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The most popular search engine PPC program is Google AdWords which reaches over 10 billion web pages and 100 different language versions. The benefits of using Google are its inexpensive start-up cost ($5 dollars) and the amount of traffic you will get which is far more than that of any of the other search engines. Google also provides you with its Google Analytics program which helps you with which keywords you should be targeting in your PPC ads, a website optimizer, which allows you to test different variations of your web pages to see which convert better, and step-by-step tutorials that take you through the whole process of setting up a Google Adwords campaign. Most experts agree that it is a good idea to start out with Google Adwords because of the low start-up fee and the heavy traffic. Although it is expensive for competitive terms, you can still get away with not bidding too much on the less competitive longer-tailed keywords.
READ Podcast Yahoo, a Podcast DirectoryThe Yahoo Search Marketing search engine PPC platform started out named as GoTo, then changed to Overture, and finally ended up as what we know it today: Yahoo Search Marketing. Yahoo charges a $30.00 start-up fee but then offers you 25 dollars of free ads. Yahoo focuses on sponsored Search and reaches over 80% of active Internet users. You can also reach your market through online publishers, newsletters and emails. So, instead of your ad appearing only in search rankings it will also show up next to content like articles and product reviews that are related to your business. You can also reach a local audience by targeting ads specifically for your geographical area. Yahoo also offers certain upgrades like the Search Optimizer which can automatically manage your keyword bids, and the Marketing Console which tracks how effective your online campaigns are. Each of these are available for a monthly fee. Free tools include the Keyword Selector Tool and the View Bids Tool, as well as a PPC ROI calculator and CPM ROI Calculator.
READ SUBJECT: [FIRSTNAME], Yahoo or Google For PPC?Microsoft adCenter (Bing) is relatively new in the big names of search engine PPC but is very popular since it offers a large range of features, costs only $5 to sign up, and is targeted towards a buying market where the competition is not as high as Google and Yahoo, and so the amount you pay per click is lower. You can take advantage of the keyword research tool which gives you the past month's searches for your keyword, other relevant keywords, and the present month's traffic for those keywords. The tool also shows trends for each keyword.
READ How to Choose a PPC Advertising CompanyIt is generally recommended that, if you are new to PPC, you start with just one search engine (preferably Google Adwords), learn how that works, and then move on to others if you feel that it might be worth a try.
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Quickly, I will drop a couple of video marketing stats to – you know – build some momentum. Did you know:
Sources: Hubspot & Moz
Ins and Outs of Video SEOWhile these stats are impressive, what does this have to do with video SEO? Well, SEO (or search engine optimization to the uninitiated), is just one among the many pieces of the digital marketing puzzle. The other and most important piece is getting the traffic you attract to actually convert.
Videos can help you to bridge the gap between search engine traffic and conversion. In other words, videos have a huge positive impact on your search rankings and conversion rates.
Video is no longer an "up-and-coming" marketing tactic – it's here, and it's a powerful way to communicate your brand story, explain your value proposition, and build relationships with your customers and prospects. – Lindsay Kolowich
In the not-so distant past, we outlined a couple of WordPress SEO tips in a number of posts including:
The key takeaway from the above posts is SEO extends far beyond plain text SEO. You should optimize your text, images, videos and take care of other technical SEO details to get the most out of your SEO efforts. But let's not lose ourselves here, we shall focus on video SEO and only that for the remainder of this post.
How to Get the Most Out of Video SEONow, let's delve deeper into video SEO and look at the steps you should take to get the most SEO out of your WordPress videos (through really these tips apply to any video).
Video SEO KeywordsSearch engine optimization begins with keyword research that's a no brainer. If you sell WordPress themes, for instance, you obviously want to rank highly for the term "WordPress themes", "premium WordPress themes" and other related terms. This also applies to video SEO.
Nowadays, Google enriches search results using rich media such as videos with more than 90% of said videos coming from YouTube (also owned by Google). Studies by MarketingLand and Searchmetrics show that over 50% of Google universal searches include videos. This means a huge chunk of searchers are exposed to a YouTube video at any given time.
Video publishers such as YouTube among others are huge traffic sources especially when you consider:
But it all begins with astute video SEO keyword research. You are to focus on niche-specific keywords that have video results on the first page of Google.
Aside: Google has a soft spot for how-to videos, reviews, tutorials and funny videos. Videos with titles such as "How to Setup WordPress", "Create WordPress theme", "Setting up WordPress theme" and funny videos such as "funny cats" will score amazing spots in Google search results.
If you optimize your video around keywords that have video results on the first page of Google, and host the video on YouTube, you will get targeted traffic both from Google and YouTube. And if you didn't know, YouTube is the second-largest search engine.
How to Find Video SEO KeywordsBut how do you get video SEO keywords relevant to your niche? It's simple. If you're in the WordPress theme niche, for example, you will look for video SEO keywords using searches like "create a WordPress theme", "WordPress theme tutorial" and so on.
To put my money where my mouth is, I gave this a test drive and searched "Create a WordPress theme" on Google. The keyword brings up a YouTube result in Google. Not bad:
Armed with a video SEO keyword, all you have to do is check whether there's adequate search volume for that keyword. Here, feel free to use the Google Keyword Planner tool (free).
According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, ensure your keyword gets at least 300 monthly searches. From our Google Keyword Planner, we see that "create WordPress theme" gets an average of between 1k and 10k monthly searches. This is really good:
Bonus: From this very dashboard, we get related keyword ideas, and the average monthly searches as well as the level competition for each related keyword:
Why is this important? More keyword ideas mean more ideas for your videos and other content. As long as a keyword has more than 300 monthly searches, it's a great keyword to create a video around. The more the searches, the better, just ensure the competition for that specific keyword is low to medium.
If you create a video around your keyword and get it to rank well in Google, you're golden as far as video SEO goes.
Now that you have a keyword (and related keywords), it's time to create your video(s).
Create Awesome VideosJust like plain text content, the more you put into your video, the more you will get out of it. Shoddy work won't get you anywhere. Remember poor content doesn't rank in this time and era, so don't expect your video to rank if it's uninteresting, unoriginal, irrelevant and/or doesn't provide any value at all.
Creating a high quality video costs less than $200 bucks even if you hire a videographer and a graphics editor. If you're operating on a shoestring budget, you can bootstrap and use many of the screen recording tools available (we like Screencast-O-Matic).
Really, you don't have to hire actors for your videos. Animation is quite popular and photo montages can help you tell a story especially if you throw some parallax magic into the mix, but many times providing helpful and direct content is all you need to focus on.
Provide value, make your video interesting/funny and remain relevant to your target audience to boost user engagement, which is the most important ranking signal for YouTube videos.
More Views = Better Video SEOIf more people keep watching, subscribing, commenting, liking and sharing your videos, you will keep rising up the ranks on Google. If your video sucks, it won't rank no matter how much SEO you throw behind it.
Great videos provide amazing results for video SEO, link building and brand awareness. Case in point is the Dollar Shave Club video that went viral a while ago, and now earns the business (dollarshaveclub.com) tens of thousands of links (some from huge sites such as Mashable, Forbes, BusinessWeek, The Next Web etc.), a lot of brand exposure and other recurring SEO benefits to this very day.
Said video has over 23 million views, and in July 2016, Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club for one billion dollars. Cha-ching!
On matters of video length, I wouldn't worry myself one bit. Some SEO experts argue shorter videos are better than longer ones and vice versa, and I say let them argue. As long as your video is awesome, people will watch it no matter the duration. I know, I watch video gameplays back to back and most are more than one hour long. Hundreds of thousands of other people watch these videos too, so make it two hours long or two minutes long – it doesn't matter.
Optimize Your Video SEOYou can choose to upload videos to your domain but I advocate uploading to YouTube. Allow me to expound. Below is a graph that shows the most frequent video snippet domains. In layman's language, it shows which sites Google gives preference as far as video results in SERPs (search engine results pages) go.
From the above chart, where would you like to host your videos? YouTube or your own domain? I vote YouTube any day, because numbers do not lie.
Secondly, and we mentioned this earlier, YouTube is the second-largest search engine owned by Google. Are people more likely to find your videos on your domain or on YouTube? You don't have to answer. Google want more and more business, and the more people they can get to YouTube videos, the higher the profit margin.
Thirdly, you can create backlinks from YouTube – one in your channel profile, and one in each video description you write thereafter. Never has a backlink been a bad thing, especially if it's from the second-largest search engine. Exposure on YouTube that triggers secondary action (read people clicking through to your web properties) is best for small and big businesses in an era dominated by Google this and Google that.
Last but not least, you save your site (and your server) the extra load, which culminates in faster page load speeds, hence better SEO scores. After all, YouTube videos are easy to embed and compatible with most if not all browsers. Other people can also embed your videos easily earning you inbound links and consecutively more traffic.
The Nuts & Bolts of Video SEOSo, how do you optimize videos for SEO? That's the big question, right?
Make Your Videos LightWhen uploading your videos, obviously upload the highest quality that you can. While many vloggers may be headed to the 4k realm, there's no need to go that far when uploading WordPress tutorials and guides. Record videos in 720p (if possible) with a 16:9 aspect ratio to ensure optimal viewing.
But when embedding your videos use a light touch. Google emphasizes on page load speeds as a ranking metric, so you better use whichever tools and techniques at your disposal to ensure your videos don't bog down your site. You can even use video thumbnails that will load the player only when the user triggers the play button. Do what you can to optimize embedded videos so they load fast.
This is great for user experience as well, especially with the exponential rise of mobile users who leave your site after four seconds of waiting. Nobody has time for a site that takes an age and a round trip to the sun to load.
Label Your Videos AppropriatelySee how you sprinkle keywords throughout your text content? You need to provide more information to search spiders so they can identify and index your videos. Include your SEO keywords in your video filenames, titles, tags and descriptions to ensure you rank for context and relevancy.
Also, when uploading your videos choose a thumbnail that makes sense. Until your YouTube channel is verified you'll have to settle for a frame from your video, but after verification you can upload custom thumbnails with added text or overlays to better describe
Add Video Transcripts and SitemapsUsing our "WordPress themes" example again, if you create a video revolving around WordPress themes, you will obviously mention "WordPress themes" somewhere in there. Search engine crawlers don't "see" your videos like human beings do, which brings us to transcripts and sitemaps.
A transcript of the audio portion of your video offers you more real estate to include your keywords, which improves find-ability. Transcripts also offer your users the option of "reading" your video if they can't listen at any given time. Additionally, you can even use a specific transcript as a base for a post that links to your other content. When all is said and done, transcripts allow you to unlock the textual content in your videos – the content that search engines understand.
Video sitemaps are an extension of your content sitemap, which help search engines find and index your videos alongside your other content. Best part is you can customize video sitemaps to include metadata, which boosts the relevance of your videos to search requests. Yoast offers a great Video SEO plugin just for this purpose.
Make Your Videos Easy to FindFirst off, take advantage of the description box and tags when upload a video to YouTube. Be sure to use keywords and include relevant links to your website where viewers can find more information on the topic you're covering. Add relevant tags so your video is easy to find for YouTube users and search engines.
From a find-ability and user experience point of view, you also need to make your embedded videos easy to find on your website. Embed one video per post/page and follow that up with relevant categories and tags. This makes it easy for users and search engines to find your videos.
Add Interactive Elements Your VideosWhile shares, likes and favorites are good indicators that you're doing something right, they don't necessarily mean you will strike your SEO goals. You can capture viewers at key moments in your videos. I'm talking about interactive elements such as in-video forms, links and quizzes that guide your viewers to the next logical step long before the video ends.
Share Your Videos for More Video SEO JuiceIt's not enough to create videos; that's just the first and easiest part of the equation. People need to view your videos because 1) it makes you feel great and 2) more views mean better rankings. So don't be ashamed to promote your video vigorously, or just as much as you promote your blog posts.
Share your videos on social media because social signals mean something to Google. It's an indicator of relevance and value since the more you have, the better your video ranks. In one line, promote your videos everywhere.
Final WordsGoogle continues to attach more importance to videos as far as ranking goes. On top of that, online video consumption keeps growing as more consumers like, use and remember video. As a matter of fact, YouTube reports mobile video consumption rises 100% every year. [Source: Hubspot]
Moreover, video has become more accessible and affordable for small businesses. Which begs the question: Why haven't you implemented Video SEO yet?
Have a question or suggestion? We are listening. Drop us a line in the comments below and we will get back to you in no time. Thanks in advance!
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Today's world of SEO looks much different (and it's about time). Instead of hyper focusing only on keywords or search engine needs, smart marketers are concentrating first and foremost on the needs of users. User experience as it relates to mobile accessibility, content structure and user intent on search engines have become the new norm.
Content is the reason search began in the first place. – Lee Odden
As many of you know, TopRank Marketing's history is deeply rooted in SEO. Over the years, we've continued to incorporate an optimized approach to digital marketing by implementing integrated digital marketing programs that always follow SEO best practices.
But what does the future of SEO hold, is there more? We tapped into the minds of some great marketers to provide their predictions of what SEO will look like in 2017.
Experts Share Their Top Predictions for 2017 Doug WalkerSenior Search Marketer, Dell@dougwalkerseo
Companies will experience big wins by creating relevant and highly useful content. @dougwalkerseo Click To TweetWhile I think it will be important to be up to speed with AMP and other important technologies, with continued content saturation, I think we'll see even bigger wins by companies who can remain focused on the effort to:
1) Create stand-out content, completely relevant and highly useful to their target audience.
2) Successfully promote that content to drive consistent engagement in the form of links, social shares, news, and other buzz.
Troy EavesSenior Manager, Digital Media – Target Corp@Troyville
In 2017, RankBrain will factor in more user intent signals than ever before. @Troyville Click To TweetWe're already seeing RankBrain begin to 'take over' and factor in more user intent signals than ever before. I think that will continue to happen and increase in 2017 (specifically, time on site, bounce rates, etc.). I think CTR from SERPs will be a bigger factor in re-ranking URLs as people develop more affinity for the brands they like and click on them when they see them; regardless if they are in pos. #1 or #9.
I think people will try to optimize for voice searches because, well voice is here. I think links will still be important. I don't care what article you read that says they are dying, they aren't. I think social sentiment around brands, hashtags, keyword association (neighbors) across the web will help sort results.
If social platforms ever work together with Google, I could see platform specific searches influence rank on Google too.
Kevin CotchSEO Analyst, TopRank Marketing@KCotch
SEO experts need to focus on the mobile user moving forward into 2017. @KCotch Click To TweetThe most significant change for SEO in 2017 will be the importance of the mobile-first index for Google. Many sites are ready for a mobile-first index but unfortunately many others are not. Google is continuing its focus on mobile, and it has been increasingly important to optimize for mobile users. SEO experts need to focus on the mobile user moving forward in 2017 in terms of metadata and user experience.
Danny GoodwinNews Writer, Search Engine Journal@DannyNMIGoodwin
In 2017, pay attention to how much engagement your brand or business is generating. @DannyNMIGoodwin Click To TweetWith the rise of Google RankBrain, AI and machine learning are becoming incredibly important to think about for marketers and SEOs who want to capture valuable search visibility and be found at key moments of the customer journey.
What do these types of algorithms reward? Engagement – how many searchers click on your result and how long they stick around on your website. While these aren't the only signals Google looks at to determine the quality of its search results (and where your site should rank for specific queries), it is definitely important.
In 2017, pay attention to how much engagement your brand or business is generating. Specifically: organic search CTR and time on site.
Even if improving your organic CTR and time-on-site doesn't directly impact your rankings, it will still bring in more traffic that sticks around longer (and is more likely to convert). Write great titles that make searchers click – and reward searchers for their click by providing awesome, relevant content to match.
Optimize for Humans in 2017Each of these experts shared great advice about different tactics that they predict will rule 2017. You'll notice that the core message behind each of these predictions is the same: put people first.
By focusing on creating a great user experience and understanding what it is that your users want, you'll start 2017 off on the right foot!
Disclosure: Dell is a TopRank Marketing client.
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This was an eventful year for those in the paid search community as Google introduced some significant updates to the way ads are displayed in SERPs. Thankfully, as search marketers scrambled to keep up with the seemingly endless barrage of changes, our insightful paid search columnists were there to help them make sense of it all.
By far the most discussed event of the year was when Google removed the right rail ads from desktop search results in an effort to make the layout more consistent with its mobile SERPs. Four of our ten most widely read articles of the year were focused on this change, including a two data-driven pieces by PPC expert Larry Kim and an article from Google's own Director of Performance Ads Marketing, Matt Lawson.
The other major news item for the year was Google's announcement of expanded text ads, which officially went live in July. While many columns were written about this change, Frederick Vallaeys' piece was the one that stood out and made it into our top ten stories of the year.
What other topics resonated with search engine marketers in 2016? Check out our top ten paid search columns to find out:
Methodology: Columns published in 2016 are ranked in order of pageviews measured by Google Analytics. Data includes all columns published through November 30, 2016. Social data provided by SharedCount.
About The Author Jessica Thompson is Associate Features Editor at Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. She is a well-rounded digital media enthusiast with a keen interest in all things Internet marketing. Jessica earned her B.A. in English from Drew University and has since gone on to fill a wide variety of roles over the course of her career, including web designer, copywriter, editor, SEO consultant, online marketing specialist and marketing manager. Most recently, she worked at Advance Digital, where she conducted digital optimization training for journalists and provided high-level SEO and social media recommendations for 12 major regional news websites, including NJ.com.Buy AutoTrafficRSS script now for $27 only!
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At the beginning of the year, BrightLocal conducted its annual Local SEO Industry Survey, which seeks to gauge the general mood and outlook of professionals in the local search space. At the time, 78 percent of respondents believed that 2016 would be a "good" or "great" year for business. Now, as the year comes to a close, one can only wonder: Were they right?
Local SEO continues to be a thriving niche within the search industry. And this year, while relatively quiet, still saw some major developments that impacted how local search practitioners perform their jobs.
Midway through the year, Google launched "Promoted Pins" on Google Maps, giving marketers a new paid option to incorporate into their local marketing mix. Will Scott's article discussing this new ad type in more detail made it into our top 10, suggesting that local SEO practitioners may soon be expanding into local PPC as well.
Then, in September, businesses were hit with an update to Google's local ranking algorithm, dubbed "Possum" by the local SEO community. This update was thought to be the largest adjustment to the local search results since the Pigeon update of 2014, reportedly impacting 64 percent of local SERPs. The local search community certainly took note, as columnist Joy Hawkins' Possum explainer was our top local search column of the year.
So, was 2016 a great year for SEO? Check out our top 10 local search columns from the past 12 months and decide for yourself!
Methodology: Columns published in 2016 are ranked in order of page views measured by Google Analytics. Data includes all columns published through November 30, 2016. Social data provided by SharedCount.
About The Author Jessica Thompson is Associate Features Editor at Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. She is a well-rounded digital media enthusiast with a keen interest in all things Internet marketing. Jessica earned her B.A. in English from Drew University and has since gone on to fill a wide variety of roles over the course of her career, including web designer, copywriter, editor, SEO consultant, online marketing specialist and marketing manager. Most recently, she worked at Advance Digital, where she conducted digital optimization training for journalists and provided high-level SEO and social media recommendations for 12 major regional news websites, including NJ.com.Buy AutoTrafficRSS script now for $27 only!
We will send the script to your PayPal email within few hours,Please add FullContentRSS@gmail.com to your email contact.Promoting your content has clear short-term benefits — like attracting new readers, social shares, and comments.
But did you know it's also a critical part of your search engine optimization strategy?
Even the best on-page SEO efforts don't work as well if no one links to your site, so one of your biggest jobs is spreading the word out about your content.
Think of it this way:
You've got to attract incoming links to rank well in search engines, and no one is going to link to you if they don't know you exist.
In this post, we'll talk about why content promotion is important for SEO and how to create your own content promotion system.
Why is content promotion important for SEO?After you publish a piece of content, your next goal is to get people to engage with that content.
When people like your content, they'll share it on social media and link to it from their sites, which sends search engines a "thumbs-up" signal.
That signal says, "This is high-quality content," and you want as many of those votes as possible.
People share content from sites they know and trust, and they often visit those sites from their favorite social media platforms and their inboxes — so that's exactly where you want to show up.
Not sure how to get started? Try these four techniques:
1. Reach out to your networkWhile I wouldn't recommend emailing bloggers and editors you don't already have relationships with, don't forget about touching base with your online network when you publish extra special content.
For instance, I've developed a relationship with writing and creativity coach Cynthia Morris over the years.
Now if I publish a piece of content that is a particularly good resource for her audience, I can show the article to Cynthia and ask her to share it via social media if she likes it.
If you already have a connection with someone, reaching out via email with a note about your content may help them find useful information to share with their audience.
2. Post compelling updates on social mediaWhen you promote your posts to your fans and followers on the social media sites you use, complement your text with compelling images.
Need to know the optimal sizes for your social media images? Check out this frequently updated guide from Sprout Social.
It's okay to share a link to the same piece of content multiple times on a particular social platform. Just remember to vary updates that link to the same piece of content, so they don't look too repetitive. For example, some updates should have different text and you can experiment with adding or omitting images.
Try a scheduling tool like the one in the Rainmaker Platform to make this process easier and more efficient.
3. Write guest postsGuest posting helps you establish connections with influencers in your field, and it can lead to new website visitors and email subscribers when it's done correctly.
It's also (potentially) a great content promotion tactic. But before you include a link to your own content, get approval from your host and always honor the site's rules about links.
If you're allowed, link to a piece of your cornerstone content in the text of your guest post or in your author bio.
To maximize engagement with a link to your site, clearly explain what people will find when they arrive on your site and how the content will benefit them.
For more information, read Henneke's post, Unleash a Surge of Email Subscribers from Your Guest Posts with This Simple Landing Page Strategy.
4. Repurpose your contentTo breathe new life into older content and help it reach a wider audience, repurpose it into different formats.
For example, you could take a podcast interview and turn it into:
Every time you publish a repurposed version of the original interview, you can link to the original podcast episode.
On-page and off-page SEO: a smart partnershipIt's not enough to just publish and then sit back with your feet on your desk — you've got to spread the word about your content and give people easy ways to access and consume it.
But don't forget about on-page optimization. On-page and off-page SEO work together to help you rank higher in search engines.
Discover five on-page elements you need to make your content easily digestible for search engines in Copyblogger's free ebook, How to Create Compelling Content that Ranks Well in Search Engines.
What's your favorite way to promote your content online? Share it with us in the comments below!
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White hat and black hat.
White hat SEOs are the Jedi. We have tons of midi-chlorians in our bloodstreams and work for the forces of good in the universe.
This means promoting high-value content, engaging in deep keyword research to win in SERPS, and in general, promoting our websites or the websites of our clients using the methods that follow Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
Black hat SEOs are the Sith. They are afraid that doing high-quality work to boost rankings takes too much time, so they take shortcuts that aren't exactly laid out in Google's best practices.
And we all know that fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering…
Some of these black hat techniques can be attractive to people who are new in the SEO space! Ranking well in search engines takes a lot of time and effort, and finding ways to hack the system is understandably appealing for those new to search engine marketing.
When I was starting out, I used a few of the techniques detailed below and guess what? I got no results! My websites were all indexed correctly, but I wasn't able to get anything to rank for meaningful searches until I learned the ways of the White Hat Jedis.
So what happens when you try to implement black hat SEO strategies? You may make slow progress for some time, but you'll eventually get hit with a Google Penalty.
If you've already been hit with a penalty, it's time to read The Definitive Guide to Recovering From a Manual Search Penalty.
What Are Google Penalties? PenguinThe original Penguin update was launched in 2012. Google relies heavily on links from one domain to another to determine a website's authority. The penguin update crawled the web for any website attempting to game the number of links pointing to their site.
Over 10% of search results were affected, some of which were removed from Google search results entirely.
Since then, website owners and professional SEOs have been keeping a pulse on Google's search algorithm updates.
PandaThe Panda update is a bit different. Its goal is to filter search results to prevent "low quality" sites' content from ranking. While the definition of "low quality" is subjective, Google has their own course on creating valuable content, so it's easy to see what they consider to be high-quality when it comes to digital content.
What Do Google's Penalties Do?If your website gets hit with either a Penguin or Panda penalty from Google, the results are the same: the loss of your current ranking position in search results and a huge dip in your organic traffic. All because of a few black hat methods you used to try to promote your website.
And if your website relies heavily on organic traffic from Google, a penalty could result in a downward spiral that could put you down for good.
Black Hat Strategies to AvoidWhile there are many strategies black hat SEOs use to try to game Google and rank well in search results, these are the most highly used and the most likely to get your website penalized by Google.
LinksGetting in trouble with the internal links in your website or external websites linking to you could result in a penguin penalty. Here's what you want to avoid when it comes to links.
Buying LinksWhy most people do it: Arguably the most important ranking factor is the quality and quantity of links back to a website. It's logical to think that buying links from websites with high Domain Authorities is the easiest way to get backlinks without putting in a lot of work.
Why you shouldn't do it: Buying links is against Google's Webmaster Guidelines. It's an easy way to get on Google's bad side and receive an automatic or manual penalty. It's unlikely you'll get away with buying links without leaving a trail. Google tracks links that are likely purchased and those which are likely natural, so gaming Google is more difficult than you'd think.
Reciprocal LinksWhy most people do it: When Website A offers to link to Website B, Website A might think it's a good idea to ask Website B to link back to them as well. That way, they get a bit of link juice in return.
Why you shouldn't do it: If there's a purpose for both websites to link to each other, such as a partnership, then reciprocal links make sense. But if the entire purpose of the two-way link is "link juice," you run the risk of getting penalized.
Footer LinksWhy most people do it: A backlink from the footer of another website is seen as valuable because it's a link back from every page on their website. Because all pages contain a footer, when you add the link just once, it's like adding a backlink from every page on that site.
Why you shouldn't do it: Similar to reciprocal links, if there's a purpose, like telling readers who built the site, then it makes sense to include it. If the link is purely included to gain authority, is from a completely disconnected website or contains non-branded anchor text, the risk of a penalty is real.
Hidden LinksWhy most people do it: By hiding text or links, some people think that you can include lots of links back to your site without Google even knowing about it.
Why you shouldn't do it: Googlebots are smart and know when your website has any hidden text or links. Having hidden links is bad, but the double whammy comes in the fact that Google crawlers can see a different website than your visitors. That's a big no-no and is one of the easiest ways to get penalized and drop in the rankings.
Comment SpamWhy most people do it: Some websites allow users to add a comment below a post, and sometimes those comment sections allow links. This is an easy way to link back to your site, right?
Why you shouldn't do it: Wrong. Linking back to your site in the comment forms of other websites is spammy and something Google doesn't want to see. In Google's eyes, links should be earned through quality and valuable content, not posted in a comment form in just a few seconds. If you can add something to the conversation and a link back to your site in a comment is relevant and brings value to the readers, then it's probably OK to include it. If not, try something a little less black hat.
Anchor Text OveruseWhy most people do it: Most SEO beginners are susceptible to this. When trying to rank a page or post for a specific search phrase, they try to link back to their websites using related anchor text. For example, someone trying to rank "brand new sailboats for sale" would link back to their website with 100 links, all with the anchor text, "brand new sailboats for sale."
Why you shouldn't do it: Again, Google sees what you're trying to do. You're attempting to rank well for a specific search phrase by using contextual anchor text. In the past, this worked pretty well! But not so much today. Google prefers branded anchor text instead of keyword anchor text — it's more natural to link back using the anchor text, "Marty's Boat Emporium," because it's more natural and suggests the link validates trust.
Malicious BacklinksWhy most people do it: To be clear, nobody does this to themselves on purpose. Nobody attempts to get links back to their website from malicious websites. Unfortunately, there are many black hat SEOs, spammers, and hackers out there who embrace the dark side and will try to damage another site by linking to it from a site that is spammy or even unindexed.
Why you shouldn't do it: When a site that Google deems is spammy links to your site, it can hurt your ranking. If you see links from precarious websites coming to your website, it's most likely they didn't pick your site specifically, and they link to everyone. If you do find that there are suspicious websites linking to your website, use the Google Search Console Disavow Tool to ask Google to ignore the link.
ContentPublishing content that doesn't provide any real value to your website visitors is grounds for a panda penalty. Here's what to avoid when it comes to content.
Duplicate Content / Content TheftWhy most people do it: Producing high-quality, valuable content takes a lot of time and effort. For that reason, some people think they can take content published on another website and reuse / repurpose it on their own. Now your website can have great content without the pain of producing original content, right?
Why you shouldn't do it: Not quite. Google is very particular about duplicate content and, in general, doesn't like to see the exact same content spread across multiple domains. If you find a piece of content that you think your audience would find really valuable, it is possible to republish that article on your website as long as you have the permission of the original author and fully disclose the fact that it's being republished. But if you're thinking about blatantly copying content from another site, you'll run the risk of a Google penalty.
Over-Optimization / Keyword StuffingWhy most people do it: This is another common error for those new to the SEO world. Some people think that the more they optimize a page, the better their page will rank, so they include ten H1 tags and repeat the keyword phrase they're trying to rank for over and over again.
Why you shouldn't do it: This actually used to work. In 2000, if you wanted to rank for "purple elephant," all you had to do was include the phrase "purple elephant" a few times in your title, a few times in your H1 tags, and ad nauseam in your content. But in 2017, Google is looking for the content that provides the most value to searchers. That means over-optimizing is out and focusing on giving the most comprehensive answer to a user's queries is in.
Hidden ContentWhy most people do it: Similar to hidden links, some people think they can include content that's the same color as the background of the site. They do this to include textual keyword phrases in the website without affecting their users' experience.
Why you shouldn't do it: Again, Googlebots know when your website has any hidden text or links. Google's priority is the users, and hidden content definitely counts as a bad user experience because it's something bots can see but your visitors can't. This is a big no-no and is one of the easiest ways to get penalized.
SecurityWhile having an unsecured website can't technically get you a Penguin or Panda penalty, it could result in the loss of your valuable rankings.
Hacked WebsiteIf your website gets attacked or injected with malicious code and Google finds out, they can block your website for people using their search engine.
Not only will this cause you to lose the trust of anybody who visits your site from organic search, but it will cause your website to drop in the rankings just like a Penguin or Panda penalty would.
While it's true you may receive a notification through Google Analytics that your site has been hacked, it still could mean a real penalty for your website in search results if Google knows your site contains malicious code.
To Wrap It UpIt should seem obvious that when it comes to black hat SEO, the numbers just don't add up. Produce high-value content, follow Google's Webmaster Guidelines, and most importantly, don't be in a rush.
Do yourself a favor and become a Jedi, not a Sith. It will pay off in the long run.
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