Google is a worldwide known search engine that has made lots of money ever since its invention through advertisement. They own the largest share in the world and the top amongst others. With its innovative technology over the years, it is now impossible to get on the top of google traffic search engine using spamming, as there are recent algorithm updates that makes it so. It is therefore important to keep up with the new algorithms rolling out. This is why organic SEO is important.
Why is organic SEO important?
Uses of Organic SEO
Paying for advert directly on google is nice, as websites need to make gains, to remain in business. However, there is also the use of organic SEO. This SEO has now proven to last longer for the best leads. Here are three top tips to this regard:
Copywriting
Post engagement
Decent backlinks.
Copywriting:
As mentioned earlier, spamming is no longer a way to get your site up the top of search results. A well written copy has a way of getting you lots of engagements and repost from the public. Copywriting not only has a well-received algorithm, it is also useful to the netizens. It is important to make use of professional copywriters for your digital marketing write-ups whether on or off line.
Post engagement:
Engaging more with your audience through getting feedbacks. In order to make the post more engaging, it is sometimes advised to personalize content, so that readers can easily relate to what is talked about in a post. SEO is majorly about engagement. The more you engage, the more audience you interact with, the better.
Decent backlinks:
Do not pay people to repost your links as it could lead to spamming. However, quality backlinksare a huge factor when it comes to SEO, accessing your backlinks is important, as it shows a level of ethical respect.
I hope this write up has taught you a thing or two. Over the years, lots of innovation has been made to stop spammy SEO. What other SEO practices do you consider spammy? Tell us in the comment section! Need SEO services? We’d be glad to offer our services!
Justified, SEO can sometimes seem like an impossible task. Or even more accurate, a herculean task that yields little to no results. And that can be a bit frustrating. Well, we are about to find if our SEO efforts are really worth the stress, or not. Shall we begin?
1) What is SEO and Why Does Anyone Care?
The term SEO (search engine optimization) refers to a broad variety of actions that can be made to improve a website’s ranking on search engines. If you own a recruiting agency in London, for instance, you would often hire an SEO business in London to handle all of this for you.
The following are some of the actions made by London-based SEO service providers:
– Off-page (off-site) SEO
Quality work that has been uploaded as guest on other websites
Internal linking: Referring to page links frequently in your content
Producing high-quality, audience-specific content that is user-friendly
Add meta descriptions and title tags to titles and descriptions.
– Technical SEO
Image optimization: Scale down images to speed up your website.
SSL Security: Verify the validity of your certificates
To aid search engines in evaluating your website, add XML and HTML sitemap files to your sitemaps.
Your website is responsive to the device it is being viewed on.
– Local SEO
Local directories – Include pertinent local listings for your businesses.
Ensure that all information is submitted to your “Google My Business” account.
Local keywords: conduct local keyword research and add additional keywords as necessary.
Social media: Engage with regional establishments, occasions, and organizations there
Local Reviews: Interact with your clients and respond to their feedback
2) SEO Complications
Now that you are aware of all that SEO entails, it must seem complicated. And certainly, it may be a lot of work, which is why businesses eager to pay SEO companies in London to handle everything for them have kept them quite busy. However, what if you could do away with all of your need for London SEO services? Then, you wouldn’t have to employ SEO agencies in London to complete the task!
Let’s examine several SEO disadvantages and issues that certain SEO businesses might not be as fast to mention to you:
– SEO is not a quick fix
Working on SEO takes time. Any SEO effort made, is a long-term strategy, in contrast to paid advertisements (Google Ads, sponsored ads, etc.). We’re talking months for a medium-sized business, possibly six months or longer if you’re in a highly competitive sector.
– No quick cuts exist
There are a lot of man-hours that need to be put into SEO, and whether you decide to do the job yourself or hire SEO companies in London to do it for you, the fact that someone will have to put the effort in cannot be avoided. Yes, your SEO efforts are as important as the results. There might be some research required as well, and you’ll probably need to consider keywords, contact partners, and spend time managing your social media.
– Quality Content is King
For the sake of your site’s SEO, you’ll need to produce a ton of high-quality content that will engage your audience and improve your website’s standing with the search engines. Again, you might be able to do part of this on your own, but you might also want the assistance of SEO businesses in London to create videos, translate information into other languages, etc.
– Is your website able to handle the extra traffic?
More visitors may be expected if your SEO efforts are successful, but are you prepared for them? Make sure your servers can handle the load and that you have customer care representatives available to handle the influx of inquiries.
– Greater Brand Awareness
Increased brand recognition must be positive, right? More customers will become aware of you and what you do as a result of your improved exposure. Many companies experience organic growth over time, which allows them the luxury of developing and refining their basic values and goals. Have you put enough effort into developing your brand identity beforehand? Take the time before you hit the “big time” to clearly define who you are, what you do, and why you do it because you really don’t want to have to change your origin story at a later time if you can avoid it. Rebranding is actually quite difficult, so you really don’t want to do it unless you absolutely have to.
3) Conclusions (not illusions, nor delusions)
Here are a few of the reasons why SEO isn’t always cheap and/or simple. Having said all of that, SEO does unquestionably work in 2022, which means that SEO is worth the stress. With a little research and time spent discussing the aforementioned issues with a professional SEO Service provider in Nigeria, you can expect SEO to deliver the results you’re after – as long as you’re willing to wait a little while! Yes, you have to be quite patient.
One last word of caution: be careful when contacting SEO companies in Nigeria. Some of them may make lofty promises, confuse you with technical jargon, and pressure you into buying SEO packages that are inappropriate or even ineffective for your particular business. In order to create a strategy that can be analyzed and modified over time, you should always strive to speak with an SEO provider who is transparent and honest about what you can expect with regard to SEO. There are no second chances with SEO if you blow your marketing budget in one go, so set a budget up front and stick to it. You can always spend more once the results start to show.
In the end, your SEO efforts really matter. Whether yours, or that of your hired SEO agency, SEO efforts are as important as the results. It may take some time for results to show, but remember that delay is not denial.
At the tail end of 2021, did you observe a huge change in ranks and wonder what caused it? If so, there’s a good likelihood the November 2021 spam update is involved. We examine what Google considers spam and how to evade any upcoming algorithm modifications that deal with links.
This was the fourth algorithmic modification that Google made in 2021 to address the problem of web spam and prevent it from appearing highly in search results. The link spam upgrade also concentrated on removing questionable or hazardous websites while filtering out sites that offer users little or no value.
What is considered spam by Google?
Google programmers discover recurring themes and characteristics that should be classified as spam and modify their algorithm to suppress this content based on comments from a team of manual fact and quality checkers.
Typical traits of a page that might be blocked because of spam include:
Keyword stuffing: Overusing a specific keyword on a page is known as keyword stuffing.
Duplicate or stolen content: Spammy websites frequently employ stolen content or have a lot of it.
A page with a lot of adverts and outbound links: is one whose owner’s primary objective is to monetize the space on the page by selling advertisements, sponsored content, and outbound links.
Technical SEO mistakes: Website owners who are accused of spam generally have several broken connections and abandoned pages. This may be marked as spam by Google because it indicates carelessness.
Low-quality inbound links: Low-quality and spammy inbound links give the impression that your website is unreliable and are a frequent black hat SEO tactic.
Cloaking: Presenting different content to people than to search engines is known as cloaking.
Images or hidden text: can be used to add keywords, for instance text that blends in with the backdrop color.
Unlabelled affiliate links and sponsored posts: Use the appropriate “rel” value for sponsored posts and unlabeled affiliate links.
Google’s Response
This entails, as previously mentioned, ensuring that your material is authentic, clear, legible, and free of any black-hat SEO techniques. Google hasn’t made any comments on what they are specifically searching for in this spam update, but they have said that they are dealing with content that doesn’t adhere to their rules and that they encourage websites to do the same.
According to Danny Sullivan, Google’s Public Liaison for Search, this upgrade shouldn’t have an impact on content that adheres to Google’s policies. They typically keep an eye out for questionable, dangerous, or predatory websites.
Best methods to avoid having information marked as spam
Producing unique and interesting pages that provide value for the search terms you are targeting and adhere to Google’s Webmaster guidelines should be your first priority.
Since this is what you might anticipate from spammy websites, consider producing material that is more extensive than simply text on a page. You should use pages as creatively as you can. Include rich material like reviews or FAQs together with tables, videos, and other visuals. Your objective should be to increase user and customer engagement and readability. As a result, the ranks will improve.
Spend time enhancing your technical SEO, and look for broken links, dead ends, and orphan pages using tools and software like Screaming Frog.
Review the link structure of your pages, and that’s all. Avoid having too many external links, and when you do, make sure they are appropriately tagged using the word “rel.” The quantity of sponsored material or adverts on your website should also be taken into consideration. While this could increase your income in the short term, they might degrade your rankings over time.
How can you tell whether you have received punishment?
There are several ways to determine whether you have received a penalty:
Have you noticed a sudden drop in the rankings for certain search phrases since November, according to Google Search Console? Google may occasionally entirely erase a site from its search results.
Check your Traffic – If Google Search Console is not set up, look at your website’s traffic. Have you noticed a strange decline in traffic that deviates from historical patterns?
Review your backlink profile – As a final step, you may examine your backlink profile using technical SEO tools like Majestic. Do any questionable or spammy websites connect to you? Examining any with a low Trust Flow score will help you determine this quickly.
Future steps…
The main lesson from Google’s spam updates is to make sure on-page content is clear, pertinent, and adds value to a search query. This lesson can sound very technical and confusing to some people. Strong UX is always given priority by Google’s algorithm. Alongside this, there needs to be compelling content.
Contact the helpful SEO staff at Harnix Tech if you have any questions regarding your backlink profile or have seen a decline in your rankings. If you believe that the most recent link spam updates have impacted some pages on your website, our technical SEO experts will be pleased to inspect and evaluate those pages. We can provide you with suggestions on how to raise page ranks, assist you in putting those suggestions into action, and improve the design of your website to increase organic visitors.
When asked what SEO is, some people tend to define it, as the ability to write creatively, in order for a website to rank high in search. While this may be true, it is not all it is, to SEO.
As an SEO strategist, one has to optimize his website in the following ways; on-page, off-page, and technical optimization. However, today, we would look solely at on-page SEO, and it’s optimization. It’ll be a lovely discussion, so let us dive right in!
What Is On Page SEO?
On-page optimization, is the practice of optimizing a page or group of pages on a website, to improve the site’s SEO.
Before we continue, for the sake of newbies; what is the meaning of the term, “on-page”? On-page, otherwise called on-site in SEO, has to do with everything you see on the pages of a site, ranging from title tags to meta descriptions, down to the content on the site. We will discuss these, as we go further.
Now that that’s known, let’s get into some important factors one needs to optimized on his site.
Factors to be Optimized On Site:
Content
Title tags
Description tags
URL
Heading tags
Content
You may be asking, what is the content on my site, or any site? Content, is the information you dish out to your audience; be it written, visual or audio.
So, now that you know what content is, how can you optimize your content, for your site to rank high in search?
Do a research on the topic you want to write on (for written content, of course.)
Use target keyword in the first 100-150 words of your article.
Wrap blog post’s title in H1 tag. It helps Google understand the structure of a page.
Wrap subheadings in H2 tags, as it helps to structure the article.
Be frequent with your keywords. However, avoid keyword stuffing.
Make content relevant to the theme of the site.
Make sure content is well organized, and easy to understand.
Create unique and original content. Don’t go copying anyone, avoid duplicate content at all costs.
Add value to your content. You could do so, by adding a relevant personal perspective.
Add resources like images, videos, screenshots, to make content more helpful.
At all times, edit and proof read you article, before publishing.
Make sure you understand your audience, because a great content is that which is written for the audience.
Make sure to pay attention to the reading level of your audience, and match it with your content, for easy comprehension.
Ensure to link out to other relevant pages on site, and other relevant pages of different sites, if they can be more helpful to users.
PS: Make sure to create content, where your audience is. Why is this so? I’ll answer that, with an example. Imagine you were a priest of some sort. You go to a different religious gathering, and begin teaching. I’m very sure that everyone in that gathering will wonder why a priest from a different religion would come to teach them something different, and may not even give attention to you. Now, that’s how it is, when you create content for the wrong audience. Content, no matter how valuable, will never be helpful to the wrong person. In essence, go where your audience is, build them, and give them what they need.
To optimize content effectively, make sure to put in mind;
User experience: Be sure you do not create content, for search engines alone, as that might affect your users’ experience negatively. Negative user experience will mean low quality content, and you do not want that.
Bounce rate: Imagine a scenario where you are searching for the best hotels in town on Google, and you come to this site that comes up on search, and you don’t find what you need on that site, and you quickly exit the site, to look for what you need, somewhere else. Now, what you just did, is what many users will do to your site, if your content does not answer their needs. Nobody would want to waste time on futility. And the more people leave your site as quickly as they came, because your content does not answer their questions, the lower quality your content has. So, be sure to create useful and helpful content.
Search intent. For users to stay on your site for a long time, and even bookmark your site, you must know exactly what your users are searching for. To do this, ask yourself these questions;
What do my users want to hear, read, or see?
Is this article, or content helpful to them?
Will they like to come back here to re-digest what they have seen?
Will they like to share this content?
Is the content easy to understand?
Are there errors in my article?
If you have positive answers to the questions, beautiful. But if not, then you have work to do.
Some advantages of quality content:
Quality content has the quality of increasing the click through rate of your site. Great content can lead to linking from other sites, to your site, and this is very helpful in Content marketing, and the entire authority of a site.
When you have adequate knowledge of the information you give out to users, it brings for trust, from those users. To gain trust, you must be good at what you give (write, in this case.)
Great content can also open doors for off-site publishing opportunities! When you interact with your audience, and give them value in your content, people who are not even in your audience may also be impacted, and by that, more opportunities are open for you.
Pro tip: create a backlog of ideas for the kind of content you want to produce. Check out BuzzSumo for content ideas.
It cannot be overemphasized; content is king. But great content, valuable content, helpful and resourceful content, is more than gold.
Title tags
Now, let us look at title tags. Title, as you should know, is the title, or for the sake of a different word, the main topic of a piece of content. Title tags are the html tags (<title>, <title/>) that wrap the title of your post, or blog. The title tag describes the title, or name, that you give to a page on your site.
You can find the title of page’s post, at the top of the browser. Title tags are an important on-site SEO factor, and as such must be properly optimized.
Some ways to optimize title tags;
Make sure your title tag accurately describes it’s page.
Include keywords that users are likely to search for, in title tags.
It’ll be wise to place keyword, or descriptive information at the front of the title tag (descriptive information here, is information that describes the page.) However, you can use individual keywords, rather than descriptive phrases.
Make sure your title tag is not more than 60 characters long. This is why you must use at least two important keywords in the title tag.
Separate multiple keywords, with hyphens.
It is advised to use alphanumeric characters, rather than special characters.
Do not forget, the title tag should also be pleasing, and able to draw users to your site.
Description tags
We will mostly be looking at meta descriptions, here. The meta description of a page solely describes the page. When you perform a search, some sites come up, and you notice that on some sites there are descriptions you see on the search results, that you do not see, after you must have been on the page. In essence, meta descriptions only show up in search results.
You can find the meta description of a page, under the URL of the page (and that of course, is before you click on the page.)
It is very important, however, not compulsory, to optimize the meta description of a page. Google may choose meta descriptions, over a webmaster’s meta descriptions, if they think that it is not well optimized. I’m not sure you want that.
Some ways to optimize the meta description of a page are these;
Your meta description should contain information about your site, that entices users.
Even if keywords on meta descriptions are not a guarantee of ranking high, a well crafted meta description, may increase the click through rate of the page. So in essence, include keywords in the meta descriptions, but not too much.
Include calls to action in meta descriptions. These people love to be told to do something! Take advantage of that.
Note that a good meta description can serve as a copy on a site.
Make sure that like the title tags and content, your meta descriptions are catchy.
URLs
What is a URL? Uniform Resource Locator. Isn’t that a lot, now 😄.It is the address of a webpage. It describes a page to both users, and search engines. Where can one find the URL of a page? You can find the URL of a page, under the title tag of that page. You want to make sure your URL is well optimized for your site’s SEO. And for that, here are some ways;
URLs should contain contain keywords, be relevant, and brief.
Place important keywords close to the beginning of every URL.
Leave out parameters (the long letters and numbers at the end of a URL), as they make it excessively long.
Make URLs easy to remember.
Make sure they are related to the brand, or total theme of a site.
URLs should follow the website’s structure.
Note: When looking at a URL, you can see some forward slashes containing some information. Those slashes are subfolders, which you can also call subdirectories, that help categorize documents on a site. Now, when search engines display search results, the middle subfolders are cut out, to make the URLs shorter, and easier for users to read. And this is why you should make URLs brief, and try to incorporate keywords in them.
That will be all, for URLs.
Heading tags
Finally, we are here.
Basic html starts with understanding heading tags. H1, H2, and down to H6. H1 is used for titles of posts, and H2, for subheadings. H3, though not so much in use, are also for subheadings. It is good to note, that H1 is the “primary heading”, and the most important when it comes to SEO.
The importance of heading tags, is that they help to stylistically break up the content on a page, and if you ask me, are really important for SEO, because of how they segment information, for easy understanding.
Some ways to optimize the heading tags on your page are;
To incorporate keywords in heading tags. However, if not possible, it’s better to leave it out.
Stick to one H1 per page, and use H2 as subsequent headings tags when needed.
Do not make unnecessary heading tags in one page.
Add H3 tags to subheadings near the bottom of the page.
With that, I’ll end the heading tags section, friends.
This is not an exhaustive list, but I hope that it will in one way or another, help your SEO carrier. Are there any questions you’d like to ask? Or contributions you’d like to make? Feel free, I will be here to indulge you!
