Myths and rumors easily spread even on the internet. If you read 3 Linking Strategies that You Should Not Believe, you should know the 3 myths I proved to be false. Today, I will still continue the discussion and I will give 4 more scenarios for you.

Remember, links are important, but it is more important to build the proper links for your website. Applying dubious link building techniques will just bring you more harm than good. Search engines, like Google, will always favor high-quality links over shady ones.

Without further ado, here are 4 more link building myths that you should not believe especially at this day and age.

 Myth #4: Links are NOT important if your website ranks high already

• Just because you are doing well on the other ranking factors, you decide to skip on link building. No, please don’t. Sadly, many people practice this!
• Links should be part of any SEO strategy because it helps you preserve the “high ranking” your website currently has. Other than that, links help you do the following:
  • Widen your online visibility even more,
  • Bring in more traffic to your website, and
  • Demonstrate how your website has authority, expertise, and significance.
• Link building should be an ongoing effort. You are not after of the number of links to your website, but you are after the opportunity to introduce your website to new customers.

Related: How NOT to Endanger Your PageRank Scores?

Myth #5: Google will favor websites with high-quality links

• Google will not favor any ranking factor over the other. There no cookie cutter mold to follow here. What we just know is that there are over 200 ranking factors from backlinks to on-page SEO elements. For a complete list of ranking factors, refer to this list compiled by Backlinko.
• We will never know what is more important because Google’s ranking factors changes depending on the trends. If you watch a particular Google Webmaster video, John Mueller specifically said that there is no “one size that fits all.” It all boil down to the searcher’s intent. Search engines will rank websites depending on its relevance to the queries.

Myth #6: Posts, links, and whatever content on your website share the same rank

• This myth would refer to 2 things:
  • Each post on your website has the same value or
  • All links have an equal rank.
• Still, these statements are NOT true. For individual posts, you can search for online auditors. These tools will audit your website and rank your posts. Link Assistant provides a free download of their website auditor.
• As for the links, John Muller shared that the position of a link on page is extremely important. So, plan the positioning of links well. It is recommended to put the links on the higher of the web page. Basically, if a link is placed on the higher part, the more value it has.

Myth #7: Internal links won’t boost your rankings in the SERPs

• Undoubtedly, external links mentioning your websites are important, but internal links has an important role too. When you connect interrelated blog posts together, you then create what SEO experts call as a “topic cluster.”

Related: 3 Tips to Improve Link Building Efforts

Previously, I gave you the 3 main advantages of improving website speed. Now, I will go into the details on how to exactly enhance page speed. To be honest, speed can be quickly increase if you apply these 5 methods below:

1. Compress files

• In compressing, you can use online tools such as gzip.org. Gzip will you squeeze HTML files into one. In turn, it will reduce space consumed and it also reduce the HTTP response time. Reminder, in compressing image files, do not use Gzip because it will alter the original image quality.

2. Optimize images

• When uploading images to your site, make sure you are putting the appropriate size. Of course, a huge picture will mean huge file size. Once you sum up all the images, it would collectively result to a large web page size. Thus, affecting page load time.
• If your website uses a lot of images, try to resize these images to the just the right amount.

3. Lessen the unnecessary white spaces

• HTML and texts can accumulate and it will add up to your total page size. Whether these texts are line returns or comments, it will still impact the overall page load time. It can contribute to anywhere from 10% to 20%. So, inspect every line of code to save space and ensure better website performance.

4. Leverage browser caching

• Every time a user visits your website, it collects a cache of images, scripts, and many others. So, if a visitor decides to go to your website again, it won’t have to collect the same thing all over again. Thus, page load time will decrease and the web page will appear faster.

5. Improve server response time

• When looking at your server response time, you need to aim for a figure below 200ms.

Tools in Analyzing Success

After applying the tips above, it’s also essential to monitor the website speed. How to keep an eye with the changes in a website’s performance? You can use any of these FREE online tools mentioned below:

Pingdom Speed Test

• Once you visit Pingdom’s website, there’s an obvious text box where in you will paste your URL and just click on start test. From time to time, you can use this manually. However, if you want to automate the process, you can sign up for their services.
• Basically, Pingdom will test a websites’ uptime and performance in order to provide a better user experience. It will give you detailed reports on the performance grade, page analysis, average page size, and page load time.

Google PageSpeed Insights

• Google provided this tool to help make your pages fast in all devices. With PageSpeed Insights, you just need to input your URL and Google will a grade your website from 1 to 100. If the score is 90 and beyond, that is a fast website. A score of 50 to 90 means average. Meanwhile, 49 and below would indicate a slow website.
• This tool will test both desktop and mobile versions of a website. PageSpeed Insights (PSI) will also give suggestions on how a web page can further improve.

GTmetrix

• Lastly, there’s the GTmetrix tool. Once you submit your URL for analysis, the GTmetrix report will tell you the performance scores (PageSpeed Score & YSlow Score) and page details (Full Load Time, Total Page Size, and Requests.)
• The distinct feature of GTmetrix compared to other tools available is that you can will know whether it is from a desktop or mobile device and whether it is from a DSL cable connection or a dial-up connection.

Conclusion

Today, it is important to optimize your website speed and monitor the changes so you can quickly adapt to the ever-changing digital sphere. There many available SEO tools out there that are free so take advantage of these things in order to further satisfy your customers’ wants.

Last time, I discussed 3 reasons why your SEO strategy failed. They are having mediocre continent, unreliable web host, and insufficient backlinks. Now, I will discuss 3 more reasons behind this phenomenon.

Your SEO campaign is unsuccessful because…

4. You failed to acknowledge the latest Google Algorithm updates.

• As SEO professionals, it’s not easy to keep up with the amount of updates. From time to time, Google releases major updates. We all can’t do anything about it except to heed with their changes.
• At all times, every website should observe these Google updates. If not, the rankings will suffer. Don’t expect your website to appear on the 1^st page of the SERPs.
• There are numerous Google Algorithm updates namely Panda, Hummingbird, Penguin, Fred, and many others. Penguin, for instance, responsible for bringing down websites that violate Google’s guidelines. If you apply Black Hat SEO techniques, then say goodbye to your website. That’s why buying links for your site will cost you money and it will also endanger your website.
• On the other hand, Panda ensures that you won’t see bad search results when using Google. It is making sure that what you will be seeing will only be high-quality websites. So, always strive to provide excellent content to your audience because Google is always watching your every step.
• More algorithmic updates will be available in the future. Regularly check the Webmasters Blog and the official Google Blog for latest developments in the world of tech and SEO.

5. Website has a high bounce rate.

• If your audience is not staying on site for a long period, then that would surely mean that the bounce rate is high. To check for the exact number, you can go to Google Analytics and check your website’s stats.
• People leaving your website TOO quickly is not a good sign. For tips on how to reduce the bounce rate, read How to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate (Part 1) and How to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate (Part 2).

6. Implementing obsolete SEO schemes.

• Well, the most straightforward reason why your SEO strategy is not working is because your tactics are out-of-date. Like what I said on number 4, you need to keep up with updates. These algorithm updates will be on the lookout for old SEO trends. Then, Google will apply the necessary actions.
• To name a few, you should not be doing keyword-related schemes such as keyword stuffing, keyword abuse, keyword cannibalism. Link schemes such as link directories and link buying is a huge NO! Please do not apply any of these bad link habits!
• You will only get over this stage if you know the current (and obsolete) trends.  In order to not bring your PageRank scores further down the drain, read these tips on how not to endanger your PageRank scores.

Conclusion

There are still other reasons why your SEO strategy is not as effective. Remember, SEO is something you cannot rush. Results will NOT show up in a blink of an eye! Yes, it will take some time so you really need to have patience and determination above all else.

Local citations may not seem like much more than a few lines of information about your business, but they are actually very important elements of Local SEO optimization. Every time Google finds an instance of your business’ name, phone number and address online, it adds to your business’ authority and gives you a boost in its local rankings. Some citations can even send traffic to both your store and your website if they are good enough quality.

Here are the best places to get reviews from and what you need to know about them.

Google My Business

The first place you should be getting a citation is from Google itself. You get this citation by signing up to Google My Business and filling in all of the information available to you. Not only is this a fantastic citation for your business, but a strong Google My Business profile will increase your Google presence and send more traffic to both your store and your website.

Structured Citations

Most citations that you create for your business will come in the form of online directories. These are usually very general business directories, but some can be specific to a type of business or a city. Most of these general listings will require the same kind of information and will be laid out in the same way. Specifically, they will require your business’ name, address and phone number, but they may also ask for more information like your opening hours and your URL.

Examples of directories include:

• Apple Maps
• Bing
• Facebook
• Foursquare
• Infogroup
• Localeze
• Yelp

Don’t stop at just these websites, it’s important to create as many citations as possible. That means submitting your business to dozens of business directories.

Specialized Listings

As we have just said above, some directories are specific to a particular industry or geographic area, like a city. These aren’t worthwhile for businesses that aren’t in that industry or geographic area, but they area fantastic citation sources for businesses that are relevant. Not only can these directories offer citations, they usually have high traffic levels, which means referrals to your website.

Tripadvisor is a great example of this kind of directory. They only list hospitality related businesses and can send a significant amount of traffic to the website of restaurants and hotels.

Unstructured Citations

Citations don’t just have to come from business directories and other formalized websites. You can also create your own unstructured citations whenever your business is mentioned on the web. Whether it’s in a news article, a blog post or on social media, any mention of your business’ information online all counts. Traditional PR tactics are a great way to generate these kinds of mentions.

Business website

Finally, you shouldn’t forget that your business website is another great source of citations. If you have one location or store, make sure to include the address and phone number on every page of your website. If you have several locations, create a separate page for each one in order to create multiple citations on your website.

How well are you ranking in Google’s local results? Are you sitting pretty in the map pack for your focus keywords? Or are you nowhere to be found? If it’s the latter then there’s a good chance that you are doing something wrong. There’s an even better chance of this being the case if you are doing local SEO on your own without the help of an agency.

But it’s not easy to work out what you are doing wrong if you aren’t an expert. Byt don’t worry, we are here to help. Here’s the most likely reasons why your SEO sucks.

Website issues

Your business’ website is the center of your online world. That’s why so many SEO efforts center around it. Firstly, if you don’t have a website, you’re really going to struggle to rank at all. You’ll only have your Google My Business listing for help and that isn’t much. But even if you do have a website, things can still go wrong.

Here are the most common problems that make websites bad for SEO:

• No location pages. If you want to rank well, you need to have location pages for every store or office you have, even if you just have one
• Website is not accessible. Your website needs to be responsive if you want to rank well in Google. If people can’t use it on every device, they aren’t going to use it at all and that’s going to cause your rankings to drop.
• Not optimized. If you haven’t optimized your content, titles and headings for your main keywords, Google isn’t going to rank your website for those phrases. You need to tell Google what you want to rank for.

Bad citations

Business owners create citations thinking that they will help them rank even higher in Google’s Map Pack. And they are right, if done correctly, they will help businesses rank higher. But if they are done poorly, they can ruin your local SEO rankings.

Poor citations are inconsistent citations. When your business name, phone number and address aren’t listed consistently across every single citation that you create, Google is going to get confused. When Google gets confused with your business information, it’s not going to rank you highly.

Keep your citations consistent if you want to rank well.

No or poor reviews

One of the most important parts of local SEO, apart from your website and your Google My Business page, are your business’ reviews. The more high quality reviews you have, the more likely you are to rank highly in Google. For the most part, Google will list well reviewed businesses above poorly reviewed businesses when all else is equal.

If you have no reviews for your business or the reviews you have are bad, you are going to struggle to rank. Turning this around is essential. Firstly, make sure that you are offering a quality service and that customers are happy. That way you know you are going to get good reviews. Then start asking all your customers to leave a review on your GMB profile. Most people won’t bother unless you ask them, so make sure that you do!