The content might either be informative, such as an in-depth answer to a specific question or a tutorial. It might also be interesting information that will trigger social sharing and positive feedbacks.

In brief, the content would need to serve a purpose to potential site visitors. Google uses factors such as the time spent by the user on the site or the number of clicks to determine the quality of the content. Websites offering such quality content benefit from a higher page ranking on Google as they are judged to be useful. For this, Google makes use of algorithms. Continue reading