Instead of waiting for a new SEO change to take effect, get ahead of the curve by offering a better user experience now. A focus on improving certain aspects of your site will ensure that you don’t drop down in the search results when new changes are rolled out, which means that you’ll still be visible to the people you want to reach. Waiting until changes are implemented will put you behind—and improving your Web presence now has the added benefit of creating a more relevant, attractive and secure website. [Read more…] about Getting Ahead of SEO Algorithm Tweaks By Offering a Better User Experience
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What Should You Do With Your 404 Pages?
Having 404 pages is a perfectly normal part of a website and Google expects this. However, how you handle 404 pages and the visitors that land on them is important if you want to keep these people on your site. [Read more…] about What Should You Do With Your 404 Pages?
What is Your Crawl Budget and Why You Need To Know This
If you are running a large website with many pages then it is essential that you know exactly what a crawl budget is, how it’s affecting your site, what your budget is and what to do if it’s not enough. [Read more…] about What is Your Crawl Budget and Why You Need To Know This
Analyzing Organic Keywords With Google Webmaster Tools
It has been some years now since Google took away a lot of the data in Google Analytics for keywords that organic traffic is coming to our sites by. What surprises us the most here at Performancing though is the number of business owners and webmasters that aren’t aware of how to get this data from their Google Webmaster Tools account. This is a crucial method for isolating individual pages and seeing which search queries are bringing visitors to that page from search engines. So we decided to put a quick tutorial together to demonstrate how it’s done. [Read more…] about Analyzing Organic Keywords With Google Webmaster Tools
Identifying Traffic Drop Causes
It’s the situation that every webmaster or SEO person dreads, they login to their Google Analytics account only to see that their traffic has nose dived into oblivion. Now is not the time for panicking though! Websites and how they acquire traffic are a lot more complex than they used to be so finding the source of the problem needs to be tackled correctly and methodically, here’s a short guide on some of the main areas you should be investigating. [Read more…] about Identifying Traffic Drop Causes
5 Old (But Still Relevant) Content and Link Building Strategies….And 1 New One
Infographics still work….sort of
Infographics started to gain traction around 2010 and then saw an explosion across the web for the next 2 years as they grew in popularity. As with all new content and link building strategies SEO and marketing firms were all over them like a bad rash until Google stepped in (as they always do) and reduced the effectiveness of signals from links within infographics. However this doesn’t mean you can’t still use them. The field is pretty crowded these days so you really need to dig deep to come up with an interesting topic and get the data to go with it, after that you really need a killer design with the information displayed correctly to get your message across. This is really the hardest part as if you have an infographic on a unique and interesting topic then people will still accept it to be published on their sites and people are more likely to share it and link back to it. On top of that there are many infographic galleries you can seed your design on and again, the better the design and unique the topic is the more likely gallery sites will accept it. The links from infographics will not carry the same weight as they used to but are still a solid link-building strategy.
Refreshing or updating old content
This is a a great tactic as it gives you a legit reason to push some old content to the front of your website or blog again and share it across Facebook and Twitter. If you have any kind of list post you wrote in the past or resource post then go over it again, is there any new content or information you can add there? Nothing ever stays the same and there should always be something new you can add., a resource page that is contently evolving is more likely to be linked to.
Guest Blogging (yes this is still an option)
Guest blogging was the new ‘go to’ and popular link building option throughout most of 2012 and 2013. As with all of the latest SEO tactics it was abused and Google once again had to take action. Matt Cutts first made some warnings and noises about the quality of the content and links that people allow from guest bloggers at the end of 2012 and then again several times in 2013 and early 2014. Finally in spring of this year My Blog Guest and many blogs and websites associated with it were heavily penalised. In the days and weeks after the guest blogging ‘scene’ went very quiet as no-one knew what to do next. Slowly it has been coming back though but what we are seeing now is that many sites and publications have taken a much stricter stance on what they accept, this means guest blogging is moving back to what it originally was and reclaiming its position as trusted content and links.
Sponsoring events
‘Sponsored’ is a dirty word in SEO and link building, if you pay for a link then it should not be a normal and followed link. But if you help out at and event or on a podcast then your name is going to be mentioned anyway and this is more than likely to bring links also and links that have been earned naturally.
Interviews
An old strategy and still a good one. Many people make the mistake of trying to interview the biggest names in their niche, if you can get these people then that’s great but chances are they won’t have the time. Look for people who are new to the scene or have just started a new project, they are more likely to be keen to talk or have something to say. A good example of this is over at our new crowd-funding site Stiqblox.com, we often reach out to creators with the offer of an interview when they launch their campaigns on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo as this is when they are hungry to talk to the press, but you need to catch them before they hit the funding target as after that they simply don’t have the time and/or don’t need the coverage anymore!
An ice bucket challenge?
I’m sure you have seen different celebrities across the globe doing this for the past month or so for the ALS charity, it’s guerilla and viral marketing at it’s best and companies should get involved by taking the challenge while it’s still viral, this way you get to help out a good cause while at the same time getting a little exposure and coverage for your brand.
27 Tips for Building a Kick-Ass Blog
Taking Your SEO Back To Basics
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A/B Testing and SEO: What You Need to Know to Succeed
Being indecisive is something that companies often struggle with when it comes to decisions about a website, but ironically enough a lot of this indecisiveness comes from the indecisiveness of consumers. You want one thing one minute, and then something turns you off the next. This is why A/B testing is so important for small businesses. It ensures that you website is satisfying the majority of consumers, and it allows for you to modify this as consumers modify their own purchasing decisions.
This then brings up the idea of SEO. If you’re constantly changing your website, how can you be sure that your SEO is going to remain in tact? Furthermore, is it all worth it in the end?
[Read more…] about A/B Testing and SEO: What You Need to Know to Succeed
Don’t Forget about Semantic SEO in 2014
The New Year is the perfect time to try new things and see what works for your company, but there are a few things that you really have to try in 2014 if you want to keep up and be successful. Semantic SEO, a new kind of SEO strategy, is something that’s going to be crucial this year.
Based on the Google updates and changes made last year, it’s clear that Google is trying to move their algorithm toward analyzing sites based on other factors besides just keywords. As Google evolves, it’s important you understand how semantic SEO works so you don’t fall behind.