Posted by DawnMacri Understanding search intent can be the secret ingredient that brings your content strategy from okay to outstanding. As an SEO Strategist at a digital marketing agency ( Brainlabs ), we often find clients on the brink of ranking success. They’re sitting on stellar content that simply isn’t ranking for their target keywords. Why? Oftentimes, the keywords and the intent simply don’t match. Here we’ll discuss the different types of search intent, how to determine the best intent for given keywords, and how to optimize for search intent. First–let’s iron out the basics. What is search intent? Search intent (also known as user intent) is the primary goal a user has when searching a query in a search engine. Many times, users are searching for a specific type of answer or resource as they search. Take pizza for example. Searching for a pizza recipe has a different intent …

30-second summary: Technical SEO ensures that Google has all the details required to make a search listing. It can tell you the length of your title tags, whether it fits your content and whether your pages are missing title tags. Technical SEO can tell you whether any of your pages have missing URLs, whether they contain any words or even the length of your URL. It can tell you whether your content matches the description, what the length is and also whether any of your pages have a missing meta description. Technical SEO can tell you whether your page can be used in additional page elements and whether the formatting is correct for this particular use. It can help you improve your chances of ranking higher on search results. It can tell you the keyword density on your pages, the search terms that you are ranking but also details such …

The SEO community is always looking for new ranking factors and we have discovered over two hundred of them so far. But there may be hundreds more actually used by Google. Luckily, we don’t have to work on all of them. Most have very little weight in SEO and are often used as tie-breakers rather than ranking signals. Instead, here is the definitive list of Google ranking factors, each of which can make or break your search optimization strategy. 1. Backlinks Even though Google is planning to move away from backlinks in the future, they still remain the most important ranking factor for your pages. Except it is now too risky to use black hat SEO strategies — your links have to come from a variety of high authority websites that are similar to yours. Furthermore, some Google patents say that freshness and traffic may also be important backlink metrics. …

Posted by AnnSmarty Somehow, many businesses I’ve come across online have one glaring problem in common: a very weak and unconvincing About Us page. This doesn’t make any sense in my mind, as the About page is one of the most important brand assets, and unlike link building and social media marketing, it doesn’t require any ongoing effort or investment. An About page is often part of a buying journey. It can drive people to your site and help convince them to deal with you. And, in these uncertain times , you can use it to help build trust in you and your business. Creating a solid About page is a one-time task, but it will boost both brand loyalty and conversions for many months to come. Why is your About page so important? It is often an entry page Whether you’re a business owner or blogger, your About page …

The SEO community is always looking for new ranking factors and we have discovered over two hundred of them so far. But there may be hundreds more actually used by Google. Luckily, we don’t have to work on all of them. Most have very little weight in SEO and are often used as tie-breakers rather than ranking signals. Instead, here is the definitive list of Google ranking factors, each of which can make or break your search optimization strategy. 1. Backlinks Even though Google is planning to move away from backlinks in the future, they still remain the most important ranking factor for your pages. Except it is now too risky to use black hat SEO strategies — your links have to come from a variety of high authority websites that are similar to yours. Furthermore, some Google patents say that freshness and traffic may also be important backlink metrics. …

The use of blog images in posts is a no-brainer. Images are an easy way to break up chunks of text, add context, or give your readers a more accessible medium through which to digest your content. With the growth of written content online, it’s harder to have your content be unique from others. Writers need to adapt to the changing landscape. How can you continue to engage your audience when so many bloggers have written on the same topics—and will continue to do so? The answer is original imagery. Blog Image Trends: Why Stock Photos Are Dead With more content available on the web every day, it’s more important than ever to stand out. While finding ways to put a unique spin on your blog post topics is critical, there are only so many angles on one subject. You need other types of content, such as photographs and illustrations, …

The internet has become the go-to source for everything from trivia about celebrities to fixing our kitchen sinks. But AI SEO may be changing the way marketers help their sites rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs) . Failure to rank may result in your business missing out on valuable search traffic. Which means far less revenue for your business. For a long time, you could get by with basic SEO strategies. But not anymore. With artificial intelligence (AI) taking over the world, you need to up your game. What does that mean for your SEO strategy? What is AI? Artificial intelligence (AI) is an umbrella term that covers several different technologies, including machine learning (ML), computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), deep learning, and other, still emerging technologies. What’s the point of AI? AI has one principal goal – to perform (often laborious and mundane) cognitive tasks better …

Google’s December 2020 Core update was a big one according to many of the data providers. Our job, day in and day out, is to analyze Google updates and determine what the commonalities are so that we can advise our clients on how to improve their websites. Now that the core update is done rolling out , as of December 16, 2020 and while we do not have the December core update figured out completely, we thought we would pass on some interesting observations that we have made so far. What is a core update? Google makes changes to their search algorithms on a daily basis. A few times a year, they release significant changes to their core search algorithms and systems that are much more noticeable. In Google’s own words , core updates are, “designed to ensure that overall, [Google is] delivering on [their] mission to present relevant and …

One of the latest evolutions in SEO is called schema markup. This new form of optimization is one of the most powerful but least-utilized forms of SEO available today. Once you grasp the concept and method of schema markup, you can boost your website in the search engine result pages (SERPs) . My goal in this article is to show you exactly how to get started using schema markup for your website. What is Schema Markup? Schema markup is code (semantic vocabulary) that you place on your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users. If you’ve ever used rich snippets , you’ll understand exactly what schema markup is all about. Here’s an example of a local business that has markup on its event schedule page. The SERP entry looks like this : The schema markup told the SERP to display a schedule of upcoming hotel …

Are you ready to double your search traffic ? Understanding SEO is crucial to significantly increase your traffic and brand awareness. Right now, thousands of people are looking for content just like yours. You can help them find it by becoming an SEO expert. In fact, 40 percent of website traffic begins with a search query. That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) is so important. Staying on top of SEO takes a lot of research and experimentation. Google’s algorithms are constantly updated, so it’s important to stay tuned into the latest news. With a bit of practice, you can become your own SEO expert. That’s what I did! Every day, people use Google to conduct over 3.5 billion searches . In the U.S., 78% of people use the web to research products and services before buying. Once your website begins to rank on the first pages of Google’s search results, …