Standard results, however, are certainly not all that the search engines have to offer. For many types of queries, search engines show vertical results, or instant answers, and include more than just links to other sites to help answer a user’s questions Yes, "content is king" – but that's only half the story. Imagine if Wikipedia, one of the world's most popular sites, offered no more than huge blocks of text, or if Google cluttered its search interface with distracting graphics. It's unlikely that either site would have become as successful as they are today. When content and design work in harmony, users will find your site more easily and stay there longer. When working on your content, you should take the next biggest thing into account: voice search. Yes, it’s been around for a while. But with the advent of Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s nameless Home assistant, things are moving fast right now. Make a list of the keywords for which you want to rank highly. Does the content you share on social media and your blog cover those keywords? Zero in on one or two of your most desirable keywords and find ways to make content under those keywords more shareable.

Does my content convert?

Within the space of 3 years, it has become significantly easier to find businesses, stores or items nearby, creating a shift in user’s intent and search behavior. Users no longer have to include their location in search queries, such as inputting “coffee shops in Queens” into Google. All too often, when we’re brought in for SEO work on a redesign, it’s often late in the process, such as when the site is being coded or even totally complete. “Hey, we should probably have the SEO guy take a look at this before we launch,” but by then, it’s too late. Another “old school” method of building up your backlinks is to make use of Forum Posting. It is a quick, easy and sometimes even fun way to get your links out and maybe even have someone directly click on them which is always a good thing. Quite simply, the better your SEO, the higher the chance your article will appear in a relevant search. This means people will find what they’re looking for more easily, and you’ll get more readers.

Links are glue for your web prescence

Be aware of long-tail keywords, which are usually three to four words in length. The longer the keyword, the more specific it is. That means lower competition and, often, higher conversion rates by nature. Spam links often go both ways. A website that links to spam is likely spam itself, and in turn often has many spam sites linking back to it. Search engines won't notice changes to your site instantaneously. Google and Bing offer search tools to help you manage your site's search presence. Google will send people looking for information on a topic to the highest quality, relevant pages it has in its database.

Try to target a hungry crowd

If you once had a thousand different links all coming from low quality websites, then this could now actually stand to hurt your SEO as it will just look like link spam. If you’ve been guilty of using these old practices, then you might consider using Google’s Link Disavow tool. It’s OK to do promotion to tell people about your content, but if you can only get links by offering money to people or other big incentives, then you’re likely doing it wrong. One of the best ways to get links is to publish original research. That’s not that hard to do. Find out a question that people have in your industry and then do something to answer that question with data. Anchor text of external links affects ranking. Links with SEO focused anchor text needs to be relevant to the target page. We asked an SEO Specialist, Gaz Hall, for his thoughts on the matter: "There are domains which are better to receive links from than others. These are domains that are “trusted” sources and have higher domain authority."

Minimize link depth

Overfed with countless advice making things look simple and obvious, webmasters often rely on their intuition, common sense, or gut feelings when it comes to SEO… and they often fail. The easiest way to build high quality links are what SEOs call “web 2.0s.” That’s just a way to say “social sites” or sites that let you post stuff. Now tweeting a link into the abyss won’t do you anything, but profiles, status pages, etc. do carry some weight. And if they come from a popular domain that counts as a link. The content on your blog or website is the digital salesperson in the organization, and should follow the same brand values and guidelines. Businesses that stick to the old SEO trick of “stuff a post with keywords and use metadata” will get left behind. SEO isn’t about tricking Google or working with spiders – it’s about creating content that wants to get read by your customers.