Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, a practice commonly referred to as cloaking. Social signals may not play a direct role in ranking your site. But social shares generate more eyeballs on your content. And the more eyeballs you get, the more likely someone is to link to you. Google follows links. Links areimportant. So get the word out. Reach out to other site owners – preferably of topically related websites. A mobile strategy is not simply making minor changes to the desktop SEO strategy in hopes of making it compatible with mobile. Add a site map to your webpage. Search engines can’t index pages that it can’t find easily. A site map can help search engines find everything on your site. If your site is difficult to navigate, or is very large, you could even consider having multiple site maps to help search engines further.

Include relevant keywords into your site headings

In the past, creating keyword rich anchor text used to be considered an effective strategy as long as they were on relevant sites. However, those days are long gone! Now, any keyword rich anchor text that you create on your own goes against Google’s guidelines. Stick to these good practices and you’ll be on your way to free traffic. Get a clear understanding of what is Search Engine Marketing and its different branches are, i.e. understanding the difference between SEO and PAID clearly, and the pros and cons of each tactic. Be updated with all the Google algorithm updates from time to time so that your Search Engine Marketing comes in handy! Get people talking about your brand, and mentioning it on their website, or any website for that matte Natural, relevant links to your site from reputable websites is what takes you to the top of Google. There are many ways to go about getting your site linked.

Is your content suitable for the audience you want to target?

Alt attributes are the text alternatives to your image which will appear if your image fails to load, or if the user is accessing your site with an assistive device such as a screenreader. Because web crawlers don’t have eyes, they’re also what search engines “see” instead of an image, making them important for both accessibility and SEO. We all know that gettingbacklinks (a.k.a. inbound links) from trusted websites is a great way to give your website’s search rankings a boost. However, there’s also a dark side to backlinks. If Google suspects that there are spammy, low-quality sites linking to your site, your rankings could suffer. This is known as “negative SEO”. (In some cases, spammers will purposely direct lots of low-quality links to your site in order to cause negative SEO.) Ranking factors play a huge role in SEO and the overall digital marketing strategy of a website. Long tail SEO can attract traffic. If you are still basing your SEO strategy around keywords you should probably start to think a little bit deeper around user intent. Build trust and engagement. Build these through the aforementioned speed, plus content that speaks to their needs. The combination of those two things also makes your site mobile-friendly, so they get a good experience on any of their devices.

Links are still the most important thing

Gaz Hall, a Freelance SEO Consultant from SEO Hull, commented: "If you take the time to apply these tips to your search engine optimization plan, you are going to see some great results. No results happen overnight but these tips and advice are sure to help you get the results that your sites need a bit quicker than you would accomplish it otherwise." Building backlinks is not enough. You also have to monitor every link your website is earning. Not knowing who links to you or when links are being removed can cost you a lot of traffic. Search engines no longer require you to spell things in order to rank, so your focus should be on writing for the people viewing your page instead. After all, time on page and other elements indicating your content was useful provide a stronger value for SEO. It’s also important to know what kinds of link-building strategies to avoid, so that you don’t waste your valuable time and effort doing something that can make Google sandbox your site (remove it from their search engine). Many SEO campaigns start with keywords – knowing what the audience within your niche is searching for is a powerful advantage. During this we’re going to use tools to research the real words people type in search engines. Speaking the language of your audience, and not technical jargon, is how you’ll reach them – just as in the offline world.

Link, link and link some more

Compelling and unique images have always been at the forefront of link building strategies. Search engines, website owners, and their audiences find these types of assets helpful to the overall online experience. Google wants users the most relevant results for their search. The more relevant your content is to their search, the more likely your website will be number 1 on Google. Analysing a competitor’s recurring backlinks will quickly give you a feel for their regular content promotion strategy, and an invaluable insight into their ‘inner circle’ of sharers/linkers. By starting a blog  or taking an existing blog up a notch — you can increase your influence and establish stronger relationships with potential and current customers. A lot of SEO has been focused on technical matters and very highly specific ways to configure your website and stuff like that. There are best practices, and you need to make sure you get the basics right, but it is true that a lot of SEO is now circling back around to good old fashioned marketing."

Web 2.0 indexing works wonders

Make sure you have clean, short, descriptive URLs. Descriptive means keyword-rich but not keyword-stuffed. Google counts links from other websites as votes. So, when they’re presented with two (or more) pages on the same topic, the page with the most links (i.e. votes) will usually rank higher than the page(s) with fewer links. Reviews are an important factorfor SEO. They help potential customers trying to decide whether to trust you. If your local business has a Google+ page and is marked on Google Maps, you need to have reviews. The best thing you can do is encourage your customers to leave reviews if they’re satisfied with your service. Try offering them an incentive, such as a small discount if they click on a link and leave a review. Keyword selection is the starting point of the small business SEO process. You must choose keywords that are directly relevant to your business, which people are actually searching for, and which aren’t too competitive for your budget. Choose the right keywords – limit yourself to around 5 to start with – and you can get good results on a small budget. Overfed with countless advice making things look simple and obvious, webmasters often rely on their intuition, common sense, or gut feelings when it comes to SEO… and they often fail.