Linking to authority sites helps send trust signals to Google. The link relevancy is important and should be done in a proper manner. Social signals - how many times a piece of content is shared, tweeted and liked - have become a crucial part of the way search engines decide which content is the most useful and should be ranked higher. Don’t let ego fuel your obsession with keyword rankings. And remember that your personal search experience is not necessarily what your prospective customers see. For those of you wondering, “index” is another name for the database used by a search engine. So “to index” a page is to have it added to that database. In other words, Google has discovered your page.

Remove anything that slows down your website

Select the best related keywords and start a list. Words with low competition will catch your eye as opportunities. Those are keywords people are searching for, but there isn’t a hefty amount of content available to answer their questions. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could find out exactly which keywords your competitors are ranking for AND how much search traffic those keywords are bringing in? Search engines like Google can tell the difference between links set up to improve search engine rankings and those that are from trusted, relevant sources. Crafting quality titles for product pages, articles, blog posts, lists and all other written content is what gets that content noticed by search engines. It might not make sense at first, but long and ugly titles containing lots of descriptive information are actually the best types of titles around.

Identify keyword opportunities

Keywords are a critical component of the SEO strategy; optimizing your site for specific ones gives you the power to control which searches you rank for (and therefore who your target audience is). Search engine optimization (SEO) is the work involved to improve a website and promote it to increase visibility on search engines, which usually translates into an increase in organic visitor traffic relevant to your website. Additionally, it’s the application of using each search engine’s best practices to optimize a site and in doing so, keeping user experience first. For some businesses a point in the right direction is all that is needed, for others that have had an audit carried out they may just need keeping on-track. Dependant on your requirements this can range from analysis of your site and advice given over the telephone to a visit to your premises and coaching given directly to your in-house team. Backlinks are the foundation of Google's algorithm for determining a site’s page rank.

SEO specificity best practice

People either go to Google to find something quickly, or they go there to find something they can trust. For speed, they’ll be happy with paid ads. For confidence in quality, they’ll opt for organic search results. Pretty simple, right? To “optimize” for a mobile-first index, make sure that what you serve to mobile users is the version of the content you’d want Google to index, not a pared down version, or a version that gets updated later than desktop, or version that redirects to the mobile homepage. Sometimes, all that you need are five to 10 relevant links, from authoritative sites, to begin seeing results from Google and other search engines. Gaz Hall, a Freelance SEO Consultant, commented: "Your website won’t be found if people have to search too hard for it. “Ranking” for specific keywords relating to your industry and services is the first step in this process. When customers see their searched-for terms in your title and meta description, they will be more likely to click it."

Great content and backlinks are still the most powerful tools in your toolbox

Most search engines like links of either type, although more specifically the one way links. One way links are more especially relevant where the website that has a link to your website has related content to that of your website. The same applies to the importance of the website page which contains the incoming linkto your website – this can be determined using tools such as Google PageRank. Obviously, the greater the ranking, the higher the value of that inbound link in terms of search engine rankings. If you're not adding value, then the customer simply won't ascend and you won't grow your business (fast or slow). That's what it takes. Many moons have passed since search engines interpreted information solely on simple information like keyword density, but keyword stuffing is still prevalent on many sites. What if I was to tell you Google has a powerful collection of tools that tell you exactly how often they crawl your site, what they think it’s about, and even suggestions on things they have trouble with? And that you can have it? For free? You’d want it, wouldn’t you?