How to fix the most common on-page SEO mistakes

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There’s a huge amount of focus in SEO today on off-page SEO factors such as outreach and backlinks. In fact, SEOs and website owners spend so much time focused on how to get as many backlinks as possible that they tend to neglect their on-page SEO.

This is a big problem. On-page SEO issues can have a hugely negative impact on your site’s ability to rank. In fact, it doesn’t matter how many backlinks you earn, if your on-page SEO sucks, you won’t rank well.

Below we’ve listed the most common on-page SEO mistakes and what you should be doing to fix them.

 

Stuffing keywords in your page titles and meta descriptions

Many business owners wrongly think that the more keywords you have in your page titles and meta descriptions, the more chances you have of ranking for keywords. But the opposite is in fact true. When you include multiple different keywords in your page titles, you actually reduce your chances of being found in Google.

Instead, every page should have a single keyword or set of very related keywords that it focuses on. This ensures that Google is clear on what your page is about and what you are trying to rank for.

Stuffing keywords into your page titles and meta descriptions isn’t just going to confuse Google, it’s also going to confuse searchers, too. Your page’s title has a big impact on how many people click through from Google and no one is going to click on a spammy page title.

 

Having the same title and meta description on several pages

Of course, you don’t want to have the same page title and meta description across all of your pages, either. This is just as bad and in many cases even worse. Because in the same way that stuffing keywords into your page title dilutes your effectiveness to rank, so does having the same keyword spread across dozens of pages. Google just won’t know which page is the most appropriate to rank.

 

Using multiple H1 tags

Pages should only have one H1 tag and in the vast majority of cases, this will be the title of the page. As a result, it should include your focus keyword and no other keywords. But many website owners have several h1 tags on the same page and include multiple different keywords in them rather than choosing to use H2s, H3s or H4s. This also confuses Google and makes it hard to tell what the focus of your page is.

 

Stuffing keywords on pages

Website owners who stuff keywords into page titles and meta descriptions also tend to stuff keywords into their page’s content. While you definitely want to mention the keyword a couple of times naturally throughout the copy, it is important not to spam mentions of it. This makes your content unreadable to both Google and humans. Google will penalize you if it finds you keyword stuffing and human readers will simply leave your site and never return.

How to do image optimization

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Image SEO is often an afterthought in the world of SEO. There is so much focus on off-page ranking factors like backlinks and on-page factors like content quality and keywords that images often get left as an afterthought. But image SEO is still incredibly important in today’s SEO world. There is a huge amount of value that you can gain by spending a small amount of time optimizing your images.

In fact, Google considers it so important that it provides information in optimizing images on their website. It can still be hard to get started with image optimization, however, which is why we have broken things down into easy steps below.

 

Make sure all of your images are relevant

Images are often the first thing that you look at when you land on a web page. It is the quickest way to make an emotional connection with your readers, which is why having relevant and eye-catching images is so important. When you have relevant and high-quality images, your readers are much more likely to carry on reading. In most cases, you can achieve this by using stock images. It’s even better if you can create your own images, however. This will be absolutely necessary in some cases, such as where you sell your own product.

 

Make sure your images are high quality

It is so important to have high-quality images on your website. Having low resolution and blurry images is a big no-no. It’s even more important now that more and more people are using mobile devices to access content. Low res or badly sized images look terrible on smartphones and will stop some users from browsing your site.

In the vast majority of cases, you should be using JPEG files. PNGs can also be a good option.

 

Make sure your images are as small as possible

The smaller the file size of your images, the quicker they will load. Note, that does not mean you should have low-resolution images. But you should try to shrink the file size of your high-resolution images as much as possible.

Mobiles can’t load large image files quickly and this can have a negative impact on how users browse your website on a smartphone. If images don’t load and this impacts user experience, readers will simply leave the website. This can tank your Google ranking. But by shrinking your images while keeping quality, you can ensure that images load quickly and look great on mobile.

 

Add alt tags to every image

All of the images on your site need to have descriptive and keyword-rich alt tags. This will tell Google what your images are about so that it can rank your pages accordingly. Be careful of stuffing your alt tags, with keywords, however. This can have a negative impact just as it does in your content.

 

Make sure all images have descriptive titles

On top of alt tags, you need to make sure that all images have descriptive titles. Google can crawl titles just like it does alt tags to understand what your images are about and how they relate to your page’s content.

Negative SEO and how to protect yourself

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There is a huge amount of competition in the world of SEO. Some search terms are incredibly competitive. Literally thousands of websites can be competing for some keywords, with only a handful getting any traffic from them. Most of those websites will be using white hat SEO to try and beat each other to those top spots. But some websites will fight dirty.

These websites fight dirty by using negative SEO. This is the practice of using blackhat ranking tactics and directing them at competing websites in order to get them penalized by Google.

It might not be immediately clear if you have been a victim of a negative SEO attack. There are some ways to tell but there is no way to tell for absolute sure. There’s certainly no way to tell who was using negative SEO tactics.

One clue is if your rankings suddenly plummet for no apparent reason. If a Google ranking update is not behind the drop then you wan want to look into the following things.

If you see your rankings drop, you should check out your link profile. If you see hundreds or even thousands of spammy links coming from spammy domains, there is a good chance that you have been a victim of negative SEO.

Another sign might be if you receive a huge surge in web traffic, especially if it comes from countries like Russia. These kinds of attacks can be used to slow your website down or to take it offline

Worried about a negative SEO attack? Here’s how you can protect yourself and your website.

 

Check your content regularly

One negative SEO tactic is to post plagiarized versions of your content all over the internet in order to get Google to penalize you. One way to protect against this is to regularly check your website’s content using a tool like Copyscape. This site will tell you whether any other instances of your content have been found online. If you find them, you can report them to Google.

 

Keep an eye on your rankings

As we mentioned above, a huge drop in rankings can be a sign that you’ve been hit by a negative SEO attack. Once you see this, and know that it’s not a Google update, you can start to check all of the other factors. Doing this as soon as your rankings drop can save your site.

That’s why you need to keep a close eye on your rankings and regularly check in on them. If you are using an SEO company, they should do this for you and notify you as soon as they see an anomaly. If not, you can check them yourself.

 

Report fake reviews quickly

It’s not just your website that can get targeted during a negative SEO attack, your business’ reputation can get attacked, too. This is done by posting fake reviews about your business on Google or other review sites. The good news is that it is easy to report them on most websites. You should do so as soon as you spot them.

Social Media Traction and the 8 Ways to Develop It

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The conventional online methods are no longer effective. You cannot depend on your website, PR writing, or your ads the way you used to. The current approach is to be able merge all of these things and make use of social media as the anchor of media marketing to make known your presence in the scene. Social media is the best place to where a lot of people assemble.

social media apps on a smartphone

social media apps on a smartphone

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA TRACTION?

It is building your ranking to get more audience in your site using social media. Well, you can do everything you know but if you do not elevate it the right away, frequently, and continually on social media, then do not expect an audience. You need to build social media traction and all these things will work. It is all about people and contact.

 LOOKING BACK

During the height of the success of Google in 2000 to 2009, people passed their time in the internet. They pulled the information for themselves searching at Google or if what they searched were pressed to them by advertising, PR, or marketing. The outcome of which were rich in content websites and blogs did prospered luring a lot of audience without really working on it.

THE GREATER TIME CONSUMED ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Since people spend a lot of time in social media like Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter, people could search for something there. Most of the time, they look at something that appeared on their mobile screens, and eventually, they become enthralled by it.

 WHAT IS SHARED ONLINE?

Study shows that the ones that are shared in social media are those sweet, funny things or something that can make people angry. Is your business the type who will benefit from this? So, what happens now if people will ignore your brand or at worst, unfollow you?

DIGITAL ADVERTISING

It is also known as internet advertising. Content is only noticed if it is funny or sweet though. Usually, people will not remember the brand.

LINKING BOTH SOCIAL AND SEO

The one sure solution is to go social. If you do want to generate SEO, then it is the only way to go. But that is only the first step. The second step is using a social traction. So, the question now is… how to come up with a social media traction.

  • Build an interconnecting set of posts and place it in the various social media platforms
  • Elevate the social media profile and check it every day.
  • Make a catchy headline with an equally catchy content so that your readers will be moved to share it to others.
  • Develop a community that are dedicated to all the content you produce.
  • Don’t just advertise offline; utilize social media to reach more audience.
  • Do the right social media marketing because Google is watching.
  • Create a plan that optimizes the correct time and content targeting the correct audience and allow them to work jointly to develop a traction perfect for your brand.
  • Be constant and sustain the energy. It is difficult to build again a community of engaged people and create SEO and leads in sales than to sustain the energy or momentum that you have already built.

Different Ways to Show the True Value of SEO

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Google’s algorithm has progressed fast that it is harder to get to the top results.  The question is, how do you prove the worth of SEO to your would-be clients, present clients, or to anybody who wants to finance in SEO?

The True Value of SEO

three person discussing in front their computers

To be able to do that, you have to know your would-be client’s objectives and from there you can plan on how to land in SEO’s page one. This can be done through local search, content marketing, and other optimizations. To ensure your client’s success, you should be able to present accomplishment enhancements to make sure to have more funding from the client.

ROI MODEL

This is the best illustration to show gradual growth in web traffic, online visibility, and income. You can use a mere Excel spreadsheet to demonstrate what you foresee and merge all the data in one file.

APPROACH

Preferably, this data can make use of the paid search reporting data to amplify organic results. This will give you an assessment of certain keywords.

Possible data sources are:

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO OBTAIN KEYWORDS BY PAID?

Another alternative to know the importance of SEO is to differentiate the cost in considering paid search to get your traffic.

Let’s take a look at the value:

  • Check the keywords using the paid search part.
  • Incorporate how many times the keywords were searched each year.
  • Get the median of the cost per click or CPC to find out the cost which could be 15% or more.

ROUGH ESTIMATE OF THE BUDGET

Ask your client for a little budget for the run through. This owes to show your client how much results can come up with such a little amount of money. Besides, SEO results take time.

SUPPORTING YOUR DATA BY REPORTING

One way to get data is by using Google Search Console, but there are more which can do reporting too.

Ahrefs can show you the rankings before and now and know the changes. Another measure is to show how much keywords you are currently using compared to say, 6 months ago.

Improvement in your ranking means you’ll have more traffic and possible conversions when you land in the first page of Google.

CONVERSION RATES

When you show the developments in your conversion rates the clients and would- be clients will know how hard you work for it… AND that makes you more credible.

TRAFFIC & CONVERSIONS

When using analytics, you have to present the developments of the organic traffic and the rise of your soft or hard conversions. Again, this will show your client/s that you are doing a great job and improving their business is a big possibility by using organic piece.

SHOW THAT YOU ARE A WINNER

The last way to present value is to show your competitors how much you have grown which can be checked using tools like SEMrush. When the client is aware of the developments, they will be satisfied. They don’t like it when their major rival gets better results in doing their SEO schemes.

Content Optimization Made Easy

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Optimize your content if you want your audience to know about it… and if you have been doing it for some time, you already know how to rank in search engines, right? You  mastered writing for people and algorithms? So, what is the next step?

MacBook Pro near white open book

Read below and see what you can use to give you the success you’ve always wanted.

  • Great headline!

    • You’ve got to have that kind of headline that will move your reader to immediately click. But you have to make sure that your content is intensely, intelligently written and gives that cool vibe for your audience to enjoy.
    • To know if you are really that cool, score it by making use of an online tool like Portent’s title maker.

  • Study the current flow.

    • If you want to come up with a good headline, you first need to know the topics people are devouring. Being aware of the trends is important so as to make your content relevant to your audience. Don’t be the last to write about a certain trendy topic, people will know you are not updated.
    • To help you not to make a blunder on the investigative trends, there are tools that can help you. Read this post about 3 alternatives to Google’s Keyword Planner.

Related: Free Keyword Tools

    • Check the key influencers in your trade and observe what works for them. Know who gets a large share. You can categorize the results by using social network and find out what type of content is at various platforms.

  • Incorporate quotes.

    • Approach your content in the most refreshing way, employ influencers who are thought leaders in the field and those with large followings.
    • But remember, being famous and being able to influence others are two different things. They have advantages because they have the brains and the experiences. Anything they say, their followers will surely believe it.  And that is something you can use to your advantage.
    • You can use their quotes in your content and use whatever they have published make sure people know that it is your influencer’s work. Inform person that you have mentioned him or her in your content.

  • Do not forget the essentials of SEO.

    • Sure, you are busy, but do remember the little things you can do to lead the way to a great content traction. Go back to the basic footing of SEO, the meta tags. This is actually snippets of text that articulates the content of a page.
    • This looks unpretentious, but it is really that dynamic; it is everywhere! You may not be such a diehard coder, but that does not mean you cannot do great titles on your pages, meta descriptions included. That will enable readers to notice you.

  • Don’t make it difficult for others to share your content.

    • So how do you do this? Simple, make sure you do the following:
      • That there is a static social share toolbar on every page that has shareable content in your website ready to be used.
      • Make sure that at the end of an article or a blog, has share buttons.
      • Ask your audience to share or like your content. You can also ask a question so your audience can comment. You can start a discussion there and get yourself shares.
      • Include CTA buttons so your audience can easily share. If this does not work, tweak, if still no improvement, keep on trying until you find the right approach.

How Unfavorable Reviews Affect SEO

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We all experience this. Working so hard for a project you thought would really work and bring you on top, but then, you got unfavorable reviews. Ouch! That really hurts big time. The days after were dreadful and you begin to panic and did not know what to do.

Person Holding Turned-on Laptop

Do not think right away of the effort and money lost. They are, in fact, an aid to your search engine rankings. Puzzled? Here are the reasons why:

Unfavorable Reviews Adds to the Number of Reviews. Google does not only give several results and show the star for each, but it also shows the total reviews. This will escalate the social confirmations for your business. The reality is, having different opinions tells the search engines that your business is authentic.

There is a study that says that customers do not read each comment. They just need to know that you have good following before they convert and purchase.

SEO guidelines say that even the top sites also have unfavorable reviews. Of course, you should pay attention to unfavorable reviews to improve and a few of those will not destroy your business.  It might even help.

Unfavorable Reviews Can Really Escalate Your Authenticity. Who would really believe you when everybody is giving you favorable reviews? That isn’t normal.

Two studies showed that unfavorable reviews tend to be more realistic than super favorable reviews. The other study showed that restrained reviews are more credible than the super favorable reviews because this is where distrust comes in.

Clearly, a mix of unfavorable, restrained, and favorable reviews are more believable to consumers. This also means, they spend time in your website. And also, this will add to your search engine rankings after a while. Remember that the time spent by consumers at your page and how long they stay are two evaluative factors when your goal is to enhance your SEO.

Unfavorable Reviews Is a Chance to Develop a Relationship with Customers.

Unfavorable reviews give you a chance to do something about it. If it is a problem in customer service you can always rectify it. The customers will know that their concern is your concern too. If your customer is comfortable with you, they will do business with you.

The key factor to be remembered should be that unfavorable reviews are a chance to fix the problem and in doing so, you are correctly answering to unfavorable reviews.

Unfavorable Reviews Gives an Exact View of your Business.

People complain because they do not get what they expect to get. This shows that the word disappointment is important and needs attention. On the other hand, there is an advantage. This helps other would-be customers to know what you offer and what you do not offer. This too, will tell the customers how concern you are to address their disappointment.

Unfavorable Reviews Can Help You Formulate Another Game Plan. If you can store the facts in each unfavorable comment, you could assist to alter the goal of your SEO plan.

So, when you read these comments, ask yourself the following questions:

  • What does this customer want that we did not deliver?
  • Did we promise something that we did not fulfill?
  • What are the inquiries of this customer regarding our product or our establishment?
  • What kind of searches could bring another customer to my content?

So, deal with unfavorable comments and make sure you run a great business that people can trust and love. In the end, the favorable will outweigh the unfavorable.

SEO Strategies That Will Ruin Your SEO

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No matter which strategy you use, SEO is designed to help you climb up the search rankings. With its help, you should be enjoying a series benefits including…

  • Improved online visibility
  • Increased site traffic
  • Better engagement
  • A higher position on search results

But what if you’re not getting any of these?

Then you’re doing SEO wrong.

The sad truth is that not all techniques in search engine optimization are created equal. There will always be black hat SEO practices that go against Google’s standards. And if you don’t want an express ride to Google jail, you should watch out for strategies that will ruin your SEO.

The 5 Worst Things You Can Do In SEO

1. Plagiarism

Writing doesn’t come easy, especially if you’re a blogger and have to churn out content on a regular basis. Eventually, you’ll run out of topics or have writer’s block. It can be tempting to copy content off the internet when you’re stuck in the rut – but you shouldn’t for 3 simple reasons:

  • Plagiarism is unethical
  • It goes against Google’s policies
  • It is illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

Not only will plagiarizing give you a bad rep if your readers find out your secret. Google is going to slap you with a penalty, and DMCA will take down your website.

2. Keyword overload

Using too many keywords doesn’t make for good content or SEO. They make your posts sound unnatural, which can discourage readers from exploring your website (read: high bounce rates). Google’s algorithms have also gotten smart enough to detect your overuse of keywords. Instead of improving your SERP position, the search giant will make it impossible for you to rank.

3. Bad backlinks

Backlinking is an effective strategy for improving your site’s authority and search rankings. However, there’s no easy way around it. Getting good backlinks from high authority sites takes time to build.

As for bad backlinks? You can buy them real quick. But they won’t help with SEO at all. What you’ll get is a bunch of links coming from websites that aren’t related to your niche. And all of them would pointing back to you. These backlinks will definitely hurt your SEO rankings.

4. Cloaking

One of the worst things you can do is cloaking. It is a type of “spamdexing” (even the name sounds bad) where the content shown to search engines and the users are intentionally different. The page shown to search engine bots is saturated with keywords. Meanwhile, readers are more likely to find unrelated content as they browse through a page. Cloaking is illegal and can get you a heavy penalty from Google.

5. Placing too many ads

Advertising may not be an SEO strategy, but we thought it would be worth mentioning here. It’s common for bloggers and site owners to display ads for monetization. And for the most part, there’s nothing wrong with it. But if you have too many ads it can bad for SEO. So if you’re going to show ads, you should limit them and be discreet with their placement.

What You Need to Know About Creating a Sitemap

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You probably already know the importance of having a sitemap on your website. Maybe you’ve already built one or perhaps you are in the process of doing so. It’s imperative for SEO and Googe even has a guide on how to do it properly.

Making a sitemap isn’t that straightforward, however. While it can get technical and confusing, it shouldn’t discourage you from creating one. That’s why we’ve compiled everything you need to know right here.

Fact #1: There’s more than sitemap

Did you know there’s more than one kind of sitemap? When we talk about sitemaps, we usually refer to XML sitemaps, but there are several other kinds:

  • RSS Feeds mRSS Feeds
  • Google News Sitemap
  • Alternative language XML Sitemap

You can also have a sitemap that focus specifically on images, video or mobile. It’s important to know what type of sitemap you are trying to build before you start.

Fact #2: You can’t trust static sitemap generators

You might be tempted to not bother doing it yourself and instead trust a static sitemap generator. Most of these are free and seem easy to use.

There’s a catch, however: they aren’t great. Static sitemap generators are only to be used if you have a new website that you want indexed as quiclly as possible. New URLs that you create won’t be added to these sitemaps, making them inflexibile. They also tend to list every page on your site, even if you don’t want some displayed.

Fact #3: Not every page belongs on a sitemap

There are some pages that you simply shouldn’t include on your sitemap. Here are some examples:

  • Redirect, client, and server pages
  • Duplicates, canonicalized, and paginated pages
  • Pages with parameters
  • Noindex pages
  • Pages that are not permitted by robots.txt

The trick is to think about whether you want it to show up in Google’s search results. If you do, put it on the sitemap. If not, don’t

Fact #4: A sitemap has its limits

There are some limits on what a sitemap can do. The uncompressed file can’t be larger than 50MB or have more than 50,000 URLs. It’s unlikely most websites will break that limit, owever.

There’s also a limit on the amount of sitemaps you can upload to Google, which is 500 in total. Again, it’s unlikely any business will hit this limit.

Fact #5: Sitemaps should be private

Your sitemap doesn’t have to be open to the public. While it’s good to have a public-facing sitemap on your site for usability, the xml sitemap doesn’t have to be listed at all.

  • A large website with many pages
  • A new website that needs to be indexed
  • A website that frequently updates its content (i.e. news sites)

How Blogging Can Boost Your Small Business

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Back in the day, blogging was no more than a platform for self-expression. It was like having an online diary where you could write about anything. Nowadays, you can use a blog as part of a solid business strategy, especially when you’re still starting out.

Small businesses often struggle with visibility or making people aware they exist. This can make it difficult to attract enough customers… or any at all! Think about it. How can people buy products or services from a business they haven’t even heard about?

One way to bridge the gap between you and your customers is to get into blogging. It can build your online presence and make it easier for them to find you and discover what you have to offer. Below, we’ll explore how blogging can boost your business.

5 Ways Blogging is Great for Your Small Business

#1: Rank higher on search results

People use search engines like Google to look for information online. They type in a string of words which best represent their query. We call these keywords. Search engines will then present a list of pages related to the keywords. These are search results. Search results are arranged based on their relevance. The more relevant a page is to the query, the higher it is ranked.

Adding keywords to your blog posts ensures they appear on search results. Of course, you’d have to use keywords which meet the following criteria:

  • Relevant to your audience
  • High search volume
  • Low to moderate competition

Keyword research is a must for meeting the above criteria. It improves your chances of ranking higher on search results.

#2: Increases online visibility

Appearing on search results increases your blog’s online visibility. But this is just putting it simply. What really happens is that every blog post is an opportunity to rank for different sets of keywords. The more you write, the more you appear on search results, and the greater your reach.

Blogging also provides online audiences with material to share on social media. Each time someone shares your blog post, there’s a chance of you gaining new followers. Allowing social media sharing from your blog will make it easier for them to share your posts.

#3: Builds trust

More than increasing your online visibility, a blog is also a great platform for earning the trust of potential customers. Blogging gives your business a face; a character which your audiences can relate to on a personal level. You can further build trust by engaging your readers in the comments section.

#4: Establishes authority

You can use blogging to showcase your full range of skills, knowledge, and expertise in a given niche. In so doing, you can establish yourself as an authority in your chosen field. In turn, you’d be able to gain the confidence of your audience since they will be better reassured of your authenticity.

Reason #5: Grows your newsletter

One of the least known benefits of blogging is that it can help you with email marketing by growing your email list. It’s another business strategy that facilitates the conversion of blog readers into actual customers.

You can show opt-in forms under each post and encourage readers to sign up for your newsletter. From there, you can use emails to update followers with promos, discounts, and other strategies that will help you make buyers out of readers.