Adding a single search bar to the top of a website, one which shows up on every page throughout that website, is a good way to allow users to search through a website for whatever particular content they want, whenever the urge to search hits them. SEO isn’t an exact science. Unfortunately, Google hasn’t given us a comprehensive list of ranking factors. Considering that Google has around 200 major ranking factors, and as many as 10,000 sub-signals, we can’t possibly know every single aspect of their algorithm. The days of hiring freelancers to create hundreds of small keyword-stuffed articles are over. With for instance the rise of voice search, longer keyphrases become more and more common. Using a long keyphrase five times in your 300-word-article will look so unnatural, that it’s not a good practice at all, where using a certain keyword five times might fit there.

Focus on conversions, not rankings

Domain authority is a score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engines. For Search Engines, backlinks help to determine the page’s importance and value (i.e. authority). Historically, the quantity of backlinks was an indicator of a page’s popularity. Google is better at working out what a page is about, and what it should be about to satisfy the intent of a searcher. Timely topics are seasonal (like holiday recipes) or more focused on current events or news coverage. Timely topics have a much shorter lifespan, but can drive large bursts of traffic if done well.

Determining Your SEO Objectives

SEO criteria frequently changes and becomes more difficult, so many website owners (and so-called SEO professionals) fall out of their practice claiming that SEO is dead. As you’ve probably identified at this point, SEO is incredibly detailed. But, it doesn’t need to be complicated. As search engines like Google continually improve and try to show the best results they can to users, their focus is to provide quality and relevant results. Similar to writing an outline for a large paper, put some thought into what the main points and subpoints of the content on the page will be and decide where to use heading tags appropriately Search Engine Optimization should start with creating and uploading content. This can include a lot of things but the most basic piece of content that you will use is articles.

Track the Results and Scale It

A lot of people think of link reclamation as just 301’ing pages they have moved that still have a lot of great backlinks. With all that said…SEO is still all about content and links. Without amazing content, you’ll never get links. And without links, you won’t crack the first page. Don't forget that search/internet marketing is multi-faceted. Traditional Marketing 101 teachers would say to build a comprehensive plan for marketing. Don't just work the online factors, but create a sound strategy around offline marketing, using ideas like postcards, trade magazines ads, phone/sales work, word of mouth and additional tactics that can help create a "buzz" around your products and services. Gaz Hall, from SEO Hull, had the following to say: "What is user intent? In short it is the reason why someone is searching for something in Google. What are they actually trying to achieve as a result of typing (or saying) that search term?"

Removing the guesswork from SEO

During the life of any website pages come and go. It’s perfectly normal to remove a page, but what can frustrate visitors is finding their journey blocked by a dead page. Worse, a page that is removed loses any importance a search engine has given it. Different search queries with different intent will result in different results. Google has become so sophisticated that when a web user searches for a “How to find organic foods” he or she will get a different results page than if he or she typed in the search query “where is the closest grocery store.” The intent behind both searches are different and Google knows it. Some mobile sites refuse access to anything but mobile phones, making it impossible for Googlebot to access the site, and therefore making the site unsearchable. The more popular and important a site is, the more links from that site matter. A site like Wikipedia has thousands of diverse sites linking to it, which means it's probably a popular and important site.