SEO used to be easy and following a specificformula would get you to the top of page one, and in many cases whenI share my SEO journey...
SEO used to be easy and following a specificformula would get you to the top of page one, and in many cases whenI share my SEO journey, back in the day I couldget a top of page one in a few months, maybe even six months at thelatest for the head terms, they were like autoinsurance and credit cards.
- But nowadays SEO is super competitive, there's over a billion blogs on the web, there's roughly one blogfor every seven people, and there's even more websites on the web, so when you combine all of that, it makes sense on why SEO is so hard, because now Google has its prime pickings to figure out which websitethey're going to place on top.
- In other words, they can be super picky, while five, 10 years agothey couldn't be as picky. So first, let's start by seeing how SEO has changed over the years. Keyword research. This is one of the big areas.
- This wasn't nearly as competitive a market as it used to be. There're literally thousands of websites, if not millions of websitescreated every single day. As of January 1st, there're over 1.7 billion websites online.
- That's a lot of competition. It used to be that you couldfocus on five or six keywords, maybe even ten, and those keywords would bringin most of your site traffic. Companies used to be ableto focus on small groups of generic keywords and see great results.
- The reality now is, it's a lot different. Websites now must have alist of 50 to 100 keywords or more depending on the site. And at bare minimum each pageon your site is going to need to be targeted at least at one keyword. However, in most casesactually three or four keywords per page.
- Now, the next thingthat's changed is content. It used to be that you cansimply write an article and implement the keyworda fair number of times and Google automatically would rank you, a.k.a. QR density, right? The more you put the keyword in your page, the more they know about thatpage is around that topic and then you're ranked.
- Now that doesn'tnecessarily flow naturally and it didn't really work well for users, hence Google doesn't look atdensity the same way anymore. Google has gotten smarter and they changed their expectations a bit. They're not just lookingat a site shoving in the same keyword and stuffing it and ruining the searchers' experience.
- They made some big changesto improve their rankings by not showing low-qualitycontent as high. So now when you're writing content, it's not about that keyword in there, naturally it'll be in thereand other synonyms will be which Google can tell, because think of them as abig dictionary and thesaurus. So they know what the article is about even if you don't havethat keyword in there. Their main priority is todeliver a high quality content and keeping the search intent in mind.
- Remember when someonetypes in a search query it usually is a question, right? It's not necessarilyspecifically a question with a question mark, but when someone does a Google search they're looking for an answerto what ever they typed in, and if your page does that, provides that answer with that content you're in the good graces, if you don't, you're not going to do well. So don't just shove inkeywords within your content and write long pieces of article because, hey, people sayGoogle wants 2,000-word article ranked at the top.
- It's not about word count. It's about providing whatthe users are looking for as quick as possible. If you do in 500 words, 2,000 words, 5,000 words, whatever it may be, whoever does it in theeasiest form for the user, without shoving in keywords, and creating the best experienceis who's going to do well and the best in the long run.
- So how long does ittake to rank on Google? Well, are you ready for this? The answer is it depends. I know it's frustrating, right. According to Forbes, theaverage it takes for a new site is four to six months to start seeing some traction in service. However, because there'reso many factors in SEO, there is no definitive answer. Every industry is different as well.
- It's easier to rank for a plumber in a localized city, than it is to rank forauto insurance nationally. On average, based on my experience, even if you're starting a new website and you're activelyworking on your content, on page SEO and link building, it can take roughly six months before you start seeing results. It doesn't mean in six monthsyou're going to rank at the top and get what you want, but it usually takes six monthsto start seeing traction.
- And the best way to startseeing the traction faster is going after the long tail phrases which convert better than head terms. So if you want to rank faster, there's some important SEO factors that you need to know if you want to rank. The first thing we shouldlook at is your site and is it secure and is itaccessible to Google crawlers.
- Are you using HTTPS? Is your robots.txt blocking the right pages, allowing the access to the right ones? Using a site map and submittingit to Google Webmaster tool, so Google can crawl on your pages? Is your website fast in load time? If it's fast, not only it's going toboost your rankings, because it's a part of their algorithm, and then you get to useGoogle PageSpeed to see how fast your website loads, both on mobile and desktop device, and they'll tell you what to fix as well.
- But mobile speed timeand desktop speed time also affect conversions as well. The other thing thatyou need to look at is, is your site mobile-friendly? Did you know that over ahalf of searches on Google are done by mobile devices? If your website doesn't looknice on a mobile device, like iPhone or Android device, don't expect them to rank it high up.
- The other thing that you have to look at is do you have authoritative content. Right? If you just have a me-toocontent, it won't cut it. Google doesn't want thesame regurgitated content over and over again. They want you to providesomething that's unique, that people haven't read before. Every time I blog on something new we're seeing on average 47.6% more traffic than when we blog on something that's been regurgitated and is old.
- So in other words, tryto blog on something that's new, that peoplehaven't seen before. I know it's frustrating, but the world has changed and, yes, there still is new stuff that people are learning about. Not everything has beenwritten even though there's been over abillion blogs on the web.
- Another thing you need to look at is quality backlinks. Getting links from authoritativesites is one thing, if those sites are emulatedyou're not going to do as well.
- Are you creating an amazing enough content to attract right type of links? Are you creating amazingproduct and service to get more links? Do you know what sectionof my site gets more links than any other? It's actually Ubersuggest. Did you know I generatedover 10,000 backlinks alone just to Ubersuggest? I'm not going out thereasking people for links, they're just linking to meand it's attracting them. Another thing I want you tolook at is social signals. Even though social signalshave no effect on ranking according to Google, there is a correlationbetween pages that rank high and have a decent numberof social signals.
- Remember, Google wantsto rank pages at the top that people love. So if people love a page, they're more likely to link to it. They're more likely to shareit on the social web, right? They wouldn't just say, "Hey, I'm going to link to it,but I would never share it."
- They go hand in hand. The other thing thatyou need to look at is do you have your businessinformation listed. Especially if you're a local business. You need to claim yourGoogle My Business profile, you need Yelp reviews, Google reviews, have a good Better Business Bureau page. The more reviews you canattract the better off you are.
The big takeaway is, when you do the right things and you go above and beyond and put the user first, you're going to rank faster, than if you just try tooptimize your page for Google and not put the user first.