There are many best practices for SEO, including those provided by Google.
Here are 17 tips that will help one develop a better search presence.
What Do Best Practices For SEO Even Mean?
Best practices for SEO are generally considered to be those that stick within Google’s changing guidelines and are not explicitly listed by Google as manipulation.
But best practices are about more than what Google considers to be manipulative and what not.
For example, Google’s guidelines don’t tell you how to choose hosting, how to optimize a WordPress site, or whether a website builder makes the most sense for your particular situation.
These are the types of best practice that this guide will cover.
1. Choose The Best Platform For Your Situation
A good place to start is the point before any code is uploaded to the web.
Understanding the technology behind a web presence is important to making the best choice for SEO.
Get this part right, and you’ll be well positioned for sprinting towards first place.
Why Choose Self-Hosted
Today’s options are between a CMS (content management system) hosted on a publisher’s server, and site builder platforms where the technology is hosted and managed by the provider.
Many people choose self-hosted open source solutions (like WordPress) because of the extensive support and development network, which provides complete freedom to build custom sites that users can optimize without limitations other than their own skill level .
The disadvantage of self-hosted solutions is the need for technical skills to optimize templates, deal with constant updates, and acquire the necessary knowledge to create a strong security posture against hacking.
Why SaaS Platforms Make Sense
Many businesses prefer to focus on doing business, not maintaining website technology.
The skill of an attorney is going into litigation, not learning how to switch to System Font Stack on their self-hosted CMS.
For businesses that prefer a high-performance website without dealing with technology, the SaaS (software as a service) website builder platform is increasingly considered the best choice for many small and medium-sized businesses.
Examples of Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms:
The best practice, therefore, is to explore what the company needs to do business online and then see which technology works best – a self-hosted CMS or a SaaS website builder platform.
2. WordPress SEO
There are many CMSs to choose from.
WordPress is arguably the most popular free, open source system supported by a large global community of developers, including for SEO.
Anyone with a modest understanding of how to use WordPress can create an entire website and pay almost nothing.
This includes free templates and free SEO plugins, as well as other plugins to extend the functionality, such as the WooCommerce plugin to create e-commerce stores on a $0 budget.
Web Development and SEO expert Adam J. Humphreys of digital agency Making 8 Inc. shared. his thoughts on WordPress SEO best practices.
“With WordPress, something as simple as the default theme will achieve site speed goals with minimal work.
Enter a good host with a Content Delivery Network (CDN), a compression plugin like WP Rocket & ShortPixel, and the result is a blazing fast website. We’re talking 0.5 second load, and that won’t happen on some paid solutions.
My favorite SEO plugin is RankMath Pro because it allows me to generate schemas, generate local SEO page content, create video sitemaps, and do things that other plugins don’t do at all.
A plugin like this allows me to highlight content for search engines in ways I’ve never seen any paid solutions outside of WordPress do.
A builder for WordPress like Bricks Builder is a template system that allows you to create custom SEO-optimized themes that load web pages in a fraction of a second out of the box even before compression.
These days I think dentists using WordPress have better websites than many of the Fortune 500 companies, and I know because I’ve done technical SEO audits for them.
WordPress can be better when it comes to SEO and security, assuming you have a simple maintenance plan and have someone to click an update a few times a month (yes, it’s that simple).
A finished site using WordPress is basically set up. You no longer need a full-time developer to keep up with basic security updates.”
I asked Matt Cromwell, WordPress expert and Co-Founder of @GiveWP, to share some WordPress SEO best practices.
Matt offered the following insights:
“People who build websites with WordPress and want to focus on Web Core Vitals often start with cache plugins and whatnot. That’s a mistake.
The two biggest needle movers that will make your site faster are: (1) excellent hosting, and (2) clean markup.
A lot of caching on your WordPress website might help some slow hosts, but it won’t give you the performance you really need. So start at the foundation with fast hosting.
The biggest factor that affects your markup is the combination of your theme and, often, page builder.
Most sites that perform very well use a minimal theme that works well with WordPress’ built-in content editor (aka Gutenberg). Page Builders are often the biggest factor slowing down a website. You have to do a lot of custom code to minimize their impact.
So my biggest recommendation for small businesses who don’t want to fuss too much with their site and keep it lean and functional is to invest in high performance hosting, keep your theme very minimal, and the t -use WordPress editor instead of page builder.
When your business is scaling enough to hire talent, hire a great web developer and digital marketing specialist to make your site look gorgeous and fast.”
Andrew Wilder from WordPress support company NerdPress offered an out-of-the-box best practice idea for WordPress SEO, one related to fonts.
“We see a lot of sites using tons of web fonts – these can slow things down if not implemented well.
They are particularly challenging because they have to load early in the process (so the page can render properly), and when they do load, they can cause layout changes as they change. the text displayed at the beginning of the font.
Switching to a System Font Stack (which uses the default/system font of whatever device the user is on) can make a huge difference in performance.
3. Website Builder Platforms For Easy SEO
Understanding the best way to create an online presence is an SEO best practice.
One of the ways to create an online presence is through a SaaS website builder platform.
Not too long ago, SaaS website builder platforms were great for building attractive websites but not so great for site speed and SEO.
But that is no longer the case.
Today, the major website builders match or exceed the traditional CMS in terms of site speed and SEO.
More than 14 million websites have been built using Duda technology, and Wix has over 200 million users worldwide.
Focusing on SEO, the biggest advantage of website builder platforms is that they take care of technology, integrate directly with Google Business Profile, produce valid structured data, output SEO on the page that complies with Google’s guidelines, and that they exceed the speed and performance of the site. .
A platform like Wix makes it easy for businesses to get online and start competing with top SEO.
A platform like Duda is easy to use for business owners. However, it is designed to meet the needs of digital agencies and service providers who can leverage the Duda platform to create attractive and fast websites that perform quickly and are flexible for customization and SEO.
The Duda platform handles the underlying technology, for example, optimizing the site for speed, integration with a CDN (content delivery network), and semantic tagging as in-article elements.
This allows agencies and developers to focus on what matters: content, promotion and SEO.
Anton Shulke, Duda’s Head of Influencer Marketing explained:
“The SEO settings that Duda offers website builders are very easy to use and really help to differentiate their website from others.
Outside of providing users with Site SEO settings in our builder, we provide users with educational materials not only about our platform but about what SEO is and why it’s important.
Duda has created technology that will optimize our users’ websites for SEO in the background so our clients can focus on their site design.
Duda takes care of complex optimizations like code optimization for Core Web Vitals, generates robots.txt files, sitemaps, and even submits websites to be crawled immediately after publication.
Duda’s platform not only focuses on providing excellent out-of-the-box site optimization, it also allows clients to optimize their business listings with options like Local Business Schema and app integration with Uberall and Localeze, making Duda a great choice for web designers and business owners alike.”
4. Fast Web Hosting
Using a fast web hosting environment is a best SEO practice – as is choosing the most appropriate web hosting platform.
Examples of different types of web hosting:
The best practice for SEO hosting is to choose the fastest web hosting possible that also makes economic sense.
Optimizing site speed depends on at least four factors:
Of those four, the first two (hosting and fast website) are under business control.
And of those two, fast hosting is arguably the most important – because a slow web host can make even a fast website slow.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the easiest way to deploy a website (or multiple websites).
The downside of shared hosting is that the least expensive plans put thousands of websites on one server, so all the sites have to share the limited resources of that one server.
This can result in slower websites, especially if any of the other sites on the server are under heavy load.
Popular sites that use “too many resources” (aka, “throttled”) may have their traffic slowed down.
Some might say it’s a good way to start, then scale up once the site becomes more popular.
Once a site becomes popular, traffic will increase, which can slow down the popularity of the website – as slow websites drive away site visitors who would otherwise be regular customers or visitors .
Many SEO pros can agree that a shared hosting environment is fine for a hobby site, but not for a site with monetary goals.
Premium Shared Hosting
Some premium shared hosting environments are not necessarily cheap, but they are generally cheaper than renting an entire server.
The value of premium shared hosting is that it is easy to deploy websites and access more RAM and CPU server resources.
Prices can range from $40 to over $100 per month.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting is a specialized server environment tuned specifically for WordPress websites.
These hosting environments only run WordPress sites and offer features that offload tasks from the website, enabling the WordPress sites to perform at a higher level.
The benefits of managed WordPress hosting are faster performance, better security, and less effort on the technical side of managing WordPress.
David Vogelpohl, VP of Growth at WPEngine shared:
“Unlike general hosts, who also have to try to optimize their platform & caching for any type of site, WordPress hosting focuses on managing one type of site, WordPress.
By focusing on one type of site, managed WordPress hosts can optimize their networks, cache and infrastructure to a much greater extent than is possible in general hosting environments.
This focus often results in a much faster site for you when hosting on a managed hosting provider.
Managed hosting providers such as WP Engine will often deliver faster speeds for your website by offering dedicated and advanced hosting for your site, a global content distribution network (CDN), a low ratio of sites to servers on shared hosting, and high- optimized. infrastructure specific to the types of websites they host.
In the case of WP Engine, we add & A global CDN through Cloudflare for all customers and includes a proprietary caching layer called EverCache, including specific WordPress and WooCommerce optimizations that help make sites faster than off-the-shelf caching solutions built for any type of site.”
Website security is an SEO issue as website rankings start to drop when a site is hacked.
I asked David about WordPress security on a managed WordPress hosting service.
“Managed hosting providers like WP Engine can be a powerful part of your security toolkit, offering support in managing malware and virus threats by helping you prevent malware before it becomes a problem, & remediation of malware when present, and recovery from malware infections that have affected your site.
Managed hosting providers often help prevent malware threats by offering Web Application Firewalls (WAF), pushing strong passwords, supporting enterprise-grade SSO, and pushing security updates to the key software used on your website ( WordPress, PHP, MySQL, etc.).
For example, 37% of WordPress sites are on versions of PHP 7.3 or less, which are not supported with security updates, but 100% of WP Engine customers are on patched versions of WordPress and PHP.
Providers will also include network and server threat detection and blocking capabilities that can help prevent some attacks before they even begin, stop active attacks, or alert you to malware present on your site.
It is also helpful to increase the security benefits from your host by using solutions such as WordFence or Sucuri to fully scan your site for malicious code on a regular basis.
If your site is already compromised by malware, a managed host can offer support for remediation (fixing the vulnerability/removing the malware) depending on the nature of the malware and the potential vulnerability as a reason for the presence of the malware.
Once malware is removed from your site, you can use daily backups provided by managed platforms such as WP Engine to restore your site.
Along with a healthy security culture and practice in your own organization, choosing a managed host is a great foundation for keeping your site safe and secure.”
Virtual Private Server (VPS)
VPS is the next step up which offers fast performance, but at much higher prices than shared servers.
The value of a VPS is more control over the server environment.
The downside is that successfully managing many VPS hosting environments requires more technical ability. However, some VPS offerings have a managed option where the hosting provider will manage the server at an additional cost.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is a specialized type of hosting.
In general, a cloud hosting environment is one where the data and host processes are spread over multiple servers and feature redundancy, so it is almost impossible to lose data.
The advantage of cloud hosting is that it is scalable and priced according to the resources used.
A site that experiences a sudden surge in traffic can quickly scale through the cloud hosting environment at a higher cost.
One of the disadvantages of cloud hosting is that it may require more technical skills to manage.
Dedicated Server
Managing a dedicated server is not as difficult as it used to be, but there is still a learning curve.
Even with a relatively easy-to-use control panel like Plesk Onyx, while intuitive to use, it helps to be aware of PHP settings, firewall settings, NGINX, and Apache.
In general, there are no guardrails to protect you from errors on a shared server, so one needs to know their way around.
5. Title Element (AKA Title Tags)
The title tag is widely considered an important ranking factor.
The content of the title element is important because that is what (usually) appears as a Title Link in the search results.
As a result of that knowledge, SEO pros often use the title tag as a place to write the targeted keyword. That’s a 20+ year SEO tradition.
But times have changed, and Google rewrites the title link if it’s not descriptive or contains repetitive boilerplate.
That means the best practice for Title Tags has changed.
Today, the best practice for the title element is to be descriptive, concise and non-crime.
Adding a keyword phrase is still useful, but it’s important to be descriptive.
That means when someone reads the title tag, they should know what the web page is about.
If the title tag doesn’t pass that test, it probably isn’t good enough.
The best practice today is to target the user intent of the keyword phrase in the content and then target that user intent in the title tag.
For example, since 2000, the standard practice has been that if you want to rank for the keyword phrase “fishing flies,” you must use the phrase “fishing flies” in the title tag.
That’s no longer the case because that keyword phrase is vague, so Google will first identify the user intent behind that keyword phrase, and then rank sites that match the user’s intent – not the keyword in the title tag .
The best way to write a title tag is to understand the intent of the keyword user and try to match the intent in your title tag.
Here are the search results for the keyword phrase “fishing flies”:
Screenshot from search for [fishing flies], Google, July 2022
What is most striking about the title links in the search results above is that none of the top four search results contain the keyword phrase “fishing flies” by itself.
The phrase or part of the phrase is in a phrase context that always reflects the user’s intent.
There isn’t even an exact match between the number one search result and the key phrase.
What those search results – and almost any search result – will show is that it’s not just the keyword in the title that’s important, but that it’s important to tell what the content of the web page is in a way that also signals intent to the user.
That, in my opinion, is the best practice for title tags: Optimize the title tag for the content relevant to the user’s intent, and don’t dump the exact similar keyword phrase in the title element.
6. Alt Text
The alt text (aka alt tag or alt image attribute) is an HTML attribute of the HTML image element.
The purpose of the paragraph text is to describe what the image is about.
The best SEO practice for using the article text is to describe the content of the image.
Casey Markee, Founder of MediaWyse, offers a useful way to think about a text article:
“Ask yourself, if someone with a visual disability was sitting next to you, how would you describe a photo to them on your computer screen?
Alternative Text (Alt Text) is there to describe a photo to someone who cannot see it.
It’s not there to do things with keywords, marketing jargon or other nonsense.
Finally, make sure to add a ‘period’ to the end of your Paragraph Text. This is an indicator to screen readers that the Alt Text has been completed.”
7. URL Structure
Many in the search industry mistakenly believe that Google uses the words in the URL structure to understand what a page is about.
But that is not necessarily the case today.
Google has a long history of minimizing the importance of keyword usage in the URL. As recently as 2017, Google’s John Mueller said that keywords in the URL are overrated as a ranking factor.
Keywords in URLs are overrated for Google SEO. Make URLs for users. Also, on a mobile phone you usually don’t even see them.
— johnmu of Switzerland (personal) (@JohnMu) March 8, 2017
And in 2018, Mueller again downplayed the importance of keywords in URLs for SEO:
I wouldn’t worry about keywords or words in a URL. In many cases, users don’t see URLs anyway.
— johnmu of Switzerland (personal) (@JohnMu) December 6, 2018
The best practice for URLs is to keep them short but descriptive.
This will help tell a potential site visitor what the web page is about (if they see the URL), and help them decide whether to click through to the web page.
When in doubt, you can’t lose by asking what impact it will have on a potential site visitor.
So if you have the two keywords related to the content in the URL structure, that will be fine.
If you return to the “fishing flyies” search results example, you will see that the main result does not contain the keywords in the URL.
However, at position number one, Google ranked it as the most relevant for that keyword phrase.
8. Best Way To Use Headings For SEO
Headings are similar to title tags in that their role is to describe what the web page is about and what a section of a web page is about.
John Mueller explained the best way to use headings:
“…what we use these headings for is we have this big piece of text or we have this big image and there’s a heading above that, so maybe this heading goes with this piece of text or this image.
So it’s not so much like there are five keywords in these headings, so this page will rank for these keywords but more, here’s more information about that piece of text or that image on that page.”
The best practice for using headings is to describe what the page is about or what a page section is about.
Casey Markee had this to say about optimizing header features:
“Headings on a page provide a road map for users and surfers to navigate a piece of content.
Headlines have been horribly abused over the years to the point where Google has algorithmically targeted them for rewriting.
Focus on writing clear, concise headings that aren’t keyword heavy, use Title-Case or Sentence, and follow clear Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Always use headings sequentially (don’t jump from H2 to H4 because of that), don’t keyword each heading with your focus keyword, and don’t use CAPITAL-CASE in headings as some screen readers can to confuse those with acronyms.”
9. Google Discover
Cindy Krum, Founder & The CEO of MobileMoxie – which offers tools for mobile SEO – is enthusiastic about Google Discover.
She shared these tips for Google Discover SEO:
“Google Discover is included natively on all Android phones and in the Chrome app for iOS. Because there are so many users, Discover can be a significant traffic driver. It’s a great way to get enthusiastic and loyal site visitors.
Content is shown to users who are interested in a topic and not because of keyword queries, which can be challenging to report as directly attributable to SEO efforts.
But Google needs to know what a web page is about in order to show it to users who have shown interest in specific topics. That means on-page SEO is important.
To get more exposure there, it is important that pages have high resolution images, and that they pass all the checks for Google’s mobile evaluation of ‘Page Experience’ in the Search Console.
It also helps if pages have a fast load time because the context in which Google Discover content is displayed is mobile devices.”
A common mistake I see people make with their featured image is using one that is too small, or not rectangular.
To ensure that Google surfaces your content in Google Discover, use an image that is at least 1200 pixels wide.
The option is to display a rectangular image in its entirety. A square image will only be displayed as a smaller thumbnail, which will not stand out as much.
Speaking of standing out, be sure to use visible images that are colorful.
Images with bright colors draw attention to themselves in Google Discover and can help encourage click-throughs.
Also, use the meta set of image preview robots max:
10. AI For Content
Marketers often think of AI as a way to produce lots of content faster.
(And often not so good stuff.)
The best SEO practice for AI is not to generate content, but to use AI to automate the entire process of content creation.
Jeff Coyle, Chief Strategy Officer of AI content automation company MarketMuse, explained SEO best practices for AI-based content:
“Assess your company’s entire content creation and management lifecycle to identify steps in the process that are manual and ineffective.
AI can improve every stage of content creation:
Finally, automation can be used in the promotion and optimization stages of the content lifecycle.
Each of these critical steps can be improved when refining a business content machine.
AI solutions for content can improve decision-making and research processes by making them faster and more successful.”
Jeff concluded by sharing this best practice for getting the most out of automation:
“Make sure any speed improvement and automation have checks and balances on quality and performance so you can have progress in volume, quality, and content engagement/performance with AI and increasing trust in the technology across d ‘organisation.’
11. SEO For Images
Ideally, images should be colorful but also low in weight, under 100kb (and ideally under 50kb).
I know that sounds unrealistic, but the truth is that image editing software like Photoshop can help create the smallest possible image that still looks great.
Images within the body of an article are great for breaking up the content and helping readers make it to the end of the article.
But make sure that the image is relevant to the content because, in that way, it will help convey the content or message of the content.
12. SEO For Product Pages
Cindy Krum is also an expert in optimizing product pages for SEO and conversions on mobile web pages.
She had a lot to share about best practices for optimizing product pages.
“Mobile product pages are a significant opportunity for SEO, but it may be different than what most SEOs are used to.
We’re seeing more and more emphasis from Google on Shopping Center Listings, so when you’re optimizing product pages for SEO, it’s essential to know if those are ranking for your mobile shopping query.
If Free Product Listing modules are ranking for your keyword, it may be difficult to make it higher; it would be a bit like classifying the result of a Knowledge Graph.
We think users like Merchant Center packages in the search results because they act as a quick price comparison, so it looks like Google will keep these.
In this case, especially for broad queries like this, the strategy for ranking product pages is to rank in the Free Shopping Center Listings – it’s a whole new game!”
13. Best Practices For Category Pages
There is a long-standing idea in the search community that category pages are not useful, so they add noindex, follow robots meta tag to the pages.
But that’s a big mistake – then, Google won’t index the category pages (as requested), and because of that, Google won’t follow the links, because the page isn’t indexed.
Therefore, it is always best practice to let search engines crawl the product pages.
Another good practice is to use unique quotes for each page.
It is those excerpts that will appear on the category pages. Using the quote from the first few sentences of a web page for the quote is a missed opportunity.
Category pages are a great way to present a general page about a topic.
14. Best Practices For Review Websites
Google wants to rank genuine product reviews and not just product summaries; Familiarize yourself with Google’s product review content guidelines.
When writing reviews, be sure to show images of the product and use as many as a shopper will need.
If useful, show images of the product used to illustrate a review section.
The main focus of Google’s guidelines is to encourage product reviews that help users.
The product review guideline concludes with:
“When writing reviews, focus on the quality and originality of your reviews, not the length… This will give the best value to shoppers reading your reviews.”
Best practice for SEO on review websites is to provide product guidance and help shoppers make better decisions.
15. Structured Data For SEO
Joost De Valk, Yoast Senior Plugin Founder, shared his tip on structured data best practices.
“When optimizing your site, make sure you have all the important information, not only in human-readable text but also in machine-readable structured data.
Whether it’s the opening hours of a shop, the price (sale) of a product on a webshop, or the title and author of a news article on a news site: schema.org structured data exists for everything.
Since Google’s data structuring guidelines are constantly changing, I highly recommend using a plugin for such work, as it shifts the burden of updating that schema onto the plugin developer, instead of you
Of course, that means you have to trust the plugin developer to do a good job for you as well as understand the SEO impact.”
I agree with Joost that using a plugin to manage structured data is an SEO best practice. Google’s structured data guidelines are constantly updated.
By using a plugin, there is no longer a need to spend time keeping up with changes to the structured data guidelines and taking the time to update the structured data across the site.
16. Best Way To Do Internal Linking
Internal linking is a way to keep crawlers indexing content and to help Google better understand what content is important.
Scott Hendison, CEO of Search Commander, Inc., offers some useful ideas for internal linking:
“I’m currently auditing a huge website that someone moved, where they included (at least) all the 301 redirects, but didn’t fix the internal linking structure.
I’m just using the better search replacement plugin in WordPress to change thousands of redirects and redirect chains to show the final URL destination. I guess I would call this tactic, ‘reclaim your own internal link equity.’
It’s pretty basic, but I never fail to get a ranking bump when I do that on sites, which happens quite often.
Redirects are always in place, but no one bothers to set up the links within the content itself.
Of course, the 301s need to be left in place, for old bookmarks and external links, but finalizing the internal link structure so there are no redirects is something I’ve long been a strong believer in. there, and I have seen improvements after doing so. – especially when there are referral chains.
Some SEO tools will list redirects as a minor issue, but over time, these types of issues emerge, especially with chained redirects, and become major issues.
I strongly advise clients in favor of the arrangements. They are easy to find and fix and can lead to significant improvements.”
Joost had this to say about internal linking:
“When optimizing a site, one of the first things to do is make sure you improve the internal links between pages.
Often times, sites will have very few or no internal links in their content, relying entirely on large navigation menus to encourage people to move around.
To help both your visitors and search engines, you should link related content to each other from that content.
This often has a significant impact on your rankings. There are tools and plugins out there that can help you find internal links easily, so you don’t need to know all the content on a site (I know I don’t often for sites I’ve written the many subjects for them). “
Senior consultant Chris Labbate offered more internal linking best practices:
“When it comes to internal linking, I like to say that ‘Context is King.’
Here’s what I believe is best practice for creating internal links, including Semantic SEO:
Try not to build links at the beginning of an article.
We all know that Google crawls internal links, but it also looks at the surrounding text around each link, as well.
This is especially true if the anchor text is too generic, like ‘click here’ or ‘follow me,’ in which case Google has little to look at the surrounding words for additional relevance.
It also means you can use that approach for better internal linking.
Always pay extra attention to the text surrounding the internal anchor text.
If you give Google good context around your links, this can help provide the crawlers with some good information about the link, but also improve your rankings by explaining what the link can do for them and any other details relating to the user’s intention.”
17. Read Patents Carefully
Investigating every best practice to see if it is true is an important SEO best practice.
What sometimes happens is that patents and research papers are misinterpreted, and in turn, those misunderstandings become false best practice.
These false best practices are often based on a misunderstanding of what a Googler said, or what was published in a patent or research paper.
For example, a common SEO myth is that Google uses “brand mentions” as some sort of link-like ranking signal.
This myth originated in a patent involving the use of branded search queries as a type of citation signal, such as a link.
The idea of the patent was that if users are searching with a website name plus keywords, then that could be considered a form of citation, albeit not a link, but implied as one.
The entire patent, from the opening paragraphs to the end of the patent, was expressly aimed at search queries containing the URL or website name plus the keyword phrase.
Somewhere smack in the middle of that patent was one article that used the phrase “implicit link.”
Here is the article from the Google patent:
The system determines the number of independent links for the group (step 302).
A link for a resource group is an inbound link to a resource in the group, i.e. a link whose goal is a resource in the group.
Links for the group can include explicit links, implicit links, or both. An explicit link is a link, eg, a hyperlink, included in a source resource that a user can follow to navigate to a target resource.
An implicit link is a reference to a target resource, eg, a citation to the target resource, which is included in a source resource but is not an explicit link to the target resource.
Thus, a resource in the group can be the target of an implicit link without a user being able to navigate to the resource by following the implicit link.
The SEO community took that sentence out of the entire context of the patent and then used that one sentence to create the idea that writing a URL but not actually having a link is an implied link.
This idea was extended to mentioning a brand name.
This type of mistake is not uncommon.
Some SEO pros still make the mistake of skimming a patent (without trying to understand it), and then stopping at a paragraph or two that seems to confirm their SEO idea.
That’s not how to read patents.
So, whenever someone claims that a patent says that Google does something, always look at the patent for yourself.
The best practice to learn about what Google might be doing (according to the patent) is to pay close attention to the opening paragraphs.
It is in the opening paragraphs that you will find the key to understanding what the patent is about. By doing so, you will be able to avoid false best practices.
Understanding SEO
The sense of SEO can be baroque or minimalist, depending on the individual.
The most common error is to focus on what Google might be doing.
If there’s a golden rule of SEO best practices, whether you’re doing keyword research or evaluating competitors, it’s this: Build your SEO strategy around how a site visitor or potential customer might respond.
Featured Image: HBRH/Shutterstock
How does Google’s ranking system work?
Google’s ranking systems are designed to do just that: to sort through the hundreds of billions of web pages and other content in our Search index to present the most relevant and useful results in a fraction of a second.
How is Google ranking determined? To rank websites, Google uses web crawlers that scan and index pages. Each page is rated according to Google’s opinion of its authority and usefulness to the end user. Then, using an algorithm with more than 210 known factors, Google orders them on a search result page.
How long does it take to rank #1 in Google?
The ones that achieve Top 1 ratings are almost 3 years old (on average). About 95% of newly published pages do not make it to the top 10 within a year. And most of the ones that succeed, do it in about 26 months.
How do you become #1 on Google?
How to Get on the First Page of Google [recap]
- Create a keyword strategy to target terms your target customers are searching for.
- Incorporate the keywords into your website content as well as HTML tags.
- Write for people (not search engines).
- Targeting searches based on location.
- Optimize for mobile.
- Focus on user experience.
How long does it take to rank number 1 in Google?
Most of them managed to achieve that within 61-182 days. By looking at this graph, you might think that, on average, it takes a page anywhere from 2-6 months to rank in Google’s Top10.
How much does it cost to rank #1 on Google?
Approximate CPC is $2. 6,600 search hours $2 cost per click hour 30% Click Through Rate = $3,960. So using Google tools, we can estimate that we would pay $3,960 per month to be the #1 listing on Google for âSalon Nashville.â The annual value of that #1 ranking on Google is $47,520 .
How can I rank #1 on Google?
Guaranteed Google First Page Ranking in 7 Steps (Basic Guide)
- Know where you stand in the eyes of Google.
- Keyword research smartly.
- Determine the search intent.
- Create SEO optimized content. Keyword rich URL. …
- Get some links. Internal links. …
- Track your ranking and Google traffic.
- Optimize the page after it gets to Page One.
How much does it cost to get to the top of Google search?
The average cost per click in Google Ads is between $1 and $2 on the Search Network. The average cost per click on the Display Network is under $1. The most expensive keywords in Google Ads and Bing Ads cost $50 or more per click.
What affects Google’s ranking?
Google’s Top 10 Ranking Factors
- Content that provides valuable and unique insights. …
- Content that covers a topic in depth. …
- Organic click-through rates. …
- Keys in H1. …
- The length of the subject. …
- Website domain authority. …
- Total number of backlinks from relevant sources. …
- Page loading speed via HTML.
Does Traffic Increase Google ranking?
Direct traffic is critical to your ranking. The SEMrush report says that even after adding five new ranking factors to their report, direct website traffic is still the biggest influencer. That is, when many users go directly to a website, it tells Google that the domain has high authority and value.
Does bot traffic affect SEO? So, does bot traffic affect SEO? Bot traffic is not inherently bad or harmful. According to John Mueller – our top SEO authority, bots have no direct impact on search engine optimization or your Google rankings.
Does paid traffic help SEO?
Although PPC does not directly affect SEO, it indirectly helps you improve your SEO campaigns. By investing in both PPC and SEO, you will help create an integrated marketing campaign that will grow your business.
Does paid traffic increase organic traffic?
The effect of paid search on organic traffic may be more positive, in many cases, than marketers previously thought. Increased brand exposure from paid search ads indirectly results in higher organic search rankings. This results in better brand awareness, recall and consideration.
How does paid search influence SEO?
In the future, searchers who were previously exposed to a particular brand through paid search may be more likely to click and engage with the organic content. Remember that a higher click-through rate, a higher engagement rate can lead to a higher ranking.
What increases your rankings on Google?
How to Rank Higher on Google in 2022
- Step #1: Improve Your On-Site SEO.
- Step #2: Add LSI Keywords to Your Page.
- Step #3: Monitor Your Technical SEO.
- Step #4: Match Your Content to Search Intent.
- Step #5: Reduce your Bounce Rate.
- Step #6: Find Even Keywords to Target.
- Step #7: Publish Insanely High Quality Content.
What are Google’s top 3 ranking factors?
In no particular order, the top ranking factors on Google are: Quality content. Mobile-first. Page Experience.
Is direct traffic good for SEO?
Direct Traffic That’s Really Direct Reviewing your landing pages is a good indicator of your traffic Focus on what’s legitimate. Traffic that lands directly on the home page is probably real direct traffic because that’s what users are most likely to type into a browser.
How do I improve my SEO score on WordPress?
Search Engine Optimization Made Easy
- Choose a Theme that is Optimized for Search Engines. …
- Use a Dedicated SEO Plugin. …
- Change Your Permalink Structure. …
- Create a ‘Site Map’…
- Use Heading Tags throughout Your Content. …
- Build Your Content Around Keywords. …
- Incorporate Useful Internal and External Links.
How can I improve my WordPress SEO in 30 minutes?
Where are SEO settings in WordPress?
Go to Settings / Reading and look at the âSearch Engine Visibilityâ setting. Make sure it is turned off and everything will be dandy! This is probably the most important of all the necessary SEO settings for WordPress.
Does WordPress have SEO built in?
WordPress comes with several built-in search optimization tools, including the ability to . htaccess to create static-looking URLs known as permalinks, blogrolling, and pinging. There are also some third party plugins and hacks that can be used for search engine optimization (Senior).
What are the three types of SEO?
There are three main types of SEO: Technical SEO Internal (On-Page SEO) External (Off-Page SEO).
How many types of SEO are there? The three types of SEO are: On-page SEO â Anything on your web pages â Blogs, product copy, web copy. Off Page SEO – Anything that happens away from your website that helps your SEO Strategy – Backlinks. Technical SEO â anything technical done to improve Search Rankings â site indexing to help bot crawling.
What are the three stages of ranking?
The three stages of ranking are: discovery, relevance and authority.
Which of these questions does keyword research help you answer? Keyword research provides you with specific search data that helps you answer questions like: What are people searching for? How many people are searching for it? In what format do they need that information?
How many stages are in SEO?
Introducing the 3 Stages of SEO The 3 stages are: Tuning Stage. Construction Phase. Step Wide-Out.
What are the stages in SEO operations?
The SEO process includes six general steps: Research, including business research, competitor analysis, current situation assessment, and keyword research. Planning and strategy, including decisions on how to handle content, create links to the website, manage social media presence and technical implementation strategies.
What are the stages in SEO operations?
The SEO process includes six general steps: Research, including business research, competitor analysis, current situation assessment, and keyword research. Planning and strategy, including decisions on how to handle content, create links to the website, manage social media presence and technical implementation strategies.
How many stages are there of SEO?
The 6 Steps of SEO-Content Strategy.