What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In the world of growing technology and competition, traditional marketing has been substituted by Digital Marketing which is also known as  Internet Marketing.

Now if you are a beginner and want to understand what is SEO or search engine optimization, how it works then first we want you to understand what are search engines.

Major search engines like Google, Bing, yahoo are a software system or service that allows a user to search for an answer of the query via World Wide Web (WWW) using the internet. When a user enters keywords or phrases into a search engine, the search engine displays the N number of results in the form of webpages, videos, images or content based on the search engine algorithm. This list of the content displays in the results is known as Search engine result page (SERP).

What is SEO or Search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization is the exercise of increasing the visibility of the website to get the traffic from the “organic” or “free” search engine result pages.

All the primary search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing have elementary search results where web pages, content, images, videos are shown on the basis of their ranking and most relevant to the users. An individual doesn’t have to pay anything to list his/her website to rank higher in the search result pages (SERP’s). It is completely a free platform.

Now the question in your mind would be what do you mean optimization and what do we need to optimize?

Is the only quality and quantity of the content matters to optimize?

Well the answer is “No”

Apart from better quality and enough content, we also need to well design and of course links as well.

How SEO works

Are you new to SEO? Looking to understand how SEO works?

Major search engines are like a data storage where they collect each and every information from all over the world’s websites and web pages. When a user asks a query, search engines need to give the exact or relevant answer of the query. Now how they do so? Search engines need to know what’s inside in every website or pages and how they relate to each other. To give the best answer of the query, search engines collects all the information from all the data stored and select the best answer to solve the query of the user.

With this system of search engines, people find the results exactly what they are looking for.

Every search engine have their own algorithm for turning all the information into useful search results.

For every website designer, search results always matter. When a webpage has a higher ranking, there would be more people to reach you as it helps people to develop trust more towards you.

The keys to the search algorithm for higher ranking make sure that your website has the below elements.

1)    Words matters – Search engines look for every word on the webpage. So when a user looks for the results of the query, search engines shows all the results in which the keyword of the user matches to the keyword of your webpage.

2)    Titles matters – Search engine pays a lot of attention to the titles of the page because it often summarizes the webpage.

3)    Links matters – Links between the websites matters. When one page links to another, it is usually a recommendation telling the user that this site has good information which can help one to solve the query. So the links between the web pages. A webpage with a lot of links coming to can look good to search engine. But it is very important to take links from trustworthy websites only.   

4)    Words in links – It is easy for search engines if you keep relevant keywords in the links.

5)    Reputation – This is one of the important keys for the search engine is to maintain the reputation. Engaging content helps in growing the quality links.

It is very important to learn that you can draw the attention of all the visitors to your website but it is not necessary that all the visitors are giving you quality traffic. Some traffic might come to your website just because Google is redirecting the visitors to your website. It doesn’t mean you are fulfilling the requirement what the visitors are looking for. So it is necessary to attract the quality of traffic who are actually looking for the product you offer to them.

Important SEO Tips to follow

• Keyword Research – Before starting your assignment, it is important to know about the important keywords which would help in optimizing the webpage more.

• Commitment – SEO of any website or webpage is not about one time practice. The algorithms of search engines are subjected to change on a regular basis. One needs to be updated according to time and changes about the tactics. It takes a long term commitment of an individual.

• Patience – Every SEO expertise needs enough patience while optimizing the webpage as SEO isn’t about instant satisfaction. It takes time to get fruitful results. I.e Most probably months to see especially when your website in newly designed.

• Link Building – You can start building links with trusted directories like DMOZ. As it may take up to 45 days’ time, so don’t waste your time about directory submission. Just submit and move ahead. Try to build links who has good Domain and Page authority from the same industry. Also, it is crucial to check the spam score before taking any do follow backlink.

• Use of Social Media Platforms–  Nowadays almost every person uses social media sites and spend most of their time on like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Quora which might help you to increase the awareness of your website especially if your website contains visual content. One should definitely join these platforms to speed up the traffic into your website. Please note that spamming is strictly prohibited in these platforms. Make sure that you are an active and beneficial contributor of the site.

• Get Benefits of Local Search Facilities – Online search for offline purchasing is a growing trend. You can optimize your website to fetch local traffic into your business by displaying your business with address and contact detailed information. Also mention the landmarks in the page text. Register your website to the free local listing services that the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing offer. It would be more beneficial if you encourage your happy customers to drop the comments in the comment section on these sites.

According to www.bluecorona.com, 17% of the small businesses are investing in SEO. In-house Search Engine Optimization is a completely different beast in comparison to the agency Search Engine Optimization. With the help of in-house SEO, you are going to be working with a single website, instead of working with thirty websites. You also have to deal with a few team shifts as well as implementations. Moreover, you are also given the carte blanche, when you are making a number of strategic decisions within your company. The structure of your in-house SEO is capable of making or breaking the success that is associated with various strategic implementations for the website.

Given below is a list of the crucial points that should be considered when you are developing an in-house structure of SEO.

Assessing and budgeting the fiscal impact

Discussing the budget is probably one of the most important considerations. Without a proper budget, it is not possible for you to build a proper team. You have to keep in mind that a professional team requires a proper budget for functioning correctly. Just like you are not going to build your house without accessing all the costs, the successful SEO plans should be similar and they should always have solid foundations. Therefore, be extremely careful when you are deciding your budget.

Size of the company

The size of your organization is known to have a huge effect on the results of the Search Engine Optimization plan. For instance, if your organization has various divisions that are managed by the individual managers, it may be difficult to manage the SEO campaigns, if they have not been scaled in a proper manner. On the other hand, a smaller company can easily get away with the SEO campaigns without involving politics or management. A small company that has a small team and a large budget is considered to be nimble in comparison to the larger companies. Smaller companies can easily understand the SEO updates as well as the changes in a more effective manner. You can visit the reputed website of Tayloright, to get more information.

The weaknesses and strengths of the leaders

Considering both the strength as well as the weaknesses of the leaders, who are involved in various positions of the SEO team, is also crucial. For instance, your SEO specialist can be an amazing individual contributor but he may not be a people wrangler. On the other hand, your web developer can be a people wrangler, but not an individual contributor. This should be considered if you want to make any vital change to the SEO team in the future.

Establishing the metrics for every industry and site

All the sites have particular metrics, which make them unique. SEO metrics, channel-specific metrics, and content metrics can help in either making or breaking the strategy of digital marketing. It is crucial to have a team member who is capable of explaining why the site performs in a particular manner. If not, chances are that you will risk misinterpreting your data.

Conclusion

As soon as you have a proper idea about the things that you should consider when you are developing the structure of the in-house SEO, you are going to be successful.

Bio

John is a Business Tech Analyst. He is very responsible towards his job. He loves to share his knowledge and experience with his friends and colleagues.

For those who own physical business space, you may be aware of the accessibility requirements and the necessity to be compliant with it to ensure a lawful administration and also to engage with all type of consumers effectively. In the USA, it is mandatory for public entities to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations to facilitate easy access to all with disabilities too. At the modern times of internet and e-commerce, these accessibility mandates apply to online activities and e-commerce too.

Why accessibility online?

At the core, accessibility is all about ensuring an environment which is friendly to all types of visitors and customers. While managing a website, accessibility means the content can be read, all visuals can be seen, and all can meaningfully understand all media. Do your website effectively meet these needs?

Taking it the other way around, there are about 53 million people in the US having disabilities; however, more than half of them are regular internet users. Also, there are a large number of adults over age 65, who also have difficulties in exploring and navigating the website features. Irrespective of whether the law mandates it or not, sooner or later, you have to prepare your website for accessibility to accommodate all these users.

Accessibility and SEO

It is a proven fact that improved SEO goes well aligned with website accessibility. By offering improved user experience, bounce rate will naturally reduce with a higher number of visitors, lesser negative feedback, and covering more audience. All these further contribute to better search engine ranking. Further, we will discuss a few essential web content accessibility guidelines to ensure SEO worthiness of your site through enhanced accessibility.

1. Ensuring responsiveness

Your website needs to be compatible with all types of screen sizes. The pages need to get automatically resized on all devices with the text easily readable and images perfectly viewable.

2. Methods of interaction

There may be many visitors to your website who cannot use mouse, keyboard or use their finger on mobile screens while accessing your website. So, ensure that you incorporate text-to-speech features to the web page for effective engagement.

3. Text size

For many visitors, especially old age, it will be the difficulty to read smaller fonts. However, putting oversized text may be sloppy, so you can add a resizing tool, which the users can select to view text in the desired size.

4. Alt text

Many visitors may have trouble seeing images on the website, as do the search engine crawlers. So, make sure that alt text caption for images is put rightly. So, they don’t have to see the image to understand what the visual context is. Also try to enter more descriptive details of images in the caption fields, which the visually impaired users can easily understand with text to speech.

5. Using transcripts

Ensure that all the videos, podcasts, and other streaming media content have proper transcripts for the users with disabilities can easily understand.

6. Organizing text

As a part of simplification, it is essential to use clearer and larger titles on top of the pages to ensure easy readability and navigation. Within the body, include appropriate header titles, paragraph titles, section breaks, and enough white space in between to highlight the text for enhanced readability.

Some other aspects too to take care in terms of accessibility and SEO are the text color, font, clear navigation with directional cues, option for internal search, directions to fill forms etc.

Getting the top spot in the King of Search Engines in a keyword is the dream of almost all of bloggers in the world. But many who despair because it is difficult to put all their blogs in the ideal position.

Honestly, I do not think too hard, not too easy and essentially just takes hard work and patience.

Let’s follow the top 10 tips collected by seo magnifier for blog SEO optimization for being in position 1 Google, let us refer to my review below:

1. The Right Keywords and Long Tail
To make a friend more articles on search engine friendly and user-friendly, my friend will probably need to target tail keywords for the article mate.


Competition long tail keywords are quite low and it would be very easy for my friend to get a good ranking in Google.

Buddy will get organic traffic with long-term targets and long tail keywords low competition.

2. Create Unique Articles and quality
   The next step is to write unique and quality articles. In addition to keyword, placement is perfect place also need to write unique, lengthy, quality and user-friendly content.
   
   Google and other search engines like unique content and many tools e.g paraphrasing tool free which help you to find the related phrases that describes the real value and very helpful and satisfied the people/readers.
   
   3. Added Keywords In The Right Place
   Placement of the perfect keywords is imperative in order to allow search engine robots know about the targeted keywords. Buddy needs to include targeted keywords in the following phrase: 

Title: The page title is the most important SEO factor. Include main keywords in the post title is a must to make it SEO friendly and get good rankings.

Meta Description: Meta Description is what often appears as a snippet of text under the title of the article in Google’s position, so it will also help my friend to get a good ranking If These include the main keyword.

SEO Friendly URLs: My friend should also include the main keyword in the URL of my buddies to the URL of this article domain.com/keyword example. It will also help my friend to see about search engines relevant keywords.


4. Backlink Building
The backlink is one of the things that are important in today’s SEO optimization and every effort should be made to find backlinks from reputable sites or high quality.

Pal should know that the most important quality backlinks to get better rankings in the search engines, not quantity. NO QUANTITY, QUALITY YES

Relevancy: Relevance is very important links and search engines like Google will not hesitate reluctant to impose penalties on your blog if your blog has a number of backlinks that redundant or irrelevant. Here are some effective methods to build backlinks:
Guest Blogging: is one of the most effective methods to build backlinks after Google algorithm updates (Panda and Penguin).

Comments on DoFollow Blog: Commenting on the status of do-follow blogs very well for the development of your blog, because we link that will be followed by a Google Robot and is another effective way to increase keyword ranking in Google’s pal.
Participate in Forums: Participate in the forum link is also a good tactic in building backlinks. If my friend participated in high PR forums and traffic/visitors is high, your blog may be sprayed backlinks and visitors.

5. Use Main Keywords As Anchor Text
   Use targeted keywords as anchor text when my friend Guest Blogging on any blog. This helps to tell Google about whether a robot buddy’s blog.
   
   Do not look for too many backlinks and using the same anchor text, because it could be classified as SPAM by Google.

Quality over quantity!

Google goes by that mantra. Your website better has high-quality backlinks for it to be ranked better than others by the search engine. Google has been long known for prioritizing websites that have backlinks added to the content. In some instances, Google has even hinted that the search engine drops the rank of those websites that fail to provide backlinks. Following this, the businesses have been extra cautious when adding any backlink to the website or a webpage. I was going through Frontier Package deals on the company’s website recently when I came across a link. On clicking it, I was redirected to a page that displayed an error. Instantly, I realized that the company would need to eliminate this link so that the ranking does not suffer.

Here is how you can have access to high-quality backlinks to avoid the traffic on your website from suffering:

Content is Key

Original and unique content is the key to earning quality backlinks. There are numerous users present online who are sharing millions of tweets, memes, and videos at any given minute in time. Under such a scenario, what will make you break through the clutter is the crisp and new content. This does not mean that you start posting things that are out of context or do not relate to you. Posting ‘just for the sake of it’ content will not get you anywhere as well. Relevance matters as much as quality does. Apart from that, make sure you update your website on regular basis. Don’t be afraid to write unusual or unorthodox content, if the experiment fails, you still learn. No one is interested in reading what he or she already did a month ago. If you do not have anything new to offer to the readers, do not be surprised if Google drops your ranking.

You have been warned!

Infographics Here to Rule

According to studies, individuals tend to share infographics more than articles with nothing but solid text. Infographics are attractive and catch people’s attention more than the boring text does. Moreover, you are able to convey your message and any statistics in a very concise and eye-pleasing manner. It is for this reason that infographics help you to generate more backlinks (quality ones of course). However, infographics should incorporate some eye-catching designs and verified statistics. Without the striking details, infographics lose their essence and the sole purpose dies.

My suggestion: infographics over text anytime!

Put Your Socializing Skills to Use

The more the merrier!

Yes, this holds true. The more the people will know you, the more will be your chances to get access to high-quality backlinks. Remember that you need to tell people that you exist. No one trusts an unpopular website or brand with its backlinks. You need to build a certain level of trust before people start recognizing your ad that will not come to you if you confine yourself to the four walls of your office. And this requires hard work apart from patience. You cannot expect to introduce yourself one day and have a million followers the other (unless you are Beyoncé of course). So, keep trying and reaching out to people. Gradually you will build relationships with some of the giants in the market. But the key to this is to be very active on social media. Another way is to get yourself or your website cited on online platforms. This is what they call the modern day publicity tactic.

Don’t be Shy to Collaborate

Collaborations do for you what others cannot. They earn you the recognition and followers that would have otherwise taken ages. You should consider pairing or teaming up with a famous blogger or influencer and get the game going. These famous personalities already have a very high fan following and people listen to their word. So, if you can get to collaborate with them (as in be a part of their story or get a shoutout from them, for instance), half your job is done. This technique is adopted by many newbies who wish to get links to some of the celebrated websites. And it works every time.

Apart from employing any of the above-mentioned techniques, you can always resort to tactics like performing experts’ interviews and stealing competitors’ links. All these tricks will help you in getting high-quality backlinks that will automatically increase your ranking on the search engine. Frontier Cable and Internet is a renowned cable service provider but still, the company gives it all when it comes to adding backlinks that will earn them an even better ranking.

Are your Meta Descriptions too short? It was only a year or two when everyone was worried about Meta Descriptions being too long and exceeding 155 characters. Yes, that is exactly what was happening; we started wondering if we are using less than we should when it comes to our Meta Descriptions. As a leading digital marketing agency in Pakistan, we would like to enlighten you with our knowledge.

First things first, you need to know what is a Meta Description. When you are coding in HTML there are a number of tags that you use, out of which, Meta Description is one. Basically, it is used to summarize the content found on a website’s page. On search engines, there is only one area they look at which is this description. It helps to clarify exactly what this page is supposed to be about. Many people spend a lot of their time in optimizing the description field for on-page SEO. Sometimes search engines use this description, in the actual search results to let the viewer’s understand what a page will be about, better, before clicking on the link and landing on a certain page.

It was recommended not to exceed the limit of 160 characters in your description, however, things changed in December 2017 when a Google spokesperson told how snippets have become slightly longer on average to provide more descriptive and useful snippets. That way people will better understand how a page may be relevant to their search. This is similar to the reason why Twitter increased their character limit which allows for more descriptive messages.

Research indicates that the length has effectively doubled now allowing up to 320 characters which are a huge boost but Google has not stated exactly how far we can or should go in regards to the length of our Meta Descriptions. Now, what does this change mean exactly? Do you actually need to do anything? The simple answer is no. You really do not need to make additional efforts by changing your Meta Descriptions because whatever you have been writing will be reflected in the same manner.

However, if your competitors decide to revamp their descriptions to improve them, it could mean that they will move past you in some search results and overall rankings. It also depends on the type of content you have on your pages. So the next time you write a meta description, make sure to sure an active voice, focus on the primary keyword, make the description unique and catchy and do not forget to add CTA. With the increased space Google and other browsers are now allowing, your Meta descriptions are probably too short. But if you try to improve them, which you most definitely should, it will increase your chances of people clicking on your snippet if you are offering what they are looking for. This is what any social media agency in Pakistan would recommend.

How to rank on google first page

There are more than 150 factors that decide your site’s ranking on Google or any other search engine. Many of these factors have been proven and some … are still believed to be hoax. The only thing people are sure of is that Google is not as predictable as marketers would want it to be or would like it to be.

Even after that, there are some factors that have been identified as the definite way to rank your site.

Below are the top things your readers and potential customers pay attention too:

1. The length of the content

Google prefers a piece of content that is bulky and simplified. Google believes that a long content draft will give more value to its readers. Most of us think that people who read online have little or no time and hence, they tend to quit sooner and find the solution within first or second line. Well, you’d be surprised by the answer, people do like reading online and they want in-depth solution. Although, they do like to get all the information from a single source which also saves the time they spend on research.

2. Keyword in the title tag, description tag and H1 tag

The title tag is very vital and crucial on-page SEO factor. Title tag is the factor Google considers when ranking a website as per keyword searches. Even the description of your content or your page plays a vital role in improving your SEO. The H1 tags make a significant difference as well because they are used to judge your content as per user’s search.

3. Keyword frequency

When your keywords appear often and have a strongly built content around them, you win half of the race. The rest of the race is won by managing your keywords according to the relevance.

4. Image optimization

A typical everyday Digital Marketing Agency will concentrate on building a great content piece and will probably ignore the image descriptions. Very few people know that optimizing an image is very beneficial since people also Google visual content for their searches.  Hence, the description of on-page images is crucial, and should be kept relevant to the content as well.

5. Multimedia content

Google delivers exactly what its users want, be it videos, images or infographics. Adding them according to their relevance to your product or website will give great results and will most definitely rank your content higher in the search results.  

6. The number and quality of inbound links

If you have ever done work in this field, you are probably already familiar with this factor. Google wants you to forward people to other links as well. It also promotes your website by asking other people to link your site in their content, so it makes sense that Google asks the same from you.

7. Loading speed

People all over are obsessed with speed, they want their work done and they want it fast and faster. The loading speed of your webpage determines if the person on the other site will stick to your content or business or not.

A slow loading website will not hook your users in the first place, and if by any luck a stubborn user is still waiting for your page to load, chances are he will bounce back to the search results and may block your site forever. Risking a potential customer is not good business. Optimize your site’s loading speed for both desktop and mobile version.

8. Time of content updates

Google loves fresh information, as does the audience it caters. People who are reading this might have heard about the term, “updated blogs”. The blogs require an update to add new and improved information in them so they can rank above in the rankings. Time and date of the updates on a site matters and so does the frequency of uploads on it.

9. Broken links

A broken link on your site shows that your site was not maintained properly and too many broken links indicate your poor interest in developing a site. This is appalling and restricts your customer’s interest to ever visit your site again. Google will automatically dismiss your site and label it as abandoned and it doesn’t matter how great your content is.

10. Uniqueness

Google has some guidelines that suggest that a content piece should bring value to the customers and not just be an SEO magnet. This is the reasons why some site, which are affiliated are not given higher ranking on the search engines.  

Why does Google ignore my site even when I do everything mentioned above?

We know that you have followed all the SEO Tips and used all the correct keywords properly. We can even bet that you have used top-quality content and updated your site along with properly framing your content. Still, you aren’t able to achieve the results you have expected to see. The following might be the reasons due to which you are not getting the rankings or results you deserve:

1. Poor spelling and grammar

This is a big problem as spelling and grammatical errors can change the meaning of your whole sentence. A basic grammatical and spelling error can have adverse effect the ranking of your site. Spinning your articles lately? You already know what those softwares can do to a piece of content. The version they produce is unreadable and totally worthless to paste as well.  Google puts the quality at the top, which means no spelling mistakes and proper grammar. Make sure you do that.

2. Google hasn’t found your site

Most of the site owners ask Google to re-crawl their URLs, not because they are desperate, but because they want to make their presence known.

If you are owner of a new site, you should give Google time to index it first. It might take a week or more depending on your updates. Keep checking your sitemap in the meantime.

Sometimes the errors on your website can cost you a potential customer and business in overall. A Digital Marketing Agency will only get you so far but your products and business strategies will make all the difference.

Follow the tips and suggestion above a watch you site rank among the top business companies and in the meantime, make your content strong and build a strong SEO to rank better.

A virtual presence is indispensable for any modern day business and enterprises spend considerable resources in improving their visibility which will be helpful in generating better returns on investment. Most of the traffic to a website may come from search engines but a lot of visits are generated through other avenues also and this referral traffic is valuable not only for bringing in potential customers but also for the purpose of optimization. Let’s take a look at some of the best referral traffic sources.

1. Social Media Brings Large Number Of Visitors

The area of influence of social networks has expanded considerably over the years and people are using it for activities other than connecting with their loved ones. There are a variety of platforms and we are mentioning the top three of them based on their ability to generate high number of visits.

Facebook : Probably the most popular channel with a mammoth user base which can be used for creating a good following by posting useful content regularly.

Twitter : The microblogging platform needs constant updating for promoting something but is immensely helpful for popularizing a product in a very short span of time.

LinkedIn : Aimed at the business community, it is ideal for B2B promotion and is a very good place to find serious consumers.

2. Providing Solutions On Q&A Sites Is Helpful

Large number of people access the internet searching for solutions related to various topics and this has given rise to Question & Answer (Q&A) sites which are frequented by users who provide precise answers to queries related to their industry in order to build reputation of their enterprise. Two of the most popular sites are listed below.

Quora : It covers a wide range of topics and interests and has a community of dependable experts which helps in bringing a lot of users that are ripe for referral traffic.

Yahoo Answers : Another very well known website with a large subscriber base that has solutions to millions of queries in a variety of categories.

3. Guest Blogging Boosts Online Reputation

One of the most well known referral traffic sources and a good way to build up the image of a service as a credible outlet is posting high quality and well researched content on other blogs and websites. Identifying topics related to the business domain and writing insightful articles with useful information for posting on websites with impressive domain authority always brings large number of interested visitors that can be converted into customers, through backlinks.

4. Video Sharing Sites Have Great Marketing Potential

Content being shared on the internet is not just limited to text but with the growing popularity of smart devices, visual content has become hugely popular and so have video sharing sites. These avenues are no longer limited to amateurs posting for fun but are being increasingly used by marketers for promotion of products. Creating and uploading engaging video clips with links and call to action buttons helps in directing potential customers to the website.

YouTube : Arguably the best known name in the category, its massive reach and the fact that it is also a search engine means that it is a great platform for promotions.

5. Blog Commenting Is Truly Advantageous

Commenting on blogs can be a huge driver of traffic to your site if done the right way. WordPress has made blogging very easy and it is the reason a lot of owners convert their websites from other formats like PSD to WordPress Theme. Every blog has comment forms consisting of many fields with one specifically for link posting and posting meaningful comments with a reference to a related post on your own blog will help you to get noticed.

6. Infographics Can Grab Eyeballs

Visuals are great for explaining complicated data and providing infographics with links on various platforms apart from inserting them in relevant posts will also help in attracting people towards your product. These images can be shared on social networks like Instagram and Pinterest too but there are specific sites for sharing them and two of them find a mention here.

Visual.ly : it has analytics tools for finding out the performance of your post and you can create, publish and even sell your infographic on the platform.

Slideshare : a service for publishing and sharing of presentations and PDFs and has a good following among professionals belonging to different fields.

7. Email Newsletters Are Still Productive

People do not pay much attention to this form of communication as compared to other recent marketing tools but it still is very effective and can drive good traffic to a virtual location. There are a lot of tools that can be used for newsletter creation and the most popular one is listed here.

Mailchimp : It has a great variety of templates that can be used for creating attractive campaigns apart from the capability of integrating with ecommerce platforms.

Conclusion

Most of the time owners keep focussing on search engines only, forgetting that other avenues can be equally if not more beneficial and these referral traffic sources can always be banked upon for getting more visitors to a website.

About Author:

Linda Waster is renowned Web Developer by profession with hobbies of innovative and technical writing. She works with best HTML to wordpress development Agency – HireWPGeeks Ltd. Feel free to get in touch with her if you are about hire WordPress theme developer.

In the early days of digital marketing, good SEO meant keywords—and lots of them. In an attempt to rank higher on the search engine results page, SEO experts loaded website content with keywords, many times without any context.

Times have changed. Google now penalizes websites for “keyword-stuffing,” which Google describes as “loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results.” Keyword-stuffing, says Google, “results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking.”

According to Google, keyword-stuffing can include:

• Long lists of keywords without any context or added value
• Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for
• Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural

These days, Google ranks pages based on how relevant and valuable they are to the reader, so a page with a list of keywords but without any supporting content, or with content that is clearly written to use multiple keywords rather than provide useful information, will be penalized by Google.

Keywords themselves are less crucial for search rank than they used to be. A study of ranking factors by SEMRush found that keywords were less important than 11 other ranking factors, including site visits, time on site, bounce rate, backlinks, and content length.

According to the report, keyword usage is one of the most popular SEO techniques, but “the presence of keywords in title, meta description and body of the text proved to be significantly less influential than other factors.”

Using Keywords Effectively

Keywords are still important, you just need to use them the right way. According to Google, your goal should be to “focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.”

Google is getting better at understanding user intent and measuring content relevance, which means it’s able to see beyond what a user types into a search box to understand what they’re really looking for, and to deliver results that fulfill that need. Because of that, content should be written for the user, not for the keyword.

There is still a correlation between keyword-rich content and rank, however. According to the SEMRush report, “over 75% of the top-20 pages have keywords in their body and over 60% have them in their title.”

So keep those keywords in your content, but be sure they appear in a natural context, and that your content provides real value to your site visitors. If you write valuable content that will be useful to readers who have come to your site through a keyword search, your keywords will probably occur naturally in your content, and Google will reward you with a higher search rank.

For help with services like SEO, Web Design and Development, Ecommerce Web Development, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing Planning, and Performance Audits, contact Digiwebart today.