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Tips To Create Great Meta Descriptions

Meta description is the first thing about a website that we see on the SERPs. And so, it is highly important to make sure that you have optimized your Meta descriptions in an ideal manner. It may be worth mentioning here that Meta descriptions are not directly helpful with the rankings. However, this signal, even being an indirect one, plays a huge role in your SEO.

Things that are dependent on Meta description include click-through rate, perception about the quality results, and a perception about what is being offered in the web page.

Importance of Meta description for SEO

In the olden days of SEO, Meta description was perceived to be the factor helping in the SEO. You may wonder if it helped the websites to rank. Google states it categorically that neither Meta description was a part of ranking process in the past nor it is the case in the present. However, it is actually the primary description that helps your users understand what’s in the web page. If they like the description, they enter the website. And if the description is not convincing, they simply refer to other search results in the SERPs.

Given the function the Meta description has to perform, it becomes evident that it is the very first step that can help you in improving CTR, boosting traffic, increasing the chances of more conversions.

Difference between Meta Description and SERP Snippets

Many of the people mistake Meta description and search snippets to be the two names of one thing. It is not the case actually. Meta description is mainly an HTML tag which you can control. Its creation and optimization is entirely up to you.

On the other hand, search snippets are controlled by Google. Google creates them and show them on the SERPs. A search snippet may contain Meta description or the Google may choose to use any other part of description from the content body of the web page.

Now, we are going to discuss some tips to improve your Meta Descriptions.

The ideal or recommended length of Meta description

Over the years, the best SEO practice had been to keep Meta description no lengthier than 160-165 characters. However, Google changed it in the last year. Now, you can insert a Meta description of up to 300 characters. It means that you have got more space in which you can add an extra bit of details to the summary of what you want your users to see in the Meta description.

Research the SERPs

It is actually more of a manual approach to see what is going to be ideal for you. You can do a little SERP research to find out what is going on in the industry.

  • First, you need to research the SERPs using your targeted keyword. The process can be a bit of time consuming but it is actually quite straightforward. And it is the way you can see where your competitors stand when people use the targeted query you are using at the moment.
  • Then you are going to do a little research on what your competitors are doing. SERP research is helpful in this regard obviously.
  • The data being displayed from the above two steps can be exported in the spreadsheet. This way, you can do an effective tracking.

Researching your clients

Another factor on which the success of your Meta description depends heavily is the description’s alignment with what your customers like at every phase of the buying journey.That’s where you are going to have to do an extensive research because the marketing funnel can be different for different audiences.

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Impact of Mobile-First Index on SEO

One thing consistent about World Wide Web is that it goes through a lot of changes. And it is mainly due to the major search engines which are being used by internet users. In this scenario, we will talk about Google because it is a universally accepted platform to serve people from almost all of the countries.

In this article, we will talk about the mobile first index and its impact on SEO and rankings.

Mobile first informational needs are changing

There is not a specific type of content which is appropriate for the mobile-first index. The ranking of a particular type of content against certain queries can vary when we move from one query to another.

In this scenario, it is also worth talking about the queries that people use while searching on the web through their mobile devices. The latest evolution in this regard is the use of personal and conversational search queries.

Web search has come through a long way to offer personalization to the web users.But it doesn’t mean that other general searches are not applicable. They are very much functional. In fact, those general queries tell us about the ranking a specific page in a better way.

Satisfy the users

If you want answers to your questions, you are going to have to identify the problems your users are facing.

While looking at SERPs, you are going to see different types of sites. Some would be review sites, some might be informational sites, and come would be educational sites.

This difference between the sites is enough of a reason for you to understand that people approach internet to solve their different problems. And so, they want different informational resources to get their answers. In this scenario, SERPs are enough to guide you.

Defining relevance in Mobile-First Index

We all know what user intent means in the world of Google and all other major search engines. Based on this definition, the relevance of content has become more important than ever.

In this scenario, the ability of Google and other search engines to understand the intent has become the point of emphasis. And this ability can change with the change in the core algorithm. It means that the response to a query based on search intent may be different at certain occasions.

These are the same criteria which are considered in the ranking of desktop SERPs. It means that it all comes down whether or not the website is mobile friendly when it comes to the assignment of rank to this website in mobile SERPs.However, it has to be made sure that the mobile friendly website fulfills the search intent requirements. If it doesn’t, it will certainly not be ranked above a desktop friendly website which fulfills the requirements of search intent.

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Tips To Improve Navigation of Your Website

Among many other factors that make a website great, website navigation is the one that stands out loud. With the help of effective website navigation, it will be very easy for the visitors to find the content they want. And search engines will also be able to crawl through every page of your site.The end result will be in the form of better traffic and improved conversions.

What is website navigation?

Website navigation is based on the links that connect pages of your website with each other. The main purpose of website navigation is to help users find the content they want in a convenient manner.

The pages in your website are discovered and indexed by search engines with the help of website navigation. The linking in website navigation helps search engines understand the content and context of the pages behind the links.

However, the primary purpose of the website navigation is not about influencing the search engines. Users have to be considered on priority. And what’s more important to notice here is that search engines have become smart enough to align themselves with the priorities of users.

Website Navigation & Content Hierarchies

You can relate the website navigation with the index or table of contents of a book. Based on this example, you may be able to assume that the websites may have content hierarchies, which are surely there. You will be able to see categories and subcategories in the website. The categories are the main classifications of the content. These main classifications are further broken down into narrower classifications or subcategories. This type of content hierarchy makes the website’s structure sensible not only for the users but also for the search engines.

The problem with the content hierarchies

While content hierarchy is an extremely important thing to be there in the website, it can lead to some issues related to the search engines activity and the pages ability to gain traffic. The process of categorization and building hierarchies creates content silos. These are the clusters of closely related topics.

The problem with the silos is that they make the pages look like the duplicate content resources. Some of the content silos get more external links, while some might not get as many links. The pages with more links get more traffic. And the pages with fewer links get low traffic.

The content hierarchies can isolate certain page clusters which are located too deep in the hierarchy. Here, you may wonder if there is a way to resolve this issue. Well, there are a few. First, you can categorize content to form category hierarchies. You are going to have to interlink those pages properly.

Secondly, you can find pages that are under different categories but still share similarities. Those pages can be interlinked with each other.

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Tips for Ethical Link Building In 2020

Unless you are running a quite popular website, chances are you are going to need to acquire links. And its importance is evident from the fact that Google has declared content and links as biggest SEO factors.

So, if you are sticking with the development of content only and not paying attention to the links, you are not going to get the important referral traffic which can help your website to rank higher. But one thing worth mentioning in this regard is that Google has put some strict guidelines regarding how to build links.

Thus, you are going to have to make sure that you are doing link building in a positive way. In this article, we are going to talk about the ethical ways to build links.

Be a journalistic source of information

The only way you can get high quality links is to offer high quality content to the important stakeholders in this trade.And for this purpose, you are going to have to be a journalistic source of information.

For instance, you can offer a quote, tip, or piece of information in exchange of a mention of your name, brand, or one of your blog posts.

If you want to make your content impactful, you are going to have to include expert interviews, quotes, or roundups in it.This way of content development is amazing.You can get different views around a specific topic. Your readers are going to find it very interesting going through those pieces of information.And this is how you are going to get links.

Link reclamation

The concept of broken link building is not new. This technique involves searching for the content which contains anchor texts you can target. And you find the content hoping for the links to be broken. The next thing you are going to have to do is to get your link inserted in place of the broken link.

While this way of link building is great, it is nothing less than a headache. You are going to have to scan hundreds of articles to find one link spot.

If you find this way of link building difficult, you can work on link reclamation. Link reclamation is the process that focuses mainly on brand mentions. If someone writes about you but doesn’t post a link back to your website, you can ask them to place a link there in the mention. The nicest way of doing so starts with thanking them about the mention. Then you will have to ask them for the link to your website to be placed. The best part is that this process allows you to build a connection with those people for further collaboration.

Guest posting

Guest posting is a pretty old method for link building; and it has been a topic of debate regarding if this way of link building really works. Well, the matter of fact is that guest posting really allows you to build high quality links which are going to benefit your website in a very nice way. All you have to do is to focus on quality. Make sure that you are writing high quality content for the high authority websites.

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Some Bad SEO Tactics You Need To Forget

Some Bad SEO Tactics You Need To Forget

We are about to enter into a new decade. And it’s now the perfect time to forget about the bad SEO habits which simply do not work. Search engines have become more user-centric in the recent times. So, if you are focusing search engines and not the users, you are actually on a mistake. And every SEO mistake generally originates from the habits of focusing search engines while forgetting about the users. Well, it’s the time to forget about the bad habits now. In this article, we are going to talk about the bad habits which you really need to say goodbye to.

Creating pages with similar content

The tactic of creating pages with similar content is not quite prevalent in these days but some people still do it. The general purpose of this tactic is to target keywords. Well, the bad news is that this tactic doesn’t work at all now.

Link building using generic and template emails

You are not going to like receiving spam emails. So it is going to be unfair sending such emails to the others. Remember, link building has become a way of marketing rather than just an SEO trick. This is the reason that researching for the right audience is really important before you send your emails.

So, it is not going to be much fruitful sending generic emails to a larger domain of people asking for the link. Instead, you can send fewer emails to the people you have done your research on and you know that they are going to give you the link.

Trying to resolve every ranking issue with more links

While links matter more than majority of other ranking factors, it is not a wisest approach to solve this every ranking problem with the help of more links.

Links are basically seen as an appreciation for your website. And so, they need to be gathered in a very natural manner. If the links are gathered in an unnatural manner, they are going to do more harm than good.

Not paying attention to the content

If you have figured out that your website is lacking necessary amount of links, you first have to pay attention to the factors that can help you gain links. And the most important factor to talk about is the content. Even if you have certain other SEO requirement, you are going to have to make sure that you have high quality content on your website.

In this scenario, you have to make sure that you are not going for the creation of marginal content for the purpose of ‘improving’ SEO.It is not going to serve the purpose. The content needs to be of good quality.

Skipping fundamental on-page SEO elements

For better traffic, you are going to need to optimize on-page elements on your website for the best of your site.For instance, you have to pay attention to the creation of a good title for the page. This title should be properly optimized in accordance with the keywords you are using.

Not fixing technical problems

Every website performs on some technical grounds. These technical elements mainly include website structure, error-free navigation, page speed, design responsiveness, and much more. Make sure that you have fixed every problem which is affecting any of these technical elements.

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Tips To Improve Your Rankings with Topic-Focused SEO Strategy

Keywords hold great value for SEO. This is the reason that SEO professionals are quite concerned about the keyword research they do. But times have changed now. A few years back, keyword-focused strategy may have been effective but now the search engines use updated algorithms that primarily focus on what users want. This is the reason that focusing on topics instead of keywords may be the best approach.

Difference between topics and keywords

You may wonder what the difference between a topic and a keyword is. In simple words, we can describe topic as a more holistic way of approaching keyword research. You can describe a topic as a combination of difference terms which may be used at different phases during a buyer’s journey. And that makes it pretty easy for you to create content because you will know well about the type of content required based on what the topic is demanding.

Start with a strategy

While you are building your site or rethinking its structure, you are going to have to step back and develop a strategy for the topics that you need to focus on. For this purpose, you will first have to look at the broader perspective of your offerings. This way, you will be able identify the topics that you need to cover.

The best thing that can happen as a result of this approach is that you can get ideas about more semantically relevant terms related to the topic.

Research your competitors

After you have understood what content you are going to need to develop, now you have to look within the industry to find out who ranks well with that type of content. The reason they are ranking well means they are doing something right. If you want to stand out, you will have to keep this competition in focus.

After you have analyzed the competition, you will have to run the competitors’ site through a tool to see how well they are performing against certain terms over a period of time. This will give you an idea about what your competitors are doing. Now look at the structure of their content which is ranking.

Intent

Search engines have become smarter enough to know what a user is searching for. They have been basically programmed to identify the user intent. It means that if you want your content to rank well, you are going to have to focus on the user intent instead of just keywords.

While you can use many tools to get a list of search phrases, there is another way you can find search intent behind a query. You can simply search in incognito or private windows of web browsers.

You will be surprised. You will just enter the basic keyword, and the results are going to be more educational.

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Important SEO Trends to Focus In 2020

At the end of every year, it is important to look into the future prospects, especially when you are running a business. Doing SEO of your company’s or your website is nothing less than a serious business which demands good allocation of resources and a nice strategy in order to be successful. In this article, we are going to talk about the SEO trends which you are going to have to focus in 2020.

BERT and user-focused optimization

BERT algorithm by Google has got great bit of attention from the SEO professionals because it is an algorithm which is mainly tasked with improving search experience of the users. So, the best way to optimize for BERT is to not keep BERT in primary focus. Since it is all about users now, the SEO professionals have to make sure that their SEO efforts are focused on entertaining users more than ever.

The main areas of focus in this regard surely involve keyword optimization as the first thing. You have to make sure that you are focusing user intent while doing on-page optimization of your site. And then, it is all about the content that you are creating. Make sure that your content is of highest value for the users.

High quality, optimized content

SEO is all about the content that you create. It is the content that has to be showcased well. Everything that you do with your site in terms of SEO tends to bring people to your content. And so, you have to make sure that it is convincing enough to turn your visitors into the site users.After you have worked well on the topic research, make sure that you are creating only high quality content around those topics.

One important thing in this regard is that you have to do an extensive research to find the right audience that you want to target. If you are promoting your content in front of the people who have nothing to do with what you are offering, you are simply wasting your time and resources.

E-A-T

There has been a lot of discussion about E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) in the recent years. And this discussion is going to continue in 2020. As a matter of fact, these factors are going to be even more important in the years to come. Great level of expertise is required for the website SEO. It means that you have to make sure that you are creating high quality content only. And authoritativeness is all about the way you show off what you are promoting. And that can happen only when you are using authentic and genuine references for the content which you are offering to your users. And finally, you have to win the trust of your audience. it can happen only when you have worked on the previous factors.

UX & Technical SEO

Since web is becoming more user-centric, it has become really important for the marketers to make sure that they have the ability to entertain users well. In this scenario, it is worth talking about the user experience, or UX.

User experience is not just about the design elements and nice themes, even though they are highly important. User experience is mainly about making the site good for consumption in a holistic manner. It also involves the way your website’s navigation works. The response of your site is also a part of user experience. And at a reasonable extent, the content that you create is also a part of the user experience.

Moreover, you have to make sure that you have worked well on the technical SEO of your site. as a matter of fact, technical SEO involves many factors which can help in improving user experience of your site.

Mobile SEO

Most of the people now interact with the web using their smartphones and mobile devices. And so, it shouldn’t be a surprise for you that you need to work on mobile SEO if you want to do well in 2020. While this SEO is almost the same as regular SEO, it emphasizes on the efforts to improve web experience for the mobile users.

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Some Roadblocks to Link Building Success and Ways to Avoid Them

Link building can be highly beneficial for the website if done right. As a matter of fact, links hold importance for the SEO more than any other thing. This is the reason that it needs to be a part of overall SEO strategy.

One thing that you need to keep in mind about link building is that it requires commitment because it takes time to deliver results. Moreover, you have to make sure that you have planned the link building strategy well.

In this article, we are going to talk about common roadblocks that can make your journey to link building success quite a struggling one. We will also talk about the ways to avoid them.

Not paying attention to the quality assets

Many people do not pay attention to quality assets on their sites. One of the assets to talk about is the high quality content that you need to create. High quality content helps you get more readers coming to your site. And so, you are going to have better chance at reaching and engaging key targets and strengthening your authority in the eyes of Google and users.

When it comes to creating content, one of the ideas is to create content for influencers and experts. Influencing the influencers can help you reach a wider domain of people without any major struggle.

Another way is to create content based on research, data and statistics. This type of content has been noticed outperforming other types of content.

Lack of on-site optimization

It has been noticed that many people pay attention to the off-page optimization (i.e. link building) more than on-site optimization. Remember, link building can be quite powerful if you pay attention to the on-site optimization. Bad shape of the website will only cause users abandoning your site before performing any action on your site.

On-page elements that you need to take into consideration here mainly include site and URL structure, desktop and mobile experience, page loading speed, redirects, broken pages and links, optimized page tagging elements, internal link building, and much more.

Insufficient research

It seems great getting links from Forbes, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and so on. But if you are focusing only on this aspect of link building, you are actually looking for shortcuts. The mindset required for link building should be based on a purpose of getting short and long term benefits from links.

In this scenario, you need to start with the competitive analysis. You need to see where your competitors are getting links from. And you also have to see the publications which are linking to your competitors’ sites. You will need to see what tactics they are following. And most importantly, you will have to analyze if any of those practices are applicable in your case.

Another aspect of research is the keyword research. That’s where you are actually looking at what users are searching for. The methods used in keyword research for on-page optimization are well-known. You are going to have to apply same methods to see what your audience wants to see; and then use this data to get links.

Poor tracking and automation

Link building is not game to just make the links and watch the traffic coming in. you are going to have to do effective organization to make sure that you are getting results.For this purpose, you need to maintain and organize data about the link building opportunities as well as information about the traffic which you are already getting from the existing links.

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Tips to Use Podcasts for Link Building

Podcasts had been living in the world of obscurity less than a decade ago but it has become one of the fastest growing marketing mediums. The reason is that it allows people to listen to the content they want to consume. But for marketers, podcasts are not just the audio files their audiences would listen to. It has actually become a medium that can gather links – thus benefitting the SEO in general.

The first reason is that podcasts can persuade people to search for a person or brand. This branded search can be quite beneficial for the website being searched. And so, Google tends to improve the ranking of that site based on this organic search activity.

Another reason is that podcasts are now available outside the major platforms such as iTunes and Stitcher.

Whether you are having a podcast or you are a guest in one, you can use your presence in that audio in favor of your organic search ranking by earning some valuable links.

Hosting your own podcast

If you want to build a loyal audience, you can host a podcast. Moreover, it can be an effective way to develop relationships with the people in your industry.

In this article, we are not going to talk about how to start a podcast. Our main focus is to talk about the ways to earn links through podcast. For this purpose, you have to do the research about the topic people would want to listen to.And that could mean no branding at all in the first few podcasts.

If you think that you are going to do great by yourself, you can go with a monologue format in the podcast. Otherwise, interviewing others is a practically beneficial way to earn a name.

No matter what format you are going with, you have to make sure that you are going with the original and valuable content. In case you are interviewing others, you can ask them to share the link of those podcasts in their websites and social circles.

Be a guest in other podcasts

You can be a guest in other podcasts to earn online reputation for your brand. And it can be a great way to earn links. This is due to the fact that your hosts are going to share your website link in their podcasts.

The main focus of podcasters is to have knowledgeable guests in their podcasts. So if you think that you have a particular skill set, unique knowledge, or an interesting opinion, you can consider showing your availability as a guest in podcasts. In this scenario, you have to make sure that you are pitching your story in such a manner that your hosts will care what you are saying.

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Some Link Building Tactics Which Should Be Avoided

Links have their importance since the inception of SEO. This is the reason that Google always seems to focus on the quality and relevance of links.

In this scenario, you may notice that Google chooses to ignore certain links. That is due to the fact that those links do not represent a true recommendation. It means that if you have placed a link on a webpage only for the purpose of promotion, you are not going to get a thumbs-up by Google and other major search engines. A genuine link signal involves linking to the webpage which is relevant to your content.

In this article, we are going to talk about the link building tactics which you actually need to avoid.

Historical data link trap

When links are placed in a piece of content, this link addition is seen as a part of overall improvement of the content. So, if you are adding links without paying attention to the content of the page, this practice is not going to be admired by Google. Therefore, you are going to have to make sure that you are adding links in an existing web page only after improving your content according to the user requirements.

EDU Discount Link Building

In the past, there may have been a loophole which allowed people to get instant traffic to rank their pages by building links in EDU web pages. But now, this practice is blacklisted; and so, you are going to get penalized if you are still building links this way. Google has made consistent algorithmic changes in the previous years, and building links through this tactic is a clear violation of Google’s guidelines.

Content Marketing Links

No, we are not talking about guest posting. There are a lot of ways you can do content marketing. One of the major ways is to establish a site by adding content in it on a regular basis. Another way of content marketing involves hiring a writer who writes the articles and publishes on third party websites. That is called advertising. And that is the content marketing version which has the capability to violate FTC Guidelines.

Viral link campaigns

It is important to note that viral link building can be both successful and unsuccessful depending on the ways it is executed. The good kind of link campaigns mainly involves driving users to the pages which can be beneficial for them. In this scenario, the link campaigns may involve less link creation and more awareness building.

On the other hand, an off-topic link campaign is less likely to deliver results. The reason is that it tends to have no value for the users because it is not created for the purpose of bringing any kind of awareness.

Sponsor links

If you think a bit realistically, you will see that links generated from a philanthropic event are not going to be quite meaningful. This kind of link building is pretty similar to the viral link campaign which doesn’t produce results. If you really want to explain something in a webpage through link building to the users, you are going to have to find another page within your site to further explain what you are writing.This organic link building will not bring quick traffic to your site but it works in the long term.