To understand SEO, you need to understand search engines. A search engine is a piece of software that crawls the internet and indexes its pages in order to provide the best website recommendations based on a user's search query. And they use complex, ever-changing algorithms to do that. HTTPS secures the connection to the website you are visiting. I’m sure you have seen this in action; look at the address bar in the browser and find the lock icon on the left-hand side. Is the lock closed? Then the connection is secure. Backlinks are a vote of confidence that someone outside of your own web property trusts your content and believes it has value. Google weighs up each of these links and assigns the linked-to webpage its own value. In the world of SEO, there is speculation that Google’s indexer will only give a certain document credit for having a given word in its title if that word appears in the first 12 words of the title tag.

Don't “only” concentrate on Google

Mobile friendliness is an important ranking factor for search rankings. More and more users are using their mobile devices to surf the internet. In some areas, over 70% of users visit websites on mobile. What does this mean for you? Every sitepage should be optmized for mobile. Every. Single. One. Work with Google to provide your users with the most relevant, well-informed and entertaining answers to their questions. Prove that you are trustworthy by connecting as closely as possible to high authority sites. Links and content are certainly at the top of your SEO strategy. However, Google identified CTR and user experience as major ranking factors. Increasing one will certainly increase the other as well. After the emergence of major updates, like Panda and Penguin, search optimizers have thrown around the term “penalty” to scare SEO novices into thinking that one simple mistake could instantly tank their site’s rankings.

Do the split testing method

A strong linking structure and other internal SEO best practices can provide that. Search engines are not impressed by a vast vocabulary; they want you to be consistent throughout the article. While it is possible to use SEO on the same pages over and over, you’ll find that it’s a lot more effective when it’s pulling all this new content under its wings, tying it all together, and pushing it all up the search engine rankings. In the eyes of Google, you’ll earn a higher authority by having a better-functioning site, such as one that’s optimized for mobile devices, loads quickly, and has an optimized internal navigation structure.

Get free SEO tips

You can find valuable data using Google Search Console (formerly called Webmaster Tools). ​This free service from Google gives website owners a wealth of information about their own sites (especially with Google Analytics set up, too). Acquiring new and relevant links can be tricky, but it can be one of your most important SEO goals. Earning those premium links takes a lot of work and it’s worth it. Many small business owners balk at video marketing because they think that their business isn’t “video worthy”. But if lawyers and instant coffee brands can have a YouTube channel there’s no reason you can’t either. Even better than the traffic you get from video websites are the high-quality backlinks from high PageRank authority websites. Gaz Hall, a Freelance SEO Consultant, commented: "Many businesses assume that they don’t need to worry about keyword research. They think they know what terms people use to find what they sell, and they also assume that Google understands the content on their website. This is incorrect on all counts."

Utilize testimonials from customers

Using social media for your business has numerous benefits, but it’s never been more important for SEO than today. Search engines are measuring social signals such as likes, favorites, shares, retweets and +1s to determine valuable, search-worthy results. According to experts, we should expect high-quality social media posts to rise higher and higher in search results. To avoid spreading yourself too thin, consider focusing a majority of your social efforts on two platforms, or hiring a part-time social media expert. Understanding the current health of your website from an SEO perspective is crucial to the beginning of every SEO campaign. Relevance is the key issue when choosing the right keywords. Keep in mind that the more specific and niche the keywords, the better. Google is a very smart company. The sophistication of the algorithms they write is incredible; bear in mind that there are currently cars driving themselves around Silicon Valley powered by Google’s algorithms.