Are you guilty of spammy tactics on your website? If so, gird your loins because Bing just released a new set of link penalties. These will go after websites that are using manipulative cross-site linking, PBNs, and leased subdomains. The latest penalty updates from the second largest search engine is an effort to make the platform a better place for website owners.

Over the past years, Bing has been releasing a series of updates. Before these new link penalties, they marked the sanctions for violations in their inorganic site structure as well as fixes for cache bugs.

But is your website one of the violators of the link guidelines? Here are the things you need to know:

Private Blog Networks aren’t accepted

Private Blog Networks are notorious among website owners, but Bing is set to penalize this tactic. PBNs abuse the boundaries of the domain by splitting the site into different domains. Through this, a website can gain SEO advantage.

Websites that are using this method will be penalized. Worse, their rankings will be affected and they will lose revenue. Nevertheless, Bing is doing this for fairness, especially for new sites that just got live.

Manipulative site linking is a no-no

Websites need backlinks in order to establish positive signals for search engines. However, some site owners manipulate this by creating multiple websites and cross-linking within its pages. This is one of the practices that Bing aims to sanction.

Manipulative cross-site linking gives site owners an unfair advantage. It also interrupts the natural process of building website integrity and rankings.

As much as you want your site to rank up, you should never resort to these shady tactics. In the long run, Bing will catch you and impose heavy penalties that will impact your website’s revenue.

Subdomain leasing will be penalized

Another tactic that website owners use is renting a subdomain from an established website. Through this, they can enjoy an excellent online presence even for a newly created website. This is possible since the SEO advantage will trickle down to the subdomains or subfolders of the mother domain.

This is a spammy method that will be penalized under the new link penalties of Bing. Subdomain leasing is like a cheat to get around the SEO guidelines of the search engine. If Bing discovers that your website is guilty of this practice, you will face sanctions that will have an adverse impact on your ranking.

Will it affect my website?

If you’re using the aforementioned methods, then expect that Bing will penalize your website in no time. You can get away with it for the next months, but as the crawlers advance, they will find your website and apply the necessary sanctions.

This spells trouble for your website. If your website violates multiple guidelines of Bing, you will experience drastic changes in ranking and revenue.

Final words 

Although Bing just comes second to Google, it’s still a valuable traffic source. As much as possible, use only acceptable SEO methods to prevent any penalties. Besides, playing by the rules will keep you safe from any problems.

Ever since its launch back in 2014, Google My Business has changed the internet landscape for local business owners. It introduced a slew of features that help in marketing and connecting with local customers. Signing up for an account is not enough, however. You must optimize your GMB account to make the most out of it.

Your GMB account is the face of your business. It’s also a messaging platform, complaint desk, info hub, and more. If you want to leverage it for your business, you might as well follow these simple hacks:

Talk to your customers

Building relationships with your customers is a great way to boost conversion and repeat customers. It’s also a personalized approach to soar past your competitors.

Good thing, the GMB has the Google My Business Messaging tool where you can send messages to your customers. It’s also the best platform to encourage reviews and offer special rewards. Always be natural and real with your messages. Through this, your customers will feel that you’re sincere about keeping them.

However, don’t abuse this tool. Avoid flooding your customers with content they are not interested in receiving.

Avoid spammy techniques

Spam content will only get your GMB account penalized. Acts like paying someone to give you a review or having a sudden surge of positive reviews are red flags for Google. The search engine will perceive your account as fraudulent as it goes against their guidelines.

If you want to earn positive reviews, encourage real customers to leave it for you. And if it turns out not as positive as you expected, you can act upon to resolve the issue.

Just remember that good reviews don’t flood overnight.

Encourage reviews

Reviews are earned, not forced. So once a customer purchases a product or service, you can send him or her a message through the GMB Messages. You can also offer a low-value reward to encourage them to craft a nice review that details their experience on your business.

Emails are also a great way to encourage reviews. However, don’t be too pushy and accept the fact that some customers won’t bother writing short feedback.

Always act on negative reviews

Along the way, you will receive a handful of negative reviews of unsatisfied customers. But instead of ignoring it, you might as well respond and offer a potential solution. Take note that aside from converting the reviewer, you’re also showing other customers that you care.

Potential leads who will see the reviews and responses will think that you are a responsive business. It adds up to their purchasing decision.

Always be professional and patient when dealing with negative reviews. Offer the solution you deem best, but always be alert if a customer is just trying to rip you off.

Conclusion 

Your GMB account is a powerful tool for your business. If you know how to use it well, you can maximize it to improve your business’ reputation, conversion, and revenue. These four tips are just the basic things you can do together with other strategies.

Keeping up with Google updates is a full-time job. Each update entails changes on your website and the need to fix what has gone wrong. Also, if you got penalized, it’s crucial to fix the algorithm issue to prevent impacting your rankings.

You can use a lot of ways to fix the situation, but avoid one thing: panicking. The November update is just one of the updates you have to deal with. It’s normal to have a lot of questions, especially if your rankings are at stake.

The latest Google update

Just last month, Google released the BERT update. This technology will change how the search engine will interpret queries. Instead of checking how each word works, BERT will now consider the relation of each word with each other.

This just means that how you show up on search engines will be different once BERT is in effect. The good news here is that this update is only applicable to 1 out of 10 searches in the English language.

Overall, BERT is a good thing. You may lose traffic, but that’s because Google is directing it to the query most relevant to the pages.

What about keyword stuffing and junk links

Surprisingly, Google gives some sites a free pass when it comes to keyword stuffing. John Mueller from Google admits that if the site meets other major ranking factors, it will show up on top of search results. That’s regardless if they are using keyword stuffing.

Another thing you should know is that Google snobs junk links. These are expired links that will not harm or boost your site. Such links are only as good as its expiration date.

Also, you should know that Google has changed the nofollow attribute, something that may affect hundreds of sites.

Why your rank goes down

Many website owners get surprised that their rankings go down after the November update. This can be due to a lot of things, but BERT can have a minimal impact.

Since you’ll lose traffic due to a more efficient search matching system, you will also show up differently on the search pages. Since Google has changed its appreciation of search queries, this is quite normal. But if your pages went from the top spot to the second page, something else is going on that you have to check.

The thing about slow sites ranking up

To the surprise of some website owners, there are slow-loading sites that rank higher than them. With page speed as a major ranking factor, this seems a bit confusing.

Nevertheless, Mueller clarifies that page speed is just one of the dozens of ranking factors that the search engine uses to rank websites. Even if these sites are slow, they may be excelling in relevance and other aspects. After all, site speed is just one of the many factors. Yours might be lagging on other positive signals.

Conclusion

With the latest Google updates in effect, there’s no need to panic. Just focus on creating relevant content to boost your ranking.

Bounce rates refer to the times a visitor leaves your website after browsing several pages. Each website has a specific bounce rate percentage, which can either be normal or not, depending on its niche. Still, if you notice an excessive bounce rate on your website, something is probably wrong.

For newbie website owners, it’s quite difficult to know if a specific bounce rate is normal or not. This leads to confusion and failure to resolve the problem.

The bounce rate range

Bounce rates vary across websites, but there are specific ranges that will tell you if you should worry or not. The following is a rule of thumb, which applies to most websites across the web.

Lower than 25% – An exceptional bounce rate

26% to 40% – A very acceptable range, your website is in good shape

41% to 55 – The average range, but can be improved

56% to 70% – A bit higher than the average range, but it can be acceptable under specific conditions

Higher than 70% – This is a big problem, and you need to fix the issue

Why does the high bounce rate happen?

High bounce rates can happen due to several reasons. The following are the leading culprits:

Poor content quality

Site visitors who are looking for information and quality content will be disappointed upon reading an inferior copy. The same goes for very salesy content that gives nothing but product pitches with no immediate value.

As much as you want to promote your product or service, you should still give something valuable to your readers. Remember that the content of your website will keep visitors coming. If it’s poor in quality and not updated, expect that the visitor will just look somewhere else.

Problematic navigation

Is your site a pain to navigate? If this is the case, you’re pushing your visitors away instead of keeping them hooked on your website. Always make sure that your pages are navigable on mobile and that all the buttons and links are working.

Also, never link to a bad or unknown site. Aside from establishing your credibility among your customers, this is also crucial in boosting your positive signals for Google rankings.

Always browse your website as if you’re a site visitor. This way, you can pinpoint what’s wrong and what you can do about it.

Very slow loading time 

A slow loading time gives a bad image to your website. Worse, it directly impacts your Google rankings.

Take note that online users have a very short attention span. So if your pages take more than three seconds to load, they will just close the tab and browse the next option. With that, you experience an increased bounce rate.

It’s best to perform an audit of your website. This way, you can change things to speed up your loading time. You may also discover more problems that need to be fixed right away. You can tap the help of a web developer if you don’t have technical knowledge for this problem.

Are you finding it hard to choose the right keywords? You may be making the process overcomplicated. With dozens of tools and software available for this task, the right keywords are at your fingertips already. Still, some overcomplicate the process, making it difficult to find the right keywords. Worse, they use the wrong ones, leading to unsuccessful campaigns.

So, where do things go wrong, and what can you do about it?

What goes wrong with keyword research?

The common problem among PPC managers is the risk of performing redundant research processes. After generating keyword suggestions using keyword tools and software, the process can get really confusing. Some will search for each result, which takes a lot of time. Worse, they end up with only several keywords out of the hundreds they have checked.

This is like a school project scenario. You’re asked to submit a one-page essay, but to impress, you wrote 15. As much as your intention is good, you’ll end up getting the same – or even lower- grade than most. The length of the process doesn’t really benefit the result. If there’s one thing that it does, it’s wasting your time and making the keyword research process difficult.

Keyword intent is the key

If you’re at a loss when it comes to keyword research, let keyword intent be your guide. Keyword intent pertains to the intention of the consumer why he or she searched for a specific query. Usually, search intent can be categorized into four:

*Commercial – these are keywords that express the intention to purchase, like best bike for rough terrain or best smartphone under 500

*Informational – these are keywords that seek to answer a question, like how to assemble a scooter or how to choose the right phone

*Navigational – these are location-related keywords like bike shop near me or phone store near me

*Transactional –these are direct buying intent keywords, like bikes for sale or iPhone for sale

By knowing which of these categories you want to achieve, you can narrow down your keyword options.

Doing it right

Keyword research is always worth your time. It’s a crucial process that will help you optimize for the keywords that will bring your website closer to your target audience.

Still, stop using redundant processes. Utilize the keyword search tool that you have and avoid wallowing into unnecessary keywords. Again, don’t start keyword research until you have defined your goal. This way, you’ll know if a group of keywords is useful or not.

Aside from that, opt for well-curated keywords. Take note that it’s normal for big blog sites to use and compete for the same queries. To avoid the fuss, stir clear of such keywords and opt for other search strings. Besides, the internet is filled with thousands of them.

Conclusion 

Keyword research is essential, regardless if you’re launching a PPC campaign or if you’re performing SEO. Just make sure that you’re doing it right and without the unnecessary processes. A little practice will go a long way. If you’re at a loss, you can always tap the help of an expert.