Search Engine Optimization

On-page Optimization Guide Posted 10.13.2016

seo on page optimization guide

On-page optimization takes up one quarter (25%) of all SEO elements. This guide will help you to understand the importance of all areas regarding on-page optimization and how they work together to make your website the best that it can be.

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Pagination or Infinite Scroll for SEO?

Deciding how a user will navigate through content is one of the most important decisions a digital publisher can make from a usability perspective. The type of navigation used on a website can have a huge effect on conversions and user engagement. There are currently two popular ways for this to handle this sort of navigation. When there is a certain number of items per page with many pages listed or “next” and “back” indication, this is called pagination. Or, you can make it so that more content will load as the page scrolls, known as infinite scrolling. Which will work best in regards to search engine optimization? Read on to find out.

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penguin4

Driving Internet traffic to your site can be a constant battle. Thousands and thousands of sites exist out in cyberspace, and in any given Google search, hundreds of sites will show up in search results as potentially relevant to your key word search. If you want to be successful and draw people to your site, you have to know the system. Users will only go through so many different pages of search results. At some point the user will feel that he or she has looked through as many relevant search results as needed to make a good choice. As a web developer, you want your page to be at the top or at least close to the top of that search result list. However, countless other sites want the same exact thing. The problem is the methods of achieving this goal have not always been on the up-and-up, and it is for these reasons programs, such as the Penguin Algorithm, were created.

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Redirection and the Impact on SEO Rankings

SEO stands for search engine optimization. Redirection is a term to describe the act of forwarding one URL to a different URL. Redirecting a page usually means you are giving the page a brand new URL. The act of redirection is pretty simple and is used frequently, most of the time unbeknownst to the page’s visitors. There are free tools that you can use to confirm if your page redirects are working as they should be.

When set up correctly, an instant redirect that no one even notices will happen. In a perfect world, your SEO rankings will not be affected either. SEO, or search engine optimization, is your key to getting visitors to your site, so it is very important to pay attention and help this as much as possible.

When executed properly, redirects will not harm your SEO rankings at all. Conversely, when executed improperly, they can destroy your SEO rankings. Read on to understand how these two things have to work together in order to allow your site to succeed and pick up some tips on how to go about doing it.

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Seo Copywriting: How to Write for Search Engine Optimization

If you’ve ever wondered how popular websites are able to drive people to their sites and generate millions of views, it’s likely a result of great SEO copywriting. Knowing how to utilize SEO copywriting can help your site deliver great content and meet the expectations of your audience. When you use the right combination of SEO copywriting, web browsers will find your content without searching too hard. But like many other tools, mastering SEO copywriting requires work and some trial and error. It’s a vital component of any serious developer’s SEO strategy. Digital algorithms are always changing. This change has to be addressed even before it happens. What’s more, your content still has to be enjoyable. So how can you appeal both to your audience and the changing codes behind computer languages? Mastering SEO for successful application can be done by choosing the right words and content presentation that is easy to find and engaging to an audience.

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SEO for Higher Education Posted 08.22.2016

seo higher education

The Opportunity for Search Engine Optimization

Colleges and universities can improve their search engine rankings by focusing on a proper website structure, good content development, and a strategic use of keywords.

Search engine optimization is the process used to manage website content in a way that will elevate the ranking in search engines. The most predominant place that people research information and make their informed decisions are search engines. In relation to higher education, potential students may be researching schools, the academic community will be researching topics, and Web users will be looking for academic information on Google as well as any other search engines. The impact that searching on the web has on higher education is quite important. Education accounts for a very high percentage of web traffic that is generated by search engine referrals. Because of this, it is vital for colleges and universities to achieve higher rankings for popular search terms.

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SEO for Startups Posted 10.17.2016

seo for startups

Startup companies have so much on their plates from design to development, testing to financing, staffing to outreach—and this is all just a portion of their issues. No matter when industry they are in, being a startup is not an easy thing as the few people running them are bound to do all of the work very early on in the business's life cycle. When an entrepreneur is an expert in their field and know a lot about how to conduct a business in their area, they are probably not worried about perfecting their SEO. Even so, it is not mandatory to dedicate a team of people to optimize or market a website. When you are keen to put in good SEO practices in early on in a website's creation, it will pay off over time as the business gets larger.

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SEO vs. PPC: Which One Should You Choose?

Do you have a new business and are not sure about how to begin promoting it? Are you thinking about expanding the company's current marketing efforts to digital? If the answer to these questions is yes, you probably find yourself in the frustrating situation of questions leading to more questions, with the original questions still needing answers. What are SEO and PPC? Which one should I use? What should I expect? Are they the same thing?

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Should You Use Nofollow Links For SEO

A Nofollow link is an HTML attribute that tells search engines not to follow the link to its destination. This means that search engines will not consider the linked page a factor in their rankings. An example of a Nofollow link is when a blog author links to a sponsored post on their site but wants to clarify to search engines that they are not endorsing the product. By adding the Nofollow attribute to the link, the search engine will not give the linked site any SEO credit for the link.

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Sitemaps for SEO Posted 03.30.2015

Sitemaps for SEO

A Sitemap’s purpose is spelling out a website’s main content and to provide search engines with the content they should present to visitors who search keyword phrases.  Back in the early days of websites and search engines, SEO firms made huge profits by submitting websites they supported to thousands of search engines that were in existence. Today’s SEO is much different; we seek to take full advantage of any opportunities to provide our content in all of the appropriate types of media available. Here are some tips for an effective and useful sitemap and how to implement it into your website.

What distinguishes an ok sitemap from a great one?

A great sitemap does the following:

  • Show a fast, easy to understand overview of the website.
  • Provide pathways for SE algorithms to follow.
  • Provide text links to every sub-page of the website site.
  • Show visitors where the information they desire is located.
  • Improves how your website is indexed by search engines.

 

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Social Media & SEO: Why Your SEO Strategy Needs To Include Social

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has always been an escalating arms race. Companies and advertisers continue to look for new ways to organically push their desired results to the top of search engines. Likewise, search engines constantly update their algorithms to combat keyword stuffing and ensure the true cream rises to the top. This constant push and pull has given rise to a new focus in the field. While good, old-fashioned, keyword focused, SEO is still a necessary part of any successful campaign, a growing number of new-age marketers are turning to social media for an added boost.

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The Best Content Management System (CMS) for SEO

Almost everyone has an online presence today, and getting your business or blog noticed means it has to be attractive and accessible. Making the right choice when looking at a content management system (CMS) to build your site can be the difference between ending up on the search engine’s first results page or its last—and most people don’t even bother with the second page.

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The History of SEO and Search Engines

Search engines are used by millions of people every day to find out information about almost any topic you can think of. It is almost hard to imagine a time before you were able to ask the internet a question and find the answer in just a few seconds.

Search engines today are much more advanced than they used to be – even just 30 years ago when they first came about. Using this internet feature is so easy these days. It is even possible to use your voice to find what you are looking for instead of typing in keywords or phrases. Previously, internet search engines were not this simple. In fact, you had to know precisely what you were looking for to find it successfully when they were first being used. Here is a brief history of internet search engines, beginning with the creation of the internet.

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The Ins and Outs of SEO Posted 10.20.2015

The Ins and Outs of SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of changing the visibility of a website or webpage within the unpaid portion of a search engine results page. This unpaid portion is sometimes referred to “organic”, “natural”, or “earned”. More often than not, the higher ranked on this search results page and the more frequently that the site occurs on the search results page, the more visitors that it will get from the users of the search engine. These visitors likely then become converted into customers. Search engine optimization can target several different searches like video search, image search, news search, academic search, and searches that are industry-specific. SEO is different from local search engine optimization, simply because local search engine optimization is focused on enhancing the online presence of a business so that search engines will display the pages when a user has entered a local search for the product or service.

Traditional SEO stays more focused on national searches. When used as a marketing strategy on the internet, SEO is based on how search engines work, what individuals are searching for, and the search terms or keywords that are being typed into search engines, along with which search engines are being used by the target audience. SEO can include things liked: editing content, HTML, and code to increase its relevancy to particular keywords and to remove barriers so that the site can be properly indexed by search engines. SEO can be something like increasing the number of backlinks or inbound links of a website. As time goes on, SEO strategies are changing, as now more searches are being performed on mobile devices than on desktops, so SEO for mobile websites is getting off of the ground. All of the major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) have their primary search results, so it is vital that a website be optimized to show up for any of these that show results based on what is relevant to the user's search query. All of these search engines crawl, index, and retrieve content in order to deliver what is most relevant.

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Top 10 Backlink Checker Tools for SEO

Marketing your website for free can be possible if you have a high search visibility. Having good backlinks is a great way to get a higher rank when it comes to SEO. There are many factors that can have an impact on a website’s SEO, and backlinks are an important one. Backlinks are when one site links to another site. If a website has a link that leads visitors to your website, this can help you to get a higher ranking in SEO.

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Top 10 Content Planning Tools for Content Marketing

Content is the heart and soul of a company’s website. Without good content, your website will not be successful, and your business will likely have a difficult time sustaining in this ever-changing world. With so many businesses and websites out there, customers will go where they feel comfortable. When your website content is not inviting or helpful, they will take their business elsewhere. This is why it is so important to make sure you strategize before publishing your website. Planning what kind of content your website will have and how you will present it can only help you to be more prepared for what lies ahead. With both technology and the world constantly changing, you will need to make sure your website content is keeping up with the competition that is out there.

Planning will help you to determine what goals your company has and how you would like to meet them through setting up your website and having it go live. It will also assist you in targeting the audiences and demographics you want to reach. Depending on the size of your business, you will want to consider what areas you want to reach. Knowing and understanding your audience is also part of the content planning, and it will help you choose the best content that speaks to people and draws them in. In addition, planning allows you to test out your content before spending the time and money on coding. This way, you can find what works and what doesn’t work. Fix problems before they become detrimental to your business. No one ever regretted planning ahead.

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For anyone who has an established website with good traffic and search rankings, the greatest challenge of a website redesign is reaching or surpassing the current algorithms so rankings and traffic is not lost. That is generally not an easy task, and for good reasons. Let's look at the top 10 website redesign mistakes site owners usually make.

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Top 15 Plagiarism Tools for Finding Duplicate Content

Copying another person’s work is not only morally wrong but can ruin your reputation. There are many tools on the internet that can be used to catch plagiarism before it is published. If you are a web designer who would like to make sure you are not overstepping your boundaries or a publisher that would like to check in on your clients’ work, these tools can be extremely helpful in detecting plagiarism. Many professors and students from high schools and college use these online plagiarism tools in order to check their work. There are so many articles out there these days, and it is important to make sure your work or the work of your students is original.

Professors, editors, students, and people from many other professions rely on these tools in order to make sure they are producing original work that will not violate plagiarism. Plagiarism may not always be committed on purpose. It is possible that it happens accidentally due to the fact that there is so much text on the internet with social media and blogging.

The tools are not only helpful—they are easy to use, and the best part is they are free. It is worth it to take the time before submitting your work. While they don’t take a lot of time to use, it is an extra step to remember before completing an assignment. It is a step that might save you hassle in the long run.

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Top 15 Tools for Measuring Website or Application Speed

The speed of a website often determines how likely we are to stay on it. In fact, for some us, speed is even more important than the look of the site. It can be extremely annoying to have to wait for a page to load, and more often than not, we lost interest pretty quickly and move on.

This is bad for business. If you want customers to linger just a little bit longer on your products, if you want your SEO rankings to remain competitive and generally provide a better experience to the visitors of your site, then speed should be somewhere near the top of your priority list.

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Top 25 SEO Blogs to Stay Up-to-date with Search

What blogs do you read, and how do they help you shape your blog or website? The type of blogs (and specific blogs) you read or subscribe to can influence your site development. But did you know that they can also help you with your website optimization?

Having access to a list that compares blogs according to their search engine optimization ranking allows you as a blogger (or website owner, for that matter) to check up on what SEO trends are working the best. This access, in turn, allows you to adjust your optimization methods and marketing plans, and start implementing successful changes.

On the other hand, perhaps you’re an SEO expert or looking to become an SEO freelancer. Maybe you’ve been promoted at work or transferred, and need to start brushing up on SEO trends as part of your new position’s responsibilities.

As with most aspects of online marketing schemes, the realm of SEO tends to evolve on an almost constant basis. Most of the evolving trends won’t require much change on your part, but others most definitely will. In fact, thanks to recent developments in the voice search capabilities of search engines (as an example), updating your SEO methodology has become a requirement rather than an option. Due to the change in how search engines interact with your site, a host of new features and functions have been introduced.

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