Programmer Arshad

It’s that time of the year again: reflecting on the year that’s past as we prepare for 2019 lurking around the corner. In this article, we have a roundup of some of our fan favorite pieces from 2018 on SEO.

From how to’s to tips to tools, these were some of our highlights from the past year. SEW spark notes, if you will.

If you missed these pieces throughout the year, they’ll be worth a read. And if you’ve already read them, never hurts to refresh!

On Monday, we’ll have a roundup of our top articles on search industry news and trends.

If you have launched a new website, updated a single page on your existing domain, or altered many pages and/or the structure of your site, you will likely want Google to display your latest content in its SERPs.

While Google’s crawlers are obviously pretty good at their job — indexing countless new pages simply from natural traffic and links from around the web — it never hurts to give Googlebot a little assistance.

In this article, we look at a few ways to alert Google’s crawlers to new URLs on your site.

Because one can never have enough Google Analytics insight, right?

One of the most useful features in GA, event tracking lets you capture all kinds of information about how people behave on your site.

In this article, we go step by step through two different ways you can set up event tracking: first, by adding the code manually, and second, by using Google Tag Manager.

This is a great tutorial for anyone looking to familiarize themselves with the task.

Many “out of the box” solutions provide extremely user-friendly, labelled sections such as “meta description” calling your attention to exactly what goes where.

In this article, we take a look at why meta tags are important, along with the six main types of meta tags to focus on for SEO.

For anyone who’s ever had questions about what SEOs should do with Single Page Applications (SPAs), this article is for you. Long, thorough, entertaining, and full of resources.

We start out looking at how the popularity of SPAs, Angular, and React have spiked in the last several years. Many developers eagerly embrace JavaScript for website development — and while that may have been rather inconsiderate of SEO ease (what else is new), it seems JS really is here to stay.

This article is bit of a coming to terms with that reality, accepting SPAs as part of our SEO future, and even dipping our toes in, if you will.

We look at what developers like about JS, how it was never intended for web page content delivery, common SEO problems of SPAs, and a host of other questions you might be asking.

Finally, we end with eleven recommendations for further reading — really, this could become the whole rest of your holiday break — on how Google treats SPAs, core principles of SEO for JS and for SPAs, and more information than you could want.

Domain Authority (DA) serves as a handy heuristic in the SEO industry. It helps tell us how likely a site is to rank for specific keywords, based on the SEO authority it holds.

Many SEOs use Domain Authority to sense-check the quality of their inbound links and to understand how these are affecting their own’s site’s SEO health.

In this article, we round up some of the best ways to check out domain authority. We look at what factors go into DA, and how these tools go about calculating it.

‘Domain Authority’ was devised by Moz and they have naturally taken ownership of this name. Their suite of tools (some of which are discussed in this article) will reveal the authority of particular domains, but dozens of other free tools use Moz’s API to show these scores too.

This is another quite popular deep dive into SEO tips. We know “improving search rankings” gets a lot of fluff, but this is not that.

Here, we look closely at what makes RankBrain tick, and 15 ways to use that to your fancy.

Sections cover tips around optimizing keywords, optimizing title tags, optimizing descriptions, and reducing bounce rates and dwell times. Fun fact: research by HubSpot and Outbrain found that titles with brackets performed 33 percent better than titles without.

Questions about how to add LSI keywords? How long should long-form content really be? Benefits of long-tail vs medium size keywords? How much difference in clicks will a few characters too long in a headline actually make? All of that and much more (along with lots of screenshots) here.

This article is a roundup of exactly what it sounds like — 30 ways to market your online business for free. It covers everything from emails to social media, from Google Analytics to Search Console, from forums to guest posting, from metadata to Schema.org.

While a few of the ways could be updated — posting to Google+, for instance, might be less helpful anymore — the list still provides some hefty inspiration to anyone needing a little boost of ideas for what to do online.

This was a quite recent article that has soared. As we know, for SEO these days we need content that includes related concepts, satisfies intent, and provides value. The days of exact keyword matching are far behind us.

In this article, we have four great tools to use when optimizing for related keywords — and of course, how to use them.

For instance, the first tool in the list is TextOptimizer. It takes a term you give it, looks at the Google search results page, extracts snippets, and applies semantic analysis.

With that, it ouputs a list of all the related topics, terms, and concepts that form your topic cluster. From that cluster, it recommends you choose 15-25 of the words for a higher rank.

Lest we forget: local search.

For those looking to rank higher in searches tied to a user’s location — i.e. users that might be quite near your store and itching to buy something — a Google My Business listing is an essential first step.

This article gives a how to guide for first setting up your listing, claiming and verifying your business, filling out the information, and adding photos. From there, we go over gathering reviews, posting updates, monitoring your profile, and tracking data from Insights.

Of all the many, many things to do in SEO, optimizing a Google My Business listing is very straightforward. It can have a profoundly positive effect on your SEO — a whole wealth of ranking opportunity up for grabs.

Want to stay on top of the latest search trends? Get top insights and news from our search experts.

Want to stay on top of the latest search trends? Get top insights and news from our search experts

Not only is it arguably the most user-friendly platform, it's unparalleled when it comes to SEO. Even right out of the box, all the basics of SEO are covered.

That said, with the help of a few other strategies, you can take your WordPress SEO to the next level. Following are 10 ways to make sure your WordPress site and content are optimized to the fullest.

Please note: This post refers to sites or blogs built using WordPress.org.

While WordPress.com is a decent tool for building a quick, free blog, it doesn't even come close to a self-hosted, WordPress.org site when it comes to versatility, branding and SEO.

The main SEO advantages to using WordPress.org include:

As already mentioned, your WordPress.org is pretty well optimized, right from the start. But these 10 strategies and plugins will cover the rest of your SEO bases!

By default, the permalink (or URL) structure in WordPress isn't great for SEO or for users. Right out of the box, it will look something like this: http://example.com/?p=N.

Fortunately, it's easy to change your default settings to something more search engine friendly - like http://example.com/your-post-title.

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings --> Permalink Settings, and select "Post name". This will keep your URL structure simple and clean, and will ensure that all your new post URLS are automatically optimized.

For some additional SEO-power, you can also customize your individual post URLs by modifying your slug. Simply scroll down on your post creation page, and add your target keywords in the "Slug" field. This will replace your default URL with the keywords you choose.

You should obviously be using your keywords (and variations of your keywords) throughout your content. Just remember: a well-optimized piece of content won't simply use a single keyword again and again. Rather, it will include a wide variety of words and phrases related to the main topic of your post.

That said, you will likely have one main keyword phrase that you're focusing in on. Arguably the most important location to use this phrase is in your title tag (which should by default also put your keyword in your URL). Preferably, use those keywords as close to the beginning of your title as possible.

Header tags (H2, H3, etc.) ensure Google and your readers know what your content is about. WordPress makes it easy to use header tags simply by clicking on the text formatting drop down box in your Visual Editor (Note: if you don't see this box, click on the "Toolbar Toggle" button and it will show up).

By default, your page or post title will be your H1 (most important) tag. You should only have one H1 tag per page or post.

For the main sub-headings of my posts, I typically use the H2 tag. For instance, in this post, the main headings are enclosed in the H2 tag, while I used H3 for the numbered items. Any sub-headings beneath the numbered items would be enclosed in H4 tags.

XML sitemaps aren't, strictly speaking, a necessity for getting Google to navigate and index all your pages and posts. However, they can make the process more efficient, ensuring your new content is found as quickly as possible.

Fortunately there are some great plugins that will automatically generate an XML sitemap for your WordPress site. Some of the best are Google XML Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps. They will also notify Google each time you add new content, so your sitemap will always be up to date.

A word of warning about your sitemap: make sure you're not telling Google one thing in your sitemap and another in your robots.txt! For instance, if you've blocked a particular page in your robots.txt file make sure you're not then including it in your sitemap. For tips on how to avoid this, check out this great Moz post on the subject.

If you haven't yet set up your site in Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster tools), you might be missing out on important SEO warnings or notifications.

If Google experiences issues accessing, crawling or indexing your content, this is where you'll be notified. This will also be where you'll see any manual actions (penalties) leveraged against your site.

Your Search Console is also where you'll be able to view some of the links to your site, as well as some of the keywords that drive traffic to your site.

There has been tons of research done over the past few years on the ideal length for content. Most of this research suggests that higher-ranking content tends to be in the 2,000+ word range.

The trouble, of course, is there are many examples of content that's much shorter, and that still ranks near the top of the SERPs.

So, instead of focusing on your exact content length, focus on just writing really good content that answers the question(s) your reader is asking. Rand Fishkin of Moz gives three great tips for evaluating the optimal length for your content:

This is such a quick and easy tip that can have a huge impact on your SEO.

Google urges all website owners to choose their primary domain - namely, either https://www.yoursite.com or https://yoursite.com. Honestly, it doesn't make a difference (SEO-wise) which one you go with.

In your WordPress dashboard, you can specify this by going to Settings --> General, and setting both your WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) to your preferred domain.

You should also specify your primary domain in your Google Search Console. To do this, log in to your console, click on the gear icon, then go to Search Settings. Choose your preferred domain and you're all set.

If your site gives your visitors the option to input text or other info through contact forms, opt-in boxes or payment fields, you need to make sure you're using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer).

This will ensure any sensitive personal info your visitors leave on your site is encrypted and therefore protected.

But not only is this important for protecting your visitors' private information, it's now an official SEO ranking factor. In fact, if you haven't switched over to HTTPS, Google may now show a "not secure" warning to visitors when they're on pages with text input fields.

If you're not sure whether you've switched to HTTPS, check with your web host. They usually offer an easy way to switch over and will be happy to help.

Not only is site speed a ranking factor, it's extremely important for user experience. As you can clearly see on the graph below, as page load times increase, page abandonment increases.

One of the best ways to determine how quickly your site loads is to use Google's PageSpeed Insights tool. It will analyze your WordPress site, giving you an overall speed rating out of 100.

It will also recommend specific fixes - like browser caching, image optimization and enabling compression - that will help improve your site speed.

I'd also strongly recommend using a plugin (or two or three) to tackle different aspects of your site speed. The ones I usually recommend are WP Super Cache, Smush Image Compression and Optimization and WP-Optimize.

This post has focused largely on internal ranking factors (i.e., things you can do within your own WordPress site to increase your rankings).  However, getting external links to your site is still a really critical strategy for SEO in 2019.

SEMrush recently found that links are even more important for sites focusing on keywords with less than 10,000 monthly searches (which let's face it, is most of us).

And don't forget about internal links! Linking to relevant content on your site helps spread link equity throughout your site, and also helps improve user signals like bounce rate, pageviews and time on site. And while user engagement may not be a direct ranking factor, the indirect benefits to your site and business are huge.

If you're looking for some effective link building strategies, check out my posts 6 Link Building Techniques You May Not Know About and 7 Killer Link Building Strategies For Small Businesses.

If you only do one thing on this list, it should be this one. Many of the strategies above can be covered all in one go using the Yoast SEO plugin.

Yoast SEO has been around for almost 10 years, but its creators are constantly updating it to address emerging SEO rules and algorithms.

Some of the major SEO benefits to using Yoast include:

*The one feature I wish Yoast would add is optimization for multiple keywords. As already mentioned, SEO in 2019 isn't about optimizing for singular keywords, but rather for many words, phrases and variations related to your main topic.

After making sure the technical features of your WordPress site are optimized, most of your ongoing SEO work will be focused on creating excellent content that attracts links.

All of the SEO strategies that worked last year will still work in 2019, so if you're already ranking well, keep doing what you're doing!

The only major shift this year will be to make sure your site is moved over to HTTPS. If you haven't already, I'd strongly encourage you to do this before the new year!

What WordPress SEO strategies would you add to this list? Anything I'm missing? Share below!

Google Image Search “best men's haircuts 2019” and you’ll probably get a lot of airbrushed-looking white dudes with extremely precious high fades. For the record: that is not the correct answer. Do not start straight ironing your quiff. That is the Internet being crazy and the grooming industry holding onto a popular haircut for a few years too many, as it tends to do (see: every glamour shot at your salon or barbershop). If you want to bring your hair into 2019 you’re going to go in the opposite direction and grow it long, groom it less, and not watch 870 YouTube vibes before dyeing your hair (just do it and see what happens). Today’s best looks are natural, wild, and badass in a way that is shitty for Instagram but amazing in photos. Essentially, hair is finally fun again. Those beautiful quiff boys are missing the party but you, savvy reader, are not.

Rock God Rings

The ultra-groomed high fade heyday is over but that doesn’t mean one of the most popular men's haircuts is dead altogether. One way to modernize the cut is to let the length on top wave and curl up as nature intended (if you sneak a curling iron in there, we won’t judge). Don’t be quite as precious with the sides either and the whole style will take on a whole new vibe while still looking just as great from the sides as the tidier version.

The Twisted Afro

Big hair, long hair, let-it-do-whatever-it-wants hair is very much the grooming vibe right now. If you’ve been blessed with coarse strands, an afro that isn’t meticulously picked out but is artfully twisted up at the ends is a very stylish move. Be sure to find your light like a musician on stage to amplify the shape and texture you’re working with. Throw in a little face scruff and some visible chest hair you’re a full-on ‘70s god.

The Brownout

Stylish guys have been all about the bleach-blonde dye job for the better part of a decade. While there’s still a fair amount of it going on (see: Jonah Hill’s latest dip into the peroxide pool), just as many men have been going in the opposite direction by dyeing their hair super dark instead. The look is very Billie Joe Armstrong in a good way, not to mention cheaper to execute and kinder to your strands.

The Effed-Up Buzz-Cut

Let’s say your hair is straight and fine and doesn’t do anything unless you tell it to. In that case, you can fake messiness and character by going for a short crop or buzz-cut that isn’t so perfect. Leave a millimeter or two of extra length in front, don’t trim down your cowlicks, and use little in the way of product and you’re going to feel like a grooming badass—even in a nice suit.

The New Wave Fade

Even edgier than that would be to take the line of your fade a bit lower, and cut your hair on top a bit shorter, then dye it an unnatural color and let it get all dirty and textured. If your hair is fine this spin on the fade is great, since it doesn’t require too much from your strands but still makes a statement. Bonus badass points if you have jet black eyebrows, neck ink, and dabble in women’s fashion too.

All of the Curls

And if your natural texture is very curly but not coarse, do almost same thing and let it grow out a bit all around. Instead of twisting in definition to give it shape just let your natural ringlets do their thing. The best is if you can resist the urge to smooth out the sides with hair product. Sideburn curls will make you feel (and look) like a kid again.

The Hot Fuzz

“I haven’t really touched it in weeks” texture had a moment this summer that we appreciated because it represented the carefree, out-every-night fun that is that time of year. Whether you feel comfortable living this messy is a matter of your personal style and also your employment status, but we’re here for it if you decide that’s you. Fuzz it up, whether you’ve got blonde surfer hair, layered braids, or something in the middle.

The Serpico Redux (a.k.a. The Jackson Maine)

The ‘70s can’t stop, won’t stop inspiring stylish men. We’re not going to claim the “Serpico” look—big beard, layered shag, aviator frames—was officially popular, but there were more than a few guys swaggy enough to rock the look, especially after a certain Bradley Cooper directed flick took off. If you want to go big in 2019, spend some QT with a hair stylist and allow him or her to give you more layers than a wedding cake. Then invest in a blow-dryer.

Slippery When Wet

Miss the days when haircut precision and grooming products really, really mattered? There’s a 2019 haircut for you too. Try a layered, medium length cut that’s nice and tidy on the sides and shine-serum it up. We’re talking a silver-dollar sized squirt and possibly a re-application that night too. The more you futz with it, the better and greasier it’s going to look.

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It’s that time of the year again: reflecting on the year that’s past as we prepare for 2019 lurking around the corner. In this article, we have a roundup of some of our fan favorite pieces from 2018 on news and trends from the search industry.

From alternative search engines to future trends, best online courses to algorithm updates, these were some of our highlights from the past year.

We also have a roundup of our top articles on SEO tips and tricks here.

While many of us use “googling” synonymously with “searching,” there are indeed a number of viable alternatives out there. In this article, we try to give some love to 12 alternative search engines.

Most of us can name the next few: Bing, Yandex, Baidu, DuckDuckGo.

But some on the list may surprise you — how about Ecosia, a Co2-neutral search engine? With every search made, the social business uses the revenue generated to plant trees. On average, 45 searches gets one more tree for our little planet.

2019 might be a year for a little more time spent with some G alternatives.

Human beings process visuals faster than they do text. So it makes sense that in the last decade, the number of images on the internet has ballooned.

In this post, we compare the best search engines for conducting three categories of image search on the web.

First, general / traditional image search, looking at Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Then, reverse image search, looking at TinEye, Google, and Pinterest.

Third, free-to-use image search, looking at EveryPixel, Librestock, and the Creative Commons.

As all good SEOs know, this is a never-ending process. The SEO world seems to be constantly evolving, and nearly everyone in the field has learned their snuff largely through online material.

For anyone who’s new to the scene, this can be an encouraging thought. We all started mostly just poking around on the interwebs to see what to do next. And happily, a lot of the best SEO material is freely available for all.

In this article, we look at the best online, free SEO training courses. From Google to Moz to QuickSprout and more, these are fundamentals that anyone can start with.

We also highlight a number of individuals and businesses to follow in the industry.

One third of all time spent online is accounted for by watching video. And, it’s predicted that 80% of all internet traffic will come from video in 2019.

This year was further proof that videos engage growing numbers of users and consequently have an impact on the SERPs. In fact, video has been seen to boost traffic from organic listings by as much as 157%.

In this article, we explore how the ways in which we search for video are changing. From YouTube to Google Search, Facebook to Vimeo, video — and how we interact with video content online — has seen some interesting changes.

Sneak peak: this one starts out with, “What a useless article! Anyone worth their salt in the SEO industry knows that a blinkered focus on keywords in 2018 is a recipe for disaster.”

We go on to explore why focusing on just keywords is outdated, how various algorithm updates have changed the game, and what we should do now instead.

Ps: the snarky take sticks throughout the read, along with the quality overview.

This was an interesting piece following an algorithm update from back in March. There were suspicions, Google SearchLiason tweeted a confirmation, and everyone had to reassess.

Via a simple query, “What’s the best toothpaste?” and the results Google outputted over the course of half a dozen weeks, we can trace certain changes.

What pages benefitted, what can those insights tell us about the update, and how do we handle when our content visibility nosedives?

Who couldn’t use one of these hanging around?

Google makes changes to its ranking algorithm almost every day. Sometimes (most times) we don’t know about them, sometimes they turn the SERPs upside down.

This cheat sheet gives the most important algorithm updates of the recent years, along with some handy tips for how to optimize for each of the updates.

Well, that’s it for SEW in 2018. See you next year!

Want to stay on top of the latest search trends?Get top insights and news from our search experts.

Want to stay on top of the latest search trends?Get top insights and news from our search experts.

So you've mastered the basics of SEO and improved site traffic tenfold. Great job! Surely now you've decided you have enough traffic and don't need to improve anymore, right?

Of course not! The goal of any website or business is to keep growing.

But you aren't likely to grow much more by sticking to the basics. It's time to kick it up a notch with these more advanced, yet forehead-slappingly simple, SEO tactics.

Add these cutting-edge SEO techniques to your established SEO strategy to take your online empire to the next level.

Hopefully, in your current SEO efforts, you've already optimized your site's homepage. This homepage is, after all, the central landing page of your whole site. But why have only one optimized landing page when you can have many?

The truth is, each popular topic you post lots of content for should have its own landing page. And each of these landing pages should be optimized for the target audience and for Google.

And why is that? Because it boosts conversions like crazy!

Business websites with 10-15 landing pages win 55% more conversions than those without. Setting up 40 landing pages gets them 500% more conversions. Bottom line: optimize more landing pages, get more conversions.

Chances are you have experience researching keywords with tools like Google Search Console. But it mightn't have occurred to you to use Reddit as a research tool.

The process is simple. Search Reddit for subreddits related to your niche (i.e. popular online hotspots your target audience hangs out at). Clicking these subreddits puts you smack in the middle of your target audience's favorite ongoing conversations.

Now, scrounge these threads for phrases that keep popping up over and over again. Congrats, you're done!

These terms are keywords that are clearly popular with your target audience. Best of all, they may not yet be discovered by Google (or your competitors). Get to 'em before anyone else does!

How much time have you spent choosing just the right words to create and refine the perfect titles and meta descriptions for your posts? It's a lot, right? Well, get ready to slap your forehead because we have a much easier way.

Copy AdWords. That's it.

Simply search for your topic and take a look at those first two AdWords links in the results. Then, do like they do.

Now, obviously, we DO NOT mean you should plagiarize these ads word-for-word as that would be illegal. But Google certainly knows how to optimize their own content. So you can certainly use these AdWords ads as a good outline.

You'll find all the keywords and descriptive phrases you need to create the perfect title and meta description for any topic.

Here's another "so simple you can't believe you never thought of it" SEO strategy. Build legitimate backlinks by replacing dead links on Wikipedia.

First, use Google to search Wikipedia for pages related to your niche. To do this, enter the search term "site:wikipedia.org" and a relevant keyword. Click on a page in the results.

Next, on the Wikipedia page, hit ctrl+F and search for "dead link" or "citation needed" (without quotes). These are dead links that need replacing.

You can also add "dead link" or "citation needed" (in quotes) to your search terms when searching Google for relevant Wikipedia pages. Or you can use an online tool called WikiGrabber to make these steps easier.

Next, edit the Wikipedia page to replace the dead link with a link to your own content. Either use your existing content as the source or write new content specifically for use as a source.

You've already mastered researching popular topics for your blog posts. Now let's talk about those specific styles of articles that seem magnetically charged to pull in traffic.

First, there's the Expert Roundup. This is where you make a list reviewing experts and influencers in your industry (or their best tips on a certain topic).

And, voila! Their fans are now your fans! That is, people following these influencers now have your content popping up in their search results.

Next, write FAQs. They're easy to research, easy to write, niche-specific, and super-valuable to your audience.

Lastly, go against the grain: create controversy. If you have an unpopular opinion, use it. Nothing grabs attention and stirs up a conversation like some crazy maverick rocking the boat.

You'll find these explained more in-depth on this blog.

How many words does a number-1-ranking post have? Based on a study of one million Google search result pages, it's 1,890.

There's not much else to say, here. Clearly, long content just beats the heck out of short content outright.

It's more in-depth than short content and, therefore, more important by Google's standards. Plus, more words means more opportunity to provide value for, and elicit emotional response from, your audience.

Set your new word-count minimum at 1,900-per-post.

By now, you should know proper keyword etiquette, like, "no keyword stuffing." But there's more.

Keyword stuffing was once an easy trick to make Google think the content was relevant before Google got wise. But now, a new trick has emerged: keyword reinforcing (officially known as "entity salience"). Except it's not a trick; it's a legitimate SEO technique that makes perfect sense.

Instead of stuffing your content with the same keyword over and over again, you stuff it with a bunch of different terms ("entities") that relate to the keyword. Discussing "entities" that are notably relevant ("salient") to your keyword shows Google you have highly valuable and relevant information on the topic. And that means a higher search rank.

The idea here is pretty simple. Certain pages have high Domain Authority (DA) or Page Authority (PA) because Google has decided they really know what they're talking about. When you link to a page with high DA and/or PA as a source, it tells Google that you know what you're talking about.

What's this mean for you? It means if you're not already linking to external sources, start now.

Whenever you do, check the DA/PA of the source page first. Only link to high-authority sites. Aim for at least 3 source links per post.

When your page is stuck in the middle of the search results page, use your other, top-ranking pages to pull it up to the top. You can find your top-ranking pages with Google Search Console or Ahrefs. Then, add internal links on the hot pages leading back to the lower-ranked one.

Bing, bang, boom, you're done! It's not much, but it just may give your second-place page the boost it needs to become number one. Though, it also helps to freshen up the low-ranking page first.

Now, don't just boost your crappy content, boost your best content! Find your top-performing content on Google Search console. Then make it newer and better.

If it's been 3 months since you wrote it, surely you have some awesome new insights on the topic, right? Add them in! Use new case studies, testimonials, data, or infographics.

Also, improve the title. Make it more fun and provocative. Replace the old images with fresh, new ones.

Then, re-promote it all over social media. It's a lot easier than writing a new post.

These SEO tactics are so easy, yet so effective. So... Why aren't you using them yet? 

Go! Get out of here! Use these expert SEO optimization tips to be number one in your niche, now.

Or, if you'd like more tips first, check out 5 SEO Strategies You Can Implement in Real Life.