Tag Archives: keywords

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Understanding SEO Terminology

Have you ever wondered why certain sites show up during a web search? The reason is SEO. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a digital marketing strategy that can increase the visibility of your website’s pages in a web search on search engines such as Google or Bing. Why does this matter for your website? Sites with better visibility are usually those that are higher ranked on the search engine results page, which means more web traffic. Continue reading

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Backlinks Aren’t Dead

Rick Grimes probably wasn’t pondering backlinks in 2021 when he said, “We don’t kill the living” in AMC’s The Walking Dead.

Oddly enough, Grimes’ quote can be applied to backlinks today. It beckons the question: Why kill backlinks if they’re still alive?

Don’t!

Backlinks aren’t dead – and there’s certainly no reason to squash them in 2021.

Backlinks, “inbounding links” or “incoming links” connect webpages through incoming hyperlinks and are created when websites link to each other.

Backlinks signal greater Google (and other search engine) authority, upping search engine rankings. Backlinks can be a leading benchmark performance indicator of stellar content marketing and SEO strategy.

In fact, the number of domains linking to a page was the top factor in correlating the highest rankings in Google, according to Backlinko.

Backlinks for the “Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2021? Fingers crossed.

The positive correlation coefficient between authoritative backlinks and website ranking is real: As your website develops authoritative backlinks, Google recognizes that and boosts your ratings. Your website is power-hungry for king or queenship as the top #1 spot on Google, right? Finding cutting-edge ways to maximize quality, authoritative backlinks to improve SEO can only help. Hard-earned backlinks can bolster a site’s ranking position and search visibility with Google.

Google’s algorithms are a beacon of constant change – but backlinks remain.

Sure, business owners may hear about the mélange of options to boost SEO in 2021. This may give the impression backlinks are not in-vogue, wandering aimlessly in Myspace forgotten-land.

Not true ­– backlinks are alive and well.

Backlinks remain one of Google’s top three ranking factors. Link building and backlink maintenance will continue to be a part of a successful SEO strategy heading into 2021.

There are many reasons why backlinks aren’t dead in 2021.

‘Yes’ votes still count. Backlinks represent “votes” for specific pages, according to rankings for Google and other search engines like Bing, Baidu, and Yahoo. They’re a signal to search engines that other web pages “vouch” for your content. It makes sense that more backlinks equal pages with boosted organic search engine rankings. Linking one website to another is still perceived by Google as votes of confidence and authority. Well-earned backlinks coming from topically relevant, authoritative websites remain beneficial.

Public relations still benefit from backlinks. Backlink development from websites with high authority such as Search Engine Journal, Wine Enthusiast, and Forbes Magazine certainly isn’t a one-recipe-fits-all situation, and it may require some top-level groveling from the public relations department. Leveraging public relations is all about offsite SEO building in this case. You can build brand mentions through your business connections or become a source for bloggers and publication writers, for example. Provide value to clients you want a backlink from.

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More resources, more backlink potential. As resources grow, your resource backlinks must keep pace. Resource link building adds value to the audience by asking, “How can I help my audience?” Resources can change, expand, be modified, or even be eliminated. If you’re a private entity, think about relevant outside resources for your client, as well as the plethora of business associations in your local area that you might be able to network within.

Backlinks still establish relevance. With tons of websites competing for Google’s top search results, it’s evolutionarily advantageous to stand out amongst “unverified” sources. Keep two qualities in mind. First, seek backlinks from quality, authoritative sites. The degree of technicality in your field can oftentimes dictate whether it’s a common-sense decision or one worth investing in researching. Second, seek backlinks with a solid contextual connection – there are more now than ever before with the wide variety of businesses springing up. Relevant backlinks aren’t easily attainable. Supercharging SEO strategy with the correct backlinks can start with identifying ways to earn these authoritative backlinks – think of human networking potential as a valuable backlink commodity.

Business-related services need backlinks. Many local businesses provide professional services that need backlinks. If you’re a business servicing the public with medical, legal, financial, engineering, or science-related services, having quality backlinks is important as your search results will likely be narrowed according to a specific field of expertise. Specificity demands specificity in this case. For example, a medical products manufacturer in Ventura, CA may have a very limited demographic scope of potential buyers keying in on “silicon-based medical products,” so the power of backlinks that connect relevant sources within that field is even more relevant today than ever.

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Backlink analytics can help you. Edging out the competition requires knowing the competition. A thorough analysis of your competition’s backlinks’ performance can offer key insight into how to adjust backlink strategy to match performance – or how not to make the same mistakes. Traffic analytics will remain a steadfast portion of the diet of every business looking to capitalize on organic website traffic from backlinks. Curious how to build backlinks with authority? Analyze competitors who do.

The fact of the matter is that it’s all interpretation, as the exact logarithmic equation of how Google ranks content is a moving and complex target. Despite what some may say to the contrary, most internet marketing experts agree that backlinks will remain a ranking factor you should pay attention to – at least for the near future. There also appears to be an overarching consensus pointing to original, quality long-format content as a driving force in backlink potency.

Read ‘em and weep: Backlinks aren’t dead, according to data collected from many authoritative online sources for SEO and SEM. Here are some statistics that speak to their importance:

By the numbers: Backlinks

  • 2% of content generates links from multiple websites (Backlinko)
  • 92% of respondents said links will be an algorithmic signal in five years (Aira)
  • 69% said links will be an algorithmic signal in 10 years (Aira)
  • 69% believe buying links can positively affect Google rankings (Aira)
  • 71% said Google still relies heavily on links for ranking (Aira)
  • 52% expect organic search engine ranks to stay constant in the future (Aira)
  • 77% said it takes 1-6 months to observe any changes in organic rankings after a link-building effort (Aira)

You have now heard the “why.” It’s time for the “how.” How exactly do you improve backlinks in 2021?

If backlinks aren’t dead, then it’s in your best interest to feed the monster. Be sure to stay up-to-date with SeoTuners’ blog for more information on how to improve your backlinks.

If you’ve seen The Walking Dead, you know Rick Grimes drove his friends to survive against all odds during the apocalyptic, zombie-infested cult classic. If you think about it, maybe Rick was onto something – maybe it is best to let backlinks walk amongst the living.

Contact a Google Premier Partner

Small, medium and large businesses alike can benefit from a thorough analysis of backlinks. At SeoTuners, we understand the difference between quality and quantity, and our custom link building and outreach approach can help you earn high page authority. Based in Ventura, Calif., SeoTuners is proud to also service the greater Los Angeles County area. Contact us today for a consultation at (877) 736-1112.

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Why Branded Keywords Matter

We’ve all heard of keywords and know they play an important part in search engine optimization (SEO) and a website’s ranking. Monitoring your keywords provides a wealth of information and opportunity for fine-tuning your marketing campaigns.  However, there is a specific type of keyword that often gets overlooked: branded keywords. Continue reading

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Five Reasons Your Website Isn’t Ranking

Building a successful website is not always as easy as it looks. Creating a good-looking home page and organizing all of your information on your site is a solid starting point, but sometimes that Google ranking just won’t move in your favor. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as “if you build it, they will come”. In reality, it can be quite complicated to improve your rank on Google, and there may be things you are inadvertently doing that are having a negative effect on where you currently stand. Continue reading

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How SEO and Search Trends are Impacted by COVID-19

COVID-19 will undoubtedly have long-term impacts on the economy and global market as a whole, with its effects possibly spanning far into the future. Unfortunately, some businesses may never recover from the detriment it has caused. When hopefully, in the coming months, businesses begin to reopen and we attempt to return to a normalized state, one has to wonder what that state will look like in the aftermath of COVID.

Continue reading

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Avoiding and Correcting Common SEO Mistakes

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Having even a basic of SEO can allow you to better optimize your website, which in turn will make it rank higher in search engines. This ultimately will allow the scope of your business to reach a broader audience and is arguably one of the most important aspects to running a business in this day in age, both online and at a physical location. With SEO being such a crucial part of a successful business website, it’s also important to be aware of the multitude of mistakes that are commonly made while trying to improve SEO.

Some SEO mistakes are easily avoidable, while others take a significant amount of effort to avoid or resolve. Although making some of these mistakes may be detrimental to your business in the short term, if correct, your business or website can begin to be prosperous in search engine rankings. Below are some common SEO pitfalls and how to either avoid or correct them.

Duplicate Content or Unoriginal Content

Duplicating content or creating unoriginal content are two of the most common mistakes that website designers or content creators make in efforts to improve SEO. Always double or triple checking your website for duplicates before posting new content. Although there is no direct negative consequence to duplicating content, it affects SEO rankings because search engines will have trouble determining which pages are landing pages. Your duplicate content may begin to compete against itself through search engine rankings, which lowers the ranking of the content itself as a whole. Unoriginal content will give you less of a chance at ranking higher with search engines and gives content less value, which in turn will negatively impact your SEO.

 Keyword Mistakes (Keyword Stuffing and Using the Wrong Keywords)

Keyword stuffing is a common mistake in which keywords are “stuffed” into content with the intent to improve SEO, when in fact it actually lessens the effectiveness of the content in search engine rankings. Stuffing multiples of the same word or phrase into content not only gives that content less value but is also now recognizable by search engines. That’s right, search engines are now capable of determining if the content is keyword-stuffed, and may ultimately rank that content lower in search engines rankings.

Using the wrong keywords may also have detrimental effects on SEO. Keywords allow search engines to identify your content and rank it. If you don’t use the correct keywords in your content, search engines won’t be able to find it. Not using trending keywords or words that rank highest is also a very common mistake that can be avoided by checking keywords on Google Trends or another similar keyword analytics tool.

Irrelevant Content (Content That is Not About Keywords)

Creating irrelevant content or content that does not align with targeted keywords is a mistake that people tend to make while working to improve the SEO of their website. Creating irrelevant content is easily avoidable by checking which keywords (preferably the most optimized) should be used while creating original content on a topic that is specific to your business or organization.

Lack of Quality Links in Content

A lack of quality links within the content may have negative effects on both the value of that content and on search engine rankings in general. Quality links not only bring more value to your content, but will also help rank you higher, as both a website that is linking to other websites and as a website that is linked within other content.

Ignoring Analytics

One of the most common mistakes that businesses or organizations can make on their websites is ignoring analytics and making no efforts to adapt their website using this important metric information. While creating or redesigning content for a website, it’s important to view and know current analytic outcomes and trends specific to that site in order to improve upon its rankings.

Not Making Website Audits

Allowing for audits of your website, especially in this fast-paced, ever-changing digital landscape, is a necessity. Taking a step back and letting someone with a fresh perspective check to see how your website could improve is always beneficial and could have great positive impacts on search engine rankings in general. Website audits are important for all websites want to keep up to date on SEO.

Not Researching SEO Trends

Knowing current trends in SEO is a critical aspect of website development and content creation. Again, the internet is always changing, so knowing what trends within the SEO world are working and are best for the optimization of your website will keep you ahead of the game.

 Not Including Meta Descriptions in Title Pages

Including Meta Descriptions for pages not only makes your website more appealing but increases your SEO as well. Giving descriptions for each page is important, and is worth the effort to create or update them.

Not Including Alt Tags For Images

Alt tags for images are another very important aspect of SEO that are commonly not included in many websites. Alt tags are especially important on website images, especially in attempts to meet ADA compliance. This mistake can be avoided by either putting in the extra effort to create alt tags for your images or hire someone else to do it.

Each of these mistakes are easily avoidable or correctable, and by no means should anyone consider their SEO to be a failure if they find these mistakes applicable. Improvements can always be made to SEO, as it is a constant work in progress.

If you’re interested in improving your website’s search traffic, get in touch with us today. SeoTuners can offer an affordable solution for your business to increase exposure and SERP rankings with organic SEO strategies. We’re confident we have a solution for all your marketing needs.