If you are citizen of the internet and digital world, you have probably seen horrendous websites. That moment when you visit a site, and it does not perform the way you want it to! The owner might have abandoned the site already and left to collect dust.  Sites are not inherently horrible. Under other condition, you can start anew.

Here are 4 tips to bring to life a declining site.

1. Do not fix technical details yet!

Control yourself and slowdown a bit. Don’t go ahead and repair the critical SEO and performance concern. First, prioritize your goals. What are those you need to do? What are the things do you need to accomplish?

The first concern should be centering on your customer’s inquiries. You are to respond to their questions. Assist your customers on the things they need to know and surely Google will give you brownie points for your effort.

Apart from that, it is a smart move to assess the situation. Talk to your customers and consider their suggestions on your website. You can now remove any obstacles that did not help your customers. So now, you can focis on giving more attention to the strategies that worked well.

If by nature you are a technical person, do not make the mistake of mindlessly editing or changing because you might just harm the top ranked pages. Also, this might not be the proper time to do such thing. What you need to look at is the bigger picture. Build a roadmap of your project in an organized manner through the use of project management tools.

This systematic method will make sure that all vital actions will not be ignored. This includes:

• Site crawling. Could search engines crawl the whole website?
• Google algorithms. Is the site guilty of any violations of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines?
• Indexing problems. Did Google successfully index your web pages?

2. Be reasonable and stick to the plan.

 Build an achievable goals and consider the essential key performance metrics from the start.  You can write down the progress on a weekly basis. Progress may seem tiny and minute, but it should be celebrated like the improvement of click-through rates, higher conversion rates, steady influx of mobile and web traffic. The main thing is to keep your eyes on the prize. Don’t get derailed and aim your attention on the established goals.

• Continue to have control over the chaotic project.
• Center your focus on the activities that has to do with customers and their objectives

Other goals could to keep you away from the FAR MORE IMPORTANT ONES. Commonly, this occurs when there is too much pressure to perform well and to do different activities all at once. Hence, it is critical to utilize online tools and other project management apps to stay on track.  Interactive boards makes it easier to see how things are moving. This way, you can clearly visualize the things that needs to be accomplished and what are those that are already done.

Okay, let me cut the discussion short, and I will share the other 2 suggestions on 4 Tips in Enhancing Horrible Websites (Part 2)

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In part 1, I talked about the two things in order to gain a spot on the first page of the search results. Now, I shall continue to give you more tips. If you are ready, here we go!

Developing Your Content for the Users

• There are many channels to help you get the exposure you want and get a high organic ranking. However, there is something more important than that, which is improve and aids in the users’ journey to finding answers.
• Hence, the top focus of a content should be to answer the queries of the users. Create an exceptional content that presents plausible solutions within the bounds of possibilities. Additionally, you should able to reply to many inquiries. In one article, you should be able to hit 2 birds with 1 stone. The content that you should present needs to be different from the rest, imaginative, and fresh to the eyes of your readers.

The Significance of Link Building

• The volume of backlinks has an influence on the website’s credible organic rank. According to an SEMrush research, it shows us that there is an astronomic drop on the volume of the referring sites in high keyword searches for the search results on page 2 to 15.
• Even if backlinks are imperative, the volume of links are more essential. From a wider standpoint, backlinks is the result of an affirmation of your content. The more websites that link your content, the more shares you get from people.
• Your strategy should center on attaining authentic and suitable backlinks. Links that came from shady directory sites are definitely not counted.
• The predicament here is, with no visibility, how then can you spontaneously lure backlinks to your site? This will include establishing a well-planned link scheme.
• Basically, there are various sources for backlinks if you have the knowledge where to look for them. Let the tips here lead the way for you.
  • Evaluating your competitors’ links – where do they get their links? Maybe you can connect with these sites as well.
  • Posting on other websites – reach out to other people and express the need to do a guest post.
  • Fixing broken links – some links may have the incorrect URL. So, give the web admins a heads up on the dead links on their website.
  • Interacting with other influencers for shares, links, and mentions.

Additional Campaigns

If you provide a top-quality article, there is a huge possibility that users will click your website. In the future, they would prefer you and your website because they know YOU WERE ABLE TO SATISFY THEIR NEEDS.

To expand your horizons more, your business could try paid promotion. This way, content can be brought to a wider set of audiences and influencers. Evidently, the idea here is to market your brand, and to establish it online. Therefore, you have to optimize and boost your website according to the feedback that you get.

The next thing to do is to calibrate your content to do the way you want it. Lastly, don’t easily believe what you read online. Equip yourself with facts, check out 7 Link Building Myths that You Should Not Believe.

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Believe it or not, penalties could actually ruin your business. This article is precisely about how to avoid algorithmic penalties, and stay on Google’s good side. Of course, we all want that, right? It would mean huge revenues for our businesses.

Before we can discuss about the how, let’s first take a look at the penalties:

1. Algorithmic penalties. This is what the blog post is about. However, there 2 kinds of search engine penalties.

• • A manual penalty is when someone from Google flagged your website. Thus, you will receive a notification on your Google Search Console account.
  • An algorithmic penalty is when you violated Google’s guidelines. The thing is Google has a complex algorithm, and it changes a lot!

2. This is about prevention. Once you get an algorithmic penalty, your ranking drops, depending on what kind of violation you have committed. Surely, you can recover, but it will be a long time. Read the 5 rules to make sure you will not commit the mistake.

Lesson No. 1:  Understand the rules and never break them.

How? Google’s directives is the safest path to follow. Whether you like it or not, Google creates the rules and every user must follow abide by the rules. Whether you work online or you manage a business online, follow the rules and know the Webmaster Guidelines.

Lesson No. 2: Audit your content

Actually, it is not really difficult to audit. You just need 2 things:

• You must understand Google’s guidelines.
• Examine your content. Is it high in quality? No shady tactics involved? Are all your images optimized? Does it answer a question? These things may seem unimportant, but they are essential in the grand scheme.

Lesson No. 3: Tidy up your link profile

Don’t wait for a manual penalty to happen before you check your link profile. From time to time, inspect the links mentioning your website or brand. The link profile shows the list of your links, and Google checks the quality of  these links. There are two major things that algorithm considers in ranking your site and they are:

• The standard of excellence – was it from a good site or a spammy site?
• The anchor text used for the links – what words were indicated on the hyperlink?

Should you encounter spammy links, ask the website admins to remove the links pointing to your website. Then, disavow them immediately.

Lesson No. 4: Get rid of your existing SEO strategies

Admittedly, there are SEO experts and SEO firms that do more damage. They even things such as:

• Flooding your website with inferior content and shady links.
• Utilizing old-fashioned schemes like keyword stuffing, cloaking, etc.

It is wise to check the site’s contents, internal links, and externeal links. Trace everything and search where they came from. Ultimately, investigate whether they are helping or they are damaging your site.

Lesson No. 5: Be on top of the updates of Google’s algorithm

Be updated so you will know the changes that are going on to avoid violating the algorithmic rules.

Whether it is Panda, Penguin, or whatever update, always know the latest rules. If you ever feel confused, always go back to the basics and brush up your knowledge on the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

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A few businesses would like to rank for a wider region rather than optimizing for a smaller and more concentrated area. Well, it is a wise decision since there are too many areas and few customers dropping by the store.

Achieving a well-organized regional SEO could aid enlarge the number of times your content is presented. No need to strain your bank account for having physical offices in every city in the area. If you do it right, you can still earn a spot on the search results through the “near me” suggestions.

Regional SEO as opposed to Local SEO

There is a decisive contrast. Brian Harnish said, “Local SEO is a strategic process that focuses on emphasizing the optimization efforts of local brick-and-mortar businesses.”

Many physical stores, also widely known as service area businesses, do local SEO and set a virtual office. Nevertheless, it’s fundamentally operates online. This is to enhance its presence in the local SERP.

This is authorize by Google’s guidelines in the premise that some staff are doing their job during business hours. Despite of that, if and only if a user complains about your business, Google will think that you have provoked the law, and the result is suspension of your listing. Harsh, right? Well, you can go for re-establishment but surely it will take a long period of time. The safe thing to do is never break the agreed guidelines.

How to Develop Regional SEO

To keep clear of a downward movement of your SEO efforts, here are 2 tips to develop your regional SEO scheme.

1. Analyze Your Area

The best move is to understand your area by analyzing it. Did your research had any result? Know which of the cities are most receptive to your brand or service.

Do a Local Keyword Research

Carry out this task in a full-scale manner and always remember to include geo tags to your keywords.

Distinguish this with facts presented by Google Analytics.  Know if there are similarities (or differences) and arrange them accordingly.

Systematize Your Cities

Classify in single regions should be your next step, and then decrease the number of the region pages as you go along.

Example, if you need to rank in your SEO services in Austin, Texas. Your goal should be the business district there like the ones in Cedar Creek, Kyle, or Driftwood. Remember that San Antonio Texas is the nearest to Austin.  It would be a good idea if you could put all of them together in one area.

2. Increase your Doorway Pages

Google describes tells us that “sites or pages created to rank highly for specific search queries.” Further description is a set of  duplicate pages that go to similar point and may affect the user’s journey. If there is anything that should be prevented, that is increasing the doorway pages. The crazy part here is that there are occasions when they do work. In 2017, John Mueller reiterated during a Google Webmaster Hangout that doorway pages is an awesome strategy ONLY IF it is done correctly.

Now, you have read how to develop your regional SEO. More tips on What Is Regional SEO and How to Develop It? (Part 2)

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Black hat is an SEO practice that challenges search engine principles to have a higher ranking in Google. The outcome of which could be a penalty from search engines. In most instances, a site has no awareness that they are plagued. At the start, a website could rank well in Google, but degrade it due to its dishonest practices.

The Thing About BLACK HAT SEO.

SEO is a method of planning a site with the objective of having a high ranking in search engines. It is an avant-garde way of “optimizing” content to garner organic traffic rather than pay the stiff advertising cost.

When thinking about optimization, there are only two choices. Either you use the white or the black hat SEO. The first is lawful and acceptable to the search engines. Meanwhile, the black hat SEO is equipped for the purpose of tricking search engines. It is applied to disregard certain algorithms.

Nowadays, search engines has forged algorithms to assist discover black hat SEO, and to avoid the danger of cleverly optimizing a website. The following are a few black hat SEO strategies you must be able to uncover to save yourself from damage:

Paid Links

• Google defines a paid link is paid by merchandise or money. Currently, Google puts a lot of effort and finances to terminate paid links and link farms. To identify this, check out “anchor text,” the phrase or text that bears the link.
• Irregular text with no relation to the link has a high probability that it is a bought link. Take a glance at the many links on every page. If it is packed with aimlessly linked text, it could be purchased link as well. Most of the time, people buy massive links if it has a wide list of backlinks that are from different sites.

Keyword Stuffing

• If a keyword is utilized exorbitant times, then it could be considered “keyword stuffing.” When keywords are utilized  or preferred by many, it simply means Google will score it high in the search ranking. Recurring repetition of the same keyword in any place such as the meta description or the title is considered keyword stuffing.
• It could also be a piece of keyword that’s peculiarly phrased. These are the most frequently used black hat SEO approaches. Just a simple tip, avoid using keywords in an excessively number of times if you do not wish to be penalized.

Hidden Links

• True to its name, it is the kind of link that is invisible. Google stresses on the following: Hidden text at the back of an image, inserting a succession of white texts on a white background, and connecting to a little portion of a text. Do not be sneaky because humans may NOT see it. However, the search engine bots will definitely detect these subtle ways to hiding links and texts.

Cloaking and Redirects

• This happens when sites shows two recognizable content to the users and search engines, that is called cloaking. Another fact about cloaking is when search engine sees just a simple texts as oppose to the clear images seen by the user. There is an apparent difference of what the search engines sees and what the users see on your website.
• Meanwhile, if you happen to click on a website and found yourself now on another different web site, that is considered a “sneaky redirect.”

Black Hat SEO Will Tarnish Your Reputation.

To summarize, you need 3 things: 1) hire a competent SEO company for your website, 2) develop informative content, and finally 3) never any rules on the Webmaster Guidelines.

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