SEO

In search engine optimization, competition analysis is important as much as the work you need to put into improvements.

SEO would not exist without competitors and for this reason, being able to rank on the first page on Google, Bing and other search engines is not just satisfying for you as a client, but it’s mandatory.

Users trusts Google and search engines that they show best results they can according to the information they have. This is probably why 90% of users are only looking at the first page of Google results and most of them find what they are looking for in the top 5 results.

Improving the rank of the website through SEO doesn’t involve just the work on the website. We need to show to search engines that your website, brand or product is exactly what they are looking for based on social networks, popularity, visits etc.

A common question people ask is how to rank better on Google or what influences their ranking.

The ranking factor details are hidden within the Google algorithm and they decide how visible a page is and what its position is within the search results. There are reportedly over 200 such factors.

Due to the change in the way people search, the SEO strategy is also changing. The search results are greatly influenced by the device, location, and user search history. What a person sees in the first position of the search, someone else can see in the 4th position, and a third person may not find the required result on the first page. While ranking is a good indicator of performance, it is important to consider the aforementioned impacts as well.

Technical SEO website audit serves to find problems within the website from a search engine perspective and provides recommendations for corrections. The audit searches for problems related to the website itself, but also for backlinks that may be a problem in the ranking.

There are many elements to analyze when performing a technical audit, as the data is compiled from multiple sources.

There are a few important rules to follow to have the best chance of ranking well for the selected keywords.

You may have heard experts say that content is most important when it comes to SEO strategies and they are essentially right. Quality content that contains the desired keyword and its variations, while satisfying the user's intention, is often associated with better ranking.

But the content alone is not enough. Backlinks are also a very important factor, but they are only useful if the link is thematically related and if the reputation of the domain it comes from is good.

Another factor you should pay attention to is on-page optimization, which we talk about more in the answer to this question.

Then, there are the technical details. You need to make sure that the website has a good architecture, clean navigation, and internal linking - not only because of the search engines but also because of the users themselves.

An SEO campaign needs time to succeed, as there are no simple ways to cheat the system anymore. Search algorithms have become more advanced with an emphasis on delivering the most relevant and best quality content to its users based on their search keywords.

To do a successful search engine optimization before, all it was required from you is to fill the page with the focus keyword and use as many links as possible. This way of doing SEO would return good results. Today, things have changed drastically, and applying this type of strategy would do more harm than good to your website rankings.

Excessive use of keywords can be bad for an SEO strategy and you should not unnaturally use them. In general, the keyword for which you are optimizing the page should appear in the title, the first paragraph of your text, within the H2 tag in the form of a question, as well as somewhere in the rest of the content.

When researching keywords, it is first necessary to find some suitable tool. The most common choice is Google Keyword Planner, but no matter which keyword research tool you choose, the next step is to ask yourself which topics cover your business or the product you are selling.

Start with the broadest topic to make it easiest to make a list of potential keywords, from which you will later extract a few as needed. You may find that words with a certain search volume generate the most organic visits, so you decide to exclude the others. You may be looking for keywords with the least competition to rank without much trouble. When you start researching across broader topics, you leave yourself the option of choosing the most optimal words for your needs.

SEO is constantly changing and that is natural. Whether it's a change in search engine algorithms or the way users search, all of these developments need to be adjusted quickly. Otherwise, you risk large losses of organic traffic.

The biggest change lately is putting the focus on mobile devices. Most searches recently are performed via mobile devices, and this trend will continue to grow in the coming period. The importance of this change is supported by the introduction of page loading speed on mobile search engines as a ranking factor. Please make sure that you have no problems viewing the pages of your website via mobile devices.

Blogging is an extremely effective way to improve your SEO performance and rank for your desired keyword. By writing quality and extensive blogs, it will be easier for you to cover the desired keywords within the industry you are in.

Redirects are an integral part of linking content within your website. Thus, 301 redirects transfer 90-99% of the link value to the redirected page. If you move some content through several different pages and all redirects are still active, you will probably sacrifice a small part of the link value and load speed. It is always a good idea to remove all unnecessary intermediaries.

However, not all redirections are the same. 301 redirects, in which the page moves permanently, are the most favorable for SEO. As we mentioned earlier, they convey as much as 90-99% of the link value. 302 redirects, which indicate a temporarily redirected page, reportedly lead to higher losses. "Meta refresh" are redirects that take place at the page level, not the server itself. These redirections are most often associated with the text "If you are not redirected in five seconds, click here." Meta refresh conveys part of the link value but is not recommended as part of an SEO strategy. Avoid them whenever possible.

Internal links are built to take advantage of the values ​​of your links. Such links are built by linking between the parties within the same website. We will use this page as an example. The authority of this website is strengthened by links from other pages of the same website, which have SEO for the topic.

Note that you link pages that are already authoritative and well ranked. Do not overdo it with the number of links from such pages, because there can be negative consequences. Once you've determined the page you're going to link to, find the text that best matches the main keyword. You can then create a link.

Building external links is the process of finding links to your content from other websites. Think about who would like to link to your website. These are usually people from the same area or area similar to yours, who will find the informative content you have useful.

There are different methods when it comes to building external links, but basically, this path will look like this: find the pages that will benefit your content, find out the contact information of the authors or administrators of the above pages and then ask them to link to your valuable resources.

Link equity often referred to as "link juice", is the effect that a link transfers from one page to another. Before the introduction of "nofollow" links, each link had some value, and the practice of spamming (linking in as many numbers as possible, not for information, but to collect traffic) was generally accepted.

At the time, it was not uncommon to see several websites of the same owner among the first search results, all thanks to mostly useless and irrelevant links that lead to content without points of contact with the website's theme. It is now possible to navigate with links with the "nofollow" attribute, which search engines ignore when indexing content on the Internet and thus neutralize all the value that these links would carry with them.

The amount of value that a link carries with it is determined by several criteria. Links from relevant content, from reputable websites and paragraphs, carry more value than links from unrelated content, links from websites of dubious reputation, as well as those from headers and footers.

The difference between "follow" and "nofollow" links is that "follow" links carry a certain value (link juice). This value is reflected in the link's ability to improve the page's ranking in search results. "Nofollow" links do not have such an impact and are completely ignored.

If we divide the Internet into two categories, content and links between content, we conclude that search engines need a way to determine which pages are most relevant to certain search terms. A ranking system is needed.

The quality and number of backlinks that point to a page become a factor in ranking a page. Backlinks are essentially a voice of trust from one website to another. The better the backlinks you get (the linking website has a good reputation), the more favorable your website will be in the eyes of search engines. This in turn leads to improved rankings.

Some meta tags are important, while others are not. The title tag and meta description are very important because they tell the search engine what the topic of a particular page is. Special care should be taken when creating these tags.

The meta robots attribute tells robots, which search engines use to scan the content of your website, what to do with a particular page. It should be set to "index/follow" if you want search engines to index the page, in case it is not already.

Meta keywords attribute is a set of keywords that you think are relevant to a page. This attribute is outdated and you should not pay too much attention to the quality of its content.

Because HTTPS is essentially a more secure version of HTTP, Google looks favorably on HTTPS websites. It is always indexed first and serves as a ranking signal. An added value is speed. Because HTTPS is much faster than HTTP, it will positively affect CTR (click-through rate). So, don't hesitate, HTTPS is always a better choice.

Keyword research is the process of selecting the most important search terms that are related to the topic of your website. If, for example, you are in the business of selling fishing gear, and you find that the term "fishing tackle" has a larger monthly search volume and less competition than the term "fishing gear", you may want to change the content of the relevant page to suit this search term.

The process of keyword research comes down to determining the most optimal keywords (words that people most often use when searching for a particular product or service) and optimizing your website's pages so that those pages appear in search results in the highest possible position.

If you have not done anything related to SEO so far, the first step would be to apply one of the many tools where you will gain insight into your current SEO status. Most tools offer a free or trial version that will suffice for a start, and there are several completely free tools.

After performing the analysis of your website, you will know which corrections you need to make, and it will include the so-called "Broken links", sorting meta tags, or improving page loading speed. When you are done with all the updates on the website, you can start creating quality content for your website.

Off-page SEO refers to techniques you can use to improve your website's position in search engine results. Many people associate off-page SEO with link building, but that is only one part of the strategy.

In essence, off-page SEO is done by promotional methods, off-site, to rank better.

Unlike on-page SEO, off-page SEO refers to activities outside the website. The most important activities of this type are Link Building and Social Media Marketing.

On-page SEO involves applying SEO tactics to the very page you want to optimize for search engines. These include both the processing of the content itself and the HTML code of the page. External links and other external influences are not part of on-page SEO optimization.

The term SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It is the most cost-effective way to increase traffic to your website. By properly applying current SEO techniques, you can improve your search engine ranking for relevant search terms, and thus attract a large number of new visitors.

What we have noticed is that the changes that are noticed the fastest, even after 3-4 days, are changes of a technical nature. This means that if your website has problems of this type, it would be best to fix them as soon as possible. These problems are usually solved by changing the code of your website.

If it's about changing content or adding new content, the ranking changes also depend on the popularity of your website, that is, how quickly Google will take that content into account. A good example are news websites, the content of which appears on Google after just a few minutes.

Presentations, stores, and other similar websites generally have a period of 2-3 months in which Google and other search engines still decide which is the more permanent position of your content individually, and for which keyword.

Of course, it all depends on many factors.

Our team uses several tools depending on the specific need. The main SEO software in our arsenal is SEO Power Suite, then Lipperhey, Seobility, SeRanking, Moz, Ahref, Neil Patel's Ubersuggest, and many others.

Page load speed does not directly affect the quality of your ad optimization or SEO, but if the website loads slowly and users in large numbers leave the page or website quickly, Google will know that the quality of that page is unsatisfactory and will want to provide users with a better alternative.

It doesn’t. The speed of your website does not directly affect the ranking itself and the Google bot does not check the loading speed of your website.

Indirect actions related to the time spent on your website, the number of visits, and other parameters affect the ranking to some extent.

Imagine having the ability to find out which keywords your competitors are promoting, which position they are targeting, and the different types of strategies they use.

By having this data, you can thrive by using their virtues and you can take advantage of areas where they don’t shine, right?

At Creative Brackets, we have access to such data, which gives us an advantage when we run client campaigns.

Once our managers create your account and add it to the professional software they use for keyword monitoring, they will have access to a detailed daily report for each keyword we track.

SEO reports are usually generated on the 15th of the month and at the end of each month.

In addition to email notifications, we always inform our clients about the SEO progress we have made during a certain period.

The most common mistake is to think that everything depends on the website. Although it is easier to explain the functioning of the SEO by talking about the website in general and most people only expect to see their website on the first page of results for a particular keyword, they do not pay attention to which page is related to that result.

In many cases, one page of your website has good results for several keywords that aren't even related, and this isn't too much of a problem - in a way!

If you're selling a product and want to optimize for a particular keyword, you wouldn't want users to see your contact page instead of the product page in search results.

To make this easier to understand, each page of your website should be optimized for multiple related keywords.

It is important to know that SEO results can vary from user to user.

Connected users will get more favorable results

A connected user is a user who is already connected to a website or location in some way. These are usually clients, website owners, regular visitors, and so on.

This means that if you visit one website several times during the day, Google will assume that this is the result you want to see. Be aware that search engines know a lot about you by reviewing your search history, cookies, locations, and so on.

Website users and mobile users also get different results

Search engines also optimize search results depending on the device.

Mobile-friendly websites have a better reputation than websites that are not optimized for mobile devices.

Search results based on location and language

Search results differ for users who use different languages ​​and are in different locations, even when they search using the same keyword.

In search engine optimization, competition analysis is as important as the work you invest in improvements.

SEO would not exist without competitors and for this reason, the ability to find yourself on the first page of Google, Bing, or some other search is not only satisfactory for you as a client, but also mandatory.

Users trust Google and other search engines to show the best results based on the information they have. This is probably why 90 percent of users only look at the first page of Google results, and most of them find what they are looking for in the top 5 results.

Improving website rank through SEO is not just about working on a website. It’s convincing the search engine that your website, brand, or product is exactly what users are looking for based on social media, popularity, and so on.

SEO success takes time because there is no longer an easy way to trick the system. Search algorithms have become more advanced with an emphasis on delivering the most relevant and highest quality content to their users, based on their search terms.

Previously, to be successful in search engine optimization, it was enough to fill the page with the desired keyword and use as many links to it as possible. This way you would get very fast results. Today, things have changed drastically, and applying such a strategy would do more harm than good.

Yes, your business should invest in SEO. Search engine optimization offers a way to increase traffic without paying for each click.

When you run PPC ads, you will be charged for each click that comes to your website through that channel. However, if your website is organically ranked on search engines, this traffic is essentially free (at least in terms of cost-per-click). Of course, it takes investment in skills and resources to rank on the SERPs.

If you are able to rank your website at the top of the search engine, you will benefit from a traffic flow that will not have associated click costs and that will not stop when your ads are turned off. Organize yourself and enjoy visibility 24 hours a day.

But let's also remember that organic search is responsible for an average of 53% of the total traffic. If you ignore SEO, your competitors enjoy this traffic. Most businesses cannot ignore the importance of SEO. No matter what type of company you are, whether you are a local company, selling online or you are a global company, you need to pay attention to your SEO strategy.

SEO is the process of optimizing your website to rank better in search engines. But how does SEO work?

Google uses over 200 ranking factors, which allow search engine algorithms to rank websites based on the relevance and authority of their pages. As Jason Barnard comments:

"Google strives to recommend the most relevant response from the most trusted source in the most appropriate format for its user."

To succeed in SEO, you need to ensure that your content is the most relevant result for a particular search query and that your website is considered a reliable source.

You can't blindly jump into an SEO strategy. You need to know what people are looking for on Google in search of businesses like yours to optimize your website for these terms.

You can do this either with Google's keyword planner or other similar tools. Download the tool and enter a term that you think people would use to find your business online. You will then be served a whole range of related keyword suggestions, including their monthly search volume.

You can then use this information to shape your strategy and understand what people are looking for.

PageSpeed is Google's measure of your website's speed, and it's important to note that it's been a ranking factor for some time.

But the question that is usually asked is, how fast should your page be? The honest answer is that you should strive to make the page speed as high as possible while making sure you know what you are struggling with. It may take an extremely intense effort to improve your score after a certain point, and sometimes you will find that your website is already performing better than the competition.

If your PageSpeed score is 85/100, it may be difficult, expensive, or time-consuming to get as high as 90/100. If all your competitors are below 80/100, there are probably more urgent priorities to focus on.

Take your competitors through the PageSpeed Insights tool and make decisions based on these results.

How long is a piece of string? Honestly, there is no right answer to this question, but it is asked again and again. The content should be as long as it takes to cover the topic deep enough to rank.

But that's not too helpful, is it?

When creating content, you need to look at what is already ranked. Analyze at least the first 10 pages to understand the intent of the page and get an indication of how extensive your content should be.

But don't be obsessed with the length of the content! You should focus your efforts on creating content that responds to queries in the best possible way.

When building backlinks, quality is much more important than quantity. You should never aim only at building as many backlinks as possible. Such a strategy will not bring the best results. When you focus only on numbers, the quality of links will inevitably fall. And that is the wrong way to approach this endeavor.

You need to focus on quality backlinks on a large scale, taking care never to sacrifice quality for quantity. Scalable tactics, such as digital PR, can help you earn a large number of backlinks from quality and authoritative sources. However, it is also important to understand the gap between you and your competitors.

The answer is definitely NO!

Purchasing backlinks is a significant violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and may result in penalties for your website. The guidelines clearly state that the following backlinks are examples of those that may negatively affect a website's ranking in search results:

"Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link."

Backlinks should never be bought, but only earned.

You've probably heard that backlinks pass PageRank. But what is it exactly?

PageRank is a page ranking system developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. What is important to understand is that PageRank is determined by backlinks.

We can think of the PageRank as the amount of authority, and this authority can then be transferred to other pages or websites via links (internal and external). Simply put, it is a measure of the importance of a page in terms of the quantity and quality of links that point to it.

Although Google still uses PageRank as part of its algorithm, the reality is that your focus should primarily be on earning relevant backlinks from authoritative websites.