Although search engines can read text, they can’t read an image. That’s where “alt tags”, or “alternative text”, comes in. What it boils down to is that the exact strategy you’re using for on-page SEO -- creating relevant, high-qulity content for a human audience -- should also help take …

Content is king when it comes to SEO. You can’t have an SEO campaign without content; it’s the fuel that makes SEO work. There are a number of methodologies ranging from complex formulas including many different heuristics to more simplified models designed just to give you a sense …

Since search engines focus more on the initial words of the titles, make sure you add your keywords at the start of your title tag – this will help you rank better. Think of yourself as an asset portfolio manager, because that’s what you are. In the same way fund …

Using bucket brigades is one great SEO strategy to increase user experience, according to Backlinko. These are simply words and phrases that keep people engaged. A fully mobile-optimized website will be easy to read and play smoothly on even the smallest mobile device screens. Images should be able to be …

To “optimize” for a mobile-first index, make sure that what you serve to mobile users is the version of the content you’d want Google to index, not a pared down version, or a version that gets updated later than desktop, or version that redirects to the mobile homepage. On-page …

Company blogs have been proven again and again to do wonders for businesses. Among other things, having a company blog will improve your SEO and allows you to become seen as an expert in your field. When it comes to out-competing competitor pages, you are going to have to look …

Did you migrate from HTTP to HTTPS or are planning to do so? If so, it’s best to monitor after so you can gauge the impact on rankings and traffic. Search engines are not impressed by a vast vocabulary; they want you to be consistent throughout the article. The …

Links are still incredibly important, even in this day and age. Anyone is looking for high-value links from relevant sites in their industry. With responsive design, the only thing that changes across devices is the styling (which is controlled by CSS). This configuration makes it easier for Google to crawl …

When dealing with search engines, the term ‘relevance‘ describes the extent to which the content of a website corresponds to the search term used. The key to boosting visibility and SEO is staying active. A big part of Search Engine Optimization is optimizing your website to make it easier for …

Authority is measured by the quantity and quality of inbound links to your site, as well as its technical performance and structure. Using social media for your business has numerous benefits, but it’s never been more important for SEO than today. Search engines are measuring social signals such as …

Troubleshooting technical errors and ensuring that your website is always accessible is one of the biggest hurdles to manage when thinking about good SEO practices over time. Google continues to use natural, quality inbound links as a main ranking factor. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the techniques …

Content freshness matters. Keeping your content up to date helps search engines understand that your site is accurate today. Use an online tool to help you come up with more keyword and topic ideas, based on some of your preliminary ideas. Aside from offering users the best insights possible, high-quality …

In addition to the actual text on your web pages, search engines also examine their structure, the use of keywords in your URLs, the formatting of the page (such as the use of bold font), and which keywords appear in the title and in the body of the text. 9 …

Heading tags (not to be confused with the head HTML tag or HTTP headers) are used to present structure on the page to users. There are six sizes of heading tags, beginning with h1, the most important, and ending with h6, the least important. Off-page SEO factors are as important …

Join popular online forums and post valuable comments and discussions with links back to your site. This can get others to do the same if they like what they see. If you tried to optimize an article for a certain keyword, but it’s getting more traffic for a different …

Most content creators go for the big, obvious one and two keyword phrases and ignore longer search phrases. Thankfully, less competition means fewer pages in the results, making it easier for you to rank highly. SEO is very simple, and unless you’re a very large company it’s probably …

Understanding your audience and the entire consumer journey so you can be visible at the moments when it matters most is mission critical now. Quality content rules the digital landscape, yes — but what’s often forgotten is that even the best and most authoritative content needs to be built with …

Good content is important, but it also needs to rank high on SERPs if you want to reach a wider audience with it. While you can’t always control who links to you, successful SEO often includes promotion and outreach. This includes reaching out to other sites, influencers, and bloggers …

Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a crucial role in bringing in more traffic to every site. If you're not adding value, then the customer simply won't ascend and you won't grow your business (fast or slow). That's what it takes. Google defines duplicate content as large blocks of text used …

On-page content is a critical component of on-page SEO. Content is what the search engine crawlers need to associate your page with a set of keywords and/or key phrases. Without it, crawlers are left in the dark as to what your page is about. Not every link is created …

Beware, excessive linking, either internal or external can lead to the exact opposite results. Make sure that every link serves its own purpose in your content. Search engines decide rankings on what is called the results page. You will sometimes see me use the term SERP, which is the acronym …

If you have several versions of your site in different languages, add visual cues linking to your multilingual content in or near your top navigation. For example, you can use flag icons to link to each country or language’s site. Apple even has a page that lists all the …

Your online presence goes way beyond your site. The problem is that we tend to forget how our online footprint may extend to all the different platforms we may try out at some point and then abandon. As long as you provide products and/or services at a physical address …

When searching on mobile, there is a huge difference with desktop: Google knows exactly where you are and the results you get are customized according to your physical location. The secret to building a blog that gets crazy backlinks, ranks for awesome keywords and makes you money on autopilot? Outliers …

If a blog or web site doesn’t use the NoFollow tag, the search engines acknowledge the link; if a site does use the NoFollow tag, the search engines do not acknowledge the link. Having links from more popular websites carry more weight than less popular sites. Google’s number-one …

People like to be engaged and feel involved. Having a question as a title will start a conversation by piquing people’s interests. They will want to know what the answer is. Doing research on your targeted audience will help you come up with questions to ask. (Ideally, they should …

When the damage is done, it can be very hard to get back onto Google’s good side. In fact, that's often impossible. The reason you want natural, helpful, informative links is that you don’t want to have to constantly replace links ignored by the search engines and you …

If you are getting links from a site that has high PageRank with many other links pointing to it then those links will boost your site's popularity. Many SEO experts agree that a website's inbound links will be crucial this year, with many contending that there importance will increase as …

Historically, traffic from search engines has been about a very singular pursuit -- that of rankings. A DoFollow link is a link which passes on “link juice” to the website it’s linking to, which is essentially a vote or point to the linking site. The alternative is a NoFollow link …

SEO takes promotion. Backlinks are a huge part of ranking in Google and in order to attract backlinks (and even social shares) your content needs to be seen . Without shares, backlinks, authority, Google won’t notice your page and you won’t rank. The SEO of your website is largely …

Speed is a ranking factor for desktop and a very important usability factor for mobile. Google is very serious about page loading times on mobile and that’s why they have introduced and pushing for the implementation of accelerated mobile pages. Most businesses understand the importance of — and the general …

The sites that Google will rank highest for a particular search term are the ones that appear the most relevant and that have the best content and best design. At the same time though, they will also be the ones that have the most trust. This means that Google considers …

If your website or webpage suddenly or gradually changes focus over time (say from a carpentry guide to a best practice SEO guide – sounds unlikely, but you never know), then anchor text pointing to you will likely change in line with the different topic. Google may then decide that your …

One part of SEO many have heard of is keyword research. After all, every time we use a search engine, we’re using a keyword (the name is a misnomer, most keywords have more than one word in them!) Make sure you pick a permalink structure that fits your goals …

Browser caching is about how a browser remembers / stores your website for faster visiting the next time you come to that website. Many people still think that having a high volume of crawlable and indexable pages is always better. The internet today is overwhelmed with tons of DIY SEO tips …

A web page can be given an immediate freshness score based on its publication date, which decays over time as the content becomes older. The quality of the content is vastly important to SEO. How well-written is it? Is it riddled with spelling and grammatical errors or is it error-free …

When optimizing for search traffic today, marketers can’t think just about rankings. They need to be holistic in their approach to the visibility and appearance of listings. A holistic approach to organic growth often requires buy-in from internal stakeholders that may have little previous experience, or even worse – suspicion …

Technical SEO lays a solid foundation that gives your content the best chance to rank for relevant keywords and phrases. In an SEO scenario, Google likes to trust sites that have links from high quality, relevant sources. For example, large news websites don’t generally link to an untrusted source …

If you have a real business, the same advice applies. You should decide if you are going for a churn and burn method or need a safe and fool-proof way to rank BEFORE jumping into SEO and building links. Google normally takes into account bounce rate and the time spent …

In order to rank highly in SERPs, the search engines must see your website’s content as being trustworthy. Low-quality links can lead to a higher bounce rate and click-through rates, which can eventually degrade the ranking of your site on search engines. “Social search” is an evolving term for …