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The Future of Search Engine Optimization Predicted

September 21, 2018/in SEO /by EdmSEOGuy

Your competition may have a much larger marketing budget than you do. Yet, they’re going after the same audience. Is there any way your business can compete with a movie being promoted on a national level? Could a library possibly win in a fight with book-selling giant Amazon?

The good news is, thanks to digital marketing, you have a chance to get a fair share of the pie. All you need is the right strategy that will let you reach your target audiences in a way that produces results. You can use free marketing options such as search engine optimization (SEO).

The key to your success when it comes to brand awareness is applying the strategy the right way. This is crucial when it comes to SEO. It’s a complex topic that keeps on changing. You can’t use strategies that were effective five years ago. The reality is, you need to be ahead of the game. You must be ready for the next year. Here are some tips on you can adapt to new changes in SEO, as well as 7 specific ways things are different now.

1) Credibility matters more than ever

SEO is so complex that you can pinpoint a single aspect that drives algorithm changes. However, if you had to bet on one thing, it should be credibility.

Google takes special care to ensure that only credible websites rank high in the search results. In the past, you could link from anywhere, and it would help improve your rankings. These days, the links must have credibility in order to have a positive effect.

You can expect that whatever changes in 2018, it will be focused on credibility. Not so long ago, Google was in the headlines facing allegations of promoting fake news. As a response, the company has promised that they will devalue what they call “non-authoritative websites.” It appears upcoming changes will be geared towards that mission. If you want to succeed, you have to ensure that you use ethical SEO tactics and that you link only to credible sources.

2) Good Content Carries More Weight

Does the term Google RankBrain sound familiar? You might benefit from reading up on it. This tool determines how websites are ranked, using machine learning. The world’s largest search engine relies on it to figure out how credible a site is. It also looks at how your users experience your website.

This means you have to create content that actually matters to your audience. Content that feels and sounds natural. You want people to spend time on your site after they click-through. This will boost your rankings in the future. When it comes to SEO, building a site doesn’t do the trick anymore. You must also ensure that your visitors love what you offer them as content. As a strategy, you should survey your audience every now and then. This will help you figure out what they want to know about. You’ll be surprised how much info you’ll get that way.

3) Voice-Based Search Is On The Rise

Typing on the keyboard is no longer the only way to search. According to statistics, about one billion searches were done via voice command in January 2018. The smartphone or a smart home device is used daily to do a voice search by 40 percent of American adults.

This suggests that you must revise your SEO strategy. To start with, a typical voice search will tend to be longer than a text-based one. Questions are used more frequently, as full sentences. To succeed in 2018 and beyond, you should shift your focus to conversational keywords.

4) Featured Snippers – A New Way to Dominate

Moz has pointed out that featured snippets have become a major way to control the top of search engine results pages. They work by making a single result more prominent. The snippets usually contain an answer to a question, or they have the most relevance to the search terms. Featured snippets have a major impact on click-through rates and increasing traffic for a site that manages to land one.

However, it’s not all about luck. A careful strategy is required to get featured in a result page snippet. To begin with, do your keyword research and look for snippets that apply to your company. Then, do your best to provide an answer to that question – in an easy to understand fashion. You could also benefit from ensuring that the article has answers to several questions. You may also want to use eye-catching images. This may take some time to work however it can give you an advantage over your best-funded competitors.

5) The Demand for Comprehensive Content

Content length does not directly correlate with SEO success. Yet, your content in 2018 has to be comprehensive. It must provide an in-depth story. RankBrain, mentioned earlier is part of the reason: longer content will increase the length of time visitors spend on your site. But, there is more to this.

There is a quote by Backlinko that says covering a topic in-depth is what makes the best pages. A user can get everything they need from the page – just like a one-stop shop. Hence, it’s best to have at least 1,000 words in a piece of content. 2,000 words might even work better, especially if you go beyond your main topic by focusing on related keywords.

6) The Mobile-First Index is coming!

You may already be aware of the need for mobile digital marketing. Yet, you may not know that it will be a requirement for SEO success later this year. Google is predicted to start using it’s Mobile-First Index. This will result in sites being ranked as if they were displayed on mobile devices.

From Google’s point of view, this makes perfect sense: in many keyword categories and industries, over 70 percent of searches originate from mobile devices. Your business must start preparing for this. Your website should be responsive, and your content should be easy to read even on small screens. Many people will visit your site while on the go, and they expect to find the information they want quickly.

7) Linkless Mentions – A New Frontier

The smart search engine algorithm is reducing its reliance on its biggest SEO ranking factor: backlinks. In the past, attracting high-profile links was a standard way to build credibility. People used to step over each other to get those links. But now, things are different. Very soon, just a mention, without a link, will be enough to gain effective SEO clout – just like a link would. This suggests that search engines can recognize mentions and connect them with you. In turn, this will improve the authority and perceived quality of your website.

Linked mentions are already being used by Bing in its ranking algorithm. Most experts agree that Google is next to follow. Don’t discard your current SEO strategy though and get rid of your links! But, you should start noting your sources in all the content you create.

Building a Future-Proof SEO Strategy

Change is the only constant in SEO. Marketers with years of experience know that effective tactics from just a while age are not relevant anymore. You shouldn’t be surprised that the way you rank in search engines will be different in 2018.

Are you and your business prepared for the new reality? If you rely on organic search visits, you must get ready. Create your SEO strategy with future changes in mind, and you’ll keep attracting visitors and sales even when faced with high-budget competitors.

Edmonton SEO Guy
4935 55 Ave NW #216 Edmonton, AB T6B 3S3
(587) 402-1142

Eliminating Thin Content Is The First Step to SEO Success

September 11, 2018/in SEO /by EdmSEOGuy

Google introduced a search algorithm update in February 2011, which was called “Panda.” Panda marked the beginning of a series of algorithm updates designed to penalize poor-quality websites and enhance search results.

Even though Panda was initially rolled out in 2011– immediately followed by Penguin, which was designed to eliminate black hat SEO techniques–it has been updated on numerous occasions since then, and the most recent of these updates took place in September of 2014.

All updates serve the same purpose as Panda and Penguin, which is properly ranking websites that offer relevant, useful content and penalizing those that provide only “thin content” that contains little or no value for the reader. Below are some essential facts about why it is a bad idea to feature thin content on your website and how you can avoid penalties by employing simple tactics to ensure your content offers value to searchers.

Understanding Thin Content

The term thin content refers to low-quality information that offers the reader little value. For example, doorway pages, automatically generated content or duplicate pages are all regarded as thin content by Google. The most effective way to measure your content’s quality is to gauge user satisfaction. If visitors rarely stay on your page for more than 30 seconds or so, it is probably not providing the data for which they were looking.

Google’s initial update, the aforementioned Panda, was developed primarily to target content farms, the latter of which are websites that post massive amounts of content that is “keyword stuffed.” Such articles are written entirely for the purpose of attracting traffic and ranking well in the search, as opposed to providing information of value to the reader.

Most of us have clicked our way onto a content farm at least once. The articles found on these sites are usually light on factual information, but packed with keywords in an attempt to make it relevant to a search engine.

When Panda was rolled out, it also targeted scraper sites, which are websites that simply “scraped” text from other sites and repurposed it as original work. Essentially, these site owners plagiarized other people’s work to create their own traffic.

As Panda updates continue to roll out, the focus has shifted from scraper sites and content farms to sites that feature thin content that offers little or no valuable information.

As a general rule, the more you can offer search engines with the content on your website, the more satisfied the search engines will be, and the higher the probability that you will rank well.

On the other hand, if you are not truly offering any “meat on the bones” regarding the content on your site, Google will have little incentive to rank you. Instead, you will be filtered out by the search engines. Other websites will rank higher than you merely by offering informative, helpful and detailed content.

How Google Can Tell if Content is Thin

Google’s index contains over 30 trillion pages, which makes it impossible to evaluate each page by hand for thin content. Although certain sites are subjected to Google’s manual review on occasion, most content is judged for its algorithmic value.

Ultimately, the readers who visit the site are the judge of its content. If they stay on the website and keep reading, it typically indicates that the content is good. If the content is thin, the chances are high that readers will quickly exit the site.

The content’s length is not necessarily an indicator of its value. As it was explained at Search Engine Watch, by Stephen Kenwright, a 2,000-word Ezine article probably offers less value to readers than a blog post that is only a quarter of that size but written by a true expert.

One avenue through which Google can algorithmically judge content’s value on a website is by using a metric referred to as “time to long click.” As its name implies, a long click occurs when a user clicks through to a particular website and stays on the page for a significant length of time prior to returning to the search page.

To understand this better, give some thought to different times you have browsed a website and discovered valuable information. In most cases, you probably did not merely read for a moment or two. Rather, you likely clicked around the different areas of the site and read additional content as well.

Similarly, a short click is when a reader clicks on a search engine result and returns to Google’s search results page almost at once. From there, the person probably clicks on a different result from the search, which tells Google that the first result did not offer content of value.

When to Worry About Thin Content

User satisfaction is the best way to measure the value of your content. If readers remain on your site for a lengthy amount of time after choosing it from Google’s search results page, it is probably the “thick,” high-quality content that Google prefers.

If your content does not offer much of value, you may receive a thin content warning from Google or be penalized in other ways, which indicates your website is at risk of plummeting with regard to ranking.

Although certain types of thin content may be relative, depending on the niche, the signs outlined below are usually reliable indicators that the content on your site is a bit too thin:

Your site is very light on actual text, and frequently displays only short descriptions, up to 100 words in length, and duplicate content is found on all of your website’s pages.

Your content is not relative to the topic for which readers are searching and does not provide truly useful answers to their questions or problems. This causes searchers to “bounce,” from your site back to Google’s search results page.

The text on your web pages does not match what you promised in your meta-description and page title, which leaves users disappointed after visiting your site. Not delivering on the meta-description promise will also give you an unnaturally high bounce rate.

There are numerous ways to determine whether or not your content is thin, with the best being to place yourself in the reader’s shoes and ask if the content on the page fully and clearly addresses the user’s search query.

If your content answers the reader’s question, offers details on the keyword or topic for which they searched, and otherwise informs and engages the searcher, then it is exactly the type of content Google prefers. If it does not do the aforementioned things, you should immediately take action to avoid penalties.

How to Make Thin Content More Relevant and Helpful

If you have discovered that your site’s content falls a bit too close to the thin side, you can easily fatten it up and make it more helpful and relevant for searchers.

Begin by reviewing it from a reader’s perspective and determine whether or not it answers their questions. If you discover that it is indeed thin, rewrite it to purposefully answer the questions that individuals are searching for or better address the topic related to the keyword.

If you have scraped a product description from the website of another merchant or otherwise know your content is not unique, delete it at once and immediately replace it with fresh content that you have purchased or created yourself.

Eliminating Thin Content Results in Stable Rankings

Stability is one of the best benefits of Edmonton search engine optimization. Traffic generated from a PPC campaign usually fluctuates depending on the competition, but the level of traffic and sales produced by a first-place search ranking will stay reliable and steady as long as you keep your website up to par.

Avoiding thin content is the best way to also avoid the negative effects of Google’s continuous Panda updates. Ultimately, if your website features high-quality, valuable information, its ranking may even go up when the next update is introduced by Google to penalize thin websites.

Edmonton SEO Guy
4935 55 Ave NW #216 Edmonton, AB T6B 3S3
(587) 402-1142

Video embeds for Search Engine Optimization

Videos Are Now More Important Than Ever For SEO: Here’s Why

August 23, 2018/in SEO /by EdmSEOGuy

Search engine optimization has evolved in recent times. It is no longer limited to simple functions such as document listings and domain selections and now make use of complicated algorithms and the latest search engine filters to get results. One innovative method that has complimented SEO strategies is the introduction of videos to get traffic and expand your business.

There have been significant changes in Google’s SEO algorithms. No longer these algorithms are limited to a single aspect, but it takes many factors into considerations. Every business must understand these dynamics to implement proper SEO.

Google search engine algorithms determine how well the page will rank on the search engine.

The technical implementation of SEO is driven by the same methods. You need to design an easy and clean sitemaps. The rules to launch SEO system that the search engine crawlers can recognize is a technicality that most SEO officers understand well.

However, today SEO is driven by quality content, and it is difficult for low-quality content to get a rank on Google. Even if paid strategies of traffic generation, required keywords density is followed, the results are still poor if the content is poorly written or does not have the high-quality content SEO requires.

Today, SEO is more focused on engaging content to attract the visitors. Long gone are the days when shortcuts were used to rank on a search engine. There is no room for keyword stuffing, spamming techniques, and manipulation of back-end codes in the new search engine optimization methods.

Today, a single website content, blog, or a brief article can rank relevant keywords, not necessarily the only one you used for page optimization. SERP can get a good ranking and result in increase traffic by using the video-based content. Let’s discuss the video content strategy.

Any content must be of high quality as that is the prime requirement of modern SEO. However, it is important to understand that Google doesn’t check videos for SEO the way written content is read.

By the latest Cisco report, it is estimated that around 80% of web content will be video-based by the end of 2018. What are the implications?

It means that businesses have shifted their focus to media. Your company needs robust video content to compete with other companies on SEO implementation.

You are in luck as we will explain how to promote your video and rank higher on SERP ranking.

1. YouTube’s Factor

When we think about SEO, we first consider the SERP ranking system on Google. However, SEO is the method to optimized any content to rank higher on any search engine. This optimization can be done through the content, within the domain of its placements, or through external actions.

YouTube can be used to create engaging content, develop a business channel, and utilize the comments section on someone else’s content to collect backlinks.

You should take full advantage of YouTube as a marketer

While your videos on YouTube will get audiences on your YouTube channel and a ranking on YouTube search engine, ultimately it will also increase your chances of getting higher Google SERP ranking.

So how should you set your videos? For starters select the appropriate keywords in the description area, metadata, and tags and title of the videos. This will make your content more visible and get you high exposure.

You should consider placing appropriate keywords in the title as this can help you rank first on Google’s SERP page. You should also make the description of the video no less than 200 words and use keywords throughout the description.

The Metadata must be context focus so your audience can discover it

No matter, the quality and value of your videos are the main components. Even if you follow all SEO strategies for your videos to rank on Google, it will still fail to get traffic if your videos are poorly made and are irrelevant for your audiences.

Getting SEO rankings through YouTube videos is not an overnight achievement, however, with proper videos and following strategies of Edmonton SEO, you will observe significant improvements in your search engine rankings.

These results come with time. For online marketing and promotion, a robust strategy of high-quality videos guarantees organic improvement.

2. Video Viewership and Customers

The best way to enhance your brand and get a strong customer base is to make quality video content to promote your business.

From a business perspective, your video must deliver informative, resourceful and engaging content. If you cannot make a single sale from a sale video, then any such video is useless.

From Marcus Sheridan podcast on Social Media Marketing, he showed that creating an 80% video approach is a useful approach to gather the audience.

An 80% video approach is a strategy where the videos are focused on delivering 80% of the most common information the visitors may have for a product or service.

A “get to know us” video strategy is a way to introduce your business and service to the users and these videos are focused on the brand mission, vision and value statements.

One important consideration is the time spent by the visitor on your videos as Google use this information for SERP ranking.

Search engine views web content backed by videos to be more relevant, and rank those web pages with video content higher and by making good videos you will see improvements in your SERP ranking.

To understand this, you can upload a simple content on your website and observe the traffic. Introduce a video with the same content and then observe the difference in ranking and viewership. You will notice that the same content with video generates more traffic.

3. Social Media Sharing

A high-quality video will get more viewers, and they are likely to share the video on social media, and you will get many visitors from social media sharing.

You must be able to identify your target market and their preferences before planning your videos. If you know your audience, it will be easier for you to make videos that can attract them. Understand what your video will be about. You are better off making funny videos if your audiences are people looking for fun, rather then present them with informative videos.

Social media presence and its acceptance is necessary to make your video content a success. Your video should be interesting to the viewer, so they watch the complete video and share it with their family and friends.

Think creatively and do something that will excite your visitors. A teaser video is a good idea that can be launched and later come up with a full video of your product or service.

Your published videos should also encourage users to leave feedback and reviews. This keeps the user engaged to your program, and they feel they are part of your videos through there opinion.

You should be consistent in uploading videos, so your audience stays interested in your content. Avoid long delays between videos as customers might move to other videos.

4. Increasing On-site User Conversions

SEO purpose is to engage the user and increase on-site conversions. Videos are the best medium to engage the user to click and subscribe and follow your content on your social media and websites.

5. Using Relevant Snippets

The search engine show pages on Google that are frequently upgraded through relevant snippets. These are more information other than the standard metadata. They’re used to give the visitors an idea what content will be delivered to them on the website. The snippets include your video title, a thumbnail, and few words descriptions of the video. These snippets are powerful to create the first impression of the videos and help in getting higher click-through rates.

All in all, the video content is just as important to your business as the written content. You cannot have average videos and get audiences. By looking around, you will find many online success stories of people who made excellent videos on Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat.

Edmonton SEO Guy
4935 55 Ave NW #216 Edmonton, AB T6B 3S3
(587) 402-1142

Edmonton Businesses: Why You Should Add SEO To Your Business Plan

January 4, 2018/in SEO /by EdmSEOGuy

I think this is an unfortunate dilemma. SEO can be truly beneficial to businesses when it comes to marketing. You will be able to bring in highly qualified leads who are sure to turn into customers. Studies show that SEO has a better return-on-investment than the more traditional marketing outlets of print and TV advertisements. Though it is not a magic fix, it is a great way to promote visibility of your company, develop credibility, gain insight about your customers’ behaviors, and incorporate branding and get more web traffic.

Business Visibility and Branding

When people look up your services and products, it is essential to show up high in the search engine rankings. There is more to it than getting these individuals to click on your website. You will see that there is value to being in the search results for the terms that directly relate to your company. This is because most people do not conduct a search once, click through to sites and never look at them again. There is more to the mindset of someone searching, including editing of search terms and looking on multiple websites for similar products and services.

What does all of this mean regarding your business? If you come up with the search results on a regular basis, you are going to be more visible to every potential customer. There is a high likelihood that they will someday click through to your site. The more you appear in their search results, the more likely they are going to put trust in you.

Credibility of Your Business

Searchers will take a mental note of rankings for various terms they look up on search engines. This might not be a conscious matter, but it happens anyway. Having a high ranking is a vote of confidence because the search engine has deemed your site to be relevant. It is just like when we used the Yellow Pages in the phone book. If you wanted to hire a plumber, chances are you would start at the beginning of the listing for “plumbing.” The fact that you have high a high search ranking gives you more credibility.

Getting Traffic to Your Site

Website traffic alone will not bring in the money to your business. It helps to think about it regarding location. Wouldn’t you rather have a storefront in Times Square, then be located on some little known back street? Someone “walking by” your site often is much more likely to become a customer than someone who has very little odds of even seeing it. Of course, you have to make every effort to attract them with graphics, text content and more. This is ideal for helping you to sell your products and services. Nearly everyone who enters your website will be a qualified lead, meaning they were looking for your type of business at the time they found you. They already need or want what your business has to offer.

ROI (Return-on-Investment) with Advertising

There are far more rewards for using SEO tactics than the more traditional advertising methods, both offline and on the Internet. The reason for this is that it is an inbound marketing strategy. You can market to individuals who are in search of what you offer. There is no interruption in their magazine or television show. You are available when they need you the most, and that tends to be a powerful draw. It is not necessary to do a great deal of pressuring. In fact, you only have to get them to see that they need what you provide. Half of the battle is won the first time they encounter you in search results.

Gaining Amazing Insight Into Your Customers

As I mentioned before, you are sure to gain valuable traffic by using SEO techniques. You will be able to track this through Google Analytics. This wonderful tool allows you to access metrics and data about your customers to help you further your business goals. This will tell you how they browse and search, what kind of language they use, where they live, when they are most active, and what type of technology they utilize. It is incredibly important to have these details because they provide you with the means to make informed choices about your business strategy. It does not matter if it is offline or online, you will have a clear advantage with the use of SEO.

It is in your best interest to learn what SEO keywords are going to help your business the most. Once you have this knowledge, you can move ahead and make great strides to get to the top of search engine rankings. Put in this effort at the beginning of your plan, and you are certain to see big results in the form of many new customers and an increase in sales and hiring for your business’ services.

If you have questions about how to get started, reach out to me, The Edmonton SEO Guy, at (587) 402-1142. I promise that we’ll get you ranking better than ever before.