Why is that?

It’s due to the difference in audience, as Google’s search algorithms work the same for B2B companies as they do for B2C. 

In other words, classic SEO factors like proper keyword optimization, high-quality content, fast page speed, and authoritative backlinks will still help you climb to the top of the SERPs as they always would. 

Yet, instead of creating content that caters to as many consumers in your target audience as possible, your content exists to influence key decision-makers at other companies (such as sales managers, CEOs, marketing managers, etc.). 

For B2B SEO, you’ll need to create content that’s more tactical and technical in nature, as your goal is to convince business leaders to use your products and services over your competitors. 

That usually consists of ultimate guides, buying guides, whitepapers, downloadable templates, and webinars covering topics that matter to your B2B audience. 

Also, B2B conversions typically take longer than B2C, as more than one decision-maker will have to give your product the green light before a business will adopt it. 

In fact, the average B2B buyer will consume 8 pieces of content from your website before speaking to a salesperson. 

That means your content needs to really stand out from the crowd, so read on to learn how to master B2B SEO. 

B2C vs. B2B SEO: What’s the Difference?

There are more differences between B2C and B2B SEO than you might think, even though they both involve the same Google Search algorithms. 

For example, B2C SEO is all about discovering high-volume keywords, meaning that lots of online users are searching for them every day. 

The idea is to generate as much organic traffic from your target audience as possible to gain leads and conversions. 

Also, B2C content tends to have a more lighthearted tone, with some pieces of content only meant to entertain. 

Social media marketing is another core aspect of B2C SEO that doesn’t really exist with B2B SEO (outside of LinkedIn, which is a must for any B2B company). 

B2B SEO focuses on low-volume keywords instead, as you’re targeting a handful of business decision-makers instead of a broad general audience. That means the keywords you target don’t need astronomically high search volume to be viable for your business. 

B2B content tends to have more of a professional tone with a noticeable lack of emotions and fun. 

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as your content has different goals than B2C – namely, to convince business owners of your worth as a supplier/thought leader. 

Social media marketing doesn’t really exist for B2B SEO outside of LinkedIn, which is one of the best platforms for B2B companies to advertise on. 

In addition to blogging on your website, you should also release blogs through LinkedIn to ensure you’re reaching as many decision-makers as possible.

How to Conduct a B2B SEO Campaign 

While B2B SEO has some noticeable differences from B2C, the fundamentals of search engine optimization remain the same. 

You’ll still need to conduct keyword research to guide your content strategy, and on-page and technical SEO factors still apply. 

For example, if Google can’t properly crawl and index your most important content, it won’t appear in the SERPs. 

Check out our extensive technical SEO and on-page SEO guides to learn more about how to optimize your web pages correctly. 

For now, here’s an overview of the unique steps you’ll need to take to conduct a B2B SEO campaign. 

Create a decision-maker avatar 

Before you start looking up keywords, you need to know more about the types of decision-makers you need to appeal to. 

First, you must determine who to target at each business, such as CEOs, marketing managers, or procurement managers.

How can you find out?

It will depend on the type of B2B products and services that you deliver, as well as your current customer base. 

For instance, if you provide white-label products for grocery stores, you’ll want your content to cater to food procurement managers. Additionally, take a look at your customer base and break them into the following groups:

• Industry. Do your products and services cater to more than one industry? If so, clearly define the industries that give you the most business. 
• Sales cycle. How long is the average sales cycle for one of your customers? Knowing this will help you with your content strategy later. 
• Decision-maker role. Lastly, categorize your customers by their decision-maker roles, such as managers, CEOs, CFOs, etc. 

Once you’ve got all this information ready, you can build your decision-maker avatar (also called buyer persona). 

What’s that?

It’s a fictional character that embodies the traits of the essential decision-makers you need to cater to. 

Your avatar should be fully fleshed out with a name, age, professional title, likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, and more. 

That means you’ll need to research your target audience to learn more about them. We recommend scouring their LinkedIn profiles, other social media platforms, and any forums that they frequent. 

Conduct B2B keyword research 

Once you have a detailed decision-maker avatar (or avatars if you serve multiple industries), you can move on to the keyword research phase. 

Bear in mind that B2B keyword research looks a lot different than B2C. 

For one, high search volume isn’t what you’re looking for – as you’re after specific long-tail keywords that key decision-makers in your niche use. 

Even if a keyword only has a search volume of 10, if it’s relevant to your decision-maker personas, it can be worth pursuing. 

Another noticeable difference is that the keywords you target should have a high CPC (cost-per-click). 

While B2C keyword research looks for lower CPCs, a higher CPC for a B2B keyword means generating traffic from it will yield more value. 

In other words, you should replace search volume with CPC as the primary gauge of the strength of a keyword for B2B SEO. 

Also, you should place most of your focus on two sales funnel stages: the bottom and the top. 

Why is that?

It’s because top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) keywords will establish your brand as a thought leader in your field, and bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) keywords are the most important for landing conversions. 

If you only focus on BOFU keywords, generating enough traffic to raise brand awareness and develop new leads will be difficult. 

If TOFU is your primary focus, you’ll miss out on more immediate sales you could generate through BOFU queries.

That’s why it’s crucial to use a balance of both. 

TOFU keywords 

Keywords at the top of your sales funnel represent informational queries from users that aren’t quite ready to make a purchase but want to learn more about what you do. 

They could want to learn a new skill at first, causing them to come across one of your ultimate guides. 

Should you attempt to convert the reader into a customer on a TOFU blog?

Not yet, as that’s too aggressive. 

Instead, the CTAs for your TOFU blogs should contain lead-generation tools like mailing lists, newsletters, or free eBooks. 

You can use our free keyword planner to uncover informational queries relevant to your niche. While B2B SEO tends to focus on keywords with lower search volumes, your TOFU keywords should have a higher search volume (although not quite as high as for B2C keywords). 

TOFU keywords tend to include the following phrases:

• How-to
• Why 
• What is 
• Benefits of 
• Tips for
• Guides on

Another way to find TOFU keywords is to look at the type of content your top competitors produce. 

For instance, if you discover that a #1-ranked competitor has a how-to guide that has thousands of clicks, comments, and shares on social media – you could create a similar guide that provides even more value by going into more detail. 

Lastly, the website Exploding Topics is excellent for finding trending TOFU topics, just be sure to choose a category that reflects your niche. 

BOFU keywords 

Keywords at the bottom of your sales funnel represent queries from users that are looking to make a purchase. 

As such, they don’t need to consume any how-to guides or educational blogs to get to know your brand. 

Instead, the content you create for BOFU keywords should focus on why your products and services are better than your competitors and how they’ll positively transform your customers’ lives. 

Common types of BOFU content include:

• Case studies
• Customer reviews
• Testimonials 
• Use Cases 
• White papers
• Video demos and tutorials
• Pricing pages
• Product roundups 

Also, the CTA for each piece of content should link to one of your product or service pages instead of a lead generation tool. 

That way, you’ll be able to secure as many conversions as possible from customers searching for exactly what you sell. 

BOFU keywords tend to include the following terms:

• Buy 
• For sale
• Discount
• Near me
• Cheapest 
• Subscribe
• Download 
• Register
• Membership 

Remember to look for low search volume and high CPC whenever you use a keyword research tool for BOFU keywords.

Why does high CPC matter for B2B SEO?

It’s because the cost-per-click represents how much people are bidding on Google Ads for a specific keyword. 

The higher the CPC is, the more valuable the keyword is to pursue. 

Even if the keyword has a minuscule search volume, a high CPC is a reliable indicator of its marketing power. 

By combining TOFU and BOFU content, you’ll enjoy the best of both worlds by generating new leads and converting new customers simultaneously.

Create a B2B content calendar

Once you have a vetted list of keywords that appeal to your buyer personas, you can begin planning your content strategy. 

Instead of releasing blogs whenever you feel like it, you must carefully plan your release schedule to see the best results. 

The first step is to establish clear goals for your content. 

What do you hope to achieve with your content, and when do you want to achieve it?

Give yourself a clearly defined goal with real metrics and a timeline, like improving customer acquisition by 20% within 14 months.

Also, ensure that you have ways to measure your success, such as monitoring your traffic, rankings, and conversions using tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics. 

Next, map out a typical sales cycle for one of your customers using real data. 

On average, how long does it take for a prospect to convert into a paying customer? How many pieces of thought leader content do they consume before moving down the sales funnel?

This is all crucial information to know when developing a content calendar. 

After that, it’s time to make your content calendar a reality by using software like Excel or a project management tool like Asana. 

Your content calendar needs to include the following:

• Deadlines for first drafts, edits, and publishing 
• An assignee for each piece of content 
• Any necessary instructions or attachments 
• The target keyword for each post (and any additional keywords)
• A word count/length 

Once your calendar contains all these elements, it’s ready to go live. 

Build authoritative links for your new pages 

Most of the time, releasing high-quality content isn’t enough to help you reach the very top of the SERPs. 

Instead, you’ll also need a reputable backlink profile to outrank competitors and gain better online visibility. 

Also, you don’t want to generate backlinks from just any website, as that can actually backfire if they aren’t reputable. You should only target backlinks from trusted websites that have high domain authority scores. 

Effective link-building tactics include:

• Guest posting on related websites. Publishing guest blogs on relevant websites in your niche is a great way to acquire links pointing back to your most important pages. 
• Link insertions. A quicker way to obtain backlinks is to insert your links into existing pieces of content on related websites. 
• Broken link building. You can use Ahrefs’ broken link checker to find broken links online that you can replace with links to your content. 
• Relationship building. Hailed as the new way to get links, many SEOs are opting to form long-lasting relationships with other websites in their industry to acquire quality backlinks on a consistent basis. 

Concluding Thoughts: B2B SEO Strategies

A B2B SEO strategy may look a lot different than B2C, but the fundamentals remain the same. 

Your goal is still to generate leads and conversions through high-quality, keyword-rich content with strong backlinks. 

The primary difference lies in appealing to business leaders instead of the general public, but once you get the hang of that – you’ll be off to the races.

Do you want to form a successful B2B SEO strategy for your business?

Then you need to check out HOTH X, our managed SEO services that have yielded outstanding results for countless clients.       

The post B2B SEO: How to Create a Winning Strategy for 2023  appeared first on The HOTH.

Why’s that?

It’s because an overwhelming number of customers research local businesses online before taking a single step outside. 

For example, 87% of consumers look up local businesses on Google before deciding to visit them in person.

AI chatbots are also changing the local business landscape, especially OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

It’s an extremely powerful tool, and SEOs have started to find ways to use ChatGPT for local SEO.

That’s especially true ever since ChatGPT gained internet access in March 2023. 

While it’s not an official SEO tool, which will always have more reliable metrics, ChatGPT is still useful for assisting with the following:

• Keyword research 
• Optimizing your Google Business Profile (GBP)
• Generating content ideas for social media and GBP 
• Drafting emails to encourage users to leave reviews 
• Responding to Google reviews 
• Dealing with negative reviews 
• Optimizing your on-page SEO 

As you can see, there are plenty of ways you can use ChatGPT for your local SEO strategy. 

Of course, you should use the chatbot in tandem with other official SEO tools, like our backlink checker, keyword planner, and SEO audit tools from the HOTH. 

We’ve assembled all the ways you can use ChatGPT to boost your local business’s online presence and search engine rankings, so read on to learn more.

The Current State of ChatGPT 

ChatGPT has seen many advancements since first being unleashed to the public in November 2022. 

What is ChatGPT, anyway?

It’s an AI chatbot that uses natural language processing and deep learning neural networks to do everything from carrying on conversations with users to writing essays and solving computer code problems. 

It launched with a large language model (LLM) called GPT-3 (GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer). 

The free version of ChatGPT continues to use GPT-3, although the paid version (ChatGPT Plus) uses the newly released GPT-4 – which has a whole host of impressive new features. 

Originally, ChatGPT was not connected to the internet, and it only had training for online data up to September 2021. 

That meant its original answers to queries often contained outdated information, which was a noticeable drawback. 

However, that all changed on March 23, 2023, when OpenAI launched plugins that granted the chatbot access to the web. 

ChatGPT is now connected to the internet and is free for anyone to use, which is why SEO professionals have started experimenting with it. 

Why Use ChatGPT for Local SEO?

Important note: While ChatGPT is more capable than ever before, it can still provide inaccurate information at times, so fact-checking everything is absolutely crucial. 

Why use it for your local SEO strategy if it can be unreliable at times?

Regardless of its occasional hiccups, you just can’t beat ChatGPT’s speed and convenience for brainstorming keyword ideas, blog posts, emails, and so much more. 

It’s also amazing at organizing your ideas, such as listing all your target keywords in a table and separating them by search intent. 

Once you get the hang of how to prompt ChatGPT, the sky’s the limit with what you can do. 

Additionally, the tool will save you countless hours of work by automating repetitive tasks like drafting outreach emails and responding to user reviews. 

You can also use it to better understand your target audience, as it’s capable of generating entire buyer personas based on a simple prompt. Beyond that, you can ask ChatGPT about what’s popular in your niche and what kind of content your target audience wants to see most (of course, you need to fact-check this information, but it sure is fast and convenient). 

Smaller businesses and startups should definitely make use of ChatGPT, as its capabilities will save you lots of time and hassle. 

For instance, if your team doesn’t have time to create social media posts for your business, you can let ChatGPT take the wheel. That’ll free up your team to focus on more important things, like providing more attentive service to your clients. 

Using ChatGPT for Local SEO Staples (GBP, Reviews, Keywords)

Local SEO has its own set of unique challenges for business owners, which is why it’s separate from traditional SEO. 

In particular, local businesses need to create a Google Business Profile if they want to appear in local SERP features and on Google Maps – both of which are CRITICAL for generating local traffic.

Not only that, but positive reviews play a huge role in local search strategies. 

You’ll want to accrue as much positive word of mouth as you can for your brand online, as that’ll help you generate more business. 

Research shows that 98% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, so you can bet for certain that users will be searching for your reviews before considering your products and services. 

The good news is that ChatGPT can assist with both optimizing your Google Business Profile and acquiring/responding to online reviews. 

It’s also a great resource for link-building tactics, such as uncovering local directories and relevant blogs you can target for guest posts and link insertions. 

Here’s a look at the main ways you can use ChatGPT for local SEO. 

Optimizing your Google Business Profile 

Creating a Google Business Profile is necessary for appearing on Google Maps and in SERP features like the Knowledge Panels. 

If there’s already a profile for your business, you’ll need to request ownership of it before you can optimize your profile.

Your GBP will include basic information about your business, such as:

• Business name, phone number, and address
• Hours of operation
• Business Category 
• Reviews 
• Products and services
• Posts
• Q&As 

To see the best results on Google Search, you’ll need to fill out every section of your GBP, some of which are ongoing (posts, reviews, and Q&As). 

How can ChatGPT help you optimize your GBP for SEO?

In particular, it’s excellent for creating posts, responding to reviews, generating Q&As, and brainstorming categories. 

Using ChatGPT for choosing business categories

The categories and subcategories you choose for your business will play a huge role in the success of your local SEO campaign. 

Why is selecting the right category so important?

It’s because 84% of Google Business Profile views come from discovery searches, meaning the users searched for a particular product, service, or category. 

Conversely, only 16% of profile views come from direct searches, where the user searches for your specific business name. 

That’s why selecting the right categories for your niche and target audience is such a big deal. 

ChatGPT can help you understand which categories your top competitors are using on GBP, which you can then copy. 

After all, if they see a lot of GBP views and rank high on Google’s SERPs, they’re clearly doing something right. 

You can also use it to brainstorm category and subcategory ideas for your business profile. 

Here’s an example:

Alt tag: A list of gardening categories generated by ChatGPT for local SEO. 

Just like that, you have a long list of relevant categories you can use for your Google Business Profile. 

These are all viable suggestions, as you want to be as specific as possible when choosing GBP categories. 

However, before pulling the trigger on these categories, run them through our keyword planner tool to ensure they’re popular search queries. 

Generating GBP posts

ChatGPT excels at generating AI content on the fly, and it’s perfectly capable of writing engaging posts for your GBP and social media profiles.

While they’re often overlooked, posts on GBP should comprise at least some of your content marketing efforts. 

That’s because they can provide a ton of benefits to your local SEO profile. 

GBP posts inform your audience about new products, events, offers, and announcements that relate to your business. 

These posts are excellent for your local SEO for the following reasons:

• They send positive ranking signals to Google, keeping your content relevant and ranking on the SERPs (search engine results pages). 
• Posts increase the number of actions users take on your profile, providing a pleasant user experience while increasing exposure to your brand. 

Certain types of GBP posts expire within a week, so you’ll need to post often to stay relevant. 

ChatGPT can knock out GBP posts with ease, so you won’t have to trouble your marketing team to handle the copywriting. 

As an example, let’s say that your fictional lawn care service is running a $20 full lawn service package, and you want ChatGPT to create a short post promoting it. 

Here’s what it came up with for us:

Alt tag: A GBP post generated by ChatGPT for local SEO. 

Not bad, right?

All you have to do is plug in your local area, contact number, and URL, and you’ve got a piece of high-quality content ready to publish on your GBP. All that, and it only took a simple prompt to generate – which certainly beats spending upwards of an hour writing the content manually. 

Creating Q&As and FAQs for your GBP 

The Q&A (questions and answers) section of your GBP is also essential for your local SEO, and ChatGPT can help you fill it out in no time. 

You can also come up with viable, frequently asked questions to include, which are great for users and search engines. 

However, the answers you provide in your Q&A section are particularly important. 

These are the common questions and answers that appear on your GBP below your business address, hours, and phone number. 

They matter so much because they’re real questions from prospective customers. 

Users often ask these questions, and the quality of your answers may serve as the penultimate reason why they choose to visit your business in person. 

It’s a good idea to kick things off by including some FAQs in your Q&A section, and you can use ChatGPT to generate them – like this:

Alt tag: A list of FAQs generated by ChatGPT for local SEO. 

Besides that, you can and should set up alerts to notify you whenever a user asks a question about your business on your GBP. 

That way, you can answer their question in a timely manner. 

If you aren’t the best with words, you can let ChatGPT do the talking for you. 

Optimizing Google Reviews 

Lots of positive reviews will add credibility to your local business, and they’ll help you generate a ton more business. 

We’ve already mentioned that 98% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, which is why you need reviews if you want to generate more revenue. 

How can ChatGPT help with this?

You can use the AI chatbot to draft professional emails encouraging your loyal customers to leave reviews for your products and services. 

Alt tag: An email generated by ChatGPT for local SEO. 

ChatGPT’s writing skills are also great for responding to reviews, which shows that you value your customers’ input. 

Not only that but the time you’ll save generating replies instead of writing them will make it easier to respond to every single review. 

Brainstorming Keyword and Content Ideas 

Last but not least, ChatGPT can help optimize your on-page SEO by brainstorming viable keyword ideas and content topics. 

Content creation takes a lot of work, and keyword research plays a big part in that. 

The good news is ChatGPT can help you streamline the keyword research process in a big way. 

While you should double-check each keyword it provides by running it through our keyword planner (to ensure it has desirable SEO metrics), ChatGPT can help you come up with tons of creative keyword ideas. 

Here’s an example of what we provided when we asked for keywords related to lawn care:

Alt tag: A list of keywords generated by ChatGPT for local SEO. 

A super cool feature of ChatGPT is the ability to continue to prompt the AI based on previous prompts. 

As such, we can ask it to brainstorm some content topic ideas using the keywords it has already generated for us. 

Alt tag: A list of content topics generated by ChatGPT for local SEO. 

Pretty neat, huh? 

Now you have engaging content topic ideas to flesh out for blog posts, videos, social media posts, newsletters, and more. 

Key Takeaways: ChatGPT for Local SEO 

Artificial intelligence shows massive potential for assisting with SEO, and ChatGPT is a perfect example. 

While the technology is still evolving, it’s an incredibly useful tool that you can use to save time and effort on your local SEO strategy.

Do you need help devising a winning SEO strategy for your business?

Then you need to check out HOTH X, our managed SEO packages that will yield real results regardless of your industry.     

The post How to Use ChatGPT for Local SEO Strategies  appeared first on The HOTH.

In February of 2023, Microsoft unveiled its new and improved version of Bing, which integrated with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to generate real-time responses to user queries. 

As of May 4th, 2023, the new version of Bing search is now live and available for anyone willing to test it out. 

How does the new search engine affect Bing SEO?

While the new Bing is still in its infancy, its advanced features are sure to shake up the SEO world in a big way, potentially even for SEOs that only focus on Google. 

That’s because ever since Microsoft gave Bing a new makeover, it’s seen a dramatic uptick in users.

Microsoft Bing is now visited by more than 100 million users per day, which is a significant increase from where they were just a few months ago. 

While Google Search has long dominated SEO and still has a majority of the market share, their recent gaffes (we’re looking at you, Bard rollout) and Bing’s growing presence means the tides may be starting to change. 

So if you’ve never incorporated Bing in your SEO strategy before, it might be time to start. 

However, there’s quite a bit to know about the new version of Bing, especially for search engine optimizers. 

That’s why we put together this extensive guide, so read on to learn how to use Bing like a total pro. 

The New Bing and ChatGPT 

Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI led them to develop a special version of ChatGPT used specifically for the Bing search engine. 

It uses a special version of the GPT language model called GPT-3.5, and Microsoft claims their version of ChatGPT is faster, more accurate, and customized for search engines. 

To experience the new version of Bing, users will have to download the Microsoft Edge browser – as that’s the only way to access ‘conversational search’ through ChatGPT. 

The traditional version of Bing displays on all other browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. 

Bing Chat allows users to ask complete questions instead of strictly using search engine queries. 

Here’s an example of what we mean. 

On the old Bing (and Google), if you wanted to learn more about the guitar, you’d search for a keyword like ‘guitar tips and tricks.’

This brief phrase will connect you with content that provides guitar tips and tutorials (especially for websites targeting that specific keyword). 

That’s how search engines have worked for decades, and we’ve become accustomed to typing in short queries and phrases to find the content we need. That’s also how search engine optimization works, by optimizing and creating content based on popular keywords in your niche. 

Yet, the new version of Bing is completely changing this model. 

It provides a more conversational experience, which is one of the biggest selling points of the new platform.

What’s conversational search?

The new Bing promises conversational search for its users, which is a brand-new approach to operating a search engine. 

Going with the ‘guitar tips and tricks’ example above, if you were searching through Bing Chat search, you could search for a complete phrase like, “I want to learn how to play the guitar; what’s the best way to do that?”

Bing would interpret this prompt and do several searches throughout the web for relevant content. 

It would then summarize the top answers it found in an easy-to-digest format. 

That makes it easy for users to quickly find the information they need without having to browse multiple results. 

What’s even cooler is that you can continue to ask Bing questions based on your previous queries. 

For example, if you wanted to learn more about fingerpicking in particular, you could ask Bing, “I already know the basics; what about fingerpicking lessons?”

The Bing search results and chat response will then change based on this new prompt – effectively allowing you to ‘converse’ with the search engine, uncovering more relevant results with each query. 

We’ve long been trained to type very rigid, specific-sounding keywords into search engines for many years now. 

The new Bing breaks that mold, which is both promising and a bit intimidating. 

Still, it’s hard to deny the massive potential of this style of search engine, as its ease of use and conversational flow could completely revolutionize the way people look up information online. 

What can the new Bing do that Google can’t?

Besides using the new Bing to handle all traditional search queries, its chat feature has some capabilities never seen before in a search engine. 

For one, you can ask additional questions about your query, and Bing will continue to respond with new information each time. 

Not only that, but Bing can even solve problems for you if you ask. 

For instance, if you’re having trouble with a line of code, you can ask Bing’s AI to fix it for you in a matter of seconds. It’ll even provide a detailed breakdown of how it diagnosed and solved the issue for you to reference in the future. 

You can also get Bing to do the following:

• Write original essays, poems, and short stories
• Brainstorm ideas for creative writing, speeches, and business presentations
• Solve complicated math problems
• Assist with keyword research 
• Uncover link-building opportunities in your niche 
• Find ways to rephrase sentences and paragraphs 

As you can see, you can get the new Bing to do just about anything for you, which provides a high-quality user experience that reaches new levels of user engagement. 

There are even ways you can use Bing to improve your digital marketing and SEO strategies, like using it to enhance your keyword research and link-building efforts.

What Other Features Does the New Bing Offer?

The Bing search engine received a complete overhaul, and the changes stretch beyond including ChatGPT. 

Here’s a look at the other features offered by the search engine:

• Shopping. Bing offers an enhanced shopping experience that features high-resolution product images, prices, descriptions, ratings, and more. Users can also access shopping results via AI chat. 
• Images. There’s also an image search, where users can search the web for relevant images categorized by size, color, and other parameters. Bing’s AI chatbot can also display images based on user prompts. 
• Videos. Just like Google, Bing has a video search used to find clips on YouTube and other video-sharing sites. 
• Maps. Users have the ability to search for locations around the world and receive detailed walking/driving directions. 
• News. This search specifically looks for current events related to the user query. 
• Flights. If you’re planning on traveling, the flight search will help you find air travel. 
• Hotels. Quickly and easily compare and contrast hotel prices in the location of your choosing. 

It’s important to note that Bing’s version of ChatGPT can pull content from all these different search types, so if you want to find the cheapest hotel in St. Louis, you could just ask Bing Chat. 

Still, it’s nice to have so many options available when using Bing, especially for users that don’t have Microsoft Edge. 

What are the Benefits of Using Bing SEO?

Now that you know more about everything the new Bing has to offer, why should you use it for your SEO strategy?

After all, isn’t Google still the dominant force in the SEO game?

They are, but it’s likely that they won’t stay on top forever. 

Bing SEO is already gaining serious traction, and there are some attractive benefits to using Bing for your SEO instead of Google (or in addition to). 

Here’s a look at the top benefits you’ll enjoy from launching a Bing SEO campaign. 

Fewer competitors 

This benefit has long been the selling point of Bing SEO, even before the partnership with OpenAI. 

Since Google hogs 84.69% of the search engine market (down from 92.15% in 2021, which is more evidence that their dominance is fading), keyword competition for every niche & industry is extremely fierce. 

Conversely, Bing only holds 8.85% of the market, making it far easier for businesses to dominate the Bing rankings with the right optimization strategy. 

While it may take thousands of dollars and several years to reach a top spot on Google, you’ll likely be able to reach the same spot twice as fast on Bing. 

That means you’ll start generating organic traffic and leads a lot faster, and you’ll have a much easier time guarding your #1 spot. 

So if your niche has extremely steep competition on the Google SERPs, it’s worth branching out to see what the search engine rankings look like for your keywords on Bing. 

You may find that you’re the only game in town, meaning you can become the dominant player in your space on Bing. 

With Bing’s popularity on the rise, securing high-ranking positions on Bing sooner rather than later is a good idea for SEOs. That way, if and when Bing starts to seriously challenge Google’s dominance, you’ll already be at the top of the SERPs.  

Clear ranking factors 

A distinct advantage Bing SEO has over Google is the transparency of its ranking factors. 

In other words, Bing isn’t as tight-lipped about its ranking factors as Google. 

If you’ve done any type of SEO work for Google, you’ll know about their secretive and, at times, confusing ranking factors – of which there are over 200. 

What’s more, is that Google doesn’t provide an official list of its ranking factors, and it does this deliberately. 

That’s because Google doesn’t want anyone to know their exact formula for ranking websites, as they feel that would encourage people to find ways to game the system. 

Since it’s their goal to provide users with the most relevant, highest quality content, Google doesn’t want anyone to know how to cheat their rankings and get low-quality spam in their top results. 

For instance, many SEOs falsely thought that Moz’s domain authority score was an official Google ranking factor when it was developed by a third-party company (Moz) to approximate the strength of a domain. 

Google has repeatedly stated that they don’t consider a site’s domain authority score as a ranking factor. 

This type of confusion is common for many Google ranking factors. 

However, Bing is extremely transparent with SEOs about the ranking factors their Bingbots use when crawling and indexing websites (more on these factors in a bit). 

As such, you’ll have an easier time optimizing your content to rank on Bing since you’ll know exactly what their bots want to see. 

It’s excellent for local businesses 

Bing Places is Microsoft’s equivalent to Google Business Profile, and it’s a great spot for local businesses to promote their products and services. 

If the local SEO is fiercely competitive in your niche on Google, it’s worth giving Bing Places a try. 

Much like GMB, optimizing your business profile on Bing Places is the best way to improve your local SEO profile. 

That means adding your business name, address, phone number, reviews, social media profiles, services, and products to Bing Places – which will also make it easier for your business to appear in Bing Maps. 

Bing is in the sweet spot of having enough users to generate traffic & sales while not having enough competitors to make SEO too challenging. 

Bing optimization also works for Yahoo 

Ever since July 2009, Bing has been the power source for fellow search engine Yahoo. 

How does this affect Bing SEO?

It means that whenever you optimize your website to rank on Bing, you’re also optimizing it to rank on Yahoo.

The best part is that you don’t have to do any additional work for Yahoo, as the ranking factors are exactly the same. 

That means you’ll have twice the SEO power, so you’ll generate even more organic traffic. 

Yahoo sees an average of 700 million users on its mobile version each month, and it accounts for 2.44% of the overall search engine market. 

That’s nothing to shake your stick at, especially if your website is well-optimized for mobile devices and desktop searches. 

Bing webmaster tools 

Every SEO that optimizes for Google knows that setting up your website on Google Search Console (GSC) is a definite must. 

The tool is free to use, and you get exclusive insights into how well your site is performing on Google – including the presence of any indexing errors. 

Without using GSC, all your SEO tactics are basically shots in the dark. 

With GSC, you can upload your sitemap to help with indexing, view current search engine rankings, check your click-through rate (CTR), and so much more. 

Does Bing SEO have a tool that’s equally as useful?

Yes, it does. 

Enter Bing Webmaster Tools, Microsoft’s version of Google Search Console. 

With it, you can perform any task that you would on GSC, including viewing crucial SEO metrics, current rankings, indexing errors, and so much more. 

You can also use Bing Webmaster Tools to inspect and troubleshoot your URLs, upload XML sitemaps, conduct keyword research, and view your backlink profile. 

There are also SEO reports that range in severity, such as missing meta tags, poorly optimized anchor text, duplicate content, and missing H1 tags.

Reach different demographics 

Bing has drastically different demographics than Google, which can work out in your favor if your target audience consists of an older crowd with high incomes. 

Also, many like to use Bing to conduct product research (55% of its users, to be exact) and brand discovery (38%). 

A majority of Bing’s users are aged 45 or older, which is in stark contrast to Google, which only has around 22% in the same demographic. 

If your business targets older adults that have disposable income (or children that live at home), optimizing your website for Bing searches will help you reach more of your target demographic than Google. 

Bing also tends to value longer, more in-depth posts than short-form content. That’s something to bear in mind if you primarily produce long-form content for a lengthy B2B sales cycle. 

Alexa and Cortana voice searches go through Bing 

Have you ever had Cortana or Alexa answer a question for you?

If so, then both programs went through Bing to find the answer. 

Microsoft Bing powers both virtual assistants, so if you optimize your website to rank on Bing, Alexa, and Cortana will start to reference your high-quality content for their voice search queries. 

It’s yet another way that Bing SEO can net you organic traffic and expose your brand to new audiences. 

Voice search is often overlooked in the SEO world, but you can most certainly use it to boost your online visibility. 

Alexa and Cortana are the leading virtual assistants, as they both account for a large portion of the market share.

Not only that, but their users ask them dozens of questions, as 64% of men and 53% of women use their virtual assistants every single day. 

That means there are countless opportunities for your brand to appear in voice search results, and optimizing your website for Bing is the best way to capitalize on them. 

How to Set Up Bing Webmaster Tools 

You can’t conduct a successful Bing SEO campaign without getting set up on Webmaster Tools first, so it’s time to learn how to do just that. 

The good news is that setting up Bing Webmaster Tools is a fairly straightforward process. 

Also, to learn more about how Bing crawls, indexes, and ranks websites, check out the Bing Webmaster Guidelines. 

Step #1: Create a new Webmaster Tools account 

First, head to the Webmaster Tools homepage, and click on ‘Get Started.’ 

To create an account, you’ll need to sign in using an existing Microsoft, Facebook, or Google account. 

If you don’t have an active account on any of these platforms, you’ll need to create one now (creating a Microsoft account would make the most sense in this case). 

Once your account is ready, you’ll see a blank Webmaster Tools dashboard. Now it’s time to add your website URL. 

Step #2: Add your URL

Under ‘My Sites,’ you’ll see a text box that says ‘Enter site URL’ and a button that says ‘Add.’ 

This is where you enter your website URL so that you can view your website metrics through the dashboard. 

Simply copy and paste your URL into the box, and hit ‘Add.’ 

Next, you’ll need to tell Bing a little bit more about your website, including uploading your sitemap.

Step #3: Upload your sitemap 

Under ‘About My Website,’ you’ll see your website’s URL and a box where you can add a sitemap by pasting an XML file. 

Why is this important?

It is because your sitemap will give Bing full visibility of your entire website, which is the best way to ensure that all your most important pages get indexed and ranked in the SERPs. 

Once you’ve entered your sitemap, hit Save, and you’re ready to move on to the next step. 

Step #4: Verify ownership of your website 

The final step is to verify your account, and there are several ways to do so. 

Here are the different methods you can use:

• XML file. You can verify ownership of your site by downloading the Bing XML file and then uploading it to your domain’s root folder. That’ll create a special URL that looks like this ‘yoursite.com/BingSiteAuth.XML. To complete the verification process, you’ll need to visit the URL in your browser and then hit the ‘Verify’ button. 
• Meta tag. If you don’t want to bother with the XML file, you can opt to add a simple meta tag (similar to a meta description) to your homepage. If you can enter custom HTML with your CMS, you can easily add the meta tag that way. You’ll need to keep the meta tag in place for your website to remain verified. 
• CNAME record. You can also add a CNAME (a domain alias) record via your hosting provider, which can either be extremely easy or pretty tricky, depending on who you use. Basically, you add a CNAME record with your URL and the value verify.bing.com. 

Once you’ve verified ownership, you’re free to start using Webmaster Tools to inform and guide your Bing SEO strategy. 

What Are Bing’s Top SEO Ranking Factors?

We’ve already mentioned that Bing has a clear set of ranking factors that anyone can learn, but what are they?

Let’s take a look at the most important ranking factors on Bing while providing candid SEO tips along the way.

Social signals 

There’s long been a heated debate over whether social signals (engagement on social media such as likes, shares, and comments) play a part in Google SEO (another side effect of their secretive ranking factors). 

One thing is for sure, though – Bing places far more emphasis on social signals for SERP rankings than Google does. 

When trying to generate Bing traffic, your social signals will play a big part in your rankings, so be sure to encourage as much interaction with your social media accounts as possible. 

User Engagement 

One of Bing’s most crucial ranking factors is user engagement, which it measures through a metric known as ‘pogo-sticking.’ 

A user ‘pogo sticks’ whenever they click on a search result and almost immediately click back to the results page. 

It’s similar to Google’s bounce rate metric, but it’s a lot more important on Bing. 

If someone clicks off your page almost instantly, it’s a pretty clear sign of a poor user experience. It could be that your load times are abysmal, or your UI could be a total mess. Either way, you want to do what you can to ensure that users click on your content and don’t immediately pogo stick away. 

Domain keywords 

It used to be that including your target keyword in the page’s URL was a necessity for Google SEO until an update nerfed its impact several years ago. 

However, domain keywords are extremely important for Bing SEO. 

So whenever you’re creating new page content, make doubly sure that you’ve included your primary keyword in the URL. 

Backlinks and page authority 

While backlinks are the backbone of Google SEO, they matter far less to Bing. 

You read that correctly; backlinks don’t matter as much with Bing SEO.

What does matter a lot to Bing is site and page authority. 

In other words, Bing prefers older domains. It’s very difficult to rank a new domain on Bing, so if you have a brand-new website, your best bet is to stick with Google SEO. 

However, if you have an older domain and you include your keywords in your URLs, you should find great success on the Bing SERPs. 

Content quality and keyword usage 

Much like Google, Bing values high-quality content that’s well-produced and helpful to users. 

However, Bing places a lot more emphasis on engaging, long-form content. 

So if you’re starting a content marketing strategy on Bing, longer videos and long-form blog posts are the way to go. 

Keyword usage is also important, but density isn’t as big of a deal. 

In fact, your best bet is to stick to one keyword per page. 

Anchor text usage 

While backlinks aren’t as important, Bing places a lot of emphasis on anchor text. 

To see the best results, your links coming from high authority sites should use exact match anchor text. 

That’s because Bing isn’t as good as Google at keyword matching, so it needs a little extra help. 

Click-through rates 

Besides the pogo-sticking metric, Bing also looks at click-through rates to determine the quality of a website. 

If a URL has a better click-through rate than a competitor, it will rank higher on Bing. 

To improve your click-through rates, you need to write enticing title tags and meta descriptions that directly appeal to your target audience. 

Final Takeaways: Using Bing SEO in 2023 

Microsoft’s Bing has undergone a significant transformation since integrating with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. 

The search engine now sits at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, and it’s attracting new users and fans every single day. 

Bing SEO is now more relevant than ever, so you shouldn’t put off optimizing your website for it any longer – especially if you’re struggling with steep competition on Google. 

Do you need help devising a Bing SEO strategy for your business?

Then don’t wait to check out our incredibly effective managed SEO service, HOTH X. Our SEO gurus will develop a tailor-made SEO strategy for your website to take your business to the next level, so don’t wait to contact The HOTH team now.       

The post Bing SEO: How it Stacks up to Google in 2023  appeared first on The HOTH.

Yet, nothing has changed quite as much as the local search. 

On Wednesday, September 28th, 2022, Google held its Google Search On 2022 event, where they announced the newest features coming to the platform – including many local search updates. 

Changes include exciting user features such as being able to search for specific food dishes from local restaurants, using images to conduct searches, and an exciting Google Maps live view. 

What does this mean for your local SEO profile?

It means that you need to adapt to these changes as quickly as possible to retain your current rankings. Not only that, but these changes will also pose exciting opportunities for new tactics to get you to the top of the SERPs. 

With 2023 just around the corner, it’s crucial to gear up for the new year by checking out the most accurate predictions for how SEO is set to change going forward.  

Luckily, that’s precisely what we’re here to do. 

Read on to learn about the most important local SEO updates as well as what will matter most for SEOs in 2023. 

2022 in Review: What Were the Biggest Developments in Local SEO?

The SEO industry saw some significant changes and updates in 2022, with 10 confirmed Google algorithm updates. 

In early December, Google implemented continuous scroll on desktop search results. That means there’s officially no longer a page 2 of search results (time to move all those dead bodies). 

SERP features also received an overhaul, with some search queries now featuring 2 or more featured snippets, ‘other sites say’ snippets, and ‘from the web’ snippets. Beyond that, Google began using MUM (Multitask Unified Model) to determine a general consensus for search queries. 

Doing so has helped them reduce ‘false premise’ results (unrelated results that don’t satisfy your search intent) by 40%. 

The switch from Google My Business to Google Business Profile saw more changes to the platform than just the name change. Most notably, local business owners can now edit their listings without having to dig through tons of lists and menus. 

Instead, you’re now able to edit your local listings (think your business name, address, and phone number) straight from Google Maps and Google Search. 

Many local SEO updates were announced at the Google Search On 2022 event, which will surely mix up the local search results. A lot happened, so let’s take a look at the most important updates. 

Google’s Multisearch ‘Near Me’ 

Multisearch was arguably the most significant new search engine feature that rolled out in 2022. 

Source

Starting in April, Google searchers were able to use images or screenshots instead of text-based queries. 

It works by using your phone’s camera (powered by Google Lens) to search for images online. Users can also add text on top of the image to make the search more specific. 

Google’s goal was to allow users to ‘search beyond the box’ and ask questions about the things they see. 

The applications for this new feature are vast, as you can use multisearch to find products, educational information, tutorials, and more. 

For instance, if you take a picture of your dining set and add the text ‘dining room table,’ Google will help you find a matching dining room table for your silverware. 

How does this affect local SEO?

During Google Search On 2022, it was announced that multisearch queries will include local SEO terminology, such as ‘near me.’ 

That means users can discover your local business through image searches, which is yet another way prospects can find you online. 

Optimizing your content for local multisearch 

Multisearch is certainly a convenient feature for Google users, but how will it affect your local SEO strategy? More importantly, will it impact your current local rankings?

After all, every time new features are added to search engines, SEOs must devise ways to optimize content for them. 

Since multisearch is still so new, there’s a noticeable lack of information on how to optimize for it. 

However, Google’s John Mueller has a few words of advice for webmasters. 

He states, “if your content is findable in search, and if you have images on the content and those images are relevant, we can guide people to those images or to your content in multiple ways.” 

He also notes that “there’s not a direct effect on SEO or anything like that.” In other words, if your content is already ranking in the top 5 local results or local pack, multisearch won’t change that. 

What you should do is ensure your website is chock-full of helpful content that contains relevant, high-quality images. You should also optimize your Google Business Profile (GBP) to include the most up-to-date information, such as your NAP (name, address, phone number) and business hours. 

If you don’t have a GBP, you likely won’t appear in Google Maps or the local pack, so you should definitely create one (or claim an existing business listing). Including Google reviews on your profile is another good idea, as that’s a perk for both your customers and search algorithms. 

Finding Local Restaurants By Searching for Menu Items 

Sometimes users aren’t looking for specific restaurants but rather a certain dish that they’re craving. 

For instance, say you’re in the mood for a barbecue chicken pizza, but you aren’t sure which of your local pizzerias offer them. 

In the past, you’d have to take to Yelp or other directories to find specific menu items, but as of September 2022, the new Google update grants users this ability. 

By searching for ‘Google’s John Mueller ,’ Google will display a results page with a list of all the local restaurants in the area that serve that dish. Besides that, you’ll also get to see pictures of each dish, user reviews, and the rest of the menu. 

According to Google’s research, 40% of their users already had a dish in mind when searching for food online, which was the reason for the update. 

This feature adds a few new ranking factors for local restaurants, so it’s crucial to optimize your GBP if you want your restaurant to appear in these new types of searches. 

For one, you’ll need to include high-quality pictures of each menu item, as well as detailed descriptions and reviews. 

That means it’s time to bust out the camera and lighting kit if you don’t already have pictures of each dish online. If your barbecue chicken pizza has a mouth-watering photo, enticing description, and numerous 5-star reviews, you’ll likely pick up a majority of the business from local queries looking for it. 

Combining multisearch and searching for food dishes

Users can now search for specific menu items using multisearch, which adds another layer of complexity to these new features. 

For instance, if you wanted to find the best plate of spaghetti in your area, you could select a photo of spaghetti from your photo library and add the words ‘near me.’ 

Google will understand what you mean, and you’ll see a list of all the local restaurants offering spaghetti in your town. This further reinforces the need for high-resolution images of every menu item you offer; otherwise, you’ll miss out on tons of potential traffic. 

Google Maps Live View & Neighborhood Vibe 

Small businesses now have even more incentive to create Google Business Profiles, as Google Maps has undergone a significant transformation.

First, Google’s Neighborhood Vibe is making Google Maps more interactive and personal. As you browse neighborhoods, you’ll get to see user-uploaded photos and videos of the area from various social media profiles. 

This is meant to let you feel the ‘vibe’ of the neighborhood, such as local hot spots to eat, drink, and dance. 

Google Maps also has an interactive live view now, which will display the GBPs for local businesses. Users will get to see your business name, hours of operation, user reviews, and how busy you are at the moment. 

What do these two features mean from a digital marketing standpoint?

They mean you’ll need to keep your GBP up-to-date now more than ever before. The last thing you want is for a prospect to see your business hours in the Google Maps live view only to realize they aren’t correct whenever they try to visit your location. 

You’ll also need to engage with your social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. That will increase the chances of users taking exciting photos and videos of your business and then sharing them online with friends. 

The Face of Local SEO in 2023

Now that you know more about the essential local SEO updates of 2022, it’s time to look forward to 2023.

How is your local SEO strategy likely to change?

There’s sure to be more information coming out about how to optimize your content for multisearch, as it’s a feature that’s sure to stick around. 

Mobile-first indexing isn’t going anywhere, so you’ll need to ensure you have a responsive design if you don’t already. Not only that, but GBP is going to matter more than ever, so proper optimization is critical. 

Besides that, having a lightning-fast website that offers a stellar user experience is still a must, thanks to the Google Core Web Vitals test and the ever-growing standards of the average internet user. 

Final Takeaways: Local SEO Updates 

2022 saw many significant changes and updates for the SEO world, and local search wasn’t left out by any means. 

Multisearch, Google Maps Neighborhood Vibe, and searching for food menu items are all significant advancements, and you’ll need to optimize your content accordingly. 

Do you need help forming a local SEO strategy that considers all these updates?

Then it’s time to drop everything and check out our outstanding local SEO packages. We also offer managed SEO, local business listings, and local reviews, so don’t wait to get in touch.        

The post The Most Pressing Local SEO Updates for 2023 appeared first on The HOTH.

It’s proof that while domain authority (DA) isn’t a direct ranking factor that Google’s algorithm looks at, a higher domain authority score still directly correlates to higher rankings. 

But what makes a domain authoritative? How can you calculate your domain rating?

Domain authority is a score ranging from 1 – 100 that’s designed to predict how likely a website is to rank well on search engines. 

There are over 40 different factors that calculate the domain authority for a website, such as the quality of its content or the number of backlinks pointing to it. 

The good news is there are plenty of ways that you can boost your site’s domain authority score so you can rank higher on search engine results pages – and we’re going to cover them today. 

Along the way, you’ll learn about page authority, link-building strategies, and how to calculate your domain authority so you can keep track of your success. 

Read on to learn how to increase domain authority and beat the competition in your niche. 

Explaining Domain Authority

The SaaS SEO company Moz created the domain authority metric, NOT Google. While it’s commonly thought that domain authority is one of the 200 ranking factors that Google looks at for SEO, that is false information. 

What is true, however, is that a high domain authority correlates to higher rankings. 

So while it’s not an official Google ranking factor, it’s still an extremely reliable metric for predicting your website’s success at ranking on search engines. 

Moz uses data from its Link Explorer web index combined with over 40 ranking factors to calculate the score. It uses a machine learning model that creates an algorithm that correlates the Link Explorer data to thousands of actual search results rankings. 

In a nutshell, Moz’s algorithm delivers a score that reflects the ranking strength of your website in comparison to others. 

‘In comparison to others’ is the key phrase from that last sentence, and it’s fundamental in understanding how the DA score actually works. 

Thinking of domain authority as having ‘weight classes’ 

Many newcomers assume that since domain authority scores range from 1 – 100, a DA score of 100 should be their ultimate goal. 

While it’s always smart to shoot for the stars, a DA of 100 or close to it is simply unattainable for smaller websites. 

Why is that?

It has to do with the fact that your DA score is in relation to the entire internet. It’s a logarithmic scale that’s compressing a massive amount of information (every site on the net) in a very compact way (a score of 1 to 100). 

Powerhouse legacy websites like Facebook, Wikipedia, and LinkedIn dominate the high DA scores due to their billions of backlinks, shares, and views, leaving not much room for smaller websites to compete. 

The good news is that it doesn’t matter, as you likely aren’t trying to compete with the likes of Wikipedia or Twitter. Instead, domain authority works best as a comparative metric to see how you stack up with other sites in your niche. 

In that sense, you can think of domain authority as having weight classes similar to boxing:

• High DA scores of 80 to 100 are for the ‘heavyweights,’ like Amazon and Google. 
• Scores of 60 to 80 are for ‘welterweights,’ like enterprise-level companies. 
• Scores of 40 to 60 are for ‘lightweights‘ or mid-sized companies. 
• Scores 30 to 40 are for ‘featherweights,’ or mom-and-pop’s and small e-commerce stores. 

As you can see, it’s more about competing at the same level than it is a race to the top. Nobody expects a startup dropshipping business to compete on the same level as Microsoft, nor would they expect a featherweight boxer to face off against a heavyweight. 

Determining your weight class 

You’ll want to start by determining how you stack up against the competition in your field. To find out, you can use our free domain authority checker tool by The HOTH. It’s powered by Moz, the creators of domain authority, so you can rest assured that it’s accurate. 

Remember, if you discover that you have a low DA, there are ways that you can improve it. Yet, it’s essential to know that increasing your DA gets more difficult as you rise through the weight classes. 

The adage goes that it’s far easier to increase your DA from 20 to 30 than it is from 70 to 80.

More importantly, you’ll want to check the domain authority of your top competitors. If you find that your DA is 20 and your top competitors are 30 – you should strive to raise yours to 35 or 40.

That way, you’ll have a much better chance of outranking your competitors’ content. That’s how using DA as a comparative metric yields far more power than simply trying to reach 100. So what if your DA will only get to 40? You’ll still be lightyears beyond the competition in your weight class, which is what you want. 

Knowing this from the beginning will help you find more success with your domain authority strategy. Whenever your website’s domain authority exceeds your competitors, you’ll start to gain more organic traffic – which you can turn into leads and conversions with the right content. 

Moz’s Domain Authority Ranking Factors 

Now that you know more about how the DA score works, it’s time to learn how Moz actually calculates the score. 

As stated previously, Moz’s machine learning algorithm takes data from its Link Explorer web index and checks over 40 different ranking factors. These include everything from the site’s backlink profile to the quality of its content and more. Here’s a look at some of the most critical ranking factors you should pay attention to when aiming to improve your domain authority. 

Linking Root Domains 

This refers to the unique number of backlinks that your website has generated. The key word there is unique, as multiple backlinks from the same website won’t count. So if you’ve got 40 backlinks between three domains, Moz will count it as three linking root domains, not 40. 

It’s crucial to note that more backlinks from unique domains will boost your DA more than a ton of links from the same website. That’s why Moz doesn’t even bother to count more than one link from the same domain. 

So if your backlink-building strategy entirely revolves around one or two domains, you need to widen your reach to include more websites. The more URLs you can get to link back to your site, the better. 

MozRank 

Moz will look at not only the number of backlinks you have but also the quality of the backlinks. MozRank is the ranking factor that determines the quality of your external links. 

A low-quality link is one that’s neither relevant to the topic nor comes from an authoritative domain. 

Whenever you’re acquiring backlinks, it’s wise to make sure you only generate links from reputable sources (other blogs, news sites, reputable company websites, etc.). 

To Moz (and to Google and other search engines), one high-quality backlink will hold more power than 20 poor-quality links. In fact, poor-quality links can do more harm to your SEO than good. 

That’s because Google has long been distancing itself from link farms or websites that only exist to boost domain authority. So if you use many poor-quality links from these link farms, don’t expect your content to rank on Google (more on reputable link-building strategies in a bit). A rule of thumb to remember for link-building is that quality always beats quantity. 

Quality Content 

Backlinks are only one component of good domain authority. In calculating your domain score, Moz will also look at your website’s content. 

Great content relevant to your niche audience will always lead to a higher DA, so it’s crucial not to neglect content creation. 

You should have an up-to-date editorial calendar to churn out content regularly. 

The consensus is that you’ll want to blog at least two to four times a week to start seeing results. These regular posts will also help establish you as a thought leader in your field, which will help you acquire new leads. 

Besides blogs, Moz will check for content such as:

• Podcasts
• Infographics
• Videos
• eBooks 
• Whitepapers

A healthy content ecosystem that informs, educates, and converts your visitors will translate into a high DA score (at least for your weight class). Conversely, if your DA score is dwindling, improving the quality of your content will help you improve it drastically. 

MozTrust 

Like MozRank, MozTrust exists to judge the quality of your external links, albeit in a different way. While MozRank judges the backlinks based on the quality of their content, MozTrust judges how closely you’re connected to trusted websites. 

What’s a trusted website?

Essentially, a trusted website is any site that ends in .edu (education) or .gov (government). These top-level domains hold the highest level of trust online due to their subject matter. 

If you have .edu or .gov pages linking back to you, it’s a sign of trust and will boost your DA. 

This sort of trust-by-association goes deeper than one-way backlinks. If a .edu site links to a different external site first and then back to you, it will still be a sign of trust. That means you should target .edu and .gov sites for backlinks whenever possible (more on how to do just that below). 

Your MozTrust rating will be on a scale from 1 – 10. If you notice a low MozTrust score (5 or lower), you’ll need to look at your backlink profile. Do you not have any .edu or .gov websites pointing to you (even indirectly)? 

Also, ensure that you don’t include links from irrelevant or untrustworthy websites (link farms, private blog networks, old press release sites), as that will hurt your trust score. 

Link Profile 

Moz will look at your entire link profile, not just backlinks. That means your internal and external linking structure matters for your domain authority. 

Ideally, you want to use a mix of internal and external links in your content. 

Blog posts should link to relevant internal pages to boost your DA and keep your readers engaged with your website. If you mention a topic you’ve already written about in a new post, link to it! 

It’s easy and can help you generate organic traffic for existing posts. 

You should also use external links in your content, but there’s a right and wrong way to go about it. 

For example, if you’re writing a blog about how to train your dog to respond to commands, you wouldn’t want to link to another post covering the same topic. 

That’s because a reader may click on the link, prefer the other article, and abandon yours. So, as a rule of thumb, never externally link to a post that acts as a substitute for your post. 

Instead, only use external links whenever they complement the topic you’re writing about. 

So for the example given above, instead of linking to a competing blog post, you could link to a reputable psychology website talking about Pavlovian conditioning. It has to do with your subject matter, but it’s not an outright replacement. Also, a reputable psychology website is likely to have a high DA, which is excellent news for you. 

Social media signals 

A ranking factor that Google and Moz have in common is social signals. That means they look at how many times your content was shared, liked, and commented on on social media platforms.

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That’s why having a robust presence on social media is a must for any website wanting to boost its DA or find success with SEO. 

If Google sees that one of your posts got 1,000 shares, 80 comments, and 2,000 likes – it will deem your content more valuable as a result. 

So if you’ve been neglecting social media as part of your digital marketing efforts, now is the time to stop. Make sure to share every piece of content you create on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The extra engagement you pick up there will do more good for you than you think. 

User experience and site structure 

The last ranking factor we’ll cover is your UI (user interface) and UX (user experience). Google values websites that are easy to navigate and provide a positive experience for users. 

It harkens back to the #1 goal of any search engine – to match a user query with the most relevant, highest quality result. 

As such, you’ll want your website’s performance to be in tip-top shape. That means a logical linking structure, navigational layout, fast loading speed, and responsiveness on desktop and mobile devices. 

Google even has the Core Web Vitals test, a series of standards it has for site speed, performance, and response. 

Fail the test, and don’t expect your website to rank on Google anytime soon. Your UI and UX are also crucial to Moz when it calculates your domain authority. 

Visit your website as if you were your target audience visiting it for the first time. 

Is it easy to find everything like your blogs and product pages? Does the website load quickly, and can you interact with forms immediately? Is it confusing to checkout whenever you have a product in the cart?

These are vital questions to ask yourself when browsing and auditing your website. If you find any issues, it’s time to go back to the drawing board to fix them (see the section on conducting a technical audit on your website). 

Domain Authority vs. Page Authority 

Domain authority often gets confused with another one of Moz’s key SEO metrics, page authority. 

It’s easy to see why, as the two metrics are highly similar but also different. The key difference is this – domain authority judges the quality of your website, while page authority judges the quality of each individual page. 

The scoring system is also the same, a 100-point logarithmic scale. That means page authority scores will have ‘weight classes’ just as DA scores do. 

While domain authority gives you a better impression of how your website is doing, page authority is still an important metric. 

After all, you don’t want a few bad apples to spoil the whole barrel. 

Well, knowing the page authority score for each web page will help you pinpoint the areas of your site that are performing the weakest. 

Important note: Both domain authority and page authority scores are subject to fluctuation as Moz is constantly updating its algorithm. Also, significant changes to high-ranking DA sites (like Twitter) can have wide-reaching side effects for other websites. For example, if Wikipedia suddenly acquires a ton of new backlinks, everyone else’s DA will decrease as a result. 

Moz’s page authority ranking factors

Moz uses similar ranking factors for page authority as it does domain authority, albeit with a few differences:

• How many root domains link to the page (multiple links from the same domain don’t count) 
• How many root domains link to the page containing partial match anchor text 
• How many subdomains link to the page
• How many quality websites link to the page 
• How many external links does the page have
• Social signals (number of shares on social media platforms) 

As with DA, improving these ranking factors will increase your page authority. 

Yet, it’s important to note that in Backlinko and Ahrefs’ study, they found that page authority weakly correlates to higher rankings by itself. 

That’s why it’s best to use page authority as a way to improve your domain authority score instead of focusing entirely on increasing page authority to rank higher on SERPs. 

How do you do that?

By only focusing on the pages that have the weakest page authority scores – as they’re most likely the pages that are holding back your DA score. 

Improving their rankability will positively affect your DA, which is what you want. 

If you try to beef up the page authority score for every page on your site, however, the study’s findings suggest you won’t see much fruit for your labor. 

Learning How to Increase Domain Authority 

Okay, now that you know what domain authority is and how it’s calculated, it’s time to learn how to improve it. That way, you can outdo the competition in your weight class and start generating more high-quality traffic. 

Moz updates their Moz Mozscape Index every 3 to 4 weeks, which is when you can expect to see the changes you’ve made to your DA take place. 

So if you go to a bunch of trouble re-optimizing your content to improve your DA and don’t see immediate results, don’t panic. Wait a few weeks and check back, and you’ll see the updates you made to your website’s DA. 

If you’ve waited a month and still see no change to your score, that’s a sign that you must go back to the drawing board and try something new. 

To help out, here are the most effective techniques for improving your DA:

• Choosing a relevant domain name
• Acquiring backlinks that have high DA scores
• Improving your internal and external linking structure
• Performing an in-depth technical SEO audit on your website
• Creating excellent content that’s link-worthy 
• Heavily promoting your content on social media and other channels (email, forums, etc.) 

Let’s take a closer look at each tactic to better understand how to increase domain authority. 

Select a strong and relevant domain name 

Your domain name will play a role in your ranking strength, so it’s crucial to give it some thought. Beyond that, you want your domain name to be memorable and catchy enough for users to be able to enter it into a browser before forgetting it. 

Also, it needs to relate to your niche or the products and services you offer. 

A catchy domain name won’t mean much if it isn’t relevant to your target audience. If that’s the case, Google and other search engines won’t pay much attention, either, as relevancy is always their top priority. 

Do you have writer’s block?

If so, you can use a domain name generator to help you fish for ideas. Not only that, but the tool will let you know if the domain you want is available or not, which will save you time and disappointment. 

Acquiring high-quality backlinks 

Your backlink profile is one of the essential factors in calculating your DA score, and it matters to search engines like Google, too. 

In fact, Backlinko’s study found that pages with lots of backlinks outrank pages that don’t. The average #1 spot on Google contains 3.8% more backlinks than the rest of the top 10. 

It’s clear that if you want to reach the top of the SERPs, you need as many high-quality backlinks as you can acquire. 

We’ve already mentioned that quality beats quantity, so it’s not worth wasting your time acquiring low-level backlinks. 

But how do you snag desirable backlinks without buying them?

There are lots of ways, including:

• Guest posting
• Finding unlinked brand mentions 
• Sponsoring scholarships and government grants 
• Poaching competitor backlinks (skyscraper) 

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Combining these strategies can consistently yield you backlinks, slowly building up your DA score. 

Guest posting

Do you want to learn a reliable way to generate backlinks and promote your website and content? If so, you need to enter the world of guest blogging. 

That’s where you write a guest post for another blogger’s website in your niche, picking up a backlink to your website in return. 

Remember, you’re after high-quality links, so finding a reputable blog in your field is essential. Preferably, if you find a blog with a high DA, they will pass some of their authority on to you. 

How do you find blogs that accept guest posts?

A straightforward way is to identify a related blog in your field and then do outreach via email. Politely let them know that you’re interested in doing a guest post and that they can do a guest post on your blog in return. 

Other tactics include searching for guest posts on Twitter and using AllTop.com to find blogs that accept guest writers. 

Unlinked brand mentions 

Has your brand been around for a while? If so, then there are likely unlinked brand mentions floating around the internet. 

An unlinked brand mention is where another website mentions you but fails to provide a backlink. 

An example would be another blog or news site mentioning your brand in passing without a link, such as,” The HOTH is a white label SEO firm.”

That’s great that they mentioned us, but we’re after some sweet link juice along with our recognition. In this scenario, we would reach out via email to request that they link back to our website. 

Unlinked brand mentions are fantastic because they’re a quick way to obtain backlinks. Since the website already mentioned you, it shows that they’re already familiar with who you are and what you do – which is half the battle won. 

To discover unlinked brand mentions, you can use Ahrefs’ Content Explorer. It’s a mini-search engine within Ahrefs that you can use to find brand mentions by searching:

Your brand name and then ‘-site:yoursite.com’

The code at the end will let Ahrefs know to exclude your domain, so it doesn’t show up in the results. That way, you’re left with all the mentions of your brand online so that you can hunt for desirable backlink opportunities. 

Pro tip: You won’t want to turn every brand mention into a backlink, as the quality of the linking site may be poor. Always run each website through the domain authority checker tool to confirm that it’s a website you want pointing back to yours. 

Sponsoring scholarships and government grants

Among the most powerful backlinks are from .edu and .gov sites, so you definitely want to target them whenever possible. 

A reliable (and free) way to get a backlink from a university or government website is to sponsor a scholarship or government grant. Of course, the grant or scholarship needs to relate to your business for it to work. 

Let’s say that you’re trying to generate backlinks for your website that sells guitars and music equipment. Well, why not reach out to the Music department at your local university?

You could sponsor one of their scholarships to encourage your customers to attend their university to learn music. In exchange, you get a super authoritative backlink from a .edu website. It’s a win-win for both parties, so it’s worth pursuing whenever possible. 

The same is true for government organizations. If there’s a grant or government program that relates to what you do, reach out to them to sponsor it. Before you know it, you could wind up with a handful of .edu and .gov backlinks pointing to your website and boosting your DA. 

The skyscraper technique 

Brian Dean of Backlinko coined the skyscraper technique, quickly becoming a staple in the SEO world. 

In a nutshell, it’s a way to poach your competitors’ most authoritative backlinks for yourself. 

First, you identify the top ‘skyscrapers’ in your niche or the pages that are ranking #1 on Google for your target keywords. 

Next, you take a look at their backlink profile by entering their homepage URL into our free backlink checker tool. If they’re ranking at the top of the SERPs, then the chances are high that they have a virtual goldmine of excellent backlinks that you can poach. 

Once you have your target, take a look at the content that has the backlinks you want. 

How in-depth is the piece? Do they have videos? Are there areas that you can expand on and add more value to the reader?

These are all vital questions to ask, as your goal is to outdo their content by making something 10x better. 

10x better is the key takeaway here, as their backlinks likely won’t budge unless what you have is better by a wide margin. 

Anyway, once you have superior content, you reach out to their backlinks. Politely let them know that you’ve created something better and that you’d like them to link to your piece instead. 

If your content is indeed more valuable, it’s better for them to link to your new page instead of the old content that’s been outdone. 

Improving your internal and external linking structure

The next step in learning how to increase domain authority is to audit your link structure. 

In particular, you should aim to get rid of spammy, undesirable external links roaming around your website. These are bad for SEO and DA, so it’s imperative to let them go. 

You can use a tool like our backlink checker to discover toxic links that are hurting your SEO. These are links that come from spam websites, link farms, private blog networks, and websites with poor DA. 

If you can’t get rid of the links outright, you can use Google Search Console to disavow or ignore the links. 

When it comes to internal links, you should keep an eye out for any orphan pages. 

What are those?

An orphan page is a page on your website that has no links pointing to it. That means if you were to try to get to the page from your internal navigation, you wouldn’t be able to find it. 

As you can imagine, that’s not good news, as you want users to be able to quickly and easily find every page on your website. What’s even worse is if your product or service pages are orphaned. 

You can use a website crawler like Screaming Frog to discover any orphan pages on your website. Should you find any, add an internal link to them immediately. 

Conducting an in-depth technical SEO audit of your website

Next, there are many technical factors that will affect your domain authority, as well as your ability to rank on search engines. 

Issues such as poor loading speed, a bad user experience, and lack of responsiveness on mobile devices can ruin your site’s DA. 

That’s why you need to roll up your sleeves and audit key technical areas of your website, such as:

• The loading speed of your website (does it pass the Core Web Vitals test?)
• The health of your sitemap and robots.txt files
• How well your website runs on mobile devices
• How secure your website is (HTTPS and SSL certificates) 

If you’re having trouble with your loading speed, try compressing the images and videos on your web pages. You can also eliminate excess lines of code via CSS or JavaScript and reduce redirects. 

Every website should have a sitemap, and it’s best to upload it to Google Search Console. That ensures that Google has visibility of your website. 

Also, if there are any pages that you DON’T want Google to index, you’ll need a properly formatted robots.txt file. 

That’s what lets Google know which pages to index and which pages to ignore. Common pages to ‘noindex’ or ‘nofollow’ include contact forms, archive pages, and thank-you pages. 

That’s because these pages are more utilitarian in nature and don’t provide much value to searchers. Instead, it’s best to only index the most relevant pages on your website that are likely to attract new customers and provide lots of value to readers. 

Creating great content that attracts links 

A tried and true method for boosting DA and generating backlinks is to create content that your target audience (and other bloggers in your niche) want to share. 

How do you do that?

One of the best ways to do so is to solve customer problems with your content. 

If one of your blog posts, videos, or podcasts solves a common issue for your customers, that will greatly increase the likelihood that they’ll want to share it. 

For example, let’s say that professionals in your niche are having a hard time grasping a new concept. That’s when you swing in with a concise video that easily sums things up. Since your content is so helpful, others will want to share it and link back to it. 

Using infographics 

Out of all the types of content out there, infographics tend to be the most linkable due to how easy they are to digest. In fact, an infographic improves reader comprehension by 50%, and they’re amazing ways to present statistics. 

If you want to generate lots of links, try creating an infographic that summarizes a ton of relevant statistics in your niche. 

It will take some time and effort to get it done right, but the results are what counts. Bloggers are always looking for statistical infographics that they can link to, so why not give them what they want? You’ll wind up with many more backlinks and generate a ton of traffic from prospects. 

Besides presenting statistics, you can also use infographics to provide a step-by-step tutorial, summarize a graph, or map out a geographic area. 

Promoting your content 

Now that you’ve got some excellent content, you need to share it with the world. Your first stop should be all your social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. 

It may seem like a no-brainer, but many businesses forget this crucial step. You spent all that time and money creating your content, so you can’t forget about promoting it. 

A good rule of thumb is to add social share buttons to all your posts to make sharing them on social media effortless for readers. 

Don’t stop there, though. There are lots of other channels you can use to promote your content, such as on relevant forums and through email. 

If you’ve been compiling email addresses with lead generation techniques, you can put them to use by sending out your articles. Since they already gave you their email, they’ve shown interest in what you do and are likely to read your posts. 

Concluding Thoughts: How to Increase Domain Authority 

Moz developed domain authority as a way to predict how likely websites are to rank on search engines. While the concept takes a lot of criticism for not being a direct Google ranking factor, it’s been proven that a high DA translates to higher search engine rankings (see the study at the beginning). 

That’s why it’s worth improving your domain authority in relation to the competitors in your weight class. 

At The HOTH, our team can work on improving your domain authority for you with HOTH X, our managed SEO services. Our experts will work around the clock to implement a winning organic SEO strategy for you. If you’re more interested in advice, don’t wait to book a call with our team today.     

The post How to Increase Domain Authority for Higher Search Engine Rankings  appeared first on The HOTH.

Such a vague answer won’t help you out in the long run. SEO is one of the best investments you can make for your business or website. You just have to do it the right way, or else you’re just wasting time you can’t get back. 

Did you know that 82% of marketers reported an increase in SEO effectiveness in 2021? That statistic is currently rising due to SEO strategy optimization. 

So, where’s the best place to start, and what is your estimated time frame before you start seeing results?

This article will explore the timeline you’re looking at to see your SEO results come to life, what the best practices are for beginners and all the other important details that go into making SEO work for you. 

Are you ready to take control of your SEO success? 

Keep scrolling! 

How Long Does it Take For a New Website to Rank?

Chris Panteli, an SEO expert, states that it can take anywhere from 3 to 12 months for a brand new site or blog to appear in Google’s organic search rankings. That can also depend on competition, your niche, and the authority of your website. 

While keeping in mind that no two businesses or websites are exactly the same. How long SEO takes to work for you depends on several factors. 

Here are a few questions you may want to ask yourself before beginning an SEO marketing strategy:

• How established is your brand?
• What kind of content do you publish?
• What are the rankings of your competitive keywords?
• What’s your competition like?

It can also take longer for a website with little to no authority to rank. Most professionals don’t want to make any promises on timelines because it really is a bit of a guessing game. It always depends on your strategy, how successful your business is already, what your experience is with technical SEO and many other factors. 

Large companies may see results faster due to having at least some authority in the niche already. However, new bloggers may have to work twice as hard to see a difference in rank, conversions, and organic traffic. 

It’s important to keep in mind that only 0.78% of Google searches actually click on results from the second page. So, getting ranked on Google’s first page is so important for success, business, sales, and traffic. That’s why it’s so vital to use SEO tactics that work. 

Because Google uses over 200 ranking factors in its algorithm, finding the right SEO strategy will take some time. There really isn’t a golden tactic that works for every business. And, to be fair, nearly 60% of pages that rank in the top 10 Google results are usually 3 or more years old. 

As a rule of thumb, SEO is never really “done” and you should never just stop your efforts even if you begin to see results after a few months to a year. 

How Long Does it Take for Local SEO to Work?

Local SEO and traditional SEO are vastly different in timelines. Local SEO is said to only take 4 to 8 weeks before results are noticed with only a few minor changes and adjustments especially if you have already claimed your Google listings. Your website will also have some authority, and you have the appropriate categories and keywords set up correctly. 

Some local SEO updates may take some time before they will affect your rank, and your place in Google maps 3 pack. 

You may want to make the following adjustments if you haven’t already:

• Claim your Google Business Profile (may take 4 to 6 weeks)
• Change or update your NAP in your Google Business Profile (may take 4 to 6 weeks before updates take effect)
• New domain name (8 to 12 weeks)
• Add listings and citations (can take up to 8 weeks)

However, if you are just building your website, your local authority, you may even be looking at 6 months to 2 years. This, of course, depends on your SEO efforts, what your strategies are, and how often you are catering to your Google reviews. 

Why Does SEO Take So Long To Work?

One of the main reasons why SEO can take such a long time to see any kind of results is if you’re working in a competitive market. You’ll need to wait months if not years before you see your efforts in any SEO rank. 

That’s because many digital marketers are doing and making the same adjustments to their strategy alongside you. It really depends on whose SEO works better and faster.

A study by BrightEdge found that organic traffic accounts for around 40% of revenue across retail, media, entertainment, business services, and technology. 94% of those clicks are from organic results in SERPs. 

Pages that rank 1 through 3 on search engine results pages roughly generate a clickthrough rate of 36%. That is why it’s so important for SEO efforts to help you rank as quickly as possible. 

Aside from strategy and ranking factors, search engines such as Google and Bing take time to crawl and understand your SEO implementations. Googlebot then needs to compare your content to your competitors and other websites that are trying to win the same space as you before even putting anything into an index. 

How many hours per week should you invest in SEO efforts?

The majority of your on-page SEO optimization management will come from checkups, adjustments, and keeping track of your metrics. For example, you may want to schedule a time once a week to log into Google Search Central to check for crawl errors, duplicates, or any other issues that may arise. 

You may also want to update your site when there are any dramatic changes. These things probably won’t take you a huge amount of time, but it may be a tedious task if any problem happens. 

I would guesstimate, that it may take you anywhere from around 3 to 12 hours a week depending on how large your website is and if any issues occur. 

Factors That Affect The Time Frame of Your SEO Results

As I’ve mentioned, there are so many factors that go into making SEO work; such as picking low-competition niches, using SEO services, and even algorithm updates. However, in this section, I’m going to touch base on a few of the major players that matter in the timeline of your SEO results. These factors all make the biggest difference when it comes to SEO strategy. 

Here are the major factors that contribute to the timeline of SEO results:

Age and authority of a website

Domain age is an important factor when it comes to SEO results. More than half of the top results on Google are a few years old, and studies from Ahrefs suggest that out of about 2 million pages, very few websites less than a year old achieve top Google ranking status. 

It’s important to have a website with at least some authority before really grinding towards SEO efforts. It will help you rank faster when you begin your SEO strategy. 

In some cases, the domain name might matter as well. Google’s algorithm can sometimes penalize exact-match domains (basically sites that target keywords in the URL) that can be considered spammy with low-quality content. 

But then there’s research from Moz that suggests that exact-match domains that are relevant and high-quality can see a ranking boost because of it. However, if you have an established site, you shouldn’t go searching for an exact-match domain for your business if it isn’t necessary. 

Technical SEO and SEO-friendly structure

Getting code and structure correct is a major aspect of SEO. This part can be kind of intimidating; however, it’s well worth your efforts if done right. 

Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Keyword phrases in page titles
• Optimize your inbound links
• Use header tags such as H1, H2, or H3
• Create a good meta description (even if Google rewrites it later)
• Use the right amount of characters for your meta descriptions

WordPress has a couple of plugins available to help you out such as All in One SEO. All in One SEO and other tools can help you set a focus keyword and tell you how well your pages and posts are optimized. You may also see a checklist on how to improve. 

Keyword research and difficulty

Keyword research and difficulty are major factors in how long your SEO takes to work. Keyword difficulty is an SEO metric that estimates how hard it would be to rank for a keyword. 

Let me take a second to explain something. One common misconception that business owners and SEO experts alike should understand is that you really shouldn’t confuse rankings with new customers. 

Of course, ranking high in Google really is the goal for many companies. However, sometimes using keywords that drive the most conversions and keywords for ranking is different. That is why it’s so important to perform keyword research. This can be done with tools such as The HOTH’s Free Google Keyword Planner. 

Keyword phrases such as long-tail keywords and keywords that have a high search volume also are a factor in ranking. If you choose a keyword that is too competitive, you risk being drowned out by other businesses in your niche. Long-tail keywords may not drive much traffic, but they improve conversion rates and can help you turn traffic into a sale. 

On-page and off-page SEO strategies

On-page SEO is everything that you can control on your own websites such as title tags, keywords, and internal links. By optimizing your internal links with quality links, and optimizing your on-page SEO you allow Google’s crawlers to find your information faster. This allows Google to share your content with relevant search queries. 

Internal links are important because they provide information authority for your website and also aid Google in getting a deeper understanding of what your content is all about. 

One of the best SEO methods that are best to implement is internal links. You can use SEMrush to identify and fix internal linking errors on your website. The internal linking structure can be fairly helpful when trying to find problems with your inbound links. 

Off-page SEO includes everything that is done off-website such as backlinks, content syndication, and even social media. 

What Are The Best SEO Practices to Increase SEO Results?

Ranking on Google’s first page is usually a top priority for businesses or anyone looking to rank. According to a HubSpot study, 75% of searchers don’t bother to look past the first page of search results. That is why ranking high is so important.

You can increase your rank by using some of these tried and true methods that SEO experts swear by. The best practices for SEO will make it easier for search engines to crawl, understand, and index your website’s information. 

Here are some awesome SEO methods you should start with:

Match your content with search intent

Keywords are a major aspect of SEO success; but, once you’ve targeted your keywords, you may need to go deeper into search intent. 

Search intent is the purpose behind every search. Understanding and then answering search intent is Google’s top priority for its users.

Here are a few different types of search intent:

Informational: is a search that falls under any type of informational intent such as a user who is looking for something specific like “what day is Mother’s day.” This type of search is usually quick and doesn’t take much in-depth explanation. 

Navigational: is a search intent that falls under anyone who is looking for a specific website such as, “Facebook” or “Amazon login page.” 

Commercial: the intent behind this search type is when a user is looking for a product but hasn’t made the decision to make a purchase yet. 

Transactional: the intent here is to buy something. The searcher has already made a decision to buy a product, service, or item. Some examples may include, “buy Samsung s20 Ultra.” 

By matching your content with search intent, you are guiding your audience to the correct content for them. 

Make videos to go with your written content

According to a study by Wordstream, 49% of marketers grow revenue faster if they are using quality content videos in their SEO campaign with around 51% of experts naming it as the best content for ROI. 64% of consumers are also more likely to make a purchase after watching a brand video on social media.

In fact, in the U.S. alone, 85% of all internet users engage with video content every month, and 86% of consumers say they would like to see more video content from the brands they know and love. 

Optimize your images and page speed

Images are such an important part of improving the user experience of visitors to your website. Chances are you spend a ton of time finding the right illustrations or images for your website, product page, and any other important webpage on your site. 

However, are you spending the same amount of time making sure that your images are optimized? When used in the best way, images can boost your SEO, organic traffic, and much more. 

Here are a couple of ways to optimize your images:

• File format
• Compress your images
• Provide alt-text
• Lazy-load your images

Site speed can make a big difference in bounce rate, so the first step you should take in optimizing your images is picking the best file format. The most commonly used image formats are JPEG and PNG. 

Both of these formats are used for different compression methods and the file sizes between them can be dramatically different. Be sure to pick the best format image for your website. 

The bigger your image is, the longer it takes for your website to load. That’s why it’s a great idea to make sure that you compress your images before placing them on your website. 

Google is super great at understanding images; however, adding alt-text can still be a big help. Adding alt-text improves your web accessibility and helps search engine crawlers understand what your images are of. 

Lazy loading is an interesting method that defers the loading of non-essential resources like videos and images. Instead, they only load when a user needs them to. This can help page speed dramatically. 

Improve user experience

Google keeps track of how users engage with your website and pages. User experience is one of the key factors in making sure that you see SEO results. 

Here are a couple of SEO tips to make sure that your website provides a good user experience:

• Use subheads
• Use illustrations or relevant images
• Avoid using popups
• Use white space
• Make sure your website is mobile-friendly

As I mentioned, correct usage of subheadings’ H1’s and H2′ helps Google understand your content in the best way. It also makes your text more readable to your audience. If you need help creating an awesome title, try The HOTH’s Headline Generator for free! 

Studies suggest that visuals can help people understand the content better. So, using videos, images, and illustrations can help your audience understand your content. 

Annoying popups speak for themselves. Nobody wants to be casually reading an article and then be bombarded with a ton of different popups. If you do decide to use them, be careful with the context and don’t overwhelm your reader. 

White space is simply a good design. White space, also known as negative space improves branding and focus. So, consider using some white space to make your content more legible and to grab your audience’s attention. 

Mobile-friendliness is a major ranking factor because nearly 60% of all searches happen on a mobile device. You can use Google’s mobile-friendly text to make sure your site works well with phones and tablets. 

How Do You Know if SEO is Working?

Now that you know how soon to expect to see SEO results. What factors play a role. And, what the best practices are for those results. You are probably asking yourself how will you know when your SEO is working?

Let me give you some valid advice on what you should expect to see:

• Your Website Traffic Changes
• Google Changes Your Rank for Your Target Keywords
• Competition Changes

A traffic increase really depends on the website’s niche. You can rank a website and see an increase in traffic by over 6,000% in a span of just a few years, or you can see a website only gain a 300% increase in the same time period. 

Traffic can sometimes be a factor, but what is the most important in the end-game is the sales that that traffic brings in. Revenue is sometimes more important than traffic. 

If you know where your keywords are in the search results before you begin your SEO efforts, then it will make it much easier to tell the difference in metrics when you check after you’ve begun your SEO efforts. 

It would be best to check your keywords after around three months to see your rankings, and if there’s an increase then you can tell your efforts are paying off. 

Competition is such a major factor in SEO. One of the best things you can do is to study your competitors to see how they are affecting your rankings. 

Here are a few good tools to get you going:

• Google Analytics
• Ahrefs
• SEMrush
• MarketingCloudFX

Here are a few metrics you should track to see a difference in your SEO efforts:

• Time on page
• Bounce rate
• Click-through rate
• Conversion rate

Analyzing your metrics and using the best tools can also let you know if your SEO is working. If you notice that your backlinks are increasing, then your SEO efforts are working! Great job! Another metric to keep an eye on would be the number of organic keywords that are on your website. If those are increasing, then it’s good to assume that you are targeting the right keywords for your niche. 

Don’t Give Up!

SEO can take a long time before you begin seeing results. It’s an overwhelming feeling trying to succeed in an industry that has so many competitors who already have their foot in the door. 

If you’re feeling a bit out of your league, remember that there are so many SEO guides and resources that The HOTH can offer. 

Don’t forget to sign up for free or schedule a call with one of our experts who can help guide you in the right direction!

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