SEO Introduction
Before you start to make changes to your website, first you need to know if your site has been hit by Google Panda or Penguin or it’s mobile algorithm. If you look at your site statistics, you will see a significant traffic drop on or around the 24th April 2012 if Penguin is the cause, or around the 21st April 2015 if mobile compatibility is your issue.
The keywords that dominate your exact match anchor text are the ones usually hit the hardest by Penguin. The free back-link checking tool at majesticseo.com is the easiest way to analyse your existing keyword anchor text.
Back-Link Construction
Before the launch of Google Penguin, you could use as much as 70 percent exact match keyword density and rank well, in one step this dropped to 5%. The bulk of your links ought to be made up of Brand, URL or ‘junk’ link text as opposed to target keywords.
Brand links are variations of either your registered company name or website name. Use different permutations of your web address for URL links.
Focus on building links from different IP addresses. Links are more powerful if they originate from sites with content relevant to your site. Website authority can be measured by Google PR and ‘Trust’ score metrics. A back-link from a page that’s already being linked to from a quality resource is a powerful link to get.
Google and Linking Networks
Don’t take the linking shortcut of using an automated linking network to build your links. You might get a short term gain, but the back-links are generally of poor quality and in the long run Google will find the network eventually and devalue all the back-links it provides, often penalizing sites that are linked to.
On-Page Optimization
The absolute maximum on-page keyword density you should target to keep Google happy is 2 to 3%. Adding a link to a .gov or .edu site from your content will enhance your domains ‘quality score’. (Check your link category score and buy relevant backlinks from Deeho).
Your site content
High quality, well-written and genuinely unique content is the only content that you can publish on your site. Google Panda loves to see contextual linking from related keywords and phrases within your content to other pages of your website, or to authority domain content pages.
Using Graphics
A relevant video will help to increase the time spent on your page, and pictures should be used to break up large blocks of text. Every image on your pages should have relevant alt text that describes the image using a variety of long-tail keywords where necessary.
Make sure that you use a spelling checker to test all your content and that it makes sense to you. Google can determine the ‘reading age’ for different text which enables it to establish if a professor or a schoolboy wrote your site content.
As a rule, target around 500 words or more for every page of content that you write as this has been shown to be beneficial for search engine results.
Google likes content that real people like, so write your site content so that your website visitors enjoy consuming anything you write. The search engines will reward you when they can see real visitors engaging with your site.
When Google reads your content it uses a process called latent semantic indexing to relate keywords together.
“Rather than keep repeating your primary keywords time and time again, you should try to use alternative words for the same thing as this will feel more ‘natural’ and help your rankings. Forget about keyword density and provide rich content that covers the subject in comprehensive detail instead.”
Using Metadata Tags
All pages of your website must have unique meta data. Duplications show that your site isn’t the best quality and if you have enough duplications you will be penalized. Each page of your web site really should have it’s own bespoke metadata. This is a demonstration that you have put care into your site.
Duplications will be penalized, especially if you have a lot of them. Meta description tags are usually used under your page title in the search engine results. A compelling description tag will increase the amount of clicks you receive which will improve your user engagement score in Google.
User Interaction
Slow websites won’t rank very well. Use YSlow in Firefox to measure the load speed of your websites content. The quantity of visitors that don’t like what they find on your site and hit the back button is called the bounce rate. It needs to be 55% or less for top Google rankings.
Average Visit Duration
You should try to increase the average page views per visitor statistic because Google uses this as an important indicator of the quality of your site content. When Google sends you a visitor, it assesses how long they stay on your site. Longer visits indicate relevancy and high quality content that people like.
Understand SEO
If you need to know more about search engine optimization, how to apply SEO to your website pages and how to build high quality, future proof back-links to your website, enrol on an SEO training course online where you will learn the skill necessary to optimize your website professionally.
SEO is a constantly changing process, as search engines adjust their ranking algorithms to amend the order of the sites listed at or near the top of SERPs.
As a website owner, you need to stay abreast of these changes as they happen to prevent drops in your traffic.
Great explanation, many thanks
Yes indeed, agreed
Is user interaction an important SEO metric? I have run a few little tests and if it has any affect at all it’s quite minimal from what I can see??
user interaction isn’t a huge factor, but when it comes down to two similar sites, the one with better user engagement will win the battle. It depends on how competitive your particular niche is and where you rank for what. The sites around you above and below in the results will have better or worse user engagement metrics, and so to be sure of dominating them, you need to make sure you send positive signals.
That concurs with my experiments, user engagement can make the difference, but only if you have all the basics right in the first place
It’s not a massive factor and if you have other issues it won’t help at all.
User engagement is a filter that will see you dropped by Google if no one likes your content at all, so you need a low bounce rate just to rank.
It’s the icing on the cake if your cake is good, but on it’s own won’t make a drastic difference
Agreed, user engagement is a relatively minor factor compared with backlink building and content quality, however, user engagement can act like a switch, either Google thinks your content is good enough or if too many bounces, you get binned!
User engagement can be an on/off switch for rankings if too many people bounce straight off your pages. Your bounce rate needs to be better than your competitors to be good enough.
Poor user engagement will get you dropped as fast as spam linking will….. it’s an essential for Google traffic
Engagement is more likely to harm rankings by being bad, rather than make the different that will get you into first place by being good.
How can you find out how good your competitors bounce rate is?
You can’t, you can only measure your own bounce rate through Google analytics…. all you can do is to make sure that yours is as low as possible.
User engagement is only really a big issue if your site doesn’t have any….. if all visitors hit back button then you are doomed, but otherwise, it’s a minor factor and only really comes into play if your immediate competitors have very good user engagement
As a rule of thumb, if your bounce rate is above 40% then you may well be held back in SERPs. It all depends on how good the top ranking sites are, but this is a good starting point.
The more competitive your keywords the more influence it will have on your rankings.
Very interested to find out more, so much has changed with Google recently, it’s a struggle to keep up!!
Keeping up with latest news is the key to good SEO. Set up Google alerts for ‘SEO’, ‘Internet Marketing’ & ‘Google Algorithm Updates’ and you won’t miss anything important
Great tip
Works well for latest news and Google updates, thanks
I’ve created what I think is a good quality site with lots of good content on it, but try as i might, I can’t get higher in google. Any tips that will have a quick impact?
The biggest impact you can have once you have good, original content is high quality Google friendly links from high authority, relevant sites.
True Dat! The myth that linking is dead and that quality content and social is the be all and end all is just wrong. Good links are the foundation of any effective SEO campaign. Try ranking without quality links?? Can’t be done
Quality quality quality, nothing else needed
It’s all well and good saying ‘quality’ but what is quality?
Quality is creating content that people find useful & helpful and then having the most powerful related websites link to you
The 24,000 dollar question is where is the best place to get those links from?
Quality links using your URL as link text. Don’t get carried away with keywords in links and you will be ok.
Most people accidentally over optimise links with exact match anchor, so make sure you have URL and company name as link text
True Dat!!
If the basics of your site don’t measure up well then it doesn’t matter how good your SEO is.
Agreed, if you have an issue with your site set up then it doesn’t matter how good your links are, you won’t rank anywhere
If it does really have good content and structure then it’s all a case of increasing popularity
Popularity without spamming is the only way to the top
Are you really sure that your site content is good enough? If you aren’t being penalised for any backlink issues, then your pages should feature somewhere in search if your content is good.
If you are ranking but not high up, then your links aren’t being built well enough, if you don’t rank at all then its either content quality, link spam or manual Google penalty…… do you need your site checking?
No matter where I look online, I can’t find detailed information on exactly how to get the back-links I need…. just information that says I need them. How can I actually build the links I need?
I think you’re missing the point, if SEO companies told you everything, they would never make any money!
…. and that would be no fun at all!
Who in their right mind would share all their secrets with potential customers?
You are unlikely to find all the information you need in one place, but it’s all out there, you just need to glue the bits together.
It is out there.. the skill is in knowing which bits work and which don’t
Most good SEO’s will not share their info with you, because it’s how they make a living. Just like how you can buy Heinz Ketchup, but they won’t tell you the recipe so you can make your own that tastes the same!
If you can’t find real organic links for your site then you have two choices, either pay an SEO company to build them for you or buy some good quality links from a reputable source. Give Fivrr a wide berth, all the links you will get will be spam links.
There are only two things to focus on, you need relevant links from relevant content on sites with relevant link category… get those bits right and the links you build will help
I agree, no one shares the exact how to to get good links, or what makes a link good. Please can you post a detailed guide I can follow step by step?
There are three core link ingredients that are important, relevant link category, good category score and contextual link from relevant content. Assuming page is Google indexed, do follow, etc these links will deliver for you.
There is a proven formula to getting good links, and it’s not easy, but well worth the effort
I think the important things to remember are that you need to get contextual links on sites that are relevant to your topic, indexed in Google, have good trust and authority metrics (see http://www.majestic.com) and have high quality content on them. If you get enough of them from a good variety of sites and you should start moving up the listings
It’s all about quality content and quality links from powerful pages
So easy to earn yourself a Google slap….. speaking as someone who knows!! And takes a while to recover…. IMHO most if not all SEO shortcuts are a recipe for disaster
That’s not totally true….. if you keep under the radar and keep everything subtle you will be ok
My tip: Make a site that visitors want to stay and read and you will be on the right track
Be as subtle as possible that’s my advice…… the harder you try to force your Google rankings, the easier you make it to be penalised…..
If you only aim to speed up what would come naturally anyway, then you won’t go far wrong.
That’s a great way of thinking about SEO & a good rule of thumb to stick to
Just trying to get up to speed on this SEO thing…… learning lots, but still unsure of a few bits…. can anyone point me at a reliable seo tutorial please?
A good starting point is http://www.Moz.com which is one of the largest and most reliable sources of info online. You can trust their opinion.
http://www.seo-seo-seo.co.uk/ always seem to rank consistently well and have good SEO info
Social media can make a big impact on your SEO too….. it’s often overlooked
Isn’t the effect of social media on SEO a bit over rated? I have heard several tales of epic failure trying to use Facebook to improve rankings.
So many opinions and divided views…..
Hasn’t that always been the case? Ask 10 SEO consultants for an opinion and you’ll get 10 different answers!!
Only 10 different answers?? Our SEO chap always has at least two views on everything!!
You’ve got the wrong chap!
The only views to listen to are the ones of the guys ranking at the top
Don’t forget that your web design has got to be tip top too! It doesn’t matter how good your links are, if your site design and content are rubbish then nothing will save you.
As with all things, its a case of reading between the lines and extracting the important bits that each expert says about SEO. In truth, i suspect that most of them don’t know everything and fill in the blanks with their own best guess.
Pick a good ranking pro and don’t listen to anyone else
Does YSlow work properly? I can’t get it to run and show my load speed?
Works for me
It can be a bit temperamental at times, but works most of the time.
Quality links can be built easily yourself….. just follow one of the good guides online
All well and good, but you need to choose the right online SEO guide
Good links are the missing ingredient in most cases and because they are difficult to find they are often ignored
You need to find and analyse your own ‘good’ links, or pay a company who knows where those links are and who can build the links for you.
It’s a minefield if you walk in blindly
Google have tried to make SEO so difficult that it’s easier and cheaper to buy their Adwords Ads instead of ranking naturally
Organic rankings are still the be all and end all and offer such massive volumes of ‘free’ traffic that it’s never been more important to rank well.
It’s all about touchy, feely user experience as much as traditional SEO stuff