You can also build a reasonable idea of how many links you need, and how authoritative, in order to compete. To check out your competitors’ links, you can search for their most popular URLs with the link: command in Google. If you want to go further, use one of the many backlink tools to search for the most influential links – a good starting point is Open Link Profiler which gives you a lot of data for free. The SEO of your website is largely dependent upon how easily and quickly your potential customers can find your site through a search engine query. Instead of focusing on what you do or what you sell or why you’re awesome, instead focus on why your customers should care. Satisfy your users’ intent. Give them the information they seek! Perhaps they are searching for formal wear. So, you are trying to rank for those things, tuxedos and formal dresses or wedding outfits, which are tough to rank for. It is advisable to check regularly on your website’s rank and positions in the SERPs in order to assess whether your SEO measures are having an effect. But because there are also many factors which you cannot influence, you should not get too stressed by rankings. It is perfectly normal if your website sometimes jumps 1-5 places. But if you manage to get your site 10, 20, or 30 places higher, you should be proud of yourself.

Get familiar with the landscape of local SEO

Audit your site using tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights or Pingdom’s speed test to quickly compile a list of options to help give your site a little more zip. You may even need to review your hosting service if it’s holding you back… SEO is a great way to put your hands up in the air and tell potential customers that your business exists and has a web presence among the thousands of competing pages and the competitor businesses behind them. A greater number of people will stick to voice search, so SEO specialists will have to adjust to this relatively new type of search. Make sure that your website’s main menu only features the most important categories. The more you focus on Google and doing the right thing for website visitors, the more you’ll win at SEO.

Where are you seeing the fastest movement in the SERP’s?

Google has worked to smash black-hat and spam-based link-building practices, penalizing link wheels, exchanges and paid links. In 2012 the Penguin update ushered in the link building reality we experience today. With it only natural link accumulation will gain your website & webpages authority. Join popular online forums and post valuable comments and discussions with links back to your site. This can get others to do the same if they like what they see. A so-called website blocker is something that prevents search engines from accessing the site Why do you need a Freelance SEO Consultant Great images compliment great website copy, and since millions of people search for images online, they play an important role in your on-page SEO. Similar to title tags, using customized image tags will help describe the subject of an image. Getting third parties to link their websites to yours is a critical part of SEO. Without inbound links, there is little to no chance of ranking for competitive terms in search engines such as Google, whose algorithm relies heavily on link measuring and weighting criteria.

Why is Social Media important for Local Businesses?

Gaz Hall, a Freelance SEO Consultant from SEO Hull, commented: "Web pages must contain a minimum number of words, feature targeted keywords and highlight local modifiers to ensure they appear prominently in relevant, organic search results." Make sure that every page has one call-to-action, so the goal of the page is clear. If you add multiple buttons, you lose the focus of the page and your visitors won’t get where you want them to go. Flash, undoubtedly tempts attraction, but it has the bad side too. Flash is like Hulk- Big and Bulky! Flash objects are famous for overloading and even crashing web pages. Another loophole with flash is that it is incompatible with mobile devices. Quality means not something rammedwith keywords which isn’t actually very useful or easy to read. Good quality content is something useful, or interesting to the readers. You want it to be well written, broken up with subheadings and images to make it easier to read. We know that Google will never — and we mean never ever — give any sort of detailed secrets about its search ranking algorithm. They’ve also gone back and forth on the subject since about 2010. The latest from the search engine is that social is not a factor in the ranking algorithm. So, the answer changes slightly.

Evaluating Websites that May Not Follow Best Practices

Creating an SEO strategy can give your company and brand a boost in the search engines. Why not improve your ROI today? Creative, interesting, and informational articles that really speak to an audience are much more likely to get shared, repinned, and re-tweeted. The best way to tap into that type of influence is to keep things relevant and specific. The information you are putting out there should actually help people by teaching them or reminding them of something important. Target 500 to 1,000 words per post without sounding spammy or repetitive. Trust me — 500 words is not difficult when you know your business inside and out. I am already at 1,500 words for this post (unless my editor breaks out a Ginsu knife). Also, publish frequently. Try one post per week until you get the hang of writing and blogging. Then bump that up to twice per week. Getting your content out there and shared generously should be your goal. Make sure the content is better than what already is ranking for your keywords; provide unique value and a fresh perspective on the topic. Consider your exposure options for your content, and get your content out to as many options as possible. The most effective way to boost your website’s indexation is through linking. The paths that the spiders take through the Internet are formed by links. When one page links to another page, the spider follows that path. Within your own website, make sure that you’ve created links to and from all your most important pages.

The after-Penguin effect

If you want to get loads of quality traffic to your website you have to work a lot or invest a lot. The structure of your URLs can also help search engines to better understand your website content. If you can alter the URL so that, for example, it includes the name of your website, you should make use of this. Use keywords in the URL of your page. Using a website URL that’s full of symbols and numbers will hurt your ranking since most people aren’t searching for numbers or symbols. You will receive more traffic by giving your site relevant keywords. Google has reduced the importance of keyword phrases and now places more importance on a variety of elements, appropriately called “on-page factors.” An infinite number of nichesare waiting for someone to claim them. I’d ask yourself where you want to be, and see if you can find a path from a tiny specific niche to a slightly bigger niche and so on, all the way to your desired goal. Sometimes it’s easier to take a series of smaller steps instead of jumping to your final goal in one leap.