Category: SEO

  • How to Stay on Top of the Game by Staying on Top of Search Results

    How to Stay on Top of the Game by Staying on Top of Search Results

    In the digital business space, getting to the top of search results is a make-or-break situation. After all, the higher your rank in search results, the more likely people will visit your site. It’s no joke: sites that appear on the second page of Google’s search results see 95% less users than websites on the first page.

    So what can you do to get your website to the #1 spot on the first page of search results? Well, it’s not a question that has a clear-cut solution (heck, there’s an entire industry that revolves around doing just that), but there are a few ways that you can D.I.Y yourself onto the top.

    Optimize Your Website

    There’s something to be said about clean, easy-to-use websites that put them right at the top of search results, and there’s a good reason: an accessible website gets more traffic because people prefer using it, and it helps if Google can find it with SEO, and it helps even further when that website can be accessed anywhere at any time.

    There are tons of techniques you can do to optimize your website so it’s more likely to appear on search engine results, and while it’s always best to rely on your professional digital services provider, you could work on it with your company’s web development team. If you’re going to work on optimizing your website on your own, here are some things to keep in mind:

    Clean Up Your UI/UX

    UI/UX refers to ‘user interface/user experience’ and it’s a concept in web design that forwards the idea that a digital tool’s user interface should be intuitive and easy-to-use so as to positively impact the overall user experience. Basically, if a website makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for and easy to navigate, it makes their experience of your website positive and, ideally, enjoyable.

    This means a few things: first, you need to make sure that your site’s sub-pages (e.g. your About Me, products and services pages, Contact Us, etc.) are neatly organized into easy-to-read tabs and categories. This goes a long way into creating a site map that’s easy to navigate and overall better for users and search engines.

    Don’t Forget Mobile

    One more thing: make sure your site is accessible both on desktop computers and smart devices like smartphones and tablet computers. Remember: more than 2 Billion people access the internet via their smartphone, which accounts for 51% of all internet users. That’s a pretty big customer base that you shouldn’t alienate by having a website that isn’t accessible via mobile.

    Of course, if you want search engines to find you (and believe us, you want search engines to find you), you’re going to have do a little bit of SEO.

    SEO is the Way to Go

    SEO refers to “Search Engine Optimization” and it’s a series of practices that involve making your website more visible to search engines. SEO refers not just to a single discipline, but rather, a collection of elements that web developers need to think about in order for search engines to find your website better.

    Here’s how search engines work: when a website is created, it’s logged into the registry of a particular search engine. When an internet user searches for something, the search engine uses a program to sift through the registry to find the most appropriate website. For the search engine to know what the “appropriate” website is, it matches certain words (called keywords) that are present in the website and compares it to the words that a user searched for.

    Once the search engine finds websites that match the keywords used by the internet user, it then makes a list of these sites and, using a few other factors, determines which sites go to the top. It’s a complex discipline and it’s best you rely on a dependable SEO services provider to help with your SEO needs.

    Keep Active

    But what exactly are these ranking factors that Google and other search engines use to find websites? Well, the exact details of that are kept a secret (don’t believe any digital marketer that says they have the one-and-only way to rank!) from the general public, but there are certain factors that have been proven to work, both for ranking websites on Google search results and providing customers with a positive experience.

    One of the most important aspects of keeping your website at the top of search results is activity; that is, the more active your website is, the more likely Google will place it as number 1. Active websites are websites that receive a high volume of internet traffic –whether it’s site visits, comments on your blog posts, or constantly updated products and services pages –on a regular basis.

    Refresh Your Pages

    Google loves seeing websites that get a lot of traffic because it tells them that people like your website, they like what they see, and they trust what you’re giving them. One of the best ways to do this is to refresh the pages of your website with fresh content as often as possible. This doesn’t mean, of course, that you have to change everything about your site on a daily basis; rather, make sure that your pages are constantly up-to-date with relevant information.

    But perhaps one of the best ways to have constant, high-volume internet traffic on your page is to maintain a blog. With a blog, you can create content that’s relevant to your customer’s needs and can link back to your main website. More on this later.

    Engage Your Customers

    Another ranking factor that Google appreciates is engagement; that is, Google likes it when a website interacts with its users, and vice-versa. The more users engage with a website, the more a search engine thinks that the website is relevant for a particular set of keywords and other ranking factors.

    But how do you engage customers on your website? There are tons of ways to keep them engaged, and you are limited only by your creativity: start conversations on your blog by having a comments section, site surveys of what customers want to see on your website, heck, some websites even have mini-games. Whatever it is, however, just make sure it’s still relevant to what your customers want and it doesn’t interview with good UI/UX.

    Keep People on Your Site Longer

    One of the main goals of engaging content and fresh pages is to keep people on your website longer. The amount of time people spend on your time is measured by digital marketers in terms of ‘bounce rate’, and it refers to the number of people who leave (i.e. bounce) the site rather than staying. The lower a website’s bounce rate, the better, because it means people are staying on your website, and the longer they stay, the higher your chances of converting them into leads, and potentially, turning them into customers.

    It also looks good on search engines: in particular, Google loves websites with low bounce rates because it lets their algorithms know that the site is relevant to a user’s needs and is engaging enough for people to stay, which ultimately means that the site is trustworthy.

    Content is Always King

    So now we know that your website needs to be optimized and it needs to be active, and that to do those things, you need content that is relevant. But what exactly does that mean? Well, to put simply: your website needs content that people actually care about. In the 21st century, marketing collaterals that exist solely to advertise a product or service simply don’t cut it anymore.

    Rather, consumers in the digital age want more than just being told to buy something, which means your content needs to be able to address key issues and pain points they have about a particular topic. Having a blog in your website is one of the best ways to not only drive traffic to your site, but it also works to increase your website’s trustworthiness and overall value for your customers.

    Evergreen Content

    Of course, no one can accurately predict every single your customers will have about a particular issue that your company is involved in, but there are certain types of content that remain ‘evergreen’, which means it will be forever relevant to what your company does and the kinds of issues your customers face.

    Take a good, hard look at your products and services and the most common pain points and issues people have about the industry you’re in and create content that addresses them. Remember, this is better than creating post after post about topical issues that would be irrelevant to users in the future.

    Personal Value = Engagement

    The more value your content offers your customers, the more likely that they’ll be engaged, which ideally leads to them being more likely to patronize your website. Again, the digital age has made marketing much more customer-centric, which means consumers are looking to buy products that add value to their lives; the age of ‘brand-centric’ marketing is over, and people want products that have use rather than prestige.

    It’s one of the reasons why evergreen content is important: it’s the type of content that answers important questions and issues people have over a particular topic, and if you’re able to provide that in a concise, informational, and overall enjoyable manner, then you’ve already won half the battle of coming up at the top of search results.

    Getting your website to the top requires a complex series of disciplines that professional digital marketing service providers can do for you, but if you want to do it on your own, just make sure you have the bandwidth to learn as much as you can about these ranking factors to, ideally, get your page at the top of search results

  • 7 Ways You’re Wasting Your Time with Outdated SEO

    7 Ways You’re Wasting Your Time with Outdated SEO

    If you’re reading SEO articles from 2013 and applying them to your content today, you’re doing it wrong. If it gets to 2025 and you’re still reading this article… you’re also doing it wrong!

    There are some cornerstone principles in SEO and a lot of good advice from great sources. However, if you’re getting too much of your advice from older sources, you could inadvertently be practicing bad SEO. With this topic in particular, you can’t afford to take too much out-of-date advice.

    When Does SEO Go “Out of Date”?

    There’s a lot of good stuff that comes in old packages. You can learn some valuable lessons about how SEO works, and how it worked historically, from articles published by authority sites years ago. The catch is that you shouldn’t put tactics or specific strategies into action unless they’re targeted to Google’s latest algorithm updates (other search engines too, but mostly Google).

    Search engines regularly update their algorithms in a constant effort to keep providing users with the best results possible. Every time a new, significant update is released, it’s time to re-evaluate your SEO strategy to make sure you’re still doing all the right stuff.

    Everything can change in an instant. One minute, it’s all about exact match keywords, and the next day people are talking about LSIs and long-tail keywords to promote their SaaS products.

    The point is that SEO is an ever-changing practice. Search engines may know we’re doing it, but whenever we get too good at it, they just change up the rules again. For that reason, there’s no time limit or specific expiration date for good SEO practices. But, with every update, you need to learn what’s in and what’s out so you can use your time and effort wisely.

    If you’ve been taking advice from older content, even if it’s from authority sites, or if you haven’t updated your SEO strategy in a while, it’s time for a quick check-up. Make sure you’re not falling into any of these time-wasting SEO traps! 

    7 Ways to Waste Your Time with SEO

    #1 Stuffing Keywords Everywhere

    Screenshot of keyword stuffing
    Image source: Freepik.com

    We can all agree that keywords and key phrases are important. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they might be your competitors trying to sabotage your efforts. However important keywords are, it’s time to stop pretending they are the end-all-be-all of SEO. Stop throwing awkward keywords all over your content and expecting that to help you rank. Stuffing is just plain bad SEO today.

    Hopefully, you’ve heard this advice before. But, considering how easy it is to find content online that’s full to the brim with awkward phrases, out of place keywords, and obvious stuffing, it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge yet. You can still find people pushing the idea that a 1-3% keyword ratio is ideal, using exact match keywords only. This is a great way to get penalized as a spammer!

    People hate reading stuffed content, so search engines updated algorithms to detect awkward repetitions and keywords or phrases that are overused or out of place. If your site is overflowing with keywords, you’re unlikely to get the first page or earn a high ranking at all.

    What to do instead: Focus on making content that’s valuable and beneficial in some way to your site visitors. Use keywords, but make sure they blend into the content seamlessly, rather than trying to fit awkward exact match phrases into an article. Spend more time perfecting keyword placement rather than keyword ratio.

    #2 Having a One-Track Mind

    Repetitive keywords and phrases are never a good idea. If you’re putting the same optimized phrases in every SEO title, tag, meta description, alt tag, captions, etc., it’s time to switch it up. Often, when a search engine detects repetition like this, it will consider it spam and won’t count any of these things towards your ranking.

    You need to focus on creating unique content that’s relevant to what you’re posting or the pages of your website. No two pages should have the same meta descriptions, titles, or otherwise. Stop cutting and pasting keywords and key phrases to fill in the blanks.

    What to do instead: Write unique everything whenever possible. If you have a lot of content, focus on a few keywords, and remote them out into otherwise unique and useful content. For pages that have numerous image alt tags, opt to have a few images with unique alt tags (even if some are blank) rather than all page images having the same alt tags.

    One of the ways you can write unique content that caters to the various kinds of your audience is creating user personas. This way you can get really granular with what every kind of user wants and deliver targeted content to them that solves their specific pain points.

    #3 Stressing Over Exact Match Domains

    Clever things to do back before 2012 or so was to get an extra keyword associated with your business by putting it directly into the domain name itself. Although it sounds logical, it makes somewhere between minuscule to absolutely no difference today. A 2012 Google algorithm update made exact-match keywords in domains far less important and the usefulness compared to the quality of the site overall.

    The biggest problems with exact match domains are that they look spammy, they limit your business activities, and there’s no solid data showing they’re worth the sacrifice. It’s not essential to get an exact match domain.

    What to do instead: Choose a flexible domain name that can grow with you and that doesn’t make people cringe at the thought of clicking on your links. Example: Acmecameres.com versus Bestpolaroidcameras.net

    #4 Focusing on the Wrong Devices


    Image source: Freepik.com

    As of November 2019, just over 52% of internet users worldwide connected via mobile, compared to a little over 45% on computers. If you narrow it down to Europe alone, that changes to 53% mobile and 43% of computers. Who are you targeting with your SEO?

    If you’re building your entire site around desktop view and optimizing everything for computer users, it’s time to update your strategy. User experience is a major ranking factor, meaning your site needs to be attractive and easy to use for all people. Sites that focus exclusively on desktop users are notoriously difficult to navigate on a mobile device or tablet.

    What to do instead: Optimise your website for a seamless experience on any size or type of device. You should have a useful mobile site that works on small and large phones as well as tablets of varying sizes. The desktop version should still exist, but you shouldn’t be so invested in making that the best version of your website. There’s a good chance of more than 50% of your site traffic is coming from mobile users.

    Also, look into having dynamic content that gives recommendations to users. This can be adjusted to give more mobile-specific or desktop-specific recommendations based on usage. It’s a great strategy to keep people moving around your site.

    #5 PBNs and Bad Links

    Are people still using PBNs (Private Blog Networks)? This has always been considered a semi-black hat SEO trick, meaning it could get you in big trouble if you were discovered. Some site owners would take the risk because of the fast results. In case you’re considering it for yourself: It’s not a thing anymore.

    The cost and time needed to set up an effective PBN today could be better spent doing actual SEO work. To rank for a competitive keyword, you could waste thousands of dollars (not an exaggeration) and tens to hundreds of hours setting up dummy blogs. With that amount of capital and time, do something worthwhile, such as a legit link building strategy.

    What to do instead: Launch a guest posting campaign to get your links from legit, existing sources. Guest posts on authority domains can give you the link juice you need without risking a penalization from Google.

    #6 Pretending That Voice Search Doesn’t Exist


    Image source: Pixabay.com

    You can put your head in the sand, but voice search is already here and is only set to increase in use from now onwards. Here are a few interesting snippets about voice search:

    •         20% of searches on mobile are done through voice search
    •         40% of adults use voice search regularly
    •         Almost 50% of people use voice search for product research
    •         From 2008 to 2016, the number of voice searches increased 35x
    •         16% of Americans own smart speakers at home

    There’s a lot going on with voice search. It may never fully replace text search, but it’s a convenient search method in certain situations. We can expect voice search to keep growing. It’s not just a short-lived trend.  

    What to do instead: It’s time to accept that voice search is a common thing and begin optimizing content for it. Product-related searches and answers to questions are the perfect place to start. Increase your page load speed, structure your content in a favorable way, optimize for casual/natural speed keywords, and shoot for local SEO.

    #7 Writing Super Short Content

    You may have read an article or two a few years ago talking about how long-form content is dead. These predictions did not come true. In fact, the opposite has turned out to be the case.

    Short-form content is often seen as cheap or unhelpful. Some people may just want a short answer, but a majority of users place higher trust on websites with long-form content. They assign automatic authority to the site. We just don’t see this happening with short-form content.

    For reference’s sake, long-form content is anything above 1,200 words, with short-form being anything below that. True long-form content is likely to be 1,500+ words.

    The problematic assumption is that no one wants to scroll through such a long piece of content on your site. However, content consumption and customer experience metrics show that’s not true. People do enjoy long-form content, and many people seek it out as opposed to shorter pieces of content on the same subject. A thorough, well-thought-out piece of content that answers every question is better received than a short piece in many industries.

    What to do instead: Add long-form content as a regular part of your content marketing strategy. You can gradually begin writing and posting more long-form pieces to build up the attractive links on your site.

    A quick disclaimer: Long-form content is only good when you format it properly. No one wants to read a 5,000-word article without paragraph breaks or a 3,000-word blog post that’s not spaced out with subheadings, shortlists, appropriate screenshots, etc.

    Unfortunately, there’s a lot of bad information out there. With so many sources writing about SEO all the time, there’s also outdated information that’s not relevant today. It’s tricky to wade through the sea of information to find something that’s both useful and still relevant, but it’s worth trying!

    If you’re still practicing any of these bad SEO strategies, it’s time to throw out the old and bring in the new to get your site back on track towards page 1.

  • 8 Ways to Building Links & Getting Press Coverage for Your Travel Brand

    8 Ways to Building Links & Getting Press Coverage for Your Travel Brand

    As with any business or brand that has a website, building links is an integral part not just to remain visible but to get found whenever someone looks for a product or service online.

    While some experts believe link building no longer has a direct impact on SEO, some industry leaders believe otherwise.

    However, for brands to thrive in the travel industry, they don’t only need link building to stay relevant, they need press coverage as well.

    In this blog, we will discuss the most effective ways to building links as well as the methods to getting press coverage for your travel brand.

    What are the 8 Ways to build links and get press coverage for your travel brand?

    1. Guest Posts

    In SEO, guest posting or guest blogging is writing and publishing content for another website that is within the same industry. The main goal is for the guest blogger to promote the brand he represents. This is where guest blogging services become important.

    Guest posting is one of the best ways to building links and is beneficial to both parties, which are the host website and the guest blogger.

    • The host website needs regular quality content for their audience to consume. Fresh and updated helpful content drives people to keep coming back to the site.
    • Guest bloggers need websites where they can promote their brand.

    Here are other benefits of guest posting for your travel brand:

    • Brings traffic back to your site
    • Boosts your domain authority
    • Gets exposure for your brand
    • Connects you with a new audience
    • Build connections with peers in your niche or industry

    2. Resource Pages

    A resource page is a webpage on a website that contains a list of useful links and resources for a specific topic. Having your site listed as one of the resources on these pages is a great way to build links for your travel site.

    Using resource pages for travel link building can help to increase your brand’s relevance. This is because the links listed on resource pages are related to the topic at hand.

    Resource page link building is too immense to cover for this blog and so here are comprehensive guides from the SEO industry’s top content providers.

    3. Press Trips

    Press trips are paid trips for travel writers that are funded by organizations in exchange for content creation or exposure for a specific brand. It is a way for a state or country, city, resort, or a private brand to get positive publicity.

    Examples of these organizations are:

    • Public relations firms
    • Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs)
    • PR companies
    • Private brands and
    • a tourism body

    The main purpose of press trips is to allow travel writers or journalists to write articles based on their personal experiences in a specific travel destination.

    Here are some DMOs for press trip opportunities:

    1. International Media Marketplace (IMM)
    2. TBEX Europe and TBEX North America 2020
    3. Travel Media Association of Canada
    4. IPW | U.S. Travel Association
    5. Society of American Travel Writers
    6. North America Travel Journalists Association
    7. The World Travel Market (WTM)
    8. International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association
    9. Travel Classics Writers Conference
    10. Visit Europe Media Exchange (VEMEX)

    4. Product stunts

    Product stunts are effective ways to get a lot of links and attention from the press. These stunts are often temporary and unconventional. They could be a hilarious YouTube video or an interactive landing page.

    The content should be original and relevant to an audience and that it kindles strong emotional reactions. A product stunt that goes viral can make a brand famous overnight, as well as get tons of backlinks.

    Although not travel-related, one good example was Sony’s cool, interactive landing page that has amassed more than a thousand backlinks.

    The landing page was for Sony’s “be moved” campaign. It showcased the collaboration between the engineers and artists for the brand’s products.

    5. Dream Job Stunt

    Another method that is sure to get press coverage is the dream job stunt. The process involves creating an eye-catching job offer that often runs for a short period of time. It often comes with a contest with a hard deadline.

    A dream job stunt can generate a lot of attention if done well.

    The best example is when The New York Times launched its search for a travel writer in 2018. The contest gained tremendous attention especially from the thousands of writers who are vying for this dream job.

    The winner of the contest was given a bucket list of assignments and travel to places such as South Korea, Chile, and New Orleans. Besides that, the winner becomes a content creator and the face of the brand.

    Dream job stunts have become a new and exciting way for brands to get publicity and help writers jumpstart their careers in the travel niche.

    6. Visual content

    Image-based online content is considered as visual content. They come in the form of:

    It is necessary that you include visual content as one of the ways to building links since visual social media platforms are growing rapidly.

    For instance, a poll conducted by HubSpot reveals that the trend in online marketing is heading towards visual content.

    The results showed that of all the business owners who participated in the poll:

    • 33% plan to use Instagram

    • 48% plan to add YouTube

    • 39% plan to add Facebook video

    …as distribution channels for the coming year.

    Here are more stats to give you an idea of how important visual content is. 

    • Next to blogging, which is 38%, the percentage of marketers who said that visual content is the most important form of online content used by businesses is 37%.
    • Over 67% of small business owners admitted that video content had a direct effect on their business.
    • According to research by LifeLearn in 2015, the people who have heard about an information only remember 10% of it 3 days later. On the other hand, people retained 65% of the same information that has a relevant image.
    • There was an 80% increase in the people’s willingness to read a piece of content that has colored visuals (Xerox, 2014).
    • A 2015 study by Social Media Examiner showed that 71% of digital marketers use their visuals in their social media marketing.

    7. Surveys & Unique Data

    Data is one of the ways PR agencies and businesses get decent press coverage, increase brand awareness, and direct sales. Getting press coverage through data is an excellent marketing tool for business owners and marketers alike.

    Take note that people in general read data stories because they are insightful, useful, or surprising. However, it’s about how it affects people and it’s not always about the numbers.

    Since data can be somewhat confusing and the main points often get buried, here are guide questions if you want to create content that’s worthy of the media’s attention.

    • Does your content offer something new to the readers?
    • Does it highlight a specific problem?
    • Does it support or contradict a claim made by a person in power?
    • Does it help the readers in making a decision easier such as how to vote or where to shop?

    To make your content clear and meaningful, you have to deliver it in a way that makes it easier for people to relate to. You have to talk in terms of per person, per day, or per week.

    8. Paid Links

    Although buying for links is taboo and getting caught results in being penalized by Google, there are a handful of brands that are paying for placements on websites and travel blogs.

    Surprisingly, there seems to be a demand for paid links in the travel industry, according to Ahrefs.

    However, you should not attempt to buy links unless you have enough experience in the field.

    Final Thoughts

    There are no definitive ways to build links that will work 100% of the time. As a travel brand, you need to mix the methods for link building and getting press coverage that will align with your overall SEO and digital marketing strategy.

    If you want brand awareness or exposure, you’ll need to do the stunts mentioned above.

    Press trips and guest posts work well if you want to promote a specific set of products. Why? Getting a little bit more outcome in the content and to get it more product-oriented is under your control.

    Surveys, data, and visual content can help you if your goal is to generate top-of-funnel organic traffic.

  • SEO Is Shifting From Keywords To Concepts And Moments

    SEO Is Shifting From Keywords To Concepts And Moments

    The basics of SEO remain remarkably simple.

    In a nutshell, SEO is creating content that matches keyword intent, housing the content inside optimal information architecture complemented with smart technical SEO, then understanding why people would want to link to or cite you and your brand, and encouraging them to do so.

    But the scale and relevance of this content is where the difference can be made. The question remains, Why aren’t more websites more optimized? And why don’t more websites have optimal content?

    Brands who are winning their respective markets have one thing in common

    They all understand their audiences, the journeys they are experiencing, and know how to generate demand all the way through that journey.

    Those that fall short generally do so for a number of reasons, but often it has less to do with know-how and more to do with politics, resources, and effort.

    Technology is set to have a much greater impact on refining this side of SEO. In particular, progressive technologies that will allow SEOs to spend more of their time doing more creative and team orientated marketing tasks.

    Data, machine learning, and the software will combine to take more of the strain out of “best practice” SEO, freeing up resource to focus on the more human elements.

    Machine learning systems, for example, will increasingly be able to identify patterns uniformities in customer journey data so time and investment can be made in areas where the most impact can be made.

    This will allow more brands to overcome the bottlenecks and barriers they currently face, whether they be money, knowledge, or time, and help them create the comprehensive and refined consumer journeys necessary to win their respective markets.

    Using technology to free up resources, and increasingly advanced SEO techniques will mean that becomes much more sophisticated altogether. There will be a greater focus on building brand reputation, traditionally a tricky thing to measure, and a very time consuming element of an overall SEO strategy.

    Above all, the industry will move towards concepts (understanding the language of the market in the context of semantic groups) and moments (the behavioural and psychological states that consumers are in when engaging in a purchase), rather than just keywords.

    Essentially, a much more mature approach to SEO.

  • 4 Reasons Why Blogging is Important to your SEO Strategy

    4 Reasons Why Blogging is Important to your SEO Strategy

    Blogging has been around for quite some time now. What started to be just a personal homepage by a college student in 1994, become a massive network and strategy these days. While different trends arrive at the start of every year, and many folks think that these trends may overthrow blogging, it did not. 

    Blogs remained to do their job up to these days, which is to deliver favourable results to any website.  Its capability to drive website traffic has been one of the many reasons why a lot of business owners and marketers leverage this. Many have used blogs as a marketing tactic to encourage readers to visit their sites and learn about their brand by offering valuable information. 

    The Relationship of Blogging and SEO

    While it gives many favourable things in your SEO campaign, SEO is not purely blogging, nor it directly affects your SEO ranking. Owning and crafting your blog will not make you rank higher in search engines instantly. 

    What blogging does in your SEO is it give several vital factors that help you in your SEO campaign. These factors are essential in making sure that your website will climb high in search engines. Blogging can create a significant impact on how your site and improve its overall performance. 

    Four Reasons You Need To Blog For Your SEO Strategy

    Helps You Crawl in Search Engines

    Unless you have already established your name, considered a leader in your industry, and your company’s net worth is worth a multi-billion dollar, then you know people will be looking for you even just using a single keyword. But if not, you have to work on the use of proper keywords that will drive people to your site. 

    Blogging allows you to write posts that will give your site a better ranking when people do their searches on search engines. Using long-tail keywords in your blogs can help your online visibility. Long-tail keywords are keywords that are comprised of three to four keywords and are very specific. These type of keywords perform better when it comes ranking than the single generic keyword. 

    When used in your website, long-tail keywords seemed to be a bit off and out of place. Blogging provides you with an avenue to incorporate these keywords without sounding too pushy and sales – centred. With blogging, it comes off naturally while giving you a higher rank in search engines. 

    Makes People Stay Longer in Your Site

    Everything that customers do on search engines from to moment they click on your link and when they leave right away after visiting your website, your article or even a specific product page and return to search page can send a signal to Google. Google interprets this that the site that has been click on does not offer any help and the article is not useful. It will be a factor to give your website a lower rank in search engines. 

    When a visitor clicked on your site and stayed for a short while, this sends a signal to Google that the website offers something helpful and provides valuable information to its visitors. It will be then a determiner to give you a higher in search engines as you give answers to people’s query. 

    When your website has a blog post that appears on search engines and provides the needs of the customers, they will most likely click on it and stays on while to read it. Though Google did not give a specific amount of time to be spent by customers on a website they are on before they determine it to be a decisive ranking factor, Google made it clear that is it something they value. 

    Builds Your Online Authority

    One of the many goals you have in building a website and investing so much time and efforts in your online visibility is to establish your credibility and your authority. You want people to view you as a trustworthy leader in your industry that will make them trust you. 

    Writing a valuable blog on your site does not only give you the chance of obtaining higher ranking in search engines through your site’s visitor. What it also does to you is it also allows you to establish your online authority. When you have valuable content on your website, people will start quoting your blog as a reference and provides you with additional online visibility. As this happens, you become a figure of authority. 

    Though this is not an easy success and requires much effort from you by offering thorough, informative contents, results will be worth it. Google will take notice of this and will improve your search ranking results. 

    Makes Your Social Media Calendar Full

    Social Media and SEO have always shared a special kind of relationship. Though they do not generally affect each other directly, they always compliment each other. What better ways can social media can promote and drive traffic to your site? It is by sharing valuable content from your website’s blog post.

    Regular sharing of your blog posts can do gold in your social media platforms. Sharing of content will increase visibility and provide information that people do not know they need. When these people click on the link, your website activity will increase, and you will attract more site visitor. 

    Final Thoughts

    Even with the emergence of many new activities that can boost your SEO strategy, one cannot undermine the importance of blogging in achieving your SEO goals. Blogs can do wonder in your website. It can establish your online reputation, promote the formation of the community surrounding your brand, share the latest updates in your company and help you give highlights to the things that you offer. 

    While it offers you a vast opportunity that will be beneficial for your company and your brand like improving your SEO rankings, you have to take note that unhealthy blogging can hurt your SEO efforts. Thin contents, wrong grammars and poorly written articles can affect your ranking and give you negative results. So, it is vital to be on the lookout. 

    Blogging is more than just producing a 1000-word article. It should offer in-depth value to your readers. Make it good content that is on point and engaging. Though it seems like a simple process, it is not and would require your effort and time. However, if you do it right, you will enjoy its reward for a very long time. 

  • 100+ Digital Marketing Blogs That Accept Guest Posts

    100+ Digital Marketing Blogs That Accept Guest Posts

    Link building and guest posting can be difficult, you need to write content, contact bloggers and pitch your content, here are over 100 of the top digital marketing blogs that accept guest posts.

    Digital Marketing Blogs For Guest Posting

    Hubspot

    Domain authority: 89

    Guidelines/Submission: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing-guest-blogging-guidelines

    Media Post

    Domain authority: 86

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/masthead/

    Volusion

    Domain authority: 86

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.volusion.com/blog/guest-blog-volusion/

    Business2Community

    Domain authority: 84

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.business2community.com/become-a-contributor

    GetResponse

    Domain authority: 84

    Guidelines/Submission: https://blog.getresponse.com/write-for-us

    Breakline

    Domain Authority: 52

    Guidelines: https://www.breaklineagency.com/write-for-us/

    MarketingProfs

    Domain authority: 83

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.marketingprofs.com/write-for-us

    SEM Rush

    Domain authority: 82

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.semrush.com/my-posts/about/

    Smart Insights

    Domain authority: 81

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.smartinsights.com/contact-us/

    Benchmark Email

    Domain authority: 79

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.benchmarkemail.com/blogs/detail/marketing-professionals-write-guest-blogs-for-benchmark-email

    Optimizely

    Domain authority: 78

    Guidelines/Submission: https://blog.optimizely.com/guest-contributor-guidelines/

    Pole Position Marketing

    Domain authority: 75

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/write-for-us/

    Chatfuel

    Domain authority: 59

    Guidelines: https://blog.chatfuel.com/article-submission-policy/

    PRSA

    Domain authority: 75

    Guidelines/Submission: http://prnewpros.prsa.org/write-for-us/ 

    Digitally Cognizant

    Domain authority: 74

    Guidelines/Submission: http://digitally.cognizant.com/write-for-us/

    Marketing Toolbox

    Domain authority: 71

    Guidelines/Submission: https://marketing.toolbox.com/marketing-sign-in-page?returnTo=%2Fcontribute-to-tech

    Site Pro News

    Domain authority: 69

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.sitepronews.com/call-for-writers/

    Invespcro

    Domain authority: 67

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.invespcro.com/blog/the-invesp-blog-guest-post-guidelines/ 

    B2B Marketing

    Domain authority: 64

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.b2bmarketing.net/en-gb/blogging-guidelines

    Spin Sucks

    Domain authority: 63

    Guidelines/Submission: http://spinsucks.com/site/be-a-guest-blogger/

    MotoCMS

    Domain authority: 61

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.motocms.com/blog/en/write-for-us/

    Devrix

    Domain authority: 60

    Guidelines/Submission: https://devrix.com/article-submission-guidelines/ 

    Tech Wyse

    Domain authority: 59

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.techwyse.com/write-for-us/

    Matthew Woodward

    Domain authority: 58

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/write-for-us/

    Lucid Press

    Domain authority: 56

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.lucidpress.com/blog/write-for-us

    Propeller Ads

    Domain authority: 56

    Guidelines/Submission: https://propellerads.com/blog/how-to-submit-guest-post-to-propellerads-blog/

    ADMA

    Domain authority: 56

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.adma.com.au/blog/submit 

    Copy Hackers

    Domain authority: 55

    Guidelines/Submission: https://copyhackers.com/write-a-guest-post/

    Marketing Tech News

    Domain authority: 55

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.marketingtechnews.net/write-for-us/

    Fearless Flyer

    Domain authority: 54

    Guidelines/Submission: http://fearlessflyer.com/guest-post-guidelines/

    Traffic Generation Café

    Domain authority: 54

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/about/contact/

    60 Second Marketer

    Domain authority: 53

    Guidelines/Submission: http://60secondmarketer.com/guest-post/

    Ninja Outreach

    Domain authority: 53

    Guidelines/Submission: https://ninjaoutreach.com/write-for-us/

    Men With Pens

    Domain authority: 52

    Guidelines/Submission: https://menwithpens.ca/guest-post-guidelines/

    Lemonstand

    Domain authority: 51

    Guidelines/Submission: http://blog.lemonstand.com/write-for-us/

    WP Sauce

    Domain authority: 51

    Website url: https://wpsauce.com/ 

    Pagewiz

    Domain authority: 50

    Guidelines/Submission: http://lp1.pagewiz.com/guest-content

    Web Alive

    Domain authority: 50

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.webalive.com.au/write-for-us/ 

    WebEngage Monk

    Domain authority: 50

    Guidelines/Submission: https://monk.webengage.com/write-for-us/

    Twelve Skip

    Domain authority: 48

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.twelveskip.com/pages/site/1059/guest-blogging

    Fortune Lords

    Domain authority: 48

    Guidelines/Submission: https://fortunelords.com/write-for-us/

    Kuno Creative

    Domain authority: 47

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.kunocreative.com/guest-blog-guidelines

    Viral Blog

    Domain authority: 47

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.viralblog.com/contact/

    Web Analytics

    Domain authority: 47

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2012/04/would-you-like-to-write-for-web-analytics-world.html

    Web Analytics

    Domain authority: 47

    Guidelines/Submission: https://conversionsciences.com/about-old/guest-post-policy/

    Inbound Now

    Domain authority: 47

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.inboundnow.com/blog/guest-post-for-inbound-now/ 

    DIY Marketers

    Domain authority: 46

    Guidelines/Submission: http://diymarketers.com/guest-post/

    Realty Ninja

    Domain authority: 46

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.realtyninja.com/editorial-guidelines 

    Webfirm

    Domain authority: 46

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.webfirm.com/write-for-us/

    Healthcare Success

    Domain authority: 44

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.healthcaresuccess.com/blog/case-studies-best-practices/write-for-us-share-your-proudest-marketing-moment.html

    Rahul Digital

    Domain authority: 44

    Guidelines/Submission: http://rahuldigital.org/contribute/

    Tech Magnate

    Domain authority: 44

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.techmagnate.com/blog/become-a-contributor/

    Lilach Bullock

    Domain Authority: 43

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.lilachbullock.com/write-for-me/

    Big Oak Ink

    Domain authority: 42

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.bigoakinc.com/write-for-us-internet-marketing-articles/

    Hellbound Bloggers

    Domain authority: 42

    Guidelines/Submission: https://hellboundbloggers.com/join-hbb/

    Netvantage Marketing

    Domain authority: 42

    Guidelines/Submission: http://netvantagemarketing.com/blog/know-search-or-social-media-write-for-us/

    Complete Connection

    Domain authority: 41

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.completeconnection.ca/write-for-us/ 

    Brand Driven Digital

    Domain authority: 40

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.branddrivendigital.com/write-for-us/

    iBlogZone

    Domain authority: 40

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.iblogzone.com/guest-post-guidelines-and-submissions

    Adapt Creative

    Domain authority: 39

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.adaptcreative.co.uk/write-for-us/

    Skyje

    Domain authority: 39

    Guidelines/Submission: http://skyje.com/write-for-us/

    Devrel

    Domain authority: 39

    Guidelines/Submission: https://devrel.net/write-for-us

    Blogging Bistro

    Domain authority: 39

    Guidelines/Submission: https://bloggingbistro.com/submit-a-guest-column-to-blogging-bistro/

    Jayson Online Reviews

    Domain authority: 38

    Guidelines/Submission: http://jaysonlinereviews.com/guest-blogging-i-am-looking-for-guest-bloggers-on-my-blog/

    iTechCode

    Domain authority: 38

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.itechcode.com/join-itechcode/

    Chatterbuzz Media

    Domain authority: 37

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.chatterbuzzmedia.com/write-for-us/

    Web Traffic ROI

    Domain authority: 37

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.webtrafficroi.com/guest-post/

    Result First

    Domain authority: 37

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.resultfirst.com/knowledgecenter/write-for-us/

    Dealer Marketing

    Domain authority: 37

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.dealermarketing.com/write-for-us/

    Rapid Boost Marketing

    Domain authority: 36

    Guidelines/Submission: https://rapidboostmarketing.com/guest-post-guidelines/

    Brand Dignity

    Domain authority: 36

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.brandignity.com/guest-blog-opportunities/

    Growth Rocks

    Domain authority: 36

    Guidelines/Submission: https://growthrocks.com/write-for-us/

    Rapid Boost Marketing

    Domain authority: 36

    Guidelines/Submission:

    Reputation X

    Domain authority: 36

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.reputationx.com/write-for-us

    Tom Altman

    Domain authority: 35

    Guidelines/Submission: http://tomaltman.com/guest-blogging/

    Holony

    Domain authority: 34

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.holony.com/write-for-us/

    Inkwell Editorial

    Domain authority: 34

    Guidelines/Submission: https://inkwelleditorial.com/guest-posts-wanted-submission-guidelines

    Bosmol

    Domain authority: 33

    Guidelines/Submission: http://bosmol.com/write-for-us#.WTA5fBPyuCQ

    Ethinos

    Domain authority: 33

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.ethinos.com/blog/write-a-guest-post/

    ResizeMyImg

    Domain autority: 32

    Website url: https://resizemyimg.com/blog/ 

    Epicful

    Domain authority: 32

    Guidelines: https://epicful.com/write-for-us/

    UK Linkology

    Domain authority: 32

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.uklinkology.co.uk/contribute/

    Muffin Marketing

    Domain authority: 32

    Guidelines/Submission: https://muffinmarketing.com/blog/

    The Next Scoop

    Domain authority: 31

    Guidelines/Submission: http://thenextscoop.com/write-for-us/

    Digital Branding Institute

    Domain authority: 31

    Guidelines/Submission: https://digitalbrandinginstitute.com/write-for-digital-branding-institute/

    Digital Media Ghost

    Domain authority: 30

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.digitalmediaghost.com/guest-post-guidelines.html

    Inet Solutions

    Domain authority: 30

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.inetsolutions.org/write-for-us/

    Opportunities Planet

    Domain authority: 30

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.opportunitiesplanet.com/write-for-us/

    Scepter Marketing

    Domain authority: 30

    Guidelines/Submission: https://sceptermarketing.com/write-for-us/

    Strategy Driven

    Domain authority: 30

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.strategydriven.com/strategydriven-guest-article-submissions/

    CLV Boost

    Domain authority: 29

    Guidelines/Submission: http://clvboost.com/write-for-us/

    The Marketing Scope

    Domain authority: 29

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.themarketingscope.com/want-write-us-follow-guest-post-guidelines/

    Who is Essay

    Domain authority: 29

    Guidelines/Submission: http://whoisessay.com/write-for-us-submit-guest-post-business-blog/

    Voy Media

    Domain authority: 28

    Guidelines/Submission: https://voymedia.com/write-for-us-guest-posts/

    Izideo

    Domain authority: 28

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.izideo.com/write-for-us/

    NavThemes

    Domain authority: 27

    Website url: https://www.navthemes.com/ 

    Spectrum Group Online

    Domain authority: 27

    Guidelines/Submission: https://online-sales-marketing.com/about-us/write-for-us/

    99 Signals

    Domain authority: 26

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.99signals.com/write-for-us/

    Opportunities Planet

    Domain authority: 26

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.geekbusiness.com/guest-post-guidelines/

    Start with Click

    Domain authority: 25

    Guidelines/Submission: http://startwithclick.com/contribute-your-knowledge/

    99 Tech Post

    Domain authority: 25

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.99techpost.com/write-for-us-on-seo-tech-web-apps-to-submit-guest-post/

    Technical Minds Web

    Domain authority: 25

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.technicalmindsweb.com/write-for-us/

    IntNetworkPlus

    Domain authority: 24

    Guidelines/Submission: http://intnetworkplus.com/write-for-us-guest-post-guideline

    Quibus Trainings

    Domain authority: 24

    Guidelines/Submission: https://www.quibustrainings.com/guest-posting-guidelines/

    Monetize

    Domain authority: 23

    Guidelines/Submission: https://monetize.info/write-for-us/

    VTNS Solutions

    Domain authority: 21

    Guidelines/Submission: http://www.vtnssolutions.com/blog/write-for-us/

    Add your guest posting website here

    Is your website missing? Add your website here: email alex@bigframe.net to add your website here.

  • Evergreen Digital Marketing Techniques That Show No Signs Of Aging

    Evergreen Digital Marketing Techniques That Show No Signs Of Aging

    Things change with time, but the methods always remain the same. Whether you are marketing in 2002 or 2020, most techniques will never change. 

    SEO has changed but the act of keyword marketing is still there. Social media marketing is still going strong although with some changes.

    Similarly, many other marketing techniques have remained the same but the way we used to implement has changed tremendously.

    With that said, let’s learn about the evergreen digital marketing techniques that are still prominent in 2020.

    List of Evergreen Digital Marketing Techniques in 2020:

    Email marketing

    On an average ROI of $1, you get $42 in return, when using email marketing. Although this is not the standard everywhere, email marketing is still one of the most profitable ways of marketing in the digital world.

    It wouldn’t be wrong to say that most Small-Medium Businesses (SMBs) use email marketing as a tool to recover their lost customers. You would be surprised to know that emails with customized subjects not only have higher email deliverability but also a higher open rate. And, emails that are personalized to users have the highest email conversion rate.

    Oberlo reports that sending around three cart abandonment reminder emails result in more sales in comparison with a single cart abandonment rate.

    Most marketers use videos in their emails to increase conversion rates. Videos work best when customers are not acquainted with your brand.

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    SEO is another marketing technique that is evergreen. eCommerce SEO has changed in a way that Google keeps changing the algorithms that rank websites on search engines. 

    First, it was the panda update. Then it was the penguin update. Then it was the Fred update. Now it is the Bert update. And, recently, Google sent out a new core update a few days ago that has – according to most say – changed the way search happens. 

    Whatever has happened to search is not going anywhere soon. This means that keywords have evolved from a three-word keyword to queries that people ask through voice searches on their smartphones.

    Similarly, backlinks have changed from quantity to quality. Previously backlinks from any website would help increase site rankings. But now only websites that have a high DA can help your website increase in ranking. That’s how SEO while changing has remained paramount.

    Moreover, Outlook studios reports that guest outreach is now another way of getting links to your blog. It has written a thorough article on how outreach can help your business.

    Social media

    Next, we have social media. Another evergreen marketing technique that you can use anytime to promote your products and content. 

    Social media has been around for almost 20 years. First, we had Orkut. It was a social media tool that wasn’t used much for marketing. Now we have Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and many more. 

    You can market your content and products on all these social media accounts; however the way you can market has changed. Most of these social media websites will mark your account as spam if you market too much. So you have to be careful about how you market your social media content.

    Online reviews

    Online reviews are not a marketing tactic but an awareness tactic that you can always use to your advantage. 

    Online reviews have existed from the start of the internet. Many affiliate marketing websites thrive just because of online reviews because that’s what people read and then take action. The reason that has kept online reviews evergreen is that these reviews are mostly genuine. They help other customers know what deficiencies exist in a product or a service. 

    One of the first online reviews was ‘United break guitars,’ a song about how United Airlines broke the guitar of a singer while he was traveling through that plan. The airline never apologized until he created a song and put it online as a review of the service he received. Bravo, no?

    Today, there are online review sections on most prominent ecommerce websites where buyers can post a review about the product. If you have a website/blog, you can also write online reviews on it. Or, you can even publish reviews about your product on your social media profile. Every action can influence.

    Referral marketing

    Referral marketing is also called ‘Word of Mouth’ marketing of the digital age. Previously, people used to recommend products to others by word of mouth. 

    Today, they can tell about a product or service through comments, emails, live chats, and even audio recordings. 

    Referral marketing is not always trackable because, most of the time, people are referred to in private chats. But it still caters to a large number of customers buying a product. If you have a new business that needs activation, then turn your honest customers into your ambassadors and use them for your referral marketing activities.

    Referral marketing is ever-green because, just like ‘word of mouth’ has existed throughout our life, referral marketing will always exist in one way or the other.

    Affiliate marketing

    Affiliate marketing is another great way to market in 2020. This type of marketing technique was very much a thing when the internet was still in its infancy. 

    Amazon is one website that gets around 30 percent of its sales through affiliate marketers. There are many other ecommerce stores like Walmart, Jet, Newegg, and even AliExpress that have affiliate marketers working for them.

    Similarly, Siteground, Kinsta, and many other hosting websites also employ affiliate marketers to promote their blogs and websites. WPBeginners is one of the fastest-growing hosting affiliate websites. It earns all of its commission through affiliate marketing and advertising space selling.

    Paid marketing

    Last but not least. Paid marketing is one technique that will never end. At the start of this decade, we were marketing through Google, Bing, Yahoo. Today, we still use these to market products but we also have Facebook and other social media websites for paid promotions.

    We also have content marketing websites like Taboola, Outbrain, and others. Paid marketing is going BIG and it will continue to grow bigger due to the demand of digital marketers.

    Bottom-line

    We hope that you are now aware of what evergreen marketing techniques are. If you are starting a business today, you can easily use these marketing techniques to take your business to the next level. You will not even have to worry about these services fading out.

  • How to Increase the Loading Speed of Your Website

    How to Increase the Loading Speed of Your Website

    Imagine this: your e-commerce site is losing visitors on Black Friday or the recent record-setting Cyber Monday – traditionally the two biggest shopping days of the year.

    What’s worse is that this situation is totally unnecessary. You could have kept those visitors if you had just reduced your website’s load time.

    By neglecting something so important, you are losing a significant amount of money and will continue to lose revenue until you tackle this problem.

    Why Speed Matters

    Speed matters first because it is one aspect of an efficient, high-functioning website. Nowadays, when most people access the Internet on the go from mobile devices, site speed has become especially important.

    But site speed also matters because people’s attention spans are getting increasingly shorter. Data shows that almost half of all internet users expect website pages to load in less than two seconds. If your site takes longer than three seconds to load, 40% of users will move on. And speed matters to Google.

    Ever since the introduction of Google’s Mobile-First Index, site speed is Google’s official ranking factor. This means slow load time means decreased rankings, hence poor site visibility.

    Site speed has a huge effect on usability and conversions. If people are leaving because your site is too slow, they are not converting.

    No wonder many companies are focusing on improving site speed nowadays. Pathwwway, a product design and development growth-oriented company, names load time any business’s top priority.

    For these reasons, web developers say that increasing site speed is “an essential skill for any website owner.”

    Here’s an extensive list of strategies for speeding up WordPress (WP) websites in particular.

    Evaluate Your Site

    First, you should objectively test the speed of your site. To do so, you can use GTmetrix or Pingdom, both of which provide a detailed analysis of what (if anything) is causing your site to lag.

    These tools measure if your site is too slow and you can also use them to continually monitor its performance. Remember that your goal should be for your pages to load in under two seconds. Faster than that is even better.

    Have a Good Foundation

    Make sure that you have a good hosting provider. Most likely your best bet is to opt for a virtual private server (VPS).

    Shared hosting will slow you down too much, and a dedicated server probably has more power than you need and is too expensive.

    You should also consider managed WordPress hosting created especially for WP sites. With managed hosting, you won’t have to be responsible for the technical aspects of your site.

    Keep this same mentality when selecting your theme.

    Choose one that only has what you need, keeping it as lightweight as possible. One strategy is to opt for a minimal theme and then add plug-ins to add additional functionality.

    You might also consider utilizing a content delivery network (CDN).

    The closer a server is to a user, the faster the loading time will be. A CDN takes your static files and distributes them on various servers across the world so that your site is closer to people than it would have been otherwise.

    There are even solutions that will allow you to host parts of your site through a CDN. Some CDN resources you can check out are:

    • MaxCDN
    • Amazon Cloudfront
    • Cloudflare
    • Jetpack (a plugin)
    • WOT Cache

    Updates and Maintenance

    It should go without saying that you should keep all of the elements of your site as up to date as possible.

    This includes everything from HTML and PHP to your theme and plug-ins.

    Your hosting provider is responsible for your site’s primary updates, but you should still keep an eye on them.

    The more up to date your technology is, the more secure your site will be and the more efficiently it will run.

    Clean up your database as it gets bloated with data you aren’t actually using. You should eliminate anything you aren’t using (plug-ins, widgets, etc.).

    Other Tactics for Decreasing Loading Time

    Speeding up your site is about enabling it to do as little as possible. With this principle in mind, consider doing the following:

    • Don’t host videos on your site – auto-embed them
    • Compress your images and your website files
    • Reduce server requests (e.g., limit how many posts you show on each page, break comments and posts into pages, implement lazy loading for images)
    • Allow caching, WP Rocket is a great WP Caching plugin.
    • Concatenate files (i.e., combine them into one larger file)
    • Minify files
    • Limit what you can (such as post revisions, buttons, and widgets)
    • Deactivate pingbacks and trackbacks
    • Include an expires header in your static resources (this determines the length of time a visitor’s browser caches content)
    • Optimize CSS delivery
    • Prioritize above the fold content

    Use a Web Design Platform Made for Site Speed

    If your current content management system or theme is giving you a bad time, speed-wise, switch as soon as possible. Don’t try to fix or adjust. Use a website builder that gets it. If a website builder is too complex you can use a web design firm instead.

    Duda is a solid example of an agency-friendly website building platform built from the ground up to minimize load times. Duda CTO Amir Glatt even published a detailed article describing what they have done to get Duda’s infrastructure as aligned as possible with Google’s best practices for page speed, achieving better scores than Wix, Weebly and even the mighty WordPress.

    Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

    It’s old news that people are using mobile more and more for all of their online activities. Not only does your site need to load quickly but it also needs to load quickly on smartphones. Because of the widespread use of mobile, Google has released Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which is “a whole new way of creating web pages and effectively changes the mobile web.”

    AMP is open-source software designed to boost loading speeds on mobile devices. Even before AMP, Google took steps to favour mobile-friendly sites. So the better your site’s mobile-friendliness, the better it’s ranking.

    Test, Audit, Fix

    Testing, monitoring and auditing how your site performs should be done on a continuous basis. Your site might be generating errors any minute due to redesign, new features, new sections/products being added, seasonal traffic spikes, suddenly social media success, etc.

    Serpstat is an advanced SEO platform that can help with auditing your website and alerting you of errors on a regular basis. It will break loading speed issues into two groups for you to easily prioritize:

    • High priority
    • Middle priority

    It will also provide explanations for each item they are checking for you to better understand any issue and easily delegate the task to a non-SEO team member.

    Everyone Benefits from Fast Loading Speed

    No matter what area of life we’re talking about, people appreciate having experiences that are orderly, seamless, and fast.

    Optimizing your site for speed will set you ahead of the majority of websites on the internet. The result will be that you lose fewer visitors and increase your revenue.

  • 7 Reasons Why Duplicate Content is Bad for SEO

    7 Reasons Why Duplicate Content is Bad for SEO

    In the SEO world, duplicate content has become one of the top concerns. Publishing the same content on different URLs may dilute the quality and the ranking of a website.

    Having the same content on multiple websites causes difficulties for search engines to select the most relevant content for a given query.

    Duplicate content can negatively affect SEO in many ways.

    It Dilutes The Value And The Popularity Of Your Original Content

    Links pointing to your content are critical for SEO. Having identical content on the internet in several URLs reduces the number of links pointing your site.

    For example, let’s think URL-X and URL-Y contain identical content. URL-X has 20 links pointing to it. And URL-Y has 20 pointing to it. If there was no duplicate content, the original URL-x might have a total of 40 links pointing to it.

    Since the quantity of links directing to your URL is very important for SEO, duplicate content could cripple your SEO.

    Top tip: Check out this post for a few content development tips.

    Difficulties For Direct Link Metrics

    Page rankings, trust authority, anchor texts are considered as link metrics. When you have duplicate content search engines find difficulties to direct your link.

    By going through an optimisation process and publishing fresh contents, you can avoid this situation.

    Then you will have new visitors to your site and that will signal the search engines about your content’s uniqueness.

    These signals will also increase your domain strength.

    Negative User Experience

    Sometimes, for a given query when the user is directed to the same content multiple times, it causes negative user experience.

    For a user who seeks for fresh content, it will be a waste of time.

    It Decreases Traffic

    Site owners sometimes suffer lower traffic and rankings because of duplicate content.

    Risk Of Your Content Not Getting Crawled

    Even search engine bots don’t like to read the same content over and over again.

    Sooner or later they will decide not to crawl to your content because it has read the same earlier.

    Even if your content is original there is a risk of it not getting crawled.

    Risk Of Getting Banned From Search Engines

    Every search engine tries to avoid duplicate content.

    If a search engine identifies your content as duplicate, your site might get removed from search engine index.

    And it will be no longer available in search results.

    It Will Affect Categorisation

    For a given query sometimes the results come under multiple categories and different URLs.

    It happens because the same content is posted under various categories. This could harm categorisation processes.

    How to avoid duplicate content?

    The best way to avoid duplicate content is by writing original content.

    However, if you must use duplicate content on your site, it is highly recommended using a canonical tag.

    A canonical tag is a simple code that you can insert into the page which has duplicate content.

    As soon as search engine bots identify the canonical tag, they skip the content on that page.

  • How to Improve Your Website Security

    How to Improve Your Website Security

    Websites are easy targets for hackers and adequate security is crucial in order to not only protect the site itself, but also any personal or business data.

    Here are some practical tips to improve your website security:

    Hosting

    As a technical minded person, I can honestly say even I get confused and baffled by the world of hosting. But your hosting company is your first line of defense and how secure your site is depends on the type of hosting you have.

    This of course is made harder by the huge choice of cheap hosting. However, the cheaper options more often than not mean you are sharing your space with tens, hundreds, if not thousands of other sites and, if one of them does something untoward (SPAM anyone) you’ll also be burdened with the consequences.

    Not to mention the potential of being infected by a virus. So choose wisely.

    Password

    Password strength is something that is very often neglected, but is a vital first line of defense. A good method is to have several difficult passwords for different logins…

    • Bank
    • Blog
    • Email
    • Online Subscriptions

    The ideal password should contain a mix of lowercase, uppercase, numbers and special characters, by doing this you can use names and numbers to create complex and memorable passwords. For example, a wife’s name and date of birth could be:

    Helen1983

    H3l3n_*_1983!

    Here’s a link to check how secure your password is: https://howsecureismypassword.net/

    Essential Plugin

    There will always be attempts to break into your blog. If you have a WordPress blog there are several plugins to stop these attacks, the easiest of which is Login Lockdown. This simple plugin limits the amount of times someone can attempt to log into your blog before blocking them completely.

    Updates

    This is another simple yet all too often overlooked part of managing a blog. For those running a WordPress blog you will have seen the update plugin and update WordPress warnings. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not ignore them, these aren’t merely updates to some functionality issue or some additional feature; more often than not these updates contain security patches which if not updated will leave your blog open to attack! So please check your blog and keep it updated.

    Security

    How often have you gone for a coffee, logged into the free WIFI and typed away the username and password?! Did you know that someone could be snooping and picking up your passwords? My advice would be avoid public WIFI if you need to login to your site.

    Further Measures

    Please note that multiple plugins can and will slow down the speed of your site, so do take care when loading them on your site. However, as with your home PC, a firewall serves as a layer between your site and the outside world.

    These plugins require a little more than a basic install and activation, but they are worth considering:

    WP Simple Firewall:

    http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-simple-firewall/

    This is a simple yet effective plugin. It is relatively new and the lack of a premium upgrade catch makes this one a good plugin to test and secure your site with. Note that if you do install this, you can uninstall Login Lockdown.

    Dealing with SPAM…

    Spam can slow your site down and fill your comments area with garbage! For this I would recommend one of two plugins:

    1. Akismet

    Built in wordpress plugin. Requires you to register a WordPress account.
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/

    2. Anti-Spam

    Another simple and effective plugin that works really well at minimising spam.
    http://wordpress.org/plugins/anti-spam/

    Hopefully these tips will help you improve your website security.