Links still matter. We should just think of them differently. Consider whether the links you attract will actually drive qualified traffic to your site, rather than just adding to antiquated metrics like external link volume. Determining the unique content on a page is an important part of what the search engine does. It is this understanding of the unique content on a page that the search engine uses to determine the types of search queries for which the web page might be relevant. The proliferation of smartphones and tablets mean more and more consumers will be viewing your website on the much smaller screen of a mobile device. For a good user experience, make sure your website is mobile responsive, rendering correctly on a desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone. One of the most time-consuming parts about link-building is actually finding places that will give you links.

You have everything you need for SEO success. Now get to work!

Search engines reward sites that are user friendly, which means they have high usability. Google favors sites that are not only rich in keywords, but also demonstrate user engagement. Once the Search Engines crawls the web and comes across the new pages, it then indexes or stores the information in its giant database categorically, to be retrieved later when any search query related to it comes up. These giant database storage facilities is capable of processing large amount of information really quickly. Google is constantly evolving to better understand the context and intent of user behaviour. SEO takes time, resources, and money if you outsource. You need to go into this journey expecting to spend time working on SEO for the long-term.

The first indication should be reporting

Just by increasing your search ranking and where your website places on Google doesn’t mean you’re going to get all of a sudden get that flood of traffic that you want. Your headline is among the first things that users will come across when carrying out a search. This makes them important, and it’s useful to brainstorm as many variations as you can until you land on the best candidate. 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). If Google and the rest of the search engines trust you and they respect the content you produce, you’ll climb the search rankings. There’s no shortcut to ranking on the first few pages of the search results. Search engines don’t trust your website at first. You have to earn their trust – and it’s a slow process.

Interview experts outside of your company

Outbound links to related pages helps Google figure out your page’s topic. It also shows Google that your page is a hub of quality info. The ultimate goal of any marketer is to create a diverse range of high quality backlinks from various credible sources. But not all marketers tend to achieve this pinnacle. It takes time and patience and a lot of strategizing and in the end it is never that straight forward and many marketers in the process tend to compromise on the quality of such links and end up deterring their own websites with toxic links. Prove that you are trustworthy by connecting as closely as possible to high authority sites. Use structured data to further explain your topics. We asked an SEO Specialist, Gaz Hall, for his thoughts on the matter: "Google has no problem telling you what you need to do to compete for their top ranking spots, just read their guide and do your best to follow through with their recommendations."

Make mobile and computer navigation easy

Did you know Google uses around 200 ranking factors to rank websites? This may be a lot for SEOs to take in all at once. However, focusing on links is still best practice. Google places importance on the amount your content is shared socially, they see this as a sign that you site has quality content. By sharing it on their social media people are effectively endorsing your content. While uncovering and fixing technical issues has always been an important part of SEO, in the wake of Panda and Penguin, technical SEO has moved closer to the forefront. Headings give your web page structure and help search engines better determine what your page content is about.