Sep 3, 2022 1178 reads

Top 10 Things to do to Improve your Brand’s Social Media Presence

It is a well known fact that social media presence is one of the pillars of the digital marketing activities of a brand. However, are we using it correctly? When there are so many social media channels to choose from, are we getting lost in the mess when it comes to strategizing or are we simply trying to exist in the most popular ones? Granted, one might even argue that there is content pollution on social media. In a world where each and every individual has something to say, how can brands speak louder? With Gen-Z dynamically dominating their online presence through their selectiveness and creativity in creating content, brands sure have hardships to face. Here are 10 things to do to improve your brand’s social media presence. Remember, these 10 factors can be considered as a form of investment. You need time to acquire the desired results! 1) Channel Selection Not that it should come as a surprise but your brand does not need to have an account on every social media platform. Selecting a channel determines where you as a brand will invest all of your efforts into content creation, so the effort should be worth it. First, determine the visual standing of your brand. Is it image oriented? Does it have more of an illustrative approach? Are you blessed with video assets? How applicable is your brand for aesthetic content creation? If you are a clothing brand for example, Instagram appears to be a must. However, that does not mean you should be overlooking Pinterest as Pinterest SEO is also crucial in reaching your target audience. Make sure you know your target audience and determine which platforms they exist in. Even if you are a well established brand with one high functioning social media account, you might question the need for existence on other social media platforms that are not doing as well. 2) Content Mix According to the purpose of your brand, it is not a wrong move to exist on multiple social media channels. However, it is wrong to post the exact same content on each medium. Every channel has its own algorithm and not producing content in accordance with that may waste efforts in making the channel beneficial to your brand. Therefore, each brand should create a content mix for each related channel that they hope to exist in. Preparing a content mix is no more than simply deciding what kind of content is going to be shared on each channel. For example, an event agency may prefer to announce their events on Meta, post event pictures on Instagram and promote the events via TikTok live streaming. The purposes of these channels can of course be interchangeable according to the interactions they gain on each medium. 3) Post Frequency The one thing that is common for all social media algorithms is that it boosts accounts that are higher in their frequency of posting. In summary, the more you post, the more people see your brand. This is one thing that is easier said than done of course, since content creation for brands requires care and construction. For each platform, there is a recommended frequency of posting. For channels such as Pinterest, this is much less complicated. However, for multi-purpose share channels such as Instagram, the frequency of stories, Reels and regular static posts all contribute differently to how much the algorithm will support your account. Contradictory to popular belief, there is not a fixed formula when it comes to frequency. However, if you are posting one static post and one story from your brand’s Instagram account each day, expecting high organic impressions is not very realistic. 4) Active Follower Times One of the things that brands want to know about the most is when to post content on social media. There is not an exact formula for this particular topic either! The best thing to do here is to check out the analytics of the given social media platform and find out the active times of your followers. The channels determine a time gap for when your followers are most active, and that is when you should post. If you are a motivational account, you might find that your followers are most likely to engage with your content in the morning, as a kickstarter for the day. If you are again a clothing brand, you might find your account to be the last thing your followers check before going to bed. Of course the situation can be vice-versa just as well. If you are just starting off your account and do not have a fixed follower base, you can play around with different sharing times to see which one brings you the most interaction until your analytics has gathered enough of a base to make sensible remarks. 5) User Interaction Another thing that social media algorithms look for is user interaction. The likes, comments, shares, saves and overall engagement you receive on your posts are very crucial in determining how successful your brand is on social media. The more engagement you get, the more the algorithm will push your content to others. This is why calls to action are very important in your captions. Asking your followers questions, starting conversations in the comments, or encouraging them to share your content will boost engagement and improve visibility. 6) Influencer Collaborations Collaborating with influencers who share the same target audience as your brand can be highly beneficial. Influencers already have an established base of loyal followers, and with their help, you can increase your reach, gain credibility, and drive traffic to your brand’s account. Micro-influencers, in particular, can be especially effective because of their close relationships with their followers and higher engagement rates. 7) Consistency in Branding Your social media accounts should reflect the same branding elements as your website and other marketing materials. This includes your logo, brand colors, tone of voice, and overall message. Consistency helps create brand recognition and trust among your audience. If your posts are visually and contextually coherent, followers are more likely to remember and engage with your brand. 8) Use of Analytics Social media platforms provide powerful analytics tools that help you understand how your content is performing. Monitoring key metrics such as reach, impressions, engagement, click-through rates, and follower growth allows you to identify what works best for your brand. Based on these insights, you can adapt your strategy, optimize your content, and allocate resources more effectively. 9) Paid Promotions While organic growth is important, paid promotions can significantly accelerate your brand’s visibility. Running targeted ads on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok ensures your content reaches the right audience. You can set demographic, geographic, and interest-based targeting to maximize your return on investment. A balanced strategy of organic and paid reach can give your brand the boost it needs. 10) Staying Updated Social media is an ever-changing landscape. New features, algorithms, and trends are constantly being introduced. Brands that adapt quickly and make use of these updates are more likely to succeed. Whether it’s adopting new formats like Reels, trying out trending sounds on TikTok, or making use of new ad tools, staying updated ensures your brand remains relevant and competitive in the digital space.

Sep 3, 2022 2696 reads

How to Do an SEO Competitor Analysis Step by Step?

SEO competitor analysis, in other words, SEO competitive analysis, is a process in which you investigate the keywords, content, links, user experience, and more of your competitors in order to improve your SEO strategies. SEO competitor analysis allows you to enhance organic traffic and the ranking of your website by surpassing your competitors.Performing an SEO competitor analysis for SEO Companies, can help you understand your strengths and weaknesses inferred from the competitors. Instead of relying on guesswork for your SEO strategy, you can create a real plan by knowing your competitors.So, SEO competitor analysis is a strategy that gives you an idea about how to improve the performance of your website by analyzing and comparing the bests and worsts of your competitors. Why Is Competitor Analysis Important for SEO?Before diving into the details of competitive analysis, let's make it clear why it is critical for your business. Performing an SEO competitor analysis is important because it lets you:  Understand your industry better: Numerous different strategies are going on by your competitors. Figuring out which strategies work and which do not can be valuable to specify the SEO strategies you should focus on by outperforming your competitors. Identify strengths and weaknesses of your competitors:  Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors help you to identify what you are doing well and worst. It can help you pinpoint the gaps between your website and your competitors' websites. So that you can work on new strategies to fill the gaps and improve the deficiencies. Reprioritize your SEO strategy:  Once you identify and realize the positive effects of competitors' SEO strategies, you can prioritize your new tactics and existing SEO strategies according to them. How to Conduct SEO Competitor Analysis?Step 1-) Identify Organic Search CompetitorsThe first step of performing a competitive analysis is determining your actual competitors because you cannot make any comparison and work on a new strategy for your business without knowing the competitors. You may think that you already know your biggest rivals in the industry, but they do not have to be the same as your SEO competitors. Depending on the industry and the scope of your business, SEO competitors can be different from your real-world competitors.For example, a vintage store located in the same neighborhood as your store can be an important rival for you in the real world, yet if the same vintage store does not rank for one of your target keywords like red vintage dresses, then that store would not be your organic search competitor. In this case, you would be competing online with other stores that rank for red vintage dresses on the first page of SERP. Accordingly, your organic search competitors are the ones who rank on the first page of SERP for your target keywords, and they may differ from your real-world competitor. Also, please keep in mind that if you work in more than one distinct category, you may probably have different lists of competitors for each service you provide. But, the question here is how will you find your search engine competitors? There are two different ways of identifying your search engine competitors; using Google or getting help from SEO Tools.   Firstly, you should decide on your top keywords for each service you offer. Then, search the keywords on Google and analyze the top sites on the first page of SERP to determine your actual competitors. By repeating this process for all the keywords, you can create your competitors' list from the top pages of particular categories. The biggest problem of this process is working manually. If you have dozens of unique services, unfortunately, the process will take so much time. Therefore, you can always consider getting help from SEO tools such as; Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, Semrush, etc. However, even if you decide to use a SEO tool, we recommend you to always keep an eye on SERP to analyze better in a concrete way (e.g., if the most popular content form is blog posts for your target keyword, you can not know it without controlling SERP).  Step 2-) Conduct Competitor Page AnalysisOnce you decide your competitors according to the scope of your business, the next step to do is perform page analysis to take the competitive advantage. While examining the pages, you should try to understand their performance by looking at which pages of your competitors get the most traffic, rank top, and how. Understanding competitors' performance on a high level will give you an idea about the current SEO performance of your website compared to your rivals. And the easiest way to monitor performance is controlling SEO metrics by using SEO tools which can be free or paid (e.g., Semrush, Moz, Ahrefs).So, the metrics that you should monitor are as follows; Domain authority and rating Alexa rank Organic traffic volumes Page impressions Ranking position Ranking keywords Referring domains  According to the metrics above, you can investigate the weaknesses and strengths of your competitors that you can turn to your advantage. However, please note that the higher the competitors' metrics than yours, it will be harder to dominate them.Step 3-) Perform Content Gap AnalysisAfter analyzing the pros and cons of competitors, the next step is performing content gap analysis (also called keyword gap analysis). Content gap analysis is a method that helps you to find the high-search volume and business-relevant keywords that you do not rank, but your competitors rank at the top. Content gap analysis gives you a chance to gain a competitive advantage by ranking for new keywords and threatening the SEO performance of competitors. Therefore, it is a critical part of the SEO competitor analysis.Doing the content gap analysis manually can be difficult because your competitors probably rank for hundreds of keywords on SERP. Therefore, using an SEO tool can honestly be helpful to save your time and not miss any opportunity. You may consider tools like Ahrefs Content Gap tool to perform the analysis and find new opportunities. While performing SEO content gap analysis, you can ask yourself the following questions below; Which keywords do my competitors rank? Why do they rank for those keywords which you do not?  What do they do differently and extra from you?  How do they drive organic traffic to their websites instead of yours?  What can you do next to improve the performance of your pages and outrank your competitors? When you complete your content gap analysis, you can optimize your pages according to the new and existing keywords to increase your traffic and ranking.Step 4-) Analyze On-Page SEO and ContentThe next step you must follow for the competitor analysis is studying the on-page SEO strategies of your competitors. Analyzing competitors' on-site SEO strategies and performance will help you determine what you can do better and differentiate to improve your performance.You should check and try to understand the following parts below; Page title Meta description Headings Content (check content and media types, topics, length, style, keywords, and publish and update dates) Internal linking, breadcrumbs (pay special attention to schema markup and featured snippets for advanced ranking opportunities)  URL structure So, performing on-site SEO analysis and making comparisons with your rivals can help you recognize issues related to your pages which you can optimize and work on to rank better.Step 5-) Study BacklinksThe next step to do is research the backlinks of your competitors. As link building is a significant ranking factor for search engines, it is one of the critical SEO strategies. If your competitors put so much effort into link building and have high-quality backlink profiles then, you should work on your backlink strategies. Otherwise, it will definitely be more challenging to compete against them to improve your SEO performance. You should look at the following features below while working on backlinks of your competitors; Quality over quantity (prefer high-quality backlinks from reliable sources)  Link-type (focus on dofollow links but do not ignore nofollow links which are great sources to increase traffic, brand awareness, and site performance) After finishing backlink analysis, you can work on building your backlink strategy according to the sites where your competitors get their backlinks.Step 6-) Focus Web Design and User Experience (UI/UX)The final step of the SEO competitor analysis is making better the design and user experience of your pages compared to competitors. As it is known that Google has attached importance to user experience with improved page speed, better mobile experience, or rich search results over the past few years. Therefore, if your site is not performing better than your competitors and not working in accordance with the Google algorithm, you should clearly work on user experience. Controlling and focusing on the following topics below can help you to learn what your competitors are doing, what you are currently doing, and what you can do to achieve the best;  Responsiveness (both mobile and desktop) High page speed and performance (both mobile and desktop) Well organized and understandable site structure (especially check site navigation) Meeting with user intent Providing basic but smartly designed pages Thus, if you realize problematic issues after your analysis, this is an excellent chance to get the competitive advantage on your side on SERP. Final WordsFinally, SEO competitor analysis is an ongoing process that you should redo every month that depends on the industry and scope of your business to survive in the market and be competitive. And do not forget that even the basic improvements can matter when it comes to SEO. If you have more questions about the competitor analysis or need any help related to SEO, do not hesitate to contact our team!

Sep 3, 2022 755 reads

What is SEO Friendly Content?

Improvements aimed at increasing organic traffic and made in accordance with the parameters of search engines are called search engine optimization (SEO). The priority of SEO optimizations and search engines is to provide users with a good experience and good content. Search engines reward websites that offer good content by ranking them higher.SEO friendly content is; optimized in accordance with search engine parameters, shaped around a main keyword, appealing to the right target audience, responding to user intent, benefits the user, easily readable, striking, in line with the brand language, enriched with images and infographics, an inclusive, natural and original content. How to Write SEO Friendly Content?While and after writing SEO friendly content, there are some steps to be considered before. The first two of these are to determine the subject of the content and then to outline it.Determine the Subject of the ContentThe topic you choose should be niche topics that your target audience can easily consume and attract their attention. It is important that your content is related to your website and the services you offer. While search engines offers content to users they also adds value to users. Therefore, the content should present up-to-date and new information.Thanks to your competitors with a common target audience, it is possible to see what interests your target audience. In addition, by examining news sites and forums, you can reach the questions that your target audience is looking for but cannot find an answer to.In short, while determining the subject of your content you can check... blog pages of competing brands, forums and news sites. Analyze and Research KeywordsAfter determining the topic, you should identify the keywords that may be relevant to your topic. Keywords can be divided into main keywords and sub-keywords.After your content is indexed by search engines, it is ranked in related queries. The query you want to rank primarily for will be your main keyword. You can think of this keyword as the main topic of a piece of content. The main keyword is the phrase that most accurately, informatively and naturally summarizes your content and is most relevant to your content.Additionally, just like subheadings, there are subordinate keywords. These words should be relevant and supportive of the content and the main keyword. For example, if we set the word “search engine optimization” as the main keyword, “organic traffic” will be a side keyword.There are three key points to consider when choosing keywords so that your content reaches the right people. These are user intent, search volume and competition.User Intent: User intent refers to why a user makes this search, its “intent” when searching. It can be examined under four basic headings as informational, navigational, commercial and transactional: Informational Intent: Here, the user searches for information about a subject. Usually these queries are in the form of questions or these queries are accompanied by question patterns such as: “what, how, why, when, where, who?” An user's search for "What is SEO" to learn about SEO is an example of this user intent. Blog content usually responds to this user intent. Navigational Intent: Here, the user aims to reach a resource. This resource can be a website or a brand. Searches like “AnalyticaHouse”, “Google Search Console” are examples of this user intent. Transactional Intent: It is the searches that users make before making a purchase. Searches like “Top 10 SEO Tools”, “Cheapest airfare” are examples of this user intent. Commercial Intent: Here, users have decided to buy and are searching to buy. “Buy iPhone 13” query is an example of this user intent. The more appropriate the keywords you choose to the user intent of your content, the easier it will be for your content to reach the right people. Search engines are the best source to check whether keywords match user intent. You can measure whether your keyword is suitable for user intent by searching for the keyword you have chosen and determining how compatible the search results are with your content.For example; if your content will be about “digital marketing trends”, it would be wrong to primarily target the keyword “digital marketing” in your content. As you can see, when the phrase “digital marketing” is searched on Google, “What is Digital Marketing?” titled content will come up. We can say that this query is too general for our content topic.Search Volume: Search volume shows data on how much search traffic a query receives, on average. Queries with high search volume are more searched and demanded by people on search engines. However, this does not mean that you will get higher organic traffic by using high search volume words. On the contrary, these queries have more competition and will be harder to rank for.Competition: Competition indicates the degree of difficulty required to move a website to the top of a query. There are three grades: high, medium and low. If your website is new and does not yet have a certain audience, it is recommended to choose keywords with low or medium difficulty.There are some paid and free tools, called keyword planners, that provide you with data about keywords such as search volume and competition. The free ones are the Google Ads Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator and Answer the Public tools.Google Ads – Keyword PlannerSearch engines are the most reliable sources for keywords, as they aim to provide users with the most relevant and quality content. Google, which has a market share of 86.64% according to the Statista's September 2021 search engine market share report data, offers a tool that allows site owners to discover new keyword variations with Google Ads Keyword Planner and indicates the average search volume and competition rate for each keyword.Keyword Planner has a field that asks you to enter the term you find most relevant to the services you provide or your product. The tool will make suggestions related to the terms you enter in this field. You can enter multiple terms in the field and filter the results by language and geographic region. In this way, Keyword Planner better understands the scope of your product or service and offers better recommendations for your target audience. In addition, by adding the URL of your website or your competitor, you can see which keywords your website or your competitor is ranking for and target these keywords.It is possible to filter the words listed in the "Refine keywords" field as "branded" "non-branded" or by customizing them by product or service. In this way, you can select or remove brand-specific words from your selection, and you can find more suitable options for the service you provide.You can see the search volumes of the keywords in the "Avg. monthly searches" field and the competition on the basis of words from the "competition" field. By selecting a certain date range in the "Avg. monthly searches" field, you can view the search volume data of the keywords, as well as estimate how these queries will perform in the future.For example, by examining the results above, you can see that the word “seo” had an average monthly search volume of 27,100 and a moderate competition rate between November 2020 and October 2021.Ahrefs Free Keyword GeneratorAhrefs, one of the most popular SEO tools, offers a free SEO tool called Free Keyword Generator, where search volumes and keyword difficulty are listed.Just like in Keyword Planner, it is possible to filter by geographic regions in this tool. For example, by selecting the region Turkey, you can access the data of the keywords in Turkey.In addition to Google Ads Keyword Planner, Ahrefs also allows you to access the data of search engines such as Bing, Amazon and YouTube besides Google.Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator has two fields, phrase match and questions. Phrase match presents the phrases that contain the query you entered.The “Questions” field shows which questions were asked about the keyword you provided. The KD (keyword difficulty) & Volume fields, which you can see in both the Questions and Phrase Match sections, show competition and search volume, respectively. The field NE has a logarithmic range. 0-10 indicates little competition, 10-31 medium, 31-70 difficult, and 70-100 very difficult. The “Updated” field provides information on when the keyword was last updated given.Answer The PublicAnswer the Public is a free tool that groups Google searches and shows which keywords are combined in alphabetical order.Unlike Ahrefs & Google Ads Keyword Planner, it is not possible to see search volumes and competition for words in Answer the Public. Another disadvantage of Answer the Public is that it does not offer Turkish language support. However, it offers data for calls made through Turkey. After selecting your region, you can search by entering your keyword.Outline Your ContentTo create the skeleton of your content, you must first need to decide on its... length subtitles. Your SEO-friendly article should be filled with up-to-date and reliable information and should cover your chosen topic comprehensively. If you want to rank well with your article, you need to create more comprehensive content than your competitors.SubheadingsSubheadings are the things that will form the outline and scope of your article. Therefore, when choosing subheadings, you can review your competitors' blog articles on the topic you have chosen. You should definitely include the topics your competitors include in your content, and in addition to these topics, you should add up-to-date information that will feed the user.At this point, you can take advantage of the questions in the “Questions” section of Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator and Answer the Public tools, and in the “Users also asked” section of Google. In this way, you can include topics that users are curious about in your article.You need to establish a hierarchy among the sub-headings both structurally, formally and semantically. At this point, it is very important to use heading tags correctly in SEO compatible articles. You can set up the hierarchy between headings by going from general to specific. For example, you can use the H1 tag for the main heading, the H2 tag for the secondary heading, and the h3 tag for the tertiary heading. A hierarchical order should be established between the heading sizes. For example, the heading with the H1 tag should have the largest size and the size should decrease as the heading level decreases.It is important to have SEO keywords in subheadings, therefore heading tags. In this way, you can both direct your users within the content correctly and give more information to search engines about what your content is related to.LengthAccording to Backlinko's research on 912 million blog entries, an SEO-friendly article should be between 1000 and 2000 words long. Also, longer articles get more backlinks than shorter articles. However, you should not forget that how much information a content conveys and how useful this information is for users is more important than its length.Make sure your content is readableA quality SEO content is readable, natural and original content. Your content should be readable by any reader. In other words, it is important that your SEO compatible article is not written in a robotic language, interacts with the user and is fluent. That's why:Paragraphs should not be too long or too short. Approximately 100 to 150 words are ideal for comfortable reading of a paragraph. The important thing in the paragraph is to present the main idea and support it with side ideas. In order not to bore the reader, it is important not to repeat the paragraph or the content.Include images in your content and optimize imagesYou can support your content with relevant images, videos or infographics to increase the understandability and readability of your content. Using explanatory infographics or graphics will not only make the subject easier to understand, but also enrich the SEO-friendly article.Take care to pass the keyword in the file name of the images you will use. For example, "ay-image.jpg" would be a better filename instead of "2017IS232738.jpg".What are the Benefits of SEO Compatible Content?SEO compatible article also means quality and reliable article. The quality of your content helps you stand out from your competitors. Offering reliable content helps increase your authority in the eyes of your users.SEO compatible content allows you to be visible on multiple keywords. In this way, your organic visibility will increase and it will be easier for you to discover potential customers.In short, thanks to SEO compatible content, your brand's conversion rate organic traffic brand awareness brand loyalty increases. SEO Compatible ChecklistHere is a 13-item checklist with the features of SEO compatible content The content should be more comprehensive than competitors. The content should have accurate and reliable information. The content should be written by someone who has a good command of the subject. The content should include images and infographics. The content should be structured around a descriptive, high search volume with a moderately competitive keyword. Synonyms to the main keyword or words that are very close to the main keyword should be used in a way that is still relevant to the context. A title should have at least one main idea and several supporting ideas to follow. The same ideas should not be repeated within the same content by different phrasings. Main keywords should be used in titles and subtitles. A hierarchy should be formed within titles both constructionally and stylistically. The proper heading markings should be done and these headings should be in order in terms of fonts, punto etc.) The manner of expression should be consistent. For instance, the shift between the 1st person and the 2nd person should be avoided within the narrative. Keeping the narrative consistent is highly important. Not switching to one tense to another in a text should be paid attention to. Texts should be fluent and easy to follow. Making grammatical errors and publishing careless content should be avoided as much as possible. Plagiarism should be avoided while forming content. Content should not be used on more than one platform.

Sep 3, 2022 9408 reads

What is Link Building? SEO Guide For Internal Linking

In-site linking and link building are among the SEO items that directly contribute to the crawlability and indexability of our pages. Search engine bots crawl our pages from link to link. For this reason, it can be said that link building and internal linking are the backbone of a site. As we shared with the screenshot below, you can see Mike Khorev's high rate of internal linking and link building in the Google ranking algorithm for 2021.At the same time, in-site linking and link building ensure that the visitors we can attract to a page can discover other pages and make them easy to navigate. It contributes to the prolongation of the time a user visiting our site spends in his session and to increase our page view potential. To sum up, it is very important both for search engine bots and for our visitors to have an efficient experience.What is Link Building and How Is It Done?Link building is a method of navigating users between pages on the Internet. Link building should be shaped according to the importance of the pages on our site. Thanks to this construction, which is the backbone of the site, you can create authority and increase your organic traffic gain by increasing your rankings. As shared with the image below, intra-site linking should proceed in a certain hierarchical order.Since your page with the most links on e-commerce sites can easily access all pages, it is recommended to have Homepage, followed by category pages in order to support the product discovery potential of users.It is known that search engine bots prioritize 360-degree quality, high-relevance and unique websites in the long-term ranking algorithm. As for how link building should be done, it is recommended that in-site linking works be built in a way that directs visitors to relevant and useful links, in order to obtain long-term benefits.E.g; “What is Backlink and How to Get It?” from a page about Link Building. Linking content will navigate users more accurately.Formation of Links and Appearance by Search EnginesIn order to understand how the links, which are the backbone of the site, are viewed and interpreted by search engine bots, we can examine the link anatomy in the Moz - Guide to Link Building content together. Start of Link Tag: The Link Referral Location: The URL pointing to the link. It is the clickable area to switch to the relevant page. Visible/Anchor Text of Link: It is the text that visitors see on the page and click to reach the relevant link. Closure of Link Tag: It is the closure that notifies search engines that the link tag has ended. Google Link Building Algorithm and Link TypesGoogle announced the "PageRank" algorithm, which takes into account the number of links earned by that page to measure the quality of a page. The irrelevant and unhelpful link acquisition from the content resulted in the PageRank metric being manipulated. For this reason, Google published the Penguin algorithm in 2012. With this update, it was announced that low quality link building will not contribute to ranking performance in the long run.Within the scope of link building, link types are basically divided into two. External Links: These are links that point to a different/external domain than the source domain. If a different website links to your site or if you are linking to a different website, this is an external link. E.g; Link Anchor Text Internal Links: Links from the source domain pointing to the same source domain. They are links pointing to other pages on the same website. E.g; Keyword Text Up until this point in our blog, we have summarized the importance of link building in the Google ranking algorithm and the points to be considered until this part. We will continue with details on how to make internal linking to our content. What is In-Site Linking?Internal linking is a method by which you can navigate your visitors among other pages on your site. In other words, a link is output from a page in the same domain to a different page. It helps you transfer your site's hierarchy to search engines.This method does not only provide crawling and indexing of pages. It also enables pages to rank higher. You can improve crawling, indexing, and therefore ranking performance by linking the deeper pages of your site from other useful and appropriate pages.We can list the benefits of in-site linking as follows. It navigates visitors through the site. It improves the crawling performance of the site. The hierarchy of the site is established. The site is more easily understood by search engines. The value of the pages increases. It improves ranking performance among other sites. How to Make In-Site Linking?We can convey the optimal in-site linking structure of a website with the image below. This structure refers to a structure in which there are links from the homepage to all pages. There is a flow throughout the site, increasing the ranking potential of each page.We will first define the term Link Equity within the scope of suggestions on how to do in-site linking. Link Equity (Link Juice, PageRank) is a search engine ranking factor that transfers authority and link value from one page to another. This value consists of various factors such as page authority, HTTP status.Points to consider when linking within the site; Is the Link Related? It is recommended that the other page that you link to any of your pages should be relevant. In this case, you do not manipulate the search engine bots and direct your visitors to pages that are highly relevant to the current page. For this reason, one of the most critical points in in-site linking studies is to make links with high relevance. In In-Site Linking, Do Outgoing Links Go to Related Pages? A visitor expects to reach other relevant pages from the target page they reach. If the number of outgoing links from a page is very high, you should check if the outgoing links are relevant to the topic of the page. You can start by examining the links other than the header and footer links. At this point, your roadmap could be “Which pages the user hopes to reach from the current page?” In Incoming Links, Do Incoming Links Come From Related Pages? If the target page has a high number of links within the site, it means that the page is a source, a high authority and a valuable page. By being detected more intensely by search engine bots, the frequency of crawling is reinforced. At this point, incoming links to the pages should be checked. It should be ensured that the pages with high performance are linked more intensively but meaningfully within the site. Can the link be tracked? Links with nofollow tags are not followed by search engine bots. Such links do not transfer any value. For this reason, it should be ensured that there is no nofollow tag in the links that are requested to transfer value in intra-site linking. In intra-site linking studies, it is recommended to use the dofollow tag in internal links to the site's own domain. Not using any meta tags (like dofollow or nofollow) in link building gives a "follow link" signal to search engine bots. Therefore, you do not need to use an extra dofollow tag in your on-site linking efforts. Where will the link be placed on the page? Links positioned within the content have higher authority than links in areas such as footer or sidebar. These links are areas that can be noticed and clicked more easily by users in intra-site linking. How Many Links Should a Page Have? There is no limit to the number of links to be found on a page. Considering the depth of the site, intra-site linking can be worked on. What should be the HTTP Status Code of the Linked Page within the Site? Pages with 200 and 301 status codes maintain their link authority. The 301 redirected page transfers all the authority it has to the target page. However, in terms of crawl budget optimization, it is recommended to link only 200 status code pages within the site. Links with 301 and 404 status codes should be removed from the site. Does Anchor Text and Link Match? In in-site linking studies, the anchor text gives a general impression of which queries that page is targeting, without the need for a page to be crawled by search engine bots. The anchor text should contain the query targeted with the page. In intra-site linking studies, it should be checked with which link texts the pages gain links. Is the URL Structure of the Site SEO Friendly in Link Building? Search Engine Bot does not prefer to follow URLs that are Directed, Blocked with robots.txt file, Contains keyword stuffing and double content, Containing non-recommended characters (numbers, Turkish characters, etc.), Containing monitoring parameters at the time of crawl. Search engine bots can penalize spam pages to protect their users. Therefore, it is recommended to detect and remove such URLs that are linked within the site. Are Link Headers Used in Your Site Links? In order to measure the quality of the pages, Google measures the performance of the website in terms of user experience under the control of Accessibility with its Lighthouse tool. In the internal linking evaluation, it is known that having the titles of the internal links will enable the search engine bots to understand the link more accurately and easily. For this reason, you should make sure that the links on your website have a title value.References https://mikekhorev.com/seo-ranking-factors  https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building https://moz.com/learn/seo/internal-link https://moz.com/blog/linking-internally-externally-from-your-site-whiteboard-friday https://moz.com/learn/seo/what-is-link-equity https://moz.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-link  https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/

Sep 3, 2022 51342 reads

What is Google Index? Why is it Important and How is it Optimized?

Search engines follow a 3 step process in order to reveal the most relevant outputs regarding the users' needed inquiry. Orderly, these steps are Crawling, Indexing and Ranking and Serving.  Crawling: The discovery of websites done by the search engine bots as they reach the existing information on the internet. As they scan, bots follow the links that are embedded on websites and reach new ones. Due to the links that are present on websites, bots scan by visiting billions of websites online. Indexing: The process of bots saving adding already visited websites to a data storage system. Indexing is the second step that comes right after crawling. Ranking and Serving: The end result of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) which lists out websites that are the most relevant to the users' searches. This ranking is done from the most relevant websites to the least. What is Indexing and Why is it Important?Indexing is the entire process of search engine bots processing and saving the data from the websites that they scan, and place them in a storage system. Bots try to analyze and make sense of the content on each scanned website. During the analysis, elements such as keywords, visuals, content and the generic build that the website has are classified. The information that is obtained through the analysis is added onto the index and is stored on the search engines' database; ready to be offered to the users.Why is Website Indexing Important?The pages that are not indexed vie bots are not present on Search Engine Results Page because they do not reside in the databases. Therefore, they do not get any organic traffic. That is why, during SEO optimizations, indexing is crucial for pages that are expected to gain organic traffic.How are Indexed Pages Questioned on Google?A process also known as Google index questioning, allows us to see the page numbers that are indexed and not indexed on Google for a specific website. There are two different methods to check the number of pages that are indexed and which pages are indexed.Questioning Index via Using GoogleIf we are to type "site:example.com" (Example being the domain name) on the search bar, we can see the number of the pages that are indexed by Google. If there are no results on SERP, this indicated that there are zero pages that are indexed.Index Questioning via Using Google Search ConsoleAfter logging in to the related website's Google Search Console account, we can click on the "Coverage" section which is located right under the "Index" section. Here, the number that we see under the "Valid" section shows us the number of pages that are indexed. Through the details section, we can get more detailed information on the pages that are indexed. If the "Valid" section reveals the number to be zero, this means that no pages are indexed. The number of errors we get on indexed pages can be found under the "Errors" section whereas more information about these errors can be found under "Details".What is Google Indexing Request and How Can You Submit One?Also referred to as Google add site, submitting an indexing request is to inform Google of your website pages and asking to be indexed. Submitting these pages to Google goes not mean that Google will quickly index them nor that the pages will immediately show up at the top on SERP. Indexing requests are done only to inform Google of new or modified pages are added onto a website that are not indexed yet. How and when the pages are indexed are up to Google bots.Submitting an Indexing Request via Using Google Search ConsoleIn order to submit a Google Index request, the first step is logging in to the related website's Google Search Console account and adding the URLs of the chosen pages under the "URL Inspection" section. After a few seconds of waiting, Search Console draws Google Index datas and reveals the current indexing status of the pages in question. On the right hand side of the same screen, clicking the "REQUEST INDEXING" section submits an indexing request for the related URLs.What is "Remove Google Index Pages" and How is it Formed?Also known as delete Google index pages , remove Google index pages is the act of informing Google about certain pages on a website and requesting for them to be removed. Informing Google about certain pages means signaling the bots to prioritize these pages; however once again, it is up to the Google bots how and when these pages will be removed from the index.Remove Index Pages via Using Google Search ConsoleThe first step is logging in to the related website's Google Search Console account and clicking on "Removals" located under the "Index" section. Later on, a removal request is formed by clicking on the "NEW REQUEST" button located on the right hand side of the page.How and Why the Index Status of Pages ChangeSometimes, it is possible not to request each page on a website to be indexed. There can be different reasons to why one might want to check and/or change the pages' index statuses. These are the following; Pages that are unfit for indexing can be excluded for scanning budget optimization (ie: Static pages) Pages that are still being tested that do not provide original and quality content can be left out of indexing in order to protect the website authority and prevent user access. In situations as such, the indexing status of pages can be checked by redirecting the search engine bots.  What are Robots Meta Directives and Can We Use Them?Robots Meta Directives are the codes that are assigned to bots in order to check the indexing status of the pages on a website. Robots Meta Directives are divided into two being Robots Meta Tags and X-Robots Tags.Robots Meta TagsRobots Meta Tags are codes that are written on the HTML sections of pages that are able to guide some or all browsers. The most common types of Robots Meta Tags are index/noindex, follow/nofollow and noarchive.Index / Noindex tags instructs search engine bots on whether to index pages or not. Where Index instructs the pages to be indexed and shown on SERP, noindex in contrast instructs the pages to not be indexed and not to be shown on SERP.Unless the term noindex is not specified, search engines act in a way to index all pages. That is why, specifying the term index is unnecessary.X-Robots TagsX Robots Tags are used as a part of the HTTPS over-script section. The instructions that are sent are the same as they are with Robots Meta Tags, they are only an alternative method.Why Do Search Engines Remove Indexed Pages?The pages that are indexed by bots can be removed from the index without the intervention of webmasters (ie: webmasters using the "noindex" meta tag to instruct the bots). The removal of indexed pages from the search engines can be the result of the following, Getting 4XX coded client errors or 5XX coded server errors on the pages in question Violating the terms of conditions of the search engines Needing access permission for the related pages and the fact that they are not accessible to everyone What are Canonical Tags and How are they Used?Canonical Tags are the codes that inform bots whether the related pages prefer a certain version or not. If a page contains a canonical tag, the bots assume that there is a much more preferred, alternative version of the selected page, and the URL that is placed on the canonical tag is viewed as the authoritarian page. However, if the page does not contain a canonical tag, bots assume that there are no alternative versions of that page and indexes the page as the original one.Canonical tags prevent the original pages from losing their value to alternative versions. The main point of caution here is knowing that the canonical tags do not directly intervene to the pages' index statuses. In order to intervene to the index statuses of the pages, the index/noindex meta tags should be used.When to Use the Canonical Tags Canonical tags are used when a page contains elements such as filtering, ranking, etc. in order to direct URLs with parameters to versions without parameters. Canonical tags should also be provided in order to prevent the duplicate content problems that might be caused by similar versions of the pages. Canonical tags should be used in each original page in order to inform bots on the existing original pages within a website. How to Optimize Indexing?Optimizing Google indexing benefits to improve the scanning budget. That is why the indexing optimization is very important for SEO operations. During the optimization of indexing, we must make sure to apply the following articles; Using the correct robots.txt file (ie: Placing the "disallow" command on pages that are indexed in order to gain organic traffic is a faulty use because the pages that are disallowed will be unavailable for scanning, therefore will not be indexed.) Having the correct and organized on site link architecture for the website Conducting backlink analysis Using sitemap Using the robots meta tags and canonical tags correctly Having mobile compatibility for the website Providing up-to-date, quality and original content to the users, and indirectly to the bots. It can be learnt how an SEO friendly content is prepared from our related blog article. In order to learn more information on SEO and digital marketing processes, you can visit the AnalyticaHouse blog page or contact us directly.Resourceshttps://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/robots/robots_meta_tag https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/overview?hl=tr https://www.linkbuildinghq.com/crawling-indexing-ranking/ https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate https://www.onely.com/blog/how-to-create-an-indexing-strategy-for-your-website/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/11-seo-tips-tricks-to-improve-indexation/288521/#close https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-index/ https://www.semrush.com/blog/what-are-crawlability-and-indexability-of-a-website/ https://seranking.com/blog/canonical-tag-guide/ https://www.vargonen.com/blog/canonical-url-nedir/ https://moz.com/learn/seo/robots-meta-directives

Sep 3, 2022 4181 reads

What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?

Backlinks; are links from one site to another. Backlinks are called "inbound links" or "incoming links". In other words, they are links that are earned outside the owned domain. With this method, sites become references to each other, and the site in the link is recommended to users and search engine bots. Thus, we signal to users and search engine bots not only the performance of the website, but also that this is a recommended website outside the site as well. We gain a vote of confidence consequently. Thanks to backlink and off-page SEO, popularity Relevance, reliability, authority of a website is developed  in the eyes of users and search engines.Down below the effects and importance of backlinks to websites are listed.1.ReferralWhen a website is vouched for by different websites, search engine bots think that “this page that has a link from a different domain is worthy of being displayed higher in the SERP” (Search Engine Result Page). Thus, backlinks have a positive impact on a page's ranking position and visibility.2.PopularityAlthough the traffic earned to a website is a messy metric, and the visitors to the site are embedded in the logs of the private servers it is easier to analyze the traffic earned to the site because the external links are more stable (The source from which users are acquired can be analyzed more easily.) Therefore, backlinks can easily measure the popularity of a page.3.RelevancyLinks provide clues to search engine bots about the relevance of pages. Anchor text reflects the content of the linked page. And it contributes to the more efficient indexability of the relevant page by search engine bots.Backlink Perception and Algorithm Updates from Past to PresentGoogle has announced the PageRank algorithm about the links it sees as a ranking factor. The PageRank algorithm, in general terms, calculates the number of links (hyperlinks) a page has earned. With this algorithm, the websites with the most links are ranked higher. PageRank is a value from 0 to 10. This value is calculated by the following items in general terms; Quantity and quality of inbound link pages Number of outbound links on each link page Page order of each linking page Although this algorithm is much more complex today, since the number of links is at the forefront and it creates a link market, Google has withdrawn itself in this regard and has not made any PageRank updates.Backlink & Off - Page SEOSearch engine bots links are used as a quality indicator of the linked content. It is often listed higher than sites with poor quality backlinks. Only getting references from high-quality websites contributes to the website.Backlink types are divided into two as earning and giving.1-) EarningNatural Links: These are the links earned editorially without any action by the page/domain owner. E.g; food blogger linking to her favorite organic products in a recipe.Manually Built Links: These are the links earned for the purpose of planned link building. E.g; Like asking influencers to share links, making your users visit your site by clicking the link.Self Created Links: These are links that do not look natural, such as forums and blog comments, and are entirely earned by the website owner. Comment backlinks do not contribute to off-page SEO performance.2-) GivingThese are the backlinks gained from irrelevant sites without the knowledge of the website.Factors that Determine the Value of BacklinkIn order for the earned link to contribute to ranking performance and organic traffic, this external link must have the following values. Popularity of the linking site The relevance of the linking site, to the site Freshness of the link Anchor text used in the linking site (whether it is a keyword that is compatible with the content and targeted for development, variety should be considered in anchor texts, since a page's link gain with the same keyword can be perceived as spam.) The credibility of the linking site Number of other links on the linking page Authority of the linking domain What Are Backlink Metrics?Domain Rating (DR): Shows the strength (in terms of size and quality) of the overall backlink profile of the target website. It is scaled according to the value of incoming connections to the domain. Link strength is a metric that is calculated in relation to the visibility and traffic of the target website by search engine bots, as it is considered a vote of confidence.The DR rate can increase by gaining quality and more quantity backlinks from domains with high DR rate. Because the content shared by a website with a high domain authority is quickly indexed by search engines and the quality of the links it gives is higher than other websites.URL Rating (UR): Shows the strength (in terms of size and quality) of the overall backlink profile of the target URL. It scales based on the value of inbound links to the page.Anchor Text: It is the anchor text that the link points to.NoFollow: Tags added for links that are not wanted to be followed by search engine bots in a domain. The use of nofollow in links is a tag that ensures that the bots do not follow the page and therefore the reference & authority value is not passed on.DoFollow: These are the reference links that allow the page and domain value of the link given from one domain to another domain to be shared with the site to which the link is given.Reaching a domain with the redirection of a different domain increases the value of that domain, while the reached domain may harm the value of the domain for which the connection is gained. These damages can be technical as well as affect the image of the external linking domain. E.g; Let's assume that a link is given from domain A to domain B, possible errors in domain B (404, 500 errors) or possible link attacks from domain B will damage domain A. In order to prevent such damages, link output can be provided with nofollow tags in order not to be a reference to the relevant domain. These links will not contribute anything to the link profile of the site. Backlink strategy should be based on dofollow link acquisition.Hacklink Link: Links from a website to another website using illegal methods without the knowledge of the website owner. It is a prohibited link acquisition method, both legally and in terms of search engine guidelines.Harmful Link: It is the situation where a website gets links from irrelevant domains. Such malicious links are usually earned from domains that only exit links and have no purpose or content. Such malicious links must be detected and rejected via Search Console by creating a disavow file (backlink rejection file).What are the Points to Consider While Getting Backlinks? Your backlink should be editorial. Footer, harmful and comment backlinks should be avoided. Natural and quality backlink acquisition should be inclined. It will be more beneficial if the linked site is relevant to the site. It will be both a useful reference and focused users will visit the site because it appeals to a similar target audience. Harmful and irrelevant sites should be avoided. A single anchor text should not be linked. The reliability of the site to be linked will give our site a healthier vote of confidence. The DR rate of the linked site should be checked. The traffic volume of the site to be linked should be checked so that you aim to attract traffic to your page. Getting dofollow backlinks and the number of other links on the linking page should be checked. The continuity and freshness of the received link is important. Commonly used SEO tools while performing backlink work are as follows. Ahrefs Majestic Google Search Console  Where to Get Backlinks and How to Research?Among the alternative link acquisition methods, natural and free backlink acquisition should be ensured with unique and different applications on the site before purchasing backlinks.For this, Quality content Widget and calculation tools Event calendars Infographics Competition and testing Site-specific original content and events can be designed.First things first, in order to purchase editorial links, the referring domains report in the SEO tool called Ahrefs determines the domains with the highest quality DR ratio that link to a website. If these domains are compatible with your site, links can be purchased. With the backlinks report in the same tool, it can be determined which domains provide the most referral traffic to the website. If these domains are compatible with the site, we can make purchases. It is also possible to determine which pages can be linked to with the same report.Secondly, competitor research should be done, the competitors of the URL to be linked are analyzed so that backlink purchase can lead to development for the target keyword and page. For this, the first 5 competitors listed in the keywords targeted by the page can be considered. In the Ahrefs tool, the page to buy the link is added to the Site Explorer section, and competing sites are added to the Link Intersect section. On the result screen, the domains where the target URL does not gain links, but where the competitors gain links, will be listed. Trusted sites can be analyzed by listing the DR ratio from largest to smallest. From here, sites with high organic traffic that may be relevant to the site are detected.Finally, websites related to the site to be purchased are searched.E.g; A link to the thermal underwear category page can be purchased from a site targeting the camper/outdoor audience. For a website that sells design and luxury products, a link can be purchased from a website that shares luxury and lifestyle content. Before buying a link, attention should be paid to the DR rate of the sites, the up-to-dateness of their content, their organic traffic, and whether the link will be dofollow.It is also significant to conduct a competitor analysis before determining the website's backlink strategy as well. You can check how to do an SEO competitor analysis please have a look at our relevant content.