Local SEO in 2018: 12 Tips to Build Local Engagement

STAFF Angel Niñofranco 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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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