We've prepared an SEO Guide for Beginners and Marketers.
It's complete and full of valuable tips for your strategy.
How did SEO come about? According to this post from Search Engine Land, it was in 1997 that the term SEO was first mentioned.
Search Engine Optimization is a set of techniques and strategies for websites to achieve the best positions in search engines, generating and strengthening brand recognition, increasing organic traffic and converting into more business.
SEO is just one of the verticals that make up Digital Marketing 360, but it is undoubtedly vital to the success of any project.
With our SEO Guide for Beginners and also marketing professionals, you'll no longer have any doubts about what SEO is, how to do it and track SEO results, the most important factors and the Best SEO Tools you need to know.
Continue on this page to learn all about it!
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means Search Engine Optimization. In other words, SEO actions on your website help search engines such as Google to notice your business on the internet.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), also popularly known as website optimization, can be defined as a way of increasing your website's hits through a set of techniques and strategies that enable pages to evolve and improve their positioning in the organic results of search engines.
If you're interested in improving the ranking of your pages, increasing the number of organic visits to your site and showing your brand to the world, then maybe it's time to start investing in SEO.
There are still skeptics out there who say that SEO is no longer alive. However, these theories have already been debunked, since a company that begins to practice optimization within its business pages can achieve increasingly positive results.
Another important point is that to invest in SEO, you don't need to spend a lot of money on clicks. In marketing campaigns, SEO has a great impact on results and an excellent cost-benefit ratio, with the best ROI among digital channels.
The site administrator or developer should use the concept of SEO in the site's design in order to improve the internal optimization aspects that contribute to the good positioning of pages in search engines.
A search engine is a system that allows you to search for all kinds of terms and keywords by developing indexes of files stored on web servers.
In today's internet, a search engine is a system that works by indexing files and data on the web to make it easier to find terms and concepts that are relevant to the user with just one keyword being accessed.
When you enter the search engine, the application returns a list of web addresses in which that word is included or mentioned.
Here are some examples of well-known search engines:
The use of web search engines has become one of the main reasons for using the Internet, making it easier to obtain information and do research, but also for social, recreational and personal purposes.
Search engines are search engines, i.e. databases that incorporate new terms constantly and automatically, or thematic indexes, systems that require a human and manual component to enter and assign websites to keywords and categories.
There are different types of applications considered to be search engines. There are hierarchical search engines (also called spiders), directories, mixed search engines and directories, metasearch engines, vertical search engines and many others.
Among others.
SEO has become a process applied to various types of technology. An example of this are professionals focused on improving the optimization of their ads on marketplaces.
The concept of SEO can be applied to search engines, but also to improve positioning on video networks, price comparators, etc.
Generally speaking, all search engines work in the same way: they build up a database with the text of millions of pages and show those that have something to do with the word you typed into the search screen. The difference lies in the details.
For example: which page should appear first? If you type in something like "São Paulo", the search engine doesn't know whether you're looking for information about the country's largest city or about the saint.
But it has to find a way to "know what you're thinking".
Each site uses specific formulas to sort the results of a search. The most common way is to put the pages that receive the most links from other sites at the top of the list.
But the most popular search engine on the web, Google, has come up with a way of going one step further: a link to a respected page is worth more than any other link.
The geniuses behind the site's search technology are two computer engineers: Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who presented Google in a 1998 science paper.
At the time, the site was just a college project for Stanford University in California. Today, it's worth at least 20 billion dollars!
With an eye on all this search potential, SEO was "created", which is nothing more than the work of qualifying web pages so that they become relevant to interesting searches on that site.
Algorithms are sequences of executable actions that seek a solution to a problem.
In the case of Google, the aim is to read the content of web pages, index them, check which are the most relevant and display them on the search engine results page(SERP for SEO).
To carry out this process, there is a crawler, i.e. a piece of software that saves (and crawls) web pages in its database, except for those that block access or do not comply with the internal command.
That' s Googlebot's job.
What it does is crawl all the content on the internet and add it one by one to Google's index. It then analyzes different variables such as title, URL and text. The result is a classification of the information available.
In this sense, the aim is to bring relevant, useful and quality content to the user. That's why Google's crawler is constantly being updated to become more demanding and complex.
Here's a video from Google Search Central's SEO Mythbusting series, where Martin Splitt (WebMaster Trends Analyst, Google) and his guest Suz Hinton (Cloud Developer Advocate, Microsoft) discuss the many complexities of Googlebot.
Each update is given a name and happens from time to time.
Check out the main and most "remarkable" ones!
Google punished low-quality content, which led to a 12% impact on search results.
Panda is an update to Google's algorithm which now ranks websites according to the content they present to the user.
The aim was to punish sites that showed low-quality content copied from other sites, thus making SEO worthwhile. Until then, it was common for sites with little content and low quality to rank very well in the SERP.
The use of content farm strategies was also widespread. Therefore, producing relevant and original content became a primary task in the SEO strategy.
It should be noted that Panda has been constantly updated since 2011.
When version 1.0 of Panda was released, it revolutionized SEO work, as content strategies, keyword research and even link building had to be changed.
This update focused on preventing black hat, i.e. ways of cheating the algorithm with SEO techniques that don't follow search engine guidelines and try to manipulate their rules. The impact was 3% of the results.
Google launched an update to its algorithm in 2012 (and subsequent versions in the following years) focused on improving search results.
While Panda punishes sites with low-quality content, Penguin aims to identify link building strategies that are not considered legitimate and are designed to manipulate SERP results.
With Penguin, Google's algorithm is able to read the profile of backlinks pointing to your site and punish you if it interprets that spam or black hat tactics have been used.
Since the launch of Penguin, most link building strategies have ceased to have an effect and many sites have been punished, losing rank because of the construction of unnatural backlinks. After all, SEO always values quality.
Penalty Checker is a tool that lets you find out if a site has been penalized by Penguin. A more in-depth analysis identifies exactly why and how to reverse a penalty.
SEO update - Hummingbird (2013)
The main objective here was to improve the results. In this way, the semantic field was included in searches. In other words, the aim of the Hummingbird algorithm, launched in 2013, was to provide users with more agile and accurate results.
Content has become Google's most important ranking factor in recent years with algorithm updates such as Penguin and Panda. Hummingbird is here to complement this trend.
The purpose of the Hummingbird update is to show results that go beyond the keyword searched for by the user. Google now takes into account the semantic field of the searched term, as well as the context in which the term is inserted, in addition to considering the relationship of this specific search with past searches made by the user.
Here the keywords and their context within the page become more important for SEO work.
For example, when you search for "buy a car" it is very likely that the search results will already include terms such as "car", "vehicle", "dealerships" or "tips for buying a car".
With Google's algorithm updates, SEO work has changed in recent years and has become increasingly complex.
Simpler strategies that used to generate results in terms of ranking have become obsolete, such as creating a website with the specific URL of the keyword you want to work on.
This used to be a common practice that worked. However, nowadays, you can create such a site, but the URL alone won't make your site rank well if there isn't great content for the user
Another common practice that has become obsolete is keyword stuffing. In other words, spreading the keyword several times in the content in a forced way. As Google now works with the semantic field, making the text more organic and fluid is the best strategy.
Ideally, keywords and related terms should be used throughout the text and in the headings tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, etc.).
"Pigeon" occurred in July 2014 and was launched by the Google search engine. This update had a major impact on local search results, significantly changing the way local results were displayed in Google rankings.
The main objective of the Pigeon algorithm was to provide more relevant and accurate search results for local searches, improving the user experience when finding information and services in the region.
The Pigeon update introduced several important changes, such as:
- Greater importance for location knowledge: The Pigeon update gave more weight to the user's location when performing a region search. This meant that the results would be more accurate and relevant based on the user's physical location.
Knowledge Graph integration: Google's Knowledge Graph has been integrated into local search results. This allowed the search engine to provide additional information about businesses and locations directly in the search results, such as contact details, opening hours and reviews.
- Better desktop and mobile search results: The Pigeon update has had an impact on both desktop and mobile search results, making the user experience more consistent across different platforms.
- Increased importance of local directories: The update also gave more prominence to local directories and business review sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and others. This meant that these directories were more likely to appear in search results for the user's region.
Significant impact on local businesses: For local businesses, the Pigeon update had a significant impact on search result rankings. Some companies saw their positions improve, while others experienced drops in rankings.
It's important to mention that since the Pigeon update in 2014, Google has continued to refine its algorithm and release updates to improve the quality of search results and the user experience.
Therefore, SEO strategies need to be constantly reviewed and modernized to keep up with changes in search algorithms.
Most of the world's population accesses the internet via mobile devices (smartphones and tablets).
The Mobile Friendly update was launched with the aim of better ranking sites that take care to have versions optimized for mobile devices, improving the user experience (UX).
At the time of its launch in 2015, it was estimated that more than 60% of Google searches were made via mobile devices.
The Mobile Friendly update has precisely adapted Google to the new trend in users' search behavior, turning mobile friendly sites into an important ranking factor.
Interestingly, the change didn't just affect searches made via mobile devices, it even influenced the results of searches made on desktops. As of this Google algorithm update, "mobile friendly" pages will receive a boost in SERP results from Google.
As a result, Google only displays pages that are mobile friendly, making life easier for users. In other words, if your site is not mobile friendly, it will lose positioning and traffic.
That's why, since the Mobile Friendly update, having a website with a responsive design has become an obligation rather than an option.
Having a mobile-friendly website shouldn't just be a Google requirement, after all, the trend is that accesses from cell phones and tablets will continue to increase - and having a responsive website improves your user's experience.
Regardless of whether Google ranks friendly sites better, having a site that looks good on cell phones and tablets is important for the success of your site. The main SEO tools already take this index into account.
Rankbrain is the artificial intelligence created by Google to help process searches. The system is part of Google's algorithm which uses machine learning to improve the presentation of results on the SERP.
Machine learning means that the system holds knowledge in the same way as a human being, i.e. by being able to make connections between information already acquired and new data without the need for a human being to teach the machine.
In practice, rankbrain allows Google's algorithm, as of the Hummingbird update, to show results that are indirectly related to the search term.
Rankbrain is especially useful when searching for more specific terms, known as the long tail.
Due to the specificity of the search, the results would be limited, but with rankbrain, Google is able to present more generic results, but which can help the user, improving their experience.
"Possum" is an unconfirmed but documented update that has had a more significant impact on Google's local package and local search engine results.
As the update has never been officially confirmed by Google, local SEOs have been left to speculate on the purpose of the potential update and the concrete effects.
Possum's goal was to diversify local results, however, a major challenge of this update was filtering out legitimate business listings if they shared Google categories with other organizations in the same building.
As a result, Possum affected 64% of Google's local results.
But how do you know if your business has been hit by Possum? If your Google My Business listing enjoyed high local search rankings that disappeared on September 1, 2016, Possum may be responsible.
SEO Update - Fred (2017)
The Google Fred update aims to encourage the production of quality content that is relevant to each site's target audience.
Selling products or services through weak content focused solely on generating revenue (for example, with irrelevant text and advertiser banners in search of clicks) is a practice that is increasingly being seen as harmful by Google.
The weaker the content, the lower the page rank.
That's why investing in content intelligence for your site is essential if you want it to be easier for your audience to find.
An interesting strategy is to plan your content production and create quality texts combined with a good SEO structure. This would be the best way to please Google Fred and your audience, making your site much more attractive, interesting and profitable.
In 2019, there were several updates to the algorithm. The most recent, effective in November 2019, and with the greatest impact is Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT). This is a neural network technology that has improved natural language processing.
It's important to note that Google makes several minor algorithm updates and adjustments over time, in addition to the major updates mentioned above.
These updates are often released without formal announcement, and Google is working to improve and refine its algorithms to provide better search results.
As a result, it is essential for digital marketers and website owners to keep up with algorithm changes and adopt quality SEO practices. This is a smart way to maintain or improve your rankings in search results.
Ranking factors are criteria used by Google to better position a site organically on the results page for a keyword search.
Google even confirms that more than 200 factors are taken into account when ranking websites in a search.
The good news is that you can define how you will perform in these searches since, with mobile devices, even your physical location influences where you appear in the SERP.
However, there are positive and negative factors that interfere with Google's ranking for SEO. Here are some examples.
As mentioned, Google has more than 200 criteria for evaluating and classifying SEO rankings. It's safe to assume that not all of them have been revealed and may never be.
Until we discover the full secret, we have to make do with what we know and can improve upon.
1. Key words
Keywords help improve SEO rankings because they help people find what they're looking for. If you want to achieve better rankings on Google, you need to include them on your website.
Where are the keywords?
The most effective keywords are those that capture the user's search intent and have a high search volume.
The first point is more intuitive and it's up to you to figure it out. However, the second can be easily mapped out with a powerful SEO tool, such as WebPeak's Keyword Resource.
2. Contents
Text, images, audio, video or combinations of all of these. If you want to improve your SEO ranking on Google, content is your main asset.
But if you want to reach the first page of Google, there are two points that deserve your attention in your content: quality and relevance. Neglect one of these points and you'll be overtaken by countless sites that have invested in both.
How toimprove your content?
Optimize your content for the keywords you want to rank for. Give your content an attractive and intuitive design.
Anticipate users' search intentions and prepare content that is as complete as possible, answering any possible question they may have.
If your goal is to convert, plan how you will guide users through the content to the CTA and how you will close the offer.
Tip: within the TheCaptur tool, you'll find a text auditor, which will evaluate the main SEO factors of the content and present a diagnosis similar to this printout:
Withthe increase in the number of searches via mobile devices, SEO ranking is a priority for Google. A good ranking on cell phones and tablets can boost your position on desktop.
What you can do:
Want to know how your SEO ranking is for mobile devices? Test your site with WebPeak's rank analysis tool.
Another SEO tip: Have a Responsive Site with WebFlow
Backlinking is another powerful factor for your SEO ranking. When other sites redirect traffic to your site, Google's algorithm understands that you are better than the others and ranks you accordingly.
So is it as simple as that? Of course not.
What types of backlinks help you?
It's important to closely monitor the health of existing backlinks and map out a strategy for gaining new ones. In this sense, carrying out a Backlink Audit on an ongoing basis is essential!
Anoptimized site can lose its position if it's not getting enough clicks, for example, if Google sees this site on the first page, it soon realizes that perhaps it doesn't deserve to be there.
That's why, when your site appears in the search results, it should be impossible to resist. Users should look at it and think: "I've found what I was looking for!".
How can you do this? You need to fill in everything that influences the search result and follow the best SEO practices.
SEO factors you can NOT ignore:
So far, you've learned about Google's positive SEO ranking factors. Now I'm going to show you five more ranking factors - this time negative ones.
1. High rejection rates
It's impossible to please everyone, and you can't ignore this metric in your SEO work.
For some users, your content will not be useful, causing them to leave your site as soon as they access it. This can be called a bounce rate, and it's practically inevitable.
But when Google Analytics shows that your bounce rate is higher than normal, it's time to worry. It could mean that your content is really bad!
Solution: find the pages with the highest bounce rates and try to improve the quality of the content. They may be optimized for the wrong keywords or not answering users' questions.
2. Technical errors
Technical errors hinder the user experience and can make the site completely unusable.
Certain mistakes, such as broken links, can prevent Google from crawling your site, which means problems for your SEO rankings. And the worst part is that sometimes it's nobody's fault.
Solution: check your site for errors and correct them as soon as possible.
Keywords should help your site's ranking, but using them incorrectly can prevent it from climbing the SEO rankings.
Solution: use keywords as you would naturally use them in spoken and written language. Avoid optimizing different pages for the same set of keywords. And, most importantly, choose the keywords that are most likely to generate traffic for the user.
Thereare many browser extensions that block unwanted ads, which should be enough to show that users hate these things.
However, pop-ups manage to bypass defenses all too often. And this is particularly bad on mobile devices with their small screens.
Solution: just... don't use intrusive pop-ups on your site.
People are increasingly concerned about online security. Nobody wants personal information and confidential data falling into the wrong hands.
So if there is even the slightest indication that your site's security has been compromised, users will move on to a more secure site.
Solution: double your site's security. Be on the lookout for any sign of intrusion and take immediate action if it happens.
What about site speed, does it affect SEO?
Of course, users and site administrators want the best performance on their platforms.
There are a number of ways to make adjustments that improve page speed, and new technologies are adding to the mix.
We've all had unwelcome moments with the speed of the internet, and in an age when everything needs to be done as quickly as possible, this sometimes makes it difficult to access some information.
It has been proven that after 30 seconds of waiting, most users give up on the page. This is a worrying factor if we put it in business terms: how many business deals are not lost virtually because of a few seconds?
Not only because of unfinished business, but also because of the user experience on web pages, where access to a news story is often delayed because it doesn't reach the required speed.
AMP technology manipulates the HTML codes of the pages to generate a lighter and faster connection. This allows you to present your content quickly.
An AMP link is able to obtain information from the server more quickly, and presents it to the user so that they can start reading before it even loads. Among other things, one of the points is that the page speeds up due to the fact that it has a pre-assembled interface, thus avoiding extra processing time.
Although the technology was designed for mobile, it also works on desktop. AMP offers support for any system running Chrome, Firefox and Opera browsers.
The faster the pages can be accessed, the better for users, especially when it comes to mobile devices. It's worth investing in something that guarantees the number of hits and stays on your site's pages.
Another important factor is the impact that AMP has on SEO. Pages with AMP technology are more prominent in search results, and consequently generate more views for the site.
Although it is important for the site's position within Google, the technology is not yet a factor that affects the platform's organic rankings, however currently the initial highlight after the ads are exactly the news carousels that have applied AMP technology in the code.
How to configure AMP?
Three key concepts are needed to implement an AMP page: AMP HTML, AMP JS and AMP CACHE.
What other adjustments need to be made to pages to improve SEO performance?
Understand how Internal SEO (on-page) and External SEO (off-page) work.
On-page SEO work consists of applying strategies and techniques to business pages, products, categories, services, posts and the like. However, these are items related to the optimization of the site's pages. We'll tell you all about it!
Having a complete website that meets the main SEO requirements is already a differentiator, as many companies have not prepared for this online competition.
Pillars of On-Page SEO
1. Ideal keywords
Keywords are among the essential points for SEO optimization. As they are the smallest elements that define a subject, they are used in searches by users, and everyone has done this when looking for something on Google.
Someone looking for materials, archives, documents on gender issues, for example, will probably search for "gender research".
A well-ranked article with the keyword "gender research" is likely to get the attention of a large proportion of users who search for it, so it will gain visitors and notoriety.
To get good results, keywords need to be found correctly, with the help of specific tools. Instead of prioritizing very short and generic keywords (called short tail keywords), the ideal is to give preference to those known aslong tail keywords. These usually contain more than 3 words and provide an in-depth approach to the topic.
On the other hand, this reduces the volume of searches and is a way of increasing qualified organic traffic.
It is interesting to use the selected keyword at least in the introduction, conclusion and once during the content. However, balancing this strategy according to the length of the content is ideal.
If possible, applying it in one of the intertitles increases the relevance of the content, especially if it's in the first one.
Beware: Excessive keyword stuffing can be harmful. Simply adding it to increase its density is a bad practice and one that Google will penalize.
Instead, adding synonyms and relevant variations on the theme is the right way to go. As search engines have become increasingly semantic, the production will gain relevance and stand out.
2. Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3, ...)
Theseare HTML programming features that are used to highlight headings and subheadings on a page.
Conceptually, the H1 has greater prominence, a larger font, and is usually the most visible text element on the page, also known as the main highlighted subject, the "mother title".
It is used to determine the main subject covered on a page, since the title of a page conceptually defines the content. On platforms such as WordPress, simply enter the main title in the field provided.
Example of Heading Tags:
<h1>Como fazer Otimização SEO</h1>
<h2>Passo a passo para fazer Otimização SEO</h2>
<h3>Vantagens da Otimização SEO</h3>
<h4>Ferramentas para Otimização SEO</h4>
Tips for creating better titles and subtitles:
The presence of the keyword in titles and subtitles is extremely important for improving your organic rankings.
3. Attractive meta descriptions
A meta description is a short text that appears below the title of the page in search results, and serves as a summary of what the user will find when clicking on that link, acting as an element of attraction. Here's an example:
Once this item defines whether or not someone will visit your site, it's important to get it right. In this sense, it is important to add the keyword in the area, as a way of increasing relevance.
However, be sure to create a creative and persuasive call-to-action. Use impactful words to encourage the user to click on the page.
Another important recommendation is to keep the length within the ideal parameters. The recommended length is a minimum of 120 characters and a maximum of 156. That way, you'll be visible, without abruptly cut off texts and you'll maintain maximum results.
Discover the intelligent headline and content generator!
We know that creating quality content, as well as variations for dozens of headlines, several unique descriptions, while maintaining quality and still being attractive to the click, is a task that requires creativity. Create text variations for ads or product descriptions in seconds.
4. Friendly URLs
The URL or address of a page is an important element for both the search engine and the user.
The URL gives an idea of what is on that page and anticipates the subject even before the visit is made, ensuring a better experience for the visitor.
To better understand how URLs affect SEO, consider:
URL 2 is much easier to read and to preview existing content.
It should include a keyword, which will help with ranking and comprehension. At the same time, it's very important to keep it as short as possible. To do this, avoid linking words and elements and try to concentrate the subject in the shortest structure possible.
Optimized URLs are good both for the user visiting the site and for search engine algorithms.
One of the first steps you can take to make it easier for Google's robot to find the topics you cover in your posts is to use a friendly URL.
5. Internal links
Using the right keywords is the best way to get people to your site via search engines and you can improve the rank of your keywords with internal links.
The ideal way to have a good network of internal links is to create a mindmap of the topics you want to cover on your site.
By referencing quality and authoritative external pages, the search engine understands that users are being offered useful information. On the other hand, by doing internal link building properly, people are likely to spend more time consuming other content and browsing more pages.
With this, the algorithm understands that the page has quality and offers improved positions.
Tip: Working with internal links is a constant, weekly action, where you have to check all these links and make sure that none are pointing to the wrong page, which is why using a tool can be much more helpful. The algorithm reads the site in an organized way, which leads to a better ranking result.
6. SEO in Images
For SEO image ranking, the first element starts on your computer, and before the image is uploaded to your servers: the name of the image file.
SEO for Images, i.e. to optimize your images for Google, the name of the image file is essential, to understand texts and the relevance of certain content using an algorithm and giving value to keywords.
For example, imagine that a crawler is going to read the HTML code of your new content, which talks about the different types of skirts available on the market.
You have selected a beautiful image of a long skirt to illustrate the passage explaining this type of skirt to your reader. However, the file name is "IMG438.png". That's what the crawler will have access to:
This already shows you that it's not very useful information for explaining the content of the image you've used in the content. In this sense, see how the code would look if the file were better named:
Even without seeing the image, we can imagine what it looks like with a name like that, can't we? That way, you make it easier for the algorithms to understand.
Other factors to be worked into the images
As you can see, all these actions must be done within the site. And how do you gain external references and become influential?
Off-page SEO simply tells Google what other people think about your site.
For example, if you have lots of valuable links pointing to your pages, the search engines will understand that you have great content. That's right, content that provides value to users.
Otherwise, why would people waste time linking to your pages?
People just quote, refer and share content that they like. Even in a business with physical products, if your product is useful and accessible, you'll get a lot of referrals from the word of mouth of your current customers.
However, if you can develop a basic understanding of on-page and off-page optimization, you'll be well ahead of your competitors.
Moving on, now that you know all about Off-Page SEO, it's time to see how we can create a good SEO strategy and implement these techniques on your site.
1. Produce content that can be shared
How about developing materials that include research data, opinions from experts in the sector, technical evaluations, audience participation, solutions to your personas' problems, a bit of humor, among other elements?
After all, these are characteristics of content that usually generates high engagement.
2. Comments on blogs and forums
Your participation in these channels can also pay off. You know that website you've always followed or that forum where you're very active? Explore it!
3. Share buttons on your website
Allow and encourage the public to also viralize your content. Insert sharing buttons on your product and content pages. That way, whenever people really like what they see, they can take that post or offer to their followers.
Many people share content, more followers access your site, more content producers get to know your work, more backlinks appear, more authority your store acquires, and so the chain goes on.
Backlinks are references to websites that link to your site. When these links are made with context, they are well regarded by Google.
Basically, a link is a connection between two web pages. You can have internal links between different pages on your site or external links that point from your site to other useful web resources.
Links that go from another website to yours are called backlinks because they point to your pages. And they are very important for a consistent SEO strategy.
Some experts in the sector estimate that backlinks can represent up to 80% of the weight of the ranking algorithms of search engines such as Google.
From a search engine optimization perspective, links demonstrate the popularity of a site. Essentially, every time a site is linked to its pages, it is saying that it is worthy of being shared with its readers.
When search engine crawlers find a site with many other sites pointing to it, they conclude that the site provides quality information that should be rewarded with high rankings.
There are characteristics of backlinks that matter in ranking algorithms. For example, a backlink from a high-ranking site will count for more than one from a low-ranking site.
A link from a relevant site in your sector will also carry more weight. However, as search engines cannot manually assess the quality of each site, they rely on the number of backlinks pointing to a site and the relative quality of the links to determine the site's overall value.
Take the opportunity to do a complete Backlink Analysis!
If you publish attractive content, you will probably receive links to your site. But this is rarely enough to make your site competitive in search results. You must be proactive about developing backlinks.
Keep the following criteria in mind:
By tracking your brand name and other brand keywords with a Google Alert, you can monitor these missed backlink opportunities and contact site owners to ask them to include your pages correctly.
Other opportunities to create backlinks:
If we were to translate Link Juice literally, it would be "Link Juice". This is a term often used in SEO to define the benefit that a link passes on to another site or web page.
In simple terms, it's the amount of PR(PageRank) that is donated from one page to another through a link. The juice passed through a link can be very or very little, depending on where the link comes from.
For example, when site A (high PR) has a link to site B (low PR), the juice passed is very relevant, because the search engine will understand that if site A, which is a site with quality content, is mentioning site B, it is because site B also has content that is relevant, and will give more relevance to site B.
To control the distribution of Link Juice, you will have to deal with variations such as:
To put it simply, suppose you have a blog and you've made a post on a certain subject. Users can comment on it. In this comment, malicious people or robots can insert poor quality links that are of no relevance to you.
In this case you use the nofollow link (rel="nofollow") in which it tells google not to evaluate these links mentioned by other people.
In the case of the nofollow link, let's say you want to give credit for a piece of information to a certain site, but you don't want the quality of your domain to be passed on to it.
For example: You have made a certain piece of content on your site, and in this content you have inserted links to the Uol and R7 pages, in which case you place the dofollow link, telling Google that you want to pass on a bit of authority to them.
Using this distribution of Link Juice you can continue with the process of Link Building, which boils down to getting backlinks naturally or not.
What do you mean "natural or not"? Yes, link building strategies involve various SEO optimization techniques.
We've listed the following Google evaluation criteria, which take various factors into account, but it's worth considering the main points to maximize the impact of link building:
It is essential that the links make sense with the content. If, for example, a very relevant site in the health sector links to another page with the anchor "medicinal plants course", there is a success here.
After all, it's a long way from the linked page being well positioned for the chosen keyword. However, if that same link has the rel="nofollow" tag, it won't make any difference to Google's algorithm, even though it could bring new users to that page, which is a good thing, as it helps to make your strategy more natural.
While any of these backlinking strategies can help your site climb the search engine rankings, you should monitor the results to see which techniques have the greatest impact.
Over time, a consistent link building campaign should generate significant improvements in your ranking and site traffic.
Are there techniques that speed up SEO rank improvement?
Black Hat SEO refers to techniques that aim to fool the crawling robots or Google's own algorithm, which is responsible for overseeing websites, without the authorization of the body, company or person in charge, so that the website gains a lot of links and consequently a lot of positions in a short space of time.
This objective could be entry into a protected system, monetization by unauthorized means or access to confidential information. Google strives to offer users the most relevant search results.
Relevant sites are much better positioned. In SEO, Black Hat is a set of techniques to manipulate search engine variables by offering different content than normal.
These maneuvers are frowned upon by Google, precisely because they violate the quality guidelines, which severely punish sites that practice Black Hat SEO in order to gain positions in the search rankings.
Note: Among the punishments that can occur to sites are a drop in ranking and the exclusion of the site from search results!
To help you identify Black Hat SEO, we're going to list some of the main techniques employed by Black Hatters:
As you can see, these practices are not done without the intention of taking advantage of robots and algorithms.
If you're interested in increasing the number of external references to your site, try promoting your site among people in your niche, exchanging links. If you're a service provider, doing some work in exchange for promotion can earn you good links and a better reach for your pages.
As important as link building is, you need to use the right tactics to avoid being penalized and damaging your online business in a much worse way than if you had no references at all.
Pay attention to the bad practices I've mentioned!
White Hat SEO consists of all practices that comply with search engine guidelines.
The results for those who practice White Hat SEO are usually long-term, but the risk of being penalized by Google and disappearing from it is almost zero.
White Hat SEO techniques
There's no secret to White Hat SEO, just make sure you produce good original and relevant content for your website, update it frequently and promote it in the niches you want to target.
Gray Hat is a combination of Black Hat and White Hat. The term consists of the amount and length of time that banned techniques are used on a website. If the techniques are used too much and for too long, the strategy is considered Black Hat. But if they are used occasionally and for a short time, the practice is considered Gray Hat.
Back to link building, although laborious and relatively costly in terms of resources and time, it is still an excellent strategy for speeding up your SEO results and further increasing your sales and organic traffic.
Always bear in mind that even though you're writing for search engines, your site must appeal to readers!
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It is a structural method used by Google to assess the quality of content on websites.
Literally translated into Portuguese: Experience, Competence, Authority and Reliability.
Originally, it consisted of just three factors (E-A-T), but in December 2022, Google added the criterion of "experience" to the concept.
According to Google, certain types of content need to be produced with a focus on the user experience in order to be considered reliable and relevant for searches. Here is the "evidence" of what this means for SEO.
See what some experts had to say about E-E-A-T and SEO:
The addition of the new "E", which refers to experience, means that Google now values information about the experience lived on the subject.
This is because people who research often want to know first-hand information before deciding to buy something, visit a place, hire a company, eat or travel or use a certain service.
How does Google understand Experience?
Experience: does the content creator have personal experience with the subject?
Tip: adding photos taken by the person making the content can show experience.
Expertise: does the content creator have skill or knowledge on the subject?
Tip: a certificate or seal can show expertise.
Authority: is the creator of the content or the site itself known as the source of the topic?
Tip: Strengthen your authority by creating exclusive and complete content.
Trust: what makes this content a reliable source of information?
Tip: Beware of conflicts of interest, as the website or content creator may not be considered a reliable source in this case.
With a view to providing real experiences, Google tends to "reward" content and pages where the author has actually experimented with the topic they are writing about.
Consider providing customer service information and reviews of e-commerce products, as well as increasing the time on your pages, it's another way of encouraging conversion.
According to Google itself: "Trust is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family because untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T, no matter how experienced, expert or authoritative they may seem."
Confidence in focus!
For example, if an author is writing a review about Adidas sneakers, he must have actually used the brand's product, or if he is writing about the best restaurants in São Paulo, he must have visited and eaten there.
For quality classification purposes, the main content can be:
Or it can be user-generated content, such as comments or articles that users add or upload to the page.
Learning the guidelines and best practices can be useful for businesses looking to understand their own content in order to succeed with SEO strategies.
E-E-A-T is not a specific ranking factor, nor does it directly influence the ranking, but think of it as a favorable point when choosing a page.
Without a doubt, trust is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family.
There are many aspects of Trust, some of which are not captured by Experience, Expertise and Authority, such as customer service information for online stores.
Look at the site and ask yourself how to make it more "trustworthy" from the user's point of view.
Experience is needed to satisfy the user's search curiosity and knowledge will not be enough.
Automatically generated content without manual editing or curation, or unoriginal content, can be considered spam content and will receive the lowest rating.
How do you know if your SEO work is generating results and increasing organic traffic?
SEO and marketing tools were created to automate tasks, speed up routines, extract information from large volumes of data and other tasks.
In short, these tools were created to facilitate decision-making, whether by those responsible for a specific campaign or for the performance of the business as a whole.
In the last decade, with the growth of the SAAS (Software as a Service) model, it has been possible to access a series of excellent digital marketing tools at more affordable costs.
Every company, large or small, that has a website and uses it to get customers needs professional SEO help. This is because Google is responsible for 75% of all global organic search traffic on the Internet.
The fact is that B2B and B2C companies generate twice as much revenue from organic search as any other channel. This is because Google search results are considered more reliable than sponsored ads or social media results.
Google is a trustworthy brand, since its interest is to ensure that you find exactly what you're looking for. And that's where SEO comes in. After all, it's a set of techniques aimed at qualifying the site's pages.
Working with digital marketing is complex and requires the integration of various areas of the company (such as IT, marketing and sales, for example).
Using an enterprise SEO software platform allows you to control errors and improvements, while reducing the time it takes to analyze and correct problems. An all-in-one SEO tool simplifies the work of keeping your site up to date and in line with the best practices demanded by search engines.
Imagine the size of a company's website, in any market or size. They must contain a large number of pages that need to be optimized, whether thousands or hundreds of thousands of URLs.
A lot of work!
This is where the importance of SEO comes in. An all-in-one SEO solution is about the technology, but also the additional services and facilities that your team can access to achieve the objectives.
In addition to all this, optimizing a website is not a one-off job, as it must become an integral part of the marketing workflow.
This is a smart way to keep up with consumer changes, search engine algorithm updates and the emergence of new technologies.
1. Google Analytics
We can say that Google Analytics is the tool most used by professionals who monitor the results of their websites and digital campaigns.
The platform is simple to use and provides comprehensive data on your online business. Information such as visits, new users and time spent on the page are just some of the many that the program provides.
2. Search Console
Without a doubt, Search Console 's Webmaster tools are essential user analysis and monitoring tools for any website. Understand why every company with a website should use this tool to find problems and various vital information for the online business.
Using it daily and often won't fix your pages, but it will give you excellent direction on the steps to take.
3. Bing Webmaster
Bing Webmaster Tools offers, for a fair fee, data for webmasters to use and solve potential SEO problems, as well as serving as the main mechanism for communicating these issues to site owners.
Did you know that 1 in 5 people who search the internet use Bing? Although it's not widely used, the Bing search engine ends up reaching a very specific range of users with a high chance of conversion.
The loading time of a page is obviously an important part of the user experience on any website.
Often this important SEO item is overlooked to accommodate a prettier design, a cool new feature or to add more content to web pages.
Unfortunately, site visitors tend to care more about speed than all the features we want to add to our sites.
In addition, page load time is becoming a more important factor when it comes to search engine ranking.
5. Google Trends
Google Trends is a well-known system used by many SEO professionals and is very useful for keyword research. The function of this tool is to extract new information from the keywords already in your plan.
Google Trends excels at:
6. Google Ads keyword planner
According to Google itself: "Use this free tool to discover new terms related to your company and see estimates of the number of times they are searched for and the cost of targeting them.
It also offers another way to create search campaigns based on detailed keyword research."
SimilarWeb is a software tool that estimates the total amount of traffic that different websites receive.
It allows you to see competitors' main traffic sources, divided into main categories, including referring sites, social traffic and main search keywords.
Ahrefs software is an SEO tool created in 2011 to carry out advanced domain analysis, with a greater focus on managing and analyzing link building strategies (backlinks).
It also serves to analyze link building metrics and the links that a page or domain receives.
Moz is a software-as-a-service (Saas) company based in Seattle that works mainly through Inbound Marketing.
It was founded in 2004 as a consulting company and switched to SEO software development in 2008. Offering tools for keyword research, SEO term generator and link analysis with detailed inbound and quality data.
Majestic SEO software is one of the most important tools for planning website optimization, executing Content Marketing strategies and analyzing backlinks.
This platform offers a complete and detailed analysis of the results of the URLs and domains searched.
You're probably thinking about the millions of dollars you'll have to spend on good SEO.
But calm down, there's a great solution.
Now you have no more excuses to succeed with SEO!
But which SEO indicators should I monitor?
In general terms, Key Performance Indicators(KPIs) are the crucial indicators of the progress you are making towards a specific goal.
KPIs are objective metrics that help measure and clarify the success of a particular organization or campaign. Here you'll find out which are the nine critical KPIs you should keep track of!
KPIs are selected on the basis of established objectives and provide a tangible way of assessing performance, allowing companies to make informed decisions and track progress against established targets.
In the context of SEO, KPIs are used to evaluate the performance of a site's optimization strategies.
These KPIs can include metrics such as organic traffic, search engine position for specific keywords, conversion rate, social engagement, average time on site, bounce rate, among others. These metrics allow companies to evaluate the effectiveness of their SEO strategies and identify areas for improvement.
Now that you understand what Key Performance Indicators are and why they are important for achieving business objectives, let's see how you can best define them for your organization, teams and departments.
1. Set relevant objectives for your KPIs
First, before you even start thinking about your performance indicators, consider and define the precise business objectives to which you link them.
Make sure that these goals are important for the success of your own business, not just random goals that you've copied from a famous company that you're looking to for inspiration.
2. Decide how many KPIs you should have
Now that you've ensured that your company's objectives are relevant and clear, it's time to decide how many performance indicators you want to attach to them.
3. Define the components of your KPIs
Now that you understand the maximum KPIs you should have, it's time to think about the 4 main components you'll need to consider when defining any KPI: its measurement, data source, destination and frequency.
4. Short-term KPIs to complement long-term KPIs
Your long-term KPI is the overview of your strategy, i.e. your main target. To achieve this main goal, you will also need to pursue several relevant short-term objectives.
Here's another reason why you should communicate your key performance indicators well - the better employees and stakeholders understand the KPIs you have chosen and why they are being pursued in the first place, the better insights they will be able to offer and the more relevant and potentially efficient your KPIs will become as a result of their suggestions.
By monitoring SEO KPIs on an ongoing basis and analyzing their trends over time, you can identify the impact of SEO strategies, adjust approaches and make informed decisions to improve your site's performance in search engines.
Here are nine SEO KPIs that you should monitor to evaluate your site's performance:
By focusing on these SEO KPIs and working on optimization to see an increase in indicators month on month, quarter on quarter and year on year, you should also see an increase in the corresponding business KPIs:
Harness the power of Google Analytics and rank tracking, heat map, site speed analyzers and other analytical tools to amplify the strengths and correct the weaknesses of your website.
These KPIs help you evaluate different aspects of your site's SEO performance and provide insights into areas that may need improvement. It is important to monitor these KPIs regularly and make adjustments to SEO strategies based on the results obtained.
What strategies improve the indicators?
When we talk about search engine optimization (SEO), it's common for it to take a certain amount of time to produce results. Patience and continuous work are very important to achieve the best positions on Google.
One thing is certain: when the results come, they are powerful and long-lasting.
However, for good results you need to focus on SEO strategies with the application of optimization, i.e. techniques that really transform the performance of your business on the internet.
Sometimes optimizing your pages can seem complicated and time-consuming. However, even if there are other activities to carry out on a daily basis, it is possible to achieve a series of small actions that will make a big difference in the medium and long term.
The best thing is to go slowly, adjusting a few points and making simple improvements inside and outside your site in order to achieve your positioning goal.
Below is a list of important things that you can score and analyze what can be done to improve.
1. Planning
Before anything else, you need to think about the strategy or planning of your content.
If you're looking for consistent results with SEO, you need to choose a relevant keyword in all your articles that is of acceptable competitiveness according to the strength of your site.
You have to take into account the product and its brand, as well as the positioning you want to have on the market.
Do you sell established brands? Is your product an innovation? These points play a major role when it comes to ranking on the Internet. Your content needs to have quality and relevance, which is why the choice of keywords is so important.
2. Page architecture
We emphasize that search engines aim to make it easier for users to search for and find the right content online.
In practice, this means that in order to have a chance of high SEO rankings, you can't pass up (in any way) the use of your HTML header tags.
Concentre-se na tag <h1>
The first step is to use the H1 tag. This technique works like the ''cover of the book''; without this feature, the reader may not feel interested in delving deeper into the content. In WebFlow, the h1 title is given automatically.
Although the possibility of ranking organically without using H tags is true, this can result in an incomplete SEO profile.
Uso adequado das tags <h2> – <h6>
Utilizar tags de cabeçalho <h2> – <h6> irá depender somente do quesito de complexidade do conteúdo.
É comum usar tags <h2> e <h3>, por outro lado, <h4> raramente é usado, mas existem conteúdos que seu uso tornam a leitura muito mais dinâmica. No mesmo sentido, as tags <h5> e <h6>.
Although the latter are important, as they fit perfectly into long texts with complicated structures, they are often converted into PDF files and not used in HTML pages.
Meta Tags are texts that appear on the page in search results, describing the content of the page. This attribute serves as a summary of what the user will find when they click on that link, acting as an element of attraction.
In short, the SEO meta tags mentioned here are the title and description displayed in the search results, so be careful! Here's an example:
Local SEO is a strategy that includes other optimization alternatives to enable users to find a solution close to where they are and thus access the service or product they are looking for more quickly.
This is one of the search engines that offers the most accurate and relevant results for the user, so don't forget to optimize your site for this type of search.
Security is a top priority for Google and in order to guarantee site security, SSL is considered to be an excellent certificate for this.
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a type of digital security that allows encrypted communication between a website domain and a browser.
If your site already has a certificate, there's no need to worry. But if you don't have one yet, it's best to sign up with your hosting provider and have it installed.
The Sitemap is a very simple XML file that tells search engines which pages you want to be indexed on their servers.
The purpose of this information is to make it easier to index websites regardless of the search engine involved (Google, Bing or Yahoo), as it shows the full path of the pages that exist on the site.
robots.txt is a file that you can produce in a notepad that tells search engine robots to authorize access to certain pages or folders.
For everything to work there are some specific commands that direct the robots by enabling directories that they can follow or not.
For example, there is a restricted page on your site, such as the /admin page, where only users from the organization should have access. This is where the robots.txt file will come into play, as with the Disallow: /admin command, you will ensure that this page is not displayed in search results.
Put together the best digital marketing strategy for your business and sell a lot on the internet!
This is undoubtedly one of the greatest advantages of working with SEO and digital marketing. On the Internet, almost everything is measurable: number of visits, campaign performance, number of clicks on ads, etc;
And this amount of data generated is fundamental for marketers to be able to create more efficient campaigns and make decisions based on real data.
Large companies invest more than millions of dollars a month in marketing strategies, while SEO is proving to be a media with better conversion and a cheaper acquisition channel than traditional ones.
Let's say you create a flyer to publicize the launch of a product for your company. You obviously have to send it to the printers, wait a while, and if you find anything wrong you have to change everything, don't you? That would take a long time and waste money.
With digital marketing, events of this kind don't even exist, because on the internet you can change things whenever you want and for as long as you want.
Compared to other media, digital marketing allows the audience to be segmented not only by the basic characteristics of advertising - location, age, gender and so on - but also by their tastes, habits, stage of life, professional activity, buying habits, among other issues that people share on the web.
It's a method of analyzing information used to describe the process that takes place after a potential customer has visited you to make a sale. It is the "journey" of the consumer, from the first contact with your company to the finalization of the purchase (in some cases, post-sale).
It provides an overview of the entire process and shows where the gaps are for demand generation and invoicing (sales).
If your company doesn't yet invest in SEO, now is the time to start seriously considering it, as the results can be impressive.
How does Artificial Intelligence affect SEO work?
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly impacting all areas: from travel, through health and security services, to digital marketing.
The use of AI is indispensable for creating competitive strategies and solutions and staying ahead of the race. It's easier to bridge the gap between analyzing data (in large quantities) and creating a strong strategy, meeting customers' wishes and predicting their actions.
It may sound a little confusing and perhaps intriguing, but yes, it is possible to create content with AI, without using a content creator.
How? Through tools such as the Content and Description Generator, software that processes and analyzes thousands of documents in order to create the best possible content, adjusting to the writing style and rules/standards of each company.
Even so, you can't write all kinds of articles, but relatively shorter and simpler things like a description of a hotel, a summary of a movie, business reports or even summaries of sports matches.
This can be a great help for marketers, as it saves them time and money in their daily work.
The application of Artificial Intelligence in digital marketing is still at an early stage, but it's safe to say that it's a tool with enormous potential and that marketers should start using it and adapting it to their work, because over the years and with the emergence of new features, its efficiency and effectiveness will have an even greater impact.
If there is an exact time to start working with AI, this is it, because it is still in its infancy and therefore it is easier to follow developments if we already have some knowledge of how it works and/or can work.
Create content with ChatGPT
1. Social Media Post Generator
Create variations of titles and descriptions for social media posts in seconds. Want more ideas? Our artificial intelligence creates new posts, following your brief with a lot of creativity.
Get optimized Meta Tags in just a few clicks, tell us the keyword and the type of business, and our artificial intelligence will work to bring you the best result. Optimize pages in seconds!
Title generator for content, posts, pages, books, landing pages and whatever else you need, in just a few clicks. Use the power of artificial intelligence as an ally for your business.
The most important thing is never to give up and always be willing to embrace new challenges and new ways of thinking and working. Evolution is part of life, and this is a new reality!
It's high time you took advantage of the benefits of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization (SEO), especially when the main search engine implements major changes.
SEO isn't dead and everything indicates that it won't die, but search engine algorithms are demanding and SEO techniques need to be applied assertively.
SEO (website optimization) is the best investment alternative for companies that value good performance on the Internet.
SEO techniques can make digital work much less tiring. We've listed the main benefits of SEO so that you can clear up all your doubts and invest firmly in SEO.
Don't forget the importance of always keeping up to date with changes in search engines, so that you are always in sync with assertive actions on your site.
First of all, it's always good to explain how SEO (also known as search engine optimization) can be quickly defined as a way of increasing your website's hits organically, i.e. naturally.
Regardless of the segment of your online business, you won't be able to enter the competitive market without ensuring that your company is visible and easily found in a natural way, the only way to achieve this is by investing in SEO.
After all, there are approximately two billion websites online, many more are launched every day, and all these sites are competing to appear on the first page of search results(SERPs). To add more competition to the mix, let's consider that 80% of internet users, including you, never get past the first page of the SERPs.
In other words, if you're not taking the time to ensure that your company ranks well in the results, there will be no way for your target audience to find you, and you'll lose out to the competition.
So if you're wondering how to boost your business using the online marketplace, SEO is your answer. Let's take a look at
If you want to compete in your niche, you must make sure that your brand is visible and easily recognizable. Some of Google's most popular sites, including Kalunga, Adidas, Vivo, among others, have managed to stay ahead of the pack in their niche through online branding.
By investing in SEO, companies are able to drive quality traffic and, over time, their brands become more trusted due to increased visibility.
When your customers try to search for you online, they expect to find you on the first page of the SERP for a targeted keyword, and if they don't, your brand will lose its luster.
If you want to be a star online, you need to start generating leads. It's true that more traffic may not translate into higher conversion, but eventually you will start to rank highly and, over time, your SEO strategy will move towards increasing conversion. In essence, you can't convert if you don't have traffic.
By implementing SEO investment tactics such as link building, directory submission, web auditing, keyword optimization and analysis, among others, it becomes easier to attract relevant traffic and consequently increase sales on your site.
There's no denying that modern business marketing is expensive. Small businesses struggle to raise the capital needed to compete with global brands with dedicated budgets to increase visibility and attract traffic.
However, digital marketing has changed all that, because most of these tools are simpler to build and implement, which makes it easier to invest in SEO. For example, video, which has become an integral SEO strategy, is cheap to produce and launch.
Most SEO techniques don't require a large budget and it's no wonder that small companies are able to compete favorably with their larger competitors.
Now that you know the benefits of investing in SEO, count on WebPeak!
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