Getting your website to safely rank in Google quickly can be a daunting task. With the right strategy and tactics, however, it is possible to get your website noticed and ranked in no time. This article will provide an overview of the steps you need to take to get your website safely ranking, so you can start getting the most out of your site.
By following these guidelines, you’ll be able to optimize your website for safe ranking on Google without compromising its quality or integrity. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to achieve better search engine rankings and make sure that your website stands out from the competition. Read on to learn how to get your website ranking on Google.
Optimizing Your Website
Optimizing your website for safe and quick rankings in Google is essential for success. The first step is to make sure your website has a clean, fast-loading design. This will help ensure that Google’s algorithms rank it higher in search results. Additionally, you should optimize your website’s content with relevant keywords and phrases, so that it will be more likely to appear near the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). You should also create link building strategies to increase the number of incoming links pointing to your website, which can also give a boost to its ranking. Finally, you should regularly update your content so that it stays fresh and relevant in the eyes of search engines. By following these steps, you can get your website noticed by Google and ensure it quickly rises up the SERP rankings.
Utilizing Relevant Keywords
When optimizing your website for search engine ranking, it is essential to utilize relevant keywords and phrases correctly. Doing so will help ensure that your website ranks in the right categories, making it easier for potential customers to find you when searching online. Utilizing relevant keywords also ensures that the content on your website is accurate and up-to-date, helping to improve its overall ranking over time.
Identifying relevant keywords can be done by researching what terms are used most often when searching for information related to your business or industry. This can be done through keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, and Ahrefs. Once you have identified the relevant keywords, they should be included in all aspects of your website design – from text content to meta tags and even image descriptions. Additionally, try to use a variety of different keywords rather than focusing solely on one term; this will help maximize the impact of each keyword in terms of SEO performance. With consistent use of relevant keywords throughout your website’s design, you will soon begin to see an improvement in your search engine rankings.
Creating Quality Content
Creating quality content is one of the most important steps to getting your website to rank safely and quickly in Google. Quality content should be informative, interesting, and relevant to the topic of your website. Content should also be well-structured with clear headings, subheadings, and paragraphs. Additionally, it should include keywords that are relevant to the topic of your website and be free of any spelling or grammar errors.
To further ensure that your website ranks quickly and safely on Google, make sure to link to other trusted websites as part of your content. This will show Google that you’re providing reliable information by referencing reputable sources. Additionally, use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc…, to promote your content and build relationships with industry influencers who can help drive visitors to your site. This will help increase traffic to your website as well as boost its ranking in search engine results pages.
Building Backlinks
Now that you’ve created quality content for your website, the next step is to build backlinks. A backlink is when another website links to yours, which can help improve your rankings on search engines like Google. Backlinks are an essential part of any SEO strategy and a great way to increase traffic to your site.
What do back links look like?
- Links on partner websites
- Local business citation
- Niche business citations
- Guest blog posts
- Press releases
- Third party articles
- Wiki pages
- Infographics
- Social media
- Share worthy content
- Connecting with influencers
To get started building backlinks, try reaching out to websites in your niche and asking them to link to yours. You can also create content with high-quality sources that other sites may want to link to. Finally, look at directories and review sites where you can list your website, as these can be powerful sources of backlinks. With a little effort and time, you’ll soon see results from your efforts in the form of improved rankings on Google.
Tracking And Analyzing Performance
Tracking and analyzing the performance of your website is essential to ensure that it ranks in Google quickly and safely. To do this, you need to track key performance indicators, such as the number of visitors and page views, as well as the amount of time spent on each page. This will help you identify any areas where optimization or changes are needed in order to improve your website’s ranking. Additionally, you should use analytics tools like Google Analytics or other third-party services to measure specific metrics related to SEO, including organic search traffic, backlinks, and keyword rankings. By tracking these metrics regularly, you can make informed decisions about how best to optimize your website for search engine success. Taking the time to analyze your website’s performance can help ensure that it ranks successfully in Google in a timely manner.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Often Should I Update My Website?
Updating your website regularly is key to keeping it current and relevant, so how often should you do it? This depends on the type of content that you are adding, but try to update at least once a month. If you have a blog or news page, then consider posting more frequently, such as every week. Additionally, if you have a product page, make sure to update it when there are any changes or promotions. Finally, be sure to keep an eye out for any new trends in your industry and adjust your website accordingly.
How Do I Know Which Keywords To Use?
Choosing the right keywords for your website is an essential part of getting it to rank in Google quickly and safely. It can be overwhelming to decide between all the different keywords available, but there are a few steps you can take to make sure you’re picking the right ones. First, you should research what words and phrases people are already typing into search engines when looking for topics related to your website. You can also look at competitor websites to see which keywords they’re using, and then use keyword tools to find additional terms that are relevant to your content. Finally, make sure that any keywords you choose have enough search volume so that it’s worth optimizing your site for them.
How Much Content Should I Create?
Content is one of the most important elements of SEO, so it’s important to create enough content to make sure your website can rank well in search engine results. A good rule of thumb is to aim for at least 1000 words per page, though more is always better. You should also regularly update and refresh your content, as this will help ensure that you’re staying ahead of the competition. Additionally, make sure you use keywords and phrases that are relevant to your topic; this will help Google understand what your website is about and be able to accurately rank it.
What Is The Best Way To Build Backlinks?
The best way to build backlinks is to focus on creating high-quality content that earns natural links. This means writing blog posts and articles that have value for readers, as opposed to simply linking back to your own website. Additionally, you should look for guest blogging opportunities, reach out to industry influencers, and utilize social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn. By focusing on these strategies, you can create a strong foundation of backlinks that will help your website rank quickly and safely in Google.
How Do I Measure The Success Of My Website?
Measuring the success of your website is an important part of any online business. You should be tracking metrics such as website visits, time on page, and bounce rate to determine how well your website is performing. Additionally, you can use tools like Google Analytics to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as total number of visitors, average session duration and leads generated. Analyzing these KPIs will help you understand how successful your website is and where you need to make improvements.
Conclusion
To ensure that your website ranks quickly and safely in Google, it’s important to keep up with the latest SEO trends. Updating your website regularly with fresh content, targeting the right keywords, and building backlinks are all key strategies to help get your website ranking. Additionally, measuring the success of your website is a vital step for making sure you’re achieving the desired results. By following these tips, you can be confident that your website will rank quickly and safely in Google.
Link building is the most important way to increase your search engine rankings. It’s also one of the most challenging things for small business owners to manage, which is why hiring a professional link-building service is often recommended.
A good link-building service will know how to find relevant sites willing to put links on their pages, and they’ll be able to guide you through all aspects of the process. Here are some reasons why hiring a company providing link building services can be helpful:
Increase your search engine rankings
It is one of the most important ways to increase the rankings. Links are a sign of trust, so they help you rank higher in search engines. They’re also a sign of popularity, which means more traffic for you and your site.
Best for your business
There are many link-building strategies, so it helps to have some help deciding which options are best for your business.
You may have heard of such strategies, but what are they, and why do you need them? Here’s a rundown of the most popular types:
- Guest Posts
- Media Mentions
- Infographics
- Social Media Posts and Ads (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
- Blogging (including guest posting)
- Video Creation/Distribution via YouTube or Vimeo.
A company providing link building services will provide you with all the strategies and things you need to build effective links.
They help guide you through the process
Link building requires constant maintenance, and to keep your site relevant and valuable (and thus worth linking to), it has to be an ongoing process that you work on consistently.
The fact that link building takes time isn’t something most people want to hear—most businesses want results fast. But if you’re looking for real success with your website, then it’s important to understand how long this process will take and why it will take so long. Link building has many aspects and requires expertise from various sources: writing content, editing images or video footage, analyzing keyword optimization opportunities, and more.
This means that before any campaigns begin, they must first be planned out carefully—there is no shortcutting this step by trying something like guest posting without thinking about what kind of impact this could have on the overall strategy.
Help you build trust with your customers
Trust is important to your customers because they want to know they’re doing business with someone they trust. When you use a link-building service, it shows that you are concerned about the reputation of your company and products within the market, which will make them more likely to do business with you. If customers trust that buying from you will be easy and enjoyable, they are more likely to recommend it to their friends or family.
Google also wants people who use its product(s) to trust it as well for obvious reasons: It makes money by showing ads on its search result pages; if no one trusts Google’s results, then there would be no reason for advertisers to pay Google any money.
Having links pointing back at your site from reputable sites increases visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Conclusion
Link building is an important part of any SEO campaign. Knowing where to start and how to do it right can be challenging, but a link-building service can take care of everything for you. Link building services help guide you through the process and provide oversight of all aspects of building links—including finding reputable companies, managing budgets, and more.
For many businesses, this is well worth the investment because they can avoid making mistakes while saving time and energy on other projects requiring their attention.
Writing blog posts that rank on Google and meet SEO requirements can be challenging, but there are tips to help you succeed. It doesn’t matter if you’re an expert or brand new to blogging. These ten tips will show you how to get started with your blog post writing and get it indexed by Google so that potential clients and readers find it. Keep on reading!
1. Choose targeted keywords or phrases
When determining your focus keyword or phrase, make sure it is relevant to your topic and brings in organic search traffic. Choosing the right keywords for SEO can make all the difference in your online marketing efforts. It’s a process that can take time and research, but there are some basic steps you can follow to help you get started.
How to add keywords?
Use keywords in titles and URLs (but not too many) and the first paragraph of your blog post so that search engines can quickly identify it as relevant content for users searching for those terms. Then, long-tail keywords tend to be less competitive and more specific, giving you a better chance of ranking higher in search results.
Note: Longtails are a type of keyword phrase that is longer and more specific than the average keyword. These phrases typically have 3-5 words.
What are the helpful tools?
Fortunately, there are many tools out there that can help you identify the right keywords and phrases for your content. Use tools such as Google Keyword Planner or KWFinder to discover which terms people are searching for most when looking for information on a particular subject.
Learn metrics
Check their estimates of their search volume and competition level with the tool you have so that you can make more informed decisions about which keywords to target.
To further refine your keyword selection, use tools such as Ubersuggest or Answer The Public to get ideas for long-tail keywords related to the topics you’re writing about.
It will help you determine what phrases people use when they search for products and services similar to yours.
2. Use headers and subheaders
Write a title that will appeal to your target audience. The title should be short and catchy, but most importantly, it should accurately describe the information in your post.
Various headers (H1-H6) break up the text into easy-to-read chunks; this makes it easier for readers to skim through and encourages them to stay on the page longer.
Note: Make sure that each header accurately describes the section of content that follows it; this will make it easier for people to quickly locate the information they’re looking for. Avoid using too many words or overly-long phrases. Finally, try to make the header keyword-rich.
Remember bullet points
Use bullet points to simplify for people to read and scan for the information they need quickly and easily without reading every word of your post word for word
3. Optimize your content
It refers to the writer. When creating content, keep in mind how you want your readers to interact with the content. It is where optimizing your content comes in.
Be straightforward
Keep your language concise and clear to communicate the intended message quickly.
In terms of what to include in a blog post, consider how you want your audience to respond to the content. Do you want them to take action? Are there any questions or comments you would like them to consider? Depending on what type of article you are writing, you may also need to include facts and figures to back up your claims.
Remember keywords
Keyword optimization is the most crucial step when writing a blog post or article. It will help to boost its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Note: you should write for people in the first place, not for robots.
4. Keep paragraphs short and sweet
Short and sweet paragraphs are a great way to keep your readers engaged while keeping things organized. It’s vital to divide long blocks of text into smaller chunks, making them easier to digest and more enjoyable for readers.
Short paragraphs also help your content ranks better on Google, as the search engine prefers succinct information with clear headers and easy-to-read text.
Writing correctly is crucial for search engine ranking and can help increase the overall quality of your content and make it more enjoyable for readers. Aim to keep paragraphs under three or four sentences, making them easier to read and allowing you to get your point across quickly and effectively.
5. Include relevant images and videos
Adding images to your website is an effective way to rank better on search engines, increase time spent on the website, and add metadata to enhance the reader’s experience.
Time on site is one of the SEO metrics that can be used to measure the success of a website. This metric helps website owners to understand how engaged their visitors are with the content on their website and how well they are responding to it.
Boost user experience
Include images or videos in your blog post because they help improve user experience and keep readers engaged longer with your content (which helps increase time on site).
Note: Choose relevant images to the content, have a high-enough resolution to look professional, and are appropriately sized to fit into your website.
6. Link out to other relevant content
Internal and external linking within your article gives readers more resources to explore and helps build relationships with other websites and blogs in your industry. If you need a helping hand with translations of original copies, the best online translation is here for your services. Thus, you will deliver double-checked information.
On backlinks
When it comes to SEO, one of the most important things to understand is that backlinks and website authority play a significant role in helping to rank better on search engines. You’re building trust with search engines, other web users, and potential customers by linking websites to yours. It earns trust by creating content that is high quality, relevant to the topic or keyword being searched for, and engaging to website visitors.
7. Include social sharing buttons
Having shareable buttons on your blog post allows readers to easily share it on their social media accounts, which can help you reach a larger audience and get more eyes on your content. So that readers can easily share it with others through their network or social media accounts
8. Use keywords throughout the post naturally
Google’s algorithms are getting smarter every day, so if you “stuff” keywords into posts at strange places or too often, you will be penalized in SERPs rankings rather than rewarded for it. For example, if you are writing a blog post about keywords and the importance of using them correctly, then include the word “keywords” multiple times throughout the essay to optimize it for search engine rankings.
Additionally, try to use related terms such as “SEO” and “search engine optimization” to increase the relevance of your post. Finally, include example sentences or phrases that illustrate how keywords should be used to make the post more accessible to readers.
9. Write long-form content
Longer blog posts rank better in SERPs than shorter ones, so try to write a minimum of 500 words per post (1000+ if possible). Content that is in-depth and covers all aspects of the topic you are writing about will be favored by search engines. There are many cheap custom writers to whom you can delegate the writing task and devote your time to strategic thinking.
Bring use to readers
Writing longer articles allows you to reveal a case and provide in-depth information on it thoroughly. As a result, it gives search engines more content to index, leading to higher rankings. Longer pieces are also more likely to be shared by readers, meaning more backlinks and more attention to your content. Write content that is useful and relevant. If people don’t find what they’re looking for on your blog, they won’t come back — and they won’t link to or share what they’ve read there with others, either.
10. Promote your content
Once your post is published, promote it on your industry’s social media channels, blogs, and websites. It can help build relationships with other influencers or potential customers and get more readers for your blog post.
Conclusion
A blog is a powerful tool for marketing your business. Share your expertise and insights with the world, and it’s also a place where people can find you when they’re looking for answers to their questions. By following these tips on writing blog posts that rank on Google, you can ensure that your content meets SEO requirements while also providing value to potential readers. Good luck!
Regina Koinava is an expert writer who specializes in creating various training and professional upgrade courses, materials, manuals, and reviews. She also provides consultations and creates expert writing materials. She likes traveling and speaks German and French.
Google is enthralled with search engine results. They hire world-class engineers, tweak complex algorithms, and enroll remote search engine evaluators to improve them. Google has the most robust search engine on the planet, and it’s getting better every day.
How does Google deliver such splendid results? You know Google considers more than the content on the page as a relevancy signal. New websites don’t top organic search for ultra-competitive keywords, even if they have amazing content. On the other hand, Google doesn’t only rank websites (domains) either. It’s not possible to deliver reasonable search results without evaluating at the page-level.
Pages and domains make up the bulk of relevancy signals. Compared to these two behemoths, subdomains are niche. So, we’ll touch on the limited impact of subdomains toward the end.
Google uses over 200 factors to determine search engine results. Each one of these factors is called a relevancy signal. Some of these factors have a large impact, and some have a minuscule impact. For some search results, Google may not actively apply all 200 factors. The exact algorithm is their secret sauce, and only high-level employees have access to it.
Most of these factors relate to pages, but many signals occur on a domain or website level too. Let’s take a look at a few examples from the Backlinko list. These aren’t necessarily the weightiest factors. We’re simply looking to see if certain signals on the list relate to pages or domains.
Relevancy Signals for Pages
- Content Length- The idea is simple. A longer page is going to have more (and ideally better) information than a shorter page.
- Early Keyword Prominence- It’s a strong page-level relevancy signal if your keyword appears in the first 100 words of your article.
- Keyword in H2 or H3 Tags- If your keyword appears in an H2 or H3 heading tag, that’s a page-level relevancy signal. Backlinko agrees it’s probably a weak one though.
- Keyword Word Order- A page optimized for certain phrases will rank differently than a page optimized for other keywords. This is true even if the searches are extremely similar. For instance, consider a search for “animals that live in cold weather.”
Those two searches are virtually identical. Yet, the highlighted article shows up as the number one article in the first search and the number two article for the second search. In other words, “Animals that live in cold weather” brings up a different number one website than “animals that live in cold.” As you might expect, keyword order has a large effect on search engine results.
URL Length- Search Engine Journal notes that a drawn-out URL can hurt the visibility of a single web page.
Bounce Rate- Pages that everybody bounces from quickly aren’t useful. Google takes this into consideration when ranking pages.
Google Caffeine- Google prefers pages that are recently updated. The idea is info from 2016 is more relevant than info from 2006.
Number of Comments- Pages that have lots of comments are looked upon as more relevant.
Site Speed- If one page is overloaded with dense images, Google will downgrade that page. This also ties into bounce rate. If a page takes too long to load, people are going to leave.
Relevancy Signals for Domains + Websites
Some SEO’s like to say Google ranks pages, not websites. Ultimately this is an moot point. If you have a well-respected site, it’s easier for your page to rank.
Let’s say you have a marketing blog. You and Kissmetrics both write an awesome marketing piece, trying to rank for the same keywords. They are probably going to rank higher than you, even if your article quality is the same. Actually, sites with a high PageRank may outrank you even if your article is better.
This is not to say websites with a high PageRank are unbeatable. The point is a esteemed or valuable domain will give you an advantage. Here are some examples.
- A Keyword Is in the Top-Level Domain- If your domain name is jewelrytime.com, it’s easier to rank about jewelry. Google has scaled back the importance of this, yet it’s still a factor.
- Domain Registration Length- Registering your domain for multiple years is a modest plus in Google’s eyes. This quote from a Google patent says it all,
“Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain”.
Domain History- A site with a volatile domain history is scrutinized. For instance, five different domain owners in the past six months will raise eyebrows at Google. Additionally, Google records name of spammers. If they register a domain, their sites will be perused.
Country Level Domain- If your website uses a country level code (such as Au for Australia) it makes easier to rank in that country. On the flip side, it makes harder to rank on a global scale.
Site Speed- Yes, site speed works at the website level as well. If you have slow hosting sitewide, your entire website will be penalized.
Sitemap- A sitemap helps Google index all your pages. Therefore, it works at the domain or website level. Brandon from SEO Beast says sitemaps do two things:
- a) “Shows Google your list of web pages and their organization.”
- b) “Shows Google specific information (metadata) about each page.”
Site Reputation- Backlinko says Google uses website and customer reviews as a way to rank your website. If you’re associated with scam, fraud, or poor customer service, that factors in your ranking signal.
Relevancy Signals and Subdomains
Subdomains are relevant to any discussion about SEO. Hostgator gives an excellent definition of subdomains, if you’re unfamiliar with them.
“A subdomain is a second website, with its own unique content, but there is no new domain name. Instead, you use an existing domain name and change the www to another name. The subdomain name looks like forums.domain.com, help.domain.com, help2.domain.com (assuming you already host domain.com).”
In previous years, subdomains of the same main domain were treated as completely different properties. In other words, you could use white-hat SEO techniques on your main domain and black-hat techniques on your subdomain. Now that strategy is ineffective. Brandon from SEO Beast weighs in with an exclusive quote,”
“Nowadays, Google is capable of understanding that multiple subdomains from the same main domain are not actually completely different properties. This can be advantageous to ethical SEO, as subdomain value derived from the main domain is more likely preserved. But, this can be disadvantageous to unethical SEO as webmasters have less chance of promoting a subdomain or two without potentially negatively affecting their main domain.”
Black hat SEO’s keep their dubious tactics far away from their primary domain. It’s too risky. However, domains and subdomains used to be separate. Even if the subdomain was penalized, the main domain would not be. Subdomains are free, so that was a cheaper solution than buying multiple domains. Nowadays that strategy doesn’t work. If the subdomain is compromised, the main domain is as well.
Subdomains are still useful in certain cases. Yet subfolders are typically the best choice. Brandon adds,
“Google is indifferent to either [subfolders and subdomains] and the optimal decision involves context. The pros and cons to both subdomains and subfolders are highly dependent upon the website structure and intent, but I would advocate subfolders unless subdomains truly make sense.”
Conclusion
You’ll hear people say, “Google ranks pages, not websites”. Looking at it that way isn’t helpful. Google uses over 200 factors in their complicated algorithm. Most of the factors relate to pages. Some of them relate to domains. A few relate to subdomains. It’s vital to remember this is a moving target. If black hat SEO’s exploit a relevancy signal, Google will alter its importance. Their algorithm is constantly being tweaked and redefined.
What will remain constant for the indefinite future is that Google will use a mixture of page signals, domain signals, and subdomain signals to rank websites. If you need help ranking higher in organic search, contact us here at Brandignity.
Have you ever used subdomains for SEO purposes? Leave a comment below about your experience.
When it comes to SEO, there are two types of factors: on-page and off-page. The former is plain to see, but the latter is hidden beneath the surface. Both are equally important, and both offer invisible elements that you may not be aware of. How can you alter something you can’t see?
The answer lies in understanding how these invisible factors affect your rankings and what you can do to influence them. Today I’ll show 10 hidden factors that can hurt your rankings, and how to avoid them.
10 Off-Page SEO Factors That Can Hurt Your Ranking (And How to Avoid Them)
Content professionals and marketers are all aware of SEO factors like links, keywords, and content marketing. On-page factors like this are hard to forget because they’re staring you in the face. It’s the ones you don’t see that can do the most damage when starting your blog.
Just like there are positive factors, there are also negative ones that can cause you to lose rankings or worse, earn yourself a penalty from Google. In the end, we all want an SEO friendly website, so here are 10 things to avoid:
1. Unnatural/Spammy Backlinks
While building backlinks isn’t easy, paying for them is absolutely out of the question. Buying links has been a major no-no in Google’s eyes since the dawn of the Penguin Update. Your backlinks should be pointing from relevant and credible sources.
How to Avoid This:
When you’re building backlinks, target websites that are within your niche. Earn them through outreach or guest blogging and vary the anchor text you use and the pages you link to for a natural backlink profile.
2. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is something that I myself feared like the plague when I first started working on blogs. I was terrified that something would sound like something else and bring down all the work I had done. In truth, Google’s duplicate content guidelines don’t read like a terrifying declaration like some would have you believe.
In truth, Duplicate content is something you should be aware of, but not something to be feared. You should be mindful of the ways that it can happen off the page:
- Placeholder pages with no real content
- The same post appearing on multiple pages of a site
- Separate pages with similar content
- No preferred domain
- Inconsistent internal linking
Here’s a great site to help you find duplicate content.
How do I Avoid This?
Don’t make the mistakes above and keep track of where your content is and how its displayed. Repetition is your enemy, so don’t let it get out of hand as you spread, syndicate, and share yoru content.
3. Poorly Organized Pages
Your website’s organization is a huge factor. While it may look nice and pretty for people, you should also consider the spiders that will be crawling your content looking for how it all fits together.
The amount of internal links, where they point, and how they flow all adds to optimized internal links, or a lack thereof.
How Can I Fix This?
Start by linking relevant pages together, This will help categorize and enrich the experience for users who are looking for more information on a specific subject. A more advanced option is to create static silo pages that direct users from your homepage to a silo, and then to a category and ultimately a post.
This flow sends link juice through all levels of your domain, thus benefiting the website as a whole.
4. Neglecting Broken Links
Broken link building has been a great way to earn backlinks since the dawn of SEO, but what about the broken links on your blog? Are they going to earn you penalties from Google? Here’s the breakdown:
404s are a perfectly normal part of the web; the Internet is always changing, new content is born, old content dies, and when it dies it (ideally) returns a 404 HTTP response code. Search engines are aware of this; we have 404 errors on our own sites, as you can see above, and we find them all over the web. In fact, we actually prefer that, when you get rid of a page on your site, you make sure that it returns a proper 404 or 410 response code (rather than a “soft 404”).
In the end, a 404 page will keep you from getting direct penalties, but what about the users? How would you feel if you thought you had the perfect answer to your question, only to be hit with a 404 page? Not good I imagine. You’d probably never go back to that site.
According to Sacramento Design Network, poor experiences and customer service like this can cost you up to 85% of your business!
What Should I Do?
While Google isn’t hitting your rankings for this, you’re missing out on opportunities for additional ranking by not fixing these broken links with better, more relevant content, or some kind of redirect. Take the time to fix these for yourself and for others to boost your off-page SEO.
5. Image Titles and Alt-Tags
The images you uploaded to your content are an absolute SEO factor, but did you know that they have their own off-page elements? If you upload an image with a bunch of numbers for the file name and a blank alt-tag, that picture isn’t doing your SEO any favors.
How to Fix This?
To help Google better understand your images, provide descriptive titles and alt-tags when you place them in your content.
6. A Lack of Unique Meta Descriptions
When you publish a post and it’s indexed by Google, the meta description by default is a chunk of the opening text. This doesn’t do a very good job of summarizing what’s on the page for the user or for Google.
What Should I Do?
In terms of the user experience and click-through rates, having a custom meta description will allow you to better showcase the content present on the page.
Including your keywords in the description will also showcase a good summary of what the content is supposed to be about.
7. Too Many Keywords
Keyword stuffing is a term that refers to an overabundance of keywords on a page. Whether it’s a repeating phrase or simply too many keywords crammed into a piece of content to the point where it’s no longer readable by users.
The exact threshold of what Google decides is too much is a subject of continued debate.
How Do I Fix This?
Boil down your keywords to the ones that you need and the ones that are most relevant to the topic at hand. Stick to these and use them sparingly to avoid any issues.
8. A Slow Website
The speed at which your website loads isn’t just something that affects your conversion rate. As it turns out, website speed is also a ranking factor. A slow website can spell doom for your rankings, and you may not even know it’s happening.
What to do?
Check your website’s speed with a tool like pingdom and if you find it lacking, start looking for ways to optimize your website’s speed through various tactics like optimizing images and utilizing content delivery networks.
9. No Sitemap Data
An XML sitemap is how Google explores your site and understands its structure. Without this in place, you could be losing out on valuable rankings.
Luckily There’s a Quick Fix:
You can use an XML sitemap generator to create the file. Once you’ve done this, head over to your Google Webmaster account to submit the sitemap directly to Google.
10. Spam Comments
Most comment systems will take care of spam for you, but it’s easy to let these kinds of things build up. These start to work against you fairly quickly.
The Solution?
Make sure your moderating your comments for spam. If you don’t have the time or the right program to maintain this, it’s best that you disable them altogether.
Final Thoughts
SEO is composed of both visible and invisible elements. Knowing what they are and how to avoid mistakes will skyrocket your SERP rankings. What invisible factors were you forgetting about? How do you ensure you’re not letting these things hurt your rankings? Let us know in the comments!
Author:
Carrie Davidson is a seasoned blogger who has helped launch numerous blogs in her online career. She is an expert in crafting excellent posts with great content and powerful headlines. You can find her online @carriedavidons1
Most site business owners, webmasters and bloggers know how challenging it can be to ensure that they are only using white hat SEO methods, while also strictly adhering to the current Google guidelines and recommendations. However, there is an extremely handy resource available as a PDF document from Google (thanks Google!), which clearly lays out what is required from website owners, bloggers and webmasters to ensure that their sites are fully compliant – and remain so.
Here is the outline:
As you can see the table of contents is pretty awesome!
Getting Started
When going through this handy SEO guide, readers will see that it has been divided into sections according to the different aspects that need to be addressed. The first section provides a general overview of the current Google guidelines, and it addresses topics such as basic internet safety information, the purpose of search quality rating, how website owners have to represent the users in the locale that they are representing, basic browser requirements and ad blocking extensions. Users will see that information that pertains to virtually every aspect of the quality of their site content as well as their SEO practices is covered in a lot of detail.
Here’s a break down:
- General Guidelines Overview
- Page Quality Rating Guideline
- Understanding Mobile User Guidelines
- Needs Met Rating Guideline
- Using the Evaluation Platform
Page Quality Ranking Guidelines
This part covers numerous topics pertaining to the quality of page content and whether the content in question serves its intended purpose. An entire section is devoted to the overall purpose and quality of a webpage in that each page on a website must have a purpose. Are the pages helpful to site visitors, or have they been set up purely with the intention of making money? Has a specific page been set up purely to harvest visitor information in order for it to be used for malicious intent (hacking)? (Hint: if any page has been set up with the intention of harming end users or solely to make money and not provide useful information, it will immediately be classified as low quality).
Meeting the Needs of Mobile Users
There has been much discussion over the past year or two about ensuring that websites are mobile-friendly, as more and more smartphone users are accessing the internet by means of these devices. One of the best ways to ensure this is to use a website template that has been tested and deemed to be fully responsive, as this will enable it to be fully functional on screens of all sizes. This aspect of web design has become such an important aspect of SEO that 20 pages of this guide have been dedicated to it. As a result, it is recommended that webmasters and site owners test the sites from as many mobile devices as possible before allowing them to ‘go live’ and be viewed online.
Needs Met Rating Guideline
When it comes to ensuring that a site is responsive, the ranking scale goes from Fully Meets (FullyM) down to Fails to Meet (FailsM). Very few sites receive the FullyM rating, because it would have to cater for absolutely every mobile user and platform (which is almost impossible). Sites that are rated Highly Meets means that the site is of great help to most mobile users. Receiving the Moderately Meets ranking means that a site is helpful to some mobile users, but others still require additional information. The Slightly Meets ranking means a site is helpful to fewer users, and most need more information, while a FailsM ranking means that it does not meet the needs of any mobile users.
Other Important Rating Factors
Many other rating factors are taken into consideration when sites are being evaluated for adherence to the Google guidelines. These include, but are not limited to foreign language barriers, didn’t load, hard to use and illegal images categories. Sites that are not displayed in English or that have poor translations available, pages that don’t load or that are too difficult for users to navigate properly and sites containing illegal images will receive low rankings. Illegal images are usually those that are classified as hosting copyrighted images, other photos that belong to someone else, while sites that are defined as being difficult to use are usually those that have been poorly laid out.
Webmasters who may have been tearing their hair out trying to ensure that their sites are fully complaint with the current white hat SEO practices as well as the required Google guidelines and requirements will be able to benefit tremendously when they read through and apply all of the information contained in this handy step by step guide.