Google has recently updated its local search algorithm. Goal ? Provide online users with more relevant results on businesses close to home. This is an opportunity for us to bounce on the news by presenting the challenges of local SEO. The trend is very clear. Consumers are increasingly looking for convenience stores, and these are highlighted in the search results on the web. In this context, it becomes crucial to be well positioned locally. What means should you invest in it? What actions you need to take and rank well locally? I will try to have the answer for you!
Searching for keywords is probably the most important aspect of your SEO strategy. It guides the way you write your content, how you approach your audience and your content strategy as a whole.
Many non-specialists are not sufficiently familiar with this type of method. They know enough to try a strategy that often turns out to be fruitless.
This research phase is gaining simplicity and many SEO novices see it as complex.
SEO keyword search refers to finding the words and phrases that people use when searching for information. It is also a question of determining the volume of searches relating to these expressions as well as the level of competition. Keyword research is not a single step or action, but a process where all the steps are linked. For more information, see the full guide on Searching for SEO Keywords.
Here in this article, the objective is to approach the analysis and cleaning phase of the list of keywords based on two aspects: the perceived intention of the search engine and the competition.
How to choose keywords for SEO?
Choosing the keywords for SEO is of great importance. Most articles on the subject of keyword research mention only finding ideas and knowing the volume of research. This is problematic because they leave out an important aspect of research: the way search engines understand keywords.
After completing your list and organizing it according to the search volume, go to Google, type the keywords one by one and analyze the results. It’s up to you to keep them or delete them.
Does Google understand your keyword?
Google has to deal with a lot of nuances in search queries. For example, the term ‘plumbing’ can be used to find a plumber, buy plumbing supplies, or discover the Plumbing History. Google displays the type of sites it thinks is most relevant to this keyword. So, avoid using words that seem relevant to you if Google gives them a different meaning. We are talking here about research intent hidden the keyword.
For example, if you are working from a home office, you can probably choose the term ‘home office’ for the design of the room. This is not a good idea, however, because this term is mainly used by Google for pages about home office furniture.
Search for your keywords on Google. Analyze the first 10 results. What are the sites that appear? Do they match the intent of your keyword? Are these commercial sites, blogs, government sites, job sites? Would your site stand out if it appeared in the top 10?
You will be more likely to be well referenced on a keyword if the other sites are part of your industry. If you have a health-related site, the keyword ‘lose weight’ has a high level of difficulty, as 8 out of 10 websites are government or CPAM sites.
If you choose to use it anyway, avoid building your keyword strategy around because Google favors government sites.
Am I able to compete against this keyword?
Google takes into account hundreds of SEO factors to decide SEO pages on a certain demand. One of the most important factors is ‘authority’. This is the reputation of a site. This topic is quite complex, but by and large, Google prefers sites known as the World, Wikipedia or Amazon to small unknown websites.
Your goal is to choose expressions on which you can be present because the competition is not too high. Imagine that you are a young actor (theater or cinema). You will try to gain some time of experiences in order to have the opportunity to impress some spectators.
You could try to audition for the latest films. If you are caught, you will have the chance to play in front of millions of people. The problem is that you will only have a second supporting role or worse simple.
It is wiser to join a local theater troupe and get some stage time. You will have fewer people, but they will be really interested in your game. You will play in front of a larger audience eventually, but later.
In short … to choose and prioritize your list of keywords, you need to know the level of intensity of competition from the point of view of their authorities.
Companies like MajesticSEO, Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz have software that allows you to identify the level of competition of a keyword. Some of these tools are free and others are paying.
TOP tools to analyze the competition of a keyword
Ahrefs (paying)
Go to the Ahrefs.com website to find out the Domain Rating (DR) of your domain name or indicate the desired keyword to perform an analysis of the SERP.
Ahrefs Rank (AR)
If you sort all the websites of the world according to the power of their links/backlink, you get the ranking Ahrefs (AR).
Thus, AR # 1 belongs to the website with the most referring domains and profile share (Facebook.com), the No. 2 to Twitter.com, the No. 3 to Pintrest.com, etc …
Domain Rating (DR)
Domain Rating (DR) indicates the relative ‘backlink popularity’ of the website compared to all other websites in the Ahrefs database on a logarithmic scale of 100 points (the loudest).
Majestic SEO (paid)
Go to majestic.com to find out the trust flow (authority) of your domain name. Download the Majestic extension for Google Chrome or Firefox, which allows you to know the authority of the domain name of each site you visit.
The particularity of Majestic? The tool has a site topical analysis and a measurement tool (topical) or a web page called Topical TrustFlow. Each link of each site of the web transmits an authority and a theme by cascade effect. This is a very useful indicator for judging the relevance of a site on a specific topic.
Moz (free)
I often use this tool because it includes a plugin for the browser and it’s free, very convenient. Discover the domain authority of your site by downloading (free) MozBar for the browser. You can also enter the address of your site on Open Site Explorer (via Moz)
Are domain authorities too high for you? The search results page is taken by well-known brands and sites?
If there are many sites with a high score among the results, are the displayed pages useful?
If you were actually looking for this keyword, would you be interested in the results? Often, when Google is not able to come up with a good answer, it chooses the least off-topic content from a site with a high authority score.
However, if there are many really useful articles written by well-known brands and sites that are part of the results, I do not recommend using this expression.
And, as you can see on this search, you will never be well referenced on the term ‘blog SEO‘.
Use this information to edit your keyword list. Avoid using keywords when your chances are very low. See this as an opportunity to be more specific.
if the difficulty level of the phrase ‘vegetable garden’ is too high, you may be able to point out a long-tail expression, such as ‘ vegetable garden planner”
Much of this process appeals to your sense of judgment. It takes practice to make the right decisions and to know your chances. Moreover, even SEO professionals sometimes have trouble searching for keywords. Remember, the best is the enemy of the good.
Follow these steps and you will have an edge over your competitors. This will also allow you to get a better idea of the level of your own site and to refine your content strategy.
Summary for choosing keywords
When you search and analyze keywords for your Google SEO, it’s easy to go wrong or procrastinate. Remember to check each step carefully.
1. Organize your keywords according to topics
Thus, you will use the keywords on your site in an organized way. Writing a single list of keywords is a good start, but quickly try to create several lists of related keywords.
2. Do not lose sight of your website
The search for keywords should be done as part of the creation of your content pages. Ask yourself the following question: Are the keywords I found really relevant to my site? Is your site a good answer to questions and keywords? Remember that to target keywords you have to use them on your site.
3. Do not lose sight of the search intent
It often happens that the meaning that Google attributes to a keyword is different. You should be aware of this during the research process but stay alert. For example, the keywords made up of the name of industry + the term ‘ads’ are mainly used by people looking for job offers.
Google is not always able to understand this type of nuance. Remember when you choose your keywords.
Remember to evaluate these two factors to choose your keywords for SEO. There is no point running behind a keyword with a large but unreachable search volume. Moreover, Moz is a free tool, so there is no reason not to start today.
2019 comes with many changes in SEO. You can not ignore them if you want to continue to appear at the top of search results.
2019 is at your door and you still do not appear at the top of the searches of Internet users?
It’s time to change strategy by getting ahead of Google’s changes. This is your best chance to improve your SEO and surpass your competitors.
Let’s discover together the 5 SEO trends to anticipate today!
1. Predictive SEO
In general, you are looking for the trends of the moment to produce content.
But did you know that writing on topics that will be trendy a little later increases your SEO? This allows you to gain a competitive advantage in crowded niches.
Produce content by anticipating certain situations, in order to put you in the best position when large volumes of research are going to fall.
For example, why wait for the month of July to write about the best practices of the summer? From April, start writing on the subject … The time that natural referencing works, you will be in pole position in July and August, when the queries will be the strongest
2. Content aggregation
Content aggregation is an optimization method for search engines that simply revolves around changing the structure of your site.
Did you know? Google’s current algorithms reward sites that produce content that is all focused on specialized topics.
Instead of favoring keywords, try to gather your content around a theme (or sub-theme) by changing the structure of your blog. Modify the menus, create pages that group items in a folder …
Google will understand your site better, which will increase your visibility in the search engines.
3. The power of Google My Business
Do you have a local business or a locally anchored business? Think of Google My Business to improve your local SEO. You will appear better in geolocated searches.
In addition, a Google My Business listing provides additional visibility to your website, which drives more traffic to your site. It also allows you to offer another point of contact with your business, which increases your lead acquisition rate.
4. The importance of a video marketing strategy
A video strategy is essential to improve your visibility on search engines in 2019.
To begin, a video holds your visitors 2 minutes more on your website. Now, this is a factor taken into account by Google’s algorithms to rank you.
A study has also shown that this type of content increases the conversion rate by 20%. Once again, a successful site is well seen by Google. It will tend to get you back into the search results.
Finally, the search engine includes a video tab. It also tends to bring some back in the first results. So it’s a chance besides appearing in the requests of Internet users.
5. Multichannel SEO
Use SEO best practices on all platforms!
Your website is just one place among others to reach your target audience. The online world is filled with places to develop your visibility: social networks, video sites, forums, external blogs …
On each platform where your company is present, use your keywords. Put them in your publications on social networks, use them in hashtags, add them in your interventions on the forums.
The more your brand is associated with a panel of expressions, the more Google can increase your visibility!
For 2019, it’s time to rethink your SEO! Do not hesitate to call a professional to help you optimize your strategy
Google has said it and repeated it several times regarding a web speed test: the loading time of a site is an integral part of its algorithm. So it is one of the important factors that will make sure your site ranks well on the search engine. But it is also beneficial for the user experience. A site that is too long to load will cause the user to leave your page.
Tools to allow you to judge your site
The numbers show it: 3 seconds is the maximum time a page must take to load and allow the user to move smoothly on your site. Beyond that, the attention disappears and 25% of the users leave the page when the loading time is greater than 4 seconds. It is well known that on the internet, the user doesn’t have strong patience! We like when it’s going fast. A visit to a web page is between 30 and 60 seconds. It is therefore important to quickly capture the attention of the user. Regardless of the type of development of your site, via a CMS tool or a custom creation, you will need to optimize this detail in your strategy. That’s why we have found for you 4 free tools that will give you an idea of the loading time of your page.
Google PageSpeed Insights
It’s since 2010 that Google has clearly indicated that the loading time was taken into account in its algorithms. But Google is still nice, he developed a specialized tool for webmasters. The Google PageSpeed Insights tests and analyzes the performance of a page, for its mobile and desktop versions.
Two out of 100 notes appear as a result of this test. The higher the number, the faster the site. Whether on a smartphone or desktop, Google also gives you some guidance to improve these performances. You can also go through your web agency to communicate the data and find the best solution.
2. Pingdom Website Speed Test
The reputation of this tool has grown rapidly over the years to make it a leader and one of the most complete of his generation. You can test different points of the world (USA, Australia or Sweden). We still recommend using the nearest point from here, namely the USA.
Pingdom also gives you a score out of 100, which then breaks down into 12 different points and which it proposes to improve. The tool can also keep your various tests to see the good or bad developments that may have suffered your site. Not all results may be easy to interpret. You can submit them to us to check and explain more clearly the cause of the slowdown.
3. Metrix GT
Probably the best-known alternative of the Pingdom tool. GT Metrix is more affordable for beginners, who can read the results more easily. It combines the results of Google PageSpeed Insights and YSlow, Yahoo’s measurement tool (which requires installation).
Like the other tools, it gives 2 scores as a percentage (1 for Google PSI and 1 for YSlow) as well as the total time and the number of queries used. The only downside for GTmetrix, the test is done from Vancouver in Canada, which can skew the results.
4. WebPage Test
Created by an engineer from Chrome, Google’s web browser, the WebPage Test is for experts looking for more advanced answers. This open-source allows you to perform much more advanced tests, but also multi-step transactions, capture videos or blocking content.
How to reduce the web speed of my site?
There are several methods to make your site faster. These web speed tests highlight the main functions that slow down the system. A web agency such as ours can help you set up a strategy to optimize your site. Here are the main solutions that can relieve your site:
- Reduce the weight of images
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) or network of cache servers
- Make CSS Sprites (video game technique, which consists of gathering multiple images in a single file
- Limit the installation and use of plug-ins
- Have a quality host
This is still a criterion that can be optimized when creating a website. its development, your web agency will apply to ensure that the loading time of the pages of your site is the least possible length.
Off-page SEO refers to certain techniques to improve the position of a website in the search engine results pages.
Many people associate Off-page SEO with the creation of backlinks, but it’s not only that.
A better explanation regarding the site’s position on obtaining backlinks: Read more
In any SEO strategy, the acquisition of backlinks is an essential method. However, getting backlinks is a complex practice because, in order for it to be successful, every backlink must be relevant and judged as a quality backlink. Sometimes it is better to look after each one and get less because the quantity is not always the priority.
As a business owner, you want a well-ranked website in Google’s search pages.
It is natural.
After all, having a well-ranked site is an effective way to conquer new customers.
I describe it in the following:
For your SEO, it is important to choose a good content management system (CMS). WordPress is recognized as performing in search engine optimization (SEO). It’s a good start. Then, even if there is no magic wand to improve the ranking of your site. You must both publish high-quality content and collect powerful backlinks.
Regarding your content quality, I have often discussed the importance of the quality of your content.
Today, I’m going to focus on how to get free backlinks, in addition to what I wrote about the ‘off Page’ SEO.
After defining what is a backlink, I will describe:
- Why is it so important?
- On which types of websites, you get links that point to the website of your business website?
- How to get free backlinks?
Here’s all you need to know about backlinks
What is a backlink?
According to Wikipedia, a Backlink (also called an inbound link or incoming link) is a link from a website that points to your site.
Backlinks are crucial.
For search engines, this gives the popularity of your website.
Google views these links as positive ‘votes’ for your website.
It’s logic.
When the owner adds an external link in one of these web contents, it means that he finds the content in relation with the interesting and relevant link for his readers.
Specifically, interesting and relevant to the point of seeing his own readers of his website to read the content on the other site.
So, if a user appreciates your content to the point of referring to it on his own site, it is because he considers that what you have written is perfect.
Thus, getting backlinks amounts to accumulating votes in a popularity contest or limit of duration.
Having more backlinks that point to your company’s website, therefore, means more credibility and, therefore, a higher ranking in relevant searches.
However, unlike a democracy, not all backlinks are considered equal in the eyes of search engine robots.
Indeed, Google, Bing, Yahoo .. give more weight to backlinks from websites that are themselves popular.
Let’s take an example.
A Backlink from Wikipedia.com or the forbes.com has a stronger weight for the credibility of your site than a backlink from your best friend’s blog.
In addition, search engines also use backlinks to understand the purpose of your website and therefore the type of your business.
Google assumes that when a link is pointing from one site to another, there is bound to be a relationship between the content of the two pages.
That’s why, in order for your backlinks to boost your SEO (instead of hurting you!), They must come from sites related to your business.
My advice: As an entrepreneur, try to get backlinks from known websites related to your industry.
Target Anchor Text
The text of the link is called ‘anchor text’.
Ideally, it is recommended that any anchor text should include the keywords of the target page. So, Google understands the relationship between these words and your website.
It is, therefore, preferable to have an anchor text placed in a sentence.
Like ‘best pizza in the city’ or choose your favorite domain to double the power of your backlinks,
Than obscene like ‘see more’ or ‘find out here’.
This is why it is also recommended to always specify an anchor text than to directly paste the URL.
On which sites to get free backlinks?
Link building is the process of getting backlinks to your site.
To start your link building, make a list of websites that are potentially relevant.
To do this, search in Google for websites in your industry that appear at the top of page results.
At the risk of repeating myself, keep in mind, that if you develop solutions for health professionals, there is no point in getting a backlink from an e-commerce clothing site even if it is your cousin e-com store.
Google’s highly ranked sites that have strong authority.
Stay in your industry. Although, as I have already mentioned, getting a link from the site of one of your competitors is not a good idea.
Focus your energy on identifying quality sites that have a significant impact on your Google rankings.
The ultimate: Finding a way to get a free backlink from a university or government website. Indeed, search engines tend to trust more sites that end with:
- .gov – governments,
- .edu – universities,
- or .org – non-profit organizations.
Google loves sites with recent content. That’s why it’s important to try adding new incoming links on a regular basis.
How to get free backlinks?
Once you have listed the relevant websites, it’s time to contact the people responsible for those sites, often called webmasters.
I have identified 3 different types of links to focus on.
Here they are in order, in my opinion, of their importance.
1. Natural Backlinks
As their name indicates, these links are obtained naturally and with little effort on your part.
In other words, a natural backlink is obtained without soliciting the website that chooses itself to connect to your website.
Natural inbound links have the strongest impact on promoting your site and therefore on growth opportunities for your business.
This usually happens because you have written high-quality content that others feel worth sharing with their users.
To improve your chances of getting natural backlinks:
- Publish high-quality content by taking into account user intentions
- And facilitate their sharing.
- Try to think of the professional, interesting and reliable information you can write for your readers.
Then post it on your site and share it on social networks.
Make sure your website has easy-to-find share buttons.
The trick is to make it easy for others to share the content they like.
The more useful your content is, the more chances you have that other sites want to add a link so their users can read it too.
2. Earned Backlinks
Earned Backlinks come from sites that you contact directly to ask them to include links.
These links can come from popular blogs or other well-ranked websites in your industry.
There are 3 main ways to get earned links. All that is required is to speak directly with the webmaster of the site either by phone or by email.
Promote your existing content
Identify who exactly would like to read the content of your website. Then look for other websites and/or blogs that target the same audience.
Identify the webmaster of these websites and send them the link of your most relevant content.
Tell them why you think their readers will find your content interesting and ask them if they would be willing to link their content to yours.
Guest Blogging
The ‘guest blogging’ is for a site owner to invite ‘experts’ to contribute on his blog or site.
And nothing prevents you to encourage site owners to invite you as well.
For this, send an email to the webmaster of the target site.
Suggest that you write an article on their website. Make him understand that you appreciate his site!
A tip, write a short e-mail as much as possible, but specify:
- Your area of expertise,
- A sample of your writing,
- Some topics that might interest his readers.
The webmaster will probably be happy to welcome you to his blog. Obviously, make sure that he agrees that your article includes a link to your own website.
If this approach interests you, discover all the other benefits of guest articles.
Reviews
Another option is to invite bloggers to test your products or services. Always relying on your product offer:
- an hour of gym class if you are the owner of a fitness center,
- a sample of perfume if you work in a beauty shop,
- a free haircut in your hair salon.
in Exchange, they will surely write a precise review of your company with a link to your site.
Finally, another great way to attract the attention of a blogger is to offer its readers a discount coupon to use for your products or services.
3 Backlinks that you create
You can also quickly and easily create links to your website without having to ask permission from a person.
these links that I call “self-created” have less influence on your ranking, however, they stimulate your site.
Here are 3 ways to create this type of backlinks
Get involved in forums and blogs
You can insert a multitude of links:
- On forums,
- By commenting on blog posts,
- And finally by registering in online directories.
Always make sure to select sites that are relevant to your industry.
Warning: Some of these links may be considered ‘spam’ unless your comments are relevant and the links point to content on your relevant site.
This is necessary for these links to promote your website and bring you, new visitors. For example :
- Comment on articles published in LinkedIn groups and share a link to a page on your website related to the topic covered in this group,
- Create a table on Pinterest and share your articles on a Pinterest board whose power to generate backlinks is well established.
One tip: Restrict yourself to your area of expertise. Thus, these links will bring you quality traffic while increasing your credibility.
Register in the directories
You can also create backlinks by adding your website to online directories like yellow pages, yelp, Google My Business and more.
This type of backlink is especially useful if you are a business with a physical address that greets your customers.
Create internal links
Internal links connect the different pages of your site.
This is what Digital Marketing experts call internal silo.
These are not strictly backlinks.
But as they help your readers and Google navigate through your company’s website, I found it useful to talk about it here.
This way, your readers stay on your site longer.
And so, this can potentially help to move up your ranking on the search pages.
For example, you can include a link:
From an article in your blog to the corresponding product page on your online store,
Or from your ‘About’ page to the ‘Team’ or ‘Contact Us’ page,
Or from the page describing a product or service to your FAQ page.
Include internal links to:
Encourage visitors to stay on your website,
Read additional information,
And finally, buy one of your products, contact you or subscribe to your newsletter.
Bonus! Find out who is linked to your website!
It’s an endless job.
But you probably want to know if your efforts are paying off.
To see the backlinks that your site has won for free, log in to your Google Search Console (ex-webmaster tools) and regularly check the ‘Link to your site’ section.
It’s as simple as that!
In this way, you monitor the results of your work and redirect your efforts accordingly.
Note: The Google Search Console is not really exhaustive about backlinks. The best way is to follow the trend.
There are many other tools to track your backlinks but if you’re new, the Google Search Console is more than enough.
In summary on how to get free backlinks
Working on backlinks is probably the best way to find new growth opportunities for your company’s website.
link building requires being methodical and rigorous.
But as it is surely one of the most important factors of Google’s algorithms, the result is quickly felt.
My last tip: Do things in the right order. Before you tackle getting Backlinks, make sure that your ‘on Page’ SEO is optimized.
Did you know that backlinks are really important for effective SEO? Do you invest a little of your time to get free backlinks?
What is your domain authority?
The Domain Authority (DA) is an indicator that grades the quality of your company’s website. Specifically, the domain authority measures the quality of your SEO. As a result, the higher your domain authority is, the more visitors you attract to your website and, in the first place, conquer more new customers.
This is how we describe it:
Domain authority is developed by Moz. Other companies like SEMrush also have similar metrics. No link with Google. This is a modeling essay from Google’s algorithm that assigns a rating to any website. Since this rating is essentially based on the number and backlinks, working on it can not hurt your SEO.
So I’m going to define domain authority and then give you 7 practical tips to increase it. And most importantly, I hope to make you want to further follow your domain authority (DA). It’s a solid metric for how your website’s SEO is changing over time.
What is the domain authority (DA) of a website?
The Domain Authority (DA) of a website is a score between 0 and 100 that tries to predict how a website ranks on search engines.
The closer your score is to 100, the better.
This DA note is based on a metric scale. In other words, the higher your score, the less difficult it is to progress.
On the other hand, the DA is a metric totally disconnected from the ranking metrics established by Google.
In fact, Moz is trying to simulate Google’s ranking algorithm based on known criteria.
But as Google’s algorithm is secret, with over 200 factors and constantly evolving, Moz was unable to have a precise estimate.
However, this approximation is good enough for SEO experts to use it and track the organic SEO progress of a website.
Moz works similar to Google, it retrieves data from the Web, put them in its index and calculates the domain authority.
But as it is not the same power of calculation as Google, Moz can do it only once a month.
Therefore, when you make changes to your company website, your DA does not change immediately.
Recommendations: Your DA rating is primarily used to evaluate your SEO progress and compare yourself with your competitors.
How is the domain authority calculated?
Moz indicates that the domain authority is calculated with a number of criteria which include:
- The number of inbound links (Backlinks) pointing to your website,
- The quality and relevance of these incoming links,
- The quality of the content published on your website,
- The popularity of your domain on social networks,
- The quality of SEO (Organic SEO) of your website.
Where can I find out about the DA of my business website?
To find out your domain authority score, go to Moz’s Link Explorer tool, enter your domain name and check the results.
Note: Open Site Explorer (OSE) index tool is no longer updated. Moz returns today on Link Explorer which has the same functions.
Basically, it’s a reinstatement for Open Site Explorer which was Moz’s tool for link discovery, competitive analysis, and link building.
What is the authority of a page?
The page authority (PA) is similar to the domain authority (DA). It is an indicator of the ability of a page to rank.
Instead of taking the entire domain into account, the page authority notes the performance of a particular page.
A website with many pages with strong authority also has a high domain authority (DA).
The page authority is based on three factors, namely:
- Age and trust
- Value received from links
- Page last update and relevance
Age and trust
The pages that have been on the Internet for years with good results have already earned their right to position themselves well on the results pages. New pages, as well as new domains, must first prove their qualities before they can position themselves for competitive keywords. Give your page time and take good care of it: write good content and get quality backlinks.
Value received from links
Each link has authority, external links as well as internals bring some authority to the landing page and thus influence the authority of this page.
last page update
Search engines prefer pages that are frequently updated. Regularly review the contents of your most important pages and whenever possible, update them. Do not forget the relevance. It takes more than a high page authority for a page to rank well. Relevance for specific keywords is also crucial. The relevance is gained with the content of the page, which must include these keywords and internal links, as well as backlinks (or external links).
Why do you need to improve your domain authority (DA)?
In fact, any action taken to increase the authority of your domain will also improve your rankings on the search engines.
Now that you have mastered the notion of ‘domain authority’ and know how it is calculated, let’s look at how to improve your domain authority.
7 tips to improve your domain authority
As you will see, the same approach to improve your DA is the same for the 3 elements of SEO as I will describe.
1. Work on your ‘off page’ SEO
In fact, backlinks are the most important priority factor in Moz’s algorithm.
That’s by the way, what appears right to the right of your domain authority note on the Link Explorer screen.
Moz talks about profile links which are the set of links that point to your site.
What is a strong link profile?
According to Moz, a good link profile has the following characteristics:
- Inbound links from websites with strong authority,
- Inbound links from websites dealing with the same subject,
- And incoming links from many different websites,
- No bad links.
How to improve your link profile?
In fact, improving your link profile is based on the ‘off Page” SEO techniques, one of the 3 subdomains of SEO.
So it’s all about getting quality backlinks by promoting your content.
To enhance your link profile and, among other things, improve your domain authority, you take 2 actions:
- Eliminate bad links,
- Get quality links.
Remove bad links
This process involves using a tool like Moz Explorer or SEMrush to find the toxic links.
Then contact the managers of the websites and ask them to remove the link or add the attribute ‘nofollow’ to undervalue the power of the link.
For site managers that do not respond, use the tool to disavow links in your Google Search Console in order to remove the negative impact of these links.
Get good links from other relevant websites
It is probably the most difficult task of SEO.
Any Digital Marketing expert will tell you that getting quality backlinks is a subject in its own right.
To give you an overview, there are mainly 2 ways to get good inbound links:
- Publish quality content,
- Ensure their promotion.
Publish quality content on your website
Posting quality content is the best way to get ‘natural’ backlinks.
The principle is as follows: if a user reads one of your articles and appreciates it, he will refer to it in his own content.
As a result, the first step is to publish content that your readers will like.
That is relevant, useful and easy content.
In practice, you must be very patient.
Indeed, it takes time to gain the trust of your readers so that some Internet users in your industry want to quote your content in theirs.
Promote your articles
The second way to get good backlinks is to contact other websites to let them know you exist.
In this way, you increase your chances of getting links pointing to your professional website.
2. Optimize your site’s ‘On page’ SEO
To improve your domain authority, you must also optimize the SEO of your pages.
‘On page’ SEO is about optimizing your page and its content.
Among the major points to optimize, here are the main ones:
- Optimize your title and the meta description,
- Cut out your content with subtitles,
- Optimize the URLs structure,
- Compress the weight and optimize your images for SEO,
- Use keywords naturally in your content without stuffing,
- Add internal links to your content,
- Work on formatting your content for easy readability.
Note: Of course, your content must be updated regularly to prevent it from becoming obsolete.
3. Work on your technical SEO
Technical SEO is the third part of the process.
This concerns your website, that is, the container of your content.
In general, these rather technical actions are to be done only once.
On the other hand, if one of the aspects of the technical SEO is not correct, it has a strong impact on your domain authority and therefore on your rankings in the search result pages.
Among the 16 critical parameters of Technical SEO, the main ones are:
- Setup your website on Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools,
- Submit your XML sitemap to Google,
- Test your robots.txt file on the Google Search Console to make sure Google and other search engines can crawl your website without problems,
- Secure your website with an SSL certificate (https),
- Add structured data to help search engines better understand your content …
4. Have a mobile-friendly website
Not having a compatible website for small screens of a smartphone has a negative impact on your domain authority.
In addition, having a mobile-compatible website is no longer an option. It is mandatory.
Here are some reasons:
48% of searches in North America are done on mobile (source Google Research),
Many Internet users start their search on mobile and pursue it on a computer,
Mobile Compatibility is a Google Ranking factor
Google deploys its Mobile First Index that takes into account the content of your website on Mobile to rank your pages.
Recommendations: to avoid having 2 sites to manage (one for a computer, another for mobile), opt for a responsive design that adapts naturally and automatically to the size of the devise screen of your users.
Note: You can also make your pages compatible with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
My tip: To make sure your website is mobile-friendly, use Google’s free mobile tool.
The report in this tool provides all the recommendations for making your website mobile-friendly.
5. Optimize the loading time of your pages
One of the known factors of Google’s rankings is the page speed.
A website that loads slowly is penalized.
Speeding up your pages improves:
Not only your ranking in Google’s result pages and your domain authority,
But also the user experience which translates into more conversion: sales, prospects, registrations …
Solving the page speed problems of your website is not always easy.
Nevertheless, to save time on the technical aspects without using your developer, here are the actions to take to optimize the website of your company:
- Delete unnecessary extensions,
- Use the latest versions of your CMS (WordPress or other) and your extensions,
- Ask your website hosting for a report on your server’s performance. If necessary, pay yourself a more powerful server.
- Use a caching plugin, like W3 Total Cache,
- Compress your images with an extension, like tiny jpg or png
- Use YouTube or Vimeo to host your videos instead of running your own server …
6. Increase your social shares
Although officially, Google has repeatedly stated that social shares are not part of its Google algorithm, it seems that there is a correlation between pages well ranked on Google and the social commitments of these pages.
It’s normal. Popular pages in Google also tend to receive more Likes, shares, tweets …
To increase your domain authority, here are some actions to take:
- Work on your profiles on LinkedIn and try to increase your connections,
- Be active on social networks to promote your content to collect more Likes, tweets, + 1 on Google + …
Not to mention, add the social sharing buttons on all your pages to facilitate sharing for your visitors …
7. Have patience
Increasing your domain authority does not happen overnight.
It takes time for Moz bots to evaluate your website once the above changes are made. You must be patient.
In any case, working consistently on improving your rankings in Google also has a positive effect on your domain authority score. And vice versa!
Conclusion on how to improve your domain authority
To conclude, do not be too obsessed with your domain authority (DA).
For me, it’s just a number that measures the strength of your area compared to your competitors.
In addition, a low DA does not mean that your website is not ranked well on Google.
On the other hand, a strong authority means that you are on the right path without any guarantee of obtaining a better ranking on Google.
Whatever it is, please check regularly your Google Search Console and have a complete check-up on your website.
Nothing like Google to help you progress on Google! Now, what are you going to do with these techniques to get your domain authority (DA)?
Voice search SEO is already here! Many editors and bloggers will now consider voice searches and conversational exchanges via smartphones and voice assistants.
Voice search is already well established in our daily lives, especially through our smartphones, with the solutions offered by Apple, Microsoft, and Google to name a few. From now on, it will have to be integrated into the fundamentals of SEO. Read more
How to rethink SEO in 2018
Digital practices are evolving at a high speed and SEO is not spared. This lever, which at the base was heavily influenced by tricks to more or less ‘deceive’ algorithms, must constantly reinvent itself in front of ever smarter search engines.
Organic visibility stat
The Organic visibility on Google is becoming more and more difficult to access. Beyond the major updates such as Panda, Penguin and Fred that challenged ‘bad’ content, SEO over-optimization, ‘bad’ link building and poor user experience, other regular updates of algorithms are design to improve the relevance of the results. However, it seems that Google now tends to systematically favor the general giants of e-commerce for the first places, including very specific markets.
At the same time, the space devoted to organic results is constantly being reduced in favor of other types of paid answers or internal to Google. Between the leading position 0 and the expansion of the space allocated to Adwords ads, as well as the knowledge graph and various services offered by Google from the results page (Google Flights, concert tickets, museum tickets …), natural results become secondary.
And this trend is not only seen on search engines but also on Facebook, with an even greater decrease in the reach of organic posts against the recommendations of friends and advertisements.
In such a context, the best strategy to adopt is to focus your efforts on what really interests your targets and not the indexing robots because it is this work that will allow you to be rated on them. Thus, SEO requires more and more transversal skills and rethinks in an integrated way within a comprehensive marketing strategy that will allow you to pull out your game plan on all the levers.
Mark the spirits: think ‘branding’
In a highly competitive market, it is ideal to reach your potential customers as early as possible in the buying process, that is to say even before they start their research on the internet. That they hear from you in a positive way to think of your brand when the need will be felt. With this in mind, branding is very important, even for companies that have not been interested in it so far. Determining your values, your competitive advantage, and your positioning, and conveying them through a differentiating message is now decisive. Even identifying a new niche in which you can thrive. The prescription is the best advertising a brand can receive and if your vision is right and challenges your targets to the point of inciting them to keep in mind or even talk about it will be easily declined on the various marketing levers, including the SEO.
For this purpose, it will be important to flatten your branding to make it remarkable. What could attributes make you stand out? With which targets could your offer be the most impactful? Whether it’s a product advantage, outstanding quality service, off-the-shelf communication or anything else that can create a brand attachment, tweaking your difference must be the basis of your strategy. And it is this detail that will be remembered.
Protect your brand-reputation
In the same vein, customer satisfaction must be sought and put forward. Because Google does not want to promote companies leaving behind traces of negative experiences. However, where big brands can still potentially have the benefit of the doubt in case of failure, the smallest companies are not allowed to make the mistake. And positive-minded customers are less likely to express themselves than those who are disappointed, nothing prevents you from encouraging them to also share their good impressions online. Your brand image capital will only get better.
Content Strategy: Quality rather than Quantity
Finally, the content still remains a cornerstone of SEO strategy. But not just any. The one that is valued by Google must, in the context of a fluid and enjoyable user experience, also provide a positive experience to the reader, without being written in order to optimize the site for keywords or phrases. As part of shopping sites, understanding the expectations of your customers, and the criteria for their purchases, you will know what information should be communicated and their hierarchy.
Regarding branded content, it must support your vision and your identity, while adopting an original and authentic angle of approach. Give free rein to your creativity so you do not just find yourself declining or even copying the good ideas of others.
Finally, concerning information content, so as not to multiply the topics that have already been widely debated by various competitors either directly or indirectly, the right strategy to adopt is based on the questions that your target audience ask and then fill in the gaps content available on the web by identifying those that have not yet been satisfactorily processed or that require more detailed responses.
In conclusion, the increasingly complex evolutions of SEO ultimately provoke strategic challenges on the part of brands that will ultimately stop the over-information and ultimately only keep the best.
Writing an SEO article perfectly optimized is now essential to approach the top 3 positions of the search engine results. You will see that SEO is not just the keywords that do the job. It is a unique set of rules to follow that we are going to present here:
Writing an SEO article for Google is certainly a good point, but optimizing it is something else. In order to help it rank well on Google, it is absolutely necessary to take the time to properly write your article and make every effort to make it perfectly optimized.
Perfect optimization of your content will allow you to appear in the first results of Google searches. In this article, we invite you to discover some rules and tips on writing an SEO article and thus optimize it for Google.
What is SEO?
SEO also is known as search engine optimization, it is a technique that will allow you to optimize your articles to make your page be positioned better in search engine results and more particularly Google. The top positions on Google being awarded are the Top 3.
You should, however, know that SEO is not an exact science because it involves many factors. It is not always possible to gather them all together, but respecting the rules to put all the odds on one’s side is already more simple. A legitimate website for 10 years on a subject, cannot be overtaken overnight if it follows SEO rules to position its content.
By implementing an SEO strategy, this will allow you to gain visibility while ahead at the same time with some of your competitors (as far as possible). You will have more chances to increase traffic to your website and at the same time your sales if you have an e-commerce site.
To put in place a good SEO, it is necessary to follow Google’s guidelines, that is to say, the rules that will allow you to better optimize your content at the SEO level, the loading time of your web pages, as well as several points to apply at the level of your website structure.
We will focus on the rules for writing an SEO article that is relevant to our site.
Write an SEO article
Writing an SEO article means that you write your content following rules that will allow it to be positioned at best on search engines … especially Google.
The first rule to follow in SEO is to be natural in your content writing while seeking to offer the most relevant content possible to your audience.
None of the rules applied should alter the essence of your article if you respect them. There is no question of repeating a keyword 50 times, but knowing how to use its lexical field by addressing synonyms, words related to the main treated keyword. The goal is that Google can correctly interpret your content as being directly related to the word of your target main keyword.
You could write the definition of a word without notifying it and Google could then guess it (interpret it) because it is not a human but a smart bot that will know what you are talking about.
So writing an SEO article aims to offer the maximum of elements related to a word so that Google can correctly interpret it. In the end for a web editor, this is to be relevant and provide added value to the content.
Now let’s look at these different SEO rules to follow:
1. The use of keywords for a good SEO
Like many people, you have probably heard about keywords without actually knowing what it means or what it is for. You should know that optimizing your content starts with choosing your keywords, including finding the right ones.
Writing an SEO article already revolves around the main keyword or keyword phrase.
If you choose a keyword too ‘classic’, the latter may be too competitive, and you will have very little chance of being well referenced. For that, it will be more judicious to opt for keywords with a long tail which will allow you to be better (more easily) positioned. The long tail is a key phrase revolving around your main keyword.
Example:
- Main keyword: Marketing
- Key phrase (long tail): marketing strategy – marketing techniques – search marketing etc …
Be aware that some tools allow you to find the keywords to be naturally visible on Google. We can mention ‘Google Keyword Planners’ that will allow you to find these keywords for free.
Other tools are available, but they are generally paid. Once you’ve completed your long-tail keywords research, you can then start writing your article.
2. The title of your SEO article
The title of your article must contain a keyword and usually at the beginning according to the topic. This title should also be attractive and not too long because it is partly through it that your article will be read and/or shared. Numbers are often used in titles and it really works.
For example, instead of saying ‘clothing trends’, write instead ‘3 outfits trends’.
The SEO title and the meta description that will be seen below, are the 2 elements to treat to increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) in order to gain traffic and raise your content to the nearest of the top 3 Google.
Writing an SEO article with an expressive title will increase your chances to be read, but be careful not to over-sell your article by putting a title too catchy! Find the right balance.
3. Writing the introduction of your SEO article
The introduction is often sloppy by the editor, but it has its importance. Indeed, this introduction will allow you to introduce once again your keyword for your SEO. Be aware that this keyword should appear preferably once in the first 100 words of your article.
Thus, the Google robot will be able to quickly find this keyword and index your content based on the keyword if all of your content is well optimized.
Humanly speaking, your content article introduction represents the first lines of reading through which you will have to capture your audience. It may, from time to time, be repeated as a meta description tag if it is relevant and not too long.
4. The number of words
As the years’ pass, it becomes more difficult to position oneself on competitive queries. Furthermore, it is also difficult to maintain the first position on Google if SEO articles are not sometimes reviewed and updated.
Today it is easier to position oneself on long articles than on short articles. Writing an SEO article, therefore, requires time if you want to position yourself effectively in the top position on Google. For the length, we will aim at an average 2000 words.
It’s a lot of words to get up to 2000! Yes, but it is better to take the lead where the field is still virgin or try to take the places of your competitors if they opted for short content. It does not mean that you will take their place overnight, but if you work to promote your posts on your social networks and if you do link building, it will pay off faster.
Think about the different angles of a subject to bring material to your content and do not think that you need to make an unnecessary filling.
5. Segment SEO content with H1, H2 … H6 tags
Writing an SEO article in one go will not make people want to read it, especially if it is close to or more than 1500/2000 words. To do so, you will need to cut it into sections (headings and subheadings) like this article and treat your content point by point.
The H1 tag is reserved for the SEO title of your article. It should be used only once within the content. WordPress theme normally interprets the SEO title as an H1 tag. It will, therefore, start with the H2 tags (or title 2 in the WordPress drop-down menu)
Define a central frame and the different topics and subtopics that you will have to deal with. Each of these headings will be the subject of a title linked to an H2 tag. Use then H3 tag for the sub-headings. Beyond that, we can have H4 tags which would align points under the subheadings. H5 and H6 tags are rare.
Topics and sub-topics have the advantage of being able to slip in your keywords but especially to streamline the reading of your SEO article. Writing an optimized SEO article using the H tags to segment it, also allows you to drag photos within topics to illustrate the points addressed.
6. Internal links and outbound links
Whether it’s internal links or outbound links, they all matter when writing an SEO article. Internal links connect your articles to each other. The outgoing links allow them to bring additional information to your content.
Internal links: These links will allow you to refer to other pages within your site. They allow for different links from your website, to do what is called an internal linking.
This will increase the SEO of all your pages. In addition, be aware that internal links are a great idea to encourage the bounce rate (by lowering it) and make the reader want to read other pages (articles) of your website. The lower your bounce rate, the more your audience will browse your articles, instead of going out directly after reading or browsing the article your reader has arrived at.
Outgoing links: They will redirect the reader to another website or page. This will allow the reader to discover more about the subject, and this will add additional value to your content. Google Search engines highly value outbound links.
Internal and external links are therefore of great importance so that you can easily improve your SEO.
7. Backlinks
We remain in relationship with backlinks, which unlike your outgoing link is a link from your website but shared from another site. For the site that shares it is, therefore, an outgoing link and for you, it is a backlink, a link that ensures a return to your site. In this case, it is you who benefit from the traffic generated from a website to yours.
Backlinks are highly sought after by website owners and bloggers. They significantly contribute to the popularity of a site and its positioning on search engines like Google. When it comes to SEO, SEO agencies or experts are usually used to work on a link building strategy to gain positions and authority.
Agencies and SEO experts usually have a portfolio of bloggers and important media. Some of them manage the link building part by buying links. They get sites with a higher DA to ensure a better positioning of the content or site in itself.
The backlink has a real importance to go up in google position rankings. To earn them, it is better to outreach for an influencer high authority blog site with an optimized SEO article that can sometimes accept to post it according to your content topic.
8. The images weight and alt tag
As a web editor, you often tend to overlook images, but know that they are very important for optimizing your article. Indeed, it is necessary to optimize your images so that they do not slow down your website.
This is one of the first things to do in order to meet the requirements of Google. It is an important ranking factor, especially for Mobile-friendly sites. It is a priority if you want to have a site and pages that load quickly on mobile devices. Google appreciates sites that are fast and it will tend to favor them.
Finally, know that you can (must) add an alternative text or alt tag on your images, so you can place your keyword again by indirectly associating your images to your content and therefore your website. This is a good strategy because Google’s robot will be able to reference your image based on this alternative text. You should include in it the keyword that you are interested in.
Do not neglect to reduce the size of your images and filling the alt tag. There are plenty of plugins to help you do it. Find a software that can also help you do it manually. Start by looking for a small software that compresses images for the web, if you do not have Photoshop.
For the filling of the alt tag, look at the screen below. You will fill your alt tag when uploading your image to one (you can return to it if necessary) For the images within your article, click on the image and select the small pencil to edit the information.
9. The meta-description
The meta-description is essential for your SEO. It is an integral part of your article writing, so do not make it a dilemma. This meta-description is a kind of a summary of your content article. Focus your strategy to attract the reader’s attention to want to read your content.
When a reader types a query on Google search and your content appears, he will read the meta description and click if it is relevant. This principle helps to increase your CTR (click through rate) or rate of clicks and participates in the SEO of your article. When your article appears as a result of a query and the user doesn’t click on your article, it lowers your CTR. If your CTR is low on one or more of your articles, you will have to rework your articles.
It will notably be visible on the search engines and therefore on google results. Automatically, it will contain the first 140 characters of your article, but this is not the goal. You must write it in a strategic way and of course include, again, your keyword.
10. Measure and analyze your content with Google Analytics
Finally, consider installing Google Analytics to measure the results of your work and analyze all the information about your related content. The number of readings, the CTR, the origin of your audience etc …
You will have a code to place on your website (within the theme) to activate it. It is essential to monitor the evolution of your traffic and your website as a whole.
Also consider other paid tools that will help you as SEMRush, Majestic SEO, Moz explorer etc …
11. Consider SEO voice search
One of the strong trends considered in 2017 is voice search. It is probably one of the next challenges in SEO. The use of voice search is growing day by day. In a study commissioned by Google, 41% of adult Americans are using this feature. Also, the rise of more than half of teens is using this feature on a daily basis. Seeing this heavy trend, optimization for voice search will now be a major key for companies specializing in SEO.
It will be wise to quickly get up to date with all the voice assistants who arrive in homes, in addition to those who equip our mobile devices such as Google Assistant, Siri or Cortana.
You do not type a Google query on your computer or mobile as you speak. When speaking to a voice assistant, we build more explicit sentences such as: ‘How do you write an SEO article? Instead of ‘SEO Article’ usually typed on Google.
Writing an SEO article should not be done for the sole purpose of responding to a direct keyword. You should focus on answering one or more questions about a key topic. You do not need to put a question as an article title. The Google bots are now smart enough to detect content that meets a problem or a question.
Simply think about it when writing your article. You will get better success when answering as best you can to one or more questions about a topic.
The conclusion on writing an SEO article
The process of writing an SEO article for Google may seem complicated at first glance. However, with practice, it will grow over the months and becomes almost a game for you. Learn these steps and follow the progress of your site.