Category: SEO

15 Best SEO Blogs of 2017

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

SEO has always been baffling for people as the subject is vast, tricky and needs a lot of understanding to operate. Owing to these reasons there are a lot of misconceptions and invalidated SEO practices that’s being put to use now.

However, there are certain organizations and their websites who are keen on doing research in SEO and has always led people in the right path through their blogs and videos. Websites like Search Engine Land, Moz, SEMrush etc. are prime examples.

Let’s have a look at their most popular SEO based blogs this year and why were they propagated by people so much.

  1. Search Engine Land:

Search Engine Land is one of the leading publications that cover all aspects of the search marketing industry. Their blogs, news and articles cover latest updates for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is a collective of various authors like SEO specialists, marketers, content developers, etc. They strive to give various tips, strategies and opportunities regarding the subject.

Here is one of the most popular blogs by them. It talks about the 5 SEO mistakes that a blog makes and why a blog gets low rank even though the content is great. They are listed as unoptimized keyword structure, inconsistent internal links, poor page copy, unoptimized images and videos, and poor content promotion.

Source : 5 Easy to Miss SEO Mistakes Blogs Make

  1. Moz:

Started in 2004 at Seattle, Moz is an SEO consulting company that focuses on giving the community of readers various insights on search engine optimization and search engine marketing. It is a hub for education, various tools, and paid services

The blogs of Moz are written by industry professionals and others experts on search marketing. The following blog is written by Rand Fishkin. It talks about the 10 factors that do not affect Google ranking. It is an informative blog which removes the common misconceptions about Google ranking.

Source: 10 Things that Do Not (Directly) Affect Your Google Rankings

  1. Hubspot

Having numerous blogs and tools, Hubspot aims to give products with a personal touch. Some of its main focus areas are CRM, marketing and inbound sales. It has more than 34k customers.

The following blog lists information about how to search engine optimize blogs and its contents. The author talks about how you make your website more visible to your customers who search for keywords associated with your business on search engines.

Source : Blog SEO: How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Content

  1. Search Engine Land

Jessica Thompson’s write up about the crucial search engine ranking factors in 2017 is a well-ranked blog in Google. She lists the various factors based on the study conducted by SemRush. Not only does it say about it but how to put them into action. We suggest it as a must read if you are looking forward to increasing your website or blog ranking.

Source: SEO Ranking Factors in 2017: What’s Important and What’s Not

5. Snap Agency

Being a group of analytics nerds, creative extroverts, dedicated developers and charismatic business guys, Snap agency is a digital agency that’s keen on driving traffic to your websites with their well researched findings.

Snap agency has an active blog that lists many topics that helps you with digital marketing. The following blog is about how to forecast your Return on Investment (ROI) from SEO. These 4 methods are: estimate web traffic from SEO, estimate revenue from SEO, estimate profit from SEO, forecast the timeline for results from SEO.

Source: 4 Ways to Forecast Your ROI from SEO

  1. The Next Web

 Found by Boris and Patrick ‘The next web’ is a start up that bloomed in a tech event hosted by them. Later it became a blog that dedicated itself to help search marketing and search engine optimization.

One of the most sought after blogs in this list is from the Next web. They have written about 5 proven SEO benefits of long-form content for marketers. As said in the blog the purpose of online content is to bring more potential customers to reach you so they can buy products or services from you.

Source: 5 Proven SEO Benefits of Long-form Content for Marketers

7. The Search Agency

Nowadays, blockchain is the latest buzzword in the technology space. Many industry experts say that it will disrupt the functioning of various sectors that include finance, real estate, Internet of Things (IoT), Entertainment industry, healthcare, and many more.

Here’s an interesting blog (by The Search Agency) on how blockchain technology will change online search, will Google and other search engines implement it in their search algorithms.

Source:- Blockchain Tech for SEO: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Will Change Search

  1. SEMrush

SEMrush started in 2008 as a small group of SEO and IT specialists to make online competition fair and transparent, with equal opportunities for everyone.

 Written by Andrea Lehr, this blog lists four ways in which keyword mapping can be done to improve the SEO and content strategies. It focuses on one of the essential ingredient in marketing campaigns – keywords. This is a must read for content writers as it  shows how to get more traffic by the mere use of keywords.

Source: A Four-Step Guide on Keyword Mapping to Improve Your SEO and Content Strategy

  1. Mike Marko

He was born in Canada and is a marketing enthusiast. If you’re a beginner and interested in learning SEO just visit the website and check out the blog. I’m sure you’ll find something interesting

The blog is perfect for beginners as it covers almost all the aspects of beginning stage of SEO.  However, the content is in the website as a video. Where the creator of the website Mike Marko explains what he has learned over the course of time.

Source: Search Engine Optimization Training – Introduction to SEO

  1. Hubspot

The blog ‘how to search engine optimize your blog content’ is written by Lindsay Kolowich. As the name suggest it gives you tips on how to write content that is optimized for search engine to find it. This is an interesting page sought after by many and has been shared a lot in Facebook. To summarize, it helps you master Google’s tricky algorithm updates.

Source: Blog SEO: How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Content

  1. Tom Johnston

 Unlike the previous entries the following is a video by Tom Johnston. The video is about the biggest mistake franchises make in regards to SEO. Tom suggests that one should optimize and unite all the franchises so that no matter who is doing it everyone is mutually benefited. This is done by uniting the internet marketing campaigns. Tom is specializing in franchise SEO for national companies that have different franchises.

Source: Franchise SEO: The Biggest Mistake Franchises Make in Regards to SEO (Video)

12.  Search Engine Journal 

This site has a lot of blogs related to search marketing. The one which I mention here is the factors that affect the rank in organic search. It is based on the study made by SEMrush. The blog mentions various factors like direct website visits, bounce rate, HTTPS, anchor texts, keywords, videos, etc that affect the rank in search results.

Launched in 2003, it is a community that strives to give information and tips to improve search market content.

Source: Top 17 Organic Search Ranking Factors [STUDY]

  1. Maria Johnsen

In this blog Maria writes about how she recovered a hacked website and optimized if for search engines. The hacker had hacked her prospect’s website and used the space to sell his own products. This is an interesting read for people who have experienced hacking.

Maria’s professional background and education are diverse. She has great interest in management of complex Information Systems.

Source: How I Recovered A Hacked Website And Optimized It for Search Engines

  1. Neil Patel

Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg and Hello Bar and is working with companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom. He is one of the top influencers on the web.

This write up in Quick sprout features Neil Patel’s article about blogging. He aims to teach how to write a successful blog that reaches many people. If you are someone who is interested in writing blogs you are at the right place. Check out the write up to learn what is the right strategy to reach out through your blog.

Source: Neil Patel’s Guide to Blogging

  1. Lift Demand

Lift Demand mainly focus on training, marketing services and mentoring for US based companies. The company mostly deals with local marketing services and their strategies is said to have deep impact and reach.

 This article by John Larsen talks about why on page optimization is important for search engine ranking. It aims to give a better understanding of the importance of on page optimization. He says that SEO is only one part of a complete set of best practices that is done to drive more traffic to your website.

Source: Why is Onpage Optimization Important to Search Engine Ranking

If you think your favorite blog is left out from our list you can it in the comments section below. We will update this list from time to time.

How Anchor Content Defines Content Marketing Success

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Every marketer is jumping into content marketing to succeed in digital marketing. But why is that out of millions of blogs published every day only few become popular. It is rare that a blog becomes popular on social media and attracts tons of traffic.

Yet, there are some sites that do it day after day. What is it that sets their content apart? The answer is anchor content or anchor text. In this blog we will look at anchor content and why it is the foundation of content marketing success. We will also share tips to create anchor content for your business.

What is Anchor Content?

Anchor content is a piece of content that drives huge amount of traffic because of its uniqueness. It is often a comprehensive guide on a problem that your target audience is looking for. It is well researched and offers an in-depth perspective that no one on the internet is offering.

It attracts lots of visitors because it solves real questions that readers have. It is a piece of quality content that can drive more traffic than hundreds of sub-par blog posts. In this essence it is the cornerstone of successful content marketing.

Why Anchor Content is Important?

Ranking high on Google is difficult enough. This is especially true if you are targeting a competitive keyword. Going head to head with bigger companies that have been posting for ten years is only going to waste your resources. You will need thousands of links to your content before you show even close to top results. Anchor content is the way that can ensure you a place over your competitors.

Getting shares and external links for your content is another task that most marketers fail at.

Moz and Buzzsumo conducted a study of 1 million articles and found that 75% of articles had 0 shares and insignificant number of external links. It is indeed hard to grab attention on the internet where millions of blog posts are published every day.

anchor-content-screenshot

Your content marketing requires the momentum of anchor content for it to stand out. Anchor content differentiates you among the overload of information that search engines throw up. It earns backlinks as a useful resource and establishes your authority online.

Here are some examples and ideas for anchor content that work for businesses.

Tips to Develop Anchor Content

Type of Content

Certain type of posts gets more attention than others. Step by step how-to posts are great for large number of audience looking for solutions.

People want to quote experts in their industry. Hence, industry experts’ round up interview are other type that gets lots of backlinks.

Statistics and research results are another type that qualifies as anchor content. If you can conduct studies in your industry and publish results, you will have unique content that everyone wants to link to. If that is not possible currently you can always bring all important industry statistics in one post that will be extremely valuable.

For example, we often link to Hubspot’s Marketing Statistics as it is a valuable resource in content marketing industry.

You can also play around with visual media such as videos, infographics and listographics to give a unique twist to your content.

Word Limit

A 2016 study by Backlinko found that the average word count of Google first page result was 1,890 words.

backlinko-graph-screenshot

This is especially true for anchor content as it is in-depth information that touches every part of the topic. In general, long form posts do better.

Remember; do not worry about the word count as long as the topic is being covered in best possible way. The value of content is most important.

Fresh Perspective

It is essential to differentiate your anchor content by giving it your own voice. Find a fresh perspective and new angle to the same information that everyone is talking about. Look for an angle to the topic that is not showing up in top results and then write a data backed, long , in-depth post on it.

This is especially true for anchor content as it is in-depth information that touches every part of the topic. In general, long form posts do better.

Remember; do not worry about the word count as long as the topic is being covered in best possible way. The value of content is most important.

Do not be afraid to go against the popular opinions. Opinionated content builds authoritative reputation and are more likely to be shared.

Collaboration

Anchor content cannot be written in two days. It usually requires years of industry expertise and a thorough research of articles currently out there.

In case you do not have an industry expert with required experience (or they are just be too busy to put in the hours) , you can always collaborate with guest bloggers or industry specific content writers. This will also give you the support of their followers and earn links to others blogs.

Similarly, you can contribute to others blogs with your expert content, linking it back to your anchor content.

Conclusion

You can start off with analyzing your current posts to find opportunities for anchor content. What are the posts that get maximum traffic? Which is your most shared blog post?

After putting in so much effort on anchor content, do invest some time in sharing it on social media and running back-linking campaigns for it.  Once the post starts getting momentum you will see your domain authority rise and even other content on your site getting more traffic.

Top 12 E-commerce SEO Strategies to Grow Your Business

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

The E-commerce industry has significantly grown in the last one decade. In fact, both small and medium-sized businesses are looking for E-commerce SEO strategies that help them boost the brand and improve the bottom line.

According to Statista, e-commerce sales were estimated at USD 1.92 trillion in 2016 and are expected to reach a USD 2.35 trillion by the end of 2018.

But just having an E-commerce business and believing in these stats is not going to give you success. What else do you need? Read on to get insights into 12 E-commerce SEO strategies that you need to follow if you want guaranteed growth through E-commerce:

1. Simple Categories

A lot of E-commerce portals forget to label and categorize their products carefully. This confuses the consumer as he/she is not able to find the product they need. Remember to keep categories that are easy-to-understand with logical labels, and filters. Your conversion rates will automatically be promoted.

2. Unique Product Description

This is one of the SEO tricks that will help to break through the competition. It will improve your SEO rankings and drive more traffic to your website. Product descriptions must be unique, not more than 250 words with relevant keywords in the product title and synonyms in the description. Identify high-search traffic keywords in your category before you give your product a title.

3. Attractive Images

Since E-commerce stores take away the touch-and-feel aspect, images play a major role in influencing purchase decisions. You may have a high-quality product but if your image is blurred, consumers will not be attracted to it. Product photos can communicate what copy cannot. Good photos can improve SEO, market your brand and establish an image and also be shared on Social Media for increased sales.

4. Clear URLs

Website addresses should not be complicated. For instance, a www.mystore.com/girls-dresses is more convenient to navigate than www.mystore.com/shop/cat-1245. Have relevant keywords in the URL with every category separated by hyphens.

5. Social Media & Blogging

Sharing quality content on your social media platforms helps to keep the target audience engaged. Inform them about your activities – sales, offers, new product launches, season collections and other details via social media. Maintain two-way communication with your customers, even if it is in the form of a negative feedback.

6. Offer Incentives

This is one of the most important E-commerce SEO strategies. Your customers must feel incentivized from time to time. Such an approach not only increases conversions but also generates loyalty customers. Bonus items, discount codes, and free delivery options over a particular price increases order size.

7. Reminder Cart Emails

A lot of customers search for products, add them to the cart and then abandon the purchase. Sending reminder emails to inform them of their incomplete order is extremely helpful in getting the customer back on your website. Adding a creative copy or discount update in such emails comes in handy too.

8. Focused Re-marketing

This has emerged as one of the most popular strategies to give the customer a hammer effect. Remarketing through Facebook, or Google Search advertising helps to engage all those consumers who abandoned their shopping carts without completing the checkout process. However, do remember that time here is of immense importance. Customers have several E-commerce players to choose from and if you don’t act fast, they would make the purchase elsewhere.

9. Customer Reviews

A lot of customers like a product but are iffy to buy it. Majority of such users scroll down to find the reviews given by previous customers and you must by all means flash all the positive reviews that you have received. Positive customer reviews boost confidence and make a significant impact on your conversion rate. Moreover, reviews help to improve SEO rankings with your product title and some original content posted by other users.

10. Direct Call-to-Action

Calls-to-action actually drive the sales. This must be clear with a single message that does not confuse the consumer. A button that says a little more than ‘buy now’ adds a little bit of urgency to the product greatly convincing the customer to make the purchase.

11. Instant Checkout Process

Most customers hate signing up and leaving in their details leading to cart abandonment. Keep your checkout process optimized with simple instructions to ensure sales success. However, this does not mean that you sacrifice on the security. Assure your customers that their confidential information is safe and secure.

12. Suggested and Recommended Products

It is an art to increase the order size with relevant suggestions at the checkout page. Make sure what you offer as a recommendation is actually suitable and attractive, and does serve the purpose of upgrades.

That’s it! Practice these interesting E-commerce SEO strategies and watch how effectively and efficiently your sales will grow. See how more and more customers start to engage with your brand.

11 Technical SEO Tips to Boost Your Site’s Rankings [Infographic]

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Technical SEO might be a challenging aspect for even the most seasoned SEO experts.  Technical SEO just refers to any optimization work that is done aside from the content. Essentially, it’s laying a strong foundation to give your website the best chance it can have to rank for relevant search queries and avoid being the bad kid on the block in Google’s eyes. Analysing and fixing technical issues at an early stage will really make a difference to your website rankings. Here’s an infographic illustrating 11 technical SEO tips to boost your site’s rankings.

technical seo tips infographic

Is There any Such Thing as SEO for Mobile Apps

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

The increasing popularity of mobile apps has reshaped the world of iOS App Store and Google Play Store. The number of app downloads and the rating given by users drive the popular apps listed on these platforms to rank higher. This means that improving the visibility of your mobile app is becoming more  challenging today. However, better visibility would increase popularity and  number of downloads for the app.

App store optimization is the first thing that comes in one’s mind when we talk about SEO for mobile apps. But are you aware of the fact that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can actually be used for boosting your mobile apps download?  Just like SEO techniques help to improve your site’s rank on Google Search, there are also some tips and tricks that help to improve the ranking and visibility of your mobile app in the app store.

SEO tips to get Better Ranking for your Mobile App

If your app has a good Google visibility, then automatically app downloads increase. With increased number of app downloads, the app popularity increases and thereby, it achieves higher ranks on the app store. Hence, it is now a proven fact that higher the visibility on Google, higher would be your app store visibility. Below are a few tips of how you can ensure this in an organic manner:

Tip#1 – Your app name should be the brand name

The brand name should definitely come in the download page URL. You can use the brand name as the link on the page from where it can be downloaded.

Tip#2 – Provide link to download app on the home page or prominent page of your website

You should provide a link to download the app on the most prominent page of the website. These are small tips which majorly all website designers miss. You can build a page which has screenshots, tips, main features, reviews, ratings of the app highlighted. This can definitely leave an impact on the users and motivate them to download the apps.

Tip#3 –Use the brand name on the clickable link text which is used to download the app

You should not lose the opportunity of highlighting the name of your brand here. Many companies make this mistake. You should not have link text like – ‘Download iPhone app’ used for downloading the app. You should rather have link names with the brand name like ‘Download the Amazon iPhone app’. This way you can market your brand and also make it clear to the users what they are about to download.

Tip#4 – Provide QR link for app download

QR codes help to give desktop users an easy way to access the apps. Once you scan the right device with the QR code, the app download should occur. You should not forget to compress the URL length before generating the QR. If the URL length exceeds 50 characters, then the QR code that is generated is heavy and many a times scanning them becomes difficult. The best way is to use a compressed URL to generate the QR code. This concept is surely going to become very popular in the next one year. So, you should probably start experimenting on it from now.

Tip#5 –Promote your app to the browsers checking your website

The whole world is sitting for you to make the correct and suitable app search simpler for them. They want to be able to easily find the relevant apps or mobile pages. Every time any browser hits your website, you should prompt them to download the app for their device for ease.

There are several apps available today which are really good but most of them are either not very popular or not on any top lists. This is the main cause for all the owners of good apps to realize the urgency and need to optimize app pages for better ranking.

The brands with large amount of traffic, good content, and social popularity should use these digital opportunities to increase app popularity and increase ranking. App store and Play Store are new assets for mobile researchers.

So, get set go and start investing time in SEO for mobile apps, if you wish to improve your ranking and get more app downloads.

Is Link Building Still the Most Powerful SEO Strategy

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Link building is one of the important aspects of SEO. It is the process of building links through the web that lead to your page. Google counts these links as votes to your page while ranking it. They indicate that your page is useful as a result. Without links your page would just be an island in the ocean with no roads to reach it.

Google uses metrics that tell about a page’s relevance to rank it. Search engines only want to show useful results to its searchers. Search engines have been using backlinks to rank page since the beginning. This is why any SEO effort to rank higher on search engines is incomplete without link building activity.

In fact, Backlinko did a study of 1 million search results last year and found out that links impacted search engine rankings more than any other factor.

number of referring domains screenshot

It must be clear by now that link building has been and continues to be the most powerful SEO activity. It is also the most challenging activity for SEO. It takes unique and quality content to earn links from other sites. Also, links from just another site will not work to boost your ranking. Google looks at Domain Authorty of the site linking to you to determine backlink quality.

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is the metric developed by MoZ to measure the quality of your site. The score varies from 1 to 100, 100 indicating extremely good site whereas a score of 1 indicating poor site.

Sites such as Forbes.com or Entreprenuer.com have DA of above 90. You must try to earn links from a higher DA site. A link from 75+ DA site is great but even a few links from 50+ DA sites can do wonders for your SEO. You should have minimal links from any site with a DA of 30 or lower as these can actually pull your reputation down.

Here is what you should know before you start your link building campaign:

1) Link building must be accompanied with on page SEO, quality content and great user experience on your site. Nobody wants to link to poor quality pages that are of little value to readers.

2) As pointed above make sure to earn links from high DA websites. Low DA links can actually harm your rankings on search engines.

3) Do not put links in irrelevant places. Inserting irrelevant links will confuse your audience. Ask yourself who will appreciate this content. This will get you targeted audience that convert better and spend more time on your site. This will in turn improve your ranking.

4) Be patient, link building takes time to show results. Kristina Kledzik found that it takes up to 10 weeks for link building to start showing its magic on rankings.

What can I do to get Links?

So how can you get good DA links to your site? Strategy is the answer here. Since results take time to show, you must have a calendar and strategy that you will follow diligently nonetheless. Here are some smart strategies that winners are using:

Strategy #1 Guest blogging

Search out leading blogs in your domain and offer to write a blog as an expert for them. Insert a link to your page in that blog to drive traffic to your site. Guest blogging is a good way to get new traffic and links from a high DA site. Make your expertise and reputation known to the blog owner when you request for a guest blog.

You can also ask other experts to write on your blog and insert the link in their site. This will only work if you have decent amount of following already.

Strategy #2 Popular Format Articles

There are some types of articles which always earn high number of links. These include:

> Round ups of industry experts. This is where you can ask industry experts for their opinion on a particular topic or issue. For example: You could ask leading digital marketers ‘What is their take on importance of social media?’. You need to then compile all the answers into one blog post. This way you will earn a lot of links from digital marketing blogs as everyone wants to know what the reputed experts have to say.

> Do research in your domain and publish the results in your blog. People always need data to substantiate their opinion and keep the article interesting. You can earn tons of links if you can study on interesting topics and share the results with the world.

> Visual content is very popular nowadays. It is 3 times more likely to be shared. You can even turn a leading text post into an infographic to save the effort of developing fresh content.

Strategy #3 Manual Outreach

This is simply reaching out to popular sites via email and begging them for a link. Leading bloggers like Neil Patel have used this strategy and it works! The key here is to write a piece of content that is valuable and pitching it to lots of site owners.

This is an aggressive strategy and requires high volume of requests to succeed. If your blog is a decent read a few bloggers are sure to respond and link to you.

Strategy # 4 Self created Non-editorial Links

This is inserting links to your page via comments in others blogs or forums.

You can also do this in Quora.com. Search for a popular question in your domain and write a well rounded and expert answer on it. Insert your link in the answer to let people know about your site here. People will visit your page if your insert a bait like ‘visit my site to know the data behind this result’.

However, don’t go too aggressive on this strategy. You don’t want to come across as a spammer and spoil your reputation on these sites.

Strategy # 5 Skyscraper Technique

This technique has been used successfully by many top ranking blogs. In this you pick out the popularly linked posts , study it and then write a post better than it.

You can make your post better by adding more points or presenting it in a better visual format. For example: if you find that a blog ‘5 ways to earn more links’ is highly linked to, then you can write ‘ 21 ways to earn more links’. You can then contact the sites linking to it, tell them about your improved version of the link and request to link to you instead.

Link building requires the most effort in SEO. It also requires a lot of patience. However, once links from good sites are in place you can expect increasing flow of traffic from these sources and see your ranking climbing up steadily.

5 Benefits of Featured Snippets in Google SERPs [Infographic]

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Researches show that almost 30 % of Google search results have featured snippets.  According to Hubspot, content highlighted in featured snippets are more likely to be clicked over the first position on the search engine results page.  Content displayed in featured snippets are generally referred as ‘position 0’ in SEO terms. Normally this position is used to answer search queries or topics in a brief manner. Nowadays it matters obtaining the desired ‘position 0’ in the SERPs.

How about obtaining ‘Position 0’ in Google SERPs? Here is an infographic illustrating the benefits of featured snippets in Google SERPs.

Benefits-of-Featured-Snippets-in-Google-SERPs-infographic

6 Website Factors That Affect Your SEO Efforts

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

A great website is the foundation to SEO strategy. After all, all SEO efforts are towards getting traffic to your website and converting visitors to customers.

It is also usually the end of the sales funnel where your convert your leads into paying customers. Imagine driving all the hard earned traffic to a site that does a poor job in converting those visitors. That would be a pointless effort, right?

So let’s look at 6 website factors that affect your SEO efforts:

1. On page SEO

One of the ways to drive more traffic to your website is by ranking higher in Google for keywords relevant to you. This is why it is important to optimize your website for search engines. Getting more organic traffic to your website will boost your conversions. Here are some tips on on-page SEO to rank higher:

  • Tip 1: Update the page title, meta descriptions and alt tags in your website
  • Tip 2:  Internal link-building
  • Tip 3: Make sure you target relevant keywords and have relevant content only
  • Tip 4: Update your site regularly with fresh and high quality content.

You can install Yoast SEO plugin if your website is powered by WordPress. We will talk  about more plugins to improve your site in the last point.

2. Site loading speed

Visitors have shrinking attention spans and expect a site page to load within 3-5 seconds. According to research by Akamai, a one second delay in page load can reduce the conversions on your site by 7%.

Tip: Go to WebpageTest to test your website’s page load speed. This site gives you a detailed report on time taken to load each file.

If your site is slow in loading it could be because of server location and size, excess coding, large image files or unnecessary redirects.

3. Shareability

Social media is one of the top drivers of traffic in SEO. It also generates targeted visitors that are easier to convert. Website content must be easily shareable on social media to support SEO. Here are three ways to ensure this.

Tip 1: Use Visual content such as images, infographics and videos. Visual content is 3x times more likely to be shared. Facebook  engagement is highest for posts with photos and videos.

Tip 2: Optimize your images and meta descriptions for social media. Check how the image looks in a social media post. Are the dimensions right? Meta description is the page title and description that shows up in the post. Tweak it to include keywords and interesting lines.

Tip 3 : Have social sharing buttons installed in your website to allow one click sharing and commenting on your content.

4. Web design

The transition for your customers who come to your site from emails, social media or paid ads must be smooth. This means that your web design must be in line with rest of SEO efforts and should give a consistent experience.

Web design is reflected in the website layout, color scheme, pathways of your site. As you may have guessed it drives user experience and branding of your site. It also determines the functionality of your site or how easily visitors can complete tasks they are on the site for.

Tip 1: Optimize your site for mobile devices. Visit Browserstack to check how your site looks on various devices

Tip 2:Use color patterns and themes that reinforce your branding

Tip 3: Keep the layout simple, intuitive and logical

5. Content

This is perhaps the most important website factor that affects SEO.

Content is what attracts new visitors and keeps them coming back for more. You should offer quality content   if you want to succeed in your SEO efforts.

Tip: Research deeply on what your audience wants to read and watch. Develop content that solves their needs not yours.

6. Tools

There are many tools that help you to enhance your website. Some of them increase ranking others help you keep an eye on your traffic. Here are some website tools you must use to support your SEO:

1. Get free analysis of your website on Ahrefs and Similar web. You can see the technical glitches, traffic sources and keywords on your website and get a detailed report

2. Install Crazy Egg to know which features on your site are working and track visitor mouse movements . You can also use OptinMonster.

3. Install Hello Bar plugin to convert visitors into leads. This pop up a form to get email IDs or sign up for offers.

4. Install Google Analytics to get key metrics on your website.

5. Install Yoast SEO to create search engine optimized content

6. Schedule your WordPress post for social media with BufferApp. This will save a lot of time and give out content consistently.

Your website is your owned asset that converts leads into customers on the internet. Use the tips shared above to make sure it does the job of supporting your SEO efforts.

5 Ways to Optimize Your Content for Google’s Featured Snippet

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Have you noticed how Google has changed the way it displays search results over the years. Google is always trying to make it easy for its users to find answers. Google’s featured snippet is one of the ways in which Google has simplified results for its users. In this blog we will share 5 ways to optimize your content and rank in Google’s featured snippet.

But, first let us look at what featured snippet is and how can it help you

What is Google Featured Snippet?

Featured snippet is the answer to user query that Google display at the top of organic results in a box. This is the most relevant answer pulled out by Google and displayed for users. Users can get an instant answer without the need to click on a link and go to another page.

google-featured-snippet-screenshot

You can see in the above image the post by huffingtonpost.com featured in the snippet. It ranks before the organic results. This is sometimes referred by marketers as position 0 for the result.  Featured snippets can be in paragraph, lists or table format.

So why should you eye this position 0? The answer is simple and based on hard numbers. Featured snippets have known to increase traffic to your site anywhere from 30% to 114%.

Ranking in a feature snippet will increase your CTR, give you more space on results page and increase your trust and credibility. What’s even better is that your page authority and brand is not important to rank in a snippet. This means that even small brands can compete with big names and rank above them.

Here are 5 ways you can optimize your content for Google’s featured snippet:

1. Answer Common Search Queries

Pick the most common question in your industry and answer them in your post. Questions starting with ‘how to’, ‘how does’, ‘which are’, ’what to’ etc usually feature a snippet. Phrases such as ‘benefits of’ or ‘uses of’ also draw up featured snippets.

Keywords with more volume will draw more traffic with featured snippets. So it is better to focus on high volume keywords. If you are a small domain with low authority then featuring for low volume keywords can also be a good strategy for you.

You can visit forum threads, user review sections or Quora.com to find the most common questions that users are asking in your industry.

2. Average Number of Words

A study of 1.4 miilion featured snippets by SEMrush has revealed that certain word limits are more likely to be pulled up in a snippet. Here are the findings on the optimal featured snippet length:

  • The optimal length of a featured snippet in paragraph form is 40-50 words (or 97 characters)
  • The optimal number of items/steps of a featured snippet in list form is 4-5 items (with 8 being the maximum)
  • The optimal number of rows for featured snippet in table format is 3-4 rows (with a maximum of 9 rows)

3. Include Search query in header

Make it easier for Google to read that your page specifically answers the search query. Search query that you want to rank for must be under a heading tag<h1> <h2> etc.  The answer to that query must be directly under it under the paragraph <p> tag.

4. Answer Logically

Answer the query right away under the header. The answer must be logical, easy to understand by common users. Avoid using industry jargons or giving introduction to the topic if you want to rank in position 0.

Include lists, steps or tables wherever possible. Sometimes Google can just pull up your sub-headings as list to query.  For example, Google may feature just the 5 points in this blog for a query ‘Ways to optimize for Google featured snippet’.

5. Learn from Competitors ranked in Featured Snippet

One of the easiest ways to rank in featured snippet is to optimize your current content. Here is how it works:

  1. Draw a list of all the search queries for which you rank anywhere from position 1 to Position 10 but do not feature in the snippet. Invest in some SEO if you are not ranking in top 10 for any keywords.
  2. Then look at the current results in the featured snippet. How is their page structured? Is the content in list format or in a table? How does the answer differ?
  3. Then optimize your page to fit the structure and format of the page that is ranking in featured snippet. Keep the search intent in mind while re-formatting. Simple answers are the best when it comes to ranking in featured snippet.

Google featured snippet is a good opportunity for low authority domains and small sites to rank above the big players. Many times the site pulled up on featured snippet are those ranking lower than fifth position. Following above tips can help you to rank above the big domains and increase your CTR.

How Unlimited Web Hosting Works Wonders on SEO [Infographic]

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Often stories have come out in the past regarding the pain staking ordeal people have gone through with their web hosting services. However, things have changed now. Since technology is progressing exponentially web hosting services are also in the same path. They have now become reliable, efficient as well as cost-effective.

It is indeed true that not all unlimited web hosting companies are reliable. But the key is to choose the right one.

This infographic representation will give you can idea about how an unlimited web hosting will work on SEO of your website.

how-unlimited-web-hosting--works-wonders-on-seo-infographic