Monday, June 25, 2018

5 Reasons Why You Should Avoid Cheap SEO Packages

VIP CONTRIBUTOR Joshua Daniels 2.6K READS Even in the digital age, there are a few marketing practices that polarize opinion quite like SEO. From those who consider it redundant or an inconvenient cost to the marketers that commit a large portion of their budgets to search engine optimization, it continues to inspire debate throughout the industry. SEO is arguably more important in today’s competitive online marketplace than it has been at any point in its history. The key lies in your execution, and an innate ability to distinguish good SEO services from those that are merely cheap or accessible. Below, we’ll explore this in further detail, while revealing the key reasons to avoid SEO packages that are marketed as being ‘cheap’ or ‘quick win.’ The Importance of SEO Let’s start by evaluating the importance of SEO, which remains the single most effective marketing technique for scaling traffic online. However, the practice is increasingly challenging, particularly in highly competitive industries where a large number of brands continue to strive for a viable market share. It’s clear that brands who invest in good quality SEO and are able to secure consistently high rankings will achieve a competitive advantage over their rivals. This leads us to the changing nature of customer behavior, which has evolved considerably as the web has enjoyed exponential growth. More specifically, consumers are increasingly likely to source, reference, and purchase goods online, as they leverage the web and its tools to seek out key points of information such as comparative pricing and availability. This is borne out by statistics, with more than 3.5 billion searches per day on Google alone. So, brands that rank well in Google’s organic search results in relation to pivotal keywords and phrases are in an ideal position to educate customers and compete for their business,...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/5-reasons-why-you-should-avoid-cheap-seo-packages/

Law Firm SEO: 5 Things You Can Do to Start Seeing Traffic & Results

Alex Valencia 2.1K READS Is your law firm website guilty of bad SEO? I’ve witnessed it far too many times. Law firm got bad advice. The law firm didn’t do any link building. The law firm didn’t add any content – or, if they did create content, it ended up being incredibly similar to other content already on the website, low quality, and without purpose. Basically, their websites are just broken. Broken links, broken redirects, broken everything! The result of all this bad SEO? Not enough traffic due to poor organic search visibility. Sound familiar? But now isn’t the time to pass judgment. Now is the time to get it right. Ready to find out how? You’ll need to get links that drive traffic to your website. You’ll also need to get your technical SEO right. A content strategy? Yep, you’ll need that. And you’ll also need to do some good old-fashioned marketing. Here are five ways you can bail out your website and start driving more traffic and results. Now. 1. Connect YouTube & Your Website Correctly So many lawyers are creating and posting useful and helpful videos on YouTube. Yet many law firms are failing to link strategically from their YouTube to their website. This is a huge mistake. These are pretty much the easiest links you can get! YouTube is one of the most popular websites, with more than a billion users every month. Any link from YouTube is valuable. Although YouTube links may be nofollowed, remember our goal is driving traffic. We’re not worried about rankings right now. Two things to do here: Make sure you link to your website from your YouTube channel. Go through any videos you have posted. Within the description, be sure to link to the most relevant page(s) on your website,...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/law-firm-seo-5-things-you-can-do-to-start-seeing-traffic-results/

How to Optimize Your Anchor Text Strategy For SEO

The early days of SEO were like the Wild, Wild West. Blackhat SEO experts were doing everything imaginable to rank their sites on Google. That included keyword stuffing and creating spammy backlinks on a regular basis. And for a time, it totally worked. But these days, those older SEO hacks are long gone. Now we deal with a much more sophisticated algorithm that pushes innocent-sounding updates like Hummingbird and Panda. But as innocent as they sound, they can create some real problems for your ongoing SEO efforts. One of those updates that affected SEO forever is known as Penguin and it specifically dealt with how Google uses backlinks to evaluate page rank. And with Penguin now a part of the core Google algorithm, the anchor text you use in your backlinks and internal links is more important than ever. So in this guide, I want to show you how to optimize your anchor texts so that they will positively impact your SEO. But before we go there, you have to understand how anchor texts work at all. What is anchor text, and why bother? Even if you don’t realize it, there’s a good chance that you use anchor texts on a daily basis. Anchor text is the clickable text that you see in a hyperlink. So if the Internet is a highway, then you can think of anchor texts like signs for upcoming exits. They send signals to both your website’s user and search engines. And when used correctly, they will connect you to a different “lane” by allowing you to source credible information from another website. They also play a role in helping users navigate your site as well. If you were to look into your site’s code, you would see a line that looks like this: This is the part of...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/how-to-optimize-your-anchor-text-strategy-for-seo/

How to Explode Traffic with the Right Content

VIP CONTRIBUTOR Tom McLoughlin 3.9K READS “Content is king” is a phrase that gets bandied around the web an awful lot. I’ve written before about how content is no good without promotion, and I stand by that. But if you do promotion right and have a relatively established website, there are a few things you can do with your content that can help explode your traffic. And I don’t use that hyperbole lightly. Too many people fall into the trap of churning out blog content for the sake of it, without much thought and research, or without delivering on that research once it’s been done. Here’s how to stop that happening, and to create informational content that will truly shine and bring lots more people to your website, in a consistent way. The starting point for all effective content (that targets search traffic at least) is keyword research. You need to ensure you are writing pieces of content that target phrases and topics people are searching for. For this process, our focus is on informational content so you should be looking for the kind of things your audiences are searching for higher in the buying funnel before they reach the commercial queries that are more likely to directly convert. Questions A great way to find this is looking for questions that people are asking about your topic. Fortunately, Ahrefs has a handy little tool for that which will tell you what questions people are searching for around your topic: In this example, if I had a client who offered trips to Italy, I would put Italy in and see what comes back. I could then start typing in more specific locations like Rome or Florence and get another batch of ideas. You could then go the other way and broaden the search...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/how-to-explode-traffic-with-the-right-content/

SEO-Friendly Hosting: 5 Things to Look For in a Hosting Company

VIP CONTRIBUTOR Amelia Willson 2.9K READS As SEO professionals, we have no shortage of things to worry about. There are the old standbys: backlinks, content creation, sitemaps and robots.txt files. And there’s new(er) stuff to get excited about as well: voice search, featured snippets, the mobile-first index. Amidst the noise, one factor often goes overlooked, even though it can impact your site’s uptime and your page speed – both of which are essential elements for maintaining positive organic performance. I’m talking about web hosting, folks. The web host you choose determines the overall consistency of the site experience you offer organic visitors (and all visitors, for that matter). If you want to prevent server errors and page timeouts – and stop users from bouncing back to Google – you need a solid web host you can rely on. Ultimately, you want a web host that supports your organic efforts, rather than impeding them. Let’s look at five key features that define an SEO-friendly web hosting company. 1. High Uptime Guarantee Your host’s uptime guarantee is arguably the most important factor in whether they’re SEO-friendly. Uptime refers to the percentage of the time your site is online and accessible. The higher your uptime, the less likely visitors will visit your site only to discover it’s down, sending them back to the search engines and potentially risking your rankings in the process. Better, more reliable hosts offer higher uptime guarantees. For best results, choose a host with at least 99.9 percent uptime guarantee (or higher, if you can get it). That translates to roughly 1.44 minutes of downtime a day and 8.8 hours per year. Not bad. However, be wary of any host that claims 100 percent uptime. There’s always going to be some downtime. The key is to keep it as...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/seo-friendly-hosting-5-things-to-look-for-in-a-hosting-company/

SEO Pricing: How Much Does SEO Cost in 2018? [Industry Research]

Joshua Hardwick Head of Content @ Ahrefs (or, in plain English, I’m the guy responsible for ensuring that every blog post we publish is EPIC). Founder @ The SEO Project. Article stats Share In May 2018, we surveyed the SEO industry to find out how much they charge for SEO services, and what pricing models they use. Here’s everything we learned from the 357 respondents. I’ll begin with our most significant finding… … Matt Cutts has left Google and is now in the SEO game. He offers his services worldwide and charges just $500-$1,000 per month. A bargain really, as I’ve heard he knows his stuff. I started with this example to illustrate that we didn’t just throw a survey into the air and blindly pull results in Google Sheets. We manually reviewed every submission to remove duplicates and spam, such as this Matt Cutts troll entry. Two other notable points: We disallowed anonymous submissions to keep the original dataset as “clean” as possible. All respondents had to give a company website or freelancing profile. We didn’t restrict the survey to our audience. We promoted it heavily on Facebook to reach a broader range of SEOs. We ended up with 348 “clean” submissions, from which I pulled insights relating to: Hourly rates Monthly retainer rates Per-project fees I delve into specific findings for each section below. But first, a few takeaways… SEO Pricing: 10 Top Takeaways Here are my top 10 personal takeaways from the data: Most SEOs charge a monthly retainer for some or all of their services. 74.71% of respondents charge clients a monthly retainer fee. Pricing for this varies significantly from country-to-country, but it almost never exceeds $5K/month (94.23% of all respondents priced their retainers at $5K/month or below). Many SEOs offer numerous pricing models, although the...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/seo-pricing-how-much-does-seo-cost-in-2018-industry-research/

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Local SEO in 2018: 12 Tips to Build Local Engagement

STAFF Angel NiƱofranco 2.2K READS This year, local businesses need to step up their game to get online visibility. Competition in the local SERPs is getting more difficult and “your website doesn’t matter” anymore. Dana DiTomaso, President and Partner at Kick Point, recently spoke about local SEO in 2018 and beyond during PeepCon 3.0. DiTomaso explained why businesses need to focus more on optimizing for local search and how they can get better online visibility through local engagement tactics. This is a recap of DiTomaso’s PeepCon 3.0 presentation. Local SEO: Today & Beyond Local search is undergoing a few challenges, including review spam and listing spam. But Google is making steps to address them. “Spam is like whack-a-mole,” according to DiTomaso. “Spammers try new stuff, Google smacks it down.” To improve the quality of its listings, Google introduced the Local Guide program where people provide relevant information about local businesses to Google. When people search for businesses, visit their location and review them from your Android phone – all with your Location Services turned on, then Google knows where you’ve been. Most people only have one phone and searching for a business, going there, and reviewing it are all measures of local engagement taking place on mobile. What’s more, it’s hard to fake location data. Currently, local search comprises of about one-third engagement, one-third local data, and one-third traditional SEO. But in the future, DiTomaso said, engagement will become a more significant factor for local SEO – as it is the best way how Google can differentiate the quality of businesses. Google knows so much about people – from the topics you’re interested in and the videos you watched, to the places you went to, and the things you said. Through these bits of information, Google has a complete snapshot of...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/local-seo-in-2018-12-tips-to-build-local-engagement/

15 Link Building Tactics to Supercharge Your SEO Efforts

Jeremy Knauff 4.5K READS Link building is still a vital component of modern SEO. I think it’s fair to say that many SEO practitioners would agree that it’s one of the most difficult components because the days of easily building hundreds or thousands of effective links are long behind us. Earning high-quality links from trustworthy and authoritative websites — the kind of links that are necessary to improve organic ranking — requires a disciplined and creative approach. You need to step outside of what everyone else is doing so that you can earn links that they don’t have, giving you a unique advantage in your organic search campaign. To help you earn plenty of valuable links that most of your competitors are too lazy to go after, I’ve outlined 15 tactics you can use to supercharge your link building efforts. 1. Get Readers Engaged with Your Content In the late 1990s, while still serving in the Marine Corps, we had to jump into below-freezing water during Arctic warfare training. You knew it would be intense, but until you plunged in, completely enveloped by the frigid water, you couldn’t possibly imagine the full intensity. Your feet broke the surface, and in an instant, you were completely submerged in a brutal cold unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. You stopped breathing, all of your muscles locked up, and your mind went completely blank. So what does that have to do with link building? Absolutely nothing, but it was a compelling story that got you engaged. If you want to earn quality inbound links, you need your visitors to be engaged and stick around long enough so they can see the value of your content. If they check out after a few sentences, you have almost no chance of earning a link. As Alan Bleiweiss explained...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/15-link-building-tactics-to-supercharge-your-seo-efforts/

Javascript and SEO – Everything You Need to Know about Crawling, Indexing & Ranking

The relationship between JavaScript and SEO started a long time ago and has been a highly debated topic in the virtual world, mostly in the SEO circles. Creating websites using JavaScript to feature content was a big hit back in the days. Many developers used this technique, with some lacking knowledge on whether search engines can parse and understand that content.   Along the way, Google changed its methodology and standpoint regarding JavaScript. Everybody started to doubt whether search engines, like Google, are able to crawl JavaScript. And that was the wrong question to ask. The better question to ask is can search engines parse and understand the content rendered by Javascript? In other words, can Google rank your website if it’s made in JavaScript?     Before starting to answer this question, we need to get some things straight. First, we should talk about how JavaScript works and how it is implemented, then understand how a website using JavaScript can be properly crawled and indexed, then ranked and if search engines can do all those actions for a website using JS code.   What is JavaScript and How Does it Work? Crawling. Indexing. Ranking – The Three Musketeers of SEO Googlebot vs. Caffeine in the JavaScript Rendering Process How Javascript Affects SEO How to Make Your Javascript SEO-Friendly Conclusion 1. What is JavaScript and How Does it Work?   JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages to develop websites. It uses frameworks to create interactive web pages by controlling the behavior of different elements on the page.   Initially, JS frameworks were implemented client-side (front-end) only in browsers, but now the code is embedded in other host software, such as server-side (back-end) in web servers and databases, which will save you from a lot of trouble and pain. The...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/javascript-and-seo-everything-you-need-to-know-about-crawling-indexing-ranking/

How Long Does SEO Take? – SEO 101

Jeremy Knauff 3.6K READS Editor’s note: This is a chapter from Search Engine Journal’s new e-book, SEO 101: Learn the Basics of Search Engine Optimization. Want to read the full guide? Download your copy of SEO 101 now! While there are many questions about SEO, few are as difficult to answer as “How long does it take?” This is because, in addition to all of the variables that play a role in the optimization of your own website, you also have to evaluate those same variables in your competitors’ optimization efforts. This can make an already complex question infinitely more difficult to answer. The short answer is “it depends.” Unfortunately, I won’t be giving you a specific timeframe for SEO results because that’s impossible. Nor will I be sharing some secret formula to answer this question because one simply doesn’t exist. However, there is a lot more to answering it than guesswork. The truth is that how long it takes comes down to analyzing several variables for your own website compared to the same variables for your competitors’ websites. There are three specific criteria that play a significant role on how long your SEO will take: competition, inbound links, and content. Competition If you’re selling something like salmon-flavored toaster pastries, you probably won’t face any competition. However, those of us selling products and services that real people will actually buy are going to face varying degrees of competition based on demand. For example, a plumber serving a small local market would face less competition than a real estate brokerage in the same city, which would face less competition than a national mortgage company. As you might imagine, the more competing webpages you’re up against, the longer it will take to get results. Both the difficulty and time necessary will usually follow a bell curve,...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/how-long-does-seo-take-seo-101/

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Use of Voice Search in Public On the Rise, According to 2018 Study – Search Engine Journal

STAFF Matt Southern 1.4K READS A recent study from Stone Temple shows that people are becoming increasingly more comfortable with conducting voice searches in public. Moreover, the use of voice search commands while at home appears to be going down. Stone Temple’s second annual study of mobile voice usage trends examines how people use voice commands, when they’re used, and why. According to the company, results of the study are an indication that using our voice to interact with devices will soon be as common as using touch input. Compared to last year’s study, greater percentages of people surveyed reported to use voice search in nearly every environment except for two. Can you spot them? If you look closely you’ll see that, compared to last year, fewer people reported to use voice search at home alone and at home with friends. Those may have been the two situations in which you would have assumed more people would be most comfortable uttering commands to their phones. While those are still in the lead, the amount of people using voice search in a public setting is catching up. Growing numbers of people report to be using voice search in public environments such as the office, public transportation, restaurants, parties, the gym, and even theaters. This is especially interesting when you consider, in the same survey, people report to be annoyed when hearing others giving commands to their phones. A whopping 45% of people either “agree” or “strongly agree” that they feel annoyed when hearing someone else use voice commands. Over 60% of respondents say they like voice search because it’s fast and requires no typing, and over 66% agree that voice commands make using a smartphone easier. Perhaps that’s why so many people have no qualms about using voice search in public...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/use-of-voice-search-in-public-on-the-rise-according-to-2018-study-search-engine-journal/

Why Search – and SEO – Is Important

Ryan Jones 2.2K READS Editor’s note: This is a chapter from Search Engine Journal’s new e-book, SEO 101: Learn the Basics of Search Engine Optimization. Want to read the full guide? Download your copy of SEO 101 now! In 2009, Bill Gates gave a speech at a private dinner where he famously said “the future of search is verbs.” Gates wasn’t talking about the words people type into search boxes, he was instead talking about why people search. Before we can understand why search is important, we need to take a step back and understand why people search. Why People Search In the early days, people searched to find a list of documents that contained the words they typed in. That’s no longer the case. Today’s searchers search to solve problems, to accomplish tasks, and to “do” something. They might be searching to book a flight, buy something, learn the latest Taylor Swift lyrics, or browse cat photos – but these are all actions. Or, as Gates referred to them, verbs. When a user starts a search, they’re really starting a journey. Marketers love to talk about something called “the consumer journey.” It’s just a fancy way of referencing a user’s path from the inception of their task to the completion – and most of these journeys start with a search. The consumer journey has been gradually playing a larger role in search over the last decade. Originally depicted as a funnel wherein users move from awareness to consideration to purchase, this old consumer journey has become outdated (although we still use this model for illustrative purposes and to make persona research easier). The Evolution of Search & the Consumer Journey The modern consumer journey no longer represents a funnel, but looks more like a crazy straw – with various...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/why-search-and-seo-is-important/

What Is Search Engine Optimization in 2018

STAFF Danny Goodwin 4.2K READS Editor’s note: This is a chapter from Search Engine Journal’s new e-book, SEO 101: Learn the Basics of Search Engine Optimization. Want to read the full guide? Download your copy of SEO 101 now! Search engine optimization (SEO), according to our definition, is: The process of optimizing a website – as well as all the content on that website – so it will appear in prominent positions in the organic results of search engines. SEO requires an understanding of how search engines work, what people search for, and why and how people search. Successful SEO makes a site appealing to users and search engines. It is a combination of technical and marketing. But there is no single definition of SEO. That’s why I reached out to more than 60 SEO experts and asked them how they would define what search engine optimization is now. All of their answers and perspectives are unique – and not one of these definitions of SEO is wrong. Here’s how these SEO professionals say we should answer the question, “what is SEO?”  in 2018. Benj Arriola / SEO Director, Myers Media Group Google continuously develops and improves upon their algorithm to create a sophisticated machine that learns as it grows; the more it learns, the less humans can comprehend. Over the years, SEO strategies have evolved in attempts to keep pace with Google’s algorithm changes and updates with the use of machine learning and data science, and this is SEO in 2018. Yet some things never change, one factor remains constant: Google has always focused on quality, beneficial content that users love to read, watch, listen to, and share. With quality content that benefits the user as a focal point in Google’s ranking algorithm, it is imperative to also make that the priority of...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/what-is-search-engine-optimization-in-2018/

Monday, January 15, 2018

How to Make Your Website Stand Out From The Crowd – Designer Daily: graphic and web design blog

When you are creating a website, it’s no secret that you want it to stand out. An outstanding site gains points over the competition and is impressive to potential customers. A unique and attractive website gives designers a competitive edge. Developers add original and successful websites to their portfolios in order to attract new clients. The following tips will assist you to make your website stand out: Layout and structure A unique site structure or impressive layout will make your site memorable. However, this is no easy feat. Creating a unique website provides a visual challenge and the opportunity to stretch your developmental skills. Remember to keep information well organized and accessible while working on a unique site. When offering a unique site, development time may be increased as you encounter new problems. When designing a new site, use programs which are easily accessible to users. Many complex sites rely heavily on JavaScript, but this is not always accessible to users. Branding If your client has an excellent brand, this will assist your site to stand out. Branding aims to transcend a product, creating an emotional resonance with the user. Stick with your client’s branding guidelines, embrace them, and use the client’s logo on your site. If your client does not have original branding or logos and only has a choice of font, this makes it harder. Work with the message, color and font you would like your client to create. Use text effectively Using text to set your site apart is both complex and very effective. The content of a site reflects the client’s personality or corporate culture. Use text, video, subheadings and easy reading or legibility to set the site apart. Ask your client for copy that is well written and effective, showing a sense of warmth which...

Continue Reading

source https://andlocal.org/how-to-make-your-website-stand-out-from-the-crowd-designer-daily-graphic-and-web-design-blog/