Even the most knowledgeable people on SEO spend a significant amount of time trying to find new ways of improving their understanding of the field so that they can rank sites higher within the search engines. New changes within the SEO industry are happening on a constant basis, which means, if you ensure you’re always up-to-date with these new changes and additions, then you can rest assured that you’ll be in the best position to beat the competition.

To help you get up to speed with the latest practices in SEO, let’s take some time to look at the must-haves of search engine optimization today.

1. Optimise Your Meta Titles and Descriptions

Meta tags since SEO’s inception, have always played a role. However, the keyword tag has become less and less relevant over time, with more emphasises placed on titles and descriptions. In truth, it’s these two elements that the visitor will see, when they find your page in the search engine results page.

Take some time to search for a company in Google. Then look at both the title and the description of the page you find in the results page. There is a strong chance that it was taken from the pages Meta title and description.

Fine-tuning your Meta tags is good for two reasons, the first, is that it improves your click through rate in the search engines, as you’re able to create more relatable titles, and the second is that it tells the search engines exactly what the page is all about.

Make sure your titles are catchy with descriptions that tell the visitor a little about the content. This will improve the amounts of clicks you receive through the search engines, while letting the search engine know what to rank your content on. But, writing titles can be the trickiest part of creating content. To make sure that you’re able to create effective titles that attract readers while also conveying the idea of your content you need to have a comprehensive understanding of copywriting tips.

Some experts also recommend that you include your primary keyword within the Meta description, as this will further optimise the content, for it.

2. Website Security

Are you aware that the security of your site also affects its ranking in the search engines? Google, for example, likes to prioritize those websites that offer a safe browsing experience, over those that do not. If there’s a potential for your site to be unsafe, then it will be flagged, which will act as a deterrent for any would-be visitor.

One of the most effective ways of securing your site is by using Hyper Test Transfer Protocol Secure or HTTPS, as it is most commonly known by. A site that is secured by HTTPS will feature that, just before the domain name. To acquire this specific kind of site security, you will need a SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate. It’s what creates the secure link between the visitor’s browser and the site.

Implementing a SSL certificate is a relatively advanced process, which is best left up to professionals – which you can pay for. In the end, it’s definitely well worth it.

3. Featured Snippets

As part of your marketing strategy featured snippets should be something you’re aiming to achieve, for a large number of your pages. Why? Because featured snippets appear right at the top of the search engine results pages, in the form of text accompanied with an image. Google uses these featured snippets to answer the question to a query. This is highly beneficial to organic search, as these snippets receive more attention and clicks from visitors. Through featured snippets it is possible to pull a significant amount of traffic to your site.

Below you will find a list of tips that you can and should use to acquire featured snippets:

Make sure your paragraphs are optimised to no more than 200 – 300 words.
The primary keyword of your site should be laser focused to the content of the page.
Analyse what your competition is doing, look at how they structure their content and look to emulate.

Another clever way of getting a featured snippet is by adding a Q & A section on your page.

4. Focus on the Mobile Experience

More than 50% of all web traffic comes directly from mobile devices. This means, you can predict that around 50% of all visitors to your site are viewing directly from a tablet or smartphone. It’s for this reason why you want to focus on having a mobile friendly device.

Mobile engagement has become so important over the years that it has become a ranking signal of the Google search engine. This means, if your site is not mobile-friendly, it can have an adverse effect on your sites rankings.

Your sites layout isn’t the only thing you will need to think about. Voice search is another thing for you to consider optimising for, as more and more people use it. Around 45% of all consumers use some form of voice search every day.

To properly optimise for voice search you’re looking at using shorter sentences and paragraphs, and making your content easier to read on smaller devices. Buttons that you can interact with enhances user experience, and going with a font face that is easier to read, even on the smallest of screens is important.

Focus on optimising for mobile, as this should coincide with your optimising it for desktop view. Things like layout, image size and site speed benefit all users, irrespective of how they view your page.

5. Link Your Content Together Internally

Acquiring backlinks is not the only form of connection for you to consider. Linking all your sites content internally is equally as important, as it lets the search engines know how your sites content relates with one another.

Just like your backlinks, your internal linking structure must make sense, meaning, all links must be relevant. When linking to another page on your site, you have to consider whether or not it makes sense to link to it.

Any internal link that you create should be viewed as a way of expanding on the current pages content. Like providing additional info on a topic, in the event that the user would like to expand their knowledge on that specific topic.

When creating your internal links, be sure not to go overboard. Having too many internal links on a page can hurt its SEO performance. If you’d like more links going to a specific page on your site, then you’ll need to create more relatable articles and link to it from them.

Consider things from the perspective of the reader, just to ensure everything is making sense. If it’s confusing to the reader, then it’s going to confuse the search engine bots too. Which, could end up hurting the site.

Author Bio:

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website compuchenna

The post 5 SEO Best Practices to Follow This Year appeared first on Stabene.

But, remote work comes with some negatives, such as the complete lack of human interaction. Or the growing desire to never step away from the four walls that have become your confidants.

Still, for me, that all changed today. Here I was researching a blog on paint protection film when our social media manager for growmemarketing.ca/toronto-seo/ reached out. She wanted to know how we could better integrate our operations for our SEO in Toronto.

This is not the punchline.

Instead, it comes later. After we spoke about some potential ideas. After I finished the blog. And, even after I got ready to write the next blog on my list.

Can you guess what it was?

How SEO & Social Media Work Together

Toronto SEO and social media function together in ways that are both obvious and hidden. For a great SEO strategy, it is best to crosspost your blogs to your social media feeds. This helps give a great boost to visibility and some free backlinks as well.

But, that relationship is only skin deep. What are other great ways for social media and SEO in Toronto to work together?

Increasing Traffic

The juice that all Internet companies run on, site traffic is a key metric of performance for marketing and advertising businesses. However, it is also an essential measure for companies who have an in-house marketing team, as it shows what those efforts are worth and is often a primary objective.

Social media can help SEO increase traffic to blogs or landing pages by posting on the popular websites. Plus, the more social media attracts users and builds a community, the bigger the amplification becomes.

Increasing Brand Awareness

Increasing brand awareness is key to improving both SEO and social media results. Although it is not an easy task, as anyone trying to break into the flavoured drink market can attest to. Therefore, it is essential for these two services to work together. Where social media brings up the company to a captive audience, SEO must be waiting to fill in the blanks about data, information and products in a concise and straightforward manner.

Relationship Building

We often miss half the picture when it comes to social media, namely the SOCIAL component. It’s a strange thing to observe, how we have taken platforms for meeting and sharing with our friends and family and turned them into vast advertising empires. Still, that is the way of the world, and it does afford better opportunities for connecting with talented individuals.

One of the ways that SEO and social media both benefit through cooperation is the ability to build relationships. For social media, this could mean sponsorships with influencers, content sharing and more. On the other side, SEO benefits from building a better linking portfolio, access to more opportunities for sharing or trading content, and a greater initial boost to new content or added webpages. All told, the relationship between SEO and social media may only be burgeoning at this point. But we will soon see closer ties between the two as it becomes ever more important to present a united front for successful online businesses

The post Social Media Marketing & SEO: Working Together appeared first on Stabene.

That’s not the only obstacle you face as a local business either, considering how frequently Google changes their list of ranking factors. If you’re a small business hoping to show up in local searches by using affordable SEO services, it’s possible for Google to totally turn things upside down for you. They certainly did that when they rolled the Possum algorithm update out because it lets businesses who are outside of city limits the right to compete for any local spots in areas they service.

Now, this is when you need to start emphasizing how you can get your business more traction, and the following 10 local SEO tactics can do just that for you:

1) Claim the Listings for Your Business:

Over the course of time, business listings get created for your company. In time, those listings are going to accumulate. It’s crucial that you claim every listing for your business name. Remove all the duplicates, and make sure the surviving listings have information that is correct. You might discover that finding every listing seems intimidating, although there are some very effective tools that can make this process much simpler.

Moz Local is one great tool for you to use in finding any and all listings related to your business. Just enter your company name, but remember it has to be spelled out just like it is on your own website. That includes abbreviations, capitalizations, and the like. Pick your business out of the results, and then Moz will deliver you the total listings related to your business, whether they be complete, partial, duplicate, or inconsistent.

2) Put Location Pages on Your Website:

Search engines visit your site routinely, crawling them so they can identify the best matches to offer their users in the SERPs. If you have a specific landing page for every one of your physical locations, then search engines have an easier time finding your listings and providing the appropriate results to those looking for you (or just what you have to offer them). You need to include suite numbers. You also have to decide whether or not you want to abbreviate or spell out things like avenue, road, street, and the like. How information gets presented on pages like those are going to determine how you update information everywhere else. Be mindful of that when picking your information’s written formatting.

3) Enhance Your NAP Consistency:

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean you get to take consistent naps. You probably don’t have time anyway. In this case, NAP is short for your business name, its address, and the phone number. These need to be consistent across the board in order to help search engine users. You need to get really nit-picky here, because it’s not just about writing down your name and address. You have to include things like Inc., Co., LLC, suite numbers, and those aforementioned roads, streets, and avenues. Always be consistent here, as everything should match with any location information that your website is displaying. The Moz Local search tool and its improvement process will do a lot of this consistency for you. Need a great place to start? That would be your listing for Google My Business, but that deserves its own tip.

4) Update Anything Related to Google My Business:

Google My Business is also commonly called GMB. Users online trust it every day for correct information about business listings. Your local SEO is going to rely on accurate information, so be sure that everything is right. Another good practice is including a link back to your website, your hours of operation, and a short yet informative description. Create an appealing listing. Use your logo as the profile or avatar image, and update any available photos of your interior, exterior, and products. These need to be high-caliber images, given how blurry and pixelated images come across as amateur and unprofessional. If you have multiple locations, then GMB does provide a helpful article about bulk uploads for easy organization and updates.

5) Get Reviews:

Reviews are more important than nearly everything else. Not only do they let your listing stand out in the crowd, but they are also a local pack ranking factor. If you can get your happy customers to start leaving you good Google reviews as a way of showing their appreciation for their positive experiences with your business, it goes a lot farther than nearly any other tactic on this list. Reviews are going to help you rank better, but they also mean that your business result takes up more room on the SERPs.

This is an effective strategy to use for pages that fall outside of the local pack, as you can add things like sub-pages and schema markups to eat up even more of that real estate. Another great thing about reviews is the social proof they provide, because when searchers see a full five stars, they know instantly that their neighbors and peers are highly recommending your business. When you get good reviews, you’re actually killing three conversion components with one stone: namely, conversion rate optimization (or CRO), clickthrough rate (or CTR), and ranking.

6) Cultivate Local Content:

Creating content that is focused on your niche will make a serious impact on how your rank for local searches. Check out our blog post entitled ‘SEO Checklist’ in order to learn what it takes to publish successful content.

7) Utilize Google AdWords Keyword Planner:

This isn’t just a great tool, it’s also free to use! Use it to generate your list of local SEO keywords. You can look up the keywords and search phrases that have high search volumes but low competition. You can also use it to find terms similar to what local prospects are looking for.

8) Get Backlinks from Sponsorships and Partners:

The cruel reality of the business world might have taught you that the best fruit is on the parts of the branch outside your comfort zone. Take sweet relief in this being an exception, because the low-hanging fruit is what you want here. Write down a list of all the organizations and businesses which you sponsor or are just partners with. This can even include fundraising events or charitable drives that your company has been involved in. Reach out to all your points of contact to remind them of your past involvement, and then just ask them to put links pointing back to your own website.

9) Do Local Link Building:

On top of getting links from your sponsors and partners, the importance of link building for your business is never overstated. Optimize all your links the best you can by striving to create relationships with any local websites associated with your niche. Getting links from any websites that have high domain authority for your local area can really pack some punch with the search engines.

Qualitative link building acts as a central nervous system for your website. Without creating backlinks to your site, you might find that your website’s growth has limited itself. This is where Blogger Outreach Services can help you. Blogger Outreach services can help build qualitative links and give the boost your website needs.

10) Use Social Media:

Social media platforms tend to be free to use, so it’s not exactly news that you can use them to stay on your audience’s radar. Google searches and crawls social platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

The post The Definitive Guide to Improve Your Local Search Rankings appeared first on Stabene.