SEO 2018 | Digital Growth Year

SEO 2018

What is SEO in 2018?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in 2018 is a technical, analytical and creative process to improve the visibility of a website in search engines. The primary function of SEO is to drive more unpaid useful traffic to a site that converts into sales

What Really Matters if you do SEO in 2018?

In my opinion, here are the things that really matter if you do SEO in 2018, and I would wager that both white-hats and black-hats would agree on these:
Don’t block your site
Don’t confuse or annoy a website visitor
Don’t block Google from crawling resources on your site or rendering specific elements on your page
Have a responsive design that works on mobile and desktop
Be situated local to your target customer
Geotarget your site in Search Console AKA Google Webmaster Tools (unless you have a country specific domain)
Put your keyword phrase at least once in the Page Title Element
Put your keyword phrase at least once in the Main Content on the page (at least once in page copy (in paragraph tags)
Avoid keyword stuffing main content
Optimize your meta description to have a clickable useful SERP snippet
Ensure the Main Content of the page is high-quality and written by a professional
Keep important content on the site updated a few times a year rim outdated content from your site
Avoid publishing and indexing content-poor pages (especially affiliate sites)
Aim for a good ratio of ‘useful’ user-centred text to affiliate links
Disclose page modification dates in a visible format
Do not push the main content down a page unnecessarily with ads etc
Link to related content on your site with useful and very relevant anchor text
Use a simple navigation system on your site
Create pages to basic meet W3C recommendations on accessible HTML (W3c) (H1, ALT text etc)
Create pages to meet basic usability best practices (Nielsen) – Pay attention to what ‘annoys’ website visitors
Create pages where the main content of the page is given priority, and remove annoying ads and pop-ups (especially on mobile)
Develop websites that meet Google technical recommendations on (for example) canonicalization, internationalization and pagination best practices
Ensure Fast delivery of web pages on mobile and desktop
Provide clear disclosure of affiliate ads and non-intrusive advertising. Clear disclosure of everything, in fact, if you are focused on quality in all areas.
Add high-quality and relevant external links (depending if the query is informational)
If you can, include the Keyword phrase in a short URL
Use the Keyword phrase in internal anchor text pointing to this page (at least once)
Use Headings, Lists and HTML Tables on pages if you show data
Ensure on average all ‘Main Content’ blocks of all pages on the site are high-quality
Ensure old SEO practices are cleaned up and removed from site
Avoid implementing old-school SEO practices in new campaigns (Google is better at detecting sites with little value-add)
Consider disavowing any obvious low-quality links from previous SEO efforts
Provide Clear website domain ownership, copyright and contact details on the site
Share your content on the major social networks when it is good enough
Get backlinks from real websites with real domain trust and authority
Convert visitors (whatever that ‘conversion’ may be)
Monitor VERY CAREFULLY any user-generated content on your site, because it is rated as part of your own site content
Present your most compelling material above the fold at any resolution – Google also has a ‘Page Heavy Algorithm’ – In short, if you have too many ads on your page, or if paid advertising obfuscates copy or causes an otherwise frustrating user experience for Google’s visitors, your page can be demoted in SERPs:
Keep an eye on where you put your ads or other sponsored content – get in the way of your main content copy of the page you are designing and you could see traffic decline.
Is it to “sell products or services”, “to entertain” or “to share information about a topic?”
MAKE THE PURPOSE OF YOUR PAGE SINGULAR and OBVIOUS to help quality raters and algorithms. The name of the game in 2018 (if you’re not faking everything) is VISITOR SATISFACTION. If a visitor lands on your page – are they satisfied and can they successfully complete WHY they are there?
Hidden text or links – may be exposed by selecting all page text and scrolling to the bottom (all text is highlighted), disabling CSS/Javascript, or viewing source code.
Sneaky redirects – redirecting through several URLs, rotating destination domains cloaking with JavaScript redirects and 100% frame.
Keyword stuffing – no percentage or keyword density given; this is up to the rater.
PPC ads that only serve to make money, not help users.
Copied/scraped content and PPC ads.
Feeds with PPC ads.
Doorway pages – multiple landing pages that all direct user to the same destination.
Templates and other computer-generated pages mass-produced, marked by copied content and/or slight keyword variations.
Copied message boards with no other page content.
Fake search pages with PPC ads.
Fake blogs with PPC ads, identified by copied/scraped or nonsensical spun content.
Thin affiliate sites that only exist to make money, identified by checkout on a different domain, image properties showing origination at another URL, lack of original content, different Who Is registrants of the two domains in question.
Pure PPC pages with little to no content.
Parked domains

If A Page Exists Only To Make Money, The Page Is Spam, to Google.

That statement above in the original quality rater guidelines is standout and should be a heads up to any webmaster out there who thinks they are going to make a “fast buck” from Google organic listings in 2018.
It should, at least, make you think about the types of pages you are going to spend your valuable time making.
Without VALUE ADD for Google’s users – don’t expect to rank high for commercial keywords.
If you are making a page today with the sole purpose of making money from it – and especially with free traffic from Google – you obviously didn’t get the memo.

It’s worth remembering:

If A Page Exists Only To Make Money, The Page Is Spam
If A Site Exists Only To Make Money, The Site Is Spam
Google is concerned with the PURPOSE of a page, the MAIN CONTENT (MC) of a page, the SUPPLEMENTARY CONTENT of a page and HOW THAT PAGE IS monetised, and if that monetisation impacts the user experience of consuming the MAIN CONTENT. High-quality supplementary content should “(contribute) to a satisfying user experience on the page and website.” and it should NOT interfere or distract from the MC. Google says,“(Main CONTENT) is (or should be!) the reason the page exists.” so this is probably the most important part of the page, to Google.
From a quality page point of view, duplicate content (or rather, copied content) can a low-quality indicator.
Boilerplate (especially spun) text can be another low-quality indicator.
If your website is tarnished with these practices – it is going to be classed ‘low-quality’ by some part of the Google algorithm:
-If all you have on your page are indicators of low-quality – you have a low-quality page in 2018 – full stop.
-If your entire website is made up of pages like that, you have a low-quality website.
-If you have manipulative backlinks, then that’s a recipe for disaster.
Google has a history of classifying your site as some type of entity, and whatever that is, you don’t want a low-quality label on it. Put there by algorithm or human. Manual evaluators might not directly impact your rankings, but any signal associated with Google marking your site as low-quality should probably be avoided.
Quality raters will rate content as medium rating when the author or entity responsible for it is unknown.
If you are a spammer you’ll be pulling out the stops to fake this, naturally, but this is a chance for real businesses to put their best foot forward and HELP quality raters correctly judge the size and relative quality of your business and website. The quality raters’ handbook is a good training guide for looking for links to disavow, too.
Google organic listings are reserved for ‘remarkable’ and reputable’ content, expertise and trusted businesses.
A high bar to meet – and one that is designed for you to never quite meet unless you are serious about competing, as there is so much work involved.
Google has many algorithm updates during a year.
These ‘quality updates’ are very reminiscent of Google Panda updates and often impact many websites at the same time – and often these focus on demoting similar ‘low-quality’ SEO techniques we have been told Panda focuses on.
Usually, Google has 3 or 4 big updates in a year that focus on various things, but they also make changes daily.

What Is Google Panda?

Panda is an algorithm that’s applied to sites overall and has become one of our core ranking signals. It measures the quality of a site, which you can read more about in our guidelines. Panda allows Google to take quality into account and adjust ranking accordingly.
Google Panda aims to rate the quality of your pages and website and is based on things about your site that Google can rate, or algorithmically identify.
We are told the current Panda is an attempt to basically stop low-quality thin content pages ranking for keywords they shouldn’t rank for.
Panda evolves – signals can come and go – Google can get better at determining quality as a spokesman from Google has confirmed:

What Is “Domain Authority“?

Domain authority, whether or not is something Google has or not, is an important concept to take note of. Essentially Google ‘trusts’ some websites more than others and you will find that it is easier to rank using some websites than it is others.
SEOs conveniently call this effect ‘domain authority’ and it seemed to be related to ‘PageRank’ – the system Google started to rank the web within 1998. Historically sites that had domain authority or online business authority had lots of links to them, hence why link building was so popular a tactic – and counting these links is generally how most 3rd party tools still calculate it a pseudo domain authority score for websites today.           
Having a ten-year-old domain that Google knows nothing about is almost the same as having a brand new domain. A one-year-old domain cited by authority sites is just as valuable if not more valuable as a ten-year-old domain with no links and no search-performance history.

Keyword Research

SEO keywords are the key words and phrases in your web content that make it possible for people to find your site via search engines.

What is The Perfect Keyword Density?

There is no one-size-fits-all keyword density, no optimal percentage guaranteed to rank any page at number 1. However, I do know you can keyword stuff a page and trip a spam filter. An ideal keyword density is 2%-5% per page depends on the content.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is simply the process of repeating the same keyword or key phrases over and over in a page. It’s counter productive. It’s is a signpost of a very low-quality spam site and is something Google clearly recommends you avoid.
<title>What Is The Best Title Tag For Google?</title>
The page title tag (or HTML Title Element) is arguably the most important on page ranking element (with regards to web page optimisation). Keywords in page titles can undeniably HELP your pages rank higher in Google results pages (SERPs).The page title is also often used by Google as the title of a search snippet link in search engine results pages.

Meta Keywords Tag

<meta name="Keywords" content="s.e.o., search engine optimisation, optimization">
The meta name=”Keywords” was actually originally for words that weren’t actually on the page that would help classify the document.
Sometimes competitors might use the information in your keywords to determine what you are trying to rank for, too….
<meta name="Description" content="Get your site on the first page of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Call us on 0800 689 0293. A company based in Scotland." />
Google looks at the description but it probably does not use the description tag to rank pages in a very noticeable way. I certainly don’t know of an example that clearly shows a meta description helping a page rank on its own.
It’s also important to have unique meta descriptions on every page on your site if you think it could help click through rates.

Robots.txt File

The robots.txt file, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or standard, is a text file that tells web robots (most often search engines) which pages on your site to crawl. It also tells web robots which pages not to crawl.
Keep in mind that only one file or folder can be used per Disallow line. You may add as many Disallow lines as you need. Once complete, save and upload your robots.txt file to the root directory of your site. For example, if your domain is www.mydomain.com, you will place the file at www.mydomain.com/robots.txt.

H1-H6: Page Headings

Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6) or that they improve rankings in Google, and I have seen pages do well in Google without them – but I do use them, especially the H1 tag on the page.
<h1>This is a page title</h1>
H2 – H6 as is necessary depending on the size of the page, but I use H1, H2 & H3. You can see here how to use header tags properly, words in the H1 Tag? As many as I think is sensible – as short and snappy as possible usually.
Alt Tags are counted by Google (and Bing), but I would be careful over-optimising them. I’ve seen a lot of websites penalised for over-optimising invisible elements on a page. Don’t do it. Use ALT tags (or rather, ALT Attributes) for descriptive text that helps visitors – and keep them unique where possible, like you do with your titles and meta descriptions.
ALT tags are very important and I think a very rewarding area to get right.
And remember – even if, like me most days, you can’t be bothered with all the image ALT tags on your page, at least, use a blank ALT (or NULL value) so people with screen readers can enjoy your page

Which Is Better For Google? PHP, HTML or ASP?

Google doesn’t care. As long as it renders as a browser compatible document, it appears Google can read it these days. PHP these days even with flat documents as it is easier to add server side code to that document if I want to add some sort of function to the site.

Broken Links Are A Waste Of Link Power

Google is a link-based search engine – if your links are broken and your site is chock full of 404s you might not be at the races.

Duplicate Content

A sensible strategy for SEO would still appear to be to reduce Google bot crawl expectations and consolidate ranking equity & potential in high-quality canonical pages and you do that by minimising duplicate or near-duplicate content.

Create Useful 404 Pages

It is incredibly important in 2018 to create useful and proper 404 pages. This will help prevent Google recording lots of autogenerated thin pages on your site (both a security risk and a rankings risk). A poor 404 page and user interaction with it, can only lead to a ‘poor user experience’ signal at Google’s end, for a number of reasons.

301 Redirects Are POWERFUL & WHITE HAT

You can use 301 redirects to redirect pages, sub-folders or even entire websites and preserve Google rankings that the old page, sub-folder or websites enjoyed.
Redirecting multiple old pages to one new page works too if the information is there on the new page that ranked the old page. Pages should be thematically connected if you want the redirects to have a SEO benefit.

Do I Need A Google XML Sitemap For My Website?

No. You do NOT, technically, need an XML Sitemap to optimise a site for Google if you have a sensible navigation system that Google can crawl and index easily. An XML Sitemap is a file on your server with which you can help Google easily crawl & index all the pages on your site. This is evidently useful for very large sites that publish lots of new content or updates content regularly.
Rich Snippets and Schema Markup can be intimidating if you are new to them – but important data about your business can actually be very simply added to your site by sensible optimisation of your website footer. Properly optimised your website footer can also help you make your search snippet stand out in Google results pages.

Adding Schema.org Markup to Your Footer

You can take the information you have from above and transform it with Schema.org markup to give even more accurate information to search engines.
<div>
 <p> © Copyright 2006-2016 MBSA Marketing LTD trading as Hobo, Company No. SC536213 | VAT No. 249 1439 90 <br>
 68 Finnart Street, Greenock, PA16 8HJ, Scotland, UK | TEL: 0800 689 0293<br>
 Business hours are 09.00 a.m. to 17.00 p.m. Monday to Friday - Local Time is <span id="time">9:44:36</span> (GMT)
 </p>
</div>

What You Should Avoid When Practicing Website Search Engine Optimization

No search engine will EVER tell you what actual keywords to put on your site to improve individual rankings or get more converting organic traffic – and in Google – that’s the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT thing you want to know!
“Allowing URLs created as a result of proxy services to be crawled.”
“Choosing a title that has no relation to the content on the page.”
“Using default or vague titles like “Untitled” or “New Page 1″.”
“Using a single title across all of your site’s pages or a large group of pages.”
“Using extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users.”
“Stuffing unneeded keywords in your title tags.”
“Writing a description meta tag that has no relation to the content on the page.”
“Using generic descriptions like “This is a web page” or “Page about baseball cards”.”
“Filling the description with only keywords.”
“Copying and pasting the entire content of the document into the description meta tag.”
“Very long headings.”
“Adding markup data which is not visible to users.”
“Using extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users.”
“Stuffing unneeded keywords in your title tags.”
“Writing a description meta tag that has no relation to the content on the page.”
“Using generic descriptions like “This is a web page” or “Page about baseball cards”.”
“Filling the description with only keywords.”
“Copying and pasting the entire content of the document into the description meta tag.”
“Very long headings.”
“Adding markup data which is not visible to users.”
“Creating fake reviews or adding irrelevant markups.”
“Letting your navigational page become out of date with broken links.”
“Blocking 404 pages from being crawled through the robots.txt file.”
“Using a design for your 404 pages that isn’t consistent with the rest of your site.”
“Having deep nesting of subdirectories like “…/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/page.html”.”
“Using only image links for your site’s navigation”.
“Spamming link requests out to all sites related to your topic area.”
“Purchasing links from another site with the aim of getting PageRank”

“Purchasing links from another site with the aim of getting PageRank”

Google has a ‘Page-Heavy’ Penalty Algorithm

What is the PURPOSE of your page?

What makes page spam?

Main Content (MC) of a Page

The Importance of Unique Content For Your Website

What Does Google Mean By “Low-Quality“?

Pages Can Be Rated ‘Medium Quality’

Google Quality Algorithm Updates

Is Domain Age An Important Google Ranking Factor?

Page Title Element

Meta Description Tag

Alt Tags & ALT Text

Rich Snippets