What Is Seo? Top Answer Update

Welcome to your SEO learning journey!

You’ll get the most out of this guide if your desire to learn search engine optimization (SEO) is matched only by your willingness to execute and test concepts.

This guide aims to describe all the important aspects of SEO, from finding the terms and phrases (keywords) that can drive qualified traffic to your website, optimizing your website for search engines, building links and marketing the unique value of your site .

The world of search engine optimization is complex and ever-changing, but you can easily understand the basics, and even a little SEO knowledge can make a big difference. Free SEO training courses are also widely available on the web, including in guides like this one! (Woohoo!)

Combine this information with some practice and you’re well on your way to becoming a savvy SEO.

The basics of search engine optimization

Ever heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? It’s a theory of psychology that prioritizes the most basic human needs (like air, water, and physical security) over more advanced needs (like esteem and social belonging). The theory is that you can’t meet the needs at the top without making sure the more basic needs are met first. Love doesn’t matter if you have nothing to eat.

Our founder, Rand Fishkin, created a similar pyramid to explain how people should approach SEO, and we affectionately dubbed it “Mozlow’s Hierarchy of SEO Needs.”

It looks like this:

Did you know that 93% of all online experiences start with a search engine? This is why it is important that you have a search engine optimization (SEO) plan in place. SEO is the process of optimizing your website to improve your ranking so you can generate more valuable traffic.

If you don’t have an SEO strategy in place, you probably won’t get the results you want. And if you have a strategy but it’s failing, the quickest way to get answers is to enter your URL for an SEO audit here.

How is your website’s SEO? Use our free tool to calculate your score in less than 60 seconds. Calculate now! Please enter a valid URL (e.g. webfx.com, www.webfx.com)

On this page, we share what an SEO marketing strategy is, what a part of it is, and nine examples of SEO strategies to include in your results-oriented SEO plan.

If you want to learn more about how to improve your marketing strategy, join 190,000 marketers and subscribe to Revenue Weekly!

What is an SEO strategy?

An SEO website strategy is the process of planning, optimizing, and organizing your website so that it ranks higher in search results. A good SEO strategy will allow you to better match search intent, driving more credible traffic and leads to your business.

What goes into an SEO strategy?

Now that we’ve answered, “What is an SEO strategy?” Let’s look at the three main components that make up one before we dive into some SEO strategy examples:

Onpage SEO: Onpage SEO involves optimizations that you make on your website. They make changes to elements that appear on different pages of your website so that they appear in more relevant search results. Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO includes elements that are not directly on your website but affect your ranking. The best known are backlinks. While these elements aren’t on your site, they affect your rank in search results. Technical SEO: The last component of SEO is technical SEO. Technical SEO includes elements in the back end of your website that affect how users experience the front end of your website, such as: B. the speed of your website.

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Examples of SEO strategies: 9 examples of what makes a good SEO strategy

So you are ready to find the right search engine optimization strategies for your business. To learn how to do SEO, check out these nine example SEO strategies to develop a winning plan!

1. Keyword Optimization

First is keyword optimization. Keyword optimization is one of the most important elements of an SEO marketing strategy, as keywords help determine where your website appears in search results. If you want relevant leads to find your information, you need to optimize your website for the right keywords.

So how do you find relevant keywords for your site? First, start by conducting keyword research. You can use numerous keyword research tools like KeywordsFX to find relevant terms for your website.

When looking at your list of generated keywords, you should stick to long-tail keywords. These are keywords that contain three or more words. Long-tail keywords are great for your website because their specificity will drive more qualified traffic to your business.

Once you’ve found relevant keywords, you’ll want to incorporate them into your website. Include your keywords often, but not too often, as this can lead to keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing has a negative impact on your rankings, so make sure you’re not overusing your keywords.

2. Optimization of onpage elements

One of the most important SEO techniques is optimizing on-page elements. On-page elements affect your site’s ranking because they serve as a signal to Google if your page is relevant to someone’s search. Here are some on-page elements to optimize:

Title tags: Title tags are the first thing users see when they search.

These tags inform them about the context of your page. People get a glimpse of what to expect from your site.

Search engines also use your title tag to determine if your page is relevant to search results. So you need to optimize them to reach the right people.

When creating your title tag, you should use your keyword as close to the beginning of the title tag as possible. It will help you show both visitors and search engines that your page is relevant. Second, you want to make sure you stay within the limit for your title tag.

Title tags should be less than 60 characters to ensure they aren’t truncated in search results. This is another reason to use your keyword at the beginning rather than the end of your title tag. Finally, you should make sure that you create a title tag that is engaging and will grab your audience’s attention. A title tag like “10 Photo-worthy Vacation Spots to Visit This Summer” will grab more attention than a title tag like “10 Vacation Spots to Visit”.

Meta Description: Along with your title tag, your meta description is another important element in search results.

The meta description is a short blurb that tells searchers what to expect on your page. Think of it as a little taste of your content.

Your meta description also tells search engines what to expect.

It helps them determine if your page is relevant to search results. When writing your meta description, you want to make sure you stay within the 150 character limit while providing as much relevant information as possible. Make sure to include your core keyword as well!

URLs: The last element we mention for onpage optimization is URLs.

URLs are a crucial component of your on-page optimizations. You want to tweak this element to make sure it’s memorable so your audience can remember the URL and come back to your page later.

It’s also important to optimize your URLs so search engines can read them and better understand how relevant your page is to search results.

To create an optimized URL, embed your page’s keyword in it. Do not use random numbers and letters as search engines and humans will not understand or remember them. Keep your URL simple, but also make sure it gives your audience a glimpse of your page.

3. Improving the backend of your website

Next on our list of example SEO strategies is improving your website’s backend. The backend of your website, while not visible, is crucial for your website’s ranking. You must have a website that is functional and functioning properly to ensure your audience has a positive experience.

Here are two search engine optimization strategies you can use to improve your website’s backend:

Speed ​​up your website: The first step to improving your website’s backend is to speed up your website’s loading time. Users hate waiting for pages to load – 83% of users expect your site to load in three seconds or less. Because users expect websites to load quickly, Google wants to rank websites that load quickly at the top of search results.

If you don’t optimize your website’s load time, you’ll miss an opportunity to rank higher in search results. To improve your website load time, use Google PageSpeed ​​Insights to get an insight into your website’s current load time. Google will then give you helpful tips on how to improve the loading time of your page.

If you are familiar with working on the backend of your website, you can make these changes to improve your website. For people unfamiliar with backend coding, there are always page speed optimization services available from a digital marketing company. You can have professionals like those at WebFX optimize your website to improve load times and improve your search engine rankings.

Make your website mobile-friendly: More and more people are using mobile devices, so you need a website that offers a decent mobile experience.

If you don’t, you’re neglecting over 50% of web traffic that comes from mobile users. Additionally, Google uses a mobile-first indexing system, which means your mobile-friendliness affects your site’s ranking. So how do you make your website mobile friendly?

The best way to create a mobile-friendly website is to incorporate responsive design into your website. Responsive design ensures your website adapts to whatever device someone is using by scaling it to the device.

4. Create user-friendly pages

Next, our list of SEO techniques focuses on user-friendly pages. This element is one of the essential elements of an SEO strategy as it affects how your audience interacts with your website. If you don’t have a user-friendly website, your audience will leave your website.

Creating user-friendly pages helps you rank higher in search results because users spend more time engaging with your pages. When people spend more time on your site, it sends a positive signal to search engines that your page is relevant, which helps you rank higher. Follow these best practices to improve user experience:

Break up the text on your pages into small paragraphs of 2-3 sentences. Shorter paragraphs of text improve readability and make it easier for your audience to scan your content. Avoid jargon. A lot of people think jargon is a great way to show they know their stuff, but it often does more harm than good. Your audience may not know what the terms mean, which can be overwhelming. The best thing you can do is avoid all slang. add visuals. While your information is important, your audience can easily become overwhelmed when they see blocks of text. Adding visuals, such as photos and videos, can help break up the text and make your pages easier to flip through.

5. Create content

Next on our list of example SEO strategies is SEO content creation. Content creation is a crucial component of an SEO website strategy as it helps you drive traffic to your website and keeps visitors on your site longer. You can create numerous types of content, including:

Blogs Videos Infographics Guides eBooks And more

You should use a mix of these content formats to keep your strategy fresh for your audience. When creating SEO content, make sure it is high quality and informative. It is better to create 10 detailed and high-quality articles than 100 short and poor-quality articles.

Creating educational and quality content will help you retain leads and help your website rank higher in search results. If you want to learn how to do SEO effectively, you need to focus on creating quality and informative content. Better content will drive more traffic, higher engagement, and better rankings for your business.

6. Building links

When you learn how to do SEO, you will learn the importance of link building. Both backlinks and internal links are crucial elements of an SEO strategy.

Backlinks are links to your website from other websites. These links help build your site’s credibility and trustworthiness and drive valuable traffic to your site. Internal links are links from your site to other pages on your site. These links help keep traffic on your site longer and help Google find and index pages on your site.

So how can you get started with these two links?

For backlinks… Start creating valuable and relevant content. When you have content that is informative and helpful, you have more opportunities to earn backlinks for your content as it is of high quality and depth. You can contact industry authorities and invite them to view your content.

For internal links… Use your current content to link to other pages on your site.

For example, if you write a page about the best places to visit in Pennsylvania and mention Gettysburg, you could link to your other page: “Why visit Gettysburg, PA?”. in the appropriate section.

7. Analysis of your competition

When compiling a list of SEO techniques, don’t forget to add competitor analysis to your list! When trying to get better rankings in search results, it’s important to know who you’re up against and how to outperform them. Whenever you want to rank for a keyword, search Google for that keyword and see what results you get.

See who is ranking for this keyword. Check out their pages and see what type of information they cover on the subject. If you’re looking at a competitor’s site, answer these questions:

How do you structure your site? Does the site contain multimedia? How long is your content? What makes the site good? What is missing from the page? What could I do better?

It’s important to answer these questions to give you an idea of ​​how to approach your content. You don’t want to copy your competition word for word, but you can check out their articles for inspiration. For example, let’s say you are a traveling company and you have decided to write an article about the top 10 places to visit on the East Coast of the United States.

They check the search results to see what other companies are writing and answer these questions:

How do you structure your site?

Most of my contest pages are structured with numbered lists with large paragraphs for each number.

Does the site contain multimedia?

Each page has traveler photos, but they don’t look destination specific.

How long is your content?

Most content pages are around 1500 words.

What makes the site good?

The pages cover a lot of good spots and the numbering structure makes it easy to find the different destinations. They also have bright images that catch the eye.

What is missing from the page?

The site is missing some personalization. The photos are somewhat generic and not relevant to the locations listed.

What could I do better?

For my page, I could use a numbered list, but create smaller paragraphs that make it easier for readers to skim. I might also introduce videos since none of my competitors have videos in their articles. Also, I could add site-specific photos to make my audience feel more connected to the places.

As you can see here, answering these questions will help you better understand what your competition is doing, what you can emulate, and where you can improve your content to make it stand out.

8. Optimization for voice search

Did you know that more than a billion voice searches take place every month? If you don’t incorporate voice search optimization into your SEO strategies, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to help your business reach more users. Voice Search Optimization allows you to optimize your website for verbal search.

When it comes to optimizing for verbal search, you need to make sure you’re optimizing for the way people search verbally. Verbal search and typed search are different – people search longer and more grammatically correct queries using voice search. When users search verbally, they also formulate their queries as questions.

So, for example, if someone wants to find the best places to hike in Pennsylvania, they can type in “best places to hike in PA.” However, on a voice search device, they would likely search, “Where are the best places to hike in Pennsylvania?” When optimizing for voice search devices, you want to make sure you’re optimizing for the way people search verbally. From the query format to the use of slang, you need to consider this information when optimizing your website.

9. Monitoring and Optimization

Another example of our SEO strategy involves monitoring and optimizing your site. When you put the time and effort into maximizing your SEO strategies, you don’t want them to go to waste. You need to track the performance of your strategy so you can tweak and adjust it to get the best results.

Monitoring and optimization are crucial elements of an SEO strategy. They help you maximize your budget by adjusting your plan to ensure you get the most out of your strategy. As you monitor your SEO strategy, you’ll want to make sure you’re checking metrics like:

Traffic Bounce Rate Pages Per Session Click Through Rate (CTR) And more

By incorporating monitoring into your SEO marketing strategies, you can adapt to make your campaign perform better.

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Create your SEO strategy today

After reviewing these SEO strategy examples, you can get ideas on how to create a strategy that will drive results for your business. If you’re not sure which SEO marketing strategies are right for you, WebFX can help. We are a full service digital marketing company specializing in SEO.

We can help you create a campaign that will increase results for your business. In the last five years, we’ve generated over $3 billion in revenue and over 7.8 million leads for our clients. Ready to help your business grow with SEO?

Contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 today to speak to a strategist about our SEO services!

This post was last updated on March 5, 2020.

You have created an excellent website – congratulations! Now all you have to do is get people to do it. In order for your website to appear in the top results on search engines like Google and Bing, you need to know a little bit about the world of search engine optimization, or SEO.

So what is SEO and how to implement it? While many shy away from the subject, it’s actually not the creepy monster that some make it out to be. The first step in the right direction is using Wix SEO, a free and efficient tool that creates a unique SEO plan tailored to your website. We also recommend visiting the Wix Learn SEO hub for everything SEO-related, from beginner to advanced.

With so many websites on the internet today, there is no guarantee that your website will rank first on Google. However, there are many simple things you can do to increase your website’s chances of ranking well. In just an hour you can improve your website with Wix’s SEO features. Read on to learn all about it.

How to improve your website’s SEO in 5 steps:

01. Choose the right URLs

Before your website goes live, you need to give it a name. Also known as your domain name, this is the address that visitors enter to find your website. Like the giant sign above a storefront, it’s one of the first things visitors see when they come to your website. Because of this, it’s also the first place Google tries to understand what your site is about and decide how to rank it.

With that in mind, it’s important to make sure that the URLs of all your pages are clean and beautiful. That means no special characters, no hashbangs, no page id. You understand it.

The ideal domain will contain your company name and perhaps a relevant keyword or two relevant to your business. For example, if you are a construction contractor, you may want to purchase a domain name such as www.yournameconstruction.com.

Would you like to know more? Check out this post if you need more advice on choosing the right domain name.

The same goes for choosing the right URLs for all pages on your website. Whether it’s a product page or a blog page, make sure the URL you use reflects the content of the page and the keyword or keywords you want that page to appear in search results for.

If you’re a contractor offering painting services, make sure to include that in the slug of the URL for this page. Something like www.yournameconstruction.com/house-painting-services.

02. Create unique titles and descriptions for each page

Did you know that you can write a unique title and description for every page on your website? These are short texts that accurately and clearly describe what your company does. Ideally, they can be mixed up with a few keywords and phrases.

Ever hovered over a tab in your browser? This short sentence that appears under your mouse is the title of the page. Although the description is not visible on your page, it is very important to search engines. In fact, the title and description are among the first elements that search engines track to determine your site’s ranking. Also, once your site appears in a search results page, web surfers will read your title and description to learn what your site is about and decide whether or not to check it out.

Looking for expert advice on writing a stunning title and description? Check out this guide to on-page optimization.

03. Use anchor text

As you write the text for your website, consider where you can use anchor text within your website. anchor what? No, this has nothing to do with sailing. Anchor text is the clickable text on a hyperlink that allows visitors to be taken directly to another web page, either within your website or anywhere on the Internet.

Effective anchor text should be used to help users navigate your site and find what they are looking for. It should also include keywords and phrases related to what you do. For example, if you own a t-shirt printing business, the words “Check out our selection of print-on-demand t-shirts” on your home page can link to your online store via anchor text full of – You guessed it – t-shirts.

Anchor text is a great way to improve your SEO, but remember that over-linking or anchors that don’t really help your readers can trigger some red flags on Google.

04. Add alt text to all your images

To understand what is displayed in a photo or graphic, search engines look for “alt text,” a concise written description (no longer than just a few words) of each image on a website. When writing alt text, be sure to describe exactly what’s in the image, but also try to include your company name or a few keywords related to what you do.

Pro tip: You don’t need to write alt text for images that are purely functional or design-related, such as: B. a background image that consists only of shapes. If the image is unrelated to your site’s theme, you can skip the alt text.

Would you like to find out more? Take a look at this article on writing SEO-friendly alt text for your images.

05. Give structure to your website with the right headings

Every page of your website should have a title, subtitle, etc. When search engines scan your site, they understand your content better when you use the correct text hierarchy. The most relevant part is the title of your page and you should define it as H1 (in the text editor).

The H1 should describe the content of the page and you should not have more than one H1 per page. Choose your title carefully and don’t forget to include your main keywords. Your H1 in the heading hierarchy is followed by H2, H3, etc. While H1 corresponds to your title, H2 and H3 correspond to your headings and subheadings, respectively. The clearer your text structure is, the easier it will be for search engines to process your website’s content.

Bonus: Take your strategy to the next level with Wix SEO Wiz

If you’re really serious about your SEO, which you probably are since you got to the end of this article, we’ve got just the thing for you – Wix SEO.

Here’s what Google itself had to say: “For Wix users, this [Wix SEO Wiz] is a pretty cool experience because they can see their page in search results immediately after creating it. There’s no waiting, no asking, ‘Am I searching or not?’ They’re on Google in seconds.”

You can also check out Wix Learn’s SEO tutorials for more in-depth content and information.

From the Wix team

SEO is not that difficult to learn. All you have to do is be willing to put in the necessary time and effort to learn the different SEO concepts.

If you are just starting out with SEO and are wondering what it takes to go from beginner to expert then this post is for you. You will learn how to approach the SEO learning process and walk the path to make it less difficult than it seems.

I started SEO 18 years ago and it took me a few years to get a proper understanding of what SEO is and how it works.

Luckily things have changed and you don’t have to spend years learning SEO. There is a wealth of online resources you can use to start learning SEO and why not become an SEO expert in no time!

Is it hard to learn SEO if you don’t know anything?

A popular question that many people ask is, “How hard is it to learn SEO when you’re starting from scratch?”

A valid question considering that not all people know what search engine optimization is about and what it entails.

The answer is simple. Learning SEO is difficult as there is a lot of information to read about search engines and how the optimization process works, and it can be overwhelming at first.

However, if you take it step by step and follow a structured learning approach (study plan), everything will start to make sense and the whole process will become easier.

A study plan keeps your focus on the important aspects of SEO and helps you gradually build your skills and knowledge over time.

What is the SEO learning curve like?

It gets very steep in the beginning, because in addition to SEO, you need to familiarize yourself with concepts related to search engines and digital marketing.

This is necessary to understand the role of SEO in online marketing. Once you pass this stage and start practicing SEO, it will be smoother and easier to manage.

Do I need a computer science or marketing degree to learn SEO?

No, you don’t need any formal training to learn SEO. As you will see below, there are many online courses you can take to become SEO certified.

When Does SEO Learning Stop?

SEO learning never stops. Google makes hundreds of changes to its search algorithms every year, and that means you need to constantly expand your skills and knowledge.

The Best Way to Learn SEO One of the best and quickest ways to learn SEO is to take a good SEO course. A quality course will help you understand SEO without having to spend endless hours searching for this information in random resources on Google.

Getting started

How long does it take to learn SEO?

It depends on the effort and time you will put into it. SEO is not just a theory, but an extremely practical discipline.

SEO theory will tell you what you should do to make your website SEO friendly, but it’s how you apply SEO principles in practice that will affect your rankings and traffic becomes.

From my experience you can learn the basics in under 6 months if you follow a solid study plan and put in the effort.

During this time, most of the time is spent practicing SEO and not just reading the theory.

The reason I put 6 months as the minimum period is that it takes time for SEO to work and you may have to wait a few months (or longer) to see the impact of SEO related changes on a website .

SEO Learning Plan for Beginners

I mentioned above that one of the best ways to learn SEO as quickly as possible is by following a study plan, and that’s exactly what you’ll read about below.

So if you want to learn how to do SEO yourself, follow these 7 steps:

Step 1: Learn how search engines work

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and since the whole process has to do with how to increase a website’s visibility in search engines, it makes sense to know how search engines work.

Video: how search engines work

I highly recommend reading the related guides below and watching the video above. They give you a very good idea of ​​how search engines approach crawling, indexing and ranking websites in their results.

Step 2: Understand the role of SEO in digital marketing

Before diving into the basics of SEO, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the role SEO plays in digital marketing.

SEO is part of search engine marketing. SEM is the process of getting traffic from search engines either organically (through SEO) or through paid search ads.

SEM is one of the channels available in digital marketing. Other channels are social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, etc.

So, SEO is not the same as paid advertising and is not the only component of search engine marketing.

Step 3: Understand what SEO is and why it matters

The next step is to understand what we actually mean when we talk about search engine optimization and why it is an important process for any website.

SEO can be defined as a set of rules you can apply to a website to make it appear in the top positions in search engine results pages (SERPS) for related keywords.

Why is that important?

The majority of search engine traffic goes to the websites that appear in the top 5 positions of search results.

This means that if you want to get traffic from Google and other search engines, your website needs to appear at the top of the search terms that are important to your business.

Step 4: Learn about the different SEO processes

Now that you know what SEO is, the next step is to learn how it works.

There are more than 255 SEO ranking factors to consider when optimizing a website and they are broken down into a number of sub-processes for your convenience.

Each sub-process is responsible for a set of SEO rules.

The most important are:

Technical SEO – the process responsible for crawling the indexing phase.

– the process responsible for crawling the indexing phase. On-Page SEO – the process responsible for optimizing the content of a page so that search engine crawlers can better understand it.

– the process responsible for optimizing the content of a page so that search engine crawlers can better understand it. Off-page SEO – the process of promoting your website on the web with the aim of getting links from other websites. Links in SEO act as a “vote of confidence” and can positively influence a website’s ranking in the search results.

Step 5: Learn about keywords and the keyword research process

If you’re at this point, you should already know that everything in SEO starts with a keyword.

SEO keywords are search terms that users enter into a search engine that are relevant to a specific website.

Having gotten past the technical SEO phase, which has to do with infrastructure-related settings, the other SEO phases are heavily keyword-related.

The process of finding out what keywords to target in your content is called keyword research.

So, mastering keyword research is an essential part of your SEO learning plan.

Step 6: Learn how to measure SEO performance

The next step has to do with measuring SEO performance. This is crucial because if you don’t know what to measure and which KPIs to analyze, you won’t know if your SEO campaigns are successful or not.

To measure SEO performance, you need to learn how to use two important tools: Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

The Google Search Console (GSC) gives you insights into how your website is performing on Google. You can see which pages are getting traffic from Google and for which keywords.

Google Analytics shows you what users are doing when they visit your website. You can find out which pages they visit, how long they stay on a page, and a number of other useful metrics.

Step 7: Use SEO

Finally, it’s time to put SEO to work. It’s the only way to verify what you’ve learned in the steps above.

The best approach for beginners is to pick a topic you’re passionate about and start a blog.

It doesn’t have to be fancy or overly popular, just pick a topic you know well, set up a website and start optimizing for search engines.

At this stage, you most likely need to revisit some of the guides and remember how to do keyword research, how to optimize your page titles, how to check if search bots can access your content, and many more things.

To avoid getting lost, it’s best to create an action plan and use checklists so you can keep track of what you need to do at each stage. The two guides below will show you exactly how to do this.

SEO Certifications and Courses

One of the easiest and most effective ways to learn SEO from scratch is to enroll in an SEO class.

As you saw in the tutorial above, there are many SEO concepts to master and many things to learn, and having everything you need to know in one place can save you a lot of time and effort.

A good SEO course will teach you both the basics of SEO and the more advanced concepts. With relevant real-life examples and easy-to-understand instructions, it can make the learning process easier and faster.

SEO Certifications – This list contains the top 10 SEO certifications to sign up for today. All courses include SEO certification which can come in very handy if you are pursuing a SEO career.

SEO Training Courses – A list of free resources that can help you get started with SEO.

The main difference is that search engine optimization (SEO) focuses on optimizing a website to get traffic from the organic search results. On the other hand, the goal of search engine marketing (SEM) is to get traffic and visibility from both organic and paid search.

Expressed differently:

Google search results are divided into two main categories: paid search results and organic search results.

The goal of SEO is to rank your website in organic search results.

You can also get your website in the paid section of search results using pay-per-click (PPC).

With SEO, you focus 100% on ranking in organic results. SEM is when you use both SEO and PPC to get traffic from search engines.

So yes, SEM is a broad term that encompasses SEO and PPC. This means that SEO falls “under” the upper category of SEM.

With that explained, let’s dive into some of the key differences between SEM and SEO.

SEO vs. SEM: Key Features

SEO overview

SEO is the practice of continually optimizing a website to rank in the organic, non-paid search engine result pages (SERPs).

Google uses more than 200 ranking signals in its algorithm. However, SEO can be broken down into four subcategories: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and user interaction signals.

On-Page SEO: This is where you optimize your website based on keywords your target customer is searching for on Google, Bing, and other search engines. For example, a best practice for on-page SEO is to include your main keyword in your title tag, meta description, and website URL.

Off-Page SEO: Off-page SEO is all about getting signals of trust and authority from other websites. This mainly involves building quality backlinks to your website. But Google can also use other off-page signals to gauge your site’s authority, like E-A-T and social media sharing.

Technical SEO: This is where you ensure that Google and other search engines can crawl and index all pages on your website. Technical SEO also includes things like making sure your pages load quickly. And that your site architecture is set up correctly.

User Interaction Signals: The way users interact with your website helps Google determine if your page is suitable for someone’s search. For example, if your page has a high bounce rate, it could be a sign that your page isn’t responding to someone’s query. And if Google thinks your page is a poor fit for that keyword, they can knock your rankings down a bit. Or completely from the first page.

SEM overview

Remember: SEM is a high-level term that includes SEO. So everything I outlined above for SEO also applies to SEM. But besides SEO, SEM also includes PPC. And PPC is an area that has its own set of features, best practices, and more.

Bidding: Whether you use Google Ads or Bing Ads, paid search ads are all about bidding. With PPC, you bid on a specific keyword. And when someone searches for that keyword, your ad will appear.

Ad placements are usually proportional to how much someone is bidding. So if you are the highest bidder, you will appear above all other ads.

And when someone clicks on your ad, you pay the amount you bid. The amount you pay when someone clicks your ad is known as cost per click (CPC).

Quality Score: Quality Score is an extremely important Google Ads metric. It’s basically Google’s way of figuring out if your ad is a good match for what someone is searching for.

Google calculates Quality Score based on a combination of click-through rate, the quality of your landing page, and the overall Quality Score of your Google Ads account. And if your ad has a high Quality Score, you get a discount for every click.

Ad Copy: Writing compelling ad copy is a HUGE part of being successful with PPC. Why? Great ad copy = high CTR. And a CTR means a good Quality Score. That means you pay less for the same click.

The opposite is also true. If your copy doesn’t get people to click, your Quality Score will suffer. And your PPCs are going to get super expensive.

Ad groups and account management: This is where you use the data in your Google Ads account to optimize your ad spend.

SEO vs. SEM: How long it takes to see results

One of the main differences between SEO and SEM is speed.

The fact is: SEO takes time. Much time. Especially if your website is new and doesn’t have a lot of backlinks yet.

In fact, analysis showed that it takes an average of 2 years to rank on the first page of Google. And many of the top ranking sites were first published more than 3 years ago.

That doesn’t mean that you should calculate that it should take 2 years to rank on Google. If you target long-tail keywords and implement SEO best practices, you can start seeing results in a matter of months.

For example, when I started Backlinko in early 2013, my website essentially had no domain authority.

But thanks to a lot of hard work and a focus on SEO, I was able to generate some organic traffic within a few months.

However, it took me years to really increase my rankings and organic traffic.

On the other hand, if you focus your SEM efforts on PPC, you can see results pretty much instantly.

You can run an ad in the morning and get traffic and conversions in the afternoon.

But that doesn’t mean you’ll get ROI on day one. In many cases, it can take months of testing and tweaking to see a positive ROI from PPC.

Still, there’s no question that PPC starts working much faster than SEO.

SEO vs. SEM: How Much They Cost

Many people are attracted to SEO because it is “free website traffic”.

And yes, you don’t pay when someone clicks through to your website in organic search results.

But make no mistake: SEO is NOT free. Not even close.

For example, let’s take a quick look at one of my pages, which is currently ranked #1 on Google for “On Page SEO.”

#1 is a great place. I get traffic from this keyword literally every day. And I don’t have to do anything or pay for that traffic to come in.

But it took A LOT of money, time and effort to get that first place.

At a high level, I needed to build Backlinko’s domain authority by consistently publishing world-class content. And promote that content with email outreach.

Then I had to find that keyword using a paid SEO tool. This tool alone is costing me $355/month.

Then there was the content itself. It took me over 20 hours to write this post.

Then we hired a graphic designer to take all the screenshots. We also worked with an illustrator to create these beautiful custom illustrations.

There was also a developer who coded and served the actual page.

And that was with no guarantee that this site would rank for anything.

Compare that to an SEM approach that is 100% PPC.

In this case, spend cash in advance. But at least you know that with this effort you will get some results.

(You can even set your account to automatically bid to appear in a specific position).

So, in the short term, PPC is usually cheaper than SEO.

The big problem with PPC is this:

If you stop paying, your traffic will go to zero.

But with SEO, once you rank, you’re pretty much done. Your investment is all upfront. Once you actually rank, you don’t need to invest a lot of money into maintaining your current ranking.

So yes, when it comes to cost, SEO and PPC have their pros and cons. Because of this, most businesses use a marketing strategy that includes a mix of SEO and PPC.

SEO or PPC: What to focus on

Should You Focus 100% of Your Digital Marketing Efforts on SEO? Or should you combine SEO and PPC and launch an all-out search marketing campaign.

When to only focus on SEO

You’re on a very tight budget: If you’re a startup or small business with a tiny marketing budget, you probably want to focus on SEO. You may not see any ROI on your SEO budget for months or years. But it still makes more sense than burning your marketing budget on PPC ads that might only run for a week.

You can rank for informational keywords: Informational keywords are terms like “What is X” or “How to X”. Although these types of searches don’t convert very well, they do get a lot of search volume. So if you feel like you can write AMAZING content on topics that customers are searching for in Google, SEO is probably your best bet.

For example, my entire business is built on ranking for informational keywords that my target audience (pro marketers) are searching for.

You can wait: SEO and content marketing take time to work. So if you can play the long game and wait 6-12 months for legitimate traffic to roll in from Google search, go for SEO.

They are good at link building: Creating quality content is an essential part of ranking on Google. But it’s not enough. If you’re serious about ranking, you also need to employ a few different link building strategies to get other websites to link to you.

When to focus on PPC

You Have a Consistent Ad Budget: One of the nice things about PPC ads is that you can set a strict budget. That way, it’s impossible to spend more than you planned.

That said: it’s easy to burn that budget quickly if you don’t know what you’re doing (and if you’re just starting out with paid ads, you won’t).

That means you need a regular monthly budget to play with to figure out what combination of keyword targeting, ad copy, landing pages, and bids works best for you.

You can manage an Adwords account: On the surface, PPC sounds super easy. Bid on keywords. get traffic.

But in practice, managing a Google Ads account is no joke. You need to consider keyword targeting, ads, Quality Score, ROI, conversion rates… and process all of that data to make decisions about how to get the most out of your ads.

You have the opportunity to launch and test landing pages: One of the first things you will learn about PPC is that you need targeted landing pages for each ad. Or at least every ad group. So, to get the most out of PPC, you need a way to quickly launch many different websites. And run A/B tests to see which performs best.

When to do both (SEM)

When Should You Tackle SEO and PPC Simultaneously?

Let me answer this question with a real life example:

When I started my first website, I ran all of my SEM myself. I wrote content and optimized it for search engines (SEO). And managing my Google Ads (PPC) account. So, in addition to being a “Founder”, I was also a “SEM Manager”.

And because I was trying to do my website’s SEM myself, the SEO and PPC suffered. It was too much for one person to handle.

But if you feel like you have the staff to manage both PPC and SEO, go for it. Otherwise I would take one or the other.

learn more

What is SEO? How to Optimize Your Website for Google: A deep dive into what Search Engine Optimization is, what it entails and how to get started.

The Definitive Guide to Keyword Research: A guide to finding keywords for SEO. However, many of the strategies also apply to keyword research for Google Ads campaigns.

Google Adwords tutorial with step-by-step instructions: Super good tutorial to get started with Google Ads.

SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing your website so that it ranks higher in search engines like Google.

If your website isn’t ranking as well as you’d like, it’s time to take a close look at your SEO strategy.

Proven and new SEO tools make it easier for website owners to figure out what they need to do to stay on top.

What are SEO tools?

SEO tools provide data and alerts on the overall health and success of your website.

They help uncover opportunities and identify weaknesses or issues that may prevent you from ranking in the SERPs and gaining visibility.

Just as the actual tools each play a specific role, so does SEO.

There are SEO tools that can help you:

analytics.

keyword research.

Connections.

Local SEO.

Mobile SEO.

Onpage SEO.

Research.

rank check.

website speed.

WordPress SEO.

SEO tools are incredibly useful – but you need to understand how to use them to get the most out of them.

There are even a few toolsets that can help you in more areas than just mentioned and give you a better overview of your SEO performance.

Do you need SEO tools?

The short answer: yes.

Imagine trying to build a table with just your hands.

You wouldn’t get very far, would you?

no

You will need tools – saws, a tape measure, a drill and screwdrivers to name a few.

Well, if you want to create a website, you’ll only get this far with your hands.

You can create a website, but without tools you wouldn’t know:

How many visits your web pages receive.

Whether traffic has decreased significantly.

If you have HTML errors.

The number of links you have.

What keywords you could use to get more visitors.

And so much more.

What are the best free SEO tools?

If you’re starting out in SEO or want to get better results for the low cost of $0, here are 110 of the best free SEO tools to use.

Free SEO Analysis Tools

1.Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an invaluable resource that is practically indispensable for any digital marketer serious about SEO.

It offers a lot of useful data about websites, such as: B. the number of website visits, traffic sources and demographic location data.

With the detailed information from Google Analytics, digital marketers can optimize their content strategy and find out what works and what doesn’t.

Google Analytics is one of the best free SEO tools that every digital marketer should use.

2. Data Studio

With Google Data Studio, you can bring together data from various sources such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics and create sharable visualizations.

If you’re just starting out, this beginner’s guide to Data Studio will come in handy.

Advanced users learn how to use CASE statements for better Data Studio segments.

3. Keyword hero

Missing keyword data?

Leave it to Keyword Hero, which uses advanced math and machine learning to fill in the blanks.

This service is free from 2,000 sessions per month. Keyword Hero also currently offers a 90-day free trial.

4.Mozcast

Mozcast tracks changes, big and small, to Google’s search algorithm.

With Google making hundreds of changes every year, staying up to date with the latest developments will help ensure you’re doing everything you can to have the best SERPs.

5. Panguin tool

The Panguin tool provided by Barracuda Digital matches your search traffic against known changes to the Google search algorithm.

If you see a drop that matches an update, you’ve probably found the culprit and can work to fix it!

Free crawling and indexing tools

6. Redirect path

The Redirect Path Chrome extension flags HTTP status codes 301, 302, 404, and 500.

Additionally, client-side redirects such as meta and JavaScript redirects are also flagged to ensure any redirect issues can be uncovered immediately.

HTTP headers such as server types and caching headers as well as the server IP address can also be displayed at the push of a button.

In addition, all these details can be copied to your clipboard for easy sharing or adding to a technical audit document.

7. Link Redirect Trace

Use this Chrome plugin to ensure all your link redirects direct people and crawlers to where you want them to go.

8. Quick Click Website Audit

The Quick Click Website Audit is a bookmarklet-style extension that interfaces with many of the most popular online SEO tools used today.

When a link is clicked, the URL of the current page is extracted and fed into the selected tool, so you don’t have to copy and paste the links into all tools. It saves a few seconds, dozens of times a day.

9. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Check your website for SEO errors.

Discover HTTP header errors, JavaScript rendering hiccups, excess HTML, crawl errors, duplicate content and more with Screaming Frog SEO Spider.

10. Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer

Upload your log files to Screaming Frog’s Log File Analyzer to confirm search engine bots, verify which URLs were crawled, and examine search bot data.

11. SEOlyzer

Another SEO log analysis tool that provides real-time data and page categorization.

12. Xenu

One of the original free SEO tools, Xenu is a crawler that offers basic site audits, checking for broken links, and the other usual suspects.

13. Where are you going?

Track where redirect URLs and shortened links go with Where Goes?

14. Check My Links

Check My Links is a nifty Chrome extension that scans your website and identifies the status code for every link on the page – including broken links.

Each status code is color coded with 200 status codes that return dark green, 300 status codes that return light green, and 400 status codes that return red.

Once identified, you can copy all bad links to your clipboard with one click.

15. Robots.txt Generator

Quickly create a correct robots.txt file so search engines know how to crawl your site.

Advanced users can also customize their files with Robots.txt Generator.

16. HEADMaster-SEO

Checks URLs in bulk for Status Code, Redirect Status, Response Time, Response Headers and HTTP Header Fields with HEADMaster SEO.

Get real-time results, sort and study your results, and export your work to CSV.

17. Keep Alive Validation SEO Tool

Check URLs in bulk – or individually – to see if their servers support persistent connection, which makes your site load faster.

Use this tool to check what HTTP version your server is running on and if there are any external connections to your URL.

18. Hreflang tag generator

Generate hreflang tags to let Google know what language specific pages on your site are in. This allows Google to search those pages in that language.

19. XML Sitemaps

Create a sitemap with up to 500 pages for free without registering.

Download your sitemap as an XML file or receive it by email.

20. BROWSEEO

BROWSEO lets you see how your website looks to a search engine.

It basically strips your webpage of any styling and shows you the underlying structure. This way you can find out if Google’s bot is having trouble accessing important content on your website.

A nice feature of this free SEO tool is the SERP preview. This shows a preview of how your site will appear in search results.

You can see if your titles and meta descriptions are optimized enough and make changes if necessary.

21. SFAIK Screaming Frog Analyzer

A robust visualization of Screaming Frog’s crawl data using Google Data Studio.

22. SEOWL Google Title Rewrite Checker

This Google Title Rewrite Checker allows you to check if Google is rewriting the title of a list of pages, allowing for a deeper analysis of the title tag structure.

Free keyword research tools

23. Answer The Public

AnswerThePublic is a nifty tool that provides content marketers with valuable data on the questions people are asking online.

Once you enter a keyword, it pulls popular searches based on that keyword and creates a cool graph of the questions and phrases users use when searching for that keyword.

This data gives content creators insight into the concerns and desires of potential customers, allowing them to create highly targeted content that meets those needs.

Answer the Public also offers keyword suggestions with prepositions like “versus”, “like” and “with”.

It’s an excellent research tool that can help you create better content that people will enjoy and be more likely to share.

24. Keyword Explorer

This keyword research tool gives you up to 1,000 suggested keywords, a keyword difficulty score, a click-through rate date, and a SERP analysis. You can do 10 free searches per month.

25. Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner is designed for advertising campaigns, but you can use it for keyword research by seeing how keywords perform in ads.

26. Keyword Sheeter

Get keyword volume, cost per click, and competition data with this free keyword tool.

27. Keywords everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a must-have keyword research tool because of the huge list of sites it provides free search volume, CPC, and competition data for:

Google search

Google trends

eBay

Respond to the public

Google Keyword Planner

Am

Etsy

soovle

Google Search Console

youtube

Ubersuggest

Majestic

Google Analytics

Amazon

keyword shearer

Moz Open Site Explorer

It is available for Chrome and Firefox.

28. wordable.io

This tool allows you to insert your Google Docs into WordPress while preserving your formatting without excessive code. Start with five free exports – no credit card required.

29. Also asked

Find out what questions people are asking about specific keywords so you can use Also Asked to write content that answers those questions.

Search by country and in different languages. You can claim three free searches to get started.

30. Google Trends

You can use Google Trends to see interest in a specific term from one hour back to 2004.

Sort by categories, country and type of search. See related topics, popularity by region, latest most searched terms, and comparisons with other terms.

31. Keyword surfers

This Chrome extension shows you the search volume directly in your Google search results. You can also see the word count and keyword count for top-ranking pages.

32. CanIRank

As the name suggests, CanIRank helps you find out if you can rank on the first page of search engines for a specific keyword.

Unlike other tools that simply provide data on how competitive keywords are, CanIRank tells you the likelihood that you’re ranking for a search term and uses AI to give you suggestions on how to better target keywords.

CanIRank provides great competitive analysis data and actionable steps to improve your website’s ranking with better SEO.

33. Seed Keywords

Think of a question or topic you want to research, send it to your contacts and let them choose the keywords they would search for to get the information they want with seed keywords.

34. Exploding Themes

Similar to Google Trends, Exploding Topics helps uncover topics that are about to become popular before they become popular!

35. Oversuggest

Ubersuggest is a simple keyword research tool that scrapes data from Google’s Keyword Planner for keyword ideas based on a keyword you provide.

The tool also returns practical data for each keyword, including search volume, CPC, and competition level.

An excellent feature of Ubersuggest is its ability to filter out keywords that you are not interested in from the search results.

The tool recently added a feature that lets you input a competitor’s domain to get better keyword ideas.

36. Keys4Up

Get the related keywords, also known as semantically linked keywords, for every search with Keys4Up.

37. Wordtracker Scout

Wordtracker Scout helps find out what keywords people are searching for when they are ready to make a purchase.

38. KWFinder

With KWFinder, you can discover long-tail keywords — those more specific, less-used keywords that return higher results because of their specificity.

Free Link Tools

39. Disavow Tool

Use Google’s disavow tool to get rid of toxic backlinks.

40. Moz Link Explorer

View each URL’s backlink profile and domain authority with Link Explorer.

41. Link Miner

Find out if a given URL contains broken links and discover the metrics of those links, including search and social data, with the Link Miner extension.

42. Backlink Checker

Use this backlink checker to discover all backlink data related to a specific URL.

View the number of referring domains, number of backlinks, domain and URL rating, and its Ahrefs rank, a domain’s position in Ahrefs’ top-performing websites list.

43. Linkio’s anchor text suggestion tool

Discover the best anchor text for any URL with this anchor text suggestion tool.

44. Send pulse

SendPulse allows configuring chains of emails, notifications, and SMS messages based on user actions, variables, or events.

45. Magic PR

Get a press release informed by SEO Best Practices with Magic PR.

46. ​​scraper

This Chrome extension allows you to scrape data from any URL and export the information to a spreadsheet.

47. Help a Reporter (HARO)

Help a Reporter is a resource that connects journalists and experts who serve as sources for stories.

48. Stripes

Turn your Gmail inbox into CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software with this free extension.

Local SEO

49. Google Company Profile

Connect with customers across Google Search and Google Maps with a free Google Business Profile.

50. Whitespark Google Review Link Generator

Use this tool to find your Google Review listing and generate a shortened link to your page.

51. Verification of local search results

Perform local searches with Google Search or Google Maps with Local Search Results Checker.

52. Moz Local Check business listing

Confirm that your company’s details are showing correctly in various directories with Moz’s Local Business Checker.

53. Whitespark Local Citation Finder

Track your citations, discover new opportunities and get your competitor’s citations with this local citation finder.

54. Check the handout generator

Print out instructions on how to leave a Google review for your business via desktop or mobile using Whitespark’s review handout generator.

55. Fakespot Review Checker

This Chrome extension lets you know if the product you’re about to buy is from a reputable seller and if not, offers an alternative.

56. Mobile SERP test

Show your local SERPS on different mobile devices with Mobile Moxie’s Mobile SERP Test.

Mobile SEO

57. Merkle Mobile-First Index Checker

See how your site stacks up against SEO best practices with the Mobile-First Index Checker, depending on whether it’s your desktop or mobile version.

58. Mobile Friendly Test

Test the mobile-friendliness of your website with the Google Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool.

59. GTMetrix

See how fast your website loads with GTMetrix. Find out what’s preventing it from loading as quickly as possible and see what steps you need to take to optimize loading speeds.

60. Cloud Flare

A free Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of servers that makes your content load faster by using a server that is closest to the person doing the loading.

Free multi tools

61. Semrush

Semrush is an excellent SEO keyword research tool that, among other things, allows you to easily find out what keywords a page ranks for on the web.

It provides detailed information about these keywords, including their position in the SERPs, the URLs they drive traffic to, and traffic trends over the last 12 months.

This feature-rich tool makes it easy to find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for and create great content around those terms and phrases.

Semrush also offers more features and unlimited access with different paid plans.

While they’re not cheap, you can start with a 14-day free trial if you want to test out the premium features. Or follow the guide to using features with a free account.

62. Chrome Development Tools

Edit pages in real-time with tools built right into Google Chrome DevTools. Diagnose problems as you encounter them.

63. Marketing miners

Get SERP data, rankings, tool reports and competitive analysis in the form of handy reports with Marketing Miner.

64. MozBar

MozBar is a free SEO toolbar that works with the Chrome browser. It provides easy access to advanced metrics on websites and SERPs.

With MozBar and a free Moz account, you can easily access the page and domain authority results of any page or website.

With the page analysis feature, you can examine elements on each page (e.g. markup, page title, general attributes, link metrics).

You can find keywords on the viewed page, highlight and differentiate links, and compare link metrics of different websites in the SERPs.

If you need to do detailed SEO research on the go, MozBar is one of the best options to consider.

With a MozPro subscription, you can unlock even more advanced features like page optimization and keyword difficulty.

65. SEO Servant

Run on-page SEO analysis, check for broken links, get SERP preview and more with this Chrome extension.

66. SEOquake

View SEO metrics and run an SEO audit with this Chrome extension.

67. Leaves for Marketers

Learn how to automate tasks in Google Sheets and discover the best automation templates and tools through this curated list.

68. Leaf consolidator

Create workbooks using CSV exports with a table of contents and hyperlinks enabled with this simple Excel sheet consolidator tool.

69. Google Search Console

This list would not be complete without a mention of Google Search Console.

Aside from the data coming from Google, Google Search Console is rich in insights related to:

Keyword and URL performance.

indexing issues.

Mobile usability.

Sitemap Status.

And much more!

70. Small SEO tools

A suite of tools that make content creation easier, including a plagiarism checker, article rewriter, grammar checker, word counter, spell checker, paraphrasing tool, and more.

71. Internet Marketing Ninjas

From social tools and schema generator tools to webmaster tools and web design tools, check out Internet Marketing Ninjas free tool suite.

72. Ahrefs SEO toolbar

Get SEO metrics and SERP details from Ahref’s free Chrome or Firefox extension.

73. Bing Webmaster Tools

With keyword reporting, keyword research, crawl data and more.

Unlike Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster Tools only focuses on organic search. A must for anyone who wants to rank on Bing.

74. Worank

Woorank is a handy website analyzer that provides useful insights that can help you improve your website’s SEO.

It generates an SEO score for your website and an actionable “marketing checklist” that outlines steps you can take to troubleshoot your website’s SEO issues.

Another cool feature of this free tool is the social shareability section. This section contains social network data such as the number of likes, shares, comments, backlinks and bookmarks on popular social networks.

Woorank also has a great mobile section where you can find info on how your pages render on mobile and how fast they load.

75. SEO Skill

Find a suite of SEO tools that includes a site auditor, SERP tracker, backlink tracker and more with SEObility.

76. Lipperhey

Lipperhey offers free website analysis, keyword tips, SEO analysis and a backlink checker.

77. Dareboost

This tool offers you an audit of your technical SEO, content and popularity of your website.

You can also find out which keywords you should add to your pages.

78. Siteliner

Discover duplicate content, broken links and page authority and get both an XML sitemap and a detailed report with important website information with Siteliner.

OnPage SEO

79. Google SERP character counting tool

While character counting has long been an approach to evaluating meta description and title tag length, Google does not count meta title and description in character count. Pixels are used instead.

The Character Count tool provides both the character count and the pixel count to ensure you are creating meta tags that are not truncated by ellipses – represented by (…).

80. Natural Language API Demo

Use machine learning to determine the mood of text with the Natural Language API Demo.

Use this data to improve your product or website design.

81. Rich Score Test

The rich result test determines whether your website can support rich search results; H. if your Google result contains non-text elements such as images.

82. Structured Markup Validator

Google’s structured data tool no longer exists. The Schema Markup Validator is the recommended alternative.

83. Ryte Structured Data Helper

The Ryte Structured Data Helper gives you a practical overview and shows you how to validate the schema markup of your page quickly and clearly.

84. Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager lets you manage your website tags without editing any code!

85. Look at the rendered source

See how your browser renders a page with this Chrome extension, including changes made by JavaScript.

Differences between raw and rendered versions are shown line by line.

86. Higher Visibility Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool

Find out what your SERP snippet will look like with Higher Visibility’s Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool.

87. Schema markup generator by Merkle

Merkle’s schema markup generator tool helps create JSON-LD markup for articles, breadcrumbs, events, FAQ pages, and guides.

88. Animalz Revive

Find out which of your sites need an update or upgrade with Animalz Revive.

You can see the traffic for your pages, including the percentage of traffic your page has lost since its peak.

89. Free Copyscape comparison tool

Copyscape’s comparison tool helps to check the percentage of shared text between two different pages to weed out plagiarism.

research

90. BuzzSumo

Find out what content is best suited for a specific keyword and who the influencers are for a specific topic with BuzzSumo’s free features.

91. Hunter

Hunter helps find all important email addresses associated with a specific domain.

92. SimilarWeb

Run a competitor analysis with SimilarWeb that shows you a specific domain’s traffic, top pages, engagement, marketing channels, and more.

93. Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer helps you find out if a particular website uses a CMS, CRM, e-commerce platform, ad networks, marketing tools or analytics.

94. Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine lets you see a website over time, including pages that are no longer on the internet.

95. SEO Explorer

SEO Explorer is a free keyword and link research tool.

Free rank checking tools

96. Ahref’s SERP Checker

See the domains that rank in the top 10 for a given keyword in 171 countries and get robust analytics from Ahref’s SERP Checker.

97. SERPROBOT

Find a dedicated SERP tracking tool with the appropriately named SERPROBOT.

Set up automatic notifications, choose the frequency with which your SERP is checked and get visual representations of changes.

98. Taptimize

Track SERPs for up to 10 keywords for free with Taptimize and get actionable SEO tips.

99. Bulk Google Rank Checker

Bulk Google Rank Checker allows you to bulk view your website’s SERPs for different keywords.

100. LSI graphics

Discover related keywords with LSI Graph. View their trends, traffic volume, CPC, competition and remove low search volume results.

Free website speed tools

101. Mobile Friendly Test

Google’s search algorithm puts a lot of emphasis on how mobile-friendly a website is.

To that end, Google’s mobile testing tool was developed to help you determine if your website is properly optimized for smartphones and tablets.

You simply enter your website’s URL and you will be informed immediately if your website is mobile-friendly.

The tool also offers suggestions on how to improve your website’s mobile-friendliness.

The Page Load Information feature lets you know if Google can properly access all the resources on a given page and what to do if it can’t.

102. Lighthouse

This is Google’s open source website speed utility. Lighthouse offers audits on performance, accessibility, web apps, SEO and more.

103. Page speed insights

Find out how fast your website loads and how you can improve it with Google’s Page Speed ​​Insights.

104. SpeedMonitor.io

Track your website loading speed daily with SpeedMonitor.io.

You can also track a competitor’s website speed and run on-demand audits.

105. Website test

WebpageTest runs website speed tests from different locations using different browsers.

106. Web.dev

This useful tool measures page quality, including page load speed. There will also be tips and insights to help you improve.

107. Web Vitals

This GitHub extension measures core web vitals and gives you instant feedback on load, interactivity, and layout shift metrics.

WordPress SEO tools

WordPress is a robust SEO-friendly CMS platform with numerous plugin options to improve SEO.

While this post isn’t a WordPress-specific list of plugins, it’s worth mentioning a handful of important plugins worth considering.

108. RankMath

RankMath, a newer SEO suite for WordPress, has 15 modules and offers SEO guidance with 30 different types of tweaks.

109. Yoast-SEO

Yoast SEO is the most installed SEO suite for WordPress, with regular updates and new tools.

110. Ahrefs WordPress SEO plugin

Ahrefs WordPress SEO plugin gives you content audits, backlink checks, and tools to monitor and increase your organic traffic.

Here are additional lists of Google Analytics Plugins, Twitter Plugins and Website Speed ​​Booster Plugins.

Reaching the SEO Highway Today and Beyond

There is no question that SEO is a strategic process, but it costs very little money to start implementing.

These free SEO tools will help you improve your website’s ranking, traffic, and conversion rates.

Tools like Semrush, Moz, and Ahrefs offer many great features and can produce remarkable results when used correctly.

When you combine the efforts of all the SEO tools at your disposal, you are much closer to a successful SEO campaign.

More resources:

Featured image: EtiAmmos/Shutterstock

SEO – Tactics & Methods

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SEO techniques fall into two broad categories:

White Hat SEO – Techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design.

Black Hat SEO – Techniques that search engines do not approve and try to minimize their impact. These techniques are also known as spamdexing.

White Hat SEO

An SEO tactic is considered white hat if it has the following characteristics:

It conforms to search engine guidelines.

It does not involve deception.

It ensures that the content that a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content that a user will see.

It ensures that the content of a web page is created for the users and not just for the search engines.

It ensures good quality of the websites.

It ensures the availability of useful content on the websites.

Always follow a white hat SEO tactic and don’t try to fool your website visitors. Be honest and you will definitely get something more.

Black hat or spamdexing

An SEO tactic is considered black hat or spamdexing if it exhibits the following characteristics:

Attempts to improve rankings that are rejected by search engines and/or involve deception.

Redirecting users from a page built for search engines to a page that is more user-friendly.

Redirecting users to a page different from the page ranked by the search engine.

Serving a version of a page for search engine spiders/bots and another version for human visitors. This is called a cloaking SEO tactic.

Using hidden or invisible text or with the page background color, using a tiny font size, or hiding within the HTML code such as: B. Unframed sections.

Repeating keywords in the meta tags and using keywords unrelated to the website content. This is called meta tag stuffing.

Calculated placement of keywords within a page to increase keyword count, variety and density of the page. This is called keyword stuffing.

Creating low-quality web pages that contain very little content but are instead filled with very similar keywords and phrases. These pages are called doorway or gateway pages.

Mirror websites by hosting multiple websites – all with conceptually similar content but with different URLs.

Creating a deceptive copy of a popular website that displays content similar to the original to a web crawler, but redirects web surfers to unrelated or malicious websites. This is known as page hijacking.

Always stay away from the above black hat tactics to boost your website rank. Search engines are smart enough to identify all of the above qualities of your website and ultimately you won’t get anything.

A guest blog by Clwyd Probert, CEO of Whitehat

Whether you’re managing marketing expenses for your startup or you’re a seasoned marketing manager, you probably want to keep your marketing expenses down while getting the greatest possible ROI.

Luckily, search engine optimization (SEO) services can help streamline your inbound marketing strategy without the need to expand your existing marketing or sales teams.

In years, no well-rounded content strategy has overlooked the importance of SEO in their content marketing plans. However, the world of SEO has changed a lot in the last few years, which means that it is not enough to place keywords in your content and hope that your website click-through rate will increase.

Unfortunately, the evolution also applies to digital marketing. This means that 350-word articles, which ranked first in Google, have been replaced with richer content. You will now see more than 2,500 word articles occupying those coveted first place spots. Keywords have been downgraded as Google’s algorithms become more consistent with users’ searches.

Instead, SEO is supported by three different pillars: Discovery, Relevance, and Authority. Make sure your website incorporates these three forward-thinking SEO concepts, and you’ll have a content marketing strategy that will increase your rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).

But first, it’s important that marketing managers understand the following three pillars and why they can impact SEO success so comprehensively.

spark discovery

Getting discovered by potential customers on Google starts with getting your website noticed by Google in the first place. This process involves using classic SEO tactics like building a collection of backlinks from trusted websites and strategically using both powerful and practical keywords on your site.

The good and bad thing about SEO is that unless you’re pushing for a really specific keyword (e.g. where can I find dog poop bags in Gary, Indiana), it takes a while to get to #1. I say good because it’s not like anyone can pay to jump to #ORGANIC right away. SEO is all about spending time making sure your website is a resource center for everything you offer.

Instead of trying to shove a product or service down their throats, create a website that focuses on the best interests of your aspiring customers.

Stay relevant online

Getting relevant on SERPs happens naturally through increased traffic to your website. Aside from building backlinks and developing a superior keyword strategy over that of your competitors, creating a user-friendly website will ensure traffic gets to your site and stays there.

Ease of use is more than a clean-cut, aesthetically pleasing website. It’s a site where your goals are clear and users know exactly what to do next. Webmasters often put together the best images, content, and videos, but just can’t organize them in a way that users enjoy absorbing your content. Have a home page that highlights the key elements of your organization with clear calls to action that will get it where you want it to be.

Combined with the above SEO strategies, high traffic shows that your website is trustworthy, which brings us to the last pillar of an effective SEO content marketing strategy: having authority.

Be a voice of authority in your industry

Relevance and authority often go hand in hand. Although you can be relevant with sub-par content, only companies with quality, actionable content can climb the SERPs. Not only does Authority give you more visibility through search engines, but it can also position you as a thought leader in your industry and set you up for tons of backlinks and citations from blogs, articles or industry-related content.

That is ultimately the goal. Having a website with relevant content that visitors share. Original images with alt tags and buttons for sharing to social networks. A comment section where visitors leave their 2 cents. All of this gets picked up by search engines, thus considering you an industry leader.

Common SEO Mistakes

Even if your current content marketing strategy has these three pillars in mind during the design process, many marketing departments and managers still make common mistakes. Some examples of faux pas are:

– Publishing content regularly without sticking to a well-developed strategy based on concepts like your ideal buyer persona or the buyer’s journey

– Placing too many keywords on a website, leaving readers – and Google – confused and unwilling to read further

– Creating and sharing content that is not original

How a pillar page can improve your strategy

Before we dive in, you might be wondering what exactly are pillar pages? According to HubSpot, a pillar page is the main page for a specific topic or offering. The pillar often contains information on all parts of a topic on a single page, with links to additional topics in blogs, articles, or other sites, all of which link back to the original pillar.

Not to be confused with a landing page, most commonly used as the end of a social media post with a specific purpose. This purpose can be as simple as downloading an e-book, watching a video, and subscribing to a newsletter.

Typically, a pillar page is your starting point for readers. On this page, they learn more about your topic or offer, but don’t discover all the details until they continue to your site via articles linked from the pillar page.

Well-designed pillar pages allow readers to efficiently browse the information you offer, and help you build your relevance and authority while also discovering (and hopefully sharing) unique or trend-setting information from your business.

Wrap up

SEO is an interesting process. I say interesting because in the ever-changing world of Google algorithms, they suddenly change the rules once you feel you get the hang of it. Granted, the changing rules are a good thing for us as search engine users because they help us find what we need faster, but having to change your entire strategy can be annoying.

But that’s the price of playing in the big leagues. Learn the tricks of the trade and you’ll find that an SEO strategy can get you one step closer to increasing inbound leads.

About Whitehat

When you’re ready to step up your content marketing and SEO strategy, a top-notch inbound marketing agency or digital agency can help you maximize your results. Our team at Whitehat Inbound Marketing is always happy to chat with you about how an effective SEO and content marketing strategy will help you get the most out of your marketing and sales efforts.

To learn more about a new way to generate thousands of B2B sales leads, click on the link below:

In 2021, Google processed over 8.5 billion — yes, that’s “billion” with a “b” — searches per day on its search engine. With millions of people relying on search engines every day for answers and advice on their most pressing questions, search engine optimization has become a crucial part of digital marketing. But how much does SEO cost?

The most honest and direct answer is: it depends. It depends on what kind of SEO services your company provides and how many professionals are needed to do the job.

There are many affordable options for individuals, businesses, and agencies when it comes to great SEO.

However, not everyone can afford some of the more aggressive SEO pricing out there. There can be many different costs associated with your goals, from focusing on the cost of keyword research and implementation to assisting with technical recommendations and fixes, the prices of your SEO packages will vary. Here are the aspects of SEO pricing I will cover:

Cost and pricing plans for SEO services

A recurring SEO plan for a well-established website may require less intensive work, but will likely require more reporting and long-term adjustments. If you are just starting out and launching a new website, you need to understand that you are expecting higher SEO costs up front, but then you have the option to move down to a cheaper and more standard monthly plan as your website grows in the search engine results pages (SERPs) established.

Or, if it better suits your business model, you can speak to a specialist about handling recurring work while keeping it on pre-order. I’ll talk a little more about the best plans (in my humble opinion) in a moment.

Mainly, most websites look at these key aspects of SEO. This is also what you’re probably paying for when you sign up for an SEO package:

Updating pages on your site

Monitoring and updating of the internal linking structure

Backlink outreach and implementation

content creation

And much more

So how much does SEO cost? That depends on how much you have to do to outperform your competition. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters. Oh, and also how much the tools and/or outsourcing will cost.

As I mentioned earlier, if you switch to monthly SEO pricing plans, your upfront SEO costs will likely be more than what you pay for. It’s often the case that an SEO agency will take an in-depth look at your site and make a whole host of changes and recommendations, and then move into more niche work and focus areas each month.

SEO is free – or is it?

Technically, SEO is free. You pay no money for SERP placements. Google ranks content based on a number of factors, including the E-A-T trio: expertise, authority, and trust. They will rank highly those that are considered valuable resources for users.

But was SEO really free? The costs for in-house SEO specialists or even freelancers can be quite high. And depending on the work your website requires, this can take a significant toll on your wallet over time. Not to mention that using an SEO tool also costs money. Or, if you hired an SEO agency, you have other costs to deal with as well.

But who are we kidding? Time is money and SEO is time consuming. SEO also requires a certain amount of knowledge and experience to ensure you’re doing the right things – especially if you want to make highly technical updates to your site’s code or architecture.

A specialist or company knows the best way to improve your rankings, from creating quality content to optimizing your business for proper SERP listings. You will also know which tactics to avoid such as B. Black hat SEO techniques that could result in penalties that would make all the money you have invested in your SEO strategy worthless.

And you will likely need tools like ours to perform some of the following functions:

Analytics on your own website

Analysis of competitor websites

Information about your backlink sources

Competitor backlink source information

Keyword research and keyword difficulty analysis

Tracking search results

Ongoing site audits

Social media campaign tools

Social Media Tracking

Brand and reputation monitoring

You don’t necessarily have to do any of this. In fact, you may not have to do any of this. You could spend zero on tools. But tools help you do more, do it more efficiently, and become more relevant with the complexity of your website and the complexity of your search market. You can set a price for tools. For example, here are some of the Semrush plans and their associated prices:

Exactly from February 2022

Tools are the easy part of the price. Outsourcing is much more difficult.

What are the prices for SEO packages?

Most SEO companies and even many freelancers have packages. That makes it easy to rate them. But that assumes a package meets your needs. When you have so many variables, SEO really becomes a bespoke process.

A custom plan is not that easy to price. More specifically, the plan needs to change as your analytics and intelligence will keep you informed of your changing SEO landscape. Add to the confusion the many ways SEO can be priced:

Keyword-Based Pricing

One time fee

Hourly Payments

Variable fee

pay for performance

holder

Packages

The best course of action is to talk to a few different SEO specialists or agencies and talk to them about the prices and costs of their SEO packages. There may be different options for you, from less intensive updates to collaborating with someone as needed. But getting a few different quotes and seeing what their priorities are can help you determine an SEO service plan that fits your budget.

Which SEO pricing model is the best?

Pay-for-performance is the best SEO pricing model in my opinion. The company or specialist you engage will use their best efforts to deliver results; This will help your site update faster and you’re good to go. I’m not too keen on packages either. I think the retainer model offers the most flexibility to fit your needs. A retainer allows you to shift focus or priorities without incurring additional expense. A set monthly advance can mean asking for extra work means extra money.

If you have recurring revenue, you can afford the retainer model. When your income hops around like a kangaroo on roller skates like mine, it might be better to pay for certain actions. If that’s the case, be prepared to be a little more involved in the process, at least enough to know what specific actions you need to request or approve.

There is no easy answer to the question “How much does SEO cost?” If you:

Take the time to learn some basics about SEO and risk management

have some patience

Hire knowledgeable people who know the right white hat SEO techniques

get off the ground with an effective investment model

You should find that even if you pay a seemingly high SEO price, you will enjoy a very profitable ROI if the strategy is executed correctly.

You’ve probably heard a hundred times that search engine optimization (SEO) is an important digital marketing tool. But do you really know how SEO works? Even if you have a basic understanding of what it means, you may not yet have a solid understanding of this complex and multi-faceted process.

SEO is made up of several elements, and knowing what they are and how they work is key to understanding why SEO is so important. In short, SEO is crucial because it makes your website more visible, and that means more traffic and more opportunities to convert prospects into customers. Check out the SEO tools you can use for optimal ranking.

It’s also a valuable tool for brand awareness, building relationships with potential customers, and positioning yourself as an authoritative and trusted expert in your field. So here’s everything you need to know about SEO and why it’s important to thrive in today’s digital world.

The crucial elements of SEO marketing

keywords

Long gone are the days when keywords were the only important SEO technique, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still crucial. The difference is that today keywords need to be well researched, carefully chosen, and used judiciously in your content to be effective.

But what exactly are keywords? Keywords are words and phrases that prospects use to find content online, and that brands can then use to connect with prospects searching for their products and services.

In the key steps of keyword research, it is important to look for keywords with high search rates and low competition, and to include short-tail keywords (e.g. dog), long-tail keywords (e.g. terrier puppies for sale) and choosing local keywords (e.g. puppies for sale in Boston) to incorporate into your content. Along with a primary or seed keyword, you should also have secondary and tertiary keywords as they still add value to your business. Finally, use keywords to optimize all your titles, URLs and other on-page SEO elements (more on that later…).

contents

Content is an essential part of SEO as it is the means by which you reach and engage your audience. It is important that you know your point of view and create appropriate content.

For example, if you own a nursery and want to increase your visibility, you can publish a series of blogs about gardening, choosing the right type of plants, growing tips, and more. When a person who wanted to know about gardening searched for this information, your blog popped up and you were able to build a relationship with that prospect by providing valuable information. The idea is that when the time comes for the prospect to buy a plant, for example, you are the first nursery that comes to mind.

Today’s content needs to be educational, but also interesting, relevant and shareable. Content comes in a variety of forms, including:

Content of the website

videos

Blogs (it’s easy to start your own practice blog!)

infographics

podcast

lists

instructions

White papers and e-books

Social Media Posts

Local Entries

OffPage SEO

Off-page SEO involves external optimization practices that take place outside of your website, not on it.

The main technique used for off-page SEO is backlink building, as quality backlinks to your website from external websites tell search engines that your website is valuable and of high quality, which helps build authority.

There are many tactics for building backlinks, and some current best practices include guest blogging, creating lots of infographics that get shared frequently, and using influencer marketing in your content.

PS You can read a complete guide to on-page and off-page SEO to ensure you know the difference and make the best of both. Additionally, some experts are beginning to refer to off-page SEO as “reputation building.”

Local SEO

Local SEO is becoming increasingly important as more and more people use mobile devices to search. Today, 60% of all searches are done on a mobile device, and nearly half of those searches have a local intent.

So let’s say you own a restaurant, then local SEO would ensure that people in your area who are looking for the best restaurants in town would come across your website.

In addition to using local keywords, other local SEO best practices include claiming directory listings, creating location-specific pages for your website, and creating pages for your business (aka landing pages) in Google My Business and Google Maps local directories .

search engine marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to paid marketing efforts and includes things like native ads, Google AdWords, social media ads, pay-per-click (PPC), Google Shopping ads, display ads, and more.

While SEM isn’t always an important part of a comprehensive SEO strategy, it has its place as it can help you reach new and highly targeted audiences. You can also make SEO and SEM work together.

Examples of SEM advertising activities are:

Paid and targeted campaigns

Keyword-based text specific to your business or product

Performance indicators such as click-through rates (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC)

Understand the importance of SEO for modern businesses

Visibility and Rankings

One of the most important functions of SEO is to increase visibility, which means it’s easier for prospects to find you when they’re looking for something you have to offer. Visibility is directly related to your ranking.

The higher you rank on a search engine results page (SERP), the more likely prospects will see you and click through to your website, so improving your organic page ranking is key. The more effective your SEO efforts are, the higher your ranking and the better your visibility, which is especially important when you consider that a quarter of web users never click past the first SERP.

web traffic

Increased web traffic is one of the main goals of SEO, and you increase traffic when you improve visibility and rankings. Think about it for a moment: ranking first in a Google search gets nearly 32% of clicks, and moving up just one spot in search results can increase CTR by a staggering 30.8%.

The golden grail for many marketers is the “featured snippet,” which is often referred to as position #0 because it appears above the top-ranked URL. This is usually content sourced from a landing page on a blog that answers a question people are searching for and can give your organic click-through a huge boost.

So, if you want more people to find your site through a search engine, you need to employ SEO practices that will help you rank in the top five positions, and ideally number one.

authority

Page Authority (PA) is becoming more and more important for search engines as it is becoming more and more important for web users. Essentially, authority means that your website is trustworthy, quality, relevant and has something to offer.

Values ​​range from 1 to 100 and the higher your number, the more authority your site has. You can determine your PA score using tools like Moz, and while it’s difficult to influence, many SEO experts believe it has to do with link profile – getting external links from credible and well-visited sources.

Creating a better visitor experience

Another reason why SEO is so important is that all the time you invest in generating great content and on-page SEO optimization improves your website’s user experience. This creates a seamless and positive customer experience.

For example, if you take steps to make your website responsive, it will become usable for all your mobile visitors as well as people who visit it from a laptop or desktop. Similarly, by increasing your page loading speed, you reduce your bounce rate and encourage visitors to stay on your site longer. Consumers expect a page to load as quickly as possible, taking no more than three seconds to load! The longer the loading time, the higher the bounce rate and the lower your conversions.

Remember that search engines are fallible

SEO is important because search engines are not perfect. If you don’t take steps to counteract their mistakes, your website will pay the price.

For example, if a website doesn’t have proper link structure, search engines may not be able to crawl and index the website properly, which can result in lower rankings. Coding errors can completely block search engines and make it impossible for your website to rank, no matter how much time you invest in other SEO efforts. Other common areas where search engines can run into problems include:

double sides

to form

Images, Flash, audio files, videos and other non-textual content

language and semantics

It would be easy to spot these problems and know how to avoid them by taking the SEO specialty course at DMI!

First published August 2018, updated October 2021

Related

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of including content on your website that has the potential to improve your website’s visibility for search engines and their users. In other words, SEO can help your website show up more often for relevant searches.

There are a number of things to look out for when trying to improve your website’s SEO. Here are some tips to get you started:

Make sure that the texts on your website are clear, helpful and descriptive.

Explain your topic in simple, easy-to-understand language.

Add relevant keywords i.e. H. Words you think a user might search for when searching for your offer online.

On the subject of keywords, while it’s a good idea to include search terms in your website text, make sure you don’t overload your page with too many search terms or post fake pages that you don’t want users to see. This can result in Google considering your pages as misleading and ignoring your site. So think about what is easiest for a user to navigate and understand.

There is no cost to appear in organic search results like Google’s, and making changes to improve your site’s SEO can have a big impact on your search rankings over time. Learn more about how Google’s organic search works and find tips to get started here. With Search Console, you can track your progress and see how your content is performing.