Search Engine Optimization Archives - Page 12 of 14

May 18, 2021 by David Henderson

If you have never heard of black hat techniques, you are not alone. Most people do not know the name of these techniques, but they are still guilty of using them whether they realize it or not. While most SEO and website owners don’t intentionally deceive search engines, ignorance is no excuse. Using these unethical strategies to get ahead in search ranking will inevitably get you penalized. Turn to our team of content marketing services Canada specialists if you believe there are black hat techniques on your site that may be hindering your objectives.

Appearing in search results is vital for business growth, but there is a right and a wrong way to climb the ranking ladder. The dark art of black hat SEO is a practice against search engine guidelines that are often used to get a site ranking higher in search results. Instead of earning the right to rank highly with search engines, black hat techniques use back door ways to trick the search engines into driving more traffic to your site.

The purpose of search engines like Google is to provide the best results when someone searches. They want to provide results that meet their requests and ensure a great search experience. They want their products to include the most accurate information for the customer without having any spam.

Search engine algorithms have gotten more sophisticated over time, which is why you should never use black hat SEO techniques at all costs. They will eventually recognize and penalize those engaging in black hat SEO which would be damaging to your site.

Keyword Stuffing

One of the most common types of black hat SEO techniques is keyword stuffing. Those creating their own websites often don’t understand the correct placement of keywords or how to use them. Stuffing keywords into the text on the page or filling content with irrelevant keywords will not only create a bad experience for users, it may also cause your page to rank for unrelated queries.

Conduct regular keyword searches to find out what people are searching for, but don’t overuse them in your content. Try to concentrate on creating valuable content that focuses on topics over keywords.

Poor Quality Content

Content is one of the most important factors in SEO. Google recently changed its algorithms to help find sites that offer great content while keeping the customer engaged. It recognizes sites that also provide original content. At one time, it could not acknowledge content that had been copied from other websites. However, Google and other search engines can now easily find sites that merely copy content from others to try and gain ranking status.

Try and offer quality content with helpful information that will keep your customer engaged. Many businesses provide writing services to help with the text on your site.

Link Farms

This may not seem like a bad idea to people just starting with their business, but Google will find you and punish you if you use a link farm. Link farms are collections of websites that are developed solely for the purpose of link building. Search engines rank websites by looking at the number of links that point to the site. The more links pointing give it credibility.

People can pay a fee to a link farm and have a bunch of links pointed to their website. These link farms generally offer low-quality content and lots of links which makes them easily found by Google. While it may be tempting to pay for links to point at your website when you are a new business, having no links is better than getting punished by Google for being associated with a link farm. Once you have fantastic content, data, graphics and other valuable content on your site, you will naturally acquire backlinks over time.

These are just a few examples of black hat SEO techniques that could likely damage your presence in search engines rather than improve it. By working with reputable content marketing services Canada experts, you can be assured that your site only utilizes white hat SEO techniques. These types of SEO techniques will enhance your ranking with search engines rather than hinder it.

For more information on how we can help with your SEO, contact our team today!

May 4, 2021 by David Henderson

Consumers are constantly bombarded with content throughout the day. To keep up, people have developed short attention spans. Headers help readers to skim through information and determine what to read and why. It also breaks up chunks of information, so it appears less overwhelming. Did you know your SEO company also prioritizes headers because it helps with search engine optimization?

Why Google Cares About Headers

Google has built a solid reputation for being able to answer people’s most pressing questions. Its brand name has become synonymous with searching for information online. To accomplish this, Google uses algorithms to determine how well a page speaks to the specific query posed during a search.

Headers call out the importance of specific topics throughout a web page. If an article or page contains headers that include the keyword from the search query, the page might rank higher. While headers are not the only weighted factors Google considers, it is one of the most important.

How Headers Align With Featured Snippets

For years, companies competed for the position of the first result on a page. Now, companies work hard to earn search position zero or the featured snippet. Google sometimes uses a paragraph or a few sentences to answer a question. However, it often compiles a list of the headers in the article, particularly when those headers are numbered and form part of a process.

It’s important to note that headers do not necessarily carry weight by themselves. Instead, they provide context so that Google bots can better understand the bigger picture. This, in turn, increases the weight provided to the content, which also improves where it ranks.

Why the Specific Headers Do Not Matter

In the past, bloggers and marketers used Title formats for the title of the page or article. Then, they used H1 headers throughout the article. Over the years, this practice changed to make H2 the first subheader throughout the article. Reports from top Google workers imply that this might result more in cosmetic than SEO benefits.

Google does not, at present, seem to weigh different headers more than others. It might, however, help Google to organize information better. For example, H3 headers might create a list under a specific H2 header. Without that change, Google bots might not immediately understand how to organize the information in a featured snippet.

How Headers Align With Images

Google increasingly turns to images for context clues about the body of an article and vice versa. In fact, images can rank separately in searches, even when people do not explicitly look for images. Headings above photos are one of the contextual clues that Google uses to determine what images mean.

It’s worth noting that headings are not the only tools Google uses to understand images. It also relies on alt text and other markup data. Sometimes, even the name of the file can be helpful.

How the Right SEO Company Can Help

Google makes minor updates to its algorithm daily and makes more significant updates a few times each year. Whenever this happens, big websites wait with bated breath to see how the new algorithm might rank their websites. This is nerve-racking and can feel more like a gamble than a strategy. When you work with a trusted SEO company, we do the reverse engineering for you and adjust your content accordingly. This allows you to enjoy greater consistency in how well you rank.

An important consideration is that Google aims to create bots and search engines that follow the same line of thought as the people it serves. With this goal in mind, it continually encourages marketers to create high-quality content instead of focusing on SEO.

Would you like to work with SEO professionals who write compelling content to nurture existing customers and attract new ones? Contact Unwired Web Solutions and ask for your free quote.

April 21, 2021 by David Henderson

Driving traffic to a website is the goal of SEO, but sometimes getting more traffic may not always be good for business. Canadian content marketing experts agree that sites who have a lot of traffic may not always be the most profitable.

Quality visits to your site are ultimately what you are looking for. Yes, the job of SEO is to drive traffic to your site, but what people often don’t know is that the quality of traffic means just as much, if not more, than the quantity.

Google can tell how long someone stays on your site and this counts towards your ranking. If people are visiting your site and clicking off quickly because the page does not match what they were looking for, this tells Google that your site does not match the user’s intent.

Google’s algorithm is constantly improving to show the results that best match a user’s query, so if it finds that people are leaving your site quickly, it will downgrade its ranking.

Quality Content

When thinking about what makes a user stay longer on a site, having a content strategy is key. If content marketing is the journey toward brand success, content strategy is the blueprint that directs it. If you don’t have a well-thought-out content strategy or are publishing poorly written content, visitors to your site are not likely to stick around.

The design of your site also matters when it comes to keeping visitors on your site. If you have a site that loads at the rate of a tortoise, or it is not mobile-friendly people will click off in a hurry.

This year Google will be launching the Page Experience update that will better measure how well each webpage serves the needs of organic search visitors. So, if it records high volume to a site, but small times spent on the site, it will negatively impact SEO and will drop a site’s ranking.

Return on Investment

These points pose a classic debate between which is more important, more organic traffic, or more organic conversions. While many different points that can be made for both sides of the question, at the end of the day, businesses should be more concerned about their return on investment. Think of it this way, it would be better to attract 100,000 visitors to a site and have 50% of them convert, rather than 200,000 visitors and only 25% of them convert.

There is more to SEO than just merely garnering more traffic. If that traffic doesn’t generate sales, then what is the point!? At the end of the day, ROI is the main goal.

Spambots

Paying close attention to traffic sources in Google Analytics is crucial to know where your visitors are coming from. Some people experience false hope when they see an increase in traffic, only to find out that these visits were not even from humans. It is estimated that 37% of all website activity is created by spambots. This type of traffic to your site is generally illegitimate that is sent to a site that can skew and inflate traffic data.

By understanding where your visitors are coming from and offering quality content, you will be able to keep people on your site longer, and hopefully see a higher conversion rate. By working with content marketing services Canada specialists at Unwired Web Solutions we can help to make sure your site is obtaining quality visitors.

April 14, 2021 by David Henderson

Whether you’re an old pro at SEO strategies or you’re just diving into the waters of optimizing your business site for the internet, you may have heard of “long-tail” keywords. These particular keywords represent a new strategy within SEO that takes a supply-and-demand stance on keywords, SEO, and internet consumerism. Those who promote long-tail keywords assume that there is a customer for every niche — and that all they need is an easy way to find you. Check out the following facts to develop an understanding of search engine optimization Kitchener techniques for the local area and beyond.

How Do Keywords Affect SEO?

Beginners to website optimization and digital marketing should understand that websites are considered well-optimized for search engines when searchers can easily find what they are looking for by searching for terms that match a site’s keywords. There is no perfect SEO strategy, but there are many good ones, and there are a lot of mistakes that business owners make even when they’ve nailed their first batch of keywords.

For example, owners of a great website will research SEO keywords regularly. People evolve, the internet constantly changes, and what search engines look for in keywords alters on a rapid basis. When you target keywords that are too popular, many websites are using these and vying for the searcher’s attention. This ultimately means that your site may not be listed in the results despite having perfectly optimized keywords. Read on to learn more about short-tail and long-tail keywords and why long-tail keywords may be the key to cracking the SEO code for your site.

What Are Short-Tail Keywords?

Short-tail keywords, or searches composed of only one or two words, have been the norm for a while when it comes to SEO keyword research. As stated above, the problem many people run into when they only use short-tail keywords is that these search terms can be too competitive. If you are running a small brick-and-mortar bakery, for example, you’ll want your searchers to find you locally. If they type in “cupcakes” in a big city, they may receive geographical results from all over the town and opt to take their family to the search result that pops up first.

What Are Long-Tail Keywords?

If the family in our example wants to find a specific type of cupcake, they may choose to use a long-tail keyword, which is simply a keyword phrase designed to yield more specific results. For example, if they wanted to find “gluten-free and dairy-free cupcakes in Kitchener”, this long-tail keyword may net them one to five results. One of those results may be your site.

What you should take away from these examples is that long-tail keywords, though they are more specific, are far less competitive because of how customized they can be. When you optimize your website with short-tail keywords, your site may pop up in many searches, but whoever is searching may or may not be looking for whatever you or your company provides. They also may never come across your site due to the overpopulation of the internet in general. Long-tail keywords can narrow your audience base and target specific people who are searching for specific things.

How We Can Help

By understanding search engine optimization Kitchener techniques, you can boost your SEO tactics. Before you do anything else, try out a long-tail keyword or two to see if this tactic attracts customers in your area who are already looking for you. For more information about keywords and marketing strategies, get in touch with Unwired Web Solutions today.

April 7, 2021 by David Henderson

A good image can speak a thousand words. But on a website or blog, if that image is not optimized properly, no one will hear those words. Adding images to a website is not anything new, but what most people don’t realize is that certain SEO tips can be done for images to help your site rank in Google.

Image optimization has many advantages other than just ranking higher on a google image search. It can also allow for faster page loads, better user experience, and additional ranking opportunities.

Given Google’s broadening of artificial intelligence, some people are wondering if image optimization is still necessary. According to top SEO company guidelines, the simple answer is yes. Google is still not able to read all types of images even though AI has significantly improved in recent years.

As many problems can originate from simply opting to upload raw images to your site, it is well worth your time and energy to put in a little bit of work. By adding in a few more steps when you upload an image to your site, you may find better SEO conversion rates.

The Importance of Alt Tags

Image optimization starts with alt tags. Understanding alt tags and their purpose is crucial to creating ultimate descriptions. Overall, creating alt tags doesn’t have to be difficult, and it is best not to overthink them. You simply need to describe an image. Think about words that could be used to describe the image if someone wasn’t able to see it. You will want to stick to around 10 words to describe the photo without repeating or stuffing the same word numerous times.

Descriptive Image Names

Google published a guide of best image practices and one of the easiest takeaways that it recommends is to make sure you are using descriptive image names. When you upload an image straight from a camera, it normally has a generic name including some letters and numbers. As an example, using “cat-playing-ball-yarn.jpg” is better than “IMG00458.jpg.”

Reduce Image File Size

There is nothing more upsetting than building a beautiful website only to realize that it loads so slowly most people will leave before the images upload. The main camera on an iPhone X produces image files that are much larger in pixel dimensions than the image that will display on your website. This difference in pixel size can significantly add to an increased page file size. Check what file size your page requires and resize all images to their maximum display dimensions.

Implement Lazy Loading

Page speed is important in the world of SEO, and images are usually the assets that cause slower site speeds, especially when there are a lot of images on one page. While they are extremely important in providing a great user experience, images can be set up to deter a browser from loading an image until it is needed.

Lazy loading simply means that images are not loaded until the user scrolls down the page and lands on the photo. So, if the user never scrolls down to the second half of a page, those assets will never be loaded. This can bring noticeable performance improvements and result in Google taking notice.

With Google rolling out their Page Experience Update this year, it is more important than ever to get your site in top form. This update will take several ranking factors into account, including page speed.

By implementing new steps when uploading images to a site, you will notice an increase in Google rankings. However, don’t forget about your pages and blog posts that you have already set up. Now is the time to go through past postings and update images with alt tags, size requirements and image names. An SEO company can help with an audit that will go through any images that need to be updated. It may seem like a tedious job, but your rankings and subsequent visits will be worth it.

Contact the experts at Unwired Web Solutions today to get your site up to date and ensure your images are working in your favour.