You’ll also find links to useful resources from our SEO Blog and YouTube channel throughout, so you can forge your own path to SEO mastery. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random web surfer. Over time, backlinks can contribute to your site’s authority and exposure. What if the primary goal of SEO wasn’t just to get more traffic to your website? For many businesses, the allure of digital marketing is measured in clicks and visitor counts, but this volume-based approach often misses the point entirely.
It is usually expressed with the metric called keyword difficulty. So if you make money with your website in any way, a quality paid keyword tool is a great investment that will pay off sooner or later. The suggestions are based on real search queries used by people all over the world. To learn more, read our detailed post on the Google algorithm. Black hat SEO is a set of unethical (and usually spammy) practices to improve the rankings of a website.
The 3 pillars of SEO
Besides learning the different concepts and theories, the only way to find out what works is to apply the various SEO techniques on a website and monitor your rankings. The relevancy of the content to what the user is searching for is the number one SEO factor. By analyzing the behavior of millions of searchers, Google knows what type of content they expect to see for a particular query. Besides the changes you can make to your website (on-site SEO) to rank higher in the SERPs, the other way to influence your website’s ranking position is by using off-site SEO factors. SEO Can Put You Ahead of The Competition – If two websites are selling the same thing, the SEO optimized website is more likely to have more customers and make more sales.
And finally, you can conduct extensive research to uncover related terms your audience would use. For example, 86% of consumers say search engines are the best way to get information. And, SEO Anomaly across all generations, people overwhelmingly use search engines to get answers online.
Google Penguin (
Zhukova has experience consulting small business owners who either want to do SEO themselves or have already started doing it. For the next two sections, I spoke with Zoe Ashbridge, the senior SEO strategist and co-founder at forank. (Bonus, she also writes for HubSpot!) She has nearly a decade of experience in digital marketing and SEO. Levy explains that‘s why it’s so important to use a keyword research tool that allows you to specify the geographic area you’re targeting.
Then, in the next step I’ll show you how to choose the best keywords from your list of ideas. First, find a site that’s ranking for a keyword you want to rank for. This step is all about keyword-optimizing your content for SEO. A while back I noticed that most content about “SEO tools” only listed tools.
When you’re done adding your schema, don’t forget to test your page to make sure everything runs smoothly. Don’t forget to also make your content have value for visitors. Good things will happen to your business if you follow the SEO tips we discuss in this blog. Sometimes we hear from naysayers who question why SEO is needed, especially if they’ve run a successful business for years without investing in their website.
- For example, use text and background colors with optimal contrast and have a responsive design that adapts to the device, like desktop vs. tablet.
- The site has fairly stable SEO traffic, and is sitting around 20-30K monthly visitors just from SEO.
- Sometimes you want to create something bigger and better than what’s out there.
- You can get a proxy measurement of Pogo sticking from Google Analytics.
For context, some SEO specialists experiment with black hat SEO for their own test websites. Through testing, these SEOs can demonstrate proof of concept and learn how to safeguard their client’s websites based on their experimentations. They look for vendor suggestions and even specific business addresses.