Three easy SEO wins to boost your site rankings

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In a large and complicated field like SEO, it is easy to forget the basics and look for big wins. However, if you focus on the fundamentals, you can show immediate and tangible improvements to clients. Here are some easy SEO wins:

Broken links

Over time websites shut down, are bought over, or simply move on to other things. The problem is that unless they tell us, the links to those sites remain. The problem here is that you can end up linking to a bad-actor or even questionable material. Avoid this by running regular broken link checks and remove links as soon as the website no longer exists.

Meta tags

Meta tags no longer have any bearing on ranking or keyword, which leads a lot of optimizers and marketers to ignore the tags. However, meta tags still determine what the visitor sees on Google in the search results.

Responsive design

Another easy win is to switch to a responsive layout. Responsive design adjusts the width, height, and dimensions of the website and its elements based on the size of the window. It is not a requirement or ranking signal for desktop search but is a ranking signal for mobile search.

Internal Linking

Google looks at internal linking as an internal reference on what a page is about. If you don’t use internal links, you risk losing out on some free link equity and setting anchor texts for your pages.

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What is an Omnichannel strategy

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Research shows that companies now need to compete more and more on customer experience. The primary differentiator is now the experience and not the product. Nowhere is this strategy clearer than with Apple, whose entire premise is the superior user experience of the company’s hardware and software. One strategy of creating a compelling experience is through an omnichannel loyalty experience.

The primary purpose of an omnichannel strategy is to build a proper understanding of your customer. The only way to do that is to gather and combine data across an entire spectrum of platforms and channels. The customer will reward the brand that credits the customer for actions taken across all platforms.

The key behind this is the loyalty program. It is not practical to track the actions of the customer across all channels at once without a single unifying tracker. The loyalty program is the single thread that combines all the data.

You can now provide a customized experience for the customer wherever they shop. When they enter a physical store, they can get offers as soon as they give the loyalty card at checkout. Also, you can send personalized offers for birthdays and other occasions across multiple channels at once. Other perks are discounts, free gifts, cash-back, or free samples to reward loyalty to the brand at different points.

Competition amongst brands is fierce, and the only way to remain competitive is to build brand loyalty and keep the customer happy through a superior experience.

Google beats Amazon for product-search reach

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It isn’t too much of a stretch to assume that Amazon has an outsize role in both discovery and completion of shopping online. According to a survey run by Kenshoo, we can safely say that Amazon has a large share of online shopping discovery market.

According to the survey, shoppers consult Amazon first 56% of the time when looking for products online. That is the largest by far and is much farther ahead than any of its other rivals. However, when it comes to shopping and discovery in general, Google is ahead of Amazon, 85% to 72%. 72% is still a massive percentage of all product discovery online. The number could be far higher when you consider that some of the destinations that Google will surface in a product search will be Amazon product pages.

The numbers are consistent across other countries where both Amazon and Google operate. The only difference in the US is that Facebook takes a larger role compared to other countries.

There are some other interesting facts in the survey results:

The first is that 22% of shoppers will not look anywhere else if they find a product they want on Amazon. The online shopping giant has a frictionless ordering process, and that ease of use and the convenience of Amazon Prime make it unlikely shoppers will look elsewhere.

Even more, worrying for other online retailers is that “even if they find something that seems right on another site, they will usually look on Amazon to find alternative ideas, compare prices or gather more information before making a purchase.”

Image compression tools

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Often, most users upload images without any consideration of size or disk space. Uploading large images was not an issue until Google made page load speed a ranking factor. One of the best ways to improve both loading times and page speed is to optimize your images. Image optimization is also something that non-technical users can do with very minimal software. Here we look at several tools that you can use to optimize your post and site images.

Optimizilla

There are two advantages to using Optimizilla. The first advantage is a real-time preview that shows an approximation of how the image will look after optimization. You can use a slider to adjust the level of quality to a point you consider acceptable. Also, you can batch process up to 20 images at a time.

TinyPNG

The interface is a lot like Optimizilla and also processes 20 images in a single batch. The only difference is that you can export directly to a DropBox account.

Compressor.io

Not a great tool. It does the usual image compression but offers no batch conversion options. It is good enough if you want to convert a single image. However, when you plan to optimize an entire site, it will take too long.

Tests show that TinyPNG has the best compression ratio for roughly the same level of quality. The fact that it also processes images in batches of twenty makes it the best of the tools available for image compression.

 

Uses for keyword research

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In 2013 Google launched its Hummingbird update to the search engine’s algorithm. With the launch, Google began a transition to a focus on topics and entities from keywords. Moving towards topics and entities led to less emphasis on keyword research. However, there is still a lot of value that an organization can gain. Here are few:

Dominating a niche

Websites that serve a specific niche will find keyword research useful. There is no better way to cover every single angle of a topic than using keyword research to surface all possible permutations of each keyword phrase. There is no better tool to get topic ideas for writing exhaustive blog posts.

Answering questions

A lot of questions get ignored during keyword research due to the low search volume. However, there is still a large audience for answers to a lot of these questions, and Google does a good job of associating similar questions with an answer.

Content improvement

Use keyword research to expand the breadth and depth of your content. Do not rewrite your posts unless it requires some form of correction. Look at how people search for the same topics now and expand your posts to cover the new phrases.

Improve site navigation

The words people use to describe something can change over time. Look at how people search and change the anchor text links in your navigation to make them more relevant in this day and age. People look for words they use when describing something, if they don’t find it, they will go elsewhere.

 

How to use Chrome’s DevTools for SEO

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You can spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on tools for your SEO audits. These SEO tools will fit into your workflow and automate the bulk of your every day SEO tasks. However, if spending that kind of money is not practical, Chrome itself provides one the best tools you can use for you SEO audits. Navigate to More Tools > Developer Tools to open the DevTools panel.

You can use Chrome to check the content elements of your page, even those rendered using JavaScript. This check is useful because Google can now render and index JavaScript content.

Another useful tool is to find content that is hidden using CSS. Google does not count any hidden content and if this is a good way to find any important content that is hidden.

Using the inspect option the menu, you can verify the ALT descriptions of each of the images on the page.

Check the status of HTTP headers using the Network panel of the DevTools panel. You will see any error messages, the x-robots and other tags.

Probably the most useful tool in the list if the ability to use the Device Mode to emulate any device. You can use the device changer to emulate any type of device, like a smartphone or tablet and see how the page renders for those devices.

Everyone knows that page load speed is important now. Using Chrome you can see the page load speeds on your connection and how much each element of the page contributes to that speed, making it easy to identify the bottlenecks.

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Quick and easy SEO tactics

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When you don’t have dedicated SEO staff, it falls on either the owner or the webmaster to look after optimization. Fortunately, it does not take massive SEO campaigns to see benefits. Most businesses have done almost nothing regarding SEO, and for those, there is plenty of low hanging fruit. Here are some quick and easy tactics you can use to give your business a boost online:

Google My Business – This is something that most businesses ignore and could be a competitive advantage for those that sign up. Google My Business is where you edit the details and provide images for your business listing online. Many businesses do not even have operating hours posted online.

Update profile – If you do have a profile on Google My Business, take the time to ensure that all the information is current. Addresses, opening times, days and branding can change over time. Keep updating all the information regularly.

Google Search Console – Another wasted opportunity for those that do not use the data from the console. You can get a lot of useful data about your domain at no cost, directly from Google. Inbound links, index status, and crawl errors are just some of the data you can get about your sites and domains.

Site Speed – The loading speed of pages has a bearing on how well your pages rank. There are plenty of tools (including Google’s) that can tell you what the page load speed of your site. If you do have speed issues, you can fix them quite easily.

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TheDirty Comes Clean With Their New Site Overhaul

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Summary: TheDirty.com is no longer a personal review site, but rather a celebrity gossip hub. Could this change bring peace of mind to former harassment victims?

According to Nik Richie, the founder of The Dirty, major changes are currently underway as the site no longer features anonymous cyberbullying comments. Prior this development, the site was notorious for featuring anger-laced rants towards former lovers, friends, and even random individuals that have no relation to them. And, to make matters worse, photos were even uploaded to add fuel to the fire. Many of the victims weren’t even aware that they’ve gone viral until they received backlash from the community.

What Sparked the Change?

After listening to Melania Trump’s speech regarding her stance on cyberbullying, Richie claimed he had a sudden change of heart. When Radar Online reached out to Richie, he responded with, “For ten years I created a massive following giving people the opportunity to voice and submit as a third party. It wasn’t until I watched Melania Trump’s speech and her stance on cyberbullying. I asked myself as a father am I doing what’s right for my family or this country. I looked in the mirror and had my wake up call. Am I part of the problem or solution? I am the problem.”

The defamation-laced website is no stranger to controversy, as it has gone through its fair share of criticism in the past. Victims of cyberbullying had their lives drastically changed by a simple post. And, with millions of eyes scanning the site on a daily basis, it would be hard to hide your personal information after being exposed. While it’s fair to say that Richie has fulfilled his end of the deal, it remains to be seen how the public will react to this drastic change. Do they recognize it as admirable, or is it just smoke and mirrors?

Article written by ReputationStars.com. Looking for a RipOffReport removal service that actually provides results? Contact ReputationStars.com and see how they can turn your Internet identity around.

Google’s Trying to Solve the Fake News Problem

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Fake news is a big problem for Google, and it’s also a major issue for Facebook users as well. The challenge is how to deal with it. How can we teach an algorithm to sort fact from fiction? Project Owl is Google’s attempt at trying to hit fake news where it hurts.

Fake news spreads thanks to signals from friends and family. A friend or family member likes an article, or searches for a topic, and it becomes part of your bubble too. The new update aims to try and tackle the problem of search by addressing Google’s autocomplete feature.

How the Owl Works

When users enter a term into Google’s search engine, or Chrome search bar, a new form will allow them to offer feedback on the suggested terms. This way, if a suggested term is offensive or fake, users have more power to let Google know about it. It won’t remove the term from search immediately, but it does send a signal to Google that something is wrong or off.

Autocomplete Problems

Celebrity hoax deaths have become a popular Internet prank because they are easy to spread. Users just need to convince other users to search for a celebrity’s death enough, and the rumor spirals out of control. Autocomplete is trying to be helpful, but instead it’s contributing to a raging firestorm.

Now, the community will have more tools to police itself. It’s hoped that Google will be able to offer a much higher quality search experience.

Bio: Submit Express, founded by Pierre Zarokian in 1998, is dedicated to helping businesses achieve their best rankings online.

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The basics of gated and ungated content

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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.