Websites with fresh content added on a regular basis are given more authority, and rank higher in the search results. Fresh content tells Google you are maintaining your website. In the early days of SEO, it was the quantity, not quality of links that mattered. “Link building” consisted of mass spamming and buying of links, online directory submissions, building bad links, mass commenting on sites and blogs and using automated link bait. If you're a relatively new blog & would be willing to write a blog post for the sake of getting one solid, contextual link, then blog carnivals are a no brainer. Basically, blog carnivals are a blog community that writes about certain topics as a group. These posts then get linked to from an issue, kind of like a magazine. In 2012, Google began to penalise any site found with bad backlinks and alongside this, it can ban your business from Google Adsense. This means that anyone with links gained unethically through black hat SEO tactics, for example, paid link building, overuse of affiliate links and duplicate content to get to the top of Google, now find themselves faced with a penalty.

Today’s consumers want it all

Good link earning begins with quality content that provides value to your potential customers. While content that is poorly written and was only intended to get links will get a website penalized, great content that people want to read will naturally encourage those people to link to it. From a usability point of view, it makes sense to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly as over 56% of all traffic now comes from mobile devices. This means that if you want to keep those users engaged then you need a mobile-friendly website. As we spend more time on our mobile devices, it is becoming more integral that websites cater to the mobile-user. This is becoming known as mobile first. In fact, mobile friendliness has now been confirmed by Google as a ranking factor for searches, making it a vital component for your SEO strategy. Excessive link exchange ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking will negatively impact a website’s ranking in search results.

Meaty meta descriptions

The best key phrases would automatically fall into place naturally, as you write the article. And that’s what Google is looking for. The pages have to create unique enough value that they can be distinguished from other similar pages by the search engines. Lacking that intrinsic value, they will have to be distinguished by inbound linkage. 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. Because there has been quite some news about Google’s Penguin update and before that its Panda update, people are blaming those.

Frequently Update Content/Blogs

Linking out is huge. Don't be a link hoard; you're going to create content, so use it to gain favor with other people. I'll go more into depth below with specific tactics on linking out, but in general, you only have something to gain when you’re linking out. Either a piece of content can help your website’s search engine rankings or it can hurt your rankings. If you’re a business, it may be a good idea to start a blog on your website. Not only will this keep your site up-to-date with fresh content and encourage repeat visits (and increase the frequency of search engine crawlers), but also show that you’re a relevant, trustworthy business. According to Gaz Hall, a UK SEO Consultant : "When a search query is being typed, the search engine looks in its index, even while it is being entered, for the most relevant information and displays the results in the SERPs. The results are then sorted by relevance."

SEO is the most important thing you can do for your website – especially if you're a small business

The intent of web users searching on their mobile devices will be different from the intent of those searching the web on their desktop. The same SERP principle applies. Most mobile web browsers are looking for something fast, such as where to get something, directions to a place, how to fix something or how to get a hold of someone. Google’s SERPs for them will be different from someone searching the web on their desktop. To offer the best possible results, search engines must attempt to discover all the public pages on the World Wide Web and then present the ones that best match up with the user’s search query. Write good content that people not only want to read, but that they will comment on and share via social media. Share your content on your company’s social media channels and other online properties. Get creative and repurpose your content into different formats like videos, slide presentations, etc. Most companies use SEO to increase website traffic, which in turn, increases revenue.