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Articles by Joshua Hardwick Contributors
Free SEO Audit Template for 2023
Looking to improve your website’s SEO but don’t know where to start? Use our free SEO audit template to find SEO issues that need fixing. Google Docs → Google Sheets → Microsoft Excel → Microsoft Word → PDF → Sidenote. Looking for a different format? Request it here. Our SEO audit template focuses on finding SEO issues that move the needle—not everything that can go wrong with a website. This is because sweating the small stuff rarely does much for your rankings.
Here's What We Found
Every company on Twitter has the same features at its disposal to create a standout profile. Here are those features: But how many SaaS companies make use of them all? And are they using them well? To find out, we studied the Twitter profiles of 100 SaaS companies. Let’s start at the top. Sidenote. Thanks to my colleague, Rebecca Liew, for doing most of the research for this post.
How to Find Your Competitors' Backlinks (And Get Them for Yourself)
If you’re looking to build more backlinks to your website, checking how your competitors built and earned their backlinks is a good starting point. That’s because understanding how they got links can help inform your link building strategy. In this post, you’ll learn how to find, replicate, and learn from your competitors’ backlinks. How to find your competitors’ backlinks You need an SEO tool like Ahrefs to do this, which is consistently voted top dog in SEO industry polls.
Keyword Analysis for SEO: Deciding if (And How) to Target a Keyword
If you’re choosing keywords based on search volume alone, you’re making a mistake. You also need to consider whether the keyword makes sense for your business and whether you can realistically rank for it. Here’s the process: Let’s go through the steps in more detail. 1. Will the keyword send me enough traffic? People usually rely on search volumes for this, but they can be misleading.
Google Doesn't Care About AI Content. Here’s Why.
Google recently published new guidance about AI-generated content, saying it’s not against the company’s guidelines. It even encouraged content creators to use AI in some situations. This seemed to come as a bit of a shock to some, but I think there are three reasons why it makes total sense. Reason 1.
The 5 Best Long-tail Keyword Generator Tools
Long-tail keywords are nothing more than keywords with low monthly search volumes. It doesn’t matter if they’re made up of two, three, or 10 words. Thanks to their low popularity, they’re often less competitive and easier to rank for than short-tail keywords. This makes them an excellent target for new websites. In this guide, you’ll learn how to find long-tail keywords using five main tools. IMPORTANT NOTE There are two types of long-tail keywords, and it only makes sense to target one of them.
Should You Target Zero-Volume Keywords? It Depends
If your keyword tool says nobody’s searching for a keyword, should you bother targeting it? Although the obvious answer is “no,” there’s been a lot of chatter about the benefits of targeting zero-volume keywords among SEOs. So what gives? Is there any logical reason to do this, or is it just another overhyped SEO trend? In this post, we’ll discuss four perceived benefits of targeting low-volume keywords and why they’re not always so black and white.
How to Rank Higher on Google (10 Steps)
Hundreds of factors could improve your Google rankings. But some are more difficult to influence than others. For that reason, if you want to rank higher, you need to be methodical. Start by working on the easy things that are within your control, then move on to more challenging things if needed. Here’s the process: Before we get started… The process in this guide works best for internal pages. If you want to rank your homepage, read our guide to homepage SEO.
Advanced Keyword Research: 5 Tips for Finding Untapped Keywords
Most people start keyword research by entering a few broad seed keywords into a popular keyword tool, then checking keyword ideas. There’s nothing wrong with this process because it makes sense to tackle popular keywords. But it does leave some of the less obvious keywords on the table. In this guide, you’ll learn five advanced keyword research tips for finding untapped keywords. 1.
5 Simple E-commerce Link Building Tactics
Link building for e-commerce sites is hard. There just aren’t that many obvious opportunities to get links to product and category pages. But luckily, there are some. And there are plenty of ways to build links to other types of pages. In this post, you’ll learn how to build links to your e-commerce product pages, homepage, and other content on your site. 1.
Local SEO: The Complete Guide
Local SEO is the way forward if you want to get more customers to your local business from organic search. But what is local SEO, how does it work, and which ranking factors matter? In this guide, you’ll learn how to rank your business on local search to get more customers through your door. Local SEO basics Local SEO ranking factors Local SEO tools Chapter 1. Local SEO basics First, let’s explore what local SEO is, why it matters, and how it differs from “regular” SEO. What is local SEO?
SEO Silo Structure: Why It Makes No Sense (And What to Do Instead)
Subscribe for weekly updates Leave this field empty if you're human: Everyone knows that structuring your website in a logical way is as important for users as it is for SEO, and “siloing” is one way many SEOs recommend doing this. But I think that “siloing” is a terrible idea and isn’t something you should do. In this post, I’ll explain why that is and what you should do instead. But first, let’s make sure we’re on the same page… What is silo structure in SEO? Why is siloing so popular?
The Insanely Simple SEO Strategy for 2022 (The Orchard Strategy)
Article stats Monthly traffic 235 Linking websites 41 Tweets 15 Data from Content Explorer Shows how many different websites are linking to this piece of content. As a general rule, the more websites link to you, the higher you rank in Google. Shows estimated monthly search traffic to this article according to Ahrefs data. The actual search traffic (as reported in Google Analytics) is usually 3-5 times bigger. The number of times this article was shared on Twitter.
Short-Form vs. Long-Form Content: Which Is Better for SEO?
Subscribe for weekly updates Leave this field empty if you're human: Long-form content isn’t necessarily better for SEO than short-form content. As with many things in SEO, it depends. Sometimes, long-form content is overkill and a waste of resources. Other times, it’s necessary to stand the best chance of ranking. In this guide, you’ll learn a simple way to figure out how much to write on a topic-by-topic basis. But first, let’s get our definitions straight: Short-form vs.
WordPress SEO: 20 Tips and Best Practices
Most people choose WordPress as their website’s CMS because it’s easy to use and SEO friendly out of the box. Both of these things are true, but it’s important to remember that WordPress is just a content management system (CMS). So the mere fact that you’re using WordPress isn’t enough to rank on search engines. Luckily, WordPress makes it super easy to implement many SEO best practices.
Keyword Cannibalization: What It (Really) Is & How to Fix It
Article stats Monthly traffic 211 Linking websites 273 Tweets 125 Data from Content Explorer Shows how many different websites are linking to this piece of content. As a general rule, the more websites link to you, the higher you rank in Google. Shows estimated monthly search traffic to this article according to Ahrefs data. The actual search traffic (as reported in Google Analytics) is usually 3-5 times bigger. The number of times this article was shared on Twitter.
Local SEO Solutions: 8 Tips to Boost Local Rankings
Subscribe for weekly updates Leave this field empty if you're human: Local SEO is the process of increasing your business’s presence in local search to attract more customers or clients. Plenty of guides show you how to do local SEO from start to finish. But they can be daunting, as it’s a complex subject. So, in this guide, we’ll keep things simple with eight tips to boost local rankings: Reclaim lost links Get more reviews Keep your site healthy 1.
SEO Testing: A Simple (But Complete) Guide
Subscribe for weekly updates Leave this field empty if you're human: If you’re unsure whether making a change to your website will positively or negatively affect SEO, running an SEO test might be the solution. But when should you do SEO testing, and how?
How to Create a Winning Content Strategy
Article stats Linking websites 64 Tweets 33 Data from Content Explorer Shows how many different websites are linking to this piece of content. As a general rule, the more websites link to you, the higher you rank in Google. Shows estimated monthly search traffic to this article according to Ahrefs data. The actual search traffic (as reported in Google Analytics) is usually 3-5 times bigger. The number of times this article was shared on Twitter.
How to Convince Your Boss to Invest in SEO
Subscribe for weekly updates Leave this field empty if you're human: If you know that SEO would be a good investment for your company, the first step is getting buy-in from your boss. That might be easy if you’re working for a tech-forward company like Ahrefs with a boss that understands the value and importance of SEO, but it can be more of a challenge for those with less web-savvy bosses.
Content Creation: The Complete Guide for Beginners
Article stats Linking websites 150 Tweets 61 Data from Content Explorer Shows how many different websites are linking to this piece of content. As a general rule, the more websites link to you, the higher you rank in Google. Shows estimated monthly search traffic to this article according to Ahrefs data. The actual search traffic (as reported in Google Analytics) is usually 3-5 times bigger. The number of times this article was shared on Twitter.
Best Rank Trackers: Choosing the Right One for You
Subscribe for weekly updates Leave this field empty if you're human: Everybody wants to rank high in Google because ranking high leads to more organic traffic. But to understand where you rank in the first place, you’ll need a rank tracker. In this guide, you’ll learn how to choose the right rank tracker for you, and how to use it to improve SEO. But first, let’s make sure we’re on the same page. What is rank tracking?
Blog SEO: The Complete Guide
Since 2015, we’ve grown the Ahrefs Blog from zero to over 600,000 monthly search visits. What’s our secret? Consistency. We’ve been using the same SEO strategy for the past six years, and it works well. In this guide, you’ll learn: What blog SEO is Why blog SEO is important But first, let’s make sure we’re on the same page. Blog SEO is the process of writing and optimizing blog content to rank in search engines like Google.
How to Find Low-Competition Keywords for SEO
Article stats Monthly traffic 248 Linking websites 116 Tweets 77 Data from Content Explorer Shows how many different websites are linking to this piece of content. As a general rule, the more websites link to you, the higher you rank in Google. Shows estimated monthly search traffic to this article according to Ahrefs data. The actual search traffic (as reported in Google Analytics) is usually 3-5 times bigger. The number of times this article was shared on Twitter.
How to Do Keyword Research for Affiliate Sites
Most people approach affiliate keyword research all wrong. They look for low competition keywords, write a blog post, then shoehorn in as many affiliate links as possible. This approach tends to be lots of traffic, but no clicks, conversions, or revenue. Luckily, there’s a simple solution: find keywords with lots of searches that you can rank for, which are about topics where you can naturally plug product recommendations. The reason this is important comes down to search intent.
How to Create a Winning Content Marketing Strategy (+ Template)
Not all content marketing strategies are created equal. Some help you achieve business goals, and others don’t. This guide will teach you how to create one that does the former, not the latter. But first, the basics… What is a content marketing strategy? A content marketing strategy is a plan for creating and distributing content to attract your target audience and influence their buying decisions.
How to Get to the Top of Google's Search Results [Interactive Guide]
Subscribe for weekly updates Leave this field empty if you're human: If you run a business, you’ll probably want to appear at the top of Google when people search for certain keywords. For example, if you’re a plumber in London, you might want to show up when people search for “plumber near me” or “london plumber.” Most people click the first result, so appearing at the top usually means more traffic, leads, and customers. But how exactly do you appear here above the competition?
How to Build a Successful Amazon Affiliate Site (Step by Step)
Do you want to make some extra dough promoting products on Amazon? Lots of people make money with Amazon affiliate sites. But for every success story, there are plenty who never quite get there.
8 Confirmed Google Ranking Factors
People say all kinds of things are ranking factors. But the truth is that Google has never confirmed most of them. This leads to a lot of misinformation and bad advice. In this guide, we’ll explore eight ranking factors that we know Google uses. Backlinks are clickable links from one website to another. In 2016, Google’s Andrey Lipattsev confirmed they’re one of Google’s strongest ranking factors. But not all backlinks are equal. Some move the needle more than others.
LSI Keywords: What are They and Do They Matter?
People say that LSI keywords have the power to boost Google rankings. Is this true, or is it yet another SEO myth? Read almost any article about LSI keywords, and you’ll be told two things: Google uses a technology called LSI to index web pages. Using LSI keywords in your content helps you rank higher on Google. Both of these claims are technically false. In this guide, you’ll learn why that is and what to do about it.
Video SEO: How to Rank YouTube Videos on Google
Looking to get more YouTube video views from Google? Google has sent over 160,000 views to our YouTube videos in the last ~12 months. That’s more views than the countless video embeds on our blog have sent us, which currently gets over 250,000 organic visits per month. In this post, you’ll learn how to rank your YouTube videos on Google in 5 easy steps. We’ve also included a few bonus tips on how to use videos to get more website traffic.
How Do Search Engines Work? Beginner's Guide
Let’s begin by exploring what search engines are, why they exist, and how they make money. What are search engines? Search engines are searchable databases of web content. They’re made up of two main parts: Search index. A digital library of information about web pages. Search algorithm(s). Computer program(s) that rank matching results from the search index. What is the aim of search engines? Every search engine aims to provide the best, most relevant results for users.
How to Use Google Search Console to Improve SEO
If your web host differs from your domain registrar, then you may find that your registrar doesn’t let you edit DNS records. In that case, you’ll need to edit DNS records on your hosting account instead. If you’re doing this in cPanel, it’s super simple.
Duplicate Content: Why It Happens and How to Fix It
Looking to learn what duplicate content is, and how it might be hurting your SEO? Duplicate content is a source of constant anxiety for many site owners. Read almost anything about it, and you’ll come away believing that your site is a ticking time bomb of duplicate content issues. A Google penalty is merely days away. Thankfully, this isn’t true—but duplicate content can still cause SEO issues. And with 25-30% of the web being duplicate content, it’s useful to know how to avoid and fix such issues.
Robots.txt and SEO: Everything You Need to Know
Unless you’re careful, disallow and allow directives can easily conflict with one another. In the example below, we’re disallowing access to /blog/ and allowing access to /blog. User-agent: * Disallow: /blog/ Allow: /blog In this case, the URL /blog/post-title/ seems to be both disallowed and allowed. So which wins? For Google and Bing, the rule is that the directive with the most characters wins. Here, that’s the disallow directive.
9 Reasons Your Website Isn't Showing Up On Google (and How to Fix It)
Does it feel like you’ve done everything right, yet your website is still nowhere to be seen in Google’s search results? The bad news: Several things could be preventing you from showing up in Google. The good news: Many of them are easy to fix. Below, we explore nine possible reasons why you’re not showing up in Google and how to fix each issue.
How to Create an XML Sitemap (and Submit It to Google)
Just as it’s difficult to find a new destination without a map, it’s sometimes hard for Google to find all the pages on your website without a sitemap. Luckily, it’s quick and easy to create and submit an XML sitemap to Google. Below, we walk through how to do this step by step. But first, let’s cover a few basics. (Already know the basics? Click to jump straight to creating a sitemap.) A sitemap is an XML file listing all the important content on your website.
15 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress (Tried & Tested)
Looking to get your WordPress SEO off on the right foot, but feel overwhelmed by the number of SEO plugins available? Keep reading. Run a search for “SEO” in the WordPress plugins directory, and you’ll get 49 pages of results. There are 20 plugins per page, so that’s 980 plugins! #overwhelming Now, I’ll level with you: there’s no such thing as a definitive list of the best SEO plugins for WordPress. These things are subjective.
8 Best YouTube Keyword Tools (Free and Paid)
Looking for a list of the best keyword tools for YouTube keyword research? It’s here. YouTube is the world’s 2nd largest search engine, with over one billion hours of video watched daily. But the question is, what are people searching for? And what should you create videos about? Keyword research is the only way to answer that, but unfortunately, there’s no official research tool for YouTube as there is with Google.
7 Digital Marketing Strategies That Actually Work
Chatbots. A/B split tests. Complicated marketing funnels. Forget them all. If you’re running a small business, none of these things should be your focus. The digital marketing strategies that deserve your attention are the unsexy ones. In this post, we’ll cover seven of those strategies and how to make them work for you based on experience rather than just theory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZZnxXyES80 1. Blogging with SEO in mind Blogging isn’t writing what you did today. That’s a diary.
Canonical Tags: A Simple Guide for Beginners
Looking to learn what canonical tags are, and how to use them to avoid dreaded duplicate content issues? Canonical tags are nothing new. They’ve been around since 2009—the best part of a decade. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo united to create them. Their aim? To provide website owners with a way to solve duplicate content issues quickly and easily. Do they work?
Hreflang: The Easy Guide for Beginners
If your website has content in multiple languages, then you must understand and use the hreflang attribute. In this post, we’ll cover everything from the basic concept, to implementation, to troubleshooting common issues. Hreflang is a simple HTML attribute, but it can be challenging to get to grips with. Google’s John Mueller described hreflang as “one of the most complex aspects of SEO” because it gets “really hard quickly.” But don’t let that put you off.
How to Do It At Scale (Without Feeling Like a Jerk)
Most people hate blogger outreach. It makes them feel like a jerk. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s possible to do outreach, at scale, without feeling like a spammer. You did a thing on the internet. You think it’s good, but nobody knows it exists. You wish there were more buzz about it—more tweets, links, all that good stuff. Not one to be defeated, you head to Google in search of a solution. That’s when you come across this blogger outreach thing. It sounds like hell.
Resource Page Link Building: The Only Guide You Need
Resource page link building is nothing new, but it remains a popular link building tactic. How popular? According to Aira’s 2022 State of Link Building Report, 24% of SEOs use it: Here are three reasons why: It works. It’s scalable. It’s relatively easy. In this guide, I’ll explain how to build links from resource pages in three simple steps. But first, let’s make sure we’re on the same page. What is resource page link building?
10 Ways to Get Google to Index Your Site (That Actually Work)
If Google doesn’t index your website, then you’re pretty much invisible. You won’t show up for any search queries, and you won’t get any organic traffic whatsoever. Zilch. Nada. Zero. Given that you’re here, I’m guessing this isn’t news to you. So let’s get straight down to business. This article teaches you how to fix any of these three problems: Your entire website isn’t indexed. Some of your pages are indexed, but others aren’t. Your newly-published web pages aren’t getting indexed fast enough.
What Is a Nofollow Link? Everything You Need to Know (No Jargon!)
The rel=”nofollow” tag is one of the simplest HTML tags around, and one that’s crucial to understand if you’re doing SEO. Learn everything you need to know about nofollowed links in this guide. Nofollow links are nothing new. They’ve been around for 14 years. If you care about your website’s performance in search engines, then knowing when and when not to use nofollowed links isn’t just important—it’s crucial.
How to Find Who Links to Your Website (and What to Do Next)
Do you want to know who links to yours or a competitor’s website? Follow this straightforward guide. Backlinks are crucial if you want to rank in search engines. We studied almost a billion web pages to see how backlinks from unique websites correlate organic traffic. Generally speaking, the more backlinks a page has from unique websites, the better it performs in search engines. Sidenote. This is a correlation study. It doesn’t prove causation.
How to Do a Basic Website Audit to Improve SEO and UX (in 10 Steps)
Does your website have issues that are hindering your SEO efforts or alienating your visitors? Follow this simple website audit process to find out. If you’ve never audited your website, chances are you should. Websites are complex beasts and issues arise all the time—and you won’t be aware of them unless you audit your site regularly.
Beginner's Guide to SEO Success
What is SEO? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of growing a website’s organic search traffic. It’s where you do things that help you show up and rank higher in a search engine’s organic results. Why is SEO important? People are likely searching for what you do, and you can attract customers by ranking for those terms. But you’re unlikely to rank without effort, as others are trying to do the same. This is why SEO matters. It helps show Google that you most deserve to rank.
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