With all the Google search algorithm changes, you will never know when and where your site will appear in Google search results. According to Google’s John Mueller, the search engine giant rolls out hundreds of  SEO updates to its core algorithm throughout the year. Nothing scares more than the unknown. There were times, when we knew menace by sight, we were given a heads up on upcoming updates and knew how to recover from them.  Now Google search is frequently invaded by a legion of search algorithm updates, which are like Agents Smith who keep order within the google search ecosystem by eliminating SEO threats assumed to be coming from humans’ never-ending desire to implement black and grey-hat SEO techniques. Welcome to the Google Search Matrix.

What is a Google Search Algorithm Update?

Google Search Algorithm Updates were originally designed as filters to track down and penalize websites that flooded search results with low-quality content, link spam or which provided a poor user experience. In the course of time, Google changed its manner of rolling out updates. As a result, some of the algorithm changes run on a real-time basis, others are integrated into the core ranking algorithm with no new refreshes or public announcements on new updates from Google.

There have been so many SEO updates released by Google over the last 15 years, that you might get confused.

Google Updates Related to Content Quality

November 2003 – FLORIDA UPDATE. This was one of the most noticeable updates that blew out the high rankings of some e-commerce sites and product affiliates like a hurricane. A lot of websites lost their top rankings and even disappeared from the search index itself. Among the key aspects of the Florida Update were:

• The SEO filter that was activated when the over-usage of search terms was detected;
• Stemming which helped to rank websites based on the matches to the search terms.

February 2004 – BRANDY UPDATE. This update resulted in the expansion of Google’s index, a better understanding of context and the consideration by Google of synonyms of search query terms. There was also an increased focus on anchor text relevance and close attention was paid to your backlink neighborhood quality.

May 2010 – MAYDAY UPDATE. As a precursor to the Panda Update, it penalized a lot of websites for using thin content.

February 2011 – The beginning of the PANDA era. The first Panda Update targeted websites which provided low-quality, thin and duplicate content.  Panda 1.0 affected 12% of search queries. Since then, this most important content-quality update has survived 26 tweaks and refreshes. The last update made Panda part of the core algorithm.

August 2013 – HUMMINGBIRD UPDATE. This content-quality SEO update was aimed at understanding a searcher’s intent and the context behind a search query. Made up of more than 200 SEO factors which affect both ranking and search, Hummingbird was designed to deal with conversational and voice search queries which are mostly popular on mobile devices. The update gave a boost to semantic SEO.

Google Updates related to Links Quality

April 2003 – CASSANDRA UPDATE. Cassandra was the first Google Update designed specifically to filter link spam. These were hard times for websites that built links from co-owned domains and hid links and text in order to manipulate their rankings.

May 2003 – DOMINIC UPDATE. The SEO community assumes that this update changed the way Google counted backlinks.

January 2005 – NOFOLLOW UPDATE. These were rainy days for black-hat SEOs and webmasters as Google, in cooperation with Microsoft and Yahoo, introduced the nofollow attribute in order to fight with spam.

September-October 2005 – JAGGER UPDATES. Google rolled out this series of SEO updates to filter low-quality link schemes, like paid links, reciprocal links and links built with the help of link farms. The updates took 3 months to fully roll out.

April 2012 – The beginning of the PENGUIN era. Google initiated a war against link spam. Penguin 1.0 affected 3,1% of English search results. Over-optimization, spam links, keyword stuffing were the reason of website penalization.  The next major and heavyweight Penguin Update (2.0) was rolled out in May 2013 and affected 2,3% of search queries.  On September 2016, Google released a real-time Penguin 4.0 Update and backed it into Google’s core algorithm. The key difference of Penguin 4.0 was that it re-indexed and re-evaluated sites in real time, demoting only specific pages with spam signals on them.

Google Updates related to Mobile Search Quality

April 2015 – MOBILE-FRIENDLY UPDATE. Dubbed as Mobilegeddon, the Mobile-Friendly update was not actually a penalty update, it just favored those websites with better rankings which were SEO friendly on mobile screens. Optimizing for mobile search has become paramount, and tools like the Website Audit can ensure your site is fully optimized for mobile users, addressing the critical factors that influence mobile search ranking.

Google Updates related to Local Search Quality

October 2005 – LOCAL MAPS UPDATE. Google merged two products, Local Business Center and Google Maps into one complex in order to simplify local search.

July 2014 – PIGEON UPDATE. Local SEO changed dramatically after the launch of the Google Pigeon Update. By improving its location and distance ranking parameters, this had a huge impact on both Google Maps and traditional Google search results. Among the most significant changes was the boost in rankings for local directories, such as Yelp, TripAdvisor etc.

September 2016 – GOOGLE POSSUM UPDATE. The new local search update was designed to filter out local search spam, specifically in Google Maps results.

Google Updates related to User Search Experience Quality

July 2003 – FRITZ UPDATE. With this update Google switched from monthly index refreshes to indexing on a daily basis. This was a great improvement for the average search experience because Google started to return fresher and more accurate results.

June 2005 – PERSONALIZED SEARCH UPDATE. Another enhancement in the user search experience was the usage of search history in order to deliver more personalized and relevant search results.

August 2008 – GOOGLE SUGGEST UPDATE.  Search experiences were improved to a greater extent thanks to Google Suggest which eventually evolved into Google Instant.

August 2010 – CAFFEINE UPDATE. This update was designed for users and with the help of users. Everyone was invited to test the new infrastructure of the Google search indexing system and leave feedback. The key features of the Caffeine update were an expanded index, faster crawling and real-time indexation. As a result, Caffeine provided 50% fresher results than with earlier updates.

December 2010 – NEGATIVE REVIEWS UPDATE. The update changed the way websites are ranked based on experience provided by users.

June 2011 – GOOGLE SCHEMA UPDATE. This SEO update aimed at enriching search results by allowing users to optimize their structured data with the help of Schema.org.

November 2011 – FRESHNESS UPDATE. The update affected 35% of search queries, mainly time-specific ones. As a results, Google started to pay closer attention to fresh, regularly updated content which portends a good user experience. Searchers were now regularly filtering searches for content from the past hour, day, week, month or year.

May 2012 – KNOWLEDGE GRAPH UPDATE. This update provided direct answers to common questions about specific people and places and other subjects. In the long run, the Knowledge Graph feature evolved into Knowledge Graph panels.

In the next post we will give some advice on how to recover from Google Penalties, provided to us by a former Google Employee.

The post The Google Search Algorithm Matrix: The Timeline of Crucial SEO Updates appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

RankBrain represents one of the most intriguing changes in the world of SEO in the last year. Initially introduced in October 2015, it still remains a mystery for most experts. However, due to numerous studies performed since then, we are able to understand some basics features of this machine learning system.

Even though the name may imply otherwise, its priority is to provide more relevant results to searches that are completely new. After initial trials, people from Google realized that this system is actually great when dealing with ambiguous and poorly defined queries as well as natural language.

History of RankBrain

Have in mind that this is not Google’s first attempt to implement machine learning into their systems. Previously, we could see a similar technology in Google AdWords. Whenever RankBrain needs to assess a page, it focuses on the relevancy of the page itself, similarly to the Google AdWords Quality Score. Based on this score, it places different pages on different positions. Have in mind that the Google AdWords Quality Score doesn’t use external signals such as links. At this point, we are not certain whether RankBrain relies on links when judging content. Also, this system has some similarities with Word2Vec.

Word2Vec was based on a technology called skip-gram and a continuous bag of words. These two models allowed a system to establish a relationship between main words and all neighboring words. Also, Word2Vec was able to embed words into vectors which allowed them to be better understood.

RankBrain works similarly. It is pretty good at establishing semantic relationships and reading user intent. Based on this, we can surmise that RankBrain is at least partially based on Word2Vec technology.

Why was RankBrain introduced in the first place?

There are about 3 billion searches every day. Out of these 3 billion, 15 % are completely unique, never seen before. This amounts to 450 million. RankBrain was invented in order to process these unique queries and give a proper answer to them. The system does this by making an educated guess. Based on all previously accumulated information, it is able to make semantic connections and establish a user’s intent. But, in some cases, even with all its advanced technology backing it up, RankBrain can make a mistake and provide a final user with results that he is not looking for. If that is the case, it will provide a new set of results, hopefully satisfying the individual. This is why it is called machine learning. RankBrain is able to constantly refine its results and improve its suggestions.

Many people think that RankBrain is an artificial intelligence system. This is not the case. It is a machine learning system able to improve itself without any human interference. Through advancement, RankBrain could one day reach the state of “artificial intelligence,” but, there are still too many limitations for this to happen. Google product managers seem to have realized that RankBrain is excellent when dealing with ambiguous and long-tail keywords. Unlike before, when Google would focus on one word within the phrase, RankBrain is able to understand the meaning behind the words and give proper suggestions.

Relationship with Hummingbird

There are many misconceptions when it comes to Hummingbird and RankBrain. The latter is not an algorithm nor does it replace Hummingbird. In fact, these two are separate entities that are meant to work in conjunction. Experts refer to RankBrain as Hummingbird’s modification. Most likely, when processing a query, RankBrain finishes its part of the job and then Hummingbird additionally refines it.

Similarly to Word2Vec and Google AdWords, it is possible that Google took the best out of Hummingbird and implemented it within RankBrain. At this point, we can only speculate. The fact is that Google is very protective of its technology and all we can do at this point is notice similarities and differences between various systems.

RankBrain as the Wild Card of the Google Ranking System

Google has announced that RankBrain has become the number three ranking signal in the short period of its existence. But, there are many questions regarding it. Unlike other ranking signals (more than 200 of them), RankBrain most likely doesn’t represent a direct signal. Instead, it affects the way Google perceives queries and through it, search as a whole. RankBrain is not static. It is constantly improving and refining queries according to its own perception. Additionally, unlike other ranking signals, RankBrain is completely autonomous, able to work without any human interference.

But, keep in mind that this machine learning system still has limited use. It was primarily created in order to help users with unique queries. And to be fair, it is doing a great job. This means that RankBrain will not interfere if there are already valid suggestions available. Perhaps this is the reason why it is only at position three when it comes to ranking signal importance. We have learned that RankBrain can also help out with other long-tail queries, ambiguous keywords and slang. The system will not interfere when there is sufficient data for a query (at least the way we understand).

Nevertheless, this raises some questions. If RankBrain has managed to gain so much importance in so little time, it is quite possible that it will continue increasing in relevance eventually taking over common queries. This could change the whole SEO world.

How Does RankBrain Work?

As we mentioned previously, RankBrain has to embed words into vectors so it can use them properly. After that, all these vectors are put into the same virtual space. This includes all semantically related words that help the system establish relationships. Here is a good example:

In order to weigh the words properly, RankBrain has to understand correlations between them. Some of these semantically close keywords will have more impact on the query while other will have less impact. The importance of a keyword is established based on its distance from the main word. Related keywords that are far away from the main keyword have less importance on the query while those that are close to it, have more importance. Based on this, RankBrain gives priority to different content.

But, that is not all. This is only the part of the equation, the part which we know about. There is probably much more to it given that RankBrain is able to provide answers to some poorly defined questions and other queries that previously presented a problem.

How do you optimize for RankBrain?

At this point in time, there is no point in optimizing for it. Simply put, these queries have too small of a volume for us to bother with them. However, if one day RankBrain takes over a larger chunk of the queries, we should start considering it. Anyway, your main SEO strategy should remain the same; you have to have great content that will attract clicks and make visitors read it. If one day RankBrain becomes the dominant element of Google search, we will have to forget about link building. Instead of off-page, we will have to concentrate more on on-page optimization.

RankBrain works through trials and error. Even though the system performs its own analysis before presenting results to users, that doesn’t mean that users will be satisfied with suggestions. In order for your copy to be successful and to properly optimize it for RankBrain, you will have to focus on things such as click through rate, time spent on page and bounce rate.

According to our presumptions, these statistics are the best measure of visitor satisfaction with a page and at the same time, they send a strong signal to RankBrain regarding relevance. So, if you wish to optimize a page for RankBrain these are our suggestions:

• Create compelling titles and meta descriptions
• Write longer copy
• Include authoritative resources and studies within the text
• Be direct and focus on the user’s benefit
• Make your website responsive

WebCEO’s SEO Content Assistant can help optimize your content to match RankBrain’s preferences, guiding you in crafting relevant content that resonates with your audience and RankBrain’s understanding of relevance.

Have in mind that your article still has to be somewhat important to the query. If it isn’t, RankBrain will not suggest it to a user in the first place. But, if it does, try and make the best out of it, because RankBrain will notice how the customer reacts.

In the future, a visitor will be the one that determines whether a website lives or dies. In that regard, be sure to provide maximum value and the freshest, most relevant information.

Examples of RankBrain

Here is one of the more popular examples of RankBrain in action:

We used the query “What’s the title of the consumer at the highest level of a food chain”. This can be seen as quite an ambiguous query. You might think that Google would answer the query by presenting websites about production, shopping malls, food chains, human as a consumer, prices etc. However, this query is clearly connected to language commonly used in biology textbooks and specifically, the word “highest level” would clearly refer to “predators.” By using its database, RankBrain is able to make a good guess and return results connected to this particular topic.

As it turns out, RankBrain is also good at giving results based on our own browser history and previous searches. Let us use an example with Barack Obama.

In order to get Barack Obama’s age, we can type “How old is President Obama?” Google can easily recognize what we are looking for giving us data on Barack Obama. However, after this query, if we type “How old is his wife?” Google may understand that we are looking for data about Michelle Obama based on our history.

Conclusion

At this point, there are simply too many unknowns. We still cannot properly assess RankBrain or its true potential. It has shown great results so far but that doesn’t mean that Google will give it a greater role than it currently has. One thing is for sure. As always, Google is trying to improve the user experience and create new technologies that will help users get the most relevant results to their queries. In terms of SEO, things may or may not change in the future. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Even if they do change, Google will still be based on a certain technology, technology that can be exploited and optimized for. With this in mind, if you are working within SEO, there is no reason to be concerned.

For tracking how your site’s rankings are affected by RankBrain and other factors, use WebCEO’s Rank Tracking tool. Check your website positions on desktop, smartphone and tablet: the results may differ dramatically!

Additionally, to ensure your SEO strategies are comprehensive and up-to-date, explore WebCEO’s Online SEO tools to cover all your bases from on-page optimization to backlink analysis.

The post RankBrain – the Wild Card of the Google Search Ranking System appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

It took years for Google to adopt and successfully release their critters on the world, which now devotedly guard the Internet search domain from mortal transgressors. Each of the Google animals live in their own area of the search world with specific rules and laws. You can tame these beasts if you are fully dedicated to what you do, like Martin Lacey with his head in a lion’s mouth, or Roy Horn being grabbed by the throat by a tiger or Daenerys Targaryen, the mother of dragons, who raised three dragons (don’t tell us you don’t watch that series).

Google critters are really friendly to those who feed them with consistent food like fresh content, yummy backlinks, rich context and original local SEO cuisine. But when they meet intruders on their territory, who give no value to them and their search visitors, they run amok and can even harm you.  For you to stay safe from feral Google critters here is a short interactive SEO infographic. Keep your eyes open on Halloween and use WebCEO to tame the Google beasts.

The post How to Save Yourself from Sneaky Google Critters appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

What is the biggest challenge for today’s website owners and digital marketers? It is to keep your target visitors as long as possible on your site and direct them softly to the end point of the conversion funnel that is a call-to-action. To evaluate the rate of visitor engagement you can use the Google Analytics Behavior insights such as the Bounce Rate and Average Time on Page. The higher the bounce rate and the lower the average time on page, the lower the conversion rate is. What is the best SEO technique you can use to improve the score for these SEO variables and make people dive deeper into your website? –Highlighted hyperlinks in the body of pages can bring a reader to other important pages where he can find additional relevant info, then sign up for your service, buy your product, subscribe for a newsletter or leave his contact details. In SEO we call all this internal links map or structure.

What are the types of internal links to use for effective internal links optimization?

Links are the doors that search engine crawlers and users pass to find each of your pages. It fully depends on you to open or close your internal link doors for search engines and your potential clients. A good internal links structure includes a complex system of interlinking on a site that that includes different types of internal links:

• Navigational links serve to put a website’s navigation into a structured order. These can include menu links, sidebar links or breadcrumb links.
• Footer links are often sitewide links that serve as a sitemap and help new users find quick access to the most valuable pages on a site.
• Contextual or editorial links are links located in the body of a page and surrounded by relevant copy.

Editorial links are the most valuable types of internal links from an SEO and user experience perspective. While navigational links are just the static anchors on a site, editorial links are dynamic beacons which help users and search engines drift your website easily from page to page. If properly optimized, internal links are the best SEO technique to establish a website’s theme for better indexing and crawling by search engines and for increasing your landing pages’ ranking power and authority. The most important part in the structure of the internal link is a visible and clickable area of the link which is most often anchor text, the descriptive keyword or phrase that is pasted in the HTML link after the targeted page URL and before the closing link tag.

Here is an example of a perfect, SEO-friendly internal link with properly optimized anchor text:

<a href=”https://www.webceo.com/blog/find-and-neutralize-toxic-links-with-the-web-ceo-backlink-quality-checker/> Web CEO Backlink Quality Check</a>

Here, the anchor text with relevant explanatory long-tail keyword in bold clearly points to the target page.

Here is another example:

<a href=”https://online.webceo.com/?aw=ranker/detailsbyse/>monitor keyword rankings</a>

Here, we use an internal link as the call-to-action that not only describes the target page (which is the page of the tool for tracking site rankings), but induces people to sign up for our service by clicking on the registration page. Being a part of the post, it serves as an organic call-to-action button.

What are the benefits from internal links optimization?

There are several positive effects you can achieve via internal links optimization.

• Make the website easy-to-navigate for new visitors.
• Make the website theme clear in the eyes of the search engines.
• Increase the number of page views.
• Reduce the bounce rate.
• Benefit from visitor responses to organic call-to-actions.
• Spread the link juice throughout your website.
• Internal Links are much more easily controlled and optimized than external backlinks.

What are the best SEO tips to strengthen your internal links structure and spread SE ranking juice all over your website?

1. Make sure your internal links are not broken or blocked by the Robots.txt file. To check the accessibility of your internal links, use the Landing Page SEO report of the WebCEO SEO Analysis tool for free.
2. Avoid any Java, Flash, IFrames and other plug-ins when building your internal link map.
3. Associate (or tie) the most authoritative landing pages with less authoritative ones. Ranking for hundreds of targeted terms within one single page (be it the home page or another top landing page) is a mission: impossible. You are better off mapping targeted keywords on other relevant internal landing pages.
4. Diverse the anchor texts of your internal links. With Post-Hummingbird SEO, it is essential to make your content user-friendly and theme-focused. For the most effective optimization of anchor texts of your internal links, use the Internal Links Optimization tool for free (no limitations in the Free Plan).
5. Improve the page speed score for the landing pages where your most valuable internal links are displayed. If your site is loading longer than 3-6 sec, this means it may cause a bad user experience. In this case, there is no need to optimize your internal links at all, because people are likely to leave it immediately (or stop trying to load it), especially those who use mobile devices. The page speed score is one of Google’s SEO ranking factors, so proper page speed optimization is a must for the better performance of your landing pages.
6. Orchestrate a great mobile user experience on your landing pages. Make your internal links thumb-friendly and easy-to-click without zooming. Starting on April 21, mobile friendliness will be officially added to Google’s ranking algorithm and, if your website is poorly optimized for mobile, don’t expect to keep high rankings. Check your landing pages now for any mobile optimization issues with the Mobile Optimization report from WebCEO. Be prepared for spring.

The post 6 SEO Tips to Improve Your Internal Links Structure and Tie Visitors to Nearly Every Page of Your Site appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Happy Halloween our dear SEOs!

All Hallow’s Eve is destined to bring a lot of frightening fun. With all those jack-o’-lanterns, trick-or-treating and dressing up in freaky costumes, being an SEO you should keep your eyes open. This year SEO Halloween is accompanied by a real SEOmbie Apocalypse. Yes, you heard me right! If you run an online business, the SEOmbie Apocalipse may come to you as well. Horrible SEOmbie monsters like a shambling Panda, a crawling Penguin, a peaky Hummingbird and a spooky Pigeon are crawling in pursuit of your site rankings’ freshness and your traffic savor. Are you equipped enough to protect your site against SEO-mbie attacks? We have prepared the SEOmbie Survival Guide for you to stay BOO-tiful and keep your site safe.

Moreover, you can use WebCEO’s Website Audit tool to fend off these ghastly creatures by keeping your site’s SEO health in top condition.

The post How to Survive the SEO-mbie Apocalypse With the WebCEO Survival Guide appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Recently, I came across an article about the supposed obsolescence of rank tracking tools. This caused me to think about the latest issues with rank checking. It is true that Google is getting more and more personalized and returns only the most relevant results based on specific algorithmic variables:

–  Personal search history of logged in users;

–  Geolocation of searchers;

–  Specific devices searches are made on;

–  Social connections weight.

An old-school one-way focus on your targeted keywords will no longer always bring your website to the top search engine positions unless you have turned back the hands of SEO time, when all you needed to do is to stuff your site with: “Click here to order pizza and get your tasty pizza delivered in 30 minutes” and so on and so forth. It was a time of spam links and exact match anchor text jungles. But Google is no longer a wild place. It is now a civil, organized and user-friendly search medium with strict rules for a better user experience. If you want to live in this new civilized world, “pay taxes” to Google in the form of relevant and quality links, relevant and useful content etc.

Yes, search has become more personalized and smart about user experiences. But now we have the Google Hummingbird Algorithm that helps understand the users’ intent. What you need is to detect all the possible search queries used by qualified searchers in order to reach your site. Google Analytics and Search Console are great at providing detailed information about the traffic to your site and your content’s performance. Website analysis is also tightly bound to some internal and external parameters, like internal links, backlinks and competitor metrics, which are not presented in Google Analytics and Search Console reports (there is an external links report in GSC).

WebCEO is a great value-added SEO platform for comprehensive website SEO analysis, including:

• Keyword Research that provides a list of terms and phrases based on Webmaster tools suggestions and selected competitors’ targeted keyword bases.
• Internal Links Optimization with an in-depth analysis of your internal site links and anchor texts.
• Backlink Quality Check with the Toxic Links clean-up reporting tool.

As for the WebCEO Rank Checker, it serves all the requirements of SEOs. It provides the opportunity to monitor site rankings from any place in the world. You can narrow keyword tracking from a country to a city level and run local rank tracking. Go to the WebCEO Rank Checking Tool in order to monitor keyword rankings on a regular basis and receive clean and awesome SEO reports on:

–  Your average rankings trend;
–  Ranking positions detailed, by page or by tag;
–  Historical ranking results;
–  Competitive rankings.
Shortly, you will be able to track rankings for mobile search results.

Real SEOs and Internet Marketing pros know that Rank Tracking is not a final goal. It is a means towards an end, which is a conversion. Stop being obsessed with your rankings, pay attention to all the aspects of your online marketing: content (not just standalone keywords) creation and distribution, link building, social media marketing, competitive metrics research and analysis etc.

The post Is Rank Checking Useless For Today’s SEO? appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

After the latest Google Hummingbird algorithm update a lot of webmasters started leaning toward creating quality and unique content that is based on customer queries. Google is getting smarter about answering questions beginning with “how…, what…, why…” etc. This is “conversational search” (semantic search). Google now understands not just the user’s words in queries but the meaning of these words. Therefore, your site’s semantic core should be concentrated on conversational long-tailed phrases and questions (“Where can I buy…,” etc).

This means in 2014 you should tie your website’s keywords with your target users’ search intentions. The most natural way to build a positive and conversational semantic core for your website is to have a great FAQ section. This would be the best place to target user generated natural queries like “How to..?” “What is?” etc.

Your website will benefit from the long tail keywords on the FAQ page, when Google gauges its relevance to user’s query.

How the FAQ Will Increase Your Conversions:

1. In your FAQ section you will answer questions that are often asked. These questions repeat users’ queries word for word. Bingo! Your FAQ page will be the most relevant for the searcher’s query, thus it’ll bring you targeted traffic. All you need do is convert.

2. Your answers on the FAQ page demonstrate to visitors how your service can help them or how you can fix their issue. Your task is to convert the visitors while they are highly engaged with catchy call-to-actions.

Tip: Suggest that they try your product within your answer. Of course your content should not look like an advertisement.

3. Link from the FAQ page to the pages where your service details are described. It is a great option to get internal links framed by topic-based content. The Hummingbird will take note of your internal links optimization.

Tip: Use the WebCEO Internal Links Optimization tool to be sure you get the most juice from your internal links and to be sure that your site theme is clear.

Now you can see how your first aid FAQ can bring benefits to your customers and to your website rank score. In other words, having multiple internal links with natural text enriched with long-tailed phrases, your FAQ page may earn high authority and attract visitors. Be certain to use it as a landing page for call-to-actions.

The post Answer User Questions Wisely: How Your FAQ Section Will Increase Conversions appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Google changes its algorithm almost every day. However, search results were affected greatly by some major updates this past year. When you know the dates of the most important updates, you can understand changes in your rankings and organic website traffic and ultimately improve search engine optimization. Let’s see how Google changed SEO in 2013:

Panda

The year started with the animal that frightened every search marketer. The Google Panda update was meant to stop sites with low quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. Websites that used scraped content were penalized by Google and disappeared from the Google search results pages. Google says it only takes a few pages of poor quality or duplicate content to hold down traffic on an otherwise solid site, and recommends such pages be removed, blocked from being indexed by the search engine, or rewritten.

Now Panda is a part of the Google algorithm. This filter makes the web a better place: good search marketers produce more high quality content and steer clear of any duplicates.

Penguin

In May, Google continued the war against low quality and rolled out a big Penguin update. This was aimed at websites with poor backlink profiles. Since then, the term ‘toxic link’ has become a search marketer nightmare. WebCEO reacted to the Google Penguin update with a great new tool that helps to clean up one’s backlink profile.

Link building will now never be the same after the Google Penguin update. Now SEOs carefully investigate who links to them and they disavow really toxic links to secure rankings.

Link Schemes document update

This was not a Google algorithm update, but it was very important. After Google updated the Link Schemes section of its Webmaster Guidelines, it’s been against Google’s rules to:

• Use guest posts for pure link building.
• Post press releases with keyword anchor text.
• Add optimized anchor texts to your forum signatures.
• Embed links in widgets distributed on multiple sites.
• Add sitewide links on multiple websites.

‘Not provided’

Late in September, Google confirmed that it would be encrypting all search data, regardless of whether a user was signed in or not. This means that now you can’t know what keywords searchers used to enter your website.

You can still view search terms at the Google Webmaster Center, but only the top 2,000 terms per day and only going back for 90 days.

Hummingbird

The Google Hummingbird update was rolled out to improve user experiences. As the number of mobile searches grew and voice search has been used more and more, Google started to pay more attention to factors such as a site’s theme, long tail keywords and structured data.

The WebCEO developer team promises to add more tools for you in 2014 and they will enhance the existing ones. Our new Internal Links Optimization tool will be available to you in late January.

The post The Most Important Google Updates of the Year and How They Changed SEO appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Since Google announced the Hummingbird update last week, we’ve had to answer to callers every day that SEO has not been killed; it’s just been changed a little. It’s high time to publish a guide explaining how you should change your SEO strategy to adapt to the new Google algorithm.

1. Optimize for long tail keywords.

Remember how you searched Google 5 years ago? It was like “choux pastry recipe.” Now search queries are much more conversational and sound like “how to cook choux pastry easily.”  Google wants to understand what the searcher’s intent is and to show the most relevant results.

All search queries may be divided into 3 major groups:

• Informational – when a searcher wants to get information on the topic of interest and the search engine should understand that no purchase is intended, only information research. For example, the query “Who wrote Sherlock Holmes” is informational.
• Navigational – when the searcher just wants to navigate to the special page of a website.
• Transactional – when a searcher needs to find special locations to perform a real world action. For example, the query “Where is the nearest Starbucks” shows that the address and navigational path is needed.

What should you do?

Try to detect all conversational phrases your prospects may be using. Use the old Google Analytics reports (that were created before Google moved to encrypted search) and research what sentences searchers used to find your site. Try to target the most common search phrases on your web pages.

2. Make your website’s theme obvious.

It’s no secret that search engines want to understand the theme of the website and try to figure the semantic field your site is in. That’s why Google may show search results not only for the exact phrase the searcher typed in, but for other theme-related terms. This means you can get additional search engine exposure for the synonyms of your target keywords.

What should you do?

Research the synonyms of your targeted keywords and use them more. First of all start with the keywords the users are already using to get to your website. You can use the ‘Suggestions from Analytics’ report of the WebCEO Online Keyword Tool.

3. Mark you pages with structured data.

The easiest way for search engines to understand the theme of your website is to listen to what you tell them with meta data. That is why Google pays attention to the structured data. Marking pages with the structured data helps you build author rank, get extra exposure in Google’s Knowledge graph and get more info displayed from rich snippets.

What should you do?

Help Google to understand your website better – use the Google Structured Data Markup Helper to generate HTML code with microdata markup included; and Google’s Rich Snippet testing tool to preview your rich snippet.

4. Be where your competitors are.

Hummingbird uses all signals to understand the theme of a website so it can understand a searcher’s intent and show the most relevant results. One more way to discover what a site is about is to see who it is mentioned with. This is why it is now more important than ever for you to be seen in lists with your competitors. You should be sure to at least leave a comment about your company in articles about similar companies, if this is at all appropriate  But even better advice follows.

What should you do?

Use the WebCEO Competitor Backlink Spy to see who links to your competition. Try to get links from those resources too. Keep in mind that anchor texts also help search engines to better understand what your site is about. Use the WebCEO Backlink Quality Checker Tool to investigate what anchor texts are used in your backlinks. You can then diversify this if necessary and possible.

5. Remember about Google Universal Search results (Google Places, Google Images, etc).

We think Google will pay more attention to “Universal Search” and show blended results more often (such as Google Shopping, Google Places, Google Images and Organic results all on the first page). Google will now better understand the intent of searchers and, for instance,  for those asking about the nearest gym in New York, Google will return more local results that feature local addresses.

What should you do?

Check what blended results are already shown for your targeted keywords and get ready to outrank your competition.  If your services or products are local, consider local search optimization. Create videos and optimize them for YouTube, optimize your images to get into Goggle Image search.

If local search is important to you, be sure to display your physical address and phone number and email address more. Do not worry about spammers scraping that information. Do not worry that your office isn’t so presentable for visitors. The Hummingbird is searching for such local nectar.

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