Building your Google Authority with Backlinks

 

Why are backlinks important?

A backlink is a link from one website to another—a “link back” to a site. Search engines like Google use backlinks as a ranking signal because when one website links to another, it means they believe the content is noteworthy. 

It’s all part of building Google authority

Remember that old thing about the more times your name appears in the online space, the more likely you’ll show up in search? While that has certainly evolved, the basic premise remains true. High-quality backlinks help increase your site’s ranking and visibility in search engine results.

How do backlinks work?

Backlinks play an important role in search engine algorithm, SEO, and your overall strategy for growing your website’s traffic. Think of backlinks as conversations between websites. Let’s say that Olivia is a landscape designer who writes about winter gardening in her popular blog. Michael is a master gardener who owns a nursery and has a blog with a large following. He links to Olivia’s article on his blog. 

Because both of these blogs have large followings and authority, others will link back to these articles. This is how backlinks are built. These are the third-party links that you want—not the one-on-one links where you and I trade links. 

There are two types of backlinks

• A Nofollow tag tells search engines to ignore a link. They don’t pass any value from one site to another. These links will not improve your search rank or visibility.
• Dofollow links are what we all want. They come from respected sites, hold the most value and will improve your search engine (Google) rankings. A link from The New York Times has significantly more value than a link from your small community paper. 

Building backlinks to your site takes time and effort. If someone promises to help you show up on page one of Google, be suspicious. It doesn’t just happen. 

Here are five ways to start building quality backlinks for your website

1.     Add links back to your site from your social media profiles.

2.     Do a Google search for a post that’s already ranking well and then improve and expand it.

3.     Create list posts, “how-to” posts, “why” posts, infographics, or posts with embedded videos. These formats usually get more backlinks than standard posts.

4.     Write guides or how-to articles–comprehensive posts containing several thousand words.

5.     Look for guest posts on other blogs and websites. Opportunities are numerous. Every company providing products and services has a website. They generally have a blog because they need content, and they’re happy to have guest posts. They generally require at least 1,500 words and have stringent requirements. To find these opportunities, Google your industry, then something like “guest post opportunities” or “write guest posts”, etc. This is a project, not a one-off. It’s time-consuming and takes a commitment. There’s a big difference between a 1,500-2,000-word and a 500-word article, but it’s worth the effort.

Questions? Ask me about improving your Google ranking! 

We help businesses optimize their websites and show up in search. Contact Being Top of Mind. We’re writers, SEO and digital media specialists.

Want to Show Up in Search? Follow This SEO Checklist

Good content developers have learned to write both for people and search engines, using solid data to reach their audiences. 

But search engines have gotten a lot smarter. They’ve moved beyond individual keywords—they’ve learned to understand context. But writers still need to understand and deploy sound search engine optimization (SEO) principles. Apply this SEO checklist to every blog and landing page. 

Optimizing website content

To help your website show up in search engines, you need to optimize both content and select HTML source code. This includes page titles, metadescriptions, image alt-text, internal links, anchor text, URLs, etc.

The following checklist identifies those things you will need to address for every web page and blog. 

1. Metatitle. This is distinct from the headline on the page’s headline. It acts as a name tag for the web page.
   • It should in a keyword.
   • Maximum length: 50-60 characters.
   • Use your brand name. 
   • Use numbers, if appropriate.
   • Use how, what, why.
   • Provide useful info/create sense of urgency.

2. URL: This is what will show up in the page’s information bar. It’s important because search engines will be looking for this.

• Limit to 3-5 words.
• Include keywords.
• Try to avoid duplicating metadescriptions.

3. Blogpost. Search engines love fresh content, and writing and posting blogs are the best ways to keep your site updated with new content. 

• Use H tags for titles and subtitles: H1, H2 and H3.
• Add buttons and links to your social sites. 

4. Images: Label every image. Include name of your company and image description.

• Use alt tags: Include your company name plus description of the image.
• Use the correct size image for designated space—make sure images are not too big or your site will not load. Recommended sizes: 1500-2500 pixels. Those images you take with your smartphone? They’re generally huge files. If you plan to use these, resize them before uploading to your website.
• Each page should have an image. A carefully chosen, highly relevant image will enhance your story and provide visual texture. 

5. Body. Long-form content helps your site show up in search engines. Google needs words to rank. Think 1,000+ words. At the very minimum, 300 words. Frontload your content, with the most important information in the first paragraph. 

6. Keywords. Use Google’s keyword tool or others. Key in search phrases and see what words/phrases people are using to search for your term. Look for those with low-medium competition and bid price.

• Forget keyword stuffing. Good content is nonnegotiable. Use your target keywords in the first 100-150 words.
• Use semantically related words throughout body of content.

7. Internal Linking strategy. Create internal links among pages where there is a relationship. It encourages readers to stay on your site, drilling down through relevant pages.

8. Webpages:

• Check page-load time—if it takes too long, check image sizes. 
• Make sure your site is built with responsive design, adapting across devices.
• Avoid duplicate content. 

Do you need help optimizing your website? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts. 

A Lot to Love in BERT, Google’s New Algorithm Change

Say hello to BERT, Google’s new algorithm change. It’s based on context, and this time, it’s something we may like. I Google everything, so I’m looking forward to this. 

Here’s how Google’s algorithm change is going to work

Currently, Google’s algorithm treats a search string as a bag of words. Google picks out what it considers to be the important words from that string and delivers the results to you on a search engine results page (SERP). In this question, “Who is a great keynote speaker?” “keynote” and “speaker” are more important than “is” and “a.” But eliminating “is” eliminates context. In this sentence, it’s irrelevant. 

Examples of how the algorithm change affects search results 

• “Parking on a hill with no curb.” The old algorithm discarded “no,” in its search and delivered results that referenced how to park on a hill with curbs. The new algorithm recognizes that  “no” plays a critical role in the meaning of this search and delivers results showing how to park uphill or downhill with no curb.
• “2019 Brazil traveler to USA need a visa.” In the past, Google ignored “to” and returned results on U.S. citizens traveling to Brazil. But “to” clearly matters, and Google picks up the difference, returning results for Brazilian travelers to the U.S.

BERT is short for “bidirectional encoder representations from transformers.” It uses artificial intelligence and a motherload of a dataset to deliver better contextual results. More simply, it better understands what you’re actually looking for when you enter a search query.

BERT: The most positive change in five years

Google cautions us to keep in mind that only some search queries will be affected by the algorithm changes. Determining how the algorithm works is still something of a mystery, even to rockstar SEO pros. According to Pandu Nayak, Google VP of research, “This is the single biggest … most positive change we’ve had in the last five years and perhaps one of the biggest since the beginning.”

You should be watching your website closely for any changes to your search rankings and spend some time analyzing keyword context, especially if you try to rank well for longer-tail keyword strings. If your search traffic remains stable but conversion rates dip, that’s a sign at least portion of the traffic isn’t interested in what you provide.

Keep creating good content and providing value

Finally, if you give up and decide that it’s impossible to truly optimize for BERT, keep creating content for people, not search engines. Keep it crisp and clear. Use short sentences that a fifth-grader can understand. Be smart. Be funny. Provide information that helps people do their jobs.

Kudos to Google

BERT is a step in their effort to understand what people want when they search. The more you deliver what people want, the more likely you are to rank high in search results. And really, isn’t that what we all want? 

Planning a new website or marketing efforts for 2020? 

Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and digital marketing experts. 

Mobilegeddon 2017: What You Need to Know

If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you know about Google’s heavy-handed 2015 algorithm change that assigned preferential search results for mobile sites. While Google rolls out something like 500 algorithm changes/year, this was a big one with important consequences for business owners and their (mobile) websites. What this really meant was that Google assigned favored results for mobile sites, punishing those whose websites didn’t translate to mobile devices. (I know—it doesn’t really seem fair that someone should have this much power, but that’s another discussion!)

How do you know if a site is mobile friendly?

If you find yourself having to scroll, click and fool around trying to read a site on your phone, it’s not mobile-friendly. That site is not meeting the design specs for universal, or responsive design, which means that a site will adapt to all devices—desktop, tablet and phone. All of this is, of course, in response to the overwhelming growth of users who access everything from their phones, which is now more than 60%.

A scramble to become mobile-friendly

The result? A mad scrambling to convert sites to mobile. In many cases, businesses are able to do some workarounds rather than having to create a whole new website, which is always a major undertaking. I’ve worked on quite a few WordPress conversion projects where we were able to salvage the old site to make it mobile-friendly rather than start from scratch and build a whole new website. A big savings in terms of time and money.

So what’s been going on since 2015’s Mobilegeddon? 

Google is rolling out a mobile-first index that’s being called Mobilegeddon 2017. As was the case with the first Mobilegeddon, your site effectiveness and search results will be affected unless you are prepared.

Look out for Mobilegeddon 2017: A mobile-first strategy

Mobilegeddon 2017 is Google’s new mobile-first index . Google is changing their index of web pages from desktop pages to mobile pages. No longer will a user get served up two different experiences.

Why does Mobilegeddon 2017 matter?

As with the algorithm change in 2015, If you don’t optimize your website for mobile, your audience won’t find you unless they stay on their mobile devices. The organic traffic on your website will nosedive. Your site will not show up in search results as well as on those that are optimized for mobile.

Adapting to or preparing for Mobilegeddon 2017

So. Does your website meet Google’s ever-changing algorithms? Copy and paste your url into Google’s Mobile Testing Tool website for a quick analysis. You’ll get three ratings: one for overall mobile-friendliness, one for the loading speed on mobile and one for desktop. While the mobile-friendly ranking is most important, the loading-speed time is important as well. Users these days are impatient, with short attention spans. If your site takes too long to load, your audience well may give up and go elsewhere.

Failed the Mobile-Friendly Test?

If you failed the test, it’s time for a new website that meets the global standards for responsive design—a website that translates across devices. For many business owners, this may finally be the impetus they need to stop procrastinating and create a new website.

The reality: A website has a shelf life

Styles have changed—they’re simpler and more streamlined. Chances are your content doesn’t reflect the business as you know it today and your images are outdated. Look at this as an opportunity to create an important new marketing tool for your business.

Are you ready for Mobilegeddon 2017? Talk to Top of Mind Marketing about a new website. We’re writers and internet marketing specialists.

5 Things You Need to Know for Better SEO

1. Optimize metadata

Metadata helps organize and describe information on your site that search engines index your site. Search engine companies send programs called “spiders” out to gather information about your site and determine how to display it in the search results page (SERP). Metadata tells your users and the search engines what your site is about. If your metadata is consistent with the intended theme of your site, it increases your chances of ranking well in the search results and increases the odds of attracting qualified traffic.

There are three kinds of metadata: (1) Meta titles are the titles and subtitles on your landing pages and blogs. They should be identified with H tags—H1, H2, etc. (2) Metadescriptions are the 160 character descriptions that you identify on the backend that encapsulate the message of each landing page. A good way to think about a metadescription is that it’s like a little classified ad. It shows up on your SERP, and it helps promote each webpage. (3) Meta keywords aren’t visible to visitors, but they tell search engine spiders those keywords for which your site is optimized.

2. Page speed

No surprise here. Everybody’s in a hurry these days, and more than 60% of users are accessing everything from their phones, which can be challenging. As a result, web design has adapted and gotten simpler and more streamlined. Simpler code, design and navigation. If your site is taking too long to load, you’re going to lose your audience before they even get a chance to land on your homepage. Google has an easy page speed measurement tool that give you a quick analysis and recommendations for increasing your speed.

3. Duplicate content

Duplicate content is content that appears on the web in multiple locations. It could be content that you’ve repurposed on several pages on your own site—an easy thing to do, after all—the page that’s about the company and the one about you as a business owner could be duplicative in some places. But Google hates this—take the time to modify it.

Duplicate content confuses the search engines

If you’ve stolen content from someone else, that’s another example of duplicate content that Google dislikes. Search engines have to choose one or the other page to return for a query, so they are forced to evaluate which version or form is more credible/meaningful to that user who’s searching. A question comes up about content curation—what if you’re curating, or borrowing great content from another source, giving credit to the author, of course. I’ve begun curating content when I find something that I really like. But I never just copy and paste it into my blog and identify the author. I personalize this with an intro and a conclusion. Explain why this is a great article—the reasons for its insights and relevance.

4. Relevant content

Search engines have become more sophisticated. You can’t fool them anymore by keyword stuffing or filling up a page with nonsense just to create mass. (To rank well in search engines, we recommend landing pages and blogs be 300 words or more.) Google is increasingly intuitive; it seeks out high-quality landing pages, blog articles, videos, infographics, guest articles, forums, etc. Good content has become nonnegotiable.

5. Internal links

Create an internal linking strategy. When you post a blog or new landing page, spend another 10-15 minutes and create internal links—link key words or phrases to related blogs or landing pages. Use one relevant internal link for every 400 words. Internal links help encourage drilldown–people will click on the links and stay longer on your site.

6. Social sharing

If you’re not distributing your blogs and other relevant content across your social media network, you’re missing important opportunities to build your online presence. It just takes a few minutes to log in to your social sites and post a headline or brief description with a link back to your site to drive traffic. Do include an image—the chances of someone’s engaging with your post increases dramatically with a relevant image.

Are you thinking about optimizing your website to increase its SEO value? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re internet marketing experts.