Search Engine Optimization Archives • Page 3 of 4 • TotalWeb Partners

October 2, 2021

The Greatest Challenges & Threats in SEO

Search engine optimisation concept. Hand putting wood block cube shape with word SEO

Insights from our recent State of SEO Survey report show that although the last year began with uncertainty across the industry, SEO is now more in demand than ever before.

Even so, it is not without its challenges. What issues are SEO professionals facing — and moving forward, what are the threats that might block success?

We surveyed over 2,800 SEO professionals about their experiences in SEO over the last 12 months. Keep reading to find out:

What the biggest challenges were in the last 12 months.

Whether SEO results trended better or worse over the last year.

What SEO pros perceive as the industry’s greatest threats in the years ahead.

What Were the Biggest Challenges in SEO Over the Last 12 Months?

At the start of the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty for everyone as businesses tried to navigate an unprecedented situation rife with real-world shutdowns, a near-instant shift to digital, and massive changes in consumer behavior.

As the pandemic unfolded many businesses had to pivot quickly in order to survive. Some struggled while others thrived as digital and ecommerce growth accelerated by several years.

Early in the pandemic, budget cuts were the biggest challenge for SEO professionals, as indicated by 37.6% of survey respondents.

Strategy issues (34.8%) were also a significant challenge in the SEO industry, as was a lack of resources (32.9%).

September 23, 2021

by TWP Publisher

5 common pitfalls to avoid so you maximize your keyword strategy’s business impact

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization, SEO

As an SEO agency, you already know the role that keyword research plays in understanding the business opportunities of your clients and how to gather hundreds and hundreds of keywords for your SEO campaign.

But how do you go from a large list of keywords to an articulated, coherent, data-driven set that ensures you’ve zeroed in on the objective and know where you’re heading?

Jumping straight to execution, crunching tactics and tasks might work in the short-term, but without a well-defined strategy in place, the risk of wasting client resources and, ultimately, trust is high.

And you’ll know a strategy is good when you trust it to leverage your performance and generate results for your clients while ticking all the following boxes:

Having a diagnosis which details the challenge to be solved. This helps you narrow your focus to a clear, simple problem that your client faces. Deciding on a guiding policy that defines the approach you follow for solving the problem. Developing a set of coherent actions: the tactics you’ll use, step by step, in accordance with your approach to get the best results and solve the problem. This logical structure, called the kernel of strategy, can help your SEO agency at every stage of campaign development, but for the scope of this article, we’ll be looking at how to refine the guiding policy by avoiding common keyword strategy pitfalls.

Let’s take them one by one, so you discover new ways to get the most out of your keyword list and set yourself up for success:

Pitfall #1 You include branded keywords in the mix Branded organic traffic is not SEO traffic.

The navigational keywords related to your client’s website or other websites (even competitors) won’t be valuable for your SEO campaign, as you can’t directly influence them. Plus, your client owns all the branded keywords, and they’re using other channels to amplify them (marketing campaigns, advertising, paid search, etc.). You don’t need rank tracking or SEO for that.

Mixing the two will muddle your data and will make your client’s position in the search landscape seem better than it actually is — which, in turn, will alter the strategy and your desired objectives.

Read more: 5 common pitfalls to avoid so you maximize your keyword strategy’s business impact

September 21, 2021

by TWP Publisher

Global Agencies SEO Services Market Report 2021: Market is Expected to Reach $83.7 Billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 19.6%

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization, SEO

The global agencies seo services market is expected to grow from $37.84 billion in 2020 to $40.92 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.1%. The market is expected to reach $83.7 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 19.6%.

The agencies SEO services market consists of the sales of SEO services and related goods by agencies or companies that provide search engine optimization services for businesses. These establishments are the entities which provide both on premise and cloud-based deployment SEO services and charge their clients based on man-hours, results based, and click based among many other models. Only goods and services traded between entities or sold to end consumers are included.

Companies operating in agencies SEO services market are using “Zero-Click Search Results” to increase their appearance in the search results and this is a major trend in the agencies SEO services market. Zero-Click Searches alludes to a search engine results page (SERP) which answers the query directly at the top so that the user doesn’t need to do any further clicks to complete the search. A zero-click search is one that fulfills the search intent at the top of the SERP.

According to the Search Engine Journal, 34.4% of all desktop searches result in no click while 62.5% of users never click search result links on mobile. Google presented zero-click searches in March 2020, with the aim to eliminate multiple results that searchers don’t really need and to satisfy the user intent faster. Zero-click searches include database-style searches, dictionary and encyclopedia-style searchers, and map direction style searchers.

The agencies SEO services market covered in this report is segmented by service type into online services; offline services. It is also segmented by subscription into monthly; annually and by end-use industry into professional services; IT services; e-commerce; hospitality; recreation; real estate; others.

The number of people using smartphones and internet services is increasing rapidly, especially in developing countries and this factor is expected to drive the market for agencies SEO services during the forecast period. For instance, in January 2020, the numbers of smartphone users in the world were 3.50 billion accounting for 45.12% of the world’s population.

Read more: Global Agencies SEO Services Market Report 2021: Market is Expected to Reach $83.7 Billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 19.6%

September 17, 2021

by TWP Publisher

The importance of SEO in business

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) importance of SEO, Search Engine Optimization, SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process where you aim to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website through organic search outcomes. When a search engine like Google ranks your website on the first page, you will receive more visibility. This means that you get more visitors, increasing your revenue.

If the Seo ranking is high, customers consider your brand as trustworthy. SEO also improves the user’s experience making it easy for clients to interact with your site. Read on to discover why SEO is essential to your business. Visibility and rankings. Users tend to choose the topmost items that search engines display when searching for a product or service online. If you rank high in search engines, the visibility to the potential customers becomes high. If your business receives more visits or views on search engines, the number of customers likely to purchase from your brand becomes high. As such, it is essential to incorporate SEO into your marketing strategy to increase your visibility.

Web Traffic. In simple terms, this means that if potential clients cannot find your website, the chances of missing opportunities become high. To increase your organic search engine traffic, consider optimizing your site for SEO. This will, in turn, increase the number of visitors to your site. SEO also allows you to target specific audiences, improving your chances of increased sales. Audience targeting makes your clients feel unique and more willing to buy from you.

Trustworthy. If your SEO score is good, you will appear in several search engines. SEO optimization will earn you a positive appeal and increase your visibility. Combined with excellent user experience, these characteristics will earn your trust with potential customers.

Customers are more likely to refer a company they trust to their friends and family. Every start-up brand requires referrals to grow. As such, it is essential to create trust with potential clients.

Growth. SEO is essential to the development of any business, whether small or already established. As earlier mentioned, if your brand ranks higher on the search engines, the more traffic the brand receives. An SEO-optimized website will attract more traffic, generating more leads. If you satisfy the needs of these customers by providing quality products, you will experience gradual growth.

Read more: The importance of SEO in business

June 10, 2020

by TWP Publisher

The Wild Web: How SEO Can Attract, Engage and Retain Consumers for Brand Building

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization

In our connected world, almost every organization has an online presence they rely on heavily to support the bottom line. Amid the ongoing crisis, that hasn’t been more true than now. While the web can streamline endpoint processes like sales, it also functions as a critical gateway for customer engagement. That’s why companies need to place increased emphasis on their online presence for brand building – and where SEO tools can make all the difference.

SEO has always been a critical tool for optimizing a company’s brand online in order to drive leads into the sales funnel. However, in light of recent events that have made brands’ online presence the main channel of customer engagement, we need to ensure we are pivoting and shifting strategies to meet consumer needs in this new reality. With a crowded landscape and more content competing for consumer attention than ever, it’s vital that brands leverage SEO technology to ensure they’re maximizing brand awareness online in order to continue generating revenue by converting leads into loyal customers. Here’s how:

Encourage new customer recruitment and acquisition

Building a brand starts with converting audiences from being “new visitors” – checking out a website to learn about the company – to a “brand visitor” – visiting the webpage because of what they know about the company. This means increasing the volume of non-brand-traffic, which can be done by leveraging SEO insights to understand what consumers are searching for and finding the best route to exposure to rank high in their searches. And the more familiar consumers are, the more likely they are to keep coming back – a recent study from Econsultancy found 82% of consumers click on brands they are familiar with first before looking at other options. With exponentially more brand options to turn to than ever, a sense of familiarity and consistency will help you create an engaged and loyal customer base.

February 4, 2020

by TWP Publisher

5 Ways SEO & Web Design Go Together

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Content, Website Design Practices Search Engine Optimization, Web Design

When you’re trying to improve your website’s performance, it’s important to remember that you have to focus on numerous factors simultaneously.

In both life and digital marketing, we tend to give all of our attention to one or two important elements while neglecting something else that can turn out to be equally as important.

If you want to do better in the SERPs, it takes more than just SEO.

Your website also needs to be designed well, or you risk squandering all of that organic equity you have been building.

SEO and web design work together more seamlessly than many people might realize.

Their components mingle and flow together so well that, when executed correctly, your website visitors should not actually notice anything about what you have created; they should simply start navigating through your site.

So, what are those elements where SEO and web design collaborate? Check out these five ways they are used together.

August 13, 2018

by TWP Publisher

How to defend yourself against an ongoing negative SEO campaign

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization, SEO Optimization

You know what negative SEO is (and isn’t). You know how to audit your site to determine if you’ve been hit. You know how to protect yourself to limit your exposure. Now it is time to discuss how to defend yourself against an ongoing negative SEO campaign.

Who is attacking you?

There are a variety of ways to unmask the people targeting you and your site with a negative SEO attack. Some depend on the type of attack you’re experiencing. No matter how they are coming at you, you will need to collect some information in order to shut them down.

Let’s look at common attack methods and see how we can turn the tables and use what they’re doing to us — against them.

Inbound links
Using your favorite link analysis tool, you will need to segment the links you expect to have (your old links) to the new ones you believe are coming from an attack. This step is very easy to oversimplify because link scoring varies significantly, depending on your philosophy of links, risk tolerance and which tool you use to score links. The end result of this step is a list of links you think are part of an attack.

Check to see if the links being used against you are related or follow similar footprints:

Are you seeing a lot of links from low-quality blogs, scraper sites, bookmarking sites, wikis or directories?
Did a large number of new inbound links pop up at the same time?
Are a lot of your new links coming from the same IP address or countries?
Are the new links using the same anchors over and over?

This massive influx of inbound links can be the work of an individual or group using spam software. Spam software tends to leave some telltale traces, such as a high number of links using the same anchors or a concentration of links from a single specific footprint. An example of this might be links inserted in footers like this: “Powered by phpBB © 2000.”
If you were to look at your backlinks in your favorite link analysis tool, you might not immediately notice specific patterns or certain types of links. Look for unusual patterns such as adult and pharma anchor text phrases in new links, or a high volume of links you cannot attribute to any of your marketing activities. These types of links may indicate a negative SEO attack implemented by someone using a spam tool, or possibly someone using a network of sites.

January 12, 2017

by TWP Publisher

SEO trends to prepare for in 2017

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization, SEO trends

Search engine optimization is evolving at lightning speed. As 2016 begins to wind down, it is time to examine the digital marketing landscape for the upcoming year.

There have been numerous developments in SEO over the past 10 months. A lot of the prominent trends of 2016 will continue and grow in 2017. As Google’s algorithm updates constantly keep business owners on their toes, several other trends are expected to take shape in 2017.

Here are a few things look out for in the ensuing months:

Optimization for user intent
Although keywords are still important, typing in simple words yields simple results. Consumers today know exactly what they’re looking for, and search engines are getting much better at identifying user intent. Therefore, users are now entering full queries or phrases in search engines, which gather data and heuristics to provide results more effectively.

In 2017, brands will need to place value on optimizing their digital content based on intent rather than specific keywords. For your SEO strategy, it will be critical to:

Investigate. What are users searching for that brings them to your page? What questions do they want your content to answer?
Optimize. Once you have gathered your research data and found areas that need work, make the changes needed to boost ratings. Based on your research, tell the consumer’s story by altering content to reflect the reader’s experience.
Adjust. Keep up with analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t so you can update accordingly.

More rich answers and snippets
We all turn to Google for answers. In response to our queries, Google will often display the required information directly in search results, along with other helpful websites, videos, movie or event information, reviews or specific dates.

Structured data markup (often referred to as “schema markup”) can help website owners achieve these enhanced listings on search engine results pages (SERPs). This markup works to assist search engines in understanding website content, allowing them to display that information in a way that is helpful for users.

For example, let’s say you ask Google for instructions for cooking meatloaf. The SERP features a rich answer (also known as a “direct answer” or “featured snippet”), followed by search listings that contain rich snippets relevant to recipes, such as reviews, ratings, cook time and calorie information:

January 3, 2017

by TWP Publisher

What we’ve learned about SEO in 2016

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization, SEO

Since the inception of the search engine, SEO has been an important, yet often misunderstood industry. For some, these three little letters bring massive pain and frustration. For others, SEO has saved their business. One thing is for sure: having a clear and strategic search strategy is what often separates those who succeed from those who don’t.

As we wrap up 2016, let’s take a look at how the industry has grown and shifted over the past year, and then look ahead to 2017.

A growing industry
It was only a few years ago when the internet was pummeled with thousands of “SEO is Dead” posts. Well, here we are, and the industry is still as alive as ever. SEO’s reputation has grown over the past few years, due in great part to the awesome work of the real pros out there. Today, the industry is worth more than $65 billion. Companies large and small are seeing how a good search strategy has the power to change their business.

As search engines and users continue to evolve, SEO is no longer just an added service brought to you by freelance web designers. With the amount of data, knowledge, tools and experience out there, SEO has become a power industry all on its own.

Over the course of the year, my agency alone has earned a number of new contracts from other agencies that are no longer able to provide their own search efforts. A large divide between those that can deliver SEO and those that can’t is beginning to open up across the board.

The rise of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now prevalent in many of our lives. Google, IBM, Amazon and Apple are very active in developing and using Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI). ANI can be used to automate repetitive tasks, like looking up product details, shipping dates and order histories and performing countless other customer requests.

The consumer is becoming more and more comfortable with this technology and has even grown to trust its results. Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, announced during his Google I/O keynote that 20 percent of queries on its mobile app and on Android devices are voice searches.

RankBrain, Google’s machine-learning artificial intelligence system, is now among the top three ranking signals for Google’s search algorithm. Why? Google handles more than 3.5 billion searches per a day, and 16 to 20 percent of those are unique queries that have never been searched before. To handle this, the team at Google has harnessed the power of machine learning to help deliver better results.

While we can’t “control” RankBrain, what we can do is learn more about how Google is using it and then help the tool by creating good content that earns shares and links, building connections with others in our niche or related niches, and building trust in very targeted topics.

We are still in the beginning stages of this technology, but as more and more homes become equipped with smart tools like Amazon Echo and Google Home, we can be sure that these tech giants will use the knowledge they gain from voice search to power their AI technology.

October 4, 2016

by TWP Publisher

The four pillars of the future of SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization

SEO has come a long way from being all about on-page optimization, building backlinks and creating “relevant” content. When I read popular search engine blogs, I notice a definite trend: SEO is moving toward a more inclusive strategy that goes beyond new ways of link building or content marketing.

A huge part of present-day SEO practices is brand building and influencing search queries themselves, as opposed to starting with a truckload of keywords and creating content around them. Therefore, while links, keywords, content and site optimization remain the building blocks of SEO, the columns on which the edifice is being built are taking on a different appearance. Let’s see what these pillars are.

1. RankBrain
2. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
3. The Knowledge Graph & rich answers
4. Real-time, integrated penalty filters

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