Tag: backlinks

A Beginner’s Guide On Local SEO

Powderk2791

What is Local SEO?

Let’s begin by understanding the nuances of local SEO and what it encompasses.

Local SEO refers to targeting local keywords to rank on Google and/or other major search engines. In general, a good example of this would be targeting a keyword such as “best painting company in New York” instead of “Best painting company.” The idea is to add the city into the keyword as a way to localize the word.

This is important because the average homeowner residing in New York isn’t going to want to hire a painting contractor sitting in Paris, France. They will want someone that is close to home and that is why they are more than likely going to search for “best painting company in New York” when they hop onto Google.

Tips for Ranking Locally On Google

1) Set Up a Google My Business Listing

The first thing a business has to do is set up their listing on Google My Business. You are going to verify the listing as directed and then start filling everything out based on the most recent information at your disposal. This includes things such as your hours of operation, address, phone number, and more.

Everything has to be up-to-date because this will push your local SEO to another level. You will start to see your local keywords climb and your Google My Business listing is also going to rise in front of the others.

If you’re looking for a great guide on setting up your GMB, check out HubSpots’ >> The Ultimate Guide to Google My Business.

2) Optimize for Local Keywords

Are you taking the time to optimize for local keywords? This is a must when it comes to local SEO and it has to be done right away.

These keywords can include:

  • Best Painting Services in New York
  • New York Painting Services

Simply take the niche you are in and then start building local keywords such as the ones mentioned above. The goal is to go after as many of these keywords that are relevant to your specific niche. It is one of the easiest ways to cut away all of the competition and put your name in front of the local customer base.

The key with this tip is to not overdo it though. A lot of people will go overboard and end up over-optimizing their site which will cause it to look spammy to Google.

If Google detects over-optimization, it can cause your website to lose its rankings.

The best way to optimize your content for these kinds of local keywords is to mix in different variations of the keywords into your content. If you’re targeting “Best Painting Services in New York” you don’t want to repeat this phrase continually through your content, it’s going to look weird to the humans visiting your site and Google may flag it.

Aim to have this phrase in your content once, “Best Painting Services in New York.” Then somewhere else in your content have something like “New York’s #1 rated painter.” Then mix in “Top New York painting.”

By incorporating different variations of the same kind of phrase into your content, you’re able to avoid over-optimization, while making your content very specific to your target keyword.

3) Add Location Pages on the Website

You will have to start adding location pages on your website as soon as possible.

These location pages can be divided based on cities, towns, and/or any other way such as neighborhoods to generate traffic. You want to target as many ways a person will search for your business on Google.

This means whether they go by state, city, town, neighborhood, or even major streets, you are the name that is going to pop up.

4) Build Authoritative Local Backlinks

To become a local powerhouse, you are going to need authoritative backlinks. This means you want backlinks from businesses in the region (can include unrelated niches) while also focusing on generating high-quality backlinks from other relevant niches. The goal is to build a strong online asset that is going to become easy to rank for local keywords.

This is a real difference-maker when it comes to pushing in front of other local competitors that are not as honed in on what needs to be done for local SEO results.

Final Thoughts

These tips are going to go a long way in setting the foundation for your business and how well it does. Remember, it is important to target local keywords as that is going to trim the competition and allow you to hone in on potential customers that are nearby. There is no reason to go after international leads that aren’t going to convert for your small business.

If you’re doing it yourself, stick to the tips mentioned here, focus on building a good online asset, and watch as your local SEO campaign flourishes.

The Importance Of Backlinks For SEO And Tips To Get Backlinks Naturally

Powderk2791

When it comes to search engine rankings, a variety of factors are used by search engines such as Google and Bing to rank webpages. However, not all the factors are given equal weight. Some factors such as backlinks have a much higher weight in the ranking algorithms.

Simply put, a backlink is nothing but a hyperlink from one web page to another. If you click on that link, your browser will take you to the destination web page. These links are regarded by search engines as a trust vote for the destination website. In the initial years, the number of backlinks played a much more important role but these days, the quality of backlinks is much more important as compared to just the number.

This is the reason, earlier site owners were able to rank their websites by building thousands of spam links but these days, such links do much more harm than good. Therefore, the best way to increase the rankings of your website in the search engine result pages is to get as many high-quality links from other authority domains as possible.

Here are a few tips on how you can get high-quality links naturally:

1. High-Quality Content

People like to link to content that is high quality and useful. Therefore, the best way to get links naturally is to publish high-quality content on your website. Make sure the content is relevant, useful and factual. It is also important to regularly publish different forms of content.

For instance, you should publish long-form content (articles that are a few thousand words long) along with articles in FAQ format and various other formats.

Listicles or articles with lists are really popular and attract a lot of natural links.

You should also publish video content on your website as many people these days prefer watching a video over reading a long article.

2. Make It Easy to Share

Your job isn’t done after publishing high-quality content. You also need to put it in front of people and the best way to do it is to use various social media platforms. If you are using a popular CMS such as WordPress, there are several plug-ins that allow you to add social media buttons on each post. If you are using some other CMS, you should be able to find equivalent plug-ins to add social media buttons.

3. Resource Pages

This is a really popular way to get high-quality links from websites of established institutions. These links carry a lot of weight as the institution websites have higher authority in the eyes of search engines. Such websites usually have a resource page to help their visitors discover other high-quality content online.

Use a search engine to locate such websites with the help of custom queries. You should then get in touch with the Webmaster of such websites and ask them to include your website on their resources page.

4. Help Others

This is another popular way to get authoritative links from high-quality domains. There are many huge websites on the Internet and many of these websites have a number of broken links. They might have linked to a certain web page a few years ago and now that web page no longer exists. This results in a broken link.

Broken links are not good for the Internet and for SEO of that website. You can use various online tools to find such broken links on authority domains and make them aware of such broken links. When you get in touch with them, ask them to consider linking to your own website as a high-quality resource in place of the broken link.

5. Help a Reporter Out

This is a service wherein real journalists can ask experts in different niches for help. You can sign up for this service through their website and whenever a query is posted by a journalist regarding a topic that relates to your website, you can provide them the relevant information along with a link to your website.

6. Never Buy Links

If you search online, you will find several shady websites and forums wherein they sell backlink packages. Keep in mind that Google is against buying links. If you buy links in order to increase the ranking of your website, rest assured that those links will get discovered sooner or later. Your website might get penalized and in some cases, Google has also completely de-indexed some domains. So, you should never buy links and instead, focus on the above-mentioned tips in order to earn high-quality natural links.

Conclusion

Overall, backlinks remain the backbone of search engine optimization. However, the quality of links plays a much more important role as compared to the sheer quantity. You should make use of the above-mentioned tips in order to naturally earn authoritative links to your website.

Top SEO Mistakes That People Make And How To Avoid Them.

Powderk2791

Search engine optimization (SEO) has become very popular over the recent years due to its ability to increase business visibility and increase traffic to a website.

Many businesses nowadays have incorporated it into their digital marketing strategy, and it is vital to ensure that one is doing it correctly. Sadly, many people are doing it the wrong way and not getting maximum returns on their investments.

Below is a guide on some of the common SEO mistakes that people make and how to avoid them.

The Page Titles Are Not Unique

It is vital to create unique titles for your website. The title is critical since it is the first thing that people will read, and they should be able to understand it clearly.

Some of the mistakes that people make are to have all the pages under the same title, having the name of the website in the page title and making the title longer than 65 characters.

Doing this will make you rank poorly on search engines which will not do good for the business.

To avoid these mistakes, you should do the following:

  • Ensure that the title has a maximum of 60 characters.
  • The title should be unique for all the web pages.
  • They should be natural and talk about the content of the page.
  • The keywords should be included if possible.
  • They should be attractive since they will appear in the SERPS (search engine results page).

The Content Is Of Low Quality

One of the other major mistakes that you can make is to have content that is of low quality. When it comes to a good SEO campaign, the site credibility is checked; you need to have a site that the users can trust. The content should be analytical, accurate, and insightful. As much as you focus on keywords, it is crucial to ensure that the material is up to par.

Also, you should avoid duplicating content since the search engines will not know which content they should index; therefore, the page will not appear in the search results.

Duplication occurs in two ways, the homepage, and the URL. There should not be duplicate versions of either of them. Doing this may make your site rank poorly.

Failure To Understand The Backlink Process

Getting external links to your site can work wonders for your website. However, one needs to ensure that you acquire your backlinks naturally; getting them in shady ways such as directly purchasing them should be avoided. Doing it in the right way will generate buzz, and more people will want to see your page as opposed to getting them the wrong way.

To ensure that your business is in a position to be linked by other trusted websites, you should ensure that your content is original and attractive to your readers.

Failure To Use The H1 Tag Correctly

The H1 tag is usually the header of the page and tells the search engine the subject of the specific page. It needs to be straightforward but also comprehensive.

You should not use more than one H1 tag on one page. If you find that you have more than one, you can ask your web developer to help you sort it out.

Broken Links

An SEO expert should check the website for any broken links and fix them as soon as possible. No user wants to click on a site, only to see an “Error page not found” message. It will frustrate them and make them look for another option.

Having many of these errors will show the search engines that your website is inefficient and does not offer a great browsing experience to the users. This will make your website rank poorly, which will not be great for business. You can have a 301 redirect from the page that does not exist to the correct one to fix a situation where the pointing link was deleted or moved.

As seen above, there are many SEO mistakes that you can make which can interfere with your site’s conversion rate.

It is crucial to ensure that your content is optimized, of high quality, and there are thematic links to the site. This will ensure that you gain the most from using SEO services.