seo

Local SEO

SEO Terms Used in this article

Local SEO

Local search engine optimization has always had an important impact on any business. It holds even more importance for small local businesses and brick and mortar stores as more than 90% of the consumers use local search to find out more about a business. Without Local SEO your business will virtually be irrelevant. Since these customers use local search to find any service they require, it has become a necessity for any business to optimize for it. So, how do you optimize for local SEO? Here are some SEO tips and tricks that can help you enhance your business and optimize it to gain more local traffic.

What is Local SEO?

When you are running a business. Whether that is a brick and mortar store or an online store, you target people in a specific geographical area. Thus, it is crucial that you make sure your local business gains their attention. To gain recognition, you use local SEO. It promotes your page and the products to the local consumer base. There are many ways that search engines check and analyze the local SEO. Some main areas to focus on are the content of the page, the social media, links and citations.

All about the Local pack

The map pack is the first 3 suggestions and maps you see for local businesses in your area. For e.g when you search for a flower shop the map pack will show the top 3 flower shops in your area, along with their address, phone number and timings.

The map pack is an extremely important factor when you want to rank for local SEO because it appears on top, above the organic results. The local pack has its own rules and algorithms which need to be followed to score a chance. There are some similarities between the algorithms though. Some ranking factors like a strong backlink profile still hold importance when ranking in the map pack but the main factors to focus on are the NAP (name address and phone number).

One crucial thing to note is that the map pack only displays the top 3 businesses in the local packs. That means there is even more competition and a slimmer chance of getting there than in the regular organic search.

When trying to rank for the local packs, many advise that your primary keyword should contain the city or state as well as the store. For e.g, if you are a flower shop in Toronto, you will need to include both in your keyword phrase. Although that is the best route to go for, it isn’t always accurate. Some map packs are not location specific and appear regardless. In certain cases, Google assumes that you need more local results for your queries and guides you with local businesses. Thus, Rank by focus guides you with specific keywords as well as other ranking factors to make sure your business thrives.

How to analyze local Pack rankings

Before you begin working on and improving your local map pack ranking you need to figure out where you stand. You do that by figuring out your current ranking and building on from there. There are many tools available like MOZ local.

They can help you find your ranking from Semrush to MOZ local and many more so you can choose your preference. Rank by focus uses these tools to find your current ranking and then proposes a plan based on the results. They develop a strategy that can efficiently improve the ranking on Map Packs in the quickest time. There is no point shooting In the dark hoping something works out. Finding out where you currently rank gives you an idea of how far you will need to Go and accomplish which is extremely important especially for a small business.

One thing to keep in mind is that the ranking can vary drastically from location to location. Some areas may have higher competition and thus despite all efforts, your ranking could be far behind. On the other hand, some areas might have virtually no competition at all and you might be able to land on the Map packs with little to no effort. The change is so vast and that the Map Pack rankings can be completely different even as little as a mile away. If you only measure your rankings in a vast city, you will be getting a small chunk of what the actual rankings look like. In some cases, the rankings might change order depending on where you are and sometimes you may get a completely different set of businesses, even a block away.

Therefore you cannot simply research your local Pack rankings in one particular area like Toronto. You have to measure them separately in the local area and even different streets. Doing so will give you the most accurate representation of where your ranking stands. For a small business, you will be required to search your business in different areas to find favourable results. that way you can find where your business has a stronger chance of getting in the Map packs There are more specific tools like MOZ local that are made especially for this purpose but it can be a tedious task because you have to get into the nitty-gritty. That is why Rank by focus makes the job easier for you by streamlining the process and taking you directly to the results.

How to use the Map rank tracking tool

Using the map rank tool is a daily simple process. First, you need to go on the tool and select your business. Most of the businesses are linked to Google maps so you already need to have a Google my business account set up. After that you select the keyword you are looking to check the ranking for. It’s best to put your primary keyword here and check the ranking for that first. As you start improving you can check and improve the ranking for other keywords as well. After the keyword has been selected, you can then select your range. You can make this as large or small as possible to get a wide variety of rankings for your page. This can help you decide where you want to focus your improvement on and which ones have too high of competition.

After the tool does it work, it should give you an interactive map of your ranking in the area you selected. If you chose a wider area you will notice a pattern of your ranking being high on the outskirts but getting worse as you come to the center. That simply means that there is more competition in the bait areas than away from the city. By clicking on the ranking you will be able to see which businesses are outranking out in a particular area. You can then click on their business and find out where they are located and other details about them that can help you improve your own ranking.

Don’t undermine the organic results.

As a local business everyone wants to get the coveted spot on the Map pack. In the process, they often overlook the extremely important organic local search results. Many times the business in the Map packs has really strong commercial value so it can be tough to break into them. Therefore the organic results are a great option as well. Getting in the top 10 results for organic results is much easier to break into for small businesses and there is less competition than the 3 coveted spots in the local pack. The best part about the local search results for search engine optimization is that the results are the same for all Google search engine result pages so it is much easier to optimize for it.

How to conduct local keyword research

Keyword research for local SEO is a relatively easy process. you will have to conduct extensive research to find the correct ones and make sure they uplift your brand. However, you will not have to constantly come up with new keywords to rank for. All you have to do is select a few of the best keywords for your business that you want to rank for and then you are set. You might still have to change a couple of keywords every now and then but usually, they remain fairly consistent. So rank by focus can help you select a shortlist for keywords that you can focus on improving your local ranking. they make the keyword research process less stressful with a complete guide and help implement those keywords as well.

Google autocomplete

The most simple tool that you can use to gain potential customers is the Google suggest option. This is where Google search autocompletes your query. Google suggest is great for the SEO strategy of any business especially when it comes to local. it is pretty simple to use google suggest, you type in your business and see the related searches or the suggestions Google has made, you can get some ideas for keywords that you can potentially use.

One thing you have to remember with Google suggest is that you can’t simply type in your business or industry that will bring a varying group of keywords that aren’t necessarily local. To make the suggestions local you will have to make it a little more specific to get the local keywords. For e.g if you are a business selling coats, simply typing in “coats’ ‘ and looking at the autocomplete suggestions will likely not get your local keywords. However, if you type in a letter after it like ” coats in ” you will most likely get more local searches for the keywords.

Yelp suggest

Yelp suggests works like Google autocomplete where it suggests businesses based on different keywords. So you can find where your business ranks.

The main feature that differs it from Google is that it sometimes gives suggestions that aren’t suited exactly with the keyword searched. Thus it gives similar results as well as exact keywords. For e.g, the keyword you searched was “Chinese” as you are a restaurant selling that cuisine. Sometimes yelp will also include other similar keywords like Japanese and Asian in the suggested businesses as well. This is one very cool addition that gives you a greater opportunity for people to find your business or service area.

Start with google my business

This is already a well-known point in SEO, but optimizing for Google my business is one sure-fire way to attract a local audience to your page and find your business online. Google will likely promote content that is verified, so a Google my business listing essentially helps you meet the standard to get promoted. Google my business allows your page to end up on the google maps and potentially in the pack results to get better recognition.

To get google my business listing, you will first need a Google my business page, this will allow Google to verify your page and the details within. Secondly, you will have to build a reputation for your brand, you can do this by using google posts, and encourage your customers to leave honest reviews. You should also then reply to the reviews to further increase your reach.

Local Voice Searches

Another great addition to your local SEO strategy is to use Google local voice search. As technology is improving more and more SEO tools have come forth. Since more than 20% of the searches are now conducted by voice, it is important to incorporate it into your strategy so you can rank in the top 10 on search engines.

one main aspect to note in Google voice search is to note the language used. when typing, people tend to form more structured, short and precise sentences. That is why it is much better to use precise keywords and get to the point quickly. On the other hand, with voice searches, people tend to use a more conversational tone. This generally makes the sentence longer and the long-tail keywords fit best in the search results on search engines.

To improve your local search rankings in the voice search you have to cater to the local customers. they will likely be searching for products or services near them that are open at the exact moment and won’t spend a long time searching for their query. Thus, having exact information put as simply as possible will help grow your business.

Google Keyword Planner

While developing an SEO strategy you have probably come across Google keyword planner. A good tip to maximize local results is to use google keyword planner for local Search engine optimization. The keyword planner gives search volume data separately for multiple locations. This will help in finding the ranking of your business profile across different geographical locations. Here you can find data aggregators that give information for a specific keyword and also more keyword ideas based on that keyword.

Here you can find local data that will make it easy for you to plan your content around. you will be able to find the local search rankings of your business and you plan your strategy to make improvements in specific areas. Rank by focus helps grow your business by taking these factors into account and by keeping a close eye on them.

Make your website mobile-friendly

The mobile-friendliness of your website can also have an impact on the local SEO. You may wonder why? That is because most of the people that are conducting a local search are doing so on their mobile devices. More than 90% of the local searches are performed on some sort of smartphone to check for address, contact info, directions etc. thus, you must make your website mobile-friendly so your potential customers can access it without any inconveniences. It can thus greatly improve your local SEO as well. With a mobile-friendly website, your page will reach a wider audience in the local search results and they can easily get access to all information about your business.

Consistent NAP ( Name address phone number)

One way that your business may suffer is if your customers can’t reach it. This will not only reduce the customer but also affect the local SEO negatively. So, you have to make sure that your NAP or name address and phone number are correct and consistent on all platforms. One tip is to double-check the number and make sure it matches the area code you are operating in.

The name address and phone number should also be a clickable HTML link inserted into the website’s page. That makes it easily obtainable by any consumer. The HTML also allows for the search engine crawls to crawl the HTML and index it. If you insert an image with the NAP it won’t be crawled and indexed. The ideal place to insert your NAP is where it can be viewed easily by the audience, so they don’t have to search for it. Some common options are in the header or footer of the page itself.

On-site SEO for local businesses

When you have the factors down for improving local SEO, it is then time to focus on on-site SEO. These are more intricacies you can do within the website itself to improve your local search ranking across the web. These improvements can attract customers and make it easy for them to view your website. Some changes like improving landing pages or optimizing the content can really help your search engine ranking. Let’s get started with some of the ways on-site SEO can be optimized for local SEO.

Location-based content

Having unique plagiarism free content for all your landing pages is extremely important when it comes to local SEO. you need to have specially curated content for each which will serve the local search rankings. While it is important to market your products and services locally, you can create landing pages for the location that you are not physically present in as well.

As long as you offer your products and services in that area, you can advertise your local business in the area. Not only will this get your business name in the local search engine ranking but it will also give you a chance to rank in multiple searches. one note you still need to remember is that doing so will not land you on the Map pack. you still need to be physically located in those areas to get a spot there, however, you can still find local customers even while being further away through the content.

Go beyond Google’s limit

Everyone already knows that you should use the location in the title tag to gain the most organic traffic to your website. One tactic that not many people employ is having an extended title tag. The trick here is to have a strong first part of the title. this will contain your business name, a strong statement and the products and services you offer. then you will extend your title beyond google limit so a ” …” appears. The key is to leave the title on a cliffhanger or an interesting statement that will make local customers want to click on your page. This can work for any location that you are trying to rank for. Rank by focus uses this technique and various others to make sure your local search ranking is in the top tier across the web.

Nap citations

Your NAP ( name, address and phone number) data is of the utmost importance when it comes to local SEO. It is one of the dominant factors when search engines go through your page. However, like backlinks, NAP citations are difficult to build and can have a drastic effect on your search engine optimization strategy.

Step 1

First things first, you need to know what you are working on. For that, you will need to conduct a NAP audit. Mainly you want to check for consistency in the NAP on all local search engine and all business directories that may contain your data. You also want to match the data back to your Google my business profile to determine if anything is left out. Essentially any place that mentions your local business online should have one NAP data. Preferably the one that matches your Google my business profile.

There are many SEO tools out there that you can use to conduct your NAP audit, some tools include loganix and Whitespark. At times this process can become tedious, trying to figure out all the inconsistencies. Rank by focus has a team of professionals whose main job is to run these NAP audits to make sure that you don’t miss out on any potential customers.

Step 2

Once you have your audit done, you can then go around one by one fixing the incorrect NAPs. Some websites may contain older NAP data that may not be correct anymore. Thus, you will have to update the information. if you perform frequent checks and audits on your site, you will have less chance of incorrect NAP data however if it is your first time, you will have a lot to correct. the NAP citations fit into 2 main categories:

citations that you can change
mentioned citations that someone else changes.

Citations that you can change yourself is a relatively easy process since you are in charge you can change them without any real hassle. However, it can get quite annoying to manually change each and every citation yourself. Rank by focus solves this problem for a local business. They have professionals who can manage the NAP citations quickly and efficiently.

For citations that can’t be changed by yourself, the process becomes a bit longer. This data is mentioned on some other forum or business directories thus you will need to write a formal email asking them to update the data.

Find new citation opportunities

We have already detained how important the NAP citations are for a local business, but there aren’t a lot of places you’ve heard of to cite your business. Some pretty well-known sites are Yelp, Foursquare, Angie’s list etc but perhaps the best way to find citation opportunities is through local sites. local pages are able to give you a real boost in the rankings in search engines.

Since your citations are going to be more local and focused on a specific area, you are bound to have higher conversions as well. Now the main question arises, where can you find these local sites for NAP citations? While there are many SEO tools available on the market, the “link intersect” feature by Ahrefs is especially great for a local business.

Reverse engineer competitor NAPS

Similar to search engine optimization, you can also use your competitor’s NAP data to your advantage. All you have to do is use your SEO tools for the NAP audit and conduct an audit on the competitor site. This will give you all the pages your competitor site is mentioned in. You can then work from there and try to get mentioned in the same pages.

Gain authentic inbound links

Another way to build up your local SEO and increase local search ranking is through inbound links. They increase the authority of your page and tell google that your website is credible. Whether you are a brick and mortar store or an online website, building a strong backlink profile is necessary. There are many ways that you can build up a strong backlink profile for your business. Some more prominent ones include:

Guest Posting
This is a great way to reach a new audience and attract them back to your page. You can be an expert on a matter and provide information to the readers. You can get your business name and phone number out there and also refer back to your business and therefore gain authentic links and some traffic. Sometimes they may even promote the content on their social media pages which can redirect even more traffic.
Local PR
Different SEO tools and tactics can surely work to get in local traffic to your page but what works even better is the local press. Local Newspapers and sites are always on the hunt for content and you can fulfill that need with your products and services. For a local site, you can even add your Google my business page to the content to really increase your business presence.
Sponsorship and paid partnerships
The best trick is to find an influencer in your respective industry and partner with them to promote your business on social media. They are important ranking factors on the google result pages. You can also sponsor their content in return for a promotion of their page, which can lead to massive growth in today’s social media-driven world.
Scholarships
One tip that is largely unknown is that.edu links are great for domain authority. To gain some of these.edu links you can offer a scholarship in your area. Remember to keep this scholarship in your field. Then schools and other educational websites will link back to your page and you gain some authoritative links. The authoritative links can be non-follow ones from social media pages or follow ones from their websites, both of which can help your SEO.

Curate content for the locals

Google search algorithms and ranking tools have gotten a lot smarter, and they take many factors into account to determine the local search rankings of pages. This allows website owners to create content that isn’t just search engine friendly. By writing on genre topics there is a higher chance to attract a wider audience. However, when it comes to improving the local SEO you also have to focus on topics specifically for the locals.

To gain the local trust you have to become the authority in the matter. This can be done by covering the local events, news or even educational content. You have to think outside the box to attract an audience through the content and once you have gained their trust, they will automatically be interested in your products and services.

An example would be if you sell coats in Canada or New York, you can create the best places to visit in the Canadian winter. This way the reader will gain some insight through your website, and they will be more likely in purchasing the products and services.

Advanced SEO tips and strategies

Now that all the major strategies have been discussed to improve your search results, let’s get started with some advanced techniques that improve your standing in the local search engine.

Embed the google map on your site

A great way to improve search results and enhance your business is by adding the google map location to your page. this helps customers see exactly where you are located and they can find your business without any inconveniences.

The first step to embed the map to your site is to find your location on google my business. Then you click on the menu on the top left corner and select “share or embed map”. By clicking on it you get an embedded code. You then go to your page and insert that code where you want to add your location or on the contact us page.

Optimize Meta description

Meta descriptions are an easy way to attract an audience to your page. It is one of the first things they read before even clicking on your website and reading your content. However, this is one of the few places that businesses make the most mistakes for SEO. Local businesses often stuff keywords in the description which makes the entire text seem unnatural.

A pro tip is to look at the Google ads. The ads contain content that is proven to have a high click-through rate. You can get some key terms from their descriptions and incorporate them into your own. What you still need to remember is to keep the copy natural. it should sell to the locals without being overstuffed with keywords. To keep on top of Local SEO try and mention your location in both the meta description and the title tag.

Have a double ranked Title tag

This is an old trick in the book for SEO that can still be applied for local businesses. The trick here is to optimize your Title tag around 2-3 keywords instead of a single keyword. Doing so will allow you to get more traffic to your page as it ranks for multiple keywords.

The reason why this tip works well for local SEO is that generally, local pages get fewer links to internal pages, thus it gives you the opportunity to rank higher for multiple keywords.

In the end, there are many additional ways along with these SEO tips that you can use to improve your website in the local searches. Improving your internal linking, optimizing URL, meta description and optimizing the directories are just to name a few. Together these with Google my business account can help greatly boost your local search engine optimization and promote your business in your geographical area.

Defining Black Hat SEO

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SEO Terms Used in this article

Defining Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO is a list of actions that aid in increasing a page or website’s ranking in a search engine. This method fails to comply with the search engine’s terms of service. Nowadays, people use the term Black Hat to describe individuals who carry out illegal or unethical activities with computers. These individuals could be hackers or people who create viruses.

It may be very tempting for new content creators to take a shortcut to grow their Google rankings quicker. But, they need to realize that using black hat SEO can prove to be catastrophic for their websites. Thus, it is very crucial for them to have an understanding of using Black hat SEO and its repercussions.

Understanding Black hat SEO.

People use Black hat SEO to boost page rankings in SERP (Search engine results page). These practices are not considered to be fair by search engines which is why they are against their search engine terms of service. A content creator breaking these laws faces the penalty of being banned from affiliate sites and search engines. Bings Webmaster Guidelines and Google Webmaster Guidelines show a list of strategies that Black Hat SEO’s carry out.

A simple test to see if an SEO’s plans come under Black Hat is to ask them that’ Is their work adding any kind of value to the users or are they just focused on increasing their page rankings in the search engine results”. If an SEO’s tactics don’t add any value to the users then it is very likely that they are Black hat SEO’s. This test can also be used to assess paid search operations to see if they are Black hat PPC.

Naming some Black Hat SEO Tactics

If you want to run your website fairly without getting into any kind of trouble, then you need to make sure you are not performing any of the following acts.

Pages should not contain any kind of malicious content. For example, Trojans, malware, phishing, and viruses.
Automated Queries on Google.
Pages or domains having duplicate content should not be created.
Rich snippet markup spam (some websites markup content that is invisible to users, if that content includes misleading or immaterial content then that breaking Google’s Rich Snippet quality instructions)
Doorway pages (websites created for the purpose of manipulating search engine indexes)
Any kinds of sneaky redirects are not acceptable.
Cloaking (tricks search engines into rankings out of context content in a webpage)
Link schemes (Links aiming to manipulate a site’s ranking)
Link wheels, link farms, or Link networks.
Article spinning is not acceptable.
Keyword stuffing (excess use of a keyword to get search engines to rank the page for its target word)
Hidden links or texts should not be added.
Guest posting networks.

Methods of reporting Black Hat SEO

There are two reasons behind anyone who will feel the need to report any kind of Black hat SEO. The first reason is that their website might have been attacked by spammed links or any virus. The second reason might be that they come across a spammed web result on a competitive keyword that their website is ranking on. If any website faces these issues some easy steps can be followed to resolve it. It is advised to file a web spam report with the help of Google webmaster tools. This tool should be used with care because if you falsely report any web spam then that can also come under Black hat SEO.

In the case of a webpage being hacked by a virus or malware, the best option is to remove the malicious code and request a malware review. On the other hand, if your website has been attacked by an SEO campaign of spammed links then you could make use of the disallow links tool present in Google’s webmaster tool. This should be done after talking with the webmasters that are sending these links to your webpage and asking them to remove the links.

Why should content creators avoid Black Hat SEO?

Black Hat SEO seems very appealing because of its ability to boost traffic to your website and achieve success. But, this success comes with a big price to pay. If you are convicted by Google for Black Hat SEO then the penalties you are going to face are going to have damaging effects on your website. Your career can be over in one day because these penalties include your website being de-indexed. If your website is banned from search engines then you will lose all the traffic coming to your website. In addition to that black hat SEO techniques are also known to give users a very poor experience. They just make a website look fake and spammed which makes customers leave the website. This makes the rankings of the website drop with time. Thus, it’s best to avoid Black Hat SEO because the risks that come along with it are much higher than the short-term benefits.

Are you a Black Hat SEO kind of person?

When opening a business everyone aims to make it successful and long-lasting. If you are that person then Black Hat SEO is not for you. Nowadays, it is impossible to not get caught if you are practicing Black Hat SEO. If you get caught then it can bring down your business in seconds and end your career, which is why every motivated content creator should stay away from it. Rather than looking at Black hat SEO techniques to boost your page rankings, you should focus on alternatives. Every motivated entrepreneur should work hard to bring their business to success without having to carry out any illegal or unfair actions. Anybody can achieve success with unfair means but someone who does so by working hard is a true businessman. Various alternative techniques can be used to boost your search engine rankings and help you make your place in a fast paced competitive market.

Top 10 SEO Tips

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Top 30 SEO Tips

The SEO world keeps on evolving and keeping up with it has become challenging for content creators. Day to day new SEO tips come into the market which may confuse people when they are choosing between which SEO tips are helpful and which ones will be best to disregard. So, let’s look at 10 Key SEO tips that every content creator needs to know.

Get rid of anything slowing down your website

It was easy to get away with a slow-loading page in the old days. However, with the increasing competition now it has become very crucial to be on the top of your game if you want to compete in this fast pacing market. If a user comes across a slow loading page, they are very likely to leave the website and go to another competitor’s site instead. A recent report by consultancy confirmed that around 40% of people leave a website which takes more than 3 seconds to load. If you want to be on the top organic listings, then you have to make sure your website is fast loading. You can do so by deactivating useless plug-in and delete any useless elements that may be slowing down your website. It is also advised to declutter your sidebar and only add important widgets to it.

You can also improve your loading time with the help of ubersuggest. Just enter your domain and click the site audit in the left bar. This will show you your site speed. Then you can view its advanced breakdown and fix any issues that might be slowing down your website.

Prioritize writing for humans rather than search engines

Content creators have been using keywords to drive search results and are not paying much attention to the quality of their content. This approach is very wrong. Search engines are the ones following users which means that if you create helpful content for the users you will be rewarded for it. So when you are writing, just forget that any search engines even exist and focus on writing fulfilling content for people. Copyblogger is a great example of a site that puts its users first. This is the secret behind their success as it is now a multi-million dollar firm.

Link to websites that have relevant content

Link Building is an important part of good SEO. This is why linking out to relevant websites offering high-quality content is very important. This will help you enhance user experience as they will always expect to get good quality helpful content when they visit your website.

Some people avoid linking to high-quality content because they are thinking that it is taking away from their success. However, this is not the case because if you do not help other websites how can you expect to get the same help from them.

Get other webpages to link to you

Having inbound links is the key to getting good search engine rankings. If you invest a lot of time, resources, and money into making sure that you put out high-quality content in the market then it is very likely that people will be encouraged to link to you. When people share your content with their audience it brings a great amount of new audience to your website. This will help you in boosting your rankings and making new loyal customers.

Write distinctive and well-crafted meta descriptions

Meta descriptions are what people see first when they visit your website. If your meta descriptions are bland and boring, then people might end up leaving your page in search of better-quality content. Having duplicate meta descriptions on your website could also get you penalized so it is crucial to come up with unique and relevant meta descriptions for every new page.

Take advantage of the Webpage analytics

Web Analytics solutions can be a great help for any content creator. Google search console and Google Analytics are two very helpful tools for when you want to keep track of your success and find out any issues that might be stopping you from reaching your goals. Crazy Egg is also another tool that can help you see the clicks of your website’s visitors and also study how they leave your website. This can help you spot any mistakes on your website which might be making users leave.

Use readable URL’s

Search engines can get confused if your URL is too long or confusing. Always make sure to have a meaningful URL so that it can easily be remembered and understood by humans and search engines both.

Work on increasing social signals

Even though Google has not yet added social signals to their ranking algorithm factors, various case studies have proven that social signals play a very important role in improving search engine rankings. Moz is a great example of this as their search rankings increased after Smosh magazine tweeted their page. Here are some methods to increase your social signals:

Ask people to share your content
Add share buttons to your page.
Come out with share-worthy content.
Host a contest to attract shares.
Link to influencers and make sure to notify them.

Publish unique content to boost rankings

In the competitive market of content creation, it has become hard for marketers to create unique content. But, there is nothing that unachievable. The fresh factor shows the freshness of your content which makes the need to create helpful and unique content even more crucial.

Add the right keyword in your images

Images hold a lot of importance when it comes to SEO. When searching for an image user type in keywords in the search bar. This makes it very important for content creators to choose their keywords wisely. For example, if your image is of a ‘Bluebird’ Don’t name it ‘bird’.

Some other SEO tips recommend not changing your domain name without any good reason and getting rid of any irrelevant content on your website. The above SEO tips will help you create better content and improve your page rankings.

Holiday Shopping: Last-minute SEO tips and Techniques for e-commerce sites

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Holiday Shopping: Last-minute SEO tips and Techniques for e-commerce sites

As one of the most awaited holiday seasons comes our way, e-commerce owners should be ready for any kind of challenges. They should start working on refreshing their website content. This can be achieved by adding new products in each category to boost search visibility.

This season is very critical for online retailers, as black Friday approaches us. Let’s look at some of the tips and tricks that can help you optimize your work. This way you can avoid any kind of blunders which could make things go very wrong for your business.

Avail of the free product listing

Google recently converted its shopping search results to unpaid and organic listings. This is great for online retailers as now they can take advantage of this offer. By getting their products into these results they can get free exposure and boost up their sales.

You need to follow some simple steps to be able to show in shopping results. Start with uploading your product feeds on Microsoft Merchant center and Google. For physical store owners, Google Merchant Center has a separate program named Local surfaces across Google. This will help the buyers in viewing product availability. It works by scanning Google images, maps, and Google lens for the desired product.

Keep up with the campaign Performance

Tracking your campaigns can help you with making better decisions for your business. Yet, the process of reporting for these listings is not as wise if compared to paid campaigns.

In Google Merchant Center you can see the clicks from surfaces within Google. Google Analytics, on the other hand, clicks from the free shopping listings are merged. This means that you see both organic and traditional shopping listings together. This makes it hard to track them individually. Kirk Williams from Zato marketing can help you track user behavior after each click.

Structured data is the key to add relevance and notify buyers

Product Schema: The key to driving traffic is making use of the new features added by Google. These features include product knowledge panels and popular product carousel. The use of these features is crucial if you want to achieve a classic ranking position.

According to Dave Davies, CEO of Beanstalk, This structured data strategy can help in catching buyer’s attention all year round. This works by showing relevant information making it easier for the customers to decide between products.

Popular Product Carousel: When looking fashion products buyers come across the feature of Google popular product carousel. This feature enables them to filter through various product categories. These categories could range from color and price comparison which makes shopping easier for the customers.

Buyers can easily get their product into this carousel by submitting a product feed or marking them up with product schema in GMC.

Re position and revive your Content

Keep content relevant throughout the year: Create content which does not lose its relevance at any point in the year. Rather than having content like holiday gift ideas you can write Gift ideas for any occasion. This way your content will be relevant for any kind of occasion. Whether it’s a birthday or thanksgiving the content will stay relevant. You also will not have to go through the hassle of updating the content every other month.

Serve your holiday consumers

Predicting queries is the key to giving holiday customers the best experience. By doing so you can refresh your content according to their needs.

A great example to understand this is that if you have content focusing on queries about video games. There is a big chance that those queries would change in the holiday season. Throughout the year video game buyers are the gamers themselves, their queries might range from what are top games. Yet, in the holiday season the customers change from the gamers to their parents or family members buying games for them. This means that those customers have very limited knowledge of these products. So, you might want to switch your queries accordingly.

Refresh your content descriptions. For example, if it was ‘2020 top-rated video games’ you could change it to ‘parents guide to buying 2020 top video games’. This will help you get more traffic and enhance the relevance of your content. Traffic will increase only if your content is relevant to the holiday season.

Add product pages and categories dedicated towards holiday shoppers

In the holiday seasons, the shoppers are searching for specific deals and products. So, Optimize your product and category pages towards fulfilling those shoppers’ needs.

Generate category pages reflecting shopper’s searches

Update your product category according to the holiday season. Focus on optimizing the high-value products. You can do so by updating descriptions and title tags and adding relevant keywords.

For example ‘black Friday deals’ is a popular searched phrase by customers at the time of black Friday.

Making these little changes will help you in boosting your sales and traffic.

Collaborate to be more productive

Another thing you can do is you can work with social teams and PR to gain more backlinks. Creating virtual flyers with accessible links can help attract third party sites. It is also a clever way to create more backlinks.

Things that can negatively impact your sales during the holiday season

Find errors affecting conversions: scan for errors like important pages that might be blocked by robots.txt or slow-loading pages. Dealing with these errors will ensure that your customers have a smooth experience.

Save big projects like site migrations for later: Taking up on big projects near the holiday season might be a bad idea. If you start facing errors like botched migrations your precious time will be spent on trying to fix it. This will stop you from working on optimizations and have a negative impact on sales.

Inspect your user experience: Always work on making your user experience better. This way there will be no space for errors and the visitors will leave your page satisfied.

 Boosting rankings with the help of content consolidation

Rank By Focus » seo

SEO Terms Used in this article

 Boosting rankings with the help of content consolidation

Did you know that while competing with other businesses you might be competing with yourself too?

The reason behind this is that, If you have been publishing content for a few months or years then it is very likely that some of that content has a similarity with existing content. It is believed that the more content you come out with the better it is for the business. But, if you do not keep track of this issue you might face some problems in the future. This is because you might end up having various pieces of content that will be competing with similar search intent. This means that it is possible that while competing with other firms you might even be competing with yourself by not highlighting your best content.

Since now you have the whole idea, lets cut to the chase. What exactly should you do if you start SEO today? 2020, is the era for evolution, so here I have for you some ways you can plan a well enough SEO strategy to get pretty promising results.

Featured snippets:

If you’ve ever searched Google for a recipe, I’m sure you’re pretty familiar with the idea of getting a recipe without actually clicking on any particular links. How is that possible? All thanks to Google’s ability to feature little snippets. These snippets give you a simplified exact answer to what you search for. This means that adding such straightforward bulletins to your own content might give you a chance to be featured. What else does this do you may ask? It will give you what most marketers refer to as ‘organic traffic’. Organic traffic implies that the non-paid, natural everyday users. This is definitely one of the major tricks to get started with when preparing an SEO strategy.

How are featured snippets created? Through Schema.

Schema can be tested through google’s structured data testing tool.

Keywords:

You better not get tired of hearing this because trust me, it will dominate your SEO building lifestyle. There is a reason everyone stresses over keywords you know. Take a regular teenager as an example, if you think he’s going to take the extra 2 minutes to complete his sentence while typing it into google you are severely mistaken. This is the same generation that comes up with multiple slangs for 3 words. They want to get instant results with just the basics. Simple and easy! So if that’s the demand, you cater to it. It would help if you used keywords that best fit your niche so it can be found by people as easily as possible. These keywords can be found on multiple forums that are updated per request.

Always search for keywords + suggested terms.
We also suggest using google’s keyword suggestion tool.

Find the right volume with google trends. Google Trends analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time

Quality and Clarity – E.A.T.

There can be no slacking when it comes to Quality. Assuring that you beat your competitors to reach in one of the top 3 or 4 pages on a search engine at least means you need to grab attention and make a statement all at once. The time for Wikipedia is over; no one wants to skim through hours of information before they find what they’re looking for. Making your work more organized will help a lot. Titles, bolding, italics isn’t just for kids to help remember notes. Try to add pictures, videos or any form of visual representation of what you are providing verbally. It gives you more of an advantage.

OPTIMIZE

Now recalling the basics we just went over, On-page optimization is extremely useful for optimizing search intent. But since we already did our research, we were a step ahead. This will rank your page higher in search engines.

WordPress plugins such as Rankmath SEO and Yoast SEO allows users to check their on page easier than ever.

DIFFERENT SEARCH ENGINE PLATFORMS

Do you know the saying of how putting all your eggs in one basket is not a great idea for investment? Well, this tip is exactly that. There is a variety of search engines people use. There is even more AI used in some of these search engines; as a result, they work way more efficiently. And obviously for teenagers, anything a robot does is automatically so cool.

Each platform has it’s own SEO algorithm. Youtube ranks “suggested” videos and “first to show” videos differently compared to instagram.

Facebook has it’s own algorithm that creates “suggested stories”

If google’s SEO is not where your core audience is at, learn SEO on other platforms.

Analyze & Adjust

This process is rewarding only if you stay consistent. It’s like a family you’ve built, and so it needs just as much attention and dedication. With so many advancements made in technology, you can always upgrade your strategy. A little healthy competition never did any harm to anyone. So use it for your personal growth.

Have in a great timeline on how much time you’re spending in SEO, and how much budget you’re willing to spend to get to the 1st page. Be it to find guest posting, email out reach, or even acquiring backlinks. A well thought out plan and budget will get you to the 1st page quicker than you expect.

To sum it up, you have to outline what needs to be done so you can keep checking things off your list. That’s how you can get to your target and objectives. It’s comforting to at least have a plan, whether its an SEO strategy or life but everything requires time and attention. So don’t lose faith in SEO just yet give it a try and I guarantee with these tips in mind you’ll be driving that SEO train instead of just riding it.

SEO mistakes: Here is what not to do

Rank By Focus » seo

seo mistakes - case study

Let’s look at three real-life case studies that are great examples of the horrors of SEO if done wrong.

You will come across very few articles that show examples of real-life SEO blunders. The reason behind this is that nobody would want to share how their SEO mistakes made their Google rankings go downhill. This is why the details of the following SEO horror stories that we are going to discuss today have been kept anonymous. The three Webpages we are going to discuss are based around non-English speaking markets. Important Decisions were not taken wisely by these businesses which led to their downfall. Keep in mind that all these businesses were able to recover.

Example 1: Premium Retail Website

This example revolves around the PremiumRetailWebsite. They are an online based store which sells jewelry.

The store decided to move it is hard to remember the domain name to a much easier and shorter name. This is a very common step that various online businesses take and it usually tends to go very smoothly. But, the company made a few blunders which led to everything blowing out of proportion.

Firstly, they did not discuss any legacy issues before the move or made any technical audits. A very bad move was planned from the previous domain to a new one. Thus, the migration was mishandled from the start.

To perform a content migration, Google simply recrawls the new URLs with all the accompanying signals like backlinks. This enables them to rank the new landing pages. It is very crucial to carefully plan migration months and have it done at the time of the low sales season. The business did not focus on any of these things which led to them dropping very low in Google rankings.Besides to this, the website was hit with a legal issue because of the new domain and they had to create a whole new domain.

Moral:

Advanced preparation is required to carry out a content migration successfully. Also, the current state of affairs should be audited before making any such move.

Any checkered domain past or penalty can be removed but this should be factored within the whole planning process.

Local or regional sales teams are never good contenders for taking over website operations. Success comes with the organization of content, technical on, and off-page signals.

Example 2: JourneyCompareHeaven

Located in central Europe JourneyCompareHeaven was a well-known travel aggregator. Due to their success in handling a competitive market the company came across various growth opportunities. By making more landing pages the company decided to work on growing SERP visibility. A great amount of 500 thousand landing pages was quickly changed into five different languages. This is where the problem started as that content was not localized. This had a very bad impact on user’s fulfillment. That’s where rankings started going downhill for JourneyCompareHeaven.

Opening landing pages option filtering for indexing was another bad decision. After that around 3 million landing pages erupted in SERPs. Now, Google was left with the task of indexing and crawling countless pages to just be able to index one. The crawl budget allocation also started declining due to low user signals and quality.

As a result, Googlebot started visiting old URLs along with the new ones. This further reduced users and lowered user signals. All these issues added to the recovery time for the firm but eventually they were able to recover.

Moral:

Relevant converting traffic does not depend on the addition of more indexable landing pages. This has the opposite effect on the content. You should focus more on producing gripping content landing pages.

A company aiming to expand the market should always study the market before hand. The expansion of the market should not only be done with content translation. This is because localization is the key to carrying out this process successfully.

Web server logs should always be saved and noted for crawl management evaluation.

Example 3: MedicineMakesHappy

MedicineMakesHappy is a leading medical services website with good reviews and services. Some of their services include appointment scheduling which has boosted their position in the market. The company was doing well because of high visibility and increasing recognition etc.

A third-party agency was responsible for taking care of any marketing jobs. Due to the growing demand for cosmetic services the company decided to launch a link building and outreach campaign. With the aim to grow their market to this profitable niche and also address their customers’ needs. The firm started by auditing the backlink profile of past years. The growing backlink profile got a huge boost due to this. The value of existing backlinks shot up from 1 million to 7 million.

A manual action came across because of link building and because of how competitive the market was, a competitor spam report brought this issue to Google’s attention.

This caused visibility and rankings to drop. The SERP condition went downhill along with the collaboration being ended and site releases halted. Various tries of solving the penalty with the use of Google search backlink panels failed.

However, a third party known for penalty recovery stepped in and analyzed fresh and old data. Their analysis showed many legacy backlink risks. With the third parties help the problem was solved eventually after a lot of struggles.

Moral:

Spam procedures increase risk. Along with highlighting possible Google guideline Violations.

Third-party link building should always be documented. Backlink building should be done for the conversion of traffic, content discovery purposes.

Manual penalties can easily be resolved. Take the opportunity of lowering rankings to aim for an increase in organic search.

Another thing that we learned after analyzing these cases was that all these websites were at a place where they had high chances of recovery. They could fix these SEO blunders.

Any and every website can work on improving their signals. The examples above show how little SEO blunders could turn into huge disasters.

alt image – Image SEO

Rank By Focus » seo

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Image text SEO For More Organic Traffic

People often overlook some important aspects of their SEO. Google’s new algorithm update can recognize image content. This advanced Cloud vision API can identify images to a great accuracy. Thus, giving content creators an advantage to avail a better ranking through image SEO. Image SEO has grown massively. There are a lot more factors to consider with the new era of technology. So here is an in-depth breakdown of everything you need to know to stay up-to-date.

Descriptive alt image text

One of the most common types of image SEO includes alt image text ( alt text ). This requires you to give a relevant description of an image for any visually impaired users. The reason for it being descriptive is to help the page readers understand the image since it can not see it. Yet, recent analyses proved that alt tags are no longer one of the top image SEO factors. So, it’s encouraged to look into other more important factors as well.

Image format or File type

Generally, there are three file types that creators use most frequently. These formats are the JPEG, PNG, and GIF. The PNG file can have a good quality image at the expense of a larger file size. Whereas JPEG may reduce the quality of the image and lower the file size. Yet, you can establish a good balance between the quality of JPEG images. GIFs are not typically used for the web, but if you wish to use them, you may have to compromise using the large file size.

Naming your ALT images

Customizing the names of images gives more context to your image. You can add descriptive details that enables Google to read and recognize the image more vividly. For instance, an image named IMG00368 will not represent what your image is about. However, an image named ‘a single red rose’ is easy to envision.

Browser caching

Browsing caching is a result of your images or content being stored in the visiting consumer’s browsers. You can use this browser caching by installing a plugin or adding the specific code. This helps them in faster-loading speed if they ever come across your page again. You can see the effects of this on the page loading speed through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

Compressing images

Bulky images can have a slow loading speed. This can make your page appear slower as a result. To make sure you release any unwanted weight from your page, you must compress your images. You can use tools such as Photoshop or pngquant. These tools can help reduce the file size without compromising the quality of your images. Be careful to choose a tool that externally compresses these files on their server to take the extra load of your own site.

Use vector graphics

Vector graphics give a more professional appearance to your images. This use of technology uses lines, dots, and polygons to represent the image you use. These graphics are ideal for logos and alt text. With the help of these vector graphics, you have sharp results on any resolution. The most popular of these vector graphics is the SVGs (Scalable Vector Graphics).

Stay cautious of copyright images

No matter which type of image you decide to add to your site, you must ensure you don’t violate any copyright concerns. Many companies have had a lawsuit of billions of dollars over copyright photographs. So, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Responsive images

Large-sized images can affect user experience on their mobile devices. A larger file will be wasting bandwidth and slows down the page loading speed. To solve this problem, you can use srcset. This type of HTML code will tell the browser to load the various versions of an image for different screen resolutions. This adaptation is beneficial as users will be able to access the image easily no matter what device they use.

Why use a CDN？

If you serve your images and content over the same server and location, it can be less accessible to users worldwide. To avoid such a problem, you can use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). The CDN is able to catch your files through a vast global network of servers. So when a user opens your content from a different country, the content will load from the nearest server. This will increase the loading speed and benefit your SEO. Some options for CDNs include Cloudflare and Google Cloud CDN.

Link equity from image backlinks

Charts and image graphics can always be linked. These embedded links are used on other webpages. If other blogs link back to the original source, you recover the link equity for your page. As a result, when any user clicks on them, they will be directed to your image. This can grow your webpage traffic and increase the CTR. These backlinks will also enhance the conversion rate.

Creating image sitemaps

Sitemaps for images help Google evaluate images. You can also add details of images that you post, such as URLs.
.

Google Sand Box: How Does It All Work?

Rank By Focus » seo

SEO Terms Used in this article

GOOGLE SAND BOX: HOW DOES IT ALL WORK?

It can seem unfair for a brand new website to get on top of the SERPs as soon as it lands. Some old websites have worked tirelessly to follow Google’s everchanging algorithms to earn a good ranking. To balance the effort that content creators put into their SEO and ranking, Google has created Sandbox.

What is Google Sandbox?

Google Sandbox is the period that a new site has to go over before it can rank in the top position on the SERPs. This waiting time is not a penalty. Thus, even if you have perfected your web design and SEO you will be unable to rank higher than a certain limit. Even though Google has never confirmed the idea of Sandbox, many users believe it does exist.

The history of Google Sandbox

Since as early as 2004, speculation began about new websites being unable to rank higher. This was mainly because despite the efforts the sites made in their SEO, they would still not benefit from them for months. Moreover, webmasters grew confident in the idea of Sandbox after they noticed that these websites ranked much higher on other search engines. Even though these websites would be duly indexed by Google and would not be ranked even for the low competition keywords. The results of this ‘Sandbox’ period lasted from several weeks to months. Yet, it made some sense as users would not be able to trust new sites instantly.

Why Google Sandbox is understandable in 2020?

There is a lot at stake when ranking new websites on top. This is because to analyze a website and take all factors into account, Google requires time. This Sandbox period helps evaluate these websites thoroughly to ensure it’s a safe site for all users. Another major aspect of SEO is backlinks. It’s almost impossible for these new websites to build a strong network of backlinks. As a result, they will not be able to rank higher than the websites that do. It also does not seem fair for these websites to get a top-ranking shot with a clean slate rather than ones who have worked hard to amend their web page alongside Google’s SEO factors.

In addition, there are multiple other factors for SEO. These include the click-through rate (CTR), conversion rates, dwell time, pogo-sticking and many others. Most of these factors depend on time and clicks, which a new page will not have the leverage of. Therefore other pages will be ahead of them regardless of how spotless their SEO is. This further instigated a new concept for online creators known as the ‘honeymoon’ period. The honeymoon period allowed these new webpages to rank higher on the SERPs for a short time. This gave the page recognition and time for Google to observe its performance.

How to check if your website is in Google Sandbox?

To check if you’re a victim to such a waiting period for a deserved ranking, you can use Google’s Search Console. Since this is not an official problem, you will not be notified of your site being in Sandbox. Before you start wondering how long it takes for you to rank on google, TRY TO GET OUT OF SANDBOX! After you have opened the Search console, click on ‘search traffic,’ click on the search analytics and go through the Pages. If you have a focus keyword and a well-optimized site, and yet your site ranks better for other keywords than your focus keyword, your site may be in Sandbox. However, if you don’t want to go through the analyses yourself, you can use a tool to identify if your site is in Sandbox. Some of the popular tools include Search Engine Genie and Fruition.

How to decrease the Sandbox period?

It is most certainly possible to avoid this waiting period using a few techniques. A new website has more of an advantage for PR and link building. These will create a snowball effect for likes, shares and a lot more clicks for brand new websites on their launch day. To further increase your chances for a better ranking, you can publish articles on related blogs. You can even use a related famous influencer interview as your first post. This will generate more traffic for the site and improve the CTR. To sum it up, do all the ‘white hat’ tricks to promote your site.

Types of things to refrain from to get your site out of Sandbox

Over-optimized content

Never optimize your work to the extent of compromising the quality of your content. A good ratio to keep in mind before stuffing your content with focus keywords is five keywords for every 1000 words. Try to make your text sound natural.

Check for penalties

Whether it’s an Algorithm penalty or a Manual penalty, be sure to fix the problem at hand. You can go through your Search Traffic and click on Manual action to see if you have an algorithm penalty. Whereas, if you have a manual penalty, Google will email you a list of things you can do to fix it. So, simply go through your mail to check if Google has sent you such an email.

Do not buy or acquire a large number of backlinks

Google can identify unnatural backlinks. So, you need to track and disavow any spam backlinks.

How To Create A SiteMap For Your Website?

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SEO Terms Used in this article

How To Create A Site Map For Your Website?

Site maps have become an integral part of SEO strategies since Google started using them for their search engine rankings. It may seem like a daunting process to create an extensive link to keep track of all your webpages, but with plugins and Content management systems, the entire process can be a breeze. Sitemap helps a lot in speeding up your rankings on google. Before we delve into the details of how to make a site map, let’s discuss what a site map is.

What is a sitemap?

A site map is a list of all of the webpages within a website. It is made for google web crawlers to view all the content, and search engines like google or yahoo can rank it. When making a site map, you should always remember to link all the pages that you want to be seen. Another thing to keep in mind is that your site map has to follow certain limitations so it cannot be too long, containing more than 50,000 links or exceed the limit of 50 Mb. In that case, you should divide the links into two separate site maps and submit them together.

Why is a site map important?

The main reason why you should adopt site maps into your page is since search engines use them to rank your pages. Web crawlers are responsible for searching the web and find the related content through the internal and external linking on the post. While that is the primary and most effective way of finding your content, you cannot be sure that all your content will be found in this manner. To ensure that all your content is added to google’s index, you must use a site map and submit it to google.

Not to mention, a site map has an added benefit for the user and you. It allows you to categorize your pages in a concise manner that will improve the user experience and lead to higher conversion rates. It also makes you clean up the clutter of your pages and organize them for maximum competence.

How to create a site map?

Creating a site map is not as daunting as it might seem. Although it can look like gibberish to most website owners, they don’t have to do much work. Most Content management pages like Magneto, Wix and Squarespace have an inbuilt site map feature. Here it will automatically keep track of all the pages you create and link them. You can then edit it if you want to remove a page or add one that was missed.

Most host sites don’t have an inbuilt Site map feature. WordPress is a prime example of this. Although it is a widely used CMS, it does not automatically create a site map for you. Don’t worry, though; you can install a simple plugin called “Yoast SEO” to do the job for you. After activating the plugin, you can go on yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml or yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml to view your site map. Using this plugin, you also get the opportunity to exclude certain content from the site map. You can exclude specific tags, category pages or even an individual post. A plugin allows for much more customizability when creating the site map. Rankmath also allows sitemap creation, you can find the difference between Rankmath SEO plugin vs Yoast SEO plugin here.

Inbuilt site maps

For sites like Wix and Squarespace, they have their site maps that you can access quite easily.
For Wix, you can find your site map at yourwixsite.com/sitemap.xml.
Unfortunately, you don’t get much customizability options here. You can’t choose what gets added or removed from the site map.
If you put a canonicalized link in Wix, it won’t be removed from the site map either, but they are discouraged by Google. They only confuse google algorithms, so to be on the safe side, you shouldn’t include them.

Similarly, for Squarespace, you can get an inbuilt site map at yoursquarespacesite.com/sitemap.xml. Like Wix, you don’t get many options for changing the links in Squarespace either, although you can exclude links from the site map. Overall you don’t get a lot of variety when it comes to inbuilt site maps, but with a plugin installed, you can overcome those discrepancies.

Site map without a CMS

If your website isn’t built using a CMS, it can get pretty hard to make a site map. If you are a smaller sized site, you can probably get access to free software that will crawl your website to find all the pages within. If your website is larger and you don’t want a CMS based site map, you can always find numerous paid software that do the job.
Afterward, you can conduct a site audit to make sure no pages were left out.

How to submit a site map to google?

Multimedia is an Submitting your Site map to google is a straightforward process. Firstly you should figure out where the site map is. If you are accessing the site map through your CMS, it should be named something along the lines of domain.com/sitemap.xml.

If you are creating the map without a CMS, you can name your URL as you wish. While the options are endless, it is best to keep the URL name similar to domain.com/sitemap.xml. It simplifies the process making it easier to find.

Once you have your URL ready, you can go to “google search console” and paste the link under “site maps.” That’s it; then you are done. If you have multiple site maps, you can paste all the URLs in the box given. No hassle at all.

Anchor Text | A guide to what is it

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SEO Terms Used in this article

GUIDE ON ANCHOR TEXT

The rapid increase in technology has created a huge impact on the content of websites. The competition for a better ranking is why people use several different strategies. One effective way to boost your content is by adding anchor text. Anchor text percentage remains an important part to keep in mind during an SEO audit.

What is anchor text?

Anchor text is commonly known as the clickable text. This text can be used to link your content via HTML hyperlinks. You can use this text to make your webpage interactive. Anchor text can be the relevant keyword that you want your content to be ranked for. You can also use anchor texts for link building in your SEO strategy.

Anchor texts give depth to inbound links. These links generate more organic search traffic and upgrade the performance of your site.

Applying anchor text to benefit ranking

Anchor texts have a significant role in helping Google understand your content. Keyword-rich anchor texts can be used to improve your search engine ranking. Anchor text is especially useful when it has pertinent information. The proper use of these anchor texts could favour your content ranking on the SERPs. Similarly, an optimized anchor text could further enhance your SEO strategy.

An anchor is a text normally placed between the tags. Since users can easily identify what these anchors are related to, it improves the user experience on the site. These anchors even promote your web page as they uplift the dynamic weightage of the page that it directs to. This dynamic weightage is the anchor-web ranking. Web crawlers take these anchor texts into consideration when evaluating your page. You can apply these anchor texts to build a strong internal linkage within your site. It is best not to resort to anchor text spamming. Stuffing your anchor texts with keywords or irrelevant resources is discouraged. Thus, it can have adverse effects on your ranking.

Types of anchor text

There are multiple types of anchor texts that your content can benefit from. These types represent the degree of relevance your content has to the keyword/phrase.

Exact match type of anchor text is the literal keyword you wish to rank for. For instance, if your content is about Anchor texts. The keyword ‘anchor text’ is the exact match.

Partial match anchor text has similar words to the query but not the exact phrase.
Phrase match anchor text refers to a matching keyword phrase that you want to rank for.
Naked URL visually appears the same as the URL would appear in a browser.
Branded anchor texts contain the name or initials of a brand’s name. These could be any brands from small companies to large businesses.
Image link anchor text is the alt image text.

A random anchor text is one that does not contain any relevant keyword or specific query. An example of such anchor texts includes ‘click here’ or ‘read more.’ These are very general statements that give no context. It is better to avoid excessive use of such texts. These do not create a good impression for your users. Therefore also decrease the value of your content for SEO ranking.

Using Ahrefs to scan your anchor text

The correlation of ranking with anchor texts

There have been many studies to represent the correlation of anchor texts and its effect on rankings. This gives you a clear idea of which types of anchor texts you can actually benefit from in the long run.

The average and median of Exact-match anchors are actually quite weak. Although the correlation of exact-match anchors is slightly positively correlated, it proves that it has some weightage.

The phrase match anchor’s average percentage is higher than that of exact match anchors. However, the correlation is, in fact, less than the exact match anchor texts.

On the other hand, partial match anchors average and median shift to a blatant zero. The average percentage is greater as compared to both the exact or phrase match percentage ratio. This is mainly because partial matches are a combination of the two. The real correlation of this anchor was pretty similar to the phrase match correlation. This shows that there is a weak correlation for this anchor.

As for the random- text, the results are self-explanatory. The plotted graphs for these anchors show that even though the average states there is a weak correlation, it may not always be of any significance. Since the median and average combined shows a constant shift to zero, there is no effective correlation.

The influence of surrounding texts

There are two parts of a link that you apply. One is the anchor text of the link, and the second is the surrounding link text. Both of these are crucial factors for your ranking. When you use a random or unrelated anchor text, Google may refer to the surrounding text to recognize your content intent. Similarly, exact match keywords in the surrounding text have little to no subsequent effect on ranking. Whereas, the partial match keywords also have zero correlation.