SEO 101 states; the more* links pointing to your page, the better. But just how long does it take to influence the SERPs?
*by more, I mean more quality links and not spammy links obtained by blackhat techniques.
Kristina Kledzik, recently published an article on Moz about her findings after experimenting with some of her old posts.
She started by using some of her less-popular posts on Distilled (where she works) and set about picking out 76 links pointing to pages which are all similar to each other in content, and they didn't change that content (significantly) for 6 months. She focused on rankings for target keywords with a 25–35% Keyword Difficulty Rating (A Moz metric if you're interested) and she looked at two versions of their target keywords, so she could have a bit more data.
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How to make sure Google knows about your content
Even if you’re arachnophobic, there’s one kind of spider you want on your website. Search bots. These ‘spiders’ crawl through your pages looking for what to show search engine users and save a cached image of what they find. When someone enters a search query, results are pulled from content the bot has cached. Without search spiders, your site is invisible to Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.
Wrap your head around this: Google has more than 39 billion webpages cached. That number took a sharp dip starting in early June, 2016 (down from a peak of nearly 52 billion indexed pages in May, 2015), but it’s still huge. That’s one of the reasons Google doesn’t cache EVERYTHING. Another is quality – the search engine policies what it shows. Link farms, spam, and black hat SEO often land sites on blacklists.…
There is a link but not in the way some marketers like to think.
One question that refuses to go away in search marketing is how social signals impact organic ranking. Google tells us there’s not much going on here but a large section of marketers seem to think otherwise. And, let’s face it, this wouldn’t be the first time Google has held back from giving us marketers the whole picture.
So what’s the real deal with social signals and search marketing? Well, there is a genuine link between the two – but not in the way some marketers like to think.
What does Google say about social signals?
Not a great deal. It’s one of those topics the search giant likes to keep close to its chest. That said, the few comments we have had from Google say social signals are not a direct ranking factor.
In 2014, before Matt Cutts disappeared, he shed…
Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages are set to appear in all mobile SERPs, rather than just the news carousel.
Google's AMPs are designed to make mobile browsing a more frictionless experience. Rather than taking sites designed for desktop and making them responsive to mobile, AMPs are mobile first and only. It will mean clean, non-cluttered pages which will load far faster on mobile devices than your average responsive site.
Earlier this year we reported that Google has started rolling out Accelerated mobile pages to certain mobile search results- specifically results in the news carousel that appears at the top of certain SERPs with the distinctive lightning bolt.
The big news from Google is that AMPs are now to be rolled out to all mobile SERPs. In a blog post on August 2nd, the company announced an early preview of the new…
The Basics Of SEO Copywriting: How to write for search engines and get more traffic
Once upon a time, people were the only possible intended audience for a piece of writing. Sure, you could run it by your dog for a bit of creative input, but his opinion was rarely useful, and invariably involved the addition of ‘woofs’ at inappropriate points.
Now we write for machines as well as humans. Not as all-powerful overlords (well, maybe a little), but as gatekeepers determining what content is worthy to be seen by their fleshy counterparts.
Before you can get your content where it can do some good – in front of your customers' eyes - it must first be judged and assigned a ranking. This ranking shows how relevant the search engine thinks your web page is for the search term that has been entered. And it determines when your web page will be shown,…
In your mission to compete with the big guns, are you underutilizing these small business branding hacks?
When you’re trying to boost your online visibility, it’s hard to know what tools to use, what methods you should be targeting and how to effectively measure results, especially when you’re already consumed with the day-to-day operations of your small business. You’re also unlikely to have an infinite budget to allocate toward this. That, combined with the confusing nature of SEO, with loads of companies promising to get you to rank but few actually being able to deliver, can leave many small business professionals wondering what direction they should take with their small business SEO. Here are some common mistakes:
Not Being Specific About Your Market
It may sound counterintuitive when it comes to SEO, but it pays to tap into a niche.
Logically, you might think that ranking for as many different keywords as possible would…
How to Increase Your Website’s Speed And Ultimately Your Conversions
The time that it takes your website to load is one of the most important factors your online business will face. Literally every second counts as even the smallest of delays can cause customers to go somewhere else.
Today we’ll look at just how much your site’s speed affects your bottom line and how you can lower loading times with quick and easy fixes.
Logic may dictate that another second of loading time is worth it for a great web design, users today are more interested in how fast your website loads. A slow website will kill your conversions faster than anything else. Not even an amazing digital marketing strategy can save a slow website.
You may know how to create a blog, but if you want it to be successful, it has to be fast. Consider these compelling reasons why you…
This experimental new 'Podium' feature from Google hints at plans for slightly more social SERPs
Google Posts wasn't so much launched by Google, as it was quietly rolled out with little to no fan-fare. Months have passed since the feature first went live for a select few people, but still most digital marketers haven't heard of them. So what exactly are Google posts?
Google Posts are short snippets of text, rather like Tweets or Facebook status updates, uploaded directly to Google rather than social networks. At the moment they are only available for US Presidential candidates, but their landing page suggests that Google aims to open them up to "verified people and organisations". You can see an example of a Google Post below for a 'brand search' on Hillary Clinton where it forms part of the Knowledge Graph on the right.
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Web Hosting 101 for SEO
When people talk about SEO, web hosting seldom comes into the picture. What people forget is that registration and hosting data can affect your search engine rankings in a big way.
In the world of SEO where there are only ten slots that matter in SERPs and thousands of webmasters competing to find favor in the eyes of Google, any competitive advantage you have access to should be quickly taken advantage of.
Optimizing your registration and hosting data is one of the things you can do to improve your search engine rankings. Not all hosting services are created equal. There are some that are good value for money, and there are some that you should actively avoid like the plague.
When looking for a hosting service, you should pay attention to the factors that will affect your SEO.…
Using TF*IDF for keyword research, to assess your Term Weight and improve your SEO
Keyword Density is a term frowned upon, and right it should be! It was used in such a way that the content wouldn’t look natural, as you keep reading the same word over and over again. At the time however, the Google algorithms weren’t as complex as they are today, so you could get away with it and not be penalised as badly. Meaning it once was the most main ranking factor for websites. However, these times have changed considerably as now KD is recognised as a minor factor in the rankings because the overuse of a keyword is better known as keyword stuffing which would you will be penalised for!
OnPage.org has invented a new tool for keyword research and to help towards a new method for relevant content creation based around TF*IDF. If you don't know TF*IDF, Google has been…
