Day: November 25, 2017

Seo also known as SEO is a subject covered by many individuals and blog sites, its the procedure of making your web site look eye-catching to the online search engine in the hope of getting a preferential ranking for your targeted keyword. During my research study I discover numerous posts that give some excellent understandings to seo.

Listed below you can find an article from Ahref which I discovered to be really intriguing as well as valuable . The short article is titled How To Tell If My Agency Is Using Black Hat Techniques and you can discover it below

There are dozens of black hat techniques that are still in use today. This article is not meant to be an all-inclusive list of those techniques; instead, it is meant to discuss the techniques that are most likely to be used by an agency and to help you, the customer, determine whether your agency is using them.

We will discuss what to look for on your website, what to look for off-site, and what questions you can ask your agency to get some inside details about what is happening with your SEO campaign. We will not conduct any technical analysis and instead focus on what the everyday person can determine on their own.

CHECK YOUR OWN WEBSITE

The most common on-site black hat techniques:

Duplicate Content – Agencies won’t be using duplicate content to cheat Google, but they might use duplicate content to cut costs. It is also possible that their contract writer is cheating them by sending the same piece of content to multiple clients.

• This is a pretty easy check — just run your website through Copyscape. It costs five cents per page, which can add up. You can also do a batch search if you want to check your entire site in one scan.

Over-Optimization – This is caused by an over-aggressive SEO strategy by putting your ‘money’ keywords every place they can fit them in.

• Read through your own content. Do the internal links (links that go to other pages on your website) seem to be phrased to help guide the reader to other pages that might help them, or are the links there specifically to enhance SEO? Do all of the internal links use rich anchor text? (Example: Personal Injury Lawyer, Orthopedic Doctor, ‘Any Primary Keyword’)
• Check your primary product/service pages to see if the primary keyword for that page is used everywhere it possibly can be. Is the exact keyword in the URL address, the page title, the sub-headers, in the image alt-tags, and twenty more times throughout the main content? That is overdoing it.

Abuse of Schema – Changing the way your website is presented in the SERPs can do magical things. But you have to be sure that all of the schema you use is applicable to your website.

• Choose a few of your most important top-level pages and insert the URL into Google’s Schema Tool. This will produce a list of schema markup that is present on that page. Do these markups make sense? Most markups have logical names, which means you should be able to tell if they belong or not. You also want to ensure that you aren’t fabricating information. For instance, you should not have a review markup if you don’t have any reviews.

CHECK WEBSITES LINKING TO YOURS

The most common off-site black hat techniques:

• Buying Links – There are companies whose purpose is to sell links. Sometimes these companies sell links on websites they own, and sometimes the company will do manual outreach to get a link on a website they do not own. Often, you can pick from a list of websites like a menu, paying different prices for different links.
• Link Exchanges – These used to be more popular before Google caught on. The basic premise is that two websites agree to post a link to each other. This is often done through the exchange of a guest blog post.
• Private Blog Networks – These are websites that are built for the sole purpose of generating links, even though they look like real websites. Often, these websites will have banner ads, blog comments, social profiles, and anything else to make them look legitimate.

To a certain extent, you are at the mercy of your agency. None of the above are particularly easy to uncover. Aside from just asking your agency, the best thing you can do is look at your link profile and gauge for quality. Here is an easy way to find out what sites are linking to yours so that you can apply ‘everyday commonsense’ to gauge your website’s quality.

DISCLAIMER: Most links available to small businesses are from other small businesses or small blogs. The below is not an end-all-be-all answer. It is meant to allow you to ask your agency educated questions.

1. Open an internet browser.
2. You can either search Google for ‘Search Console’ or just click this link to go directly there.
3. Log into Search Console with the Google account that has administrative access.

• If you don’t have admin access, ask your agency to make you an owner of all of your Google services. This is something that you should do, regardless.

1. You might see multiple websites listed; select the website you want to investigate. You might see the website listed more than once, in which case you will need to click through to find out which one actually has data.
2. On the left, click ‘Search Traffic.’
3. In the drop-down under ‘Search Traffic,’ click ‘Links To Your Site.’
4. You should see two columns in the middle of your screen. The left column should be titled ‘Who links the most,’ and there should be a link at the bottom of that column called ‘More>>’ — click that.
5. This will provide a list of every website that links to yours.

You could click through to the next level and evaluate every single link coming into your website. But that would likely be too time-consuming for you and you would be better off taking a more top-level look at your link profile. Here is what I suggest:

1. Scan through the list of websites in Search Console and create your own list of any that seem ‘off.’
2. Start to visit each of the websites that are on your list.
3. If the website ends up being a directory, just ignore it and move onto the next.
4. Ask yourself the following questions about each website:
   1. Does the website have a clear audience and purpose?
   2. Read the content. Is it well written or does it look like it was written by someone who doesn’t speak your native language?
5. If you want to go one step further, you can visit WhoIs and input each of the websites you are suspicious of. This will tell you who owns the website.
   1. Is the information blocked or private? This will usually show the domain registrar as the owner, such as Go Daddy.
   2. Are many of the websites owned by the same person?

ASK YOUR AGENCY

Sometimes you just need to ask your agency what they are up to. They will likely open a discussion about strategy. Here are some questions you should ask that might reveal what your SEO looks like behind the scenes:

• Have any of our links come from some of your other clients? (Link Exchanges)
• Have any of our links come from websites that you own or control? (PBNs or Link Exchanges)
• Do you ever directly pay for a link? (Buying Links or PBNs)
• How aggressive are you with on-site optimization?

Every industry, market, and company is unique. Your agency may have a good reason for using some combination of the above, but you deserve to know those reasons. We believe that you should have some idea about what is going on behind the scenes of your SEO campaign. Taking an active interest in the success of your marketing campaign generally, produces positive results.

I wish you have actually appreciated this article on How To Tell If My Agency Is Using Black Hat Techniques If you would love to check out more write-ups on search engine optimization after that feel free to search our various other short articles. We have a lot more curated write-ups from Ahref and also I wish you take pleasure in reading them.

Read more……>click Here<

Seo also known as SEO is a subject covered by several people and blog sites, its the procedure of making your website look eye-catching to the internet search engine in the hope of gaining a special ranking for your targeted keyword. Throughout my study I come across numerous write-ups that provide some terrific insights to search engine optimization.

Listed below you can discover an article from Ahref which I found to be very fascinating and also valuable . The write-up is titled How To Use Emoticons, Memes and GIFs In Social Media Marketing Without Embarrassing Yourself as well as you can locate it listed below

One of the toughest tasks for many marketers is the constant need to track, test and improve upon current trends in the industry. It is probably one of the main reasons why you are reading this article right now.

Today, we will look at emoticons, memes, and GIFs and try to deduce if they are worth being a part of your social media marketing efforts as well as teach you a thing or two that will help you use these graphics without embarrassing yourself.

While these “visual expressions” have been around since we were capable of sending first emails, we have seen a significant rise in their usage for marketing purposes only in the last couple of years. The main reason for that is actually quite simple; brands and businesses noticed that this can be a great way to connect and engage with millennials. Additionally, these graphics are a form of visual content, and social media craves visual content.

But enough of my rambling, let’s review how can you take advantage of them and what you should pay special attention to since there are many traps to fall into.

Emoticons

If there is one thing on this list that I shouldn’t have to clarify it is definitely emoticons. We use them in text messages, emails, tweets and every other message we leave on our social media channels.

I mean, a few months back, we had The Emoji Movie where Patrick Stewart lent his voice to the poop emoji. That should speak enough about their popularity.

How can you use them:

• Distinguish your brand by designing your own emojis.

• Use them to increase engagement on your social media updates (e.g., ask your audience to vote on something through the use of emoji).

• Respond to comments and tweets with emojis to communicate a specific emotion.

• Use them to tell a story (like McDonald’s did in the example below).

• Emojis aren’t bound by language barriers so they can be used to reach a wider audience without the need for translation.

Things to keep in mind:

• Don’t be overly complicated. The message you are trying to convey has to be easy to understand (look at the Deadpool and Chevrolet examples below). Not everyone has the patience to decipher your messages.

• Don’t go overboard. Too many emojis tend to be distracting and can move the focus away from the message you want to send. In the worst case scenario, your audience may even find it annoying.

• Make sure you know what the emoji expresses. Turn to Emojipedia – an emoji dictionary that also features latest news and development from the emoji world (yeah, you read that right).

• Avoid using emojis in serious situations. Emoticons are inherently fun, cheeky, and informal and as such should be avoided when dealing with serious issues or communicating in strictly formal environments.

Good example #1 – McDonald’s Good Times Campaign

McDonald’s used emoticons to tell a story in a way that associates their brand with positive things. It is often used in their tweets. Cool, simple, and effective.

Good example #2 – Deadpool Billboards

These billboards caught the attention of many fans and pictures like the one above got a lot of shares on different social channels. We can’t measure how much overall impact this had on the moviegoers, but the fact remains that Deadpool is the highest grossing R-rated movie of all times.

Good example #3 – #EndageredEmoji

World Wide Fund For Nature started the #EndageredEmoji Twitter campaign to raise the awareness about endangered animals and hopefully raise some funds that will help to save them from extinction.

Bad example #1 – #ChevyGoesEmoji

Chevrolet decided to write a press release and asked their audience to decode it. While the campaign did create a lot of buzz, the overwhelming number of dislikes proves they tried to be too clever.

I’m sorry Chevrolet, it had to be done 🙂

Memes

Memes are extremely versatile. They can come in the form of an image, a video, a GIF, a text (a phrase) or a combination of all of the above. Their origin is often related to a popular cultural reference. Memes are meant to be funny and heavily rely on sarcasm.

People always try to find a new way to use them, so it is not rare to come across the same meme with a bunch of slight variations.

How to use them:

• Memes can be a perfect addition to your humor-based campaign.

• Use of memes will increase engagement and shareability of your content.

• Target a specific group of people who understand the context to make a stronger connection with them.

• Memes can provide a way to answer both positive and negative comments and feedback on social media.

Things to keep in mind:

• Memes often have a short life-span. The more popular a meme is, the faster it becomes irrelevant and old. Most likely because people get bored seeing it all the time.

• Make sure you are using them correctly. You need to follow “meme trends” if you want to use them successfully. Missing the true intention of a joke can set you up for a tsunami of embarrassment. KnowYourMeme is a great resource to inform yourself on their meaning and connotations behind a particular meme.

• Do not try too hard. If you overuse them, your audience might get the feeling that you are trying too hard to capitalize on a trend which could make them avoid your brand.

• Content first, memes second. Memes are here to grab attention and enhance your content. They can’t replace the content itself.

Good example #1 – Jimmy John’s Twitter posts

A perfect example of using a “You vs. the guy…” meme in the right context to promote your product.

Good example #2 – #OscarNomNoms by Seamless

Seamless (online food delivery company) used 2014 Academy award nomination to create their own memes and start the hashtag OscarNomNoms creating Oscar film spoof posters.

Bad example #1 – Whataburger

A great example of how to use a meme in the wrong way. This is a Confession Bear meme people use to express controversial opinions and taboo behaviors. Wanting a burger definitely, doesn’t fit into that category and their followers were quick to notice that.

Bad example #2 – FAFSA

This was a tweet from the Federal College Financial Aid that received a lot of backlash from their followers who thought that not being able to afford college isn’t particularly funny. They deleted the tweet and issued an apology calling it an “ill-conceived attempt at reaching students through social media.”

GIFs

GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. In laic terms, you have a bunch of pictures crammed together into one file that is shown in succession which results in animation.  

GIFs have a higher engagement than images and are significantly cheaper to create than videos. Here is a great guide if you are looking to create your own animated GIFs for marketing purposes.

We love GIFs and memes so much that we even created a page cleverly named things to whine about where we like to share memes in the form of a GIF and channel our daily frustrations as content marketers in a productive direction.

You can use GIFs to:

• Spice things up by creating an animated version of your logo.

• Showcase your product or service (like Wendy’s often does on their Facebook page).

• Drive traffic to your blog posts (follow the example of General Electric).

• Involve your followers by asking them to tag a friend that can relate to a GIF you posted or ask them to give you feedback in the form of a GIF (here is a great example from FC Arsenal).

• Reply to comments in a witty manner.

• Tell a story or describe a process.

• Animate data you can share across your social media channels (a great example from Mashable).

• Announce news and collaborations (like Nintendo and Vans).

Things to keep in mind:

• GIFs should generally be short (up to 10 seconds or so). They are meant to be consumed quickly.

• Quality is important. GIFs obviously aren’t suited to be in Full HD format, but if you can count the number of pixels on the screen, you may want to look for one that has a better quality.

• Beware of copyright issues. Be sure you are following “fair use” when you are creating a GIF from the material you don’t own.

• Choose your hosting carefully. GIFs don’t always play nice, so twitching, freezing, and refusing to load are not rare issues. Choose reliable sites to host your GIFs like Giphy or Imgur.

• Size does matter. Facebook recommends that GIF files should be up to 8MB and that text should be less than 20% of the image.

• Opt for subtle motions. GIFs have a lot of trouble animating fast motions so it is better to avoid it whenever you can.

Since we linked to many examples already, this time we will skip showing of additional examples. Also, to be honest, it is pretty hard to find the original GIFs for these examples and giving screenshots just doesn’t fit into this section.

Context Is Everything

There is a time and place for everything. A stand-up comedian can joke about anything while he is on the stage. You, on the other hand, don’t have that luxury.

Seeing people get showered with ice cold water may seem silly at first, but when you understand that they are trying to raise awareness about a disease called ALS, suddenly, things make more sense.

That is why context is so crucial.

You need to make sure that your audience is also familiar with the context you are using a particular meme/emoticon in. If you use a meme to brag about something you won, but your audience doesn’t know you won something, they may get the wrong impression.

In short, always:

• Make sure the situation is appropriate.

• Know in which context the emoticon/meme should be used.

• Make sure the audience knows what are you referring to.

Beware of Things Going Viral

All of these graphics became popular because they are fun and easy to use, fast to consume, and easy to share.

These characteristics help them to go viral which could also help your comment or post to go viral too. The threat lurking behind the corner is that you could get attention for the wrong reasons. While you can argue that there isn’t such a thing as negative publicity, I really doubt you would consciously expose your brand to ridicule just to gain some attention.

With sites like Reddit around, if something actually goes viral, it sometimes results in a temporary shut down of your website, as the server can’t handle so many requests. This is known as the Digg effect.

While this is highly unlikely to happen, I thought it was interesting information to share 🙂

Know Your Audience

As with any piece of content that leaves your workshop to engage your current and potential customers, you first need to make sure you know your target audience.

While it is hard to do any damage with a restrained use of emoticons, memes are a different story.

Keep in mind that memes attract young adults that like to spend a lot of time on the internet.

If your audience doesn’t consist of that demographic, there is no point in using them. You will just aggravate your audience as they will not understand what you’re doing.

Also, keep in mind that using memes and GIFs will affect your brand image. If you want to be seen as traditional, serious, professional, etc., you may want to avoid using them completely.

Safety In Moderation

While these graphics may be addictive and fun to use, there can be too much of a good thing. If you don’t believe me, just look at what his love of explosions did to Michael Bay.

While I did mention this couple of times already, I will repeat it again – don’t overuse these elements. They can be addictive when you get the hang of how to use them properly, but they will lose its effectiveness if they are popping out of your every post and comment.

Additionally, the more you use them, the higher the chance you will make a mistake and set yourself up for a joke.

If You Make A Mistake, Play It Cool

If you find yourself in a situation where you have messed up, it is best to own up to your mistake. Trying to find an excuse will just push you further down the hole.

If you, for example, use a meme in a completely wrong context and people start to point that out in the comments, the worst thing you could do is try to get out of it by using another meme. This option is only viable if you really know what you are doing. And if you used a meme wrongly in the first place, there is a decent chance you could do it again.

To avoid being on the lists such as “Biggest Social Media Fails of 2017”, consult with a colleague that is well versed in “meme usage” or just leave the comment section to run its course. One or two mistakes won’t break your social media marketing strategy, but a constant misuse of emoticons, memes, and GIFs could have a serious negative impact.

Off You Go

Smiley faces, funny GIFs, and perfectly timed memes are waiting to boost your social media engagement. The power is in your hands, use it wisely.

If you would like to see more short articles on search engine optimization then really feel complimentary to surf our various other posts. We have many even more curated write-ups from Kiss Metrics as well as I hope you enjoy reading them.

Read more……>click Here<

Search engine optimization additionally referred to as SEO is a subject covered by numerous individuals and blog sites, its the procedure of making your website appearance eye-catching to the internet search engine in the hope of obtaining a advantageous ranking for your targeted keyword. During my research I find lots of write-ups that give some excellent insights to seo.

Below you can find an write-up from Kiss Metrics which I found to be really interesting as well as useful .

Last week’s special edition #SEMrushchat was dedicated to SEO questions that marketers need to answer before the end of 2017. While at Pubcon in Las Vegas, the SEMrush team had the chance to speak to many experts about backlinks, “nofollow” attribute, AMP, and other SEO topics that digital marketers deal with every day. Here are some insights into the world of SEO from experts like Marie Haynes, Patrick Stox, Aleyda Solis, Jim Stewart, Reva Minkoff, and more:

Q1. Would you add “nofollow” attribute to low authority sites, even if you trust the site’s content and quality?

The nofollow tag enables webmasters to point out some of their links that search engines shouldn’t be counting. Basically, this element is a notice sign for Google and other search engines that says “don’t count this link.” By using this attribute, you can ensure that your nofollow links will not pass PageRank to another page. Therefore, Google will not penalize you for linking out too much or linking to a low-quality site.

Is it worth adding the nofollow attribute to links that point to a low-authority site, even if you trust the site’s content? Our chat participants believe that low quality doesn’t necessarily mean bad content. In fact, there’s no reason to nofollow any links, because even a low-authority site can be a good source of information and it can grow into a high-authority site in the future.

If the content on the site that the link is pointing to is relevant to your topic and can benefit your readers, there is no use in adding nofollow. Imagine you are reading a post on one of the blogs that you visit on a regular basis and you see a link in the post and you don’t know whether or not the author has followed this link, the only thing you probably care about is if it’s relevant to the content you’re reading at the moment. The author thought it was worth putting the link on their site, so therefore the link must be worth clicking.

You should always pay attention to whether or not a link is relevant and helpful to your site visitors. If it can provide some value to them, you don’t really need to add the nofollow element. After all, if the site is questionable and shady, you shouldn’t be linking to it at all.

Q2. How do you incorporate user intent into your keyword strategy? How important are longtail keywords for user intent?

User intent has been a buzzword in the SEO community, however, it is still ignored by many website owners. User intent should inform the direction of your content strategy, it is the key to improving your SEO campaign and it gives you the information that users are trying to find when they type in a particular search query. 

To make sure, you incorporate user intent in your keyword strategy, consider using these four tips:

1. Keep in Mind Different Types of User Intent

The intent is categorized into three groups: informational, navigational, and transactional. These intent types can help you to identify your audience persona and which stage your target users are in your funnel. Tailoring your content to one of these categories is vital. In order to do so, you need to look at which keywords your audience is using in their search queries and keep in mind that some queries have different meanings and intents. Bill Slawski gave an example of how “Saturn” is both the name of a planet and the make of a car.

2. Integrate Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are highly targeted search phrases that are designed to serve specific user intent. The good thing about these keywords is that they have low competition, but tend to have high conversion rates. Neil Patel explains good conversions of long tails by the fact that users who type these descriptive key phrases, i.e. long-tail keywords, are usually more qualified than those who type short phrases. By discovering long-tail keywords and building your content around them you can incorporate user intent into your strategy.

3. Optimize for Topics

When searching for long-tail keywords, organize them by topic, so you can find the best place for them in your content. If you already have an existing blog post or article on this specific topic, you can insert your new long-tail phrases into them.

When creating content that you want to rank for specific keywords, it can be hard for users to find the exact information they were looking for. Fix this by using topic clusters; choose the broad topics you want to rank for and then craft your content based on specific keywords related to the specific topics.

4. Search for An Emotional “Hook”

When optimizing for topics, value becomes even more important than ever before. It is important to serve a particular function for your audience and give them answers and solutions they need in a certain situation. Beyond that, you should create an emotional hook because people are driven by emotions. Think which keywords can help you to evoke your audience’s emotions, while keeping user intent in mind.

Make sure to use long-tail keywords in your content strategy to address the specific user intent and optimize your copy for particular niche-based topics.

Q3. Is it better to publish new content regularly or release one evergreen piece quarterly? Why?

It can be hard to find the right balance between the need for new content that’s posted regularly and evergreen copy that’s published quarterly. Even though time-sensitive content won’t be relevant endlessly, it provides a few strong benefits and it helps you rank well in search engines and drive traffic to your website. It also allows you to build up your brand, keep your audience engaged, and boost your credentials.

On the other hand, evergreen content is always fresh. It stays relevant years after it was written, so your site visitors can gain value from it over and over again. Evergreen copy keeps your website applicable for the long-run and builds your reputation as an authority in your niche.

Both of these content types are strategically important to your website and blog and if you can provide new real-time posts along with your evergreen pieces of content, you have a higher chance of being noticed and followed. ”If I was starting a new blog today, I’d create a handful of evergreen pieces, publish them, then promote them with smaller content on a weekly or monthly basis throughout the rest of the year,” tweeted Dale Davies – @daledavies_me.

Nevertheless, some of our chat participants remarked that the point is not how often you post your content, but how quality and relevant it is.

A good balance between new and evergreen content will help you to keep your users engaged and build credibility and trust with your audience.

Q4. Links are important for SEO. What is the top white hat technique you’ve used for a client/your own website to get high-quality links?

Building relevant inbound links to your website can be hard and time-consuming. Nevertheless, it’s one of the sustainable and long-term ways to stay on top of Google search rankings. Our chat participants shared their top white hat techniques for earning high-quality backlinks:

• Perform research and create high-quality content

One of the most popular tips is to produce high-quality content that contains real value. If you create great copy that people naturally want to share, you can successfully generate organic links. But before you start writing a new piece of content, you have to invest your time in a thorough research and make sure that your topic is valuable to your potential readers. Matthew Barby suggests performing competitive research every week or month to find new opportunities to take advantage of while they are still fresh.

• Produce Data-Rich Content

By amplifying your blog post with data, you can make your story more meaningful and insightful and then visualize your findings to make it more link-worthy. Felix Tarcomnicu points out that visuals, graphs, and infographics are still a powerful tool for attracting links. He suggests reinforcing your copy with facts and a fabulous design.

• Identify Influencers and Build Relationships

Link building is just another term for relationship building. The best link has always been a link from a related, high-authority site and the most effective way to earn links from a high-quality site is to build a natural relationship with an influential person who manages it. Most relationships take time to develop, so you need to first identify influencers in your niche and connect with them, share and comment on their content, and deliver value to them by introducing them to people within your network and/or creating content together.

• Give Testimonials to Earn Links in Return

If you are using a good product or service that you find helpful, you can provide your review — a free testimonial that the company can post on its website. To show that you are a real person or brand, this company would likely to add a link back to your site on their web pages. This is where backlinks make a move.

• Track Your Social Media Backlinks

What other powerful ways do you use to earn high-quality backlinks? Let us know in the comments!

Q5. What is the future of AMP and how is it going to transform the SERPs in 2018?

Over the past 12 months, there has been a ton of hype in the SEO world around the AMP project led by Google. Here are some of our chat participants’ prediction about the future of AMP and how it is going to change the SERPs: 

Are there any other SEO questions that bother you? Share them in the comments below!

Make sure to join us on Wednesday as we discuss “Brand Authority as a Ranking Factor” with Jennifer Slegg! 

I wish you have actually appreciated this write-up on SEO Questions to Answer Before the Year Ends #semrushchat If you wish to view even more posts on seo then don’t hesitate to surf our other articles. We have much more curated articles from Ahref and I hope you enjoy reading them.

Read more……>click Here<

Search engine optimization additionally referred to as SEO is a subject covered by numerous people as well as blogs, its the procedure of making your web site look appealing to the search engines in the hope of obtaining a advantageous ranking for your targeted keyword. During my research I encounter many posts that offer some fantastic insights to seo.

Below you can locate an post from Kiss Metrics which I found to be helpful and also very interesting .

Do you ever navigate to a blog post for information, only to find that the site is so hard to look at you can barely even bring yourself to read it? Sadly, this happens more often than it should.

Gathering, writing, and sharing information aren’t the only important aspects of your content strategy. The design of your websites and blogs is also essential–and may just require even more attention than writing the articles themselves. If you don’t put effort into maximizing your site’s UX, the time and effort you spend on research and writing will only go to waste.

From improving your content formats to making your site more visually appealing, there are lots of factors that can help you better the user experience of your website or blog.

1. Choose the Right Headings

You might not think about how important headings are to your site’s user experience. After all, our readers hardly notice headings, right? Think again.

Formatting subheadings requires a careful strategy. The most effective subheadings are:

• Clear and straightforward

• Similar in length

• Parallel in structure

• Directly related to the title of your article

Headings in articles aren’t just good for SEO. By highlighting searchable key terms, your headings and subheadings clearly and directly address the questions your readers are looking for, making your website more comfortable to navigate. They also break up the text, making articles easier to scan and less daunting for your readers.

2. Add Authentic Images

We all know that images are great for making web pages more visually interesting. Still, images must be chosen carefully.

While it is cheap and easy to upload stock photos, it is best to avoid stock photos altogether. This is true regardless of whether you hire a professional photographer or take the pictures yourself. Stock photography may look professional, but they are often impersonal, vacuous, and devoid of character.

A particularly elucidating photo experiment proves this point exactly. When Visual Website Optimizer ran a test for a moving company to determine the value of real photography versus stock photos, it found that a page displaying original photos of their trucks and crew showed a 45% improvement in conversions over the stock version.

Image credit: https://vwo.com

3. Mix and Match Content Formats

The last thing you want is for well-researched blog posts to come across as dull and monotonous. While tone and style are certainly responsible for engaging written content, so too is the visual appeal.

Visual appeal isn’t just about inserting images; it is also about the look and formatting of the text itself. Varied content formats between articles or even within the same article give your content visual texture.

Rather than stick to long paragraphs, break up your text with subheadings, bullet points, or lists (like this one).

4. Use White Space to Your Advantage

Think about it: If this entire article were just one big paragraph, you probably wouldn’t be reading it, would you?

How you format your words isn’t the only thing that makes your text visually appealing; equally as important is the blank space between the images and text, also called white space.

White space is critical because it invites your readers into the article, giving them room to breathe. Paragraph separations, subheadings, lists, and spaces around images all help create white space.

Consider these two examples of text. The first, from Jack Kerouac’s novel On The Road, is deliberately long and dense for stylistic effect.

I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I’d often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off. Dean is the perfect guy for the road because he actually was born on the road, when his parents were passing through Salt Lake City in 1926, in a jalopy, on their way to Los Angeles. First reports of him came to me through Chad King, who’d shown me a few letters from him written in a New Mexico reform school. I was tremendously interested in the letters because they so naively and sweetly asked Chad to teach him all about Nietzsche and all the wonderful intellectual things that Chad knew. At one point Carlo and I talked about the letters and wondered if we would ever meet the strange Dean Moriarty. This is all far back, when Dean was not the way he is today, when he was a young jailkid shrouded in mystery. Then news came that Dean was out of reform school and was coming to New York for the first time; also there was talk that he had just married a girl called Marylou.

While this style works well for a novel, it would be too convoluted in a blog post. Take, on the other hand, this article from CNBC:

Following your work blunder, Black encourages you to reach out to people you are close to at work as fast as possible.

‘Get to your champions, your supporters, your mentors, you don’t want them hearing about it in the hallway from somebody else a week later,’ Black says.

The point is to make sure they hear the correct information directly from you and not a rumor that has spun out of control.

Those champions and supporters can help you restore your personal image, Black adds.

Since the purpose of a blog post is to convey information clearly and directly to busy readers, you don’t want your articles to be poetic and difficult to decipher; instead, you want your articles to be well-spaced and easy to navigate and understand.

5. Make It Interactive

While varied content formats and a strategic use of white space make your site easy and pleasant to use, you can spice up the look and feel of your site even more. Making your site interactive makes your users more likely to browse your site for additional articles and to keep coming back.

There are many different types of interactive content. One option is to make website text and images subtly interact with the user’s mouse. When the user’s mouse hovers over a menu item, the text can change color. Or, when the user hovers over a product image, explanatory overlay text can fade in.

You can also pursue more creative options. Apester, for example, works with publications to embed quizzes, polls, and visual storytelling within the articles themselves. Visual storytelling is particularly useful in driving user interaction, as it connects with readers’ emotions and gives them a chance to be part of your site’s narrative. When your readers actively participate in the content they read, you increase user engagement and the time spent on your site.

6. Optimize Your Site for Mobile

It is frustrating to navigate to a site using your phone, only to find that the site’s pages don’t fit properly onto your mobile screen. Google is equally eager for change, as revealed with the mobile-friendly ranking boost it put forth in 2015.

Now, Google is providing yet another incentive for sites to go mobile-friendly. It is shifting to a mobile-first index – meaning that it will look primarily at mobile content for its search rankings. Google already sees more mobile searches than desktop searches, and its upcoming shift to a mobile-first index, estimated to roll out sometime in 2018, is its way to account for this.

Still, Google doesn’t want you to worry if you are slow to go mobile. For those without a mobile site, the search engine will still index their desktop site. But the bottom line is that mobile content will be the decisive factor in ranking search results. This prioritization of mobile represents an important fact – that mobile is indeed the new standard and that, in the future, there could be bigger consequences for not adapting your site accordingly.

If you want to rank well for SEO, and if you don’t want users to give up on your site, it is critical that you make your pages easily viewable and readable on mobile. This will not only make your site more searchable but will also drastically improve its usability. A great option to gear up for Google’s change, which the search giant is trying to push, is to move towards responsive web design, which gives a site capabilities to automatically accommodate for features like screen size and device type.

7. Eliminate and Customize Your 404s

As you probably know from personal experience, 404 error pages are a huge deterrent from reading a page. Even if just one page on a website displays a 404, readers are likely to navigate away from the site altogether in search of a faster, more reliable one. In other words, a single 404 on your site could drive potential readers away.

To avoid this, thoroughly search your site to catch all your 404s before your readers do. On top of that, rather than allow your site to navigate to the standard 404 page, personalize 404 error messages so that they are friendly and attractive. Though such messages are, of course, best avoided, custom 404s, when they do exist, are better than those without personality.

Kualo, in particular, has a great 404 page that entertains users with its own version of Space Invaders:

Image credit: http://www.creativebloq.com

Integrating games into your 404s is an effective way to keep your readers entertained, rather than annoyed when a link fails to load. You can use entertaining, thematically relevant images for a similar effect.

Still, entertainment value is just one key virtue of a good 404. You should also couple your entertainment tactics with a clear and simple error message about what went wrong, as well as options for easy navigation back to your site.

Regardless of your page design, you should make it clear to users that you empathize with them and genuinely care about delivering a smooth and comfortable browsing experience. You should also speak in a personable tone and use words that your users can relate to and understand. This, combined with the humor that a good 404 page can bring, helps build an emotional connection with your users.

8. Speed Up Your Page Loads

In the current age of fast-paced work and neverending multi-tasking, speedy page loads can make or break whether a user remains on your site. If a page loads too slowly, users are likely to give up going to your website in favor of faster ones–including the sites of your competitors. In fact, it’s been shown that 87% of users who have to wait 2 seconds for a page to load will abandon the site.

Improving your page load speed is not only important for desktop, but it is also an integral part of optimizing for mobile that represents one of Google’s many efforts to encourage what might already be a natural shift toward the mobile web. The company is facilitating the move toward an increasingly user-friendly mobile experience with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), a Google-backed project with the goal of boosting mobile page load speed and streamlining the mobile web.

In order to check whether your site delivers a speedy user experience across all platforms, you can use free tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights. When you enter the URL of the site in question, the Google tool will show areas where your page speed is weak and provide suggestions for improvement.

Your Website Should Be An Experience

From creating a quick and comfortable browsing experience to making your content clear, eye-catching, and interesting, it is essential that you take the time to improve your site’s user experience. A good web experience isn’t just about reading useful information; even more, it’s about reading useful information in a pleasing and engaging way. Informative content alone simply isn’t enough.

If you would like to watch more write-ups on search engine optimization after that really feel free to surf our various other posts. We have lots of even more curated write-ups from Kiss Metrics as well as I hope you appreciate reading them.

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Seo likewise referred to as Search Engine Optimization is a subject covered by lots of people as well as blog sites, its the procedure of making your website appearance eye-catching to the internet search engine in the hope of gaining a preferential position for your targeted keyword. During my research study I come across several short articles that provide some great understandings to seo.

Below you could locate an short article from Kiss Metrics which I found to be valuable and very interesting .

SEO is all about conversions. Traffic and time on page are vanity metrics that are literally of no use if they don’t lead to sales.

Commercial intent keywords have the power to drive targeted traffic which ultimately converts to more sales and revenue. It would be right to say that “commercial intent keywords = more sales”.

So, how do we find commercial intent keyword phrases?

The process is really simple, but I will make it even simpler for you! Let’s take an example of a small business selling guitars online. We need to find as many keywords as possible that have a direct commercial intent.

We will break the keyword phrase into two parts:

• A- Intent

• B- Keyword

For the intent part, we are already aware that we are looking to target prospects who are interested in buying guitars so the following words will be the most important:

• Buy

• Purchase

• Deals

• Offers

• Sale

• Low Price

• Cheap

• Discount

• Best Price

Once you have the intent words ready, next step is to sign in to your SEMrush account.

Now, it is time to enter your main intent (buy) + target keyword “guitars online” in the search box. So, the entered phrase will be “buy guitars online”. 

Taking the above example, we can see under the “Phrase Match Keywords” section that SEMrush displays around 110 keywords that exactly matches the searcher’s intent to buy the product.

Now, click on the “view full report” button located at the bottom right section of the phrase match table. Here, you will come across the complete list of keywords that are important from selling point of view.

Exclude keywords that are irrelevant to your business by clicking on the advanced filter link. In the report, we can see that “buy guitar cover online” is something that is not directly related to the product that we are selling so we will exclude keywords like these.

Once that is done, click on the “Export” button located at the right corner of the screen just above the report, and you get a super important list of commercial intent based keywords in no time.

Repeat the search with variants of keywords like purchase, deal, cheap, offers, etc. and continue expanding your list until you have covered all of it.

Tip: Change the device drop down to mobile, to see what people search via mobile devices, and again repeat the searches to uncover even more keywords to support your campaign.

Four Ways to Generate More Keyword Ideas

Until now we have learned how to generate great commercial intent keyword ideas using SEMrush. Now, let’s move ahead to some more tips to generate lot more ideas than what we have already covered.

1). Conduct a Google search with your main keyword query “buy guitars online”, and you will see product listing ads. These ads are a great way to identify branded keyword phrases that might be a good choice to include in your report provided you are selling them.

Some of the examples of hot selling guitar brands that I uncovered using this tactic are:

• Gibsons 
• Dolphin
• Les Paul
• Yamaha
• Epiphone
• Stagg etc. 

You can identify and include all the brands that you are selling. Now, scroll down to the bottom of the search page, and you will see a carousel like the one displayed below:

From this carousel of “guitar type”, you can have an idea of the popular guitar types. Make a list and add the intent words “buy”, “sale”, “offer” etc. to them in order to generate your own keyword phrases based on the types of guitar. Repeat the SEMrush search discussed above to uncover the potential search volume of such keywords.

Right beneath the guitar type carousel, you will see the “searches related to” section:

Identify even more popular keyword phrases using these suggestions from Google. For example, if you have a physical store then it makes sense to get your website ranked on top if someone searches using the keyword “guitar stores near me”. 

2). Repeat a Google search with your main keyword query “buy guitars online” + the first alphabet (A), then continue the search with the remaining 25 letters of the English Alphabet.

• “Buy guitars online a…”
• “Buy guitars online b…”
• “Buy guitars online c…”
• “Buy guitars online d…”

This search will uncover all the autocomplete keywords. In the screenshot below, we identified 2 more keywords – “buy guitars online cheap” and “buy guitars online cash on delivery” from the search “buy guitars online c”. If you do international shipping then “buy guitars online Canada” can also be a good choice. (Alternatively, you can also use the tool keywordtool.io to do this research).

3). Remove the intent keyword phrase from your main keyword and enter the query in the Google search. In this case, the query “guitars” is the one that we will search.

We can immediately identify that the main search query also has a commercial intent behind it because the top organic listings are from stores selling guitars online. This is a great way to determine whether your base keyword/s have a strong buying intent or not.

4). Login to Adwords and visit Keyword Planner. Now, enter your main keywords and see the Cost Per Click (CPC) or the suggested bid. The greater the value means the advertisers are willing to spend more on that keyword. This is a great indicator that the keyword might have a strong commercial intent.

Detailed, But Worth It

Keyword research might take a longer time than you would expect. Make sure you give yourself ample amount of time to handle this detailed process because wrongly targeted keywords often ruin the entire SEO strategy.

The process suggested above will work for most niches and will give you insights you need for SEO and marketing purposes. When doing keyword research, do not forget to prepare a separate excel sheet containing just commercial intent keywords. I am sure this will improve the ROI of all your campaigns.

Are you using any other trick to identify commercial intent keywords? Please let me know in the comments below and let’s start a discussion.

If you would like to view more write-ups on search engine optimization after that feel complimentary to surf our other short articles. We have several more curated write-ups from Kiss Metrics and also I wish you appreciate reviewing them.

Read more……>click Here<