Thankfully there are tons of free ways you can check different SEO attributes and rankings which can save you both time and money. Here are some of our favourites at Rad websites.

1) Small SEO Tools (Free)

This site is one of the best Free SEO Tools out there because it has all types of free tools you can use in order to do keyword research, site analysis and even check your competition. A part from Google’s own tools, this is probably the best you can get without entering in your credit card information. While you can’t go as deep as some of the paid tools, Small SEO Tools is great for people who want to be able to fix some of the more common SEO issues without spending a ton of time and effort.

How To Use This Tool

Enter your website into any of the offered tools but I would recommend start with the SEO website checker, especially if you’re looking for some quick SEO wins. This tool will give you an idea of how you score and how you stack up against your competition. You can then dive deeper using some of the other tools.

2) Google Analytics (Free)

This is the tool you must definitely use on a weekly basis, even if you don’t really care about SEO. Google Analytics tracks all your traffic to your website and you can analysis which marketing channels are working and which aren’t. You can see what pages your clients are most gravitating towards and which ones need improvements.

How to Use This Tool

You need to sign in to your Analytics account to start using this tool. Once you have added your website, navigate to the Tracking code under the property column and copy the code. Paste the tracking code in your SEO plugin. We recommend either Yoast or All In One SEO.

You should get verification that you’ve done this correctly. It will take a little time to get used to navigating Google Analytics as there are so many different options and customizable features but once you do, you’ll see the power of it.

3) Google PageSpeed Insights (Free)

Google PageSpeed Insights is a tool that checks the speed of your site and provides suggestions to how to improve it. Page loading speed is one of the most important elements of a website. Better site speed leads to increased user satisfaction and higher rankings.

How to Use This Tool

Enter your website URL, click the “analyze” button, and the tool will automatically check the speed and overall user experience of your site and provide a score – for both desktop and mobile. You need to opt for a score above 90 to offer your users a better site experience and to increase your chances of ranking higher in the search results.

4) Google Search Console (Free)

Formally Google Webmaster, this is yet another Google tool that allows you to search for errors on your website that could potentially harm your SEO score. Primarily it allows you to check and submit a sitemap which is the overall architecture that Google views your site in.

How To Use This Tool

You’ll have to sign into your Google Search Console or create a new account if you don’t have one already. Once you are in you’re account you’ll have to attach it to your website. You can do this in a variety of ways including through domain access, your website code or a website plugin. Once you have hooked your website up, you’ll able to navigate with the bar on the left-hand site which will give you a variety of options.

5) Mobile-Friendly Test (Free)

Mobile-Friendly Test is a free tool that lets you check the responsiveness of your website on a mobile device. With Google’s emphasis on mobile-first search queries on mobile devices are at least 50% in your industry — and in many cases more. Therefore it’s important to optimize your site for mobile devices.

How to Use This Tool

Enter the URL of the site that you wish to test and then click the “run test” button. In just a few seconds, you will know if your website is mobile-friendly or not.

6) Ahrefs Backlink Checker (Freemium)

Ahrefs offers a free back-link checker that allows you to check the top 100 links pointing to any website. Back-links are important because they are one of the ways Google checks to see how popular your website is and whether the website provides useful information.

How to Use This Tool

Enter the URL that you want to analyze and the tool will not only show you your domain rating score.

7) Keyword.io (Free)

Keyword research is undoubtedly one of the most fundamental tasks that every SEO specialist needs to perform, but researching is a time-consuming process without access to the best tools. Keyword.io is an easy and free alternative to Google’s Keyword Planner and it offers lots of relevant keyword suggestions for every type of research.

How to Use This Tool

Enter your main keyword in the search box, click on the desired search engine or platform, and then select the targeted country from the drop-down list. Once you press search, a variety of options will appear.

8) Moz Local (Free)

Moz has a free tool called Moz Local which is great for local businesses that want to be found within a particular neighborhood. Moz Local offers a comprehensive view of a website’s profile and web presence. By analyzing the most popular online directory’s, it gives a score on how well you rank and where you can improve. A great thing about this tool is that you don’t need a paid Moz account in order to use it.

How to Use This Tool

Enter the company’s name and street address and click search. It will take up to 30 seconds to analyze and will display where that company is indexed and where you could add it for improved search results. It is particularly useful to create links from sites like Yelp, Facebook, and Foursquare which will increase your domain authority.

So, these are the best free SEO Tools, that you can use and get better website ranking on Search Engines. If you need our SEO Experts Help, Feel free to Contact Us.

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Myth #1 Link Building.

When Penguin 2.0 was released in 2013, it changed a lot of how ranking was done. In the past, building as many links as possible without analyzing the linking domain was how SEO typically worked. This practice was known as link stuffing, and by doing this, your website would rank higher on Google. Building links is still a very important part of SEO, however you need relevant links that actually are important to your reader.

Nowadays, it is important to focus on the quality of links you are obtaining, rather than the quantity. Sometimes less can be more if you know how exactly to build links the proper way.

Too often, when businesses hire someone to do link building, they focus on the quantity of links rather than their quality. But linking is not a numbers game anymore. You should focus on having relevant and diverse sources that link to relevant pages. Remember Google wants your content and information to be useful. If the links are useless and don’t add any value then your page will be devalued.

Myth #2 Keywords and Meta Tags

Meta descriptions are coding attributes that concisely explain the contents of web pages. In other words, they are keywords. SEO experts use them to help categorize your website and different web pages. You’ve probably seen them before on Google’s search engine results pages where they’re commonly used as page previews.

In 2009, Google announced that meta descriptions and keywords didn’t have bearing on search engine ranking. That’s not to say that these descriptions aren’t important for SEO, though.

On the contrary, in fact: Meta descriptions present a major opportunity to separate yourself from your competition and convince searchers that your page is worth navigating to.

In fact, last year Google announced that it would be increasing the length of meta descriptions to allow for more descriptive snippets.

Myth #3 Home Page Content

Have you ever come across a homepage filled with paragraphs and paragraphs of writing? A lot of people believe that the more writing you have on your homepage the better.

However, your homepage content should be long enough to clarify who you are, what you do, where you’re located, your value proposition, and what visitors should do next. If you can do all that in less words the better. Visitors should leave satisfied, not overwhelmed or underwhelmed – and certainly not confused. So, this is also one of the important SEO Myths, that you have to know.

Myth #4 Local Content

If you’re a local business, optimizing for local search won’t only help you get found, but it will help you get found by people who are nearby and more likely to buy from you, aka your ideal customers.

Google believes, (correctly for the most part) people want to find answers, things, or people that are local. A hairdresser in New Jersey is no good to you if you live in San Francisco. And because SEO search ranking is becoming that much more cutthroat, local is that much more important. Looking forward, Google will continue to take steps to curate the best local content to the surface of search results.

So, these are the SEO Myths you have to follow while creating your website. If you need some help determining the best SEO strategy for your business, talk to one of our strategists at Rad Websites. We’ll guide you through the difficulty help you define the best course of action going forward and create a plan that is sustainable and effective.

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1. Keyword Stuffing

This one is the most obvious on the list of SEO Tactics. “Keyword stuffing” refers to the practice of loading a webpage with too many irrelevant keywords so your content doesn’t make any sense. These keywords appear in a list or group, out of context, or repeated an inadequate number of times in an attempt to appear relevant to search engines.

What To Do Instead:

While mindlessly stuffing your content with keywords won’t do you any good, you can still take search engines into account and optimize your content effectively When analyzing your content for the intent behind it.

2. Creating Low Quality Content

Getting low quality content written in India for five or ten dollars isn’t going to cut it anymore. Nobody wants to read useless content and as a result Google will downgrade it. Writing high-quality articles for your website takes loads of time, money and effort.

What To Do Instead:

Check your website for low-quality content straight away, as it might be affecting your rankings. It’s better if you write fewer articles but of higher quality. Also consider writing longer articles with plenty of amazing graphics and infographics.

3. Creating Irrelevant Guest Posts

Since the early days of SEO, there has been loads of buzz around guest posting. People used to guest blog no matter how relevant the blog was or not. Guest blogging is not okay if you’re doing it solely for link building and is irrelevant. Google will sniff out irrelevant guest blogs and degrade your site.

What To Do Instead:

If most of known link building techniques are harmful and dangerous, what is there left to do in terms of improving your rankings with links? First you might have to remove some links for your rankings to go up. Second build links that actually add value to the viewer and give him or her more information on what they are seeking.

4. Heavily Using Anchor Text On Internal Links

An internal link is a link that points to another page on the same website. An anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink that often appears in blue.
Using internal links is essentially good for both the user and the search engines. It’s helpful because it allows the user to navigate a website and easily find the information for which they came to this website.

What To Do Instead:

The critical thing about internal linking is that your site structure should be shallow and logical, so focus on that instead of keyword-stuffing your links. Ideally, you should keep all your important pages not more than 3 clicks away from the homepage.

5. Creating Pages For Each Keyword Variation

Creating pages for each keyword variation was a tactic used years ago, when keywords, not intent, dominated the Google’s indexing methods. You’d want to have the maximum capacity to target each possible keyword individually.

What To Do Instead:

Throw your effort into creating well-structured, informative, and visually appealing landing pages for your products and services. Fit your keywords in a natural way into your content, headline, title. Here’re you can find the guide on how to build perfectly optimized landing pages.

Conclusion

Are you guilty of any of these SEO tactics? If you are that’s okay, most of us are. But it’s important to get updated on the latest tactics and stay in tune with Google. Google doesn’t tell you exactly how to increase rankings but they do give you important clues in what to do and what not to do.

Please reach out, we are happy to guide you through the entire process. The entire team here at Rad Websites wants to help make you stand out and be RAD!

The post 5 Old School SEO Tactics That Don’t Work Anymore appeared first on Responsive. Award-Winning. Dynamic. RAD. Canada's Best.

If you are searching for a unique method that’s different than an ordinary blog to build backlinks from authoritative domains, infographics might be the solution for you.

What Makes Up A Good Infographic?

While there’s no secret formula to make a good infographic, there are some key aspects all share. These are three common elements good infographics all have:

1. If your infographic has an eye-catching and amazing design, you can get people to stop scrolling and pay attention.
2. A good infographic has to give useful and researched statistical data about an interesting topic.
3. Just like other content, simply by publishing your infograph, you won’t have much success unless you do your best to promote it on social media or through email.

Encourage Sharing of Your Infographics

Creating an infographic is just half the battle. Next you need to start promoting it. An easy way to do this if you make it easy to share your Infographics through social media platforms. You should provide social media sharing icons over your Infographics. So, if a reader holds the mouse over the Infographics, he or she is able is able to share it with one click.

Submit to Social Bookmarking Sites

The importance of Social Bookmarking Sites in the promotion of Infographics cannot be undermined. Sites such as Reddit, Quora, Stumbleupon, and Digg, and are popular visits with millions of daily users. Submission on such sites exposes your Infographics to a large audience and greaten the chance your infographic will go viral. They can like, vote, and share your Infographics.

Submit to Infographics Directories

You didn’t think these existed, did you? Submission on Infographics Directories can provide good backlinks for your website. A good example is Infographic Post which is a very authoritative Infographics directory site. It’s a very popular site, and you are likely to get a large number of views and shares for your Infographics once you submit on this site. While some of them require you to register, most of these sites are free to submit.

Email Popular Bloggers

You can promote your Infographics by emailing to bloggers who have active followers and publish on a regular schedule. If your Infographics is done brilliantly and interests other bloggers, they are likely to write about your Infographics and give backlink to your website.

Create an Embed Code for your Infographics

While this is somewhat technical, it’s a good technique to help spread the word. Once you have published your infographic on your website and shared it across your social media platforms, the next thing you need to do is to create an embed code for your Infographics.
It is a simple HTML code that boggers and others can use for easily sharing your Infographics. They simply need to put the embed code on their website which automatically posts your Infographics.

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What is Google My Business?

Google My Business helps business owners manage their business and help them rank. It is an essential tool to find out and adjust how your site shows in Google Maps, the Knowledge Graph, Google+ and organic search results.

You can manage your business listing by adding details such as opening hours, photos and keywords. In addition to that, it is possible to manage the reviews your customers leave behind.

Starting Your Google My Business Listing

Getting started with My Business is easy. You have to make an account and claim your business. Keep in mind that My Business is not the catch-all tool for your local SEO. It has to work in tandem with other SEO efforts.

For example, you won’t climb in results if your profile is inaccurate. But you also won’t reach the top without a well-optimized site and localized content.
If your business has been around for more than three years, it’s likely it already has a Google Business listing and you just need to claim it.

Once successfully claimed, you can manage the information just as if you started the Google My Business listing yourself years previous.

Verifying Your Google My Business Listing

Once you have submitted your business information, hours, and other service area, you’ll need to verify your listing.

Verification typically takes less than a week, in which Google will send you a verification code postcard that, once you receive, you verify with the enclosed code and your business will officially be live.

It’s probably easiest to verify your listing by postcard. This helps Google prevent false listings that will only misdirect users and derail the usefulness of Google Search and Maps, among other tools.

It’s important to know that Google won’t display your business until the business is verified. You also can’t access any page insights/analytical information or business reviews so watch out for that postcard.

Publishing Your Google My Business Listing

It’s important to use all resources GMB offers within its listing details to get the most out of your business locations and increase your SEO results.

Local search results favour the most relevant results for searches, and business offering the most detailed and accurate information will be easier to serve in search.

Don’t leave anything to be guessed or assumed; make sure your listing communicates with potential customers what your business does, where it is, and how they can acquire the good and/or services your business is offering.

How Customers Find Your Listing

While Google Business doesn’t have the best analytics, there are a few things you can learn from their insights.

“Direct” searches are for your business name or address versus a “Discovery” search. They searched for a category, product, or service that you offer, and your listing appeared.

Beside “Listing on Search” and “Listing on Maps,” you’ll see the number of views your listing received from each product in the timeframe you’ve selected. According to Google, “Views” are like “impressions” on other analytics platforms.

To see how many people found you on a particular product on a particular day, place your cursor over the appropriate segment of the graph on the day you’re interested in.

This part of Insights uses a map to show where people are that are requesting directions to your business.

Your business location is identified on the map and some of the most common spots that people request directions to your business from are shown. It even breaks the total number of direction requests down by city or neighbourhood.

Conclusion

It’s critical to remember Google Business is not a set it and forget it tool. Things change, your business changes and your Google Business should always reflect that. Keep everything active, monitor reviews and stay on top of things. If you have any questions about

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1. Your website isn’t showing up on search engines

This is the most obvious one and probably the one that is costing you the most business. It goes without saying, you should be easily found by search engines and ultimately your customers.
The goal of SEO is to make you rank very high for what you offer within your field. This is what makes SEO a powerhouse for a business of any size – you can easily scale your business. With SEO, it’s possible to be found as relevant by clients who never met you or your brand before. Your business can expand quickly without spending a ton of money to reach new clients using other, more traditional marketing methods.

Another thing to be aware of is a drastic loss of ranking. If you’ve read about any of the high-profile companies tumbling in Google rankings, you’ve probably figured out it can happen to anyone. Still, the effects can be devastating, all the more so when you don’t know the cause. Drops in ranking are a common occurrence after algorithm updates). Many websites also suddenly lose their position or are banned completely after incurring a penalty from Google, sometimes with site admin not even realizing they did anything wrong. So, this is one of the Signs You Need To Invest In Your SEO.

2. Your website is slow

This is another obvious one and just as important. Make sure your web pages and images on your site are optimized for loading speed. Amazon did a study and found that when their website loaded even a second slower than usual, they saw a drop in sales of millions of dollars. People are impatience and don’t’ want to wait
If your website isn’t performing well and you are in need of someone who just optimizes your website in such a way that all visitors find your website in a better way to understand and can quite easily navigate at your website, SEO Services is at your doorsteps.
Potential customers need to be able to find what they are looking for, and find it quickly. If someone gets ‘lost’ on your website and can’t find the information they need, they will move onto your competitors. Internal website linking is important. Having an organized and well laid out site, and menu structure is also a big part of an overall SEO strategy.

Once you add a page or post to your website, make sure to add some internal linking so that your site flows well, and also make sure that all important pages are easy to access.

3. You haven’t updated your website’s content

If your website have a blog function or updates, you need to take services of SEO. Having high quality SEO services not only improves the quality of content, but also optimize the contents based in keywords and thus in return gives you a better chance to rank high on Google.
With quality content, you can deliver your insights to the customers in a better way and can fulfill your goals to a great extent. Adding some interesting blog updates to educate your customer is a great addition, not only adding value to your customers but establishes yourself as a leader in your field.

4. Nobody can find your business in Google Maps

Google Maps is an amazing tool for businesses to get found and noticed online. With a shift toward more localized search in Google, the giant search engine has dramatically increased the importance of localized SEO.
Also, since Google grabs location data from a variety of sources, it’s possible for your business to appear in the wrong place on Google Maps. If your business isn’t showing up in the right place on Google Maps, it’s likely due to a lack of consistency in your name, address and phone number.

5. Your competitors are doing it

If you’re not showing up on Google it means your competition is doing a better job than you are.
As you’re probably well aware, the first page in a search engine means everything. In fact, in studies, it has been found that 92% of searchers don’t’ go past the first page. If you’re competition is ranking better than you, it’s definitely time to invest in some serious SEO. And gain some advantage back from them.

Conclusion

So, these are the Signs You Need To Invest In Your SEO. If you need some help determining the best SEO strategy for your business, talk to one of our strategists at Rad Websites. We’ll guide you through the difficultly help you define the best course of action going forward. And create a plan that is sustainable and effective.

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An SEO audit may not ring a bell for someone who does not consider himself a web design expert, but it is a task that anyone with basic SEO knowledge can perform. Ask anyone who knows a thing or two about how business websites should perform to succeed, and you will realize how critical a regular audit is.

A business or brand that is trying to achieve relevance through digital marketing must learn to embrace the competition. The only way to keep up is to create and run a website that brings in traffic and conversions. This is where the concept of search engine optimization comes in.

You may be able to build a website and apply an SEO strategy for it, but you do not expect your site to run on autopilot. In other words, you must have a clear understanding of how your website is performing based on the SEO strategies you are using. Hence, the sole purpose of an SEO audit is to figure out how well is your business website performing.

The audit will check the health of your website with an emphasis on the presence of spam. Doing SEO audits regularly makes sense because Google has this habit of altering its algorithms in ranking websites. Simply put, you are doing it to keep up with what is new.

SEO Audit Coverage

An SEO audit is likened to that of multiple-point car inspection. It examines your website to see how it functions and performs compared to the rest of the market. The audit essentially covers the following:

1. Keyword Use – You must know if the way you are using your keywords is on point. The keywords must bee optimized for them to help in directing traffic to your site.
2. LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) – LSI defined as the context of a search. It still has something to do with keywords, specifically long tail and secondary keywords.
3. Competition – You also would want to know how you perform against the competition, especially in the aspects of links, meta tags, keywords, and overall SEO ranking.
4. Organic Search Rank – Companies that need to keep the costs down may have to reconsider their PPC strategy. If you decide to focus on your website’s organic search rankings, you need to perform an SEO audit to see your chances.

Enough of the introduction, here are the components of a comprehensive SEO audit:

1 – Site Crawl

A site crawl is the most efficient method of assessing the state of your website in its current form. It also gives you a preview of the issues that may need to be resolved sooner than later. Site crawling essentially creates an outline for the entire SEO audit.

The site crawl will cover areas like the structure of your URL, content, meta descriptions, images, links, and the structure of your website. You ask questions like how well your content is formatted and if it is fresh. Do you have a unique meta description per page? Does your website have enough links per page and do all of them work?

Furthermore, site crawling should also include the analysis of your landing page and its relationship with the inner pages. The landing page is where your site builds an initial impression, so it needs to be user-friendly and intuitive.

2 – Page Speed Analysis

Page load speed plays a critical role in keeping your site visitors motivated in browsing your site further. 60% of users will find their way out of a website when it takes more than three seconds to load. So, if your website takes too long to load pages, it will have a negative impact on conversions and will increase bounce rates. In performing an SEO audit with an emphasis on page speed, you can use a handful of free tools, including Google’s Page Speed Insights and YSlow. It is crucial to learn about your page load speed since that is the only way to figure out if there is a need to fix some elements in the design.

3 – Site Architecture Assessment

Your website needs a solid structure for it to rank high in Google. It is merely about using the right keywords and relevant content. One aspect that you should focus on is user experience, and for you to ensure that prospective clients end up liking your site, you must improve its architecture.

So, how do you improve site architecture? As you have guessed it already, you must perform an SEO audit. The audit examines things like the sitemap and URL structure. The result of the audit will also tell you if your main webpages are listed and positioned correctly and if site visitors will not have a hard time navigating through the inner pages and links.

4 – Content

Content plays an indispensable role in the effectiveness and success of your website. The failure to refresh or update content will hurt your site’s rank, so it is not merely about inserting unique and relevant information. Even if on-page content is unique and relevant, it still needs to be updated regularly since Google looks at it with a critical eye. Hence, your SEO audit should include an examination of your content.

See to it that you are using the keywords in your content naturally. It also must be consistent since the objective is to prevent being labeled as spam.

Part of examining your content is taking a closer look at the tags. Check if title tags have two salient qualities – concise and descriptive. Be reminded that extra-long titles are never a good thing for search engines.

5 – Checking the Backlinks

You probably know by now that backlinks are a crucial element of SEO. Google will grade the quality of your website based on the quality of the sites that link to it. It was prevalent back in the day to exchange reciprocal links with other websites to improve SEO. It is no longer an effective practice today, but backlinks are still relevant. This time, backlinks are more about quality instead of quantity. Therefore, you should verify in your SEO audit if the websites that links to your site come from reputable domains.

Tools for SEO Audit

Like I said at the beginning of this post, SEO audit does not have to be an overwhelming task. You can do it with the help of a tool that is readily available online. All you must do is pick the right one based on your budget and specific needs.

The first and most sensible option is Google Analytics. As someone tasked to market your brand and optimize a website, this tool is a must-have. It does not only help you by providing critical indicators of SEO metrics but will also hand out a user-friendly guide in performing SEO.

Another option is Google Webmaster Tools. It is a platform that offers a handful of reasonably priced tools needed for an SEO audit. Its most notable advantage is that you can check your website’s SEO performance based on how Google sees it. Since you are hoping to have your site ranked on top of Google, then it makes sense to use this tool.

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Following the release of Google Chrome, it became a dangerously common misconception that websites without an SSL certificate are unsafe, and should likely be avoided. Let’s read out below the importance of SSL Certificates & Website Safety.

And while this is true, we often struggle to communicate to our clients that even websites with an SSL certificate alone aren’t actually all that safe either.

SSL certificates fail to come in as a last line of defense for more complex security breaches. While your site certainly needs an SSL certificate- e-commerce or not- there are other safety protocols you have to consider if web safety is a top priority for you.

What is an SSL Certificate?

Secure sockets layer.

That’s what it stands for- a secure sockets layer.

Not a glamorous sounding addition to your website by any means, but these certificates play an important role in data encryption. They quickly became a best practice in website security, for good reason as well. SSL certificates establish an encrypted link between a web server and a browser.

If you don’t want the entire world knowing what you’re sending across the net, you sure do need an SSL certificate.

Where Did The “Not Secure” Warning Come From?

Google and Mozilla are pushing hard for webmasters and the like to adopt HTTPS.

(Don’t worry- we’ll cover HTTPS too.)

At the end of the day, the only way for these Internet mammoths to push HTTPS adoption is by flagging sites that don’t have SSL certificates.

Wait, Wait- HTTPS?

You’ll see the https extension in front of most websites these days.

The web can be a very unsafe place without proper safety protocols, and HTTPS offers the most robust combination of safety certifications to keep your website as secure as possible.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure was built off it’s older counterpart HTTP- Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

The difference between the two? HTTPS uses SSL certificates for data encryption. HTTPS makes online shopping and mobile banking possible- information passed over an HTTPS network is generally not compromised by outsiders.

HTTP speaks more to the way data is communicated between two parties over the Internet. It doesn’t necessarily address the safety of how that is done, just how it’s done in general.

HTTPS is the perfect combo of data communication and data encryption.

Google Will Flag Websites Without SSL Certificates

Rightfully so. Websites without SSL certificates aren’t secure.

Like we said, the world wide web isn’t a safe place these days and website security isn’t really optional anymore.

The proof is in the pudding. The cyber security industry is worth over 241 billion dollars and shows no sign of slowing down.

The “not secure warning” is totally legit.

But don’t assume that https websites are automatically safe- above SSL certificates, there are other security protocols your site really, really should have.

SSL certificates can’t protect a website from malware infections, viruses or the website than spreading that malware. Even the padlock in the address bar doesn’t necessarily indicate secure- it simply indicates that the info shared between that websites server and the browser is secure.

PSA- infected websites over an HTTPS network will actually continue to ensure the integrity of the malware or virus, all the way until it reaches the final victim- the websites visitors.

SSL Certificates and HTTPS Certificates STILL Don’t Equal Maximum Website Security

As easy as we would like to make this, there really is no “one size fits all” solution for website security.

Even if a website has had SSL & HTTPS forced upon it, it doesn’t actually mean the website is secure.

Without additional security measures, such as WAF (Website Application Firewall) or access controls, an HHTPS site can still be hacked and be dangerous to visitors. Data encryption is vital, yes, but it’s only piece of the web security puzzle.

You need to look at website security as a strategic, well planned conjunction of protection, detection, response and backups.

Our number one tip to get going, however?

Make sure you choose the right SSL certificate.

Domain Validated SSL Certificates

These SSL certificates show that a domain is registered, and that a site admin is running the URL.

It’s quite easy to obtain- this certificate authority can typically validate through email, DNS or HTTP.

It includes the owner proving they own and run the domain, and saving a text file in the public web root of their domain.

Organization Validated SSL Certificates

Building off domain validated SSL certificates, organization validated certificates not only prove ownership of a domain, but also proves the existence of an organization or company that stand behind the domain.

Your organization or company’s details are shown online, just like individual ownership ins domain validated SSL certificates.

Extended Validation SSL Certificates

Again, building on the above, extended certificates demand even more information and proof of ownership than domain or organization validation.

It signifies an even higher level of security and ownership, those these take longer to obtain.

Take a look at the domain bar when you look at PayPal; there is no doubt of the organization, ownership and their authenticity.

At the validation level, extended validation SSL Certificates are the most secure. If applicable, look to extended validation certificates as part of your end security game.

Single Name & Wildcard SSL Certificates

Single-name SSL certificates protect one subdomain.

Great for forgotten subdomains, or site evolution, there is always a place for single name SSl certificates.

Just be aware, however, that a certificate for one subdomain will only apply to that exact, specific domain- not even the branches of it.

A certificate for www.website.com won’t apply to mail.website.com.

On the other hand, wildcard SSL certificates secure a number of subdomains for just one single domain.

Again, we would love to make this easy for you, but wildcard SSL certificates only protect the subdomains of one single domain.

They don’t protect multiple domains, even if they are all related.

That’s where multidomain SSL certificates come into play.

Multidomain SSL Certificates

These giants provide security for several different domains, through one extension.

This extension is the SAN extension. (As if you wanted anymore acronyms thrown your way, we know.)

SAN extension= subject alternative name.

With multi domain SSL certificates, you can combine multiple hostnames even if they’re not from the same domain.

Complex? Yes. Many sites don’t need to go as far as multidomain SSL certificates, but they are there- and for those that need them, you NEED them.

So, I hope you understand everything about SSL Certificates & Website Safety. feel free to Contact us for any Consultation about web design, SEO, Marketing.

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In the past, webmasters employed bad SEO practices such as keyword and banner stuffing, link building and cloaking in order to rank on Google’s first page.

However, Google’s latest algorithms make those practices almost impossible. Nevertheless, there are always unscrupulous webmasters who try to get around Google’s best practices.

Whether you are new to website development or a seasoned veteran at building websites, here is a simple guide to Good SEO Practices vs. Bad SEO Practices, so you can beware when making SEO decisions while building or maintaining your websites.

Good SEO Practices

Good SEO practices consist of what is called “white hat” techniques. These include:

● Security Certificate:

Up to recently, most people did not know what the ‘https’ at the beginning  of a domain stood for. However, they understood that if a site had this “lock”, it meant the site could be trusted.

Today, Google has added security certificates as a requirement in their list of best practices for SEO. So websites with the https automatically rank higher in their search results.

HTTPS stands for hypertext transfer Protocol Secure, and enables websites to be more secure by encrypting the information sent between the visitor to the site and the server. It has been a Google ranking factor since 2014.

You can tell if your site is already using HTTPS by checking the loading bar in your browser. If there’s a lock icon before the URL, then it means your site is secure. If there is no lock, then you need to ‘buy’ one by installing an SSL certificate.

Due to Google’s standards, most web hosts offer these in their packages. If yours does not, you can depend on AJ Frey, owner of Best SEO in Canada, to pickup one for you.

This is a one-time installment, and once done, you can expect security on all your pages, including those you may add in the future.

● Placement of your target keyword / phrase:

Google’s best practices suggest that your target keyword / phrase should be in at least these three places. These are your title tag, heading and URL. Let’s take a closer look at each:

a) Title tag

According to Google, title tags should be written that accurately describe the page’s content. If you’re targeting a specific keyword or phrase, then this should do precisely that. However, search engine optimization isn’t just about improving rankings, but also enticing clicks. This is why your title tags must also be compelling.

N/B: Readability always comes first. Your title tag must make sense to the searcher. For example, if your target keyword/phrase is “saskatoon berry pie cheap,” then that doesn’t make sense as a title tag. Rearrange the words so it makes sense, even if you have to add stop words—Google is smart enough to understand what you mean. At Best SEO in Canada, AJ Frey knows just how to do this for you.

Finally, keep your title tags under 60 characters and use only “title case” for titles.

b) Heading (H1)

In addition to your title tag, your target keyword / phrase should also be in your heading. N/B: Every page should have a visible H1 heading on the page, and it should include your target keyword/phrase where it makes sense.

c) URL

The third place according to Google, where you target keyword / phrase should be is in your URL. According to Mozilla, “URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator.

A URL is nothing more than the address of a given unique resource on the Web. In theory, each valid URL points to a unique resource. Such resources can be an HTML page, a CSS document, an image, etc.”

Your URL should be short and descriptive, according to Google, as long URLs may intimidate web searchers. As such, it is not always best SEO practice to use the exact target query as your URL.

N/B: Earlier we noted that it was okay to add stop words to your title tags. However, it is good SEO practice to remove stop words from your URL. What are stop words? Words such as The, Is/Are, At and On. There are others, and different search engines have different criteria for stop words.

Finally, your keywords/phrases in URLs should be relevant to your page’s content.

● Match search intent:

Another good SEO practice is to match search intent. This means to align your title and the description of your page with search intent. Nobody wants to see product pages in the search results for “how to make blueberry grunt.” Clearly, these people are in learning mode, not buying mode.

Google understands this, which is why all of the top results will be blog posts—not pages selling blueberries, lemon and sugar.

The opposite is true for a query like “where can I buy blueberries.”

People aren’t looking for a blueberry grunt recipe; they’re looking to buy some blueberries. This is why most of the top 10 results are going to get ecommerce category pages, not blog posts.

Matching search intent goes beyond creating a certain type of content. It’s also about creating the content from a particular angle and in a specific format. Which brings us to the next good SEO practice.

● Write thorough and relevant content on a regular basis:

How do you rank for more queries? By making your content more thorough and relevant. But how do you do that? Here are a few tips:

1. Complete sentences with good spelling and grammar. There are a few reputable software programmes that offer spelling and grammar corrections, so there is no excuse for poor grammar and typographical errors on your website. This would not be a good SEO practice.
2. Make sure that your content is unique and original. There is nothing wrong with publishing content that is written by others, however, it must be unique and original.
3. Well-labelled images: If you use images in your content, ensure that each is properly labelled. If in case the images cannot load, at least the searcher can know what the image is about by reading the label.
4. Make sure that your content is relevant. Quality over quantity. While the length of your content may be important in certain contexts, at the end of the day, it must be relevant to your searchers’ queries. Btw, this not only applies to blog posts, but also to other types of content on your website.

N/B: Publishing new content on a regular basis is a good SEO practice, but it is also important to keep a balance between content produced by the website and content offered to the website by an author, in exchange for a link in the author bio. In this case, it is better not to publish, than to break this rule.

●  Relevant internal links:

Internal links are those from one page on your website to another. Adding internal links from other relevant pages is a very good SEO practice. This is one of the foundations of Google’s ranking algorithm and remains important even today.

Internal links also help Google understand what a page is about. Look for suitable places to add internal links on pages that fit the bill.

Unfortunately, Google discontinued public PageRank scores in 2016, so there’s no way to check them anymore. But in general, the more links a page has—from both external and internal sources—the higher its PageRank.

Which brings us to last, but not least:

● Get more backlinks:

Backlinks are another foundation of Google’s algorithm and remain one of the most important page ranking factors.

Google confirms this on their “how search works” page, where they state: “If other prominent websites on the subject link to the page, that’s a good sign that the information is of high quality”.

Finally, you should aim to build backlinks from authoritative and relevant pages and websites.

Bad SEO Practices

On the other hand, persons who wish to take the shortcut to ranking high on Google’s pages employ bad SEO practices referred to as “Black Hat” techniques. These include:

● Duplicate content:

Duplicate content is a very common practice, as some webmasters will publish content that has already been published elsewhere. In and of itself, that is not a bad thing; there are many sites with information you may think is useful for your visitors.

If your intent is not to try to rank for a certain keyword or “stealing” someone else’s work, then you should “no index and no follow” those pages so that you are not penalised by Google for bad SEO practice. Non-unique content is not good for SEO. Think about it: If search engines already have the same content in their index, why would they index your web page since it has nothing new to offer?

● Invisible text and keyword stuffing:

It is not as common today, but there was a time when “black hat” strategists used to include many keywords at the bottom of a webpage, but make them the same colour as the background so they weren’t very noticeable to the human eye.

Google has been known to penalise such practices. The same goes for “stuffing” keywords where they are irrelevant. Have you landed on a page with a keyword search and that page was filled with the keyword, and barely anything else?

That is an extreme example of what we’re stating. This is a very bad SEO practice. Not only will it discourage visitors to your site who are looking to read relevant information on their search term, but it is also a red flag for search engines such as Google that you are trying to manipulate their algorithms.

N/B: It is enough to mention your keywords in the title, description, opening paragraph and a few other places in the body of the text.

● Cloaking and redirecting:

“Cloaking”, a very common practice of old, is when webmasters hide the real destination of a link, while “redirecting” is sending multiple “keyword-rich” domains to a single website.

Now, there may be times when redirecting is necessary for your business. However, there is a thin line between redirecting to a subdomain or domain and buying several domains just for the purpose of redirecting their traffic to a single website.

Showing different versions of a page to web crawlers and visitors to a website was a common practice in the past, but due to Google’s best practices thankfully this has been discontinued.

However, in case you just arrived on the planet and do not know Google’s best practices, please be advised that using such “black hat” techniques now is considered a very bad SEO practice.

● Poor linking practices:

Going out and purchasing a Fiverr package promising you 5,000 links in 24 hours is not the right way to build links. You need to get links from relevant content and sites in your niche that have their own traffic.

There are many other bad SEO practices one can employ including guest posting for links and accepting low quality guest posts. However, we will continue that discussion in a later article.

Conclusion

Google’s best practices reward good SEO practices such as Security Certificates, applying keywords to title tags, headings and URLs, having unique and relevant content, using appropriate internal and backlinks, while penalise bad SEO practices, which we call “black hat” techniques such as keyword stuffing, excessive link building and cloaking.

If you wish to have a successful website that ranks high on Google’s pages, then it behooves you to master good SEO practices.

AJ Frey can help you to develop and maintain a successful website that sees you ranking on Google’s first page with no fear of penalty due to bad SEO practices.

He offers a comprehensive range of SEO services dedicated to driving traffic that meets your lead, acquisition, or sales objectives.  You should start seeing results–qualified leads, sales and traffic–in approximately 3 months.

That’s it. A list of Good SEO practices vs. Bad SEO practices, which we hope will help you to stay in Google’s good books, and any other search engine you wish to rank on. We know there are others. Why not share them in the comments section below? Ready to let an SEO expert help you maintain good SEO practices on your website? Give us a call or send us an email.

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Why It’s Important To Keep SEO Momentum Going

It’s a great accomplishment when you reach the first page of Google. You probably have an influx of clients and a boost in revenue. All those blogs, white papers, website links, and digital marketing efforts are finally paying off. You’re successful enough that you don’t have time, or perhaps the will, to market yourself. After all you’re a success so that means you can take your foot off the pedal, right?
WRONG!
You may be tempted to put SEO on the backburner or cut costs, you think your competition is going to do the same? Not likely. Keeping the momentum going is more important than ever, especially if you’ve worked so hard to climb the Google rankings. Here are some good reasons why it’s important to keep SEO momentum going:

Reason 1

It’s Tougher To Start Again

You remember when you first started riding a bike? You were wobbly and shaky until you started to pick up momentum and then suddenly it was easier to balance and steer. SEO is kind of like that.

It’s a lot harder to start over again than to coast. Maybe you don’t need to try so hard to rank on certain keywords but it you stop altogether than it’s like falling off the bike. You’re back at square one.

Google keeps constant tabs on you when you’re constantly updating your website, blogging often, and creating great content. But when you stop SEO, Google stops coming around to your site often and even if you start all those SEO tasks again Google is slow to visit you because it’s not used to your updates.

Reason 2

Your website’s traffic will decline

AS we mentioned, SEO takes time to build up and requires a great content strategy and execution to maintain a great raking on Google.

While stopping all search engine optimization efforts won’t make your phones stop ringing – at least at first, it is inevitable your rankings will decline. Google will see your sight as less valuable and you won’t be as searchable and your conversions will decrease.

Though the decision is momentous and seemingly temporary, the impact it has on your rankings is longer-term than desired. It takes time to build your rank on search pages and it must be an ongoing practice to keep your content and backlinks fresh, and maintain a competitive edge within the marketplace.

You must keep your site from becoming stale in order to maintain a credible business in the eyes of search engines.

Reason 3

You Lose Valuable Insights About Your Customers

If you stop SEO then you lose valuable insight on what your customers are doing and how they behave on line.

Their interests, behavior patterns, and how they use your site are derived from analytical reports developed by your SEO team. If you don’t have that information, it because very difficult to make future predictions about your business.

Here’s how you can use this information to support your overall business goals:

Find patterns in users’ engagement to create content they truly care about identify opportunities for improving your website’s structure based on bounce rate, conversion paths, and more Identify business gaps and validate the need for new service or product offerings Define new campaigns and offerings based on interests

Google Changes It’s Criteria, so Should You

There are almost 4 billion search requests each day made on the biggest search engine – the only one that really matters because let’s be honest, nobody cares about Yahoo or Bing anymore. Because Google processes so many requests a great user experience is mandatory and so they constantly evolve to make their user experience better.

As they change their search criteria, what you used to do – keyword stuffing, tons of useless backlinks for example – no longer work. You have to remember Google’s job isn’t to get you to rank higher on its search engine but, it’s customers are all those people using it to search for information.

Those are the people Google caters to and wants to keep happy. You have to ensure your SEO goals align with Google’s –keeping your customers (And Google’s) happy.

The Competition Won’t Stop

Perhaps with your first place Google ranking you’re in a position to turn business away, but maybe your competitors are willing to hire more people or come up with alternate solutions to maintain their momentum.

We had previously discussed how Google rewards high-quality, fresh content – and if you stop nurturing your content creation, it’s only a matter of time before your competitors begin capturing traffic and potential customers that were once yours.

Conclusion

If you need some help determining the best SEO strategy for your business, talk to AJ Frey aka The Best SEO in Canada. We’ll guide you through the difficultly &; help you define the best course of action going forward and create a plan that is sustainable and effective.

Call Now 250-801-6588 or Contact US

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