For enterprise businesses that want their websites — or their many websites — to rank in search engine results, having the right SEO tools is essential. The best enterprise SEO software will help large businesses complete SEO tasks quickly and at scale.

But what makes enterprise SEO tools different then other SEO tools you might come across? Well, these software suites are usually far more expansive and have complex features that meet the unique needs of websites with a large online presence and an immense number of pages.

Here is a complete guide to what enterprise SEO software is, how large businesses can use enterprise SEO tools to grow, and the best enterprise SEO software suites available on the market.

What is Enterprise SEO?

Keywords form the base of every successful Enterprise SEO strategy. You should pick the right keywords for every service to generate relevant traffic and conversions.

Moreover, you should know the keywords that your competitors are using in their SEO plan. Hence, you need lots of data. A proper keyword mix involves:

• Primary keywords related to every service that the business offers
• Secondary keywords based on your primary keywords.
• Relevant keywords that your main competitors are using
• High-conversion keywords from the PPC campaigns that the company or its competitors might be running.
• Long-tail keywords to target featured snippets.
• Question keywords to target FAQ pages.

Tracking the rankings of hundreds of keywords is an important part of Enterprise SEO. A good Enterprise SEO platform will offer rank tracking features to automatically track your rankings and send alerts directly to your email.

These rank tracking features also need to be accurate and comprehensive. Enterprise SEO solutions that charge you for additional keywords aren’t really bringing as much SEO value as those that provide 100% keyword data.

What are the Benefits of Using Enterprise SEO Software?

There are a variety of benefits to using enterprise SEO software. Beyond executing SEO campaigns more easily and efficiently, these tools can bring benefits at all levels of your organization.

• Keyword Rank Tracking: Some enterprise SEO tools do not have accurate keyword rank tracking data because they use bots to scrape the SERPs. The best enterprise seo software will use Google Search Console data in their rank tracking features to give users the most comprehensie, accurate picture of their keywords and ranking positions.
• Keyword Research: Choosing the right target keywords is the foundation of any successful SEO strategy. Any keyword research tool in enterprise SEO software should have up-to-date and comprehensive keyword data so users can select the best keywords for their SEO campaigns.
• Site Audits: Knowing what SEO issues are on your website is essential for crafting a strategic technical SEO strategy. The site crawler needs to be able to identify the right technical errors and communicate them clearly to the user.

There are many different types of SEO software platforms available. Some have been around for years, like SEMrush and Moz Pro, but those platforms have not changed or innovative to today’s SEO landscape. In terms of accessing the necessary features and benefits outlined above, only a few platforms can provide it at a competitive price point. 

That’s why we recommend SearchAtlas. SearchAtlas is a standalone platform that offers a comprehensive suite of tools for enterprise SEOs, including rank tracking, backlink analysis, and competitor insights. SearchAtlas is a more comprehensive platform, with features that rival or exceed those of Moz Pro and SEMrush.

The post The Definitive Guide to Enterprise SEO Software appeared first on LinkGraph.

But is this a safe or reliable way to improve your backlink profile?

Here is the ultimate guide on what you need to know about backlink generator tools and backlink generator services. It. can help webmasters determine if backlink generators are a good fit for their own marketing strategy.

What is a backlink generator?

A backlink generator is a piece of software or a web-based service that helps you create links to your website. They can be used to help build backlinks to your website, which can improve your website’s search engine ranking.

There are a number of different backlink generators available, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some are better at creating links from high-quality websites, while others are better at creating links from a large number of websites.

When choosing a backlink generator, it’s important to consider the quality of the websites it links to, the number of links it creates, and the price. It’s also important to make sure that the backlink generator is easy to use and has a good customer support system.

Do backlink generators work?

There is no definitive answer to this question, as the effectiveness of backlink generators largely depends on the quality and authority of the websites that are linking back to your own site. However, if you are able to get links from high-quality websites, then backlink generators can be an effective way to boost your site’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

That being said, it is important to be aware of the potential risks associated with using backlink generators. If you are not careful, you may end up acquiring links from low-quality or spammy websites, which could actually have a negative impact on your site’s ranking.

As with any SEO tactic, it is important to carefully weigh the pros and cons of using a backlink generator before deciding whether or not it is the right strategy for your website.

Should I use a Backlink generator?

There is no easy answer when it comes to using a backlink generator. The best way to answer this question is to weigh the pros and cons of using this type of tool.

On the plus side, backlink generators can quickly and easily help you build a large number of links to your website. This can be helpful in boosting your website’s search engine ranking and improving your website’s visibility. Additionally, backlink generators can help you quickly identify high-quality backlinks from other websites.

However, there are also some potential downsides to using a backlink generator. First, using a backlink generator can lead to your website being penalized by Google. Additionally, backlinks generated by a backlink generator may not be as high quality as those generated naturally. As a result, using a backlink generator may not provide the desired results and could even damage your website’s search engine ranking.

Pros of Backlink Generators

There are many advantages of using a backlink generator tool.

• These tools make the process of creating backlinks quick and easy
• You simply enter in the website you want to create a link for, the tool does the rest
• They can save you a lot of time, especially if you are creating backlinks for multiple websites
• Backlink generators often have a wide range of backlink sources to choose from
• You can find high-quality backlinks that will help improve your website’s SEO
• Backlink generators are often very affordable, making them a great value for your money.

If you are looking for an easy and affordable way to create high-quality backlinks, then a backlink generator tool could be the right solution for you.

Cons of Backlink Generators

There are some potential setbacks from using backlink generators for link building rather than relying on more time-consuming strategies like content marketing or guest posts.

• They can be spammy: One of the biggest issues with backlink generators is that they can often be spammy. This means that they may not produce quality links, which can negatively impact your website’s search engine ranking
• They can be time-consuming: Backlink generators can also be time-consuming. This means that you may need to spend a lot of time using them in order to see any results.
• They may not be effective: Finally, it’s important to note that backlink generators may not be effective. This means that you may not see the results that you are hoping for.

How do you generate backlinks without SEO tools?

There is no single answer to this question because there are many different ways to generate backlinks. However, some of the most effective methods include creating valuable content, participating in online communities, and reaching out to influencers.

Creating valuable content is one of the best ways to generate backlinks. When you create content that is interesting, informative, and useful, other websites will be more likely to link to it. You can also increase the chances of getting backlinks by formatting your content in a visually appealing way and using keyword-rich titles and descriptions.

Another effective way to generate backlinks is to participate in online communities. By sharing your content and engaging with others in relevant conversations, you can attract links from other websites. You can also get backlinks by commenting on other blogs and contributing to discussion forums.

Finally, one of the most effective ways to generate backlinks is to reach out to influencers. When you have a piece of content that you think would be of interest to an influencer, reach out to them and ask them to share it. You can also offer to write a guest post for their blog or participate in a podcast interview.

Are backlink generators safe to use?

No one can definitively say whether or not backlink generators are safe to use. All indications seem to point to the fact that they are not, but nothing has been officially confirmed. In general, it is not a good idea to use any sort of automated tool when it comes to link building. While backlink generators may be effective at creating links, they may also get your site penalized by Google.

What should I use instead of a Backlink Generator?

Want to get backlinks faster? You don’t have to resort to a backlink generator software. Instead, consider high-quality link building services and earn links through original content.

It will pay off in the end!

The post How To Use A Backlink Generator For Your Website appeared first on LinkGraph.

Optimizing your website to be more easily discoverable on Google is one of the most effective ways to expand your market share and increase conversions. But how can you improve your SEO performance?? The answer is simple: Search engine optimization (SEO)–or the art of refining a website to increase the number of people who see your website in their search engine results. 

While SEO takes time, know-how, and patience, you can begin to climb your way up Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) using a few techniques and the help of user-friendly software.

We’ve designed this article to help you pinpoint where to invest your time, energy, and other resources to improve your website’s performance in the SERPs and rank in 2022 and beyond. Whether you’re a site owner, content marketer, or SEO strategist, these tips will help your web pages get to the top of  Google’s SERPs.

Strategize and Prioritize Your SEO Needs

Before you dive into improving your search engine optimization performance, it’s important to figure out what aspects of your website require the most immediate attention. Otherwise, you could wind up focusing on minor issues while major problems continue to drag down your performance.

1. Use a Software That Simplifies Your SEO Strategy

If you want to improve your SEO ranking, you will need to understand your numbers (or metrics). Deciphering the meaning of these numbers requires analytic skills, but software can make quick work of turning numbers into a strategy you can implement.

A successful SEO campaign requires technical SEO, content SEO, and knowing what Googlebots measure and how they work. Luckily, SEO tools offer a simple solution to understanding search engine algorithms, your SERP positions, and your overall website performance.

SearchAtlas is one of the most helpful SEO software tools that anyone can access and use. Within one login, users have tangible access to Google Search Console data, keyword research, competitor research, SEO content creation assistance, SEO site auditing reports, and more.

2. Target SERP Page 2 KWs

If you have keywords that are ranking on the first page of Google’s results–Congrats! That’s great news! To boost your overall search engine visibility, you want to move more of your pages to the top results page.

Starting with the keywords where your web pages rank on the top of the second page is an easy way to push your overall site visibility higher. To identify the keywords where you’re ranking on page 2, use the GSC Insights’ Top Keywords report.

Identify any keywords that fall into positions 11 to 14. While most SEO software require users to manually assess the potential of a keyword, SearchAtlas’s GSC Insights tool provides an SEO potential score for each. After identifying the keywords with the most potential, begin optimizing your pages with more impressions first. Then move on to those with fewer impressions and less organic traffic.

3. Create A Contact Page

Contact pages are one of the under-utilized forms of web content when it comes to SEO. You don’t have to paste your phone number and email address on a barebones page to qualify. You can use a contact form and provide information regarding when someone should reach out.

Not only does your contact page give users the ability to reach out to you, but it also tells Google you’re a legitimate business–and it gives visitors an opportunity to interact with your page.

4. Perform Competitor Research

Compare your content to your competitors’ to get a sense of why they’re ranking. 

After you find what websites are ranking for keywords your company wants to target, you will want to examine their content to better understand why they’re ranking so well. Then adopt some of their techniques in addition to targeting keywords in your own existing quality content and new content.

Be sure to analyze your competitor’s:

• SERP performance
• Story patterns
• Word count and general page length
• Tone and style
• What they include in headings and subheadings
• How they use anchor text
• How often do they incorporate images and relevant keywords
• Title tags and other meta tags
• Audience
• Sales funnel flow
• Headers and sub-headers

How to Improve Your Website’s Content

5. Optimize for Long-Tail KWs

Long-tail keywords are easier to rank for because they’re often less competitive. A long-tail keyword is a keyword phrase that is more specific than a traditional keyword. They’re usually three or more words linked together to make the search results better tailored to what the searcher has in mind.

For example, “places to camp in Nevada with dogs” would be considered a long-tail keyword phrase. If you offer RV and tent campsites that are dog-friendly in Nevada, you’re more likely to capture more organic traffic by appealing to this phrase rather than more general search terms such as “Nevada camping.”

How Can You Identify Long-Tail Keywords for Your Website?

SearchAtlas’s Keyword Researcher will generate a list of related keyword suggestions along with a SERP overview report. This allows you to gauge the difficulty of ranking for specific keywords and what your competition is like. From there, you will want to select long-tail keywords that are relevant to your business.

6. Include LSI Keywords in Your Content

Like long-tail keywords, Latent Semantic Indexing keywords (or LSI keywords) allow you to increase your search engine visibility by selecting strategic keywords and keyword clusters for your web content.

LSI keywords are words that Google recognizes as being related to a primary keyword. When you include an array of LSI keywords in your content, you are creating more indicators or signals that Google will pick up on related to specific search terms.

Using a variety of LSI terms also helps prevent keyword-stuffing–a huge no-no that Google likes to demote web pages for.

7. Integrate Frequently Asked Question

A frequently asked questions page and highlighted questions on other content pages give you the opportunity to expand your topical depth, include more LSI keywords, and utilize common questions asked in Google searches.

They’re also a great resource for your visitors. Many people utilize FAQs as a way to learn more about what other people want to know regarding a topic. This can improve consumer confidence. For instance, “What size should I order?” is a great way to guide shoppers to the right product for their needs, decrease returns, and improve customer reviews.

8. Check headings, bullets, and lists

One of the easiest tasks you can check off your SEO list is to verify that you have the right keywords in your headings and your headings follow SEO best practices.

Headings serve three primary roles: 

1. They help with reader navigation, making the information they are looking for within the content easy. This increases the length of the user’s scroll and time-on-page.
2. They signal to Google’s web crawlers what your web page is about through javascript.
3. Headings also improve your website’s accessibility.

When formatting your landing pages, product pages, and blogs, only use one Heading 1. Then you will want to move down in a hierarchical structure with subheadings.

Bullet points have a similar effect to headings. They break up the text, so visitors scroll deeper into the page. Of course, they also display information in a way that gets attention. So, if you notice writing a list with 3 or more things, consider changing it to a bulleted list, instead. 

Keep in mind that you do not want to overburden your content with too many headings and too many numbered or bulleted lists. This is distracting and defeats the purpose.

9. Optimize your images

As time goes on, people become more and more visually literate. This adds extensive value to how users will interact with and enjoy using your website. Like headings and lists, images increase time-on-page and scroll distance for visitors. They can also significantly reduce your bounce rate.

Alternate text (or “alt text”) connected to images is one way SEO content creators use keywords in one more way for web crawlers to register. Alt Text is written into a webpage’s HTML and is prompted to appear should the image not be able to load or if the user is using a screen reader. Alt text provides a more accessible experience for all visitors. Many sources suggest that alt text is another form of javascript that Google’s algorithms pick up on. 

Images appear in Google Image searches. This gives you one more way to increase web traffic.

So, audit your website’s photos, graphics, and other rich media. Be sure to:

• Check your image sizes. If images take too long to load, users may exit your page and your page speed score can be negatively affected. Compress your images and be sure they fit into the frame of the web page.
• Fix image orientation. Landscape orientation is more aesthetically appealing and makes scrolling easier.
• Include accurate alt text for every image. When writing alt text, be descriptive and accurate. Adding details of gender and ethnicity can increase your brand’s inclusiveness to those that are visually impaired.
• Name your image files. Naming your images may seem like a small detail, but image file names can be read by web crawlers to help them be selected for image searches.

10. Adjust Your content’s reading level

Very few people want to slog through extremely dense, extremely elevated diction. So, make your homepage, landing pages, and blog posts

easy to read.

Keep in mind that most Americans prefer to read content at about the 8th-grade level. However, if your target audience or niche requires a more technical approach, go for it. Just be mindful of sentence length, section length, and other structural elements that can improve readability.

How can you figure out your company’s target audience’s reading level? One resource is Google Analytics. Google Analytics can give you a snapshot of your audience’s age and interest in existing posts. Looking at your social media followers can also provide insight. Want a more direct tactic? Survey your social media followers.

11. Update content for quality and depth

For pages that aren’t ranking well, re-optimize that content for different keyword targets. If the web page is not getting traffic or under-performing, consider making strategic revisions or deleting it.

You can use a tool like the LinkGraph SEO Content Assistant to improve the topical depth and relevance of your landing pages and web content. Our software scans the top-ranking search results for your target keyword and identifies the relevant keyword phrases and topics that you should include in your site content. Try to get your content score over 80 to get better rankings.

SearchAtlas also allows you to identify keyword cannibalization, so you can merge competing content for more in-depth blog content or landing pages.

12. Improve engagement to increase time on page

In the world of SEO, content quality is everything. Web searchers do not want to waste their time sifting through fluff to find valuable information. We can guarantee if your content doesn’t have value, users will notice and your bounce rate will soar. So, invest time in creating content that matters and provides value.

Writing web content for SEO takes time. However, there are some ways you can add value without excessively doubling or tripling your process time. One way you can expedite the process is to write about what you know. The second is to find gaps in your competitions’ website.

When writing blogs, be sure you provide at least 3 “ah-ha” pieces of information for the reader. And stay on topic throughout the page.

13. Don’t just focus on text-based content

As we have pointed out before, web users tend to favor visual information more and more. Additionally, people can retain visual information longer and more readily. This makes adding and creating visual content vital. Videos, infographics, bespoke graphics, and screenshots can have a powerful effect on your web traffic numbers.

Technical & Web Development SEO Improvements

14. Speed Things Up

Google’s Page Experience Update was no doubt  the biggest change for search in 2021. The page experience provided by a website became an official ranking factor in Google’s algorithm. Factors like page speed, Core Web Vitals, user experience (UX), and load times are now determining factors in whether search engines rank your website over your competitors in the search results.

The performance and usability of your website are key to whether users will find your content valuable. Nobody likes a slow website, and long page load times and slow site speed can leave users feeling frustrated, an experience you don’t want any potential customers to associate with your brand. Slow page loads undercut your SEO efforts, decreasing total sessions, raising bounce rate, and negatively impacting other engagement metrics.

15. Check the load time of your largest contentful paint

Staying current with Google’s algorithm update can be quite the feat. However, if you can update your web pages to reflect highly impactful metrics, then you can stay ahead of your competition. In this case, focusing on your largest contentful paint or LCP can boost your website’s performance.

Your LCP is the most data-dense visual element of a page above the fold (or what is visible to the user before you scroll down). And… it is now a metric Google looks at in regards to the page experience and your ranking. So, taking the time to identify your LCPs and compress them or move them below the fold can improve your site’s SERP position.

How to Find Your LCP:

1. Use Google’s Lighthouse tool in your page information menu to generate a report. Be sure to select mobile or Desktop, depending on what the majority of your traffic uses.
2. If your LCP is too slow, you will want to identify what your LCP is by scrolling down and selecting View Original Trace Map. This will allow you to identify and map the load of your LCP.
3. Once you’ve identified your LCP, you can compress it if needed, move it below the fold, or replace it with something smaller. 

16. Lower Your Cumulative Scroll Shift

Cumulative Scroll Shift is another signal that Google now looks closely at when evaluating your page’s performance, and another chance to upgrade your UX. While most other loading issues center on site speed, this one focuses on a major frustration factor: shifting page features.

Scroll shift occurs when objects on a page move and push other elements around during the loading process. This most often occurs when an ad, image, or video loads at a slower rate than text. This shift can make users lose their place in a blog article or misclick on a button.

To fix this issue, consider where your elements populate and if images are properly compressed. Placing slow-loading elements lower on a page can help.

(See LCP instructions above to measure your cumulative scroll shift).

17. Fix Broken Internal Links

When one of Google’s web crawlers comes across a broken internal link, they will follow the link. But if the link is broken, they register the ‘difficulty’ as an issue with the user experience of your page. Why? Broken links frustrate users. And more often than not, they will decide to go elsewhere for the information they were seeking.

To fix your broken internal links, you will want to audit your site using the Site Audit tool in your SearchAtlas dashboard. Here you will find a list of site issues, including broken links.

Once you’ve identified the broken links, you need to assess if the link is broken because the content has been removed or just moved. If it’s been removed, eliminate the link. If it has been moved, update the link to the new URL.

If you’re not yet incorporating internal linking in your SEO strategy, remember that linking to relevant content on your website can improve your indexing and your overall SEO. Here’s a tutorial on how to find ideal internal links using the SearchAtlas SEO Content Assistant.

18. Audit Your Outbound & Inbound Links

Links leading from your website to another, or outbound links, verify that you are using authoritative sources. However, if these links stop working, they can have a negative effect on your SEO. 

These are labeled as 404 errors. When Googlebots explore your site, they will note broken outbound links. The same is true for your inbound links (link from a 3rd party site to yours).

How to fix your outbound links:

1. Perform a site audit to identify broken links.
2. For outbound links that link to pages that no longer exist, consider removing the link. 
3. Otherwise, if you need to keep a link in that location, you can try to locate the new page for the same information and replace the link. Or you can find a more recent webpage to link to.

How to fix inbound links:

1. Often, the best practice for inbound links is to create 301 redirects when you change a URL path. This allows those inbound links to continue to guide the user to the right information. However, if you did not do so, you will want to begin the process now by performing a site audit.
2. Identify links that need redirects. Ask your web developers to update broken links to redirect users to the correct page.

19. Assess Your Backlinks

A URL’s backlink profile reveals a lot about the site owner’s off-site SEO strategy. A site owner who doesn’t monitor backlinks for linking site quality, anchor text diversity, and relevance will struggle to raise their overall site authority in the eyes of search engines. 

Google ranks websites that are well-trusted by other webmasters and users on the internet. One of the best ways to see quick SEO results is to focus on backlinks.

If you don’t monitor backlinks on a regular basis, it’s possible that your backlink profile has become populated with toxic or spammy links from low-quality sites. 

How to Assess Your Backlinks:

Use an SEO tool like our free backlink analyzer to identify those questionable new links and generate the text for a disavow file. There is no way to remove those hyperlinks to your site, but a Disavow file tells Google not to count them toward their ranking algorithm.

Not all backlinks have the same value. Those from sites with higher Domain Authority and strong SEO metrics themselves will have the biggest impact. Performing a backlink audit every quarter can help you stay on top of your new links and ensure that your links are always working for you, not against you.

How to Improve SEO Performance with Backlink Audits

1. Perform a backlink audit once a quarter to make sure your website isn’t keeping company with questionable web properties. 
2. Use a Backlink Analysis tool to identify toxic or spammy websites that are linking to yours.
3. Generate and submit a Disavow file in your Google Search Console account to reduce the impact of low-quality links

20. Update ineffective anchor text

Anchor text is the text that is associated with a link. For example, in the sentence: LinkGraph offers an industry-leading suite of SEO tools. “Suite of SEO tools” is the anchor text. Not only does this text indicate to your reader what the link will lead to, but it also tells Google’s algorithms what the linked site’s topic is. This helps it become more discoverable via search inquiries.

While it may seem inconsequential, the text that connects to a link matters for your SEO. So, to improve your anchor text, return to your internal links and revise any misleading or vague anchor text to provide more context. Try to include the keyword of the page you’re linking to in the anchor text if it’s syntactically appropriate.

21. Certificates and security credentials

Secure Sockets Layer certificates (or SSL certificates) are designed to keep users’ data secure through encryption. These safety measures are minute and live on your server, but they can have a profound impact on your SEO.

If you’ve ever come across a warning message from your browser that the site you’re going to enter is not secure or private, you experienced the effects of not having an SSL certificate. If you decided to “go back to safety,” you are similar to the majority of users–and you can imagine what effect this has on the traffic to your site.

Secure websites have the protocol HTTPS (not HTTP). With more and more awareness of cybersecurity, users want their information to be protected through encryption. Not having your SSL certificates can be a huge deterrent to web users. So, be sure to update your SLL certificates on your server ASAP.

22. Examine and update your meta tags

When you view Google results, you see a page title with a short description beneath. These are considered meta tags. This text tells searchers and search engines what information can be found on that webpage. They also create an easy tactic to boost your search traffic CTR.

To upgrade your meta tags, you want to follow a few simple steps:

1. Be sure your primary keyword is in the meta title and description.
2. Keep your title between 30 and 60 characters and your meta description under 160 characters. If your title is too short, Google may replace your title tag with a heading from the page.
3. Be clear, concise, and accurate in your meta description.
4. Use a call to action (CTA) in your meta description to encourage people to click on your page, increasing your CTR.

23. Employ Schema Markup

Schema markup is a type of microdata designed to tell search engine algorithms what kind of content users can find on your website or web pages. Schema applies to certain categories of data like restaurants, recipes, and local businesses. Many search engines, like Google, display the information highlighted by the schema as a preview or snippet. This increases your website’s search visibility.

24. Reduce unnecessary code

Your website is powered by coding languages like HTML and javascript. And after Google’s Core Web Vitals update, the complexity of this code gained greater SEO value. 

When your code isn’t clean or has issues, it can stymie the progress of Googlebots that crawl your website. To assess if your code needs work, run your website through PageSpeed Insights. 

If your website isn’t performing as well as it could, fix broken links, eliminate HTML comments, replace any missing graphics. You can also keep CSS code on an external .cs file and javascript in an external .js file. W3C Markup Validation Service can also help you identify HTML and CSS issues.

Engage in off-site SEO

An often-overlooked aspect of SEO is how you market your website and expertise outside of the site itself. By following some of these link building tips, you can draw more traffic to your site and increase your high-value backlinks.

25. Make a guest appearance on a podcast

If you excel in your niche, show off your knowledge on a podcast. Not only does this increase your brand’s reputation, but it can also drive traffic to your e-commerce site through backlinks.

You don’t have to wait for an invitation. Instead, do some research and reach out to a podcast producer in your industry.

26. Interviews and guest posts

Interviews are another great way to show off your expertise and increase brand mentions. Find industry-leading e-magazines and print magazines and offer to be interviewed or offer to submit a guest post. You may be surprised by how many publications will jump at the chance to receive high-quality content from an expert in the field.

27. Forums: Frequent, Engage, and Create

Engaging with people online is a wonderful way to build your brand online and get insight into information gaps in your industry. The biggest bang-for-your-buck when it comes to forums is creating a community forum on your website.

By providing users with a place to ask one another questions, you’re creating a self-service help desk. Which increases traffic…—Forums have even more SEO value such as:

• Forums become a hotbed for content, including hot topic keywords–this allows you to get a jump on the competition in regards to ranking for new search phrases.
• The software you use to set up your forum should create URLs that reflect topics AKA keywords.
• You receive content updates from users automatically, so your website stays fresh in Google’s eyes.

By interacting with people, you can create a positive reputation for your business and establish yourself as an authority on a topic.

28. Create Google Business Profile

Without a Google Business Profile, your website is at a search engine disadvantage. With a Google Business Profile, you can appear at the top of the SERPs for local searches or transaction intent searches. Verified and optimized Google Business Profiles can even get you into the local 3-pack of business that appears in Google’s top of the page snippets.

After creating your Google Business Profile, you can better manage your business reputation by replying to reviews and answering customer questions. Be sure to add photos, so you can appear in image search results.

29. Perform A/B Testing

To truly take your SEO strategy to the next level, you have to take a nuanced approach to the changes you make to your website and how you measure their impact. A/B Testing is a great way to make gradual optimizations to your site and measure whether they have a strong correlation with better impressions, search traffic, keyword rankings, or organic sessions.

There are so many website elements that can be A/B tested, like title tags, meta descriptions, internal links, site structure, CTAs, fonts, and even colors. To perform a successful A/B test, you need to have clearly defined variants and the proper staging environment to test out two separate pages. Make sure to use canonical tags when testing out pages so Google doesn’t see the pages as duplicate content and penalize your website as a result.

SEO A/B testing is a more advanced SEO strategy, so if you are new to SEO, work with skilled SEOs, marketers, or an SEO agency before diving in headfirst. If you use a tool like the LinkGraph GSC dashboard, you will get daily rankings updates to measure which variant of your A/B test produces better SEO results.

How to Improve SEO Performance with A/B Testing

Choose two clearly defined variants that you want to test (e.g. two meta descriptions, two-page titles, two heading tags, etc.)

Add rel=canonical link attributes to avoid a duplicate content penalty

Measure your A/B variants in GSC Insights

30. Track and Measure Your SEO KPIs

When it comes to your SEO performance, you will need to establish your primary key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and measure based on your website’s needs. However, organic traffic, SERP ranking, leads, conversions, bounce rate, session duration, load times, CCP traffic, and crawl errors are all excellent indicators of your SEO strategy’s success.

When selecting your KPIs, keep in mind that conversions are your ultimate goal, but conversions alone can be vague as to their source. Instead, track analytics such as keyword traffic, referral links, impression and CTRs, and traffic to specific pages.

To track your progress, you can log onto Google Search Console, Google Analytics, or an all-in-one platform like SearchAtlas. SearchAtlas makes finding all of the data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics easy to understand. SearchAtlas is the easiest way to see your website’s performance in one place.

With this software, you can easily see which pages receive the highest search traffic, your website’s overall site traffic, individual page SEO and SERPs positions, how much traffic your site and landing pages receive, what organic search terms you should target, top pages for your targeted focus terms, referral traffic, new content creation ideas, your site speed, mobile users data, local SEO tips and data, search traffic trends.

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While 30 ways to improve your SEO may seem like a lot to tackle, keep in mind tip #1–strategizing and prioritizing goes a long way. Create a list or schedule and work on what you can when you can. Group tasks that require additional help together, so you can maximize your budget and efforts of an outside party. And don’t forget to track your campaigns in SearchAtlas’s GSC tool.

As you work to improve your website’s SEO performance, keep in mind that your efforts will be rewarded in the long run. SEO often requires momentum to build over time. 

The post 30 Ways to Improve SEO Performance appeared first on LinkGraph.

Here are the types of SEO tools and digital marketing tools that your brand or agency should consider investing in to make your SEO campaigns easier and more effective.

SEO Starter Toolkit

1. Keyword Research Tool

The goal of SEO is to increase your site’s keyword rankings in major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Keywords are essentially the industry-specific words and phrases that a user will enter in a search engine to find products and services like yours. 

However, your brand doesn’t need to rank for every keyword phrase in your industry. Some keywords will be more competitive to rank for than others. Some will have higher search intent, meaning more conversion potential.

Keyword research tools allow you to explore thousands of keywords to identify those that will be best for your brand to aim for. These tools often have features like “Related Keywords,” “Autocomplete,” or “Subtopics,” so you can easily find keyword alternatives or create keyword lists or keyword clusters.

Some keyword tools you should try out.

• LinkGraph’s Keyword Researcher
• Google’s Keyword Planner
• SearchAtlas software suite

2. Content Optimization Software

Optimizing your content for the keywords you hope to rank for is a vital part of any digital marketing campaign. Content tools use natural language processing and machine learning technology to help you create content with more ranking potential.

You can use these tools to create blog posts, landing pages, ebooks, infographics, or anything else that builds trust between your brand and your target audience.  

Content tools can work in different ways, but the majority will offer suggested terms and phrases to add in your content to make it more semantically rich. Others will help you write SEO-friendly meta tags like page titles and meta descriptions.

Tools like the SEO Content Assistant combine on-page optimization with AI-content generation to help you produce more content that ranks. If you want to scale of your content production, no other tool can compete. 

Here is a tutorial on how to utilize the tool to optimize content for SEO. 

Some other content tools that will help you with on-page SEO include:

• SearchAtlas Chrome Extension
• Clearscope 
• If you need high-volume meta descriptions and page titles, try Headlime

3. Rank Tracking Platform

If you want to accurately track your keyword rankings, you’ll need a rank tracking platform. Not only does this kind of SEO tool help you keep up with your own rankings, but you can also monitor how your direct competitors are keeping up with high-value industry keywords.

Tracking your keyword rankings is essential to knowing whether or not your SEO efforts are proving successful. Look for improvements in impressions, average keyword positions, total keywords, and organic clicks to measure SEO success.

Try out these rank tracking platforms to get a more granular picture of your brand and your competitors’ keyword rankings.

• Get comprehensive keyword rankings data from GSC Insights
• See limited competitor rankings in Ahrefs
• Set up your own Google Search Console Account

Advanced Tools for your SEO Toolkit

4. Backlink Checker

Link building is an essential off-site SEO strategy for any SEO campaign but it is more advanced to implement correctly. A backlink is created any time an outside site links to your own website. Assuming that the site providing the backlink has a high domain authority, you’ll receive an SEO boost from it. 

A backlink checker allows you to see what sites are linking to yours, the anchor text they are using, and to identify any toxic or spammy links.

Backlink checkers also allow you to review your competitors backlink profiles and benchmark your off-site strategy. Understanding how many backlinks and referring domains your competitors have gives you an idea of whether you can outrank them for high-value keywords in your industry.

Backlink Analyzer or link building tools:

• LinkGraph’s Backlink Analyzer
• SearchAtlas Software Suite
• Moz Link Explorer

5. Schema Generator

Schema markup refers to a structured data vocabulary that helps search engines understand the information on your site when you include it in your HTML code. Search engines rely on schema markup to define people, places, and things online. By adding schema.org markup to your site, your web pages can appear in Google’s rich results, which are more desirable and clickable to users.

Schema is considered a more advanced optimization because it requires knowledge of programming languages such as JSON-LD, RDFa, and microdata. A schema generator tool will do the hard part of adding schema for you. All you have to do is copy and paste the code into the backend of your website.

Here are some schema generators that you can try out.

• SearchAtlas schema generator tool
• Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper
• Make sure you check your schema with Google’s rich results test

6. Log Analyzer

A log analyzer is a tool that timestamps all of your software transactions and makes them easily searchable. In the context of a website, a reliable log analyzer will help you find events that share predetermined commonalities. 

These commonalities may involve a software issue that you’ll search for in order to get an understanding of the frequency of the problem and how to fix it.

Log data is frequently used to replicate technical issues, so web developers have an easier time correcting them. Once corrections have been made in the fixed app, they’ll attempt to recreate the problem again to test if it’s truly fixed.

These analyzers save web developers from the incredibly time-consuming process of having to search logs page by page, and a log analyzer is a must-have for your SEO toolkit.

Some popular log analyzers include:

• Screaming Frog 
• Sumo Logic

Free tools for SEO Toolkits on a Budget

7. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free site analysis tool that should be a part of any SEO professional’s toolkit. This free platform allows you to better connect with Google and understand your site’s SEO performance.

Search analytics will tell you your position in rankings, as well as which queries are most popular with your target audience and most relevant to your existing content. You’ll also be able to submit your sitemap and individual webpages for Google crawlers, to ensure that Google has the most recent versions of all your webpages. 

Get started with Google Search Console now.

8. Google’s PageSpeed Insights

Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) provides reports on your page speeds on both desktop and mobile devices. It also provides suggestions for how your page experience and Core Web Vitals can be improved.

Page load speed is a significant ranking factor for Google, and you need to make sure that your site is mobile-friendly, or you’ll risk losing a huge percentage of your web traffic. In fact, roughly half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices, so you really can’t afford to fail on this front.

While this tool is incredibly useful, it shouldn’t totally replace your own web testing. PSI won’t take into account how your pages load under unusually high server strain, for example, so you’ll still need to conduct your own tests for unusual situations.

9. Meta Tag Generators

Google relies on meta tags to understand the relevance of your content to keyword searches. Creating optimized, SEO-friendly meta tags can help your pages rank in search engines more often. Meta tag generators can create those tags for you based on a few simple inputs.

Depending on the types of tags that you need will determine which tool that you use. There are meta tag generators for all types of SEO HTML tags including meta descriptions, page titles, hreflang tags, rel canonicals, robots tags, open graph meta tags, and more.

If you want to see meta tags on other web pages, consider downloading a chrome extension that lets you examine what meta tags your competitors are using.

Here are some helpful meta tag tools to help you create meta tags for your own site or review them on other webmaster’s pages:

• LinkGraph Chrome Extension
• Metatags.io
• SEO META in 1 Click

For Those Looking for an All-in-One SEO Toolkit

10. SearchAtlas SEO Software

Having all of the tools that you need in one centralized platform is ideal for those digital marketers who are deploying a full-scale SEO campaign. 

If you are in the position of needing multiple tools, investing in a single SEO software platform can prevent you from having to jump around from website to website to patch together your SEO toolkit. 

SearchAtlas is an award-winning platform from LinkGraph that provides on-page, off-site, and content strategy tools to help you take your SEO strategy to the next level. Start your 7-day free SearchAtlas trial, or download the SearchAtlas SEO mobile app, and start crushing your SEO goals from a single platform. 

The post Ultimate SEO Toolkit: 10 Essential Tools For Digital Marketers appeared first on LinkGraph.

In order to improve the relevance of the SERPs, Google has had to get better at understanding human language. Thanks to natural language processing algorithms and machine learning, Google is one of the most literate robots out there. 

So what can website owners do to leverage the power of Google’s NLP models? It’s called semantic SEO. It’s all about creating content that shows Google that your content has topical depth, relevance, and quality.

What is Semantic SEO?

Semantic SEO is the process of creating your content around topics, instead of one or two keywords. It is when you build more meaning into the content you create. Also, it involves thinking about the true intent of your readers and how the various landing pages on your website interrelate. 

A piece of content that is optimized properly for semantic SEO not only will answer the question a user has now but will answer the second, third, and fourth question they may have after reading. It is all about adding more depth, meaning, and reason to your content.

There are 3 problems that content creators face when dealing with content on a search engine:

• Google is smart, but it’s still a robot. Several Google algorithm updates have focused on helping Google crawlers understand human language. However, they are bots. While their machine learning is quite advanced, they aren’t able to truly speak with human language. This is where semantic writing can come in handy.

• Other brands are vying for your target audience. With more content fighting for valuable search engine real estate, it is hard to stand out to a searcher. Google uses authority, quality, and page experience to determine whether or not your relevant content is more valuable than your competitors.
• Google can promote your content, but you have to do the rest. Search engines can usually figure out what your content is about. But it’s up to you to answer consumer’s questions before they even ask them and drive them toward conversion.

The concept of semantic search can help with all 3 of the above problems. Using this method not only will help a content creator develop topics that answer their user’s intent, but they are also able to position the content where more than one question can be answered in more than one way. The goal is to add depth to your content and to frame content to longer queries and topic clusters rather than a literal keyword match.

Semantic SEO and Natural Language Processing

To get a better understanding of what exactly semantic SEO is, it’s important to understand how the data behind language is processed. 

Natural language processing (NLP) is how computers work to understand human language and infer meanings behind what is spoken. 

NLP models are building blocks of communication between humans and computers. New advancements in NLP are happening all the time, like with SMITH and GPT-3. 

With every new algorithm update, search engines like Google get better at understanding human language.

How Do Search Engines Use Semantics and Natural Language Processing?

Google released an update back in 2019 that aided them in semantic analysis and NLP. The BERT update (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), was one of the most important algorithm updates in years and affected 10% of all existing search queries. 

In short, BERT helped Google better understand what the words in a sentence mean. It also helps Googlebot gain insights of the context around certain words.

Here are a few different examples of linguistic artificial intelligence capabilities that are used by NLP models like BERT.

Semantic Mapping

Semantic mapping is the act of exploring connections between any word and phrase and a related set of words and concepts. A semantic map will visualize how terms work together, and the search intent of the consumer.

For example, if a person simply searches for the term “pizza for dinner,” they could be looking to order a pizza from a local restaurant. Or, they could be looking for a recipe to make one at home. 

So how does Google know what the true search intent is? It’s all about the terms that the consumer searches with the main “pizza” keyword. If they are looking to make one at home, they could be searching for ingredients and proper oven temperatures. Or, if they’re looking to order, we can assume their search query will include the terms “near me” or descriptive words like “best ” or “great.”

Semantic Coding

This is the process of using coding to better explain to Google what types of information can be found on each different page.

One popular example of semantic coding is schema.org. Schema markup is a semantic vocabulary of tags, or microdata, that you can add to your HTML. It improves the way search engines read and represent your web pages in relevant search results. When you use schema markup, you tell Google exactly what is on your page, and how you want to present it. 

There are other vocabularies and tags that you can add to help Google understand your content. Header tags such as H1-H6 map out the multiple subheadings and breaks in the content. 

There are also other semantic tags that can be used for emphasis, quotations, citations, acronyms, definitions, and thematic breaks.

How Can you Improve your SEO with NLP ?

As mentioned before, there are many benefits to crafting content with natural language processing in mind. By crafting your content towards how NLP models work, you can earn more keyword rankings, better SERP positions, and more organic traffic.

Add Structured Data Markup

Google wants site owners to add structured data to their website so they can better understand their content. If you have specific products, events, or jobs that you’re trying to promote, there is no reason not to add the appropriate markups so your pages can appear in rich results.

Use Internal Links With Contextual Anchor Text

When a user clicks onto your website, they want to find a solution to their problem. They’re looking for the easiest and best answer to their solution. If they have to spend time hunting around for information, they most likely will move on to another website.

That’s why you’ll want to provide as much relevant, and contextual information to them as soon as they land on your website.

This means not only using content to create meaning around a particular topic, but to include helpful internal links and anchor text. 

You need to think of your customer’s journey. Instead of putting all the information they may need on one web page, a strong internal link structure can work wonders. It both answers users’ questions and boosts your own SEO. However, you will want to create links with relevant anchor text that matters to the reader, to ensure they click on them!

Think Bigger About Keywords

Keyword research is, in a nutshell, complex. Most digital marketers just do simple keyword research on individual keywords that are relevant to their products and services. 

But just think of how many different types of words there are in the English language! Your keyword research should really aim to capture all the different ways that users may search for products or services like yours. For example, use the LinkGraph SearchAtlas Chrome extension to better understand other ways users are searching for similar queries.

This includes verbs, adjectives, related questions and phrases, subtopics, and lsi keywords. LSI keywords, also known as latent semantic index keywords,are search terms that are relevant to the main, single keyword you are targeting.

When you enhance your keyword research and double down on content creation, you will have great success in creating relevant content. That content will also appear higher up in the search results for more relevant keyword phrases.

The Benefits of Writing Content with Topical Depth

There are many benefits to writing content with topical depth. Although longer content is not technically a ranking factor, the advantages of creating more in-depth content are clear in the SEO research and the rankings.

Rank for More Keywords

Even if you only want to rank for one primary keyword, Google usually ends up ranking our web pages for multiple keyword phrases. Why not hit multiple birds with one stone when writing your content? 

Pieces of content with topical depth tend to explore more subtopics and questions related to the primary keyword target. This broadens the reach of the content within the SERPs. 

The idea is simple; the more you write about multiple different related subtopics, the higher chances you have when improving your visibility in multiple search results. 

Above anything else, optimizing for multiple keywords will ensure that you have more opportunities to drive traffic to your website.

Decrease Bounce Rate and Increase Scroll Depth

Not only does Google read the content you promote on your website, they take a look at how people are consuming it. 

In a quest to ensure the best user experience possible, Google only wants to promote high quality web pages. If they see that consumers are bouncing from your website almost as soon as they land there, they will believe that your website isn’t relevant or valuable.

Because in-depth content requires longer landing pages, your visitors will scroll further and spend longer on the page. That is, as long as the text, images, and rich media are quick to load.

Topical depth allows for you to dive really deep into a certain topic at hand. But as you add topical depth to the page, make sure that you don’t sacrifice other key parts of the user’s experience. That includes site architecture, links, and easy navigation elements like jumplinks.     

Improve Readability

Have you ever read a piece of web content that’s stuffed full of the keyword the site owner wants to rank for? Not only is it difficult to read, it devalues the entire experience.

As stated before, semantic SEO is not hyper-focused on one keyword. By writing with semantic SEO in mind, you actually improve the readability of your content.

When you use related words to your main topic, then you’re able to give the reader more context, which improves readability tenfold. Readability is important on both a user intent and SEO basis, as readability improves engagement with the page. 

Engagement is one of the most important metrics that Google pays attention to, and it ties directly in with improving search rankings and search volume. And who wouldn’t want that?

Allow for Easy Conversions

The whole purpose of writing content is to get some sort of conversion, whether it is a phone call, an email subscriber, or a purchase. 

So every bit of content you create will need to serve its own purpose. If your content is stagnant and doesn’t inspire users, then what is the point? Content ties all of your marketing efforts together, and fantastic content will allow for an easy conversion. 

When users find content that is in-depth and answers their questions, they will be more likely to buy. They will also more likely see your brand as an industry authority.

Using the SEO Content Assistant to Improve Semantic SEO

LinkGraph’s SEO Content Assistant uses NLP algorithms and machine learning to help site owners practice semantic SEO. 

With this tool, any digital marketer can take their target keyword and create high-quality, in-depth content. The higher the content score, the more likely the content will rank well in Google and push the user toward conversion.

Our SEO Content Assistant uses semantic technology. It compiles a wide variety of related phrases, LSI keywords, and shoulder topics from your specific keyword and main topic. Additionally, the software will suggest focus terms, multiple on-page elements to use, and keyword frequency that your content needs. This will help your web page outrank competitors for high-value keywords in your industry. 

As a result, you will have dozens of Focus Terms to use in your content that help to enhance the topical depth of your content. The SEO Content Assistant allows for you to optimize your content up to 5 keywords, but make sure those target keywords are related and have similar relevancy. 

Our easy interface makes it seamless to import your content from existing URLs, export new content into Google Docs, and collaborate on your projects with other members of your team.

All in all, this tool will enhance your content and make it a valuable asset to your digital marketing goals.

Final Thoughts on Semantic SEO

Semantic SEO is a fantastic tool for both search engine optimization purposes, but also to really grab your users at the perfect time for conversion. 

By creating content that works to speak to a consumer in natural language, instead of stuffing keywords in unnaturally, consumers are more likely to gain the overall context of your main topic. 

Are you interested in elevating your existing content with semantic SEO? If so, our digital marketing team at LinkGraph is here to help. Learn more about our content tools and software.

The post The Beginner’s Guide to Semantic SEO appeared first on LinkGraph.