Penguin Penalties: Do Webmasters Respond the Way They Should?

<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">Penalization has become a regular part of the search engine optimization experience. Hell, it has changed the entire business model of Virante to building tools and services around penalty recovery and not just optimization. While penalties used to be a crude badge of honor worn by those leaning towards the black-hat side of the SEO arts, it is now a regular occurrence that seems to impact those with the best intentions. At Virante, we have learned a lot about penalties over the last few years—discerning between manual and algorithmic, Panda and Penguin, recovery methodologies and risk mitigation—but not much study has been done on the general response of websites to penalizations. We have focused more on what webmasters <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">ought</strong> to do without studying what webmasters <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">actually</strong>do in response to various penalties.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/5355439e98bdf7.25881045.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;" /></div><h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 22px 0px;">How webmasters respond matters</h2><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">As much as we often feel a communion among other SEOs in our resistance to Google, the reality is that we are engaged in a competitive industry where we fight for customers in a very direct manner. This duality of competition—with Google and with each other—plays out in a very unique way when Google penalizes a competitor. We learn a great deal in the following months about the competition, such as the sophistication of their team (how quickly they respond, how many links they remove, how quickly they recover), their financial strength (do they increase ad spend, how much and on what terms), and whether they eventually recover.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">It is also important from a wider perspective of understanding Google's justifications for particular types of penalties that seem sweeping and inconsistent. Conspiracy theories abound regarding Penguin updates; I can't count how many times I have heard someone say that penalties are placed to encourage webmasters to switch to AdWords.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">So, I decided to investigate the behavior of webmasters post-Penguin from a macro perspective to determine what kinds of responses we are likely to see, and perhaps even answer some questions about Google's motivations in the process.</div><h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 22px 0px;">The methodology</h2><ol style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Collect examples</strong>: I collected a list of 100 domains that were penalized by Penguin 2.0 last year and confirmed their penalization through SEMRush.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Establish controls</strong>: For each penalized site, I identified one website that ranked in the top 10 for their primary keyword that was not penalized.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Get rankings and AdWords data</strong>: For each site (both penalized and control), we grabbed their historical rankings and AdWords spend from SEMRush for the months leading up to and following Penguin 2.0</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Get historical link data</strong>: For each site (both penalized and control), we grabbed their historical link data from Majsetic SEO for the months leading up to and following Penguin 2.0.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Analyze results</strong>: Using simple regression models, we identified patterns among penalized sites that differed significantly from the control sites.</li></ol><h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 22px 0px;">Do webmasters remove bad links?</h2><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">After a Penguin 2.0 update, it is imperative to identify and remove bad links or, at minimum, disavow them. While we can't measure disavow data, we can measure link acquisition data quite easily. So, do webmasters in general follow the expectations of link removal following a penalty?</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Aggressive link removal</strong>: It appears that aggressive link removal is a common response to Penguin, as expected. However, we have to be careful with the statistics to make sure we correctly examine the degree and frequency with which link removal is employed. The control group on average increased their root linking domains by 41 following Penguin 2.0, but that could best be explained by a few larger sites increasing their links. When looking at an average of link proportions, only about 22% of the control sites actually saw an increase in links in the three months post-Penguin. The sites that were penalized saw a drop of 578 root linking domains. However, once again, this statistic is impacted by the link graph size of the individual penalized sites. 15% of those penalized still saw an increase in links in the three months following Penguin.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">So, approximately 22% of domains not impacted by Penguin 2.0 had more root linking domains three months after the penalty, while only 15% of those penalized had more root linking domains post-Penguin. Notice how small the discrepancy is here. Webmasters responded differently only by 7% depending on whether or not they were penalized. While certainly those penalized removed more links, the practice of link building in general was very similarly affected. In the three months following Penguin, 78% of the control websites either dropped links or at least stopped link building and lost them through attribution. This is remarkable. There appears to be a deadening effect related to Penguin that impacts all sites—not just those that are penalized. While many of us expected Penguin to have a profound impact on link growth as webmasters respond to fears of future penalties, it is still amazing to see it borne out in the numbers.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;"><img alt="Deadening Link Growth" src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/53553cd68f0123.13062412.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin: auto; max-width: 100%;" /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">What I find more interesting is the variation in webmaster responses to Penguin 2.0. Some penalized webmasters actually doubled down on link building, likely attributing their rankings loss to having too few links, rather than being penalized. We can tease this type of behavior out of the numbers by looking at the variances in percentage link change over time.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">The variance among link fluctuations for sites that were not penalized was .08, but the variance among sites that were penalized was .38. This means that the behavior of websites after being penalized was far more erratic than those that were not. Some penalized sites made the poor decisions to greatly increase their links, although more sites made the decision to greatly decrease their links. If all webmasters responded uniformly to penalties, one would not expect to see such an increase in variance.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">As SEOs, we clearly have our work cut out for ourselves in teaching webmasters that the appropriate response to a penalty is very much NOT adding more and more links to your profile, because this behavior is actually more common than link removal post-penalty. It is worth pointing out that it is possible that the webmasters disavowed links rather than removing them. We do not have access to that data, so we cannot be certain regarding that procedure. It is possible that some webmasters chose to disavow while others removed, and that the net impact on link value was identical, thus making the variance calculation false.</div><h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 22px 0px;">Do webmasters increase their ad spend?</h2><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">I'll admit, I had my fingers crossed on this one. Honestly, who doesn't want to show that Google is just penalizing webmasters because it helps their bottom line? Wouldn't it be great to catch the search quality team not being honest with us about their fiduciary independence?</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">Well, unfortunately it just doesn't bear out. The evidence is fairly clear that there is no reason to believe that webmasters increase ad-spend following a Penguin 2.0 penalty. Let's look at the numbers.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; text-align: center;"><img alt="Ad Traffic Increase" src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/53553c821eeed1.82361621.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;" /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">First, across our data set, no one who was an advertiser prior to Penguin 2.0 stopped advertising in AdWords in the three months after. Of the sites that were not advertisers prior to Penguin 2.0, 10% of those not penalized ended up becoming advertisers in AdWords, while only 4% of those penalized became advertisers. Sites that weren't penalized were far more likely to join the AdWords program than those that were.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">It wasn't only true that those unaffected by Penguin 2.0 were more likely to sign up for AdWords; they increased their average Ad-spend, too. There was a 78% greater increase in ad-spend by those unaffected by Penguin 2.0 than those who were. Moreover, bidding shifts for those not impacted by Penguin remained similar in two month intervals across multiple randomly selected three-month differences, meaning that there appeared to be no related impact whatsoever.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">We can safely conclude from this that there does not appear to be a direct, causal relationship between Penguin penalties and increased AdWords spending. Now, one could of course make the argument that better search results might increase ad revenue in the future as Google attracts more users to a better search engine, but accusations of a fiduciary motivation for releasing updates like Penguin 2.0 cannot be substantiated with this data.</div><h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 22px 0px;">Do they recover?</h2><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">By the 5th month, approximately 24% of sites that were penalized were at or above their pre-Penguin 2.0 traffic. This is an exciting outcome because it does show recovery from Penguin is possible. Perhaps most important, sites that were penalized and removed links on average recovered 28% more traffic in the five months after Penguin than those that did not remove links. We have good evidence to suggest at least a correlation between post-penalty link removal and traffic recovery. Of course, we do have to take this with a grain of salt for a number of reasons:</div><ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 3px 0px;">Sites that removed links may have been more likely to use the disavow tool as well.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 3px 0px;">Sites that removed links may have been more SEO-savvy in general and fixed on-site issues.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 3px 0px;">Sites that did not remove links may have had more intractable penalties, thus their lack of removal was a conscious decision related to the futility of a removal campaign.</li></ul><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">These types of alternate explanations should always be entertained when using correlative statistics. What we do have good evidence of is that traffic recovery is possible for sites hit by Penguin, although it is by no means guaranteed or universal. Penguin 2.0 needn't be a death sentence.</div><h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 22px 0px;">Takeaways</h2><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">So, in a few weeks, we are likely to see another Penguin update, assuming Google follows its late-spring release date. When Penguin hits, be ready—even if you aren't going to be penalized. Here are some things you should be doing...</div><ol style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Know your bad links already.</strong> There is no reason to wait to be prepared for removal or disavowal. While I personally think that preemptive disavowal is likely the best practice, there is no excuse to just wait.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Don't worry about AdWords.</strong> There is no statistical evidence that your competition will surge post-Penguin in any meaningful fashion. The competitors who might come to depend move on AdWords also have less organic revenue to invest in the first place. At best, these even out.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Don't double down.</strong> While we can't be certain that link removal gets you out of penalties (it is merely correlated), we can be certain that even a correlation doesn't exist for increasing links and earning recovery post-Penguin penalties.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Never assume.</strong> The behavior of your competitors and of Google itself is far more complex than off-the-cuff assumptions like "Google just penalizes sites to force people into AdWords" or that your business will know intuitively to remove or disavow links post-Penguin.</li></ol><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #616161; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px;">Hopefully, this time around we will all be more prepared for the appropriate response to Google's next big update—whether we are hit or not.</div>

Penguin Penalties: Do Webmasters Respond the Way They Should?

Penalization has become a regular part of the search engine optimization experience. Hell, it has changed the entire business model of Viran...

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Tips for On-Page and Off-Page SEO

<img alt="Tips for On-Page and Off-Page SEO" class="left" src="http://images2.seositecheckup.com/photo/370x370/328/ON_PAGE_SEO.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; float: none; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; height: auto; line-height: 22px; margin: 5px 15px 10px 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span><br /><div class="col5 ad-module" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #373331; display: inline; float: right; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 16.296875px; margin-top: 5px; min-height: 1px; position: relative; text-align: center; width: auto;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-8051682001896609" data-ad-slot="8534343036" style="-webkit-background-clip: padding; -webkit-box-shadow: rgb(210, 210, 210) 0px 0px 10px; background-clip: padding-box; background-color: #f8f8f8; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; box-shadow: rgb(210, 210, 210) 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; float: right; height: 280px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative; width: 336px; z-index: 0;"></ins></div><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 24px;">Tips for On-Page and Off-Page SEO</span></span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">The competitive world of the Internet creates a need for leverage for smaller businesses that wish to compete with larger ones. The smaller businesses will never catch up to the large companies marketing budgets, so how can they really compete? One way, SEO, on-page and off-page optimization that offers authority, brand building, traffic, and of course, profits. In 2014, the world of SEO shifted dramatically with all of the Google updates and algorithm changes, so what you may have once knew, today means very little.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px;">Start with Keyword Analysis</span></span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Keywords are still part of the SEO world, that has not changed, but how they are used has changed. So, before getting too involved in what to do with the keywords on your page, you need to first find out what ones are best to use.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Google Planner</span></span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Google Planner is a free tool that offers help to locate keywords that match your needs. It displays the keywords search volume, and offers keyword ideas based on your initial search. The tool provides basic information that is required to make an educated decision on keyword usage.  </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">High Search Volume with Low Competition</span> –</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> This is your ideal keyword scenario. Finding this combination is not easy, but when you do, the pay offs can be huge. Larger businesses in your industry have most likely cornered the market on the main keyword you have been using, and as said before, you are never going to catch up to their marketing budget, so stop competing for that word. Find one that is less competitive, but that still offers a high search volume. You can still use the main keyword that is in high-demand; just do not focus your campaign around it.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><img alt="" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sPw0sr8o1uA/U0PsfcU4L9I/AAAAAAAAAZ4/HsCLMHG7xGo/w1014-h436-no/keyword+search.png" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; float: none; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; height: 436px; line-height: 22px; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px; width: 1014px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Long Tail Keywords</span> – </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Google is all about answering questions these days, so use long tail keywords that ask, or answer a question.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">On-Page Optimization Tips</span></span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Once you have your keywords sorted out, it is time to start building and optimizing your website. Google does not allow you to simply stuff your page with keywords for rankings anymore; you are expected to be an authority, so prove you are one!</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Write to Read, Not to Rank!</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Whenever you write an article, create text for a landing page, or even post a social blurb, make sure it is something that is worth reading. Google requires that ALL content be informative, unique, and useful. Having your website stuffed with useless keyword-stuffed content is about as effective as a chicken trying to fly South! It is more important that your content be interesting and descriptive, than it is for it to contain a keyword or keyword phrase. That may sound counter-productive to old school SEO buffs, but with the changes Google has made, that is exactly what is required!</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">All content that is created for your website MUST be 100% original. Duplicate content will destroy your reputation, not only with your followers, but with Google as well. The title of the article or blog you post should be catchy, but still relate to the information within the article. If the reader clicks on a title “Lose Weight Eating Chocolate”, and they start reading about how to lose weight by eating salads and fruit, they are not only going to leave the page, they are going to leave with distrust about your site, who you are, and what you have to say. So, if you promise weight loss with chocolate in your title, your article better deliver just that!</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Content Title Quick Tips:</span></span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span><br /><ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; list-style: square inside; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;">Keep titles between 40 to 65 characters</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;">Use keyword or keyword phrase in title if possible</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;">Be creative, but keep the title relevant to content</li></ul><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Tags, Headings, Descriptions and URLS</span></span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">The small things on your page add up to huge SEO benefits. Many website owners forget, or neglect to add the proper tags, headings and descriptions for their on-page SEO. Below are a few quick tips that need to be addressed on your page if they have not been already.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Meta Descriptions –</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> Write a short description of your content. Keep it around 156 characters for the best results.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Optimized URL –</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> The content URL should optimized to match the meaning of the content on the page.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Headings and Tags –</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> Make sure proper headings are in place, h1, h2, h3, etc. This helps the reader stay focused on your content, gives the ability to quickly scan to important parts and looks nicer on the page.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Focus Keywords –</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> Use tags to highlight specific keywords or keyword phrases to add focus for the search engines.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Image Tags –</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> Use proper Alt tags on all images, and always use images in your content!</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px;">Off-Page Optimization Tips</span></span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Optimizing your website with off-page SEO techniques is just as important as optimizing for on-site SEO. There are several areas outside of Google that people go to locate information, so make sure your marketing to those areas as well as to the search engines.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Social Media –</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> Social media platforms are used to build brand awareness, establish authority on a topic, and of course, to drive traffic to your website. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pintrest, Google+, and many other platforms are out there just waiting to hear from you!</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span><br /><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-bzso8bHfjWM/U0PtSOd8hUI/AAAAAAAAAac/_7c-dRJWSkk/w400-h340-no/socialmedia.png" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; height: 340px; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px; width: 400px;" /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Link Building –</span> There has been a lot of debate over whether link building is still effective or not. The truth, yes, link building is still a very effective marketing tool for your SEO campaign, but you have to be careful. It is extremely important that only QUALITY links flow to your site. Building links too quickly leads to poor quality sites linking back to yours, and in Google’s eyes, that is just as bad as you having a poor quality site.</div>

Tips for On-Page and Off-Page SEO

  Tips for On-Page and Off-Page SEO The competitive world of the Internet creates a need for leverage for smaller businesses that wish to co...

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Four Synergistic Strategies to Take Your Site to the Next Level

<img alt="Four Synergistic Strategies to Take Your Site to the Next Level" class="left" src="http://images2.seositecheckup.com/photo/370x370/314/individual.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; float: none; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; height: auto; line-height: 22px; margin: 5px 15px 10px 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span><br /><div class="col5 ad-module" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #373331; display: inline; float: right; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 16.296875px; margin-top: 5px; min-height: 1px; position: relative; text-align: center; width: auto;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-8051682001896609" data-ad-slot="8534343036" style="-webkit-background-clip: padding; -webkit-box-shadow: rgb(210, 210, 210) 0px 0px 10px; background-clip: padding-box; background-color: #f8f8f8; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; box-shadow: rgb(210, 210, 210) 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; float: right; height: 280px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative; width: 336px; z-index: 0;"></ins></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Boy, is it crazy how things have changed! Just a few years ago, getting traffic to a website was basically a guessing game. Sure, there were strategies that worked, but there wasn’t an easy, end-all-be-all traffic generation technique.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">That was before the social media explosion.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Now, flooding targeted traffic to your site is easier than ever. There are four specific marketing techniques that work together to bring huge volumes of traffic to your site. In today’s post, we’ll be going over each one of them, then in future posts we’ll be going over each one individually.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Search Engine Optimization</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">We love SEO – no secret! Ever since Google’s inception, SEO has been one of the best ways to bring traffic to your site. And not just any traffic… targeted traffic that’s looking to buy. What more could you ask for?</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">And this still holds true today. Which is why we highly recommend everyone learns as much about SEO as possible. Yes, some people may argue that SEO is hit-or-miss, and Google can slap you at any second.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">But as we argue with our “New SEO” philosophy, SEO actually hasn’t changed since the very beginning… it’s just now Google’s technology is sophisticated enough to actually enforce their original ideas. This means you either play within Google’s rules, or you don’t get to play at all.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">It’s actually a good thing, though, because the guidelines Google uses to rank a site are exactly the same as what it takes to run a successful website. So if you follow “New SEO” tactics to the letter, you’ll get good rankings and also optimize your site, big time!</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Content Marketing</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">A crucial part of SEO is content. But content isn’t what it used to be. No, content is now a marketing method in and of itself (well, maybe it always was). The idea behind content marketing is simple: create the best content possible for your audience, and post it frequently and consistently.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">By providing massive value through your content, you satisfy Google’s biggest requirement, which will help your SEO out as well.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Social Media Submissions</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">But another aspect to content marketing is social media. This is where it really begins to shine. Not only should you be writing content every single week, you should also be submitting that content to sites like Reddit and Hacker News (http://news.ycombinatior.com). By submitting your content to these sites, you’re essentially guaranteed traffic. And, if your content is good enough, it can go viral, bringing you MASSIVE amounts of traffic, and potentially making your business for a long time coming.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Just remember… the whole core to both content marketing and social media submissions is quality. If the quality is there, you’ll get great results. If it’s not there, you probably won’t get any results. It’s worth it to make sure every piece of content you’re putting out is the best content you’ve ever created.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Email Marketing</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Lastly, where as SEO, content marketing and social media bring in the traffic, we need a way to capture that traffic. This is where good old email marketing comes into play.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Like content marketing, if you want your email marketing to really make it happen for your business, you need to provide a lot of free value. People need to get something out of your email list that they couldn’t’ve gotten without opting in. This is what will make them opt-in in the first place.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">We’ve written on this before, but we highly recommend using a basic 7-part email series to capture visitors, gain their trust, and then, after providing significant value, sell them on your product or service.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">By doing this, you dramatically increase the amount of customers, and make sure you have a way to capture all the awesome traffic your other marketing efforts are bringing in.</span>

Four Synergistic Strategies to Take Your Site to the Next Level

  Boy, is it crazy how things have changed! Just a few years ago, getting traffic to a website was basically a guessing game. Sure, there we...

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How to Decrease Bounce Rates

<img alt="How to Decrease Bounce Rates" class="left" src="http://images1.seositecheckup.com/photo/370x370/312/Rising1.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; float: none; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; height: auto; line-height: 22px; margin: 5px 15px 10px 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span><br /><div class="col5 ad-module" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #373331; display: inline; float: right; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 16.296875px; margin-top: 5px; min-height: 1px; position: relative; text-align: center; width: auto;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-8051682001896609" data-ad-slot="8534343036" style="-webkit-background-clip: padding; -webkit-box-shadow: rgb(210, 210, 210) 0px 0px 10px; background-clip: padding-box; background-color: #f8f8f8; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; box-shadow: rgb(210, 210, 210) 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; float: right; height: 280px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative; width: 336px; z-index: 0;"></ins></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Google keeps a close eye on the user-experience of the sites they list. So for pure white-hat SEO, you’ve got to focus on the quality of the experience, and eliminate any problems that detract from it.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">The best way to do this is to use software like Google Analytics to track how your customers are using your website. In today’s article, we’re going to talk about one metric Google Analytics gives us to track the user experience: Bounce Rates.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">What is a “Bounce”?</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">When someone visits your website from the search engine results, they have two choices: read more, or leave.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">If they find what they’re looking for, they’ll read on. If they don’t, they’ll leave immediately. This is called a “bounce”.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Google wants to eliminate as many bounces as possible. Why? Because if someone bounces off of your website, it means they didn’t find what they were looking for. The higher the bounce rate your site has, the more likely it is your content is being improperly presented.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">So what are some reasons why a visitor may bounce off your site?</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Content Quality</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">First and foremost, we have our most important aspect: content quality. The quality of your content directly determines the amount of value your visitors will get out of visiting your website. On sites that work around-the-clock to provide top-notch value, the bounce rates are very minimal.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">This shows to Google that your site is giving visitors exactly what they’re looking for. This means Google is giving the visitor exactly what they were looking for when they searched to begin with. This helps Google’s business, so in turn, they’ll likely help yours as well.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Good quality content is unique, highly-detailed, and easy to consume. It gives people exactly what they’re looking for, in complete detail, and is very easy to read.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">A good way to gauge the quality of your content is to ask yourself if a visitor would need anything else other than your article to answer their original question. When writing an article or other piece of content, aim to make it THE definitive piece of content for that topic – a visitor shouldn’t have to go anywhere else to find an answer.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Use Images and Paragraphs Liberally</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Avoid “wall-of-text” type articles at all cost. Instead of just a big splotch of words, your content should be evenly divided to improve readability.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">One of the best ways to do this is to include a picture at the top of every – right under the headline. Then, keep your writing minimal… include paragraphs whenever you go into a new idea, even if it’s on the same subject as what you’ve been writing about.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Use the article you’re currently reading as a reference. I’ve used paragraphs to divide the flow of the article, which makes it easier to read. Don’t go overboard, but don’t be afraid to push the “return” button!</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Additionally, you should include images throughout the post to break it up. The longer the article, the more pictures you should include (remember to optimize the alt-text!).</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Remove “Forced-Consume” Content</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Some websites feature “forced-consume” content. That means, auto-play videos or music. When people land on sites with auto-play, their odds of bouncing skyrocket significantly.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">It’s definitely a good idea to have a video on your website, as video is an easy type of content to consume. However, give the visitor the option to push play themselves. If they want to see it (and they probably will) they’ll click on the play button. By forcing them to watch it, you’ll most likely just annoy them.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 22px;">Update Old Content</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">The older your site is, the better it gains SEO authority. And that’s a great thing! However, if you have content from several years ago, it can be outdated, and as such, no longer an authoratative piece of content.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">If someone searches for your site and finds an outdated article, they’ll probably bounce off. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to update old content on a regular basis – at least once it gets outdated. This will ensure your site is always up-to-date, which will lower bounce rates!</span>

How to Decrease Bounce Rates

  Google keeps a close eye on the user-experience of the sites they list. So for pure white-hat SEO, you’ve got to focus on the quality of t...

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The Search For the Perfect Link

<img alt="The Search For the Perfect Link" class="left" src="http://images1.seositecheckup.com/photo/370x370/307/visual.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; float: none; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; height: auto; line-height: 22px; margin: 5px 15px 10px 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span><br /><div class="col5 ad-module" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #373331; display: inline; float: right; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 16.296875px; margin-top: 5px; min-height: 1px; position: relative; text-align: center; width: auto;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-8051682001896609" data-ad-slot="8534343036" style="-webkit-background-clip: padding; -webkit-box-shadow: rgb(210, 210, 210) 0px 0px 10px; background-clip: padding-box; background-color: #f8f8f8; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; box-shadow: rgb(210, 210, 210) 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; float: right; height: 280px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative; width: 336px; z-index: 0;"></ins></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">With Google’s release of Penguin 2.0, we have another piece of evidence to pile on the “New SEO” heap. Just like the first update, Penguin 2.0 is about punishing websites who have built poor links to their sites.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">It’s not really all that surprising. Links are still a big deal in SEO, and if you can build enough of them, you’ll rank. So because of this, online business owners still find value in building links for their sties. However, too many of them are building poor quality links. So let’s just get this out in the open: </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">If you build poor quality links to your website, you are WORSE OFF than if you built no links at all!</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">That’s because low-quality links are BY FAR the biggest “red flag” Google looks at in a website.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Of course, that leaves us in a sticky situation. We need links, but if we build links and they happen to be “poor quality” by Google’s standards, we’re only going to be digging our own graves.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">That’s why it’s absolutely vital to have a standard for the “perfect link” – a link Google views as ideal. Obviously, the best links are all natural, meaning links you receive for simply posting great content. But sometimes you need to give your site a bit of a push. And for these situations, it’s absolutely vital you know what a good link looks like.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">So let’s explore that, shall we?</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Authority and Relevance<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><img alt="" src="http://seositecheckup.com/images/links(3).jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px;" /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Unsurprisingly, a “good link” in Google’s eyes is a combination of a two main factors: Authority and Relevance.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">This is how Google’s algorithm has ranked websites from the very beginning. And it’s also how they determine whether or not a link pointing to your site is good or spammy. If it’s good, it increases your rankings. If it’s spam, it flags you for a potential penalty in a future Google update.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">In a nutshell, the perfect link is a link from a well trusted authority website in your niche. So for example, if you own a store that sells basketballs, getting a link from a site like Nike.com would be INCREDIBLE for your rankings.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Here are some factors Google considers for authority:</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><ol style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: inside; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Site PageRank</span> – PageRank is a metric designed by Google. Now, it means a few different things, but in general, the higher the PR of a site, the more authority it has in Google’s eyes. PR is a scale from 0-10, with each number being exponentially better than the last. A PR 3 website has much more authority than a PR 2. </li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Site Age</span> – The older the site, the more authority it has in Google’s eyes. Look to get links from websites with a significant amount of age, because they’ll offer your site more authority, and will have more trust from Google automatically. However, keep in mind that just because a site is aged doesn’t mean it’s an authority. An aged site can build spammy links and get penalized just as easily as a brand new site.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Social Engagement</span> – Social engagement is a determining factor in whether a website produces value. If a site is valuable, a community will naturally form around it. Therefore, when looking for links, don’t spare a second glance for sites with high PR or site age, but low social engagement. This means the site is not providing value, and as such, could be a target for future Google penalties.</li></ol><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Getting a link on a well trusted site with high PR, lots of social engagement and a good amount of site age will do wonders to your website. Provided you have the opportunity to get this type of link, here are some other factors you should keep in mind.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><ol style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: inside; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Type of Link</span> – Not all links are created equally. The best type of link is a link from a relevant authority site, in that site’s content. In other words, if you have a site that sells basketballs, the absolute ideal link could be a link from Nike.com, in an article about basketballs, which features your site. If you have the option, always look to get a link in the content of a site.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Number of Links on Page</span> – Lastly, on any given page, a site’s authority is spread out between all the other links on a page. That means if your link is one out of a thousand, the amount of authority you’ll get is minimal. On the other hand, if your link is the only link on the page, ALL the site’s authority will be funneled to you.</li></ol><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Want More Link Building Tips?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><img alt="" height="300" src="http://seositecheckup.com/images/email(2).jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.207843) 0px 1px 3px; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px;" width="400" /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #373331; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">If you’d like more tips like the ones above, make sure to fill out the form below to join our exclusive mailing list.</div>

The Search For the Perfect Link

  With Google’s release of Penguin 2.0, we have another piece of evidence to pile on the “New SEO” heap. Just like the first update, Penguin...

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Biggest SEO Myths Debunked by Matt Cutts

<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">There are several SEO myths that are a talked about topic among the seo industry. Some of the biggest seo industry myths are highlighted in this exciting webmasters video with Google web spam team head, Matt Cutts.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Myth 1: Buying Ads Can Increase Your Organic Rankings or The Opposite is True?</b></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Explanation: </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Both are false. Buying ads or not buying them do not play any role in increasing the organic rankings of any website. Google always wants to present the best search results to the users so that they keep coming back. All the changes that Google makes towards its algorithm or the SERP presentation is related to this mental model only.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Myth 2: Building Backlinks (by way of articles, guest blogging, link wheels etc.) Simply By Believing a Group of People is a Bad Idea</b></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Explanation:</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> Building backlinks by way of article syndication, guest blogging or link wheels is not a good idea for the longer run. Many people use automated link building softwares which are not that efficient and must not be considered as a white hat seo method. Many people say they made a lot of money using these methods but the fact is if somebody makes money using any particular method then they won't share the idea with everyone.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gJ9Xt5PohgU" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" width="560"></iframe><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u><br /></u></b>

Biggest SEO Myths Debunked by Matt Cutts

There are several SEO myths that are a talked about topic among the seo industry. Some of the biggest seo industry myths are highlighted in ...

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Search Appearance Pop Up - A Great Hint to Properly Optimize Your Website!

<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Google recently unveiled a new pop up window named "Search appearance Pop Up" which can be seen beside search appearance tab after clicking the question mark icon. This new pop up was added after the recent reorganization of the left navigation menu in Google Webmasters Tools. This was </span><a class="seoquake-nofollow" href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2013/07/easier-navigation-without-gps.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #015782; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">announced in Google Webmasters Blog</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">.  The Search Appearance pop up menu although added as a resource for newbie webmasters to learn the essentials of how Google search works and allows them to organize their website in a manner that can be easier for Google to identify and present in the search results, can be a great signal for search engine optimizers to allow them to properly optimize the website.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br /><h2 style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.5em; position: relative;"><u>What's Included in Search Appearance Pop Up - Area's to Consider</u></h2><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">The search appearance pop up windows discusses the elements of Google search results. These elements make up the entire search engine result page of Google and properly optimizing each and every element discussed in the pop up as per the requirement of the website can be extremely helpful in getting good search engine visibility.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Let us discuss each of the elements discussed in the search appearance pop up window.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVPmI_pQqfa7NUDDaUKIW_JwNtdVwRCGm66l4-cUmccr-GiC-AG0NbNSkkrrE0LERR_Q-zvmx4SDiXhX3c8mGDPRQZoLrtpSZhNmhEi1AN8b21_H7WCyow3963wpc_6NfpfhXCwC3P3Qfs/s1600/search-appearance-overview.png" imageanchor="1" style="color: #015782; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVPmI_pQqfa7NUDDaUKIW_JwNtdVwRCGm66l4-cUmccr-GiC-AG0NbNSkkrrE0LERR_Q-zvmx4SDiXhX3c8mGDPRQZoLrtpSZhNmhEi1AN8b21_H7WCyow3963wpc_6NfpfhXCwC3P3Qfs/s400/search-appearance-overview.png" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">As displayed in the image above, the important elements are title, snippet, sitelinks, search within a site, url, rich snippets, breadcrumbs and author information.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u>Title</u></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> - Title is the most important element in a web page. A title should be informative and relevant.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u>Snippet</u></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> - An accurate and clickworthy summary of the page should be presented here. This is what you call as page description.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u>Sitelinks</u></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> - These are generated automatically depending on the user's query. For example, if the user is searching the site with the brand name then sitelinks gets displayed in the search results (not in all cases). In general, sitelinks gets displayed more often for popular sites.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u>Url structure</u></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> - The Url structure of your site should be logical and must provide an accurate presentation of the content present in the web page. For example a web page focussing on "Birthday Cakes" should have the url "example.com/birthday-cakes.html" or "example.com/birthday-cakes.php" or etc.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u>Event Markup</u></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> - Use markup like </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Data highlighter</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> whenever you want to display event related data from the web page on the search results. This can drastically improve the search performance of a web page.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u>Breadcrumbs</u></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> - Use breadcrumbs for easier navigation and proper passing of the Page Rank to the inner pages. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u>Rich Snippets</u></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> - Follow </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">rich snippets data markup</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> in order to display user ratings and reviews of the products contained in the web page on the Google search results.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><u>Author Information</u></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Use Google Authorship</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> to display author related data in the search results. This will help to move from an anonymous presentation of data to genuine ownership of data. A great ranking signal for Google based on </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">author rank</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">These are the major chunks of on page optimization which must be taken care of seriously in order to get improved visibility on Google.</span>

Search Appearance Pop Up - A Great Hint to Properly Optimize Your Website!

Google recently unveiled a new pop up window named "Search appearance Pop Up" which can be seen beside search appearance tab after...

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