Google prioritizes HTTPS sites because encrypted websites protect user data and build trust. A site without SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is marked as “Not Secure” in browsers, which discourages users from engaging and reduces credibility. With Google’s mobile-first indexing, a site’s mobile version is now the primary version used for ranking. If your site isn’t fully optimized for mobile, it risks lower rankings and poor user engagement. Even the best content and backlinks won’t help if your website has slow loading times, broken links, mobile issues, or security vulnerabilities. To rank highly in search results, the URL should include the target keyword and indicate the site hierarchy.
You can find the date range selector at the top right of every report. It enables you to look at the data within various time frames or compare two time periods. When analyzing any change in your performance (e.g. sudden drop in clicks), always try to find the root of the problem by checking various dimensions to find what exactly caused the changes.
SEO best practices also apply to local SEO, since Google also considers a website’s position in organic search results when determining local ranking. All those can play a role in how well a page performs in search, but the focus should be on the users who will be reading the content. Very early on, search engines needed help figuring out which URLs were more trustworthy than others to help them determine how to rank search results. Calculating the number of links pointing to any given site helped them do this. This example excludes all search engines from indexing the page and from following any on-page links. If you want to exclude multiple crawlers, like googlebot and bing for example, it’s okay to use multiple robot exclusion tags.
- Social media itself isn’t a direct google ranking factor, but your activity on the platforms and users’ engagement with your content there send social signals to Google that influence your ranking.
- It’s as important as on-page SEO and needs a consistent approach.
- It’s no secret that you want to use your keyword a handful of times on your page.
- SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of improving a website’s visibility in organic search results on Google and Bing, or other search engines.
- For example, the search engine results page (SERP) for “how to make a latte at home” shows how-to videos and step-by-step guides.
Why Technical SEO is Important
So I mentioned that term once in the first 25 words of my content. Specifically, you want to mention your main keyword at least once at the top of your page. But you may not know that the location of your keyword also makes a difference. After completing this course, you’ll have valuable skills SEO Specialists, Content Marketers, Digital Marketing Executives, SEO Anomaly Growth Marketers, and freelance SEO consultants need. It’s a bit tricky to analyze everything with only the free tools at our disposal.
Local listings
However, organic results tend to have higher click-through rates because users often trust them more than ads. Organic results can also generate sustained traffic at little to no ongoing cost. PPC can give you immediate visibility for high-value keywords, whereas SEO can take weeks or months to show results. Moz is a full-service, all-around powerhouse tool, whether you are looking for keyword suggestions or want to crawl the website. Keyword research tutorial, explore online resources like Moz’s guide or Google’s Keyword Planner tutorial for effective strategies and techniques.
Off-Page SEO and Link-Building
When it comes to localized content, the most common mistake we see businesses make is creating duplicate content. Instead of producing a unique page for each of its service areas, the business will make a page where the only difference is the service area. While attracting online reviews is a team effort, from the marketing to the customer experience to the product or service, marketers can take some steps to generate more reviews. Continuing to optimize your local profiles, like by updating your holiday hours, sharing promotions, or responding to reviews, will help your business perform and engage in local search results. Build a fast-loading, fast-to-respond website by following best practices like compressing images, minifying code, enabling browser caching, and using a Content Delivery Network (CDN).