Search volume refers to how many times a particular phrase is searched for. It’s a handy way to gauge how much traffic you’ll receive from a specific query, though you should know that volume tends to fluctuate over time. For SEO purposes, you should definitely monitor the click through rates of different pages. You should be able to see the rates of specific pages on your website in Google Search Console. Webmasters used to do everything traditionally from on-page optimization to off-page optimization such as emailing fellow webmasters to exchange links. Technology and software development has made it much easier for SEO and positioning websites using search engine optimization tools. Reviews are an important factor for SEO. They help potential customers trying to decide whether to trust you. If your local business has a Google+ page and is marked on Google Maps, you need to have reviews. The best thing you can do is encourage your customers to leave reviews if they’re satisfied with your service. Try offering them an incentive, such as a small discount if they click on a link and leave a review.

Ensure every piece of content you write concludes with a call to action

The natural growth of a Website’s backlink profile is a strong indication of the true competitive quality of the site’s content. Most Websites never earn very many links. Search engines understand this and award those sites with appropriate traffic based on other signals used by their algorithms. Sites that aren’t optimized for user intent and mobile SEO will fail. Tags are intended to give search engines a method of understanding the site’s architecture. Google will compare a page’s title tag to content on the page to check for keyword consistency, which means you need to be attentive when optimizing SEO. The truth is that links are still the most important component of the search algorithm. No matter how useful its content may be, a site without links is far less likely to rank highly in organic search results.

Why Links Still Rule the Roost

There are plenty of business owners whose websites haven’t been updated in years who are being left behind by major shifts in digital marketing. You don’t want to be one of those people. In the long run, not changing with the times hurts your business. Most of the “solid information” and “powerful strategies” on internal linking are little more than sophisticated-sounding prognostication. Still, there’s some merit to theorizing about how Google ranks and values the internal network of linking. Hopefully your website is laid out in a way that allows users to easily find the content or pages that you want to promote. For brands that can’t afford a full-service SEO agency, the mention of the word “link building” is enough to make them flinch.

Strategic Thinking and Tactics for SEO

Any SEO pro will tell you that every day brings something new in the world of search engine optimization. While we spend our careers focused on the next big trends in search engines, as a business owner that’s not always in your best interest. Spending time chasing a tiny SEO detail instead of conducting a full-scale SEO website review can take valuable resources away from more important parts of your business. We know that we need links because the value is there – direct and indirect – and every study or research piece published about SEO says that links are still important. It’s also still worth pursing Wikipedia links when appropriate. Wikipedia is very picky about their references, so you’ll have to provide very niche, unique content, but if you can get a link it can bring about some pretty cool results – including other do follow links. We asked an SEO Specialist, Gaz Hall, for his thoughts on the matter: " SEO’s need to have the skill and experience to help the client develop a social media strategy, deliver training and support, create policies and processes and ensure their clients up-skill accordingly so that social media contributes to the wider commercial objectives of the client not just the SEO objectives of the agency."

SEO for Raw Traffic

Don't use any shady tactics that will get you into hot water like sneaky redirects, content cloaking, and so on. To prove your value and make the most of your SEO knowledge, you need to sell management on the idea of investing in it. If you are designing your website yourself and mess up the coding in your website, Google spiders won’t be able to read your site efficiently and this can hurt your rankings significantly. Google prefers fresh content. An older page that’s regularly updated may outperform a newer page.