Use Short URLs

Shorter URLs are better for users and search engines.

Also, our analysis of 1 million Google search results revealed that shorter URLs tend to perform slightly better in Google than long URLs.

Use Title Tag Modifiers

On-Page SEOAdvancedBrian's Favorite

Title tag modifiers are words and phrases that tend to get tacked onto the end of search terms. For example, someone searching for a credit card might search for things like: “best credit cards”, “credit cards 2016”, “credit card reviews” etc.

And when you add these modifiers to your title tag you’ll show up at the top of the page for those terms.

Here are a few modifiers you can use:

• “best”
• “reviews”
• the current year
• “checklist”
• “PDF”
• “guide”
• “course”

Delete (Or Noindex) Mediocre Blog Posts

On-Page SEO, Technical SEO, User ExperienceAdvancedBrian's Favorite

I love deleting crappy old blog posts.

Because the truth is this:

If a page isn’t bringing in traffic or revenue, its USELESS. So delete it or redirect it to another relevant post.

Write Long Descriptions for YouTube Videos

On-Page SEO, Keyword Research, Video SEOBeginnerBrian's Favorite

Long video descriptions help Google understand what your video is about.

So I recommend writing YouTube video descriptions that are at least 250 words.

Use Keyword-Rich URLs

On-Page SEO, User ExperienceBeginnerBrian's Favorite

The results from my experiments are clear: Google pays attention to the keywords that appear in your URL. And why not? Your URL is a strong indicator of what your page is all about.

For example, I have a page that ranks in the top 3 for the keyword “search engine ranking”. As you can see, that keyword ONLY appears in the URL (not in the title tag):

Anything I Missed?

Any SEO tips that I missed?

Or maybe you have a question about one of the strategies.

Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

Google: Algorithm Updates

Google: Hummingbird

What Is Google Hummingbird?

“Hummingbird” is the name of the new search platform that Google is using as of September 2013, the name comes from being “precise and fast” and is designed to better focus on the meaning behind the words. Read our Google Hummingbird FAQ here.

Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words.

Google Hummingbird is designed to apply the meaning technology to billions of pages from across the web, in addition to Knowledge Graph facts, which may bring back better results.

Google: Panda Update 

What Is The Google Panda Update?

Google’s Panda Update is a search filter introduced in February 2011 meant to stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. Panda is updated from time-to-time. When this happens, sites previously hit may escape, if they’ve made the right changes. Panda may also catch sites that escaped before. A refresh also means “false positives” might get released.

Google: Penguin Update

What Is The Google Penguin Update?

Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be spamming its search results, in particular those doing so by buying links or obtaining them through link networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings. When a new Penguin Update is released, sites that have taken action to remove bad links (such as through the Google disavow links tool or to remove spam may regain rankings. New sites not previously caught might get trapped by Penguin. “False positives,” sites that were caught by mistake, may escape.

Google: Pigeon Update

What Is The Google Pigeon Update?

Launched on July 24, 2014 for U.S. English results, the “Pigeon Update” is a new algorithm to provide more useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals. Google stated that this new algorithm improves their distance and location ranking parameters.

Google: Payday Update

Launched on June 11, 2013 – the “Payday Update” was a new algorithm targeted at cleaning up search results for traditionally “spammy queries” such as [payday loan], pornographic and other heavily spammed queries.

Google: Pirate Update

Google’s Pirate Update is a filter introduced in August 2012 designed to prevent sites with many copyright infringement reports, as filed through Google’s DMCA system, from ranking well in Google’s listings. The filter is periodically updated. When this happens, sites previously impacted may escape, if they’ve made the right improvements. The filter may also catch new sites that escaped being caught before, plus it may release “false positives” that were caught.

Google: EMD Update

The EMD Update — for “Exact Match Domain” — is a filter Google launched in September 2012 to prevent poor quality sites from ranking well simply because they had words that match search terms in their domain names. When a fresh EMD Update happens, sites that have improved their contentmay regain good rankings. New sites with poor content — or those previously missed by EMD — may get caught. In addition, “false positives” may get released. Our latest news about the EMD Update is below.

Google: Top Heavy Update

Top Heavy was launched in January 2012 by Google as a means to prevent sites that were “top heavy” with ads from ranking well in its listings. Top Heavy is periodically updated. When a fresh Top Heavy Update happens, sites that have removed excessive ads may regain lost rankings. New sites deemed too “top heavy” may get caught.

Full Search Engine Optimisation Services

If you’re new to internet marketing, you might be looking for a full search engine optimisation (SEO) service to launch your website.  Alternatively, you might already have an established website and understand the benefits of search engine optimisation, and simply want a professional SEO service to save you time and effort.

Our team at SEO Service Pros delivers a full SEO service to companies across a range of market sectors.  With wide-ranging skills, we can deliver a full search engine optimisation service or any particular elements you need.

If your website is not meeting your expectations, we can help.  With a reputation for honesty and professionalism, you can rely on our team to deliver a completely transparent service with a measurable ROI (return on investment).  Contact us today or call us at 0845 601 2237.

Complete SEO Services

Our search engine optimisation services fall into two categories:

• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page optimisation refers to the SEO activities which directly influence the performance of each page on your website.

Every page on your website must be optimised.  When you conduct an online search, the results shown are individual website pages.  Many people assume the number of results refers to whole websites and are surprised to find this is not the case.

This means it is important to optimise each page of your website to make the most of your SEO opportunities.  On-page SEO refers to the techniques used to optimise each page of your website.  These include:

Keyword Optimisation

When people search online for a product or service, they use specific keywords.  A keyword can be a single word or even a phrase.  These keywords are all-important to your site’s search engine optimisation.  Research might be needed to establish the most effective keywords to use.

Once your keywords have been researched, our team of skilled SEO copywriters can help by writing effective optimised copy to help both your website visitors and the search engines.

Metadata

Metadata is the ‘behind the scenes’ information on your website.  This data helps the search engines understand the content of your website.  Each page must have its own metadata.  This is because metadata describes the particular page, not the website as a whole.

Metadata must be carefully written to the correct parameters for best effect.  Keywords must be used throughout to enhance the search engines’ understanding of your site.

The ‘page description’ element of metadata is often displayed as the ‘advert’ which is shown when your site is listed in search results.

HTML Coded Headings

Headings in your website copy should contain relevant keywords and be HTML coded.  This alerts the search engines to the subject of that section and helps them understand the headings.

You will see our SEO Service Pros website copy is divided into short sections, each with its own keyword-rich heading.  This helps the on-page optimisation.  It’s important to remember keywords are used by human visitors to your website too, as they scan the page for the product or service they want.

Emboldened Keywords

Like headings, using a bold font for keywords identifies them as being of importance to the search engines and visitors.

Source Code

Websites are made up of coded computer language.  These codes must be carefully created to help the search engines find the site and travel around it.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page optimisation describes the SEO techniques used outside your website which affect its optimisation.  These elements add stature and credibility, and help drive traffic to your website.  Off-page SEO includes:

Directory Submissions

Your website and company details are submitted to third party sites as part of your directory submissioncampaign.  This delivers valuable backlinks to help your optimisation, as well as increasing the potential number of visitors to the site.

Article And Blog Submission

Online articles and blogs help boost your company’s reputation.  Running an article submission campaign increases brand awareness, credibility and provides a source of incoming links to your website, boosting your search engine optimisation.

Online PR

Like articles, an online press release submission strategy helps you publicise your company news as well as creating backlinks to your website.

Link Building Campaigns

A link building campaign is an essential part of off-page SEO.  Relevant, quality links help your site’s optimisation.  They drive traffic to your website and help the search engine robots and the human visitor travel from site to site.

Social Media

Social media optimisation gives you a tailor-made platform to promote your organisation.  It can be used to drive traffic to your website or blog.  Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are powerful online viral marketing tools.  Social media users spread and share information.  A well-managed social media campaign can transmit information about your brand across the world in a matter of minutes!

How Search Engine Works?

Search engines perform several activities in order to deliver search results.

• Crawling - Process of fetching all the web pages linked to a website. This task is performed by a software, called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, in case of Google).
• Indexing - Process of creating index for all the fetched web pages and keeping them into a giant database from where it can later be retrieved. Essentially, the process of indexing is identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page and assigning the page to particular keywords.
• Processing - When a search request comes, the search engine processes it, i.e. it compares the search string in the search request with the indexed pages in the database.
• Calculating Relevancy - It is likely that more than one page contains the search string, so the search engine starts calculating the relevancy of each of the pages in its index to the search string.
• Retrieving Results - The last step in search engine activities is retrieving the best matched results. Basically, it is nothing more than simply displaying them in the browser.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! often update their relevancy algorithm dozens of times per month. When you see changes in your rankings it is due to an algorithmic shift or something else outside of your control.

Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor differences between their relevancy algorithms lead to major changes in results relevancy.

What is SEO Copywriting?

SEO Copywriting is the technique of writing viewable text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for the surfer, and also targets specific search terms. Its purpose is to rank highly in the search engines for the targeted search terms.

Along with viewable text, SEO copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description, Keywords tags, headings, and alternative text.

The idea behind SEO copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages often called "doorway pages" that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings.

What is Search Engine Rank?

When you search any keyword using a search engine, it displays thousands of results found in its database. A page ranking is measured by the position of web pages displayed in the search engine results. If a search engine is putting your web page on the first position, then your web page rank will be number 1 and it will be assumed as the page with the highest rank.

SEO is the process of designing and developing a website to attain a high rank in search engine results.

What is On-Page and Off-page SEO?

Conceptually, there are two ways of optimization:

• On-Page SEO - It includes providing good content, good keywords selection, putting keywords on correct places, giving appropriate title to every page, etc.
• Off-Page SEO - It includes link building, increasing link popularity by submitting open directories, search engines, link exchange, etc.
• 
  

Diagnosing a site's health

What's the PageRank of the page that is linking to you? What are the PageRanks of some of its subpages that link to other sites? Install the Google Toolbar to find out. While some websites may have very high PageRanks for their homepage, the other pages on their site may have a much lower PageRank. Pay attention to the specific page that will be linking to you when considering how good a site's PageRank actually is.

Cache status
Does the site have an up-to-date entry inside of Google's cache? You can check by searching Google with the command "cache:example.com". A site that doesn't have an up-to-date cache is often a red flag that there is something wrong with a search engine's ability to crawl that site.

Link popularity
How many entries does the site have? What is its link popularity? Use Marketleap's Link Popularity Checker to get some quick and dirty facts about a site's web presence.

Number of outbound links
Does their links page already have a ton of links on it? The more links they have, the less link love your site will receive. Also, are there a lot of sponsored links to unrelated sites like sites about gambling, pharmacies, or adult content? These can also devalue a site's ability to pass on link value.

Age of site
How long has a site been registered for? Usually, it's best to get links from sites that have been around for more than two years, as search engines tend to be a little less trusting of brand new domains. You can check how long a website has been around by going to the WaybackMachine and seeing when the earliest entry for the domain was.

Seo tools

There are a lot of repetitive tasks to be done when optimizing your site for the search engines. To make your life easier, we've compiled a list of the most popular SEO Tools (nearly all 100% free) and categorized them into the following :

• Keyword Density - Analyze how well a specific webpage is targeting a keyword.
• Backlink Trackers - Keep track of how many sites are linking to you.
• Site Popularity - Determine how popular your site is on the internet.
• Keyword Rankings - Track of your site's rankings for a keyword in the search engines.
• Firefox Addons - Install these addons to turn your browser into an SEO research powerhouse.

Keyword discovery

Before you can begin to optimize your site for search engines, you must first know which keywords you are going after. Use these tools to find which things people are searching for in your industry!

Google Adwords - Google's tool is probably the easiest to use and maybe the best if you think about the fact that Google is the most used search engine in the world (meaning they have access to the most data).

AdCenter Keyword Group Detection - Microsoft's unique tool that will analyze a word or phrase that you give it and determine related phrases.

Term Extractor - This tool will take a URL that you give it and return the relevant keywords from that page. It might be smart to insert an article about your industry and see what keywords they're using.

KeyCompete - This program finds out what terms a site is advertising on with their Pay Per Click campaigns. Let them continue to pay for those keywords while you work on ranking #1 in the search engines and getting all your traffic for free!

Popular Searches - If you have no idea what you want to have your site be about, consider using this tool which keeps track of the most popular search terms overall.

keyword volume

Almost as important as knowing what people are searching for is determining how many people are searching for it. Use these tools to get a rough estimate of the number of people searching for a keyword or phrase.

Google Adwords External Tool - This has become a lot more helpful, as it now displays the actual volume of searches in a month.

SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool - This tool uses wordtracker's API to get the estimated number of searches a keyword receives on each search engine (Google, Microsft, Yahoo).

keyword density

Term Target - This tool takes a URL and the keyword you're attempting to target and returns a letter score (A-F) on how well you have done. Fun, but it's hard to determine exactly how accurate it is as the search engines have not released their formulas for dterming how relevant pages are for a given keyword.

backlink tracker

Site Explorer - Yahoo's extensive backlink tracker tool. It has become the first choice of many who like to keep an eye on who's linking to them and how many links they have.

Keyword Ranking - Digitalpoint's keyword tracking tool also has an option for you to look at how many backlinks your site has. It's a little hard to find, but it's there.

Google "link:" query prepend - By typing "link:" followed by a domain name like espn.com, you can see a sample of backlinks that Google knows link to that site. It should be noted that this is only a sample, not a complete list.

Domain Stats - Looks at the top three search engines to see how many backlinks to your site are showing up in for each.

Backlink Analyzer - Currently in beta, this is something that you have to install on your computer. It is a computer application that does not run through a website and you can feel safer that no one is spying on your data.

site popularity

Alexa - Using toolbars installed on people's browsers, Alexa measures how popular your site is compared to every other site on the web. It tends to be accurate only for sites in the top 100,000.

Trifecta - Determines how strong your page is based on several factors, such as: age of domain, page rank, backlinks and a few more metrics.

keyword rankings

Rank Checker - Keeps track of your ranks in the search engines without sharing it with anyone but yourself. However, you do have to download it and install it to your computer.

Keyword Rankings - One of the first popular keyword trackers out there. It will tell you your daily, weekly, and monthly changes for each term that you enter. It also has a nice graph feature so you can see your progress graphically!

Rank Checker - A very unique name, and it does what it says.

firefox addons

SEO for FireFox - An extension for your browser that changes your Google search results into MIT dissertation. Well maybe not that awesome, but it really does give you a lot of information relevant to why certain sites are showing up in the top 10 results of Google and what kind of competition you'd experience trying to get into those ranks. Also a nice way to find sites that are using the nofollow attribute.

Greasemonkey - Used by more advanced users who would like to create their own scripts or use other Greasemonkey scripts for SEO purposes.

other

Google Analytics - Although this isn't really related to SEO, Google Analytics has a section that displays all the search terms that your visitors used to get to your site.

Advanced Google Searches - A bunch of advanced Google searches that are done automatically with this nifty little tool.

Crawl Test - Looks at a given URL to check for any common problems that might prevent your site being crawled properly by a search engine.

Google Webmaster Tools - A decent collection of tools from Google that also will notify you if your website is being penalized (if you verify yourself as the site owner).

SEOToolbox - A bunch of random tools from Seomoz.

Seo - paid links

Debating about whether purchasing links, reviews, considerations, etc. is ethical or not is something we'll leave up the individual. Search engines would prefer that all links are natural, but the fact of the matter is that a substantial number of the links on the internet have been paid for in one way or another. Be sure to check out Google's official policy on paid links.

That aside, let's talk about the different kinds of paid links you have access to and some strategies for getting the best bang for your buck.

Permanent vs. temporary links

The most temporary a link can be is a paid placement on a search engine. When you sign up with Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google to pay for an advertisement spot for a given keyword, you are not buying a link; you are buying a paid listing in the search results that is not guaranteed to even show up. Search engines do not index these links, and they are completely ignored when they are determining how much of an authority your site is. This is a common misconception among newbies, and you should be glad that you won't be wasting any money on your SEO efforts purchasing paid placements on the big search engines.

Moving away from search engines, however, most websites allow you to purchase a monthly text link or banner placement in a designated "sponsor" section. While this type of temporary link might give you some good click through traffic, the benefit in terms of SEO is limited. Search engines can take months before they credit your site with the new link, so if you only purchase a one month placement, you'll probably not see a change in your rankings. For SEO purposes, try to keep a link for at least three months before deciding if it's worth keeping.

On the flip side, a permanent link might be a placement in a website's link section, a review on a blog, or even a new topic posted on a forum. These links are typically forever, unless a site is taken offline (happens more than you'll like) or the site is sold and redone. These nearly-permanent links are the best for SEO and are key to building up your site's authority with the search engines in the long-term.

Where to buy links

There are several places to buy links. Some types of purchasable links have been around for years, and others are quite new. Expect to see this list change in the future, as it's one of the more volatile parts of SEO there is.

Directories
Forum Signatures
Text Link Ads
Blog Reviews
Directly Contacting a Webmaster
directories
There are literally millions of directories that you can submit your website to. Not only that, but there are services out there that will automatically submit your site to hundreds of directories, for a fee. These directories and services are, for the most part, worthless. The search engines caught on long ago to the people mass-submitting to directories, and now, only a select few directories pass on the link love they used to.

It should be noted that directories which are easy to get into are most likely going to contain a great deal of poor-quality sites. When the search engines figure out that a directory is not filtering submissions, the value of the link will be worth next to nothing. This is why we recommend that you focus on the three directories listed below (or niche directories for your industry). Avoid low quality general directories!

Dmoz

Viewed as the golden child of Google, the dmoz directory has often been the source of much anger and frustration from webmasters trying to get their site listed in this king of directories. Although the value of a link has decreased over the years, a link from dmoz.org can still significantly affect your search rankings. To be listed on dmoz all, you need to do is navigate to a category related to your site and submit a free submission.

However, don't expect an immediate response. dmoz is notorious for being slow to add links (and sometimes never) for a variety of reasons they probably won't tell you. Also, if you resubmit your site to a category you are often placed at the end of the queue, so don't submit more than once a year and hope for the best!

Best of the web

One of the oldest sites on the net, Best of the Web has been around since 1994 and is pretty strict about who they let into their directory. To be considered for a listing you must pay a fee. They also have two different types of payment plans: annual or lifetime. If you're serious about your site being successful on the search engines, pay the lifetime fee, as it will pay for itself soon enough.

Yahoo

Yahoo's directory is similar to Best of the Web, but the quality is a little less. However, all search engines still consider this a valuable directory and a listing here will definitely boost your rankings.

Forum signatures

Forums are a great source of traffic and link love for sites that are just starting out. First you need to find a forum that supports links in the signature, then you simply have to post on the forums to get links. Another option is to sponsor a member of that forum in exchange for them including a link to your website. However, it should be noted that some forums do not allow this, and you should research this issue before investing any money.

Important note: Some forums have a system where links are automatically marked with the attribute "nofollow", which means that they are marking the links as untrusted. Read up on our no follow lesson to see how this will affect the link love you receive from that site.

Text link ads

Although this isn't exactly a permanent form of advertising, these types of links tend to be a bit more below the radar than a typical site sponsorship deal. There are several text link ad brokers that have a network of sites that are willing to put text links on their website in return for a monthly fee. At some of these sites you can even get placed on a single page on the site, rather than on every page (this is good because then your link doesn't look like a normal sponsored link!).

Blog reviews

With the rise of blogging popularity, it was obvious that something was going to come along to allow the massive amount of bloggers to make an extra buck. Well, there is a new option for bloggers to make money using ReviewMe, SponsoredReview, PayPerPost, and V7NContextual. All of these sites have a network of bloggers that are waiting to make a post for your company if you're willing to pay a fee. These posts can range from a full review of your product to a simple mention of your website in a post that's about the industry you work in.

These links are forever, but make sure you don't purchase links from blogs that have too many paid posts. The search engines are getting better at sniffing these sites out and will often penalize these blogs, preventing them from giving out link love if all they do is post sponsored reviews.

Directly contacting a webmaster

Often, the best way to get a nice link on a website is to talk to the owner of the website directly. By doing this, you can select sites that do not have a great deal of paid links already, and you can get a whole bunch of value at a reasonable price. The downside to this approach is that it takes more time and effort than it does going through another company that has streamlined the process for you.