SEO
Actionable, straightforward and no-nonsense Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips and information. Learn how you can increase organic traffic to your website.
When Should You Make Links Nofollow?
Learn what nofollow links are and when you should (and should not) make outbound links nofollow.
Links, either internal or outbound, can be marked as dofollow or nofollow. A dofollow link is the default. It’s just a normal link. No attribute is required to make a link follow.
A no-follow link is the alternative. By making a link nofollow, you’re basically telling Google that this particular link should not be be given any credit in regards to rankings in search results.
So when should you make an outbound link nofollow? Let’s find out.
Why Publishing Long-Form Content Is Often Bad Practice
You’ve probably heard it a million times before. Write long-form content if you want that content to rank!
I call bullsh#t.
If someone tells you to always publish long-form content, without any further explanation and no context, then that is very poor advice.
I know many may not agree with me, but please read on to find out why I think publishing long-form content is actually, in many cases, bad practice.
3 Simple Ways to Get Quality Backlinks
Most of us bloggers and Internet marketers will know that backlinks are one of the major organic ranking factors. But we also dislike building links. At least, I do.
And that’s perfectly fine. If you just focus on publishing quality content, your site will rank eventually. It may take a bit longer, but good things will happen to those who are perseverant and patient.
But creating a few quality backlinks along the way will certainly help to speed things up a little. And if the process of creating these quality backlinks isn’t super complicated, then time spent on getting these links is time well spent.
Why You Should Not Use WordPress Tags
WordPress Tags, some love them and others strongly dislike them. Personally, I never use tags. When I started blogging though, I used to create multiple, random tags each time I published a new blog post. And as I got older and wiser, I’ve learnt to step away from using WordPress tags.
And I’m not the only one. Slowly but surely, bloggers and Internet marketers are coming to the conclusion that tags are a bit out of fashion and don’t serve much purpose anymore. And there are certainly no SEO benefits either.
It’s interesting though, because when you start a brand new WordPress blog, one of the first things you’ll come across is the concept of Categories and Tags. They both are a cornerstone feature within WordPress. So why is it that WordPress Tags have lost so much ground?
Why Outbound Links Are Important for SEO
Learn why including outbound links in your content to reliable external sources is good from an SEO perspective.
Backlinks are as old as the Internet. In fact, you can argue that backlinks are the foundation of the Internet. Outbound links hold the Internet together.
The algorithms of search engines have always relied heavily on the existence of backlinks. For a long time, backlinks were by far the most important ranking factor. And some SEO’s think that links are still the number one ranking factor to focus on.
As such, it’s no surprise that backlinks have turned into a commodity. They are valuable, they cost money, they can be sold, they can be bought. And because they are so important and valuable, a lot of bloggers and Internet marketers are hesitant to include outbound, external links in their content.
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Keysearch Review – Keyword Research on a Budget
Keysearch review – an indepth and unbiased guide to the main features of this affordable keyword research tool and how it stacks up against its competitors.
Keysearch is a web-based keyword research tool that offers a wide range of features to help you find low competition keywords, spy on your competitors, track your SEO efforts, and more.
This Keysearch review takes you through the main modules and features of this affordable keyword research software tool to find out whether it is worth your investment.
Compared to other, more expensive keyword research tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs, Keysearch stands out as being very affordable. But is Keysearch good enough to take your SEO efforts to the next level?
There is in fact one very important key feature missing in Keysearch. A feature that makes its competitors so popular. Which feature? Find out further below.
7 SEO Predictions and Trends for 2018
In a business, the end of a year is always a great time to reflect on what’s happened in the previous 12 months. What went well, what didn’t go too well, were all the goals achieved, etc. All these questions deserve an answer as it helps you to move forward and improve yourself.
I also use the end of a year, or the start of a new year, to plan ahead and define a strategy with concrete goals and milestones. Part of this exercise is to think really hard about how SEO is going to evolve and how I should adapt in order to stay ahead and improve my business.
As such, I’ve been able to identify 7 of the most important (for me at least) SEO predictions and trends for 2018. Some of these may not be all that surprising, others may well be. Either way, hopefully you can use this list of SEO predictions for the coming year to your advantage.
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Why You Should Ignore MOZ DA Score
Moz DA score has been a popular SEO metric for many years, used by lots of bloggers, agencies and SEO practitioners to get an idea of a website’s authority and organic traffic. I’ve always tried to ignore it because in my opinion Moz DA is flawed, irrelevant and inaccurate.
There are other, much better ways to determine how authoritative and well-established a website is and how much organic traffic it roughly attracts. Moz DA simply doesn’t add much value anymore in this regard.
But sadly though, there are still many bloggers and Internet marketers who check their Moz DA score on a regular basis, desperately hoping for positive movements.
In this post I will be diving deeper into this whole Moz Domain Authority thing, and I will give you reasons why you can safely ignore it.
How to Earn the Google Featured Snippet with Simple HTML Tweaks
You may or may not already know what the Google Featured Snippet is. It’s that little box of content on top of the search results that highlights the best possible answer to a user’s query with a link to the website that has provided that answer.
It was introduced a few years ago to improve the user experience when looking for answers in Google. People want quick answers and the Featured Snippet helps in providing those quick answers.
The Featured Snippet is designed such that it provides an immediate answer to a user’s query, without having to actually click on the link to the article that provides the answer. Or otherwise, it is designed in a way that the user is very likely to click through to the featured website INSTEAD of choosing the website in the classic number 1 spot.
In this post I am sharing a few simple HTML tips to help you earn that highly desired Google Snippet on top of the page.
How to Optimize and Rank WordPress Category Pages
Perhaps one of the most neglected parts of WordPress blogs is the good old category page. Whenever you navigate to a category page within a blog or website, chances are it’s not much more than a list of the latest blog posts within that category.
And even worse, more than often the title of that category page is something along the lines of “Category Name Archives”.
Booooring… 🙂
And not just boring, it’s also a huge missed opportunity to get more traffic to your website. A category page is essentially another web URL within your website. It’s an actual web page, just like a blog post with 4,000 words is a web page.
Therefore, it’s very important to not neglect your blog’s categories and to start treating them like real web pages that could potentially generate more organic traffic.
Did you know that an optimized category page can end up on the first page of Google, or even in the magic top three? It’s happened to me many times, and not because of random luck.
Read on to learn how you can rank your WordPress categories high in the SERPs (search engine results pages) with little effort, and increase your website’s overall organic traffic. Like a boss.