The Simple Logic of Search Engine Optimization

You may be familiar with the concept of search engine optimization (SEO), but might not fully grasp its significance for your website.

SEO involves optimizing your website to be easily found by search engines, thus generating more traffic. This article will explain how SEO can enhance your organic traffic and provide you with tips to get started.

While some may question the impact of SEO on their blogs, it remains an essential aspect. In fact, we will address SEO as our primary topic in this article.

We will delve into why achieving a high rank and obtaining backlinks play a crucial role in driving traffic from Google’s indexing database. Additionally, we will offer best practices to ensure that your site gets indexed and recognized.

Let’s get right to it!

The impact of SEO on search engine results

SEO has a significant impact on search engine results. Every search engine, of which there are many, requires that the content it indexes meets specific criteria to be considered as a result for a user.

These criteria are determined internally by the structure of each search engine. To select content for indexing, a search engine must analyze or crawl that content.

The aim of content creators is to provide content that meets these criteria. When the search engine analyzes or crawls the content, it should find what it needs and decide to index it algorithmically.

Once indexed, internal algorithms assess the quality of the content and determine its position in the displayed results for users searching for related content.

However, the process doesn’t end there. There will always be a need for new and improved content, so only the highest-rated content will remain. This is true as long as no better content is discovered or indexed.

Effective marketing relies on high-quality content.

By creating content that is optimized for certain search engine criteria, your site and mine will have a predominant position in those search results, but not always, because you need to keep your content within the quality framework that the search engines demand.

And because the quality score is constantly changing, you need to constantly optimize your content or create new, high-quality content that is targeted to your audience.

And that’s exactly what SEO does for search results: By forcing content creators to produce the kind of content that users want to click through and read, SEO increases the likelihood that your site will rank higher in SERPs. This leads to more visibility, more traffic, and ultimately more customers for your product or service.

Comparison between Google and alternative search engines

I know that while you read the above, Google crossed your mind, but this is not only about Google, this is about any search engine out there. Google is great and its infrastructure is huge and optimized for processing big data regarding search results, but there are other search engines that sometimes bring business and they are worth the investment.

This is a great piece of advice because it makes you think outside the box and not only about Google. Yes, we all want to be ranked high on Google, but if you have a niche business, you might want to think about other search engines as well.

Let me give you an example:

Your website focuses on jokes. Your writers or contributors give you jokes. If the jokes don’t make you laugh, you don’t post them. Now, imagine a new contributor gives you a recipe for making pancakes.

Is that what you want? No, it’s not. So, you won’t include that content and you’ll be annoyed because the contributor wasted your time and resources. So, what do you do?

First, you consider that contributor as “not worthy” of providing joke-related content.

Second, you realize that the contributor didn’t pay attention to your content guidelines, which are implicit in the kind of content you desire.

Third, if the contributor provides more content in the future, you’ll take your time, save the content, and maybe, if you feel like it, read it. But you won’t expect anything good unless there’s a surprise! However, that contributor needs to establish their value, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.

So, remember what you aim to achieve with your content, and as a contributor, make sure you provide what search engines want.

In any case, make sure your content is relevant and of high quality.

SEO will always bring the highest quality traffic to your website.

SEO is constantly changing and evolving as new techniques are discovered and implemented. However, one thing remains certain: good SEO will always deliver the best traffic to your website. This is because search engines are designed to give users the most relevant results for their queries.

And since SEO focuses on delivering the most relevant content to a user, it stands to reason that your website will benefit from better rankings and more traffic.

In addition, e-commerce sites often face a unique challenge in that they have a large number of products in an online shopping cart. In order to cope with this, they need to use different approaches when it comes to SEO. Often, this means focusing on delivering traffic rather than sales.

However, by using effective SEO techniques, these sites can still see excellent results in terms of increased traffic and more sales.

What Questions Should You Be Asking About SEO?

When it comes to SEO investment, there are a lot of things to think about. But don’t worry – we’re here to help! Here are some questions you should be asking yourself when it comes to your website’s visibility in search engines:

What keyword research do I need to do?

Answer: Keyword research is the foundation of SEO. It’s what you need to do to find out which keywords are relevant for your website and how many people search for them on a regular basis.

How can I implement keywords on my website?

Answer: Keywords are used in many different places across your website. They can be included in the page title, meta description, body content, image alt tags, and URL.

How do I make sure my keywords are relevant?

Answer: You need to make sure that the words you use on your website match what people are searching for in search engines.

What types of content will help me rank higher?

Answer: The content you create for your website should be relevant, unique and informative. If it’s also entertaining or funny that will help too!

How do I know which keywords to target?

Answer: The keywords you use on your website should be based on what your audience is searching for in search engines.

How do I know if my SEO is working?

Answer: You can track how many people are finding your website through search engines by using Google Analytics.

You can also use a tool like SEMrush to see how many people are clicking on your links and where they’re coming from when they get to your site.

How can I learn more?

Answer: You can contact us or schedule a free consultation to learn more about SEO and how it can help your business succeed.

The Different Types of SEO Strategies and What They Mean for Your Business

There are three types of SEO strategies- black hat, white hat, and grey hat.

Black hat SEO refers to the act of ranking quickly by unethical means. It might work for a short period but, in the long-term, Google will penalize and blacklist your site, and consequently, you will lose not only your money but also your website’s reputation.

The search engine’s algorithm relies a lot on the number of links pointing to a website. So, one way many “SEOs” use to cheat the system is to buy links or use link-building services that create spammy links. This is known as backlinking and can be very damaging to your site if caught.

White hat SEO is focused on the human audience and uses the best practices for SEO, by giving humans and algorithms what they want. However, if you’re patient and play by the rules, you’ll be rewarded with better search engine rankings over time.

The grey hat approach is one that’s not as pure or innocent as white hat SEO but skirts around some of Google’s rules- like using link buying services without getting caught!

Google tends to penalize sites that use these techniques so it’s important to be careful when employing them.

The Different Elements of an SEO-Friendly Website

When it comes to SEO, there are many different elements that need to be in place in order for a website to rank well. Some of these elements include:

• Content on product and service pages should still be of high quality, but it is more important to focus on the keywords in your content.
• Focus on topic coverage, rather than length.
• Make sure your website is mobile-friendly.
• Use Schema markup on your website’s code.
• Create valuable and helpful content for potential consumers.
• Submit a sitemap to Google so they can better index your website’s pages.
• Make sure your website’s pages load as fast as possible, preferably below 2 seconds on mobile and desktop

10 most common SEO myths?

1. Keyword density has a powerful impact on a page’s ranking.
2. Domain Authority is part of Google’s ranking factors.
3. Links are not important.
4. Is mandatory to have only one H1 tag per page.
5. Meta descriptions are not essential for SEO.
6. SEO activities are only done once.
7. Social signals help rankings.
8. Duplicate content will get your website penalized.
9. Buying those 20,000 backlinks at $10 will work.
10. Using Google Ads will help your web pages show up higher in organic searches.

Honestly, you don’t need me to explain each of the above myths, you just have to keep them as what they are, lies!

SEO Myths Debunked: Stop Search Engine Optimization Fails

There are a lot of myths out there about SEO. above you found 10, but the truth is, they’re more than just 10. There are some common myths surrounding the use of search engine optimization, so we’re debunking them here.

SEO myths frequently get passed around, but they are typically not true. That’s why it’s important to adopt the right practices so that your website can perform well for SEO. At Speed SEO, we take SEO seriously – we’re serious about what we do, and how we do it.

The Truth About SEO

There is a lot of misinformation out there about SEO. Let’s set the record straight:

First and foremost, search engines, like Google especially, change their algorithms all the time. So if you’re not keeping a close eye on your marketing strategy and organic results every month, you’re going to quickly fall behind in the industry.

Second, optimization might include refreshing old articles and removing expired links from your website – but it goes beyond that. You must also ensure that all of your web pages are coded correctly and that you’re using the correct keywords throughout your site. This takes time and effort but is essential for generating revenue through organic traffic.

Third, don’t expect sluggish results if your website is new – it takes time for search engines to rank websites properly. Be patient!

Fourth, SEO requires great knowledge of the technology behind search engine optimization as well as a high level of skill and lots of patience. Conducting technical SEO can be difficult and time-consuming, but it is necessary to generate revenue for your business.

The Myths and Truths About SEO

There are many myths and misunderstandings about search engine optimization (SEO). People often think that SEO is all about stuffing keywords into your web pages or buying links to improve your ranking.

However, good SEO is much more than that. It’s a process of optimizing web pages and their content so that they are easier for search engine indexing software – known as “crawlers” – to find.

How do you know how much time to spend on SEO? The answer isn’t always clear, but you can tell a good SEO from a bad one by whether it drives more traffic, leads and sales.

Paid advertisements are not as effective as organic SEO in the long run – in fact, organic content (like blog posts) is more effective than paid advertisements for promoting your website’s content to relevant audiences.

Many of the most common SEO myths are borrowed from proprietary software programs like Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop. The best practices for SEO and marketing campaigns originate from data and research-driven sources like Google Analytics or any other analytic tools out there.

As such, paying attention to organic ranking gains you more traffic over time than paid campaigns alone.

What are the benefits of optimizing my website for organic traffic?

There are many benefits of optimizing your website for organic traffic. Some of these benefits include:

– Increased Traffic: When you optimize your website for SEO, you can drive more traffic to your site. This is because when you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), you receive more clicks from people looking for information on the topics that you cover.

– Improved Visibility: Optimizing your website for SEO also helps improve the visibility of individual parts of your site, like blog posts or product pages. This is because when you rank higher in SERPs, more people will see links to those pages and may click through to learn more.

– Better ROI: Organic traffic is often thought of as “free” traffic because it doesn’t require pay-per-click advertising as other methods do. This means that if you invest time and effort into optimizing your website for SEO, the payoff can be huge in terms of increased website visitors and revenue growth.

How can I improve my website’s ranking on Google?

There are many ways to improve your website’s ranking on Google. One way is to focus on loading speed, which is a key factor that Google takes into consideration. You can also improve your ranking by creating high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience.

Additionally, you can post content that attracts links and create new fresh content to help you rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

It’s important to remember that there are many factors that contribute to how well a website ranks on Google. Some of these factors include meta tags, internal and external links, and more. It’s also important to be aware of the many misconceptions about SEO ranking factors online. Quality Guidelines from Google is where you will find the true information about how best to rank your website.

Another important thing to keep in mind is the user experience (UX). You should focus on making sure that users have a positive experience when visiting your site. This means clarifying Google’s understanding of a page as well as improving the UX for your visitors.

In addition, it’s important to remember that Google encourages brands to create pages for their users, not for search engines alone. Again, page speed is an important ranking factor in SERPs – make sure your website loads quickly for users.

10 takeaways to improve your website’s rankings:

1. Focus on loading speed.
2. Create high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience.
3. Post content that attracts links
4. Create new fresh content to help you rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
5. Remember that there are many factors contributing to how well a website ranks.
6. Quality Guidelines from Google is where you will find the true information about how best to rank your website.
7. Google encourages brands to make pages for their authors.
8. Page speed is an important ranking factor.
9. You should focus on making sure that users have a positive experience.
10. Google’s understanding of a page is important.

11 most common SEO mistakes:

SEO can be a tricky thing, and it’s important to get it right if you want to see results. Here are some of the most common SEO mistakes people make:

1. Not using keywords properly: Keywords are essential for SEO, and if you don’t use them correctly, you won’t rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs). Make sure to include them throughout your website, including in the title, meta description, header tags, and body text.
2. Focusing on quantity over quality: It’s tempting to churn out as much content as possible in order to improve your SEO ranking, but this often leads to low-quality content that isn’t well-received by users. Instead, focus on creating high-quality content that will engage your audience and provide value.
3. Ignoring technical aspects of SEO: There are many technical aspects of SEO that must be taken into account in order for your website to rank high in SERPs. Make sure you’re optimizing your website’s codebase, robots.txt file, sitemaps, and more.
4. Neglecting social media marketing: Social media is an important part of any effective SEO strategy; neglecting it can hurt your ranking. Make sure to post regularly on social media, and use relevant hashtags to increase your reach.
5. Ignoring the importance of authorship: Authorship is a key part of Google’s algorithm. Make sure to claim your authorship, and establish yourself as an authority in your niche.
6. Ignoring mobile optimization: Mobile optimization is very important in today’s world. Make sure your website is responsive, and that it can be read easily on mobile devices.
7. Avoiding off-site SEO: Off-site SEO includes things like link building and social media. Make sure that your website is providing such great content that other trusted and industry-related websites in your field want to link back to it.
8. Making SEO a one-time thing: SEO is an ongoing process that requires constant attention. Make sure you are always looking for new ways to improve your SEO, and that you aren’t resting on past successes.
9. Ignoring E.A.T.: E.A.T stands for “Expertise, Authority and Trust”, which are all factors that can be improved with your content. Make sure you have a great balance between the three, and that you are providing content that is trusted by your audience.
10. The importance of having a good website design: Your website should be the best representation of your brand, so make sure it’s a good one. There are many different elements that go into a site’s design, but most importantly it should be easy to use and navigate for your users.
11. Not tracking results: One of the most important aspects of SEO is tracking your results so you can see what’s working and what isn’t. Use a tool like Google Analytics to track website traffic, clicks, and conversions.

Avoiding these mistakes will surely help you get the best results from your SEO efforts.

The Most Important Thing You Need to know Search Engines

There are a lot of things you need to know about search engines if you want to be successful with your website. However, the most important thing about search engines is that they are also businesses. Do not ignore this fact or you will only be disappointed.

Search engines are businesses that need to make money just like any other business, and they do that by selling advertising. That’s why they want as many people as possible to use their search engine. The more people use them, the more money they make.

Search engines want to provide users with as many options as possible when they search for a particular product or service using specific keywords.

SEO for Business

SEO should be used for business visibility and web traffic. This means that you should focus on optimizing your website for search engines so that people can find your business or product when they search for it online using the keywords for which you have optimized your website.

Another important point is that search engines rely on SEO practices performed on the websites they index. If this is not the case, the search engine can be fooled by other people trying to manipulate their system.

Since search engine operators are constantly updating their algorithms, you need to make sure that you use the latest techniques if you want your website to rank well. The good news is that there are tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Moz, Ahrefs and many others that can help you keep up with the latest changes.

And finally, it’s worth noting that SEO campaigns are more effective than paid traffic campaigns. Paid ads only account for between 15 and 20 per cent of clicks on a website. This means that most people will only see your ad if they use the keywords you paid for and in the regions you previously selected.

In contrast, organic ranking reaches a much larger percentage of target customers who may not have known about your business before searching online.

What Are Google’s algorithms and how can I use them to my advantage?

Google’s algorithms are the secret sauce that makes their search engine so good. And while they are constantly changing and evolving, there are some things we know about how they work.

One of the most important factors that Google takes into account when ranking pages is what they call “quality”. This is determined by a number of factors, including how well a page’s content matches a user’s search query, as well as other signals such as the site’s E.A.T. (Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness), loading time through C.W.V. (Core Web Vitals) metrics and more.

Another factor that Google takes into account is what is known as the “backlink profile.” The backlink profile of a website can be determined in various ways, but a common method is the so-called “link analysis”.

Link analysis involves analyzing the links pointing to a website and determining their quality. This can be done manually or through an automated process such as Google’s “Penguin”.

Google also considers the “relevance” of a page to determine how relevant it is to a particular search query. This is determined by analyzing things like a page’s title tags and meta descriptions, as well as synonyms and related keywords.

Finally, Google uses aggregated data from previous searches to better understand what users are looking for when they type specific queries into the search engine. This data is used to determine which pages should be displayed as the best results for a particular search.

By understanding how Google’s algorithms work, you can better match your content to search queries and improve your chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages.

10 Must common ranking factors:

1. Secure protocol (HTTPS) and Website accessibility.
2. Loading Speed (For Desktops and Mobile devices)
3. Mobile devises Responsiveness.
4. Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness
5. Search Engine Optimized Content (Text, images, videos, etc.).
6. Well Code website. (Technical SEO).
7. UX – UI (RankBrain)
8. Backlink Profile. (On-Page and Off-Page)
9. Image Optimization
10. Anchor Text Profile

These 10 ranking factors are not in any particular order.

You can find more information about these 10 ranking factors in the official Google Webmaster Central Blog:

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide?hl=en

1. Secure protocol (HTTPS) and Website accessibility.

A search engine will trust more your website on a SERP if you have an HTTPS protocol and your website is more accessible.

2. Loading Speed (For Desktops and Mobile devices)

Google, in recent years, updated its algorithm to value loading speed. A site that loads fast is more likely to rank higher than a site that doesn’t load fast enough or takes too long for the page to load.

A site’s loading speed is determined by the following:

The server response of your website and web pages should be easy to download, which will result in a faster page load time.

Reduce the number of HTTP requests and optimize your web page for size to make it load faster. This can be done by using CSS sprites, combining and compressing your JavaScript files, minifying HTML code, etc.

Core Web Vitals, a ranking factor that Google has confirmed. It includes the following:

LCP, FID & CLS

Web Vitals are performance metrics that represent a user’s most important interactions with a website or page. They should be considered by all website owners and included in all Google tools to help users experience website performance and overall usability.

There are six basic Web Vitals that apply to all websites, and each value reflects different aspects of the website experience.

The three pillars of site experience are:

Right now, the three pillars of site experience are as follows:

1. Loading speed (how quickly is the content displayed on the user’s screen?).
2. Responsiveness (how well does the page layout adapt to the user’s screen size?).
3. Visual stability (do the content types fit well on the user’s screen while the page is loading?).

Google measured the three corresponding pillars of user experience – including “freshness of content” and “time spent on page” – against six other indicators:

• Bounce rate
• Clicks on the website
• Dwell time on the site
• Visitor engagement
• Page loading speed
• Click-through rate

LCP, Largest Contentful Paint: This is an indicator of how long it regularly takes to load content on the webpage. This can be an image or text. In order to make a website appear as fast as possible, the good value should give users the feeling that websites are loading rapidly. A slow website can leave visitors frustrated.

FID, or First Input Delay: The time it takes for sites to respond to a user’s input. This can be frame input, or even tapping on a button because the site is “responsive.” A good rating gives the feeling that the website provides quick service and is thus responsive.

A slow rating leads to frustration, however.

CLS, or Cumulative Layout Shift: This value measures how a web page looks when something moves on the screen – that would be an ad for one thing, but also may be a pop-up window or an unexpected stop in the narrative reading. When using this tool, you’ll see how often that pace happens.

3. Mobile Devices Responsiveness

“Responsiveness on mobile devices is another factor to consider. If your site performs well on a mobile device, it will likely rank better than many others.”

You need Responsive Web Design (RWD) because it involves a design that allows for easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning and scrolling. This is especially important for mobile devices where you want to make sure your site is easy to read and use.

It was not that long ago that websites were created to be viewed on a desktop. That meant they were often difficult to view and navigate on a mobile device. In recent years, however, it’s become important to create a responsive, mobile-friendly website that responds well instantly on a variety of screens. And that gives instant feedback when you change the orientation or size of the viewport.

How does responsive web design benefit search engine optimization?

Mobile-first design is critical to search engine optimization as search engines focus more and more on mobile search. For example, Google announced in April 2014 that it would focus more on mobile search queries and index websites accordingly.

Responsive design also helps with organic traffic because it improves usability, which is key to improving your ranking with search engines like Google.

What is Responsive Web Design and what are its benefits?

There are 12 main benefits of responsive web design:

1. Improves your ranking in search engines like Google because it improves usability and makes your website more accessible to mobile users.
2. Your website becomes more competitive because it can be found on more devices.
3. Improves the usability of your website because the content is easier to read and navigate on different screen types, including cell phones and tablets.
4. Improves the loading speed of your website because rendering time is reduced.
5. Reduces development costs, as you can create a single codebase and design for all devices without having to use separate templates or multiple codebases.
6. Improves usability by making it easier for users to find your website on all devices.
7. Improves user experience by providing a consistent look and feel across all platforms, which helps brand recognition in search results.
8. Decreases website bounce rate by providing a better user experience.
9. Increases click-through rate (CTR) by improving user experience and making your site easier to find in search results.
10. Improves conversion rate by providing a better user experience and making your website easier to find in search results.
11. Improves user engagement by providing them with a better experience.
12. Increases your link acquisition potential by improving your website’s visibility in search engines.

In today’s Internet-driven world, search engine optimization (SEO) is a must for any website that wants to be taken seriously.

If you have any questions about SEO or would like to learn more about the services we offer, feel free to contact us anytime.

4. Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness

E.A.T., the new and groundbreaking SEO strategy that I use and teach to my students, is a new approach to SEO. It’s no longer about backlinks, keywords, or even content.

E.A.T. stands for expertise, authority and trust.

It’s a way to give your website more chances to rank in the search engines.

But don’t think of it as a ticket to a spot at the top of Google.

E.A.T. is all about proving that your writers and your website have value to your target audience and that they can trust the content you publish. This will ultimately lead to you getting more visitors from search engines.

If you want to learn more about E.A.T., you can read our document titled: FAQs Search Engine Optimization.

5. Search Engine Optimized Content (Text, images, videos, etc.)

Content is any type of component on a website. It can be articles, images or videos, CSS, javascript, HTML or PHP. The content you use on your website must be optimized for search engines.

Whether it’s text, images, videos, etc., these types of content are vital to your website. They ensure that visitors stay on your website and do not click away because of poor content performance.

This is SEO at its finest, and you need to make sure that you are using the best SEO practices to optimize your website’s content.

This is so important because visitors who do not have good content will leave your website and go to another website with good content.

6. Well Code website. (Technical SEO)

There are many developers who do not consider SEO important in the programming phase. However, this is a big mistake, because SEO can significantly increase your organic traffic and revenue.

Make sure you give your developers clear guidelines for technical SEO so that they correct and clean up your website’s code.

Do not know where to find these guidelines? No problem, leave a comment below with your email address and I’ll send you my free SEO guide for developers.

7. UX – UI (RankBrain)

Rankbrain and the user experience work together to make the search more relevant. Rankbrain is used to better understand the relationship between words, phrases, and documents so we can deliver the most relevant results to our users.

As a user navigates the web, their experience is influenced by many factors, including features such as spell check and synonyms. These features help users find pages even if they misspell keywords or enter a query incorrectly.

Rankbrain is a machine learning algorithm that Google uses to process and understand the billions of search queries people type into Google every day.

But what does this mean for your organic traffic?

Well, Rankbrain helps Google better understand the relationship between words, phrases, and documents so we can deliver the most relevant results to our users.

This means RankBrain helps understand the intent behind a search query by using machine learning techniques to analyze massive amounts of data.

So how does this affect your organic traffic?

Well, it will not be a big overnight change. It will take some time to fully implement RankBrain and gain a sufficient understanding of how it affects search results. However, in the long run, this is a big change for our search results as they become more relevant.

So what does this mean?

It means you’ll likely see fewer broad searches and more targeted, specific searches.

For example, if you are a plumber in San Francisco, you’ll probably get more searches for “plumber in San Francisco” and fewer broad searches like “plumber.”

This also means that some of your search traffic on Google could go down. Why? Because RankBrain is designed to deliver more relevant search results, that means showing answers from trusted sources like Wikipedia, news sites, and other trusted sources.

8. Backlink Profile. (On-Page and Off-Page)

Internal linking is important, as is external linking. This is important for organic traffic and even more important for trustworthiness.

Backlinks are websites telling search engines which other websites they like. This way your website becomes credible.

The same principle applies to your internal linking. You prepare content that must first be supported by your internal pages. This way you show the search engines your expertise on the subject.

9. Image Optimization

You cannot or should not post non-optimized images. They consume the most bandwidth and make your website load slower than it should.

If you post images in your blog posts, they should be optimized. The images you post in your blog posts will show up on search engine results pages (SERPs).

If you have good images, your blog posts will be more attractive and appealing.

The images should not be too big or too small. You can use an online tool to check the image size of a file you want to upload.

The image title should be descriptive and the alt tag should describe the image content. The alt tag is intended for people who cannot see the images on their search results pages for various reasons.

The search engine spiders can read the alt tag and index the image in their database. This way they know what your images are about without having to see them.

10. Anchor Text Profile

Anchor texts are words or phrases that appear to be clickable, but are not the target URL. You can think of an anchor text as a keyword phrase that occurs in a hyperlink. The anchor text is the phrase that appears as blue underlined text (most of the time) when you hover over it, and the target URL is where the link leads.

It is important to have a good anchor text profile because it is through this anchor text that the link juice is passed.

Anchor texts are an important part of the ranking algorithm, and you can use them to your advantage by using anchor texts that stand for the main keyword of the page you are linking to.

An internal anchor text profile is healthy if it matches exactly one keyword. But it is the external anchor text profile of your website that can show the search engines that you are a backlink buyer. This means that you are not following the rules.

How can I track my website’s SEO progress?

There are several ways to track your website’s progress in SEO. Through sites like Moz, SEMrush, or Google Search Console, you can examine your site’s overall performance and compare it to other sites.

(If you need help using any of these tools, just write us below in the comments) You can also track your website’s performance with analytics programs like Google Analytics or Keyword Hero.

Measuring your SEO goals can feel tedious, but it’s an important process if you want to get the results you want. A good way to start is by tracking keywords. This will give you an idea of how well you’re doing and where you need to improve.

Another way to measure success is traffic, which is related to keyword ranking and market share. Brand awareness is an indicator of how your website is perceived by potential customers, as companies like Google provide users with search results based on what they’re looking for at any given time.

Finally, lead generation and conversions can help you determine how successful your website has been in attracting customers from other websites and social media platforms like Facebook and Linkedin.

In summary to track your website´s SEO progress you need:

1. It is important to measure your SEO goals.
2. A good way to start is by tracking ranked keywords.
3. Another way to measure success is organic traffic.
4. Lead generated versus converted leads
5. Use tools like Moz, SemRush, Google Analytics and Google Search Console

What are some common SEO tools?

SEO tools are online services, sometimes free, many times paid, that allow you to track your SEO progress. Some common SEO tools include Google Analytics, Google Search Console, SEMrush, and Ahrefs. There are a lot, and new ones are being created all the time.

By using SEO tools, you can track your progress and make adjustments to increase rankings. You can also see what keywords people are searching for when they find you, and see how many of those people convert to leads.

The tools will also show you your competition so that you can track their progress and make adjustments based on theirs.

In summary, the top 4 SEO tools are:

1. Google Analytics
2. Google Search Console
3. SEMrush
4. Ahrefs

SEO Tools for Rankings

There are many SEO tools that can be used to help improve rankings. Some of the most common tools include:

• GSC (Google Search Console) – This is a free tool that provides rankings and traffic reports for top keywords and pages.
• Keyword Planner – This is another free tool provided by Google that helps with keyword research. Keyword Planner can be helpful in finding new keywords, as well as estimating search volume for those keywords.
• Backlink analysis tools – These tools can be used to find new links during link building, as well as analyze which websites are linking to your website or a competitor’s website.
• SEO platforms – Many SEO platforms offer a variety of features such as keyword research, on-page optimization, backlink analysis, and more. While they may not all be necessary, they can definitely help with various tasks related to SEO.
• Social media sites – Social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn can be a good tool for networking and building relationships; however, they do not have an impact on SEO directly

SEO Tools for Traffic

There are many SEO tools specifically designed to help your website improve organic traffic and monitor rankings. Among the most popular ones are:

SEMrush website is great for writing content and tracking keywords with low-hanging fruit.

The Google Analytics and Search Console websites are also very useful for tracking search engine results, as they provide detailed reports on the keywords driving traffic to a website, and sometimes, if used properly, these tools can also tell you what to write about.

There are many free tools for improving search engine optimization, increasing organic traffic and monitoring rankings, such as SEMRush. Yoast is a popular plugin used to improve on-page optimization.

Ahrefs provides real-time data on SEO effectiveness and tracks ranking changes in Google Search Console. This tool is used to review websites and create a keyword, link and ranking profile.

Website Grader provides insights into website performance, including a score for mobile-optimised websites and security recommendations.

Google Trends is a good way to find content trends.

In short:

Google Analytics and Google Search Console are free tools from Google that you simply cannot ignore.

SEO Tools for Crawling

First, let me explain to you a bit more about what is crawling.

Crawling is a way to check and analyze what your website is made of.

The main purpose of crawling is to index the content on any given site and make it searchable in the future by trying to find out the following:

• – What pages are there on a site?
• – What links are there on a site?
• – What is the content of each page?
• – How fast does the website load?
• – What are the errors that occur on a site?
• – What is the performance of a website?

Crawling can be done in two ways: manually and automatically.

For example, if you have a lot of pages on your site, it may take several days for Google to crawl all the content.

The good news is that you can submit your sitemap and wait until Google finishes the task.

Usually, Google will crawl your website every time you launch a new page or add some changes to the existing content.

This is why it’s important to submit your sitemap and wait until Google will crawl your website.

Crawling is done by special algorithms called spiders.

Crawling is also an algorithm used by Google, Bing and Yahoo! and any other search engine out there.

Also, crawling is used by SEO tools, in order to help you monitor your website’s performance.

This is the reason why it’s so important to make sure that search engine crawlers can find your website and index all of its pages.

How can you make your website crawlable?

There is a file called Robots.txt, this file will tell the search engines what to crawl and what not to crawl. That does mean that they will respect that! Yeah, they do whatever they want.

If they want to crawl something you don’t like them to, they will.

Robot.txt file explained:

This is the content of the robots.txt file on my website:

User-Agent: * (Here I am telling all crawlers/spiders, come you can crawl)

Disallow: /wp-admin/ (Here I am telling all crawlers/spiders, do not to crawl anything that includes /wp-admin/ in the URL)

Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php (Here I am telling all crawlers/spiders, to crawl if you see /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php in the URL)

Sitemap: https://speed.cy/sitemap_index.xml (Here I am telling all crawlers/spiders, where to find my website sitemap)

SEO Tools for Indexing

There are also many SEO tools that can help index a website. Understand that indexing tools help search engines find your web pages. 

First, you have Google Search Console URL Inspection; This feature in GSC helps you find out how Google sees your web pages and if everything seems to find you requesting indexing or not.

Here you can find a video tutorial on how to use this feature:

Is worth mentioning Indexing tools like:

1. Link Inspector: http://linkprocessor.com/
2. WebFX Google Indexing Checker
3. Linkody Index Checker
4. Small SEO Tools Index Checker
5. Northcutt Index Checker
6. Omega Indexer

In particular, and based on my experience as an SEO consultant, I do not use any other indexer tool than Google Search Console. The reason is that this tool is the only one that gives you a realistic analysis of how Google will see your website. 

Trying to get Google or any other search engine to index your web pages will do no good if your content is poor. Yes, tools like Moz, Ahrefs, and SEMrush will show an increase in Domain Authority, Domain Rating or whatever. But that does not mean anything to Google. What you need is neither DA nor DR, you need traffic that brings business, period.

You should read my article about Domain Authority, it will blow your mind!

SEO Tools for Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are the text excerpts that show up in search engine results, and they can be seen before clicking on a link to your website. They should be unique to each page, and they play an important role in SEO.

They play an important role in SEO, though they are NOT ranking factors themselves.

The tools I use, and I strongly recommend you to use them are:

Simplified: Simplified is the all-in-one digital design platform that helps us create content, scale our brands, and provide a variety of tools. This tool is AI-driven, and I love how precise and to the point the meta description is.

Frase: This free meta description creation tool writes meta descriptions for our web pages. We just need to specify the title and a target keyword and let Frase work its AI magic.

Dashword: Another AI-powered tool that allows us to create meta descriptions for our web pages for free. It’s easy to use and very up-to-date. This means that the latest best practices for the generator are taken into account.

There are more, I had tested many others, but realistically speaking these 3 are way more effective than the rest.

SEO Tools for Keywords

When it comes to SEO, keywords are still one of the most important factors. Luckily, there are a number of different tools that can help with keyword research.

• Google Analytics and Search Console are free tools that help track a website’s performance over time.
• Semrush is a tool that helps with keyword research and developing strategies.
• Yoast SEO is a plugin that helps optimize websites for better search engine ranking.
• Ahrefs is a tool used for SEO analysis and optimization that offers detailed data on competitors’ SEO efforts and pays per click data.
• SEO consultants have the expertise to help your website improve its SEO strategy internally.

Search engines will eventually stop relying on keywords, the future is voice search and visual search. This can be easily verified by looking at recent trends in the search engine market.

Today we have voice search tools like Siri, Alexa and Cortana. These tools are becoming more popular by the day.

In the future, we will have visual search engines that help us find information using images instead of text. This is already happening with Google Image Search and Pinterest.

The SEO industry is changing fast, so you need to know the latest trends in SEO.

Keywords, yes, we still use them, but open your eyes and prepare your website for voice and image search. 

How can you get your website ready for voice search and image search? Contact us, we can help you get your website ready for the future.

SEO Tools for Sitemaps

Sitemaps are the best way to let Google know about all your pages so that we can crawl them. A sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs on your site and provides a few other pieces of information about each page.

But first, you need to make sure you have one. To know if your website has a sitemap XML file, please go to your website and type the following in the Google search box:

site:yoursite.com “sitemap”

If this command returns a large number of results, then you have a sitemap. If it returns no results, then you don’t have one.

If your website is using WordPress, you can install a free plugin that will create and submit the sitemap for you.

If your website is not using WordPress, then this guide will help you to create one.

How to create a sitemap:

1. Simply use this URL to generate a sitemap for your website: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
2. You will be prompted to enter a few details about your website.
3. You will receive your website’s sitemap file via email or download it and put it in the root directory of your website.

Do you need help installing your XML sitemap? no worries, we are here to help.

Simply contact us and we’ll be glad to assist you.

Types of Sitemaps: How Many Are There?

There are commonly two types of sitemaps: XML and HTML

• A) XML Sitemap for search engines
• B) Sitemap for human users.

How many different sitemaps do you need?

Depends on the size and complexity of your website.

For a small site, with few pages, you might only need one sitemap to cover both search engines and human users. But for larger sites, it is better to have separate sitemaps formats for search engines and human users.

But what if you have lots of videos, images, and pages? In this case, you should have separate sitemaps for each of these types of content.

The most common Sitemap content types are:

• – HTML
• – Images
• – Video files
• – PDFs and other documents.

This is a great article about sitemaps, from the people of SEMrush: 2 Sitemap Examples: The Different Types of Sitemaps.

SEO Tools for Links

Links, a widely misunderstood concept that resulted in a whole new industry. People are paying for backlinks like crazy, in the hope that it will boost their search engine rankings.

There are different tools regarding links that you can use, based on what you want to achieve.

Do you want to analyse your internal link structure?

Then you can use tools like ScreamingFrog, Ahrefs, SEMrush, SEO Power Tools Backlink Checker, etc.

Do you want to find a potential website to link from your site to theirs?

For this, you better use Google Search Results with this search operator: intitle:yourkeyword.

Do you want to find a potential website that links from theirs to yours?

For this, you better use Google Search Results with this search operator: inurl:yourkeyword.

But what does a backlink really do? And how can you get more of them without paying for them?

#1: What Is A Backlink?

A backlink is a link that points to a webpage from another webpage, internally or externally, this means, inside your website or from another website to yours. It’s one of the most important factors in search engine rankings, and it helps your website get more trust and authority.

#2: How can you get more of them without paying for them?

That should be your mindset because, in reality, you do not need to pay anyone to link to your website. If you do, you imply that your content is so boring and useless that you know no one will return to it.

These are golden nuggets that you should pick up and use to create content that will actually motivate other website administrators to link to your website.

🏆 First, create content that is statistically sound:

Statistics and research are very important to create content that is based on real information.

For example, if you want to talk about the best restaurants in your city and you need statistics for that, you can find out the best restaurants in your city on TripAdvisor or Yelp.

Then you need to write some kind of story about it.

You can also create comparison tables, A vs B, what does one offer that the other does not, etc.

🏆 Second, PR (press releases): You need to write some kind of message about your website so other people can refer to it.

You can also do this by building a community around your site and interacting with it regularly.

For example, you can issue a PR about a new product or service, or a PR about the statistical research you have published on your website 😋

🏆 Third, real live events: you need to create some kind of live event around your website.

For example, you can host sweepstakes or an offer for customers who buy from your website, and there are hundreds of other possibilities.

To be honest, it’s really hard to get backlinks if you do not add value to your website for your readers. That’s why it’s so important to focus on the value and relevance of your content instead of investing in buying backlinks. Rather, use the money for research and design.

SEO Tools for Images

Image optimization is another important SEO technique, and it’s a lot easier than you might think. When creating images for your site, make sure to include the title of the image in the filename (e.g., “your-title-image-1200×800.jpg” instead of just “image”).

Also, make sure you declare the dimensions of the image and that the image is named in a way that accurately describes its contents. If you’re using an image for your blog post about dog training, for example, name the image “dog-training-image-400×400.jpg” instead of just “image.jpg.”

Image optimization is a lot easier than you might think.

There are a number of SEO tools that can be used to improve the visibility of images on search engines. Some common tools are:

Compress or Die – This tool is my first go-to for image optimization. It’s free, easy to use, and does a great job of reducing the size of images without losing quality and it works with all major image formats.

Thexifer – This tool allows you to edit the metadata inside your images and it is particularly needed if your online business is all about selling original images or photos.

An image’s metadata usually contains the camera’s data, such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length and more. When you register your camera with a manufacturer, you can also include copyright information.

Cloudflare Image Optimization – Cloudflare allow us to choose between Cloudflare Image, Cloudflare Image Resizing, and Polish. Different features are designed to address our various needs.

• With Cloudflare Images you can build a fast, scalable image pipeline on Cloudflare’s servers by identifying optimal image storage and processing needs and then support secure delivery of your images.
• With Image Resizing, you can use Cloudflare’s edge platform to resize and convert images to WebP or AVIF format on demand at any time, independent of where the files reside.
• Cloudflare Polish allows website owners to optimize images without any third-party plugins or custom code set up by simply clicking a button.

For more information about the differences between each product, please refer to CloudFlare´s Frequently Asked Questions section.

There are many other SEO tools for images, but you don’t need to get complicated with this, just keep it simple.

To optimize your images for SEO, you will need to follow these steps:

• #1. Add ALT and Title attributes to all of your images on the page.
• #2. Optimize your image size and compression.
• #3. Add a caption to the image if possible.
• #4. provide a descriptive image file name.
• #5. (Optional)If your business is about photos and copy-righted images, you can optimize your images for search engines even further by adding your EXIF data to the image.
• #6. (Optional) If you have many images on one page, it is good practice to create an image sprite and use CSS to display the images.

One of the newest and most effectively used headline tagging tools is Outranking (affiliate link). This tool offers things that no other SEO tool can. From keyword research to SERPs analysis, this tool covers it all. It also allows you to see how your subheadings should be structured and, most importantly, what topics you should cover in the semantics of your headline tags.

But headings are just one of the many features you’ll find there.

The choice of headings on a page has incredible power when it comes to the topic relevance of the page. You need to structure your headline very well and also choose very carefully which subtopics you want to cover with your subheadings.

Why are headings so important for SEO?

When you structure your headings properly, you tell Google what topics are covered on the page so that Google can understand what the page is about.

This also lets Google know how relevant your content is to a particular topic and can rank you more accurately and higher in search results.

So how do you structure your headings correctly?

Well, there are no magic numbers here, but the best way to start is to look at what other websites are doing on your topic.

In fact, you should look at what all the websites in your niche are doing, and then try to adapt them to be more relevant to your audience.

For example, if you are writing for a blog about search engine optimization, you should look at other blogs on that topic and see how they structure their headlines.

For example:

• How to optimize your website for SEO
• SEO: What you need to know
• How search engines work and how to use them effectively
• The advantages of good SEO
• And so on. You have the idea.

The reason you should look at what other websites are doing is that you do not want your website to be too far below what other websites in your niche are doing because then it will not stand out.

And that’s something that no other SEO tool can do for you.

SEO Tools for Mobile

Web traffic via mobile devices is increasing rapidly, and it is important that your website works well on mobile devices. There are many tools that can be used to check how a website looks on different types of mobile devices.

Biq has a good list of 7 tools you can use to check how websites look on mobile devices:

7 Mobile-Friendly Website Tools to Optimize Your Site for Mobile

They have listed the seven tools as follows:

1. Keyword Intelligence.
2. Content Intelligence.
3. Google Mobile Site Test.
4. Chrome DevTools’ Device Mode.
5. Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
6. Chrome User Experience Report.
7. Bootstrap.

A well-documented paper you should check out.

From my perspective, I highly recommend Google PageSpeed Insights. It’s free, very accurate, and uses Google’s criteria to determine whether or not your site is mobile-friendly.

What are PageSpeed Insights from Google?

Google PageSpeed Insights is a free tool from Google that will help you make your website faster.

It makes suggestions on how to improve your website’s speed and also offers a test to check if your website is optimized for mobile devices.

SEO Tools for Click-Through Rates

SEO tools for click-through rates are used to see how well your website is visible in search engines, usually by tracking keywords you want to target. Some tools include Google Search Console and the Google Data Studio reporting tool.

Why is CTR (click-through rates) important for SEO?

CTR is important for search engine optimization because it affects how many visitors click on your website. If you have a high CTR, your website will be ranked higher in the SERP and therefore easier for searchers to find.

What are a good CTR? 5 important things you should know

1. Organic CTR is an indicator for Google that people like your content.
2. A high organic CTR means more traffic to your website.
3. There is a correlation between a high organic CTR and a better Google ranking.
4. The higher the value of your CTR on GSC, the better.
5. It is important that you try to attract the click to your website from SERPs.

SEO Tools for Search Intent

There are not as many SEO tools for search intent as we should have available today. Yes, that is sad!

But hey, I said not that many, which means there are a few we can use. For example, late last year SEMrush introduced a feature that allows us to see what kind of keywords you are watching, researching, or ranking for. In short, SEMrush categorizes keywords by search intent.

For example, with this tool, SEMrush can determine if a keyword is a transactional keyword, an informational keyword, a commercial keyword, or a navigational keyword. You can use this intent behind specific keywords to improve your organic traffic.

So how can you use SEMrush keyword categorization?

I’ll show you a few examples based on my own keyword research in the past:

• If a person searches for a “how-to” article, it’s likely they are searching for an informative keyword.
• If you see someone searching for a product review, it’s likely that person is searching for a commercial keyword.
• If someone is searching for “best of” or “top 10,” it’s likely that person is searching for a navigational keyword.
• If you see someone searching for “where to buy shoes,” it’s likely that person is searching for a transactional keyword.

Is this SEMrush categorization of keywords effective?

Well, the most important thing is common sense. The intent is pretty obvious based on the search queries that the searcher is using. You just have to keep an eye on the search results page to see what kind of search queries people are using.

👍 Another SEO tool for search intent is simply Google.

People do not pay that much attention to the type of results Google provides, they usually just look at the results. However, if you look closer, you can see what type of content the SERP is putting out as a result. Using this information and the popularity of the search term, you can easily determine the type, length, and even quality of content you should compete with.

However, Google does not always provide the best results, only the best ones that are available at the moment. This opens up the opportunity for you to go beyond what you see and deliver better, deeper, and more relevant content to the audience using those search queries.

SEO Tools for Conversions

Last but not least, you need to optimize your conversion rates. There are a variety of ways and tools to do this. For example, if you use a shopping cart, you can optimize the checkout process to make it as quick and easy as possible.

You should also test different prices for your products. This can be done in a number of ways, but it’s especially effective if you run A/B tests.

The 8 best SEO tools in the industry for improving conversion rates are:

HubSpot.
Unbounce.
Instapage.
Hotjar.
Google Optimize.
Google Pagespeed.
Optimizely.
Sniply.

Final words:

SEO is a long-term strategy that will help you organically grow your traffic and improve your website ranking on search engines. While it takes time and effort to see results, it is worth it in the end. If you’re looking for help with your SEO marketing, be sure to check out Speed SEO Marketing Agency.

With more than 11 years in digital marketing, we can help you to grow your business and improve your visibility online.