SEO is a set of practices and techniques to optimize a website to get it to the top of the search result listing for specific keywords or terms. Google’s SEO Starter Guide states that, “If your URL contains relevant words, this provides users and search engines with more information about the page than an ID or oddly named parameter would.” In other words, including keywords – or at least clear and direct information – in your URL is a best practice. Once you have completed your initial keyword research, review your keywords to identify which are most relevant for your business and which have the highest volume. Google’s featured snippet is a tool through which Google interacts with searchers. The more inputs Google receives from searchers, the better becomes its understanding of what they want.

Setting up an internal linking strategy

You can find valuable data using Google Search Console (formerly called Webmaster Tools). ​This free service from Google gives website owners a wealth of information about their own sites (especially with Google Analytics set up, too). When you’re spending good money on SEO, it’s common to obsess over your keyword rankings. Internal backlinks connect different assets — including content, product pages, or other information — together. Naturally, external backlinks will lead to increased brand exposure and sales. Search engines also take into account the traffic generated by links from social networks. It is assumed that these so-called “social signals” can influence a website’s ranking at least when search queries relate to something current.

Refresh your website to match your message

Right now, using structured data and rich snippets will allow information from your site to appear right in the SERPs. This way, if someone searches for a recipe, they’ll be able to see the ingredients for your version before they even click on your link! The better people with relevant blogs know you (through social sites, forums, email, etc.) the more likely they’ll be to link to your site and to share your content. Influencer marketing is a great way to build a diversified traffic portfolio, because influencers have an effect on multiple traffic channels. Ranking potential is an assessment of where you can realistically hope to get your rankings to; if the top 5 websites have a DA of 90+ and your website is at 20, it is not realistic to think that you will be able to grab one of the top 5 spots in no time. Again this is not always the case, but tends to generally be a safe standard of procedure. Which pages and posts are most important? These should have other pages and posts linking to them. Make sure to link to the most important content.

Getting websites listed on search engines

Automatic redirects and rewrites help search engines understand when you've made changes or moved pages on your site. A general rule of thumb: If you have links in a menu at the top of the page, avoid duplicating those same links on the bottom of every page. Linking to the same page in the footer creates a hole for the link juice to seep out. You can reach out to higher trafficked websites that people in your prime demographic are reading, and ask if you can write a blog post for them. Create a quality piece of valuable content and use your bio at the bottom of the post to create a compelling picture of the products or services you offer and link to your website. Earning links from high domain authority sites (determine this with a tool like Mozbar) is the #1 thing you can do to drive visibility of your site up. Gaz Hall, a Freelance SEO Consultant, commented: "Link building is also spreading brand awareness and capturing referral traffic."

Find out which tools will give you easy, intuitive, and accurate insights

It’s no coincidence that the highest-volume keywords also tend to have the highest amount of competition, and of course, the higher the competition, the harder it’s going to be to rank for that keyword. You shouldn't feel comfortable using robots.txt to block sensitive or confidential material. One reason is that search engines could still reference the URLs you block (showing just the URL, no title or snippet) if there happen to be links to those URLs somewhere on the Internet (like referrer logs). Writing is hard enough when you have to write 500 word blog posts. Now imagine writing in-depth articles and guides that stretch to 5,000+ words on a consistent basis. Make it as easy as possible for users to go from general content to the more specific content they want on your site. Add navigation pages when it makes sense and effectively work these into your internal link structure.