Applying common sense when optimizing your content for SEO and readers

Myths of good and bad practices in online marketing tend to be shared and reshared and can become self-perpetuating, so it can be confusing for newcomers to online marketing to understand what will work and what won't. Given the importance of SEO and the many ranking factors, it's not surprising that many myths have developed. I hear many of these SEO myths daily, so in this post, I hope to separate some of the facts from the fiction, specifically related to copywriting for SEO, highlighting the most common myths we are still seeing and how to avoid them. [si_cta_banner id=151860]

1. Insisting on 'keyword density'

Believe it or not, I still receive requests from clients for a specific percentage of keyword density in their copy. I always strongly advise against it [Editor's note - not a surprise, we were asked about the Recommended keyword…

Google adding warning badge to slow sites, Facebook's new fundraising tools, influencers and big brands lacking credibility, traditional TV ad spend declining and Instagram's new feature takes on TikTok

Following the addition of a new Speed Report in Google Search Console, Google has announced that it is set to start adding warning badges to sites with slow load speeds as a signal to users. This could ultimately lead to other 'badges' rewarding sites that offer good experiences. Facebook is aiming to make donating and fundraising on its platforms easier ahead of the holiday season by releasing several new tools. A new report has found that consumers don't believe that big brands or social media influencers have any credibility and that they support social issues purely for profit. New data reveals that spend on traditional TV advertising is declining with more people switching to streaming services. However, this could provide some…

If you can understand what search engines are looking for, you'll be able to ensure they identify your target topics and rank your copy for the most appropriate search terms

Entity salience is a technical topic with significant implications for the way that search engines understand content. When discussed in the context of SEO, it refers to the process by which Google makes use of machine learning to predict what a human reader will see as the most important things mentioned in a text. If those of us working in SEO and copywriting can understand what search engines are looking for, we will be better able to ensure they identify our target topics and rank our copy for the most appropriate search terms. [si_guide_block id="134895" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – SEO report template" description="This SEO report template created in PowerPoint gives you a simple structure to follow when conducting your own monthly…

For every business owner, marketer, or webmaster it’s essential to keep tracking what’s happening on a site and to have enough time to deal with multiple tasks as well

Running your own website is a pretty challenging and time-consuming process in the era of constant technology updates and search algorithms changes. For every business owner, marketer, or webmaster it’s essential to keep tracking what’s happening on a site and to have enough time to deal with multiple tasks as well. Fortunately, there are various Chrome extensions that let you manage your website issues and save time. Here are the best plugins you can use for free to measure your site’s performance without leaving the web page.

1. SimilarWeb

This easy-to-use plugin lets marketers see key metrics for their website, such as traffic statistics, rankings, traffic sources, top referring sites, top paid and organic keywords, etc.…

6 of the best SEO tools to make sure your on-page SEO is optimized

Implementing SEO Services for clients in a wide array of industries, I’ve learned to utilize some amazing tools for on-page SEO – and how much of a difference on-page SEO can make in helping your website rank high on search engines.

Why On-Page SEO Matters

On-Page SEO is critical because it influences the way in which Google and other search engines interpret the content on your page. Your goal is to ensure that your content is fully optimized for your chosen keywords so that the search engine is encouraged to rank you higher. Without proper on-page SEO, it’s likely that your competitors who have optimized their pages will sail past you in the SERP’s, even with worse content and a less powerful backlink profile.

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How to optimize your online images for search engines

There's an old phrase that says, 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. This may be true for the rest of world but not for Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines. When their bots crawl an image, for example my picture, they actually can't see the image and  but they only see the context of the image from its filename and the Alt Text. Google also pick up the context from any captions and links to the page containing the image so it's important to make web editors aware of these factors too. The potential commercial importance of getting image optimization right is shown by this example where images are shown 'above the fold' and typically get good clickthrough rates. This example shows how, for some queries, Google will trigger a "OneBox" featuring…

Chart of the Day: New experiment on outbound links shows their impact

A lot of discussion of SEO is around the right type of backlinks, links into a site, and rightly so given their continued importance to ranking. But what about links out from a site, do they have an impact? These are discussed less often, but can have an impact as the chart from this experiment by Reboot Online shows. The experiment involved purchasing 10 new domains which mentioned the niche term "Phylandocic". Each article mentioned 2 authoritative, related websites. On 5 of the websites, mentions are in plain text whilst on the other 5 sites, they are hyperlinked. The domains were all registered at the same time to remove any domain age influence. All domains contained 10 random but pronounceable characters and all domains were confirmed as having 0 search volume produced in Google. All sites were co-hosted to minimise any…

It was long thought that having the keyword in your domain name would help you in the SERPs. Is this actually the case?

Ahrefs have done some stellar research into the On-page ranking factors in 2016 and have found many interesting nuggets. Back in 2012 Google rolled out an updated intended to bring an end to high ranking, low-quality Exact Match Domains (EMDs). Since then, the scurry to find high volume, keyword rich domains has somewhat diminished. But does have an EMD still impact the SERPs? As evidenced in the data, there is a clear jump between position #1 and #2 which suggests that either the EMD update is no longer in effect, or something different is going on. First of all, the phrasing used by Matt Cutts himself was "Minor weather report: Small upcoming Google algo change will…

Check your competitor’s SEO strategies with the Ahrefs Site Explorer and Backlink History tools

We live in an age of competition where you have to be at the top of your game to survive, let alone thrive. If you are in the field of Internet Marketing, then you have probably been encouraged to improve your content and your promotion techniques on several occasions to achieve better results. All of these work perfectly fine, but they are not enough to get you across the finishing line ahead of your competitors. Sometimes you are required to broaden your horizon and think slightly out of the box. How can you do that? Well it’s simple. Tap into the minds of your competitors and figure out the strategies that they are devising. This way, you can better equip yourself to compete with them and outsmart them. When it comes to SEO, checking your competitor’s strategy with …

A reminder of the latest thinking on copywriting for SEO and conversion

If you're not an SEO specialist, but are involved with writing or reviewing website copy, it can be tricky keeping up with the latest approaches to writing for SEO. We can't all afford SEO agencies or in-house experts! If this describes you, this infographic from ContentVerve could be a useful reminder. It gives a good summary of the latest thinking if  you are simply looking to become familiar with the current top level SEO tactics, without it getting too techie. Remember though, as the introduction to the infographic says, write for humans first, SEO second, keep it natural! …