link building expert

Strategies That Will Make You a Link Building Expert

Link building is the combination of a couple of different skills: sales, programming, content creation, and marketing to make people link back to your site. 

For Google, backlinks are one of their top three ranking signals.

Why are links so important? Through links, engines not only analyze the popular websites based on the number of popular pages linking to them, but they can also analyze metrics like spam, authority, and trust. Reliable sites link to other trusted websites. And spammy sites receive almost no links from reputable sites.

Through links, engines not only analyze the popular websites based on the number of popular pages linking to them, but they can also analyze metrics like spam, authority, and trust. Reliable sites link to other trusted websites. And spammy sites receive almost no links from reputable sites.

Thus Google now focuses on link quality rather than quantity. 

We know this might sound overwhelming, but it’s not hard to become a link building expert. We will teach you everything you need to build quality links. 

Are you ready? Let’s dive in!

6 Tips on How to Become Link Building Expert

When building backlinks, the following two things may happen: you can build high-quality links which enable you to sit back and watch your traffic skyrocket or it can do nothing due to poor backlinking strategy. Google might penalize your site because of low-quality links.

1. Understand What Competitors are Doing

Step one in the process on becoming a link building expert is to know what works for others. If you want to compete with the sites that rank high on search engines, you will have to play the same game. 

There are platforms that enable you to search several websites and see which backlinks they have in common. If several have an inbound link from a specific site, then it’s a reliable source for your industry. 

2. Create Business Relationships

After you determine sites you want to target, start building relationships with influential companies. 

No one likes spam and people typically ignore requests from people they don’t know. To get noticed, you need to be involved in their communities. 

Every enterprise has a contact information you can easily find on their website. Start a conversation by introducing yourself and providing valuable information to its staff. It’s more likely that you’ll get noticed when you offer something useful rather than a simple cold pitch. 

3. Try Guest Posting on Relevant Sites

Writing guest posts on related sites is the best way to become a subject expert. 

Before pitching to the website editor, understand the voice and tone of the publication. Read the submission guidelines and come up with a topic that fits within it. 

To utilize guest posting as a link building SEO strategy, include links in the content under different anchor text. This will show Google that your site is a relevant source for the keywords related to the subject. 

4. Comment on Other Relevant Blogs

Commenting on blogs is often perceived as spammy. But it doesn’t have to be. Generally speaking, comments are a great way to promote content and build out a natural link profile.

However, it becomes spam if you start to automate, outsource, or even comment on spammy sites. 

To avoid all this, you need to find a high-quality blog in your niche. Researching can be time-consuming, plus not all blogs have commenting enabled. 

What to do instead? Becoming a link building expert involves doing an in-depth search via Google and use search operators. Here is an example:

Imagine you want to promote your eCommerce accessories store. You would want to enter following search terms and operators:

  • spring fashion trends “submit comment.”
  • spring accessory trends “comment.”

This way of searching on Google gives you blogs based on the keyword and those who have comments enabled on the sites. 

Afterward, you need to check the authority of those blogs at Ahrefs or a similar site. 

Once you identify blogs that are worth your time, go ahead and drop a link in the comment section of their blog. 

Get Your Comment Approved

Almost all the blogs have comment moderator enabled on their pages. This means that the owner has to approve your comment before it goes public on their website. 

Don’t just drop the link and say nothing. This won’t get you anywhere. Instead fill out all the fields required to submit a comment: your name, email address, website (you can skip it since you already include a link) and a positive remark. 

Read the post and pick one point that’s most relevant to the link you are adding and elaborate on it. 

If your comment gets an attention of the owner, they might even share it on their social media networks too. Not only you got your comment approved on an authority blog, but also got exposure on a different platform. 

Bottom line? One simple, thoughtful comment might set off a chain reaction resulting in more traffic on our site and more engagement on your social media. 

5. Look for the Dead Links

It’s very frustrating when you click on a link and all you get is the “page not found” notification. However, a link building expert can turn someone else’s failure into their benefit. 

When you find a broken link, contact the editor of the publication and point out the issue along with offering an alternative link to your page.

To succeed, you might want to explain why that broken link is hurting their web traffic and how your content will help their readers. 

6. Utilize Social Media

Social media continues to gain more significance for determining search results. Obtaining backlinks on social media shows search engines that your content is reliable and actively shared by individuals. 

You need to have social-media sharing buttons enabled on every page of the website possible. Having a user-friendly website helps the reader to navigate and share the content easily.  

When Google notices that a page is resonating on social media platforms, it indexes the page and sends to search quality rankers to determine why. This is how pages rank on the first page of Google.

As you can see, backlinks are an essential part of growing your online presence and prooving Google that your website is authoritative.

It inevitably requires some time and commitment, but it’s not hard to master. Do you still have any questions regarding link building? Feel free to contact us with your inquiries. 

authority backlinks

The Secret to Getting Authority Backlinks

Nabbing authority backlinks is arguably more important than it has ever been. Gone are the days when businesses could get their sites to rank high by optimizing their content for relevant keywords.

Sadly, though, getting those backlinks is much harder than strategically choosing and placing keywords. If you want backlinks, you’re going to have to work for them.

And we mean really work for them.

So what type of work do you have to put in to get those natural backlinks? Here are some tips that should you have swimming in backlinks.

Be On The Lookout For Broken Links

Broken links are bad for business. Content which is full of broken links does not reflect well on a business.

And what does this have to do with you?

As it turns out, you can turn an authoritative site’s broken links into an opportunity for yourself. In order to do so, you should first comb an authoritative site for broken links. After you’ve found them, you should reach out to the appropriate party.

Let this party know that there is a link that needs updating. You should also let him or her know that you have some content which could replace it. Just make sure that your content is compelling enough to make a good impression.

Create Useful Content

We mentioned “compelling” content above, but what exactly is that? How can you ascertain whether or not your content truly is appealing?

Generally speaking, content which provides readers with some information that they didn’t know before is useful. This means that fluff and surface-level content just won’t cut it. The content should also be relevant to your niche.

That said, try beefing up your content with statistics and quotes. This will make your content look more authoritative, which will definitely help you get more authority backlinks. You also shouldn’t stray too far away from your niche since you want the content on your site to be focused.

Offer Guest Posts

Some people are wary of doing guest posts. They feel as if they’re getting nothing for something.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Guest posts are a powerful tool which businesses can use to get authority backlinks at the price of content. And, if you ask us, that’s a small price to pay for a quality backlink.

If you’re not extremely knowledgeable on how to approach guest posts, we suggest that you look around for some advice. There are plenty of online articles which exist to help people like you learn how to do guest posts.

Reach Out to Influential Content Creators

You’re the newbie here. Your site is new and doesn’t have much traffic. As a result, you shouldn’t wait for people to reach out to you with opportunities.

You have to be the one to initiate communication with your industry’s big names.

Perhaps, however, you shouldn’t aim high in the beginning. Start with well-known yet smaller businesses. Try to get some natural backlinks from these companies.

You can then move on the big fish. Just leverage the experience that you have with the smaller organizations in order to get your foot in these companies’ doors.

Give Testimonials 

Whether you’re a big-time entrepreneur or a small business owner, you’ve used some sort of your product in the past. Why not, then, try to use this to your advantage?

You should start by reaching out the company from which you’ve made purchases. Communicate to this company that you’ve used and like the product and offer to give a review which reflects everything you’ve said about the product.

Or, as they’re officially called, testimonials.

Some of these businesses will definitely link back to your site in your testimonial. Needless to say, though, these backlinks are only worth something if the company is reputable.

Let Someone Interview You

Your business is presumably small, so not many people are going to be mowing each other down to get to you.

In any case, it’s possible that someone with a humble blog or site might want to interview you. If such a thing ever does occur, you shouldn’t hesitate to accept the offer. 

There is no such thing as an online interview which doesn’t link back to the interviewee’s site in some way. And, as long as the interviewer’s site has even a little bit of credibility, you’ll benefit that backlink.

Infographics

We hate to jump around here, but let’s briefly revisit content standards. As we said before, you’ll need useful content to procure authority backlinks.

And do you know what one of the most useful types of content is when done well?

Infographics.

Simply put, infographics are (for some people) preferable to walls of text and long videos. Some people would honestly rather just read an infrographic and be done.

People who link to external content know this, so they don’t hesitate to link to any useful infographics they can find on the web. Try making one of those infographics yours.

Find Out How Competitors Get Their Backlinks 

You are a super sleuth, whether you know it or not. Your job is not just to produce good content; you have to keep up with the competition as well.

More importantly, though, you have to keep track of how your competitors are landing their authority backlinks. In other words, you should take some notes from your neighbors.

Those notes will give you some idea of what types of sites you should be reaching out to for your backlinks. They’ll also give you some idea about what your competitors are up to, which isn’t a bad deal.

Authority Backlinks Are An Important Part of Any SEO Strategy

Don’t get us wrong. We don’t want you to ditch your efforts to optimize your content. The core elements of search engine optimization are still important, so don’t neglect them.

All we’re saying is that your backlinks should take some priority over some of the other aspects of your strategy. If your current strategy is balanced enough, it shouldn’t take much more than a few small tweaks.

Need help building a new backlink-oriented strategy? Contact us to get some help with hammering out your new SEO strategy.

Backlink Profile

5 Traits That Match Google’s Definition Of A Natural Backlink Profile

This is a guest post by Adam White from SEOJet.net

Ever since Google decided to really crack down on unnatural backlink profiles, SEO agencies and marketers have been forced to guess at how to build a natural link profile.

Everyone should know that too many exact match anchors is a bad thing, but how many is too many? And what should take the place of an exact match anchor?

These are the questions I set out to resolve once and for all so I could stop doing guess-E-O and start moving more quickly to the top of Google.

I looked at thousands upon thousands of backlinks researching anchor text profiles of #1 ranked websites as I built out SEOJet.

I found 5 traits that every #1 ranked site had in common.

1. Homepage Branding

The first big discovery for me as I looked at the back link profiles of #1 ranked websites was how lopsided the homepage anchor text profile was toward branded and URL anchors.

In other words, 80%-95% of the backlinks pointing at the homepage had either the brand name as the anchor text, or some form of the URL (Website.com, http://www.website.com, www.website.com etc).

They weren’t targeting key phrases on their homepage, they focused on building brand trust with Google.

I also noticed the large majority of links pointing to their sites were pointing to the homepage.

So the majority of your links need to point to the homepage and 80%-95% of those links to need to have the brand or some form of the URL as the anchor.

Note: The other 4 traits apply to inner pages of a website and not the homepage.

2. Very Few Exact Match Anchors

When the big Google updates started hitting in about 2011 they really cracked down on anchor text profiles that had too many exact match anchors.

Since that time many business owners and even SEO companies have been too scared to really delve back into link building.

As I was doing all of the backlink research for SEOJet I expected to see very little (if none at all) exact match anchor links.

I was surprised to find that the typical #1 ranked website actually had 10%-20% exact match anchor links pointing to the page that was ranked at the top.

Keep in mind that these links were almost never just targeting one single keyword, but several.

For example, a page might be targeting 4-6 keywords and the 20% exact match anchors would be made up from a mix of all the keywords they were targeting.

A single keyword by itself would appear as an exact match about 3% of the time, a far cry from the way things used to be.

3. Keywords Blended Into Anchors

If on your inner pages you can only have 10%-20% exact match anchors, what do you focus on with the other 80%-90% of your links to that page?

In order to strike a natural balance you need to still get about 35%-45% of your links with URL or branded anchors.

That leaves you with about 50% of your links that you still need to decide what to use as your anchor text.

This is where you can really make a backlink profile get natural.

The remaining links should fall under the keywords mixed into your anchor text category.

This means that if your keyword is something like “SEO services” a typical anchor text in this category might be something like “can find SEO services that will work”.

You can see that I wrote that anchor as if it was in the middle of a sentence. That is because it should be in the middle of a sentence.

This is why guest posting is still alive and works extremely well. There is no easier way to get an anchor text like this that looks extremely organic.

4. Huge Variety of Anchors

The best part about keywords mixed into anchors text is the combinations of anchor text are infinite.

You could essentially get a million links that contain one of your key phrases and none of the anchors are exactly the same.

This is why it looks so natural. When you have repeats for anchor text you also start to develop patterns.

Remember that patterns aren’t random and you want your backlink profile to looks as natural as possible.

Your brand name and URL can be used over and over again without issue but other anchors need to be as large a variety as possible, all the while including parts or all of your key phrases.

That is how you get Google to trust your backlink profile, and if you think about it, if you got all of your backlinks naturally that is what would happen without you trying.

5. Relevance & Randomness

The final trait that was common among all #1 ranked backlink profiles was both the relevance of the links that pointed to the sites, and also the randomness of the authority of the sites linking to them.

Relevance – Another reason guest posting is such an effective link building strategy is you can have great control over the sites that link to you.

There are huge categorized lists of blogs that accept guest posts and you can find a large number of them in any category.

There are also plenty of link building services that offer blogger outreach.

You obviously can’t control which sites link to you naturally but as you go out and link build, there is no reason all of your links can’t come from relevant sites.

Randomness – When I talk about randomness I am referring to the Domain Authority or Domain Rating of each site linking to your site.

For example, it would look extremely unnatural for a website to only have links from sites that were DA 50 or higher.

Considering that the overwhelming majority of the sites on the internet fall below DA 40, most of your links should probably come from sites DA 40 and lower.

Having said that you want to have as good of a variety as you can with your links.

You need some high DA links and you need some low DA links. Keep it random but make sure you have a good mix and again most of your links should fall into the 20-40 DA mark.

Conclusion

So lets recap. If you want to have a backlink profile that matches #1 ranked websites there are five things you need to focus on.

Build brand trust with Google by hitting your homepage hard with branded and URL anchor links. Get very few exact match domains for any single keyword you are targeting. Really focus on getting a huge variety of links with keywords mixed into anchors naturally in a sentence. And finally make sure the links are as relevant as possible and have a mix of all Domain Authority levels.

seo for startups

What Entrepreneurs Need to Know About SEO for Startups

The world of business has gone from knowing the right people to reaching the right people. 

The internet has leveled the playing field to make it anybody’s game. Instead of entrepreneurs using connections and networks in real life to get ahead, many startups are taking to the internet for their success strategies.

SEO for startups plays a critical role in the early success and ongoing growth of a company.

It takes more than a pretty website to make the big bucks. Entrepreneurs have to know how to win and engage with potential customers. 

There are strategies to getting found and gaining momentum in the online market.  How much traffic is your website getting? How do you engage with customers in an online world?  

Keep reading, we’ve got some tips for you. 

Here Are Five Tips For Entrepreneurs To Best Utilize SEO for Startups

1. Go Mobile 

A desktop is no longer the first place people go to get online. Most consumers only have to reach in their pocket and unlock their smartphone. 

To best reach your consumer, go where they are.

Make your website mobile for more success. It looks better and works better.  

This means re-formatting some things. A phone screen and a desktop are not the same size, nor do they function in the same way. Mobile-friendly menus and pages will get you a lot farther than sticking with one traditional setup. 

However, no matter where your consumer goes there needs to be efficiency and cohesiveness. Make sure the brand is still recognizable and the messaging matches up. 

Don’t make the mobile too different from the desktop. Pages should be easy to navigate and key items easy to find, like your company’s contact information, products and services, or special events and sales. 

2. Know Your Keywords

Words matter. Keywords, especially, have an important role in a startup’s success. 

Keywords are what consumers are already actively looking for. They are phrases in common questions and stand out words in Google searches. Keyword research digs deep to find out what is on the customer’s mind.

It gets in their head to better understand what they want. It is in their search history, and search histories have patterns in any target market. 

Understanding how consumers think makes it much easier to grab their attention. Keywords make SEO for startups simpler because they get the vocabulary right. They help shape the way blogs are titled, taglines are worded, and so on. 

The right words could make the difference between getting found and not even popping up in an online search. 

3. Invest In More Than Ads

As new companies hit the web every day, the competition is getting thick.

Everyone is online, and everyone wants to get noticed. Some make the mistake of thinking ads are the one and only way to go.  

What used to be as simple as paying for an ad to get a consumer’s attention has become much more. Startups have to be tactical in reaching consumers from multiple angles on more than one platform.

The more defined the online reach, the better the ROI. 

SEO for startups is not just throwing money out to get clicks or boost traffic. Pay per click is only one tactic. 

Successful campaigns run across multiple social channels and networks in fun and exciting ways. Companies have to focus on the interaction before they can worry about the buy. 

Ads are just a small piece of the puzzle. 

The best way to approach SEO for startups is to think of the big picture. Does your consumer see your ad when they search for something similar on Google? Will your brand come up again via Facebook ads or by funding an Instagram campaign? 

By combining different strategies with the right messaging and funding, entrepreneurs are boosting their startup’s chance for success.  

4. Content Makes Connections

Campaigns are effective, but there is nothing more powerful than creating organic traffic. Great content does that. 

When people get excited about something, it spreads like wildfire.

Think of the hashtag trending this morning, or the podcast everyone at work is talking about right now. Content is everywhere and SEO for startups is no different.

The catch is it has to be engaging, relevant material.  

This is what gets traffic going. Engaging a potential consumer enough to the point they comment, share, or talk about a page is key to expanding a startup’s reach.

It also boosts entrepreneurs’ chances of getting investor backing. Having data to back the market’s genuine interest in the trending new brand or product shows room to grow.

Organic search traffic is also free, and that is a word most investors can agree on.    

5. Have a Call to Action  

This is the closer. 

SEO for startups is just one part of the sales story.

It gets consumers interested to see more and drives traffic to your site. The traffic has to then be converted into sales. A powerful call to action brings everything together in the marketing funnel

Placing a good call to action all over your website and in your social media messaging makes the sale. 

A smart call to action does more. It makes a lasting connection with your consumer.

Directing potential consumers to landing pages or prompting them to subscribe keeps an open door of communication. It offers one place for entrepreneurs to go for leads. They can then continue to offer value in a direct, personal manner. 

Ranking up a contact list of customers can create a community, too. Some startups will get website visitors excited for a social media challenge, a big announcement, or a flash sale.

Any news is big news with the right message and delivery, but it has to start somewhere.

The call to action is both a customer’s opportunity to buy in to what the company offers, as well as the company’s chance to hook a consumer. 

SEO for startups can take many different directions, but it has one clear goal in any industry – getting found online and creating a bigger presence in the market. 

To learn more about improving your startup’s SEO tactics, connect with our team today. 

google fred

5 Link Building Tips to Survive Google Fred

Google Fred continues Google’s effort to reward websites with higher rankings when they provide users (customers) with the best experience.

While users are the definitive winners in this arrangement, this isn’t a selfless act.

Google wins again.

This update sets out to further reduce the visibility of content that isn’t user-centered. This way, when someone enters a search term, they pull up exactly what they’re looking for from the best source to provide them with that information.

The user is happy with the website Google suggested. They’re therefore happy with Google.

And Google comes out on top.

But this doesn’t mean you have to be the loser.

You can use this new algorithm update to your advantage to achieve that prized top ranking. Let’s explore how.

Quality Over Quantity

No one except Google actually ever knows that the exact algorithm. But updates are studied extensively to figure out what makes them tick.

And the focus on quality hasn’t changed. They’re simply getting better at weeding out low-quality content and backlinks.

That’s why it’s important to invest your time in acquiring high-quality links rather than “lots of links”. With the changes, lots of links from low-quality sites can hurt you.

Yes, Google can pull a disappearing act on your website.

When link building, focus on acquiring links for your site that have a high DA, sometimes called a DR, depending on the program you use.

DA is a term invented by Moz, a respected leader in SEO tracking tools.

This rating follows a scale of between 1-100, with 100 being the highest. The more links you have from high DA sites the healthier your link profile will be.

But there’s a catch….

Relevance Is Even More Relevant

Google Fred continues Google’s trend of considering the relevance of the website that’s linking to your website.

A high DA cooking site backlink to an industrial equipment site will seem a little strange to Fred.

The backlink may be completely legitimate. Perhaps a blogger on the cooking site references industrial equipment and wants to link to it.

Hey, it could happen.

But it won’t matter.

Does this mean that this link is bad? No. Some of these links that seem non-relevant will happen naturally.

Google Fred will be on the look out for lots of links from sites that don’t seem relevant. If your links from unrelated sites exceeds what might happen naturally, Google may penalize your site.

But again, only Google knows what they consider the backlink limit from unrelated sites. And this could include links to loosely related sites like directories.

So how can you work this to your advantage?

The best things for you to do is work on getting more backlinks from industry relevant websites with a high DA.

The more relevant, the better.

Invest in High-Quality Content

Create linkable content. It often takes longer than we’d like to build links through content. Because of this, we wouldn’t recommend this as a short term or primary linking strategy. But you could be missing out on free, natural links that your content can acquire over time.

Creating high quality, linkable content is a very important part of your long-term link-building strategy.

Create content that’s:

  • Relevant
  • Interesting
  • Helpful
  • Actionable
  • Longer and more in-depth… not just longer with fluff.
  • Has prominently placed facts and stats that people will want to link to
  • Multi-media – videos, gifs, images, infographics, quizzes, slideshows, widgets, etc.
  • Links to authoritative sources that help support your statements.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, 60% of the content we create isn’t effective at meeting goals. That’s bad news for competitors. But you can turn a challenge into your competitive advantage for link building and engagement.

Content that’s re-written, duplicate or spun by a computer program may have worked 5 years ago. But today, with Google Fred, you need a high-quality content from a human writer who specializes in writing Internet content.

Check Your Links

Check the strength of your link profile with tools like AHrefs and SERPs.

Through tools like this, you’ll see how many links you have for high DA sites and how many from low DA sites.

It will help to take a closer look at the websites linking to you. Are the relevant to your site? Is their content high quality?

If not, they may be using shady practices to obtain a ranking. It may serve them well for a time. But with updates like Google Fred, they’ll be found out soon enough.

You don’t want to go down with their ship.

You may choose to disavow certain links if you’re concerned that they’re not doing your site any favors.

Reduce Ads

Affiliate marketing isn’t going away. We’re not suggesting that you remove all of your ads. That would be counter-productive.

But ads should add value the user experience not crash their browser.

Sites that are providing very small amounts of content and then filling the page with ads are among those being hit the hardest.

Google doesn’t want these pages at the top of their searches. Users who are searching for information don’t want to click on these pages. They provide a bad user experience.

Instead make sure the content on the page is current, relevant and helpful to those that are clicking on your pages.

Check your page’s load speed on several devices. Don’t just consider load speed on the initial page, but as people click through the site. Hire beta testers to provide you with experience feedback.

Google Fred will reward sites that create the right content-ad balance and therefore the right customer experience.

A better content to ad ratio will produce more linkable content.

Google Fred Is Here

Google Fred is here. And it won’t be the last update. Google will continue to modify its algorithm. It will use improved technology to reward sites that value quality and the customer experience.

And it will penalize those who don’t.

Getting high DA relevant backlinks will help potential customers find your high-quality content and your website.

Getting these links isn’t easy. But we have the solution.

We’ve been successfully helping websites rank higher through backlinks for over 10 years. Learn more about how we can help you get not only more backlinks but the right backlinks. Reach out today.

press release seo

How to Build Links With Press Release SEO

Link building is essential to any strong search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

The goal of link building is to increase the number of external websites that link to your site. This increases your page’s credibility and results in higher search engine rankings.

If you’ve had an SEO strategy for any length of time, then chances are you’ve worked on building backlinks to your site. What you may not realize, however, is that your company’s public relations team can be a powerful resource for building links.

Let’s take a closer look at why your company should use press release SEO to build your backlinks.

The Difference between Public Relations and Marketing

Public relations and marketing teams have always had different, yet complementary roles in a company.

To put it simple terms, the main goal of a public relations expert is to build a positive reputation for the company. By contrast, the main goal of a marketer is to advertise a company’s products.

PR and marketing experts also differ in their approaches. For instance, PR folks usually focus on generating positive media coverage and public appearance. Marketers create content that directly promotes the company to consumers.

In the age of digital content marketing, it’s more important than ever for these professionals to work together.

Developing a press release SEO strategy can help your company kill two birds with one stone. With this approach, you can promote your business and increase your website’s reputation. These outcomes will help marketers generate more leads.

Why Your Company Needs a New Backlinking Strategy

If you’re a marketer by trade, you may be starting to wonder why you need to work with your company’s PR folks. Perhaps you’ve been managing your company’s SEO strategy for a long time. Why start using press release SEO?

The short answer is because SEO is always changing.

Every SEO strategy relies on the algorithms search engines use to rank search results. SEO experts work to optimize their content so that it reflects what search engines look for.

The challenge is search engine algorithms are always changing. This means that SEO marketers must adapt their approach to fit the new algorithms.

A Brief History of Links and Search Engine Algorithms

In the early days of SEO, one of the primary ways search engines evaluated a website’s credibility was by its backlinks. The assumption was if many websites linked to a particular page, then that page was likely a reliable source.

At its core, this wasn’t a bad assumption. The problem was that once marketers figured out the algorithm, they began looking for ways to game the system. For instance, some marketers would create websites that existed for the express purpose of linking to other websites.

For this reason, search engines like Google constantly tweak their algorithms. This is to make it harder for marketers to increase their rankings inorganically.

In other words, these algorithms strive to prevent marketers from taking a “get rich quick” approach to SEO. Search engines don’t want marketers to take shortcuts to increase their rankings. Instead, they want websites to increase their rankings by producing better content.

Every marketer already knows that the best way to improve their SEO strategy is to create great content and earn links organically. The problem is that achieving these goals can be extremely difficult. It’s also time-consuming.

That’s where press release SEO can become a great resource for marketers. With this strategy, marketers can earn high-quality links for their company’s website. The key is to work with the channels the PR team already uses to promote the company’s reputation.

How Press Release SEO Works

One of the main strategies public relations teams use to build a company’s reputation is securing positive press releases.

Prior to the internet, this press coverage would often be in the form of a newspaper article, a TV new clip, or a radio segment. These are great strategies for building a company’s reputation. But they don’t always directly connect consumers to products.

But the internet age has changed the way that public relations and press releases work. This opens the door for press release SEO.

Nowadays, media coverage for a company is usually published online. This can be through a newspaper’s website, or even through a popular blog. And, as any good marketer knows, any content that is published online will include links.

This is the heart of press release SEO. When your PR team earns media coverage, it’s important to make sure that the published article contains links to your company’s website. Because these links are coming from trustworthy sources, they are high

Because these links are coming from trustworthy sources, they are considered high quality. Earning high-quality links through press release SEO can help improve your website’s rankings.

Best Practices for Success

Keep in mind that earning media coverage is not a free pass to fill an article with excessive links to your page. It’s still important to follow best practices for linking.

Putting too many links in an article can backfire in a couple of ways. For one, search engine algorithms will identify multiple links in an article to the same page as link scheming. Having your content flagged this way could hurt your rankings.

Additionally, filling an article with links can trigger red flags for readers. Consumers are savvier than ever and don’t like to feel advertised to. If they see too many links in an article, they may be turned off.

Another good rule of thumb is to vary your anchor text for your links. Rather than overusing keywords, you can use your company name. You can also use a phrase that invites readers to get more details.

Effective press release SEO focuses on quality, rather that quantity. A good press release that shares interesting, relevant information will be much more successful than one that packs links and keywords.

Are you ready to get started on your company’s press release SEO strategy? Then contact us. Our experts will work to build an SEO campaign customized for your needs.

amp carousel

How the Google AMP Carousel Is Changing SEO

If you’ve Googled something on your phone lately to find out the latest scoop on your favorite presidential candidate, you have probably already noticed Google’s AMP Carousel appearing at the top of search results.

But what is AMP?

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. It is a Google-backed open source project to help pages load faster on mobile devices.

The difference with the AMP carousel is when a user clicks on it from search results, the article loads instantly.

How instantly? It takes less than half a second on AMP enabled pages compared to the average of three seconds.

AMP does this by changing how websites structure their mobile pages:

  1. AMP HTML: This redesigned version includes custom AMP commands. They are a defined set of pre-processing tags and are limited to text formatting and image embedding.
  2. AMP JS: The new Javascript structure allows loading of external resources asynchronous (in the background).
  3. AMP CDN (Content Delivery Network): This caches AMP-optimised content for faster delivery ensuring it doesn’t need to be requested each time.

Why should you care?

Are you happy with how fast your site loads on mobile? As someone who spends time Googling everything under the sun during my daily commutes, slow mobile pages kill my soul.

It also doesn’t help that my internet speed on my phone isn’t always fast. So when both of these play up at once, it ruins my user experience and I move onto the next thing instead of wasting my time staring holes into my mobile.

I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Page speed and mobile readiness are some of Google’s ranking distinctions that determine your site’s search result position. The faster and more mobile-friendly, the more likely you will see an increase in organic traffic.

AMP is a solution to the problem by standardizing web pages. Here’s how you take advantage of this latest Google update and use it to boost your SEO game at the same time:

The Good News:

1. AMP Optimised Pages Are Getting A Boost in Search Results

AMP pages show up at the top of search results in the carousel, meaning users do not need to scroll down. It’s an easy way for websites usually at the bottom of the first page results to jump the queue, claim a spot at the top and get more traffic as a result.

If you haven’t’ optimized for AMP, you’re missing out on prime above the fold real estate, and you’ll more than likely see a drop in clicks, impressions, and engagement as a result.

2. It Can Increase Engagement and Reduce Bounce Rates

After getting people to click through to your site, the next hurdle is getting them to stay. With AMP loading much faster, users can engage with the content quicker and are less likely to bounce.

Ezoic analyzed results from various publishers and discovered one site saw bounce rates decline from 76% to 63% a month after implementing AMP.

Their research also found that sites which saw a decrease in bounce rates also saw time on site improve as well.

3. It Can Benefit Your Mobile Keyword Ranking

With AMP designed especially for mobile users, you will probably see an increase in your mobile keywords results after optimizing for it.

This means you can expect a slight boost in organic mobile traffic, and while this isn’t guaranteed, it makes for an excellent reason to jump on board the AMP bandwagon.

The Bad News:

1. Your Link Building Efforts Are At Risk

A crucial part of SEO is building up links to increase your website’s (DA) domain authority. Your DA predicts how well your site will rank on search engines and is calculated by the number of linking root domains.

One of the negative effects of optimizing for AMP is your site will see a fewer of these valuable links. This is because the root of the URL is still google.com and is not linking to the publisher’s domain name.

For example: https://www.google.com/amp/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/35800232#

But this might have to be the small price publishers pay to see an increase in other metrics such as UX, engagement and improved visibility.

2. Only News Publishers Benefit from the Carousel

Wait, what?

If you have a website on how to look after your pet tarantula, it’s not going to show up in the AMP carousel. News publishers benefit the most from this update and are now at the top for almost every story they report on.

But, it does not have a strong effect on their organic SEO. Your pet tarantula site can still reap from tangible, organic search results benefits by optimizing for AMP.

Users Want Speed

It’s no secret that page speed is a ranking factor for Google.

The fact that they have developed their own way of displaying content faster shows just how important this factor is to the search engine giant.

More than 50% of searches happen on mobile globally, nearly half of mobile users expect a site to load in two seconds and will only wait 3 seconds before abandoning it. With this in mind, it’s no surprise Google is throwing a lot of support towards this latest venture.

If site owners want faster speed, increased visibility, and user experience, optimization is the way forward. Otherwise, you are in danger of not meeting mobile users expectations, losing conversions and increasing your bounce rate.

All of this just from a few seconds difference.

Google’s AMP is a simple solution to boost your site’s loading time, meet mobile users expectations and make subtle, but powerful improvements to your SEO game.

Are you going to be left behind? Find out how our backlinking services can help make up for any losses you may experience with AMP, schedule your free consultation today.

latest seo updates

The Latest SEO Updates That Could Impact Your SEO Efforts

Even tech giants like eBay haven’t been able to avoid losing hundreds of millions of dollars for failing to understand the latest SEO updates.

That’s because changes to SEO rules can turn a great strategy into something that your business is penalized for.

And after you get a search engine penalty, your conversion rate and traffic may never recover.

Instead of banking your business on old strategies, take a look at this article to know what’s changed for search engines and how it affects your bottom line.

Which Are the Latest SEO Updates?

The most dramatic set of SEO updates in the last decade right now happened due to Google’s newest updates focused on link quality.

Until recently, one of the most effective ways to improve your SEO rankings was taking advantage of private blog networks (PBNs).

PBNs are a notorious black hat method with a name that betrays their indecency.

Really, they’re large, soulless databases of links designed to do nothing but serve an SEO purpose.

Not only is using a PBN something likely to come back to bite you due to changes to SEO, but it also makes you look childish to your customers.

The links you choose reflect on your brand. Allowing yourself to be associated with PBNs connects your brand to boring spam instead of the dynamic and engaging content you could be using your SEO strategy to take advantage of.

Today, we’re experiencing what may be the death of the PBN. But that doesn’t mean PBNs are the only type of link building abuse Google is cracking down on through the latest SEO updates.

Google is cracking down on any sort of unnatural link building.

What this means is spammy SEO link building strategies such as putting links to your content on unrelated websites and focusing on links that don’t serve the needs of any real customer or web browser will no longer be a dirty part of the business of success in eCommerce.

How Will They Affect Me?

When it comes to running a business, it’s incredibly true that knowledge is power.

If you don’t know what you’re doing with your SEO strategy, you could already be being punished.

Have a free SEO consultation with us to make sure you don’t have any avoidable link penalties holding you back, and find out what your needs are.

For most people with some idea of what they’re doing, the latest SEO updates aren’t the end of the world, but they’re completely worth taking a look at.

The reality for most business owners active on the internet is that the latest set of SEO updates aren’t going to take them down. But they will need to reconsider how they go about buying links in the future.

Here are a few helpful tips for your link building strategy.

Know What a “Natural Link” Is

The truth is that the term “natural links” has become kind of meaningless in the SEO world. But it also carries a lot of weight.

For SEO purposes, your priority should be putting your content somewhere that it genuinely fits.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy links. Link building is an important part of any SEO strategy, and not playing an active role in it can kill your digital marketing performance.

But when you build links, build smart. Put your links somewhere it can not just belong, but thrive.

This will benefit you in two ways.

First, the latest SEO updates punish brands for the content of their links.

Buying links that draw genuinely interested eyes to your brand is a safe way to build links.

Second, good links draw good clicks.

Getting interested eyes on your website is what drives a high conversion rate.

If you’re not taking advantage of link buying to do that, then the latest SEO updates will be nothing compared to the opportunities you’ve missed with your link building strategy.

Keep in mind that you have a lot to focus on when it comes to your link building strategy. Having toxic backlinks and a low link quality problem plaguing your website won’t just result in SEO penalties, but also severe damage to your domain authority.

What Can I Do About It?

Giving up on link building entirely would be a bonehead move.

Pursue a smart link building strategy that can benefit your business in spite of both the latest SEO updates and updates approaching in the future.

That means joining a community with a mutual interest in good links.

It means talking to real people and not a machine that sees you as nobody but a person pushing buttons and dispensing money.

And it means being involved with professionals who are ready to listen to your thoughts and concerns every step of the way.

Create a link buying account with us to take the first step towards controlling your SEO strategy. You will finally stop worrying about sloppy link building that might not fit tomorrow’s latest SEO updates!

Link buying accounts on our website get your links on a wide variety of sites with different categories and themes. You can either take control and hand pick the places you want your links to be, or automate the process with link building queues.

We also replace your links and make sure they’re good.

If you think we’re lying, don’t worry! We love proving just how dedicated we are to quality link building to our customers.

Get in touch with us if you have any questions and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible about next steps and take your SEO strategy to the next level.

 

 

 

The 7 Best SEO Tricks For Creating SEO Friendly URLs

Are you trying to boost your SEO efforts? Who are we kidding, of course, you are!

You’ve created excellent content, used powerful links to build authority, and sprinkled ideal keywords throughout your website. But what else can you do?

Have you ever thought about how your URLs are impacting your SEO practice? Creating SEO friendly URLs is one of the best ways to boost traffic to your website.

Read on to learn the seven best SEO tricks for creating SEO friendly URLs.

1. Remember the human element

When you’re trying to optimize your website for SEO, it’s easy to forget that human beings are a huge part of SEO.

Often times we’re worried about the Google bots that crawl through our website, indexing pages and the like. But how humans interpret your URLs can affect your SEO.

If your page looks sketchy, or the URL is too long, humans are simply not going to click on your link. This drives down visits to your site, which also drives down your SEO efforts. Your rankings will drop like a bad habit!

Some things you should consider when you’re remembering the human element:

Domain

Have you ever done a Google search and looked through the results only to find a bunch of .net and .biz domains? You probably skimmed right past those websites. And you’re not alone!

People are more apt to click on a website they find trustworthy. The .com domain is considered to deem a website higher quality. Consider this when you’re choosing a domain.

Reader-friendly URLs

If your audience can’t read your URL, chances are they’re going to skip your website. They’re not going to a website they can’t even read.

So when you’re creating your URL, you want to make sure that you’re creating one that your visitors can read and understand. You want the URL to make sense to your website.

For example, a website that reads www.catsarecool.com is going to read a lot better than www.XYZwkdiayw@.catsarecool.++.biz.

2. Use keywords

Keywords are huge. But you already knew that. So why not incorporate them into your URLs?

By placing strategic keywords in your URLs, you’re letting your audience know exactly what they’re getting. This way, there’s no confusion.

When ranking sites, Google takes a look at whether or not you’re adding keywords into your URL. Those Google bots that crawl through your site and index your pages also find it easier to index your site when the URLs are clear with keywords.

However, you want to make sure that you’re not using repeated keywords within your URL. In fact, Google will not like this at all. So one of your SEO tricks? Don’t repeat.

3. Reduce redirection

Have you ever gone to a website page and then had to be redirected several times before you reached your destination? Annoying, right?

Google thinks so as well. So when you’re creating your URLs, you want to make sure that you’re reducing your redirection strings.

4. Shorten your URLs

Bigger isn’t always better. One of the best SEO tricks you can take away from this list is that your URLs should be shortened.

Is there a specific number of words that you should focus on? Yes. According to studies done by Backlinko, the magic number is around 50 words within your URL. So if your current URL is around this length, then you’re golden.

Your site will rank higher on Google search result pages than longer URLs. Plus, they’re easier for your visitors to read.

5. Watch out for unnecessary characters

Your URL is going to have some characters within it. And that’s fine. But there is a list of characters that won’t work well for you.

Not only will users be completely confused when looking at your URL, they won’t know exactly what the URL entails.

Even worse for SEO, these characters make it hard for search engine crawlers to get through your site and index pages. Some of the characters you shouldn’t include within your URLs:

  • The space character
  • < or >
  • ” ” or #

The question mark (?) and the dollar symbol ($) are two of the several “safe” characters that won’t ruin your rankings.

6. Reduce the number of folders in your URL

The number of folders within your URL can affect your SEO efforts.

The folders are denoted by the slash between words in your URL.

Not only will several folders within your URL make your URL longer, it will also affect how you rank in search engine results. The extra folders will confuse search engines, making them dig deeper for your pages. Plus, search engines will have a harder time determining what your URLs mean if they’re stuffed with folders.

7. Http versus Https

You’re living under a rock if you haven’t heard about online fraud, hacking, and the like. It’s huge in the internet world, and it’s something most consumers are concerned about.

And it’s also something that Google and other search engines are worried about. Google states that “security is a top priority” and they are cracking down on it in full force. They’re making sure that web pages are taking security seriously, as well.

In fact, they’re now using website safety as a ranking factor when looking at websites. This is especially true if a website is selling products or services and taking credit card information.

So how can you ensure that your website is secure? By using one of these SEO tricks. You’ll need to make sure that your website is encrypted. You’ll need to use HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) as opposed to HTTP.

You’ll need to purchase an SSL certificate to ensure that your website is safe for users. And you’ll rank higher!

SEO tricks to create the perfect URLs

For the average bear, SEO can be a tricky thing to tackle. But throw in URL optimization and your mind may explode.

URL optimization can be daunting, especially if you’ve never considered it before. You want to ensure that your URLs are appealing to both users and search engines.

Have questions about SEO that you can’t find here? We’re here to help you 24/7! Contact us for any questions you may have.

The 9 Best Off Page SEO Strategies You Need to Use

off page SEOThink off page SEO means links, links, and more links?

Think again.

Off page SEO reaches further than links. Successful bloggers begin with on-page search engine optimization. But they never stop there.

Your rankings on Google depend just as much on what happens away from your website as they do your on-page SEO strategy.

Do you spend enough time thinking about your off page SEO strategy? It’s not enough to care about your brand or your website. You must care for and work hard to enhance your reputation.

Doing so makes others want to visit your website and learn more about your brand.

Not sure where to begin?

Let’s discuss the ins and outs of this type of SEO. From there, we’ll dive into the 9 best off page SEO strategies you can use to bolster your brand.

What is off page SEO?

Off page SEO refers to the optimization that takes place away from your website. You optimize your brand through content, relationships, and links.

Great off-site SEO leads to an increase in positive brand mentions and reputation, search rankings, conversations about your brand, and traffic to your site.

People seek out brands after they form opinions based on reviews and testimony from family and friends. No one gets out of bed and decides to interact with your company.

The goal of off-site SEO is to gather as many positive mentions and interaction for your brand as possible. These lead to an overall 9 gain for your company.

The benefits? Brand mentions, positive reviews, and, yes, links!

How can you optimize your brand outside of your website? Let’s move on to the 9 best off page SEO tactics.

The 9 Best Tactics to Add to Your Off-Site SEO Strategy Now!

Where should you begin when tackling your off-site SEO? Think about the places where you began your business: your customers, product, and brand.

1. Craft a Solid Brand Message

Your brand message communicates your value proposition to customers.

Brands that follow their core values resonate with customers. A strong brand message makes penetrating your target market easier.

How can you craft a solid brand message?

  • Determine your brand’s defining characteristic. Focus your energy there.
  • Create resources that offer the best, thorough answers to the questions your customers are asking

2. Create a Top of the Line product

When your product is best in its class, SEO becomes a breeze. People online and offline will champion your brand. This leads to improved website traffic, positive reviews, and increased sales.

Where can you start?

Existing products need to focus on the features customers find most beneficial. Consult any and all feedback you find online about your product and your competition.

New products should focus on the problems you can solve for your potential audience. Focus on the benefits your product provides consumers that address those needs head on.

3. Practice Great Customer Service

Customers comprise the core of your business. Without customers, you cannot continue to operate.

Make your customers feel appreciated and special. Poor customer service makes reputation management an expensive hassle.

Ensure that every person who comes into contact with your brand and those associated with it feels as though they experienced the best possible interaction.

Use your customers’ names. Customer-facing staff should champion a positive attitude and willingness to help any customer in need.

4. Keep in Mind a Web Searcher’s Intent

Products and services fail when they don’t meet the needs of a company’s target audience.

In terms of content, pay special attention to keywords. The keywords you use should reflect those your audience uses to find similar products or services.

Do your research. Focus on where customers share and discuss content.

Talk to people. Read discussion threads. Exercise empathy for your consumers online.

Interact with them about the questions they need answers to.

5. Responsive Social Media

Make yourself available to consumers.

They search for information because of unmet needs or questions that need answering. Once they’ve conducted a Google search, their next step is to take to social media.

Social media proves one of the most important and irreplaceable components of any SEO strategy today.

Make sure someone monitors your social media accounts. Answer questions or feedback as fast as possible.

Engage in genuine conversations online. Don’t shove your brand down a customer’s throat. Instead, think long-term relationship building.

Unresponsive social media results in decreased brand loyalty increased negative feedback, and users more willing to switch to a competitor.

6. Build Influencer Connections

Influencers maintain huge online reach. They bring name recognition, throngs of followers, and connections with high-ranking websites with them.

Enlist the help of influencers to boost your off page SEO.

Get to know them in person and online. Put yourself on their radar. In the future, they may recognize your brand and share your content.

Fostering a relationship with an influencer could lead to collaborations on content.

7. Frequent forums, discussion boards, and comment sections

Visit the popular blogs and social media platforms in your industry.

Leave thoughtful comments. Get noticed for your knowledge, and your empathy in furthering a discussion. This drives traffic to your website or blog.

8. Guest Post for the Right Reasons

Use guest posts to build your rapport with influencers and other brands.

Don’t guest post for links. The links will come in time.

Remember your website is one of many in your industry. Connect with others off-site in meaningful ways to grow your reach. This type of interaction drives traffic to your site.

9. Use Multiple Content Types

Content goes beyond words on a page. Use images, videos, and infographics on and off your website.

Video content will account for 80% of shared content online by 2019.

Using different types of content humanizes your brand. Customers will share this content, driving more people to your site.

Conclusion

There you have it! The 9 best off page SEO strategies right at your fingertips!

Approach your off page SEO strategy with care.

Remember that relationship building is a huge part of off page SEO. Interact with your audience and influencers. Your rankings will mirror your efforts.

You’re ready to craft a full-proof SEO strategy. Put these tools to action today to improve your SERP!