GMB Profiles: Tips and Tricks to Land on Page One With Your Law Firm

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Web publisher · 3 min read

Law firm SEO is essential when your goal is to land on page one. And with your GMB (Google My Business) profile, you have a better chance of showing up on this page and being featured with not only a link to your website but also reviews and contact information.

In this article, we will discuss the top tips and tricks to land on page one with your law firm SEO strategies using your GMB profile.

There are many tricks and tips for attorney SEO that can help a law firm website land a page one spot just using the information submitted from their Google My Business profile. Consider using any one of these tips and tricks to assist with your law firm SEO strategies.

1. Get specific about your law firm. If you are a law firm that specializes in workman’s compensation, list Workman’s Comp lawyer or something similar to this. If you are a divorce attorney, list divorce attorney. Never list just a lawyer or attorney. Some will argue that they will not show up in as many searches. While that is true, know that you will rank higher when you specialize in a niche.

2. Obtain reviews from previous clients that were impressed or satisfied with your services. Think about yourself when looking at different products or services. Do you look at the reviews of what others have written? Or do you just go with the first service/product you find? Most of us will read reviews, so make sure you have plenty of these on your GMB profile. As an added benefit to these reviews, your GBM profile could see an increase in the SERPS, as Google is a huge fan of reviews.

3. In order to land on page one, you may consider using link building. Link building is a great tip of law firm SEO as Google can check how prominent you are- how well known you are online, as well as how valuable your firm is to those that are performing searches. This is where backlinking comes into place. When you have many backlinks, your site is more trusted by Google, as well as very prominent.

4. A great attorney SEO tip is to make sure you have completed your profile on your GMB. It is advised to have at least 50 images. If you are having trouble with this number, you need to at least have more images then your competition. Make sure that all names are accurate and correct, and use a video on your profile. You should also write a full business description and service description. This will also help you to optimize your business profile. Be sure to add in keywords that will be helpful when potential customers search law firms.

5. Remove duplicate content. If you have a few locations for your law firm, make sure that each location is only associated with one GMB profile. If a location has already been associated with another GMB, it will not appear on Google maps. If you do have a duplicate listing, it is easy to remove. Always remember to prioritize the listing that you want to be associated with your Google My Business account.

You can use your GMB listing to help your law firm land on page one of the SERPS. Remember for the best attorney SEO, you want to be as specific as you can about what type of lawyers your firm has. Always make sure you have plenty of reviews and have link building done. Your GMB profile should be filled out completely, and all duplicate content will need to be removed.
If you are not able to do this yourself for your law firm, consider hiring Local SEO Company for all your law firm SEO needs.

Reign 2019 With These Seven SEO Steps

Posted on February 12, 2019 by Web publisher · 3 min read

With 2019 already here, it is time to start thinking about how you can reign with SEO this year. It is important to make sure that you have a digital marketing plan that will work for your company.

In this article, we will discuss seven SEO steps that you can take in order to make the most of 2019. Each step will help to complement the others so your website can rank higher than ever.

Seven SEO Steps For 2019

Content has and will always be king. Even if you are sick of hearing this, content on your page will help you rank well and draw in traffic. No one wants to visit a site that has outdated news. Keep the content flowing by adding unique content on a regular basis to keep your traffic high. And while we are on the subject of content, it is important to have the appropriate length. It is advised to have at least 800 words, but many prefer to have as many as 1500 words for keywords that competitive.

It is also wise to break your content into sections to make it easier on the eyes. Keep paragraphs short and to the point to maximize this. Never fill in with fluff, as this can hurt you more than it can do good.

Do your research. Keyword research that is. Make it a point to add your keyword to your URL. But keep your URL short. Shorter URLs will almost always rank better than longer ones.
Use your keywords early on. The first 150 words of your page have the most impact on Google. Use your keyword once within these first 150 words.
Remember to optimize your images. Google is not very brilliant when it comes to reading images. When you optimize all of your images, you are giving yourself a higher chance of ranking better. If you are unsure of how to optimizes, it is not hard to learn how. When you save an image, simply save it as a name that describes the image. You will also want to provide an alternate tag that is descriptive. For example, if your image is a mug of coffee, you could save it as coffee-mug.png. Then for the alternate tag, you could use hot coffee in a mug with creamer.
Use high-quality outbound links. Look for sites that have high authority. These can include .gov or .org sites. Wikipedia links are also a good source. These will all help with your page rank in Google. Linking out to several outbound links is essential for SEO in 2019 as it will help to show that your content is relevant and trustworthy. Always make sure that none of the outbound links on your page are broken. The best way to check this is with a link checker that scans your site for broken links. Remember to never link to a site that is spam. Look for sites that have several outbound links themselves.
Be mobile friendly. With more people using cell phones as their primary internet source, it is imperative to be mobile friendly. You will not rank very well if your site is not optimized for mobile devices. If you are not certain if your site is mobile friendly, you can check it on Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool.
Add internal links. This is a great way to keep your customers on your site for a longer period of time. You can link them back to the home page, or to a different article, or even the contact page.

All of the seven steps above will help Google rank your site. If you need assistance to reign in 2019, consider contacting your Local SEO Jacksonville Company.

What Is Local SEO And Why It’s Mandatory In 2019

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Web publisher · 3 min read

In a nutshell, local SEO is a branch of search engine optimization that focuses on optimizing a website in such a way that it’s easier to be found in local search results. You can also call it a process emphasizing the optimization efforts of local brick-and-mortar businesses, instead of just online businesses.

Unfortunately still ignored by many business owners, local SEO is essential nowadays, considering that most searches made on Google are now made using a mobile device. Besides this, stats confirm that half of the people who did a local search on their phone actually went to the physical store they needed information about within one day, while a staggering 97 percent of consumers searched online for a local business in 2017.

Looks like “x business near me” is one of the most powerful search queries of the moment.

Who needs local SEO?

There are several categories of clients who can make great use of local SEO, among them being lawyers and law firms, doctors and medical practices, as well as plumbers. Basically, the types of services you need in case of an emergency.

Then, there are restaurants. This type of business achieves a lot from local SEO, as a potential customer can immediately check reviews from other clients, see the opening hours and address, then leads them to the business in the least amount of time.

Ok, but is it for everybody?

No, not at all. The reality is that some types of businesses just don’t need local SEO. E-commerce shops, authors, or any other business that doesn’t share local information are definitely not good candidates for some local SEO services.

How is local SEO done?

At first, it might look difficult, but the truth is that local SEO is not that different from organic SEO, since it also implies keyword research, creating quality content, obtaining links and, obviously, taking care of on-page SEO. Basically, the main difference is that it just has a local focus.

All of the above-mentioned elements are essential for a local website, in order to outperform the competition in SERPs. And when it comes to optimizing for the so-called ‘near me search’, you need to do them with the local customer in mind.

We’re talking about using keyword variations that have a conversational tone and focus, able to achieve huge search volumes, creating content with a local focus, and, obviously, get some high-quality links, from – for example – NAP sites, local directory websites, industry-related local sites or even local newspaper sites.

Again, the core idea is the same to organic SEO, but this time, you’re optimizing just for users in a specific area. And your mission is to help them find the business they need, preferably one as close as possible to them.

Do I need local SEO?

If you have a local business and want to attract as many clients as possible, yes, you absolutely need it. Sure, you can also live without this as well, but why miss on such a great opportunity?

Gone are the days when people were searching for local businesses from desktop devices. Everybody as a smartphone with Internet access and whenever they need a local service, they’re a few screen taps away from finding it. And stats claim that they end up going to that location within the next hour. Let that sink in for a moment.

So, are you looking forward to starting using local SEO for your brick-and-mortar business? If the answer is positive, start with a competitive SEO package, able to satisfy any business owner and deliver results. SEO Jacksonville has exactly what you need, promising to deliver results-based work, so your business can be taken to the next level.

Picture Credit: flaticon.com

Top Ranking Parameters for Local SEO according to Google

Posted on November 12, 2018 by Web publisher · 3 min read

As per Google, the world’s most popular search engine, almost 67% of those using smartphones, will be inclined to buying from businesses which have synced online data with users’ to potential customers’ location. In this digital age or era, exploiting traditional promotional methods will not suffice when it comes to publicizing your trade. You’ll need to bolster your business’s online presence and work out a robust and target-oriented local SEO strategy to tap your niche segment that is increasingly using local search.

To put it simply, your business website has a much better chance of ranking high enough on Google My Business SERPs and consequently being found by prospects if you focus on three key aspects of your trade. These three focus areas related to your business are ‘prominence’, ‘distance’, and ‘relevance’. If you take care of these facets in your Google My Business profile, you could be one of the potential contenders for securing the top three positions in Google’s 3-pack local SEO search results.

However, you’ll first need to design a GMB profile (if you haven’t already) in order to make the most of your listing. There’s no disputing the fact that nowadays, majority of medium and small-scale firms have to do anything and everything possible for featuring in local search so as to stay in business. So, it follows that if you earn your livelihood from a business that relies heavily on local customers and prospects, you’ll need to thrash out a local SEO action-plan for guaranteeing chances of figuring in local search.

Staying relevant on the checklist for local SEO

Talking about relevance, you should always try to develop your GMB account in a way that makes it consistent with what your prospects or potential customers are looking for. For creating a relevant Google My Business profile, go through the following steps:-

Ensure that you choose appropriate primary and secondary categories-If you’re a dentist or orthodontist, then make sure you profile your listing under the categories ‘dentist’, ‘orthodontist’ as well as ‘specialized dental services’, ‘dental implants’, and so on. The more specific your listings, the greater is the likelihood of your site ranking high enough in local SEO search result pages.
Describe your practice/nature of business-You can describe or elucidate your business without having to worry about the same getting verbose-Google accepts 1000+ words narratives. Make the most of the available space, tempering your content with relevant main keyword and LSI keywords.
Maintain NAP consistency-NAP stands for name, address, and phone number(S). Ensure that you key in the correct name, contact number or numbers, and address details of your trade, regardless of whether you’re operating from a single or multiple locations. At the same time, see to it that your NAP is consistent throughout the online realm.

Prominence is all about making your venture stand out from the crowd

Prominence is all about making your business stand out when it comes to local search. There are specific ways and means in which you make your GMB profile one of a kind. Follow these tips:

Images and illustrations-Upload multiple images on your profile-the more the merrier.
Reviews and feedbacks-The idea here is to maximize reviews and feedbacks not only on your GMB profile but also on other automated social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Capitalize on your brick–and-mortar business front– Bolstering your presence in the meatspace will rub off on the business’s online existence.

Distance: Techniques for location-oriented searches

Though Google prefers businesses that are situated nearest to the user or searcher’s location, there’s hardly anything you can do about the same. Yet you can make your practice or trade sound relevant and prominent by developing location-based profiles. For instance, if you’re a divorce lawyer based in Houston, you can use the keyword, “divorce lawyer Houston”.

If you want to more about local SEO, visit www.localseojacksonville.biz or call 904-425-9679.

May Take Years for Google to Complete Indexing of Mobile-First Websites

Posted on October 9, 2018 by Web publisher · 3 min read

It is now more than a year when Google made it public that the search engine was about to introduce a strategic change in the manner it ranked websites. The change would mean that the search engine’s algorithms, in the long run, would first consider a website’s content created exclusively for a smartphone, for assigning a SEO rank to the site. At the same time, Google would first and foremost use the site’s mobile adaptation for displaying snatches or clips about the site in the SERPs and also for analyzing structured data.

The world’s most popular search engine announced quite a long time ago that the process of shifting the sites from desktop-first indexing to Google mobile-first cataloguing was already underway. In fact, a significant proportion of the sites had already been transferred to the mobile-first register. Webmasters, web designers and developers, and SEO specialists have been expectantly waiting for the first roll out to become available.

Google’s engineers had expressed that the launch would have happened at the close of 2017. But as things stand now, it seems that the roll out might become a reality by the end of 2018.

Demystifying Google mobile-first indexing

The connotation or meaning of Google mobile-first is quite straightforward. It simply means that when or whenever the search engine embarks on a SEO drive, it will accord primacy to your site’s mobile edition. In other words, it is the smartphone transcript of a site that Google will first take up for ranking. You could see an upsurge in traffic (facilitated by smartphone Googlebot) when you analyze traffic directing to your site.

Also, the cached copies of the web pages that are visible will normally be the pages’ mobile variations. Mobile-first does not just imply that the indexing is compatible only for smartphones-if you’re yet to create a smartphone-friendly version, the index will continue to rank your desktop adaptation. Nevertheless, you should not lose sight of the fact that your site’s ranking could take a beating in the absence of a smartphone-compliant version.

On the other hand, sites with mobile-friendly editions will rank better even when Google ranks desktop-first (indexed) websites.

Migration of sites from desktop-first indexing to mobile-first indexing far from complete

Google Webmaster trends analyst, Gary Illyes had remarked in June 2018 that was “probably many quarters away” from making available its mobile-first directory. He also added that the change (the changeover from desktop first to mobile first) would be ground-breaking and there was absolutely no reason to feel alarmed about the transition. Webmasters were anxious to hear from Gary about the exact launch date but he was unable to specify the same.

Illyes, at the same time, made it amply clear that the search engine was also working on releasing the index in a manner so as to not adversely impact sites that were yet to become mobile-ready. And it is for this reason the launch was getting rescheduled time and again. He also mentioned that Google wanted to be doubly sure that the sites categorized in the mobile-first catalogue would not negatively impact non-smartphone-friendly websites.

Evidently enough, the roll out could take a long time-in fact it won’t be due before 5 years. He expressed that Google was willing to discuss at length with the publishers regarding the launch, instead of keeping them in the dark about it. He made it clear that the Google mobile-first roll will not come in the way of ranking desktop-centric sites.

Gary said “Mobile-first means mobile first. It only means that we’ll look for mobile content first”. On your end, you should see to it that your site’s design and content is companionable with smartphones, tabs, and all other types of handheld digital gadgets so that you’re not caught unawares when it actually happens.

You can know more about Google’s mobile-first index at www.localseojacksonville.biz.

Three Crucial Steps Small businesses Follow for Reaping Online Benefits Instantly

Posted on July 10, 2018 by Web publisher · 3 min read

Though small businesses spare no efforts in bolstering their online presence, they often do not have access to resources and tools that are available to behemoths and conglomerates. Talking about online presence or existence, it chiefly comprises your company site, business listings on social media platforms, and business listings of key stakeholders. Nowadays, majority of your customers and prospects are most likely to search for your site on their smartphones-so it is crucial that your portal’s URL is visible when someone browses with a particular set of keywords.

If you’ve a startup or small business to promote, planning an appropriate online marketing strategy could seem to be a daunting task. However, laying out an effective modus operandi for giving teeth to your SEO plan will surely make the mission of publicizing your site across the web somewhat easier. This post walks you through three simple yet practical steps for guaranteeing online success.

1. Mull over opting for social media ads and PPC

Facebook continues to be the top social media platform, having the highest number of users and followers amongst all other automated social media sites. Hence, the alterations effected by Facebook of late have created some online marketing impediments. However, this is not a recent phenomenon as such modifications have been carried out in the past leading to social media promotion upheavals.

Users’ feeds on Facebook that mostly used to be organic in nature, have now transformed into paid content. That in essence, implies you’ve to pay for advertising (read promotion) on Facebook so that you can view others posts and blogs. The same ruling applies for other users as well.

Paid advertisements enable you to target and tap your niche segment as well as contacts of your customers. Consider opting for PPC (pay per click) along with SEO for placing your blog posts in front of target segment. PPC ads give your business the leeway to temper content with target-oriented keywords. The results of your online marketing efforts will be at your disposal almost immediately.

At the same time, you’ll have the added benefit of reviewing the analytics with a view to fine-tuning your efforts. Additionally, you can take advantage of geotargeting when it comes to targeting relevant prospects. To put it succinctly, PPC is a very efficient way of gauging the marketing potential of your site as well as the efficacy of your canvassing strategy on the whole.

2. Optimizing for local SEO

One of the most effective ways of popularizing your small firm on the web is by marketing the business locally. It does not need to be emphasized that in order for your business to grow and develop, you have to take steps for making it familiar locally. Putting it in perspective, you’ve to forge an online marketing plan that’ll propel your site to the top of the first SERP whenever Google embarks on a local SEO drive.

To buttress local SEO optimization, you can register your site with/on Google My Business. Also, list your site with local Chamber of Commerce and other popular search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and MSN. It is extremely crucial that the name, address, and phone numbers of your entity is consistent throughout the web.

3. Focusing on developing quality videos or video content

There’s no gainsaying the fact that the bulk of your customers and prospects will form an opinion about your establishment after watching YouTube videos. Make sure you design high-quality videos that’ll supplement content of your site. Nowadays, producing videos about your product or service has become a simple affair, thanks to state-of-the-art tools that even a layperson can use effectively.

For more tips and suggestions on how you can promote your business online, log in to www.localseojacksonville.biz or make a call to 904-425-9679.

Seo Is Still Relevant In The Online World Of Trade And Commerce

Posted on May 15, 2018 by Web publisher · 3 min read

Online marketers and social media promoters who’ve already cast aside SEO as passé and antediluvian, would be pleasantly surprised to know that search engine optimization is more germane than it ever was. Simply put, local SEO plays a key role in helping major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo as well as net surfers track down your business website. At the same time, it does not need to be emphasized that in the present times, almost 80% of prospective customers go online for viewing and/or reviewing products and services before purchasing.
The upshot of the above assertion is that it still makes sense to optimize or sync your site with the search engines so that the portal gets a rank almost on the top of SERPs. Vice President of marketing at Boostability, Kelly Shelton also shares the opinion that local SEO can prove instrumental in enabling your business to claim a listing on Google’s first SERP. According to Kelly, almost one and all browse on Google when they wish to find answers to a question or search for a product.

And Google’s search algorithms always deliver. No wonder why Google is the world’s most popular search engine. Google makes use of a string of parameters for according a rank to a business site including but not limited to website design, textual/visual content quality, page load speed, and navigability. It is quite shocking to note that though most of the consumers nowadays browse on the net before buying something, there are still a good number of businesses that do not even have a website.

A good proportion of those running small businesses are hamstrung by misgivings and mistaken notions about the Internet. Many businesspersons strongly feel that they’re small fries compared to the ecommerce behemoths like Amazon, eBay, and Wal-Mart. And there are those who think hiring an online marketing specialist for creating a small business SEO strategy can be quite expensive.

If Kelly is to be believed, then there are approximately 40% of small businesses that are still managing without a portal. However she adds that these establishments are gradually recognizing the internet’s potential in boosting business prospects in the web realm. If you do not have a website yet, then you’d be happy to learn that getting one designed and developed is not only simpler these days but supremely affordable as well.

Creating and having a portal of your own is a sine-qua-none in this digital age just for the sake of keeping your business afloat, let alone make profits. As a small business owner, maintaining a constant presence in the world of websites can be quite challenging for you. Apart from having a target-oriented small business SEO strategy (which you should consider as given), what else can you do to bolster your business’s online presence?

Create a Google My Business Page

You’ll definitely get results if you take the trouble of increasing your visibility on the most admired search engine in the world-Google. To be specific, it pays to have a Google My Business account, particularly if your business is localized and you’re looking to attract local customers. And you do not need to have a website to be included in the Google My Business listing.

Boost your brand’s popularity in the online medium

The best way to entice the niche segment that will use your product or service is to establish a rapport with the same. There are so many ways of forging a relationship-write a blog and update it regularly, create social media profiles, and so on.

Make your website informative

Your website is the book or reference manual that users and your potential customers will turn to for picking up info about your product. So, make sure you update original and creative content that describes your ware or service.

Ensure that the portal is coded appropriately

It goes without saying that your site should be coded appropriately, especially for fast downloading on smartphones.

Jacksonville SEO can help you out with designing a target-based SEO strategy for your ecommerce site. Call 904-425-9679 for complete details.

How Important Are Customer Reviews For Seo?

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Web publisher · 3 min read

In order to have a happy life, you shouldn’t care that much about what people say about you. But when it comes to online businesses, this actually matters way more than you can imagine.

Besides trying to come up with new SEO ideas, in order to build some high-quality links and help your website rank well, you should also keep an eye on its day-to-day performance. Specifically, we’re talking about research, product development, sales fulfillment, or even customers service.

Forgetting about these aspects or even not caring about them that much can lead to a series of negative customer reviews, which can make you lose potential customers and even hinder your rankings.

Let’s take a few moments and understand how reviews can affect your SEO efforts, in both negative and positive ways.

They are actually user-generated content!

Just think about it: while you’re trying to integrate some specific keywords into your content, many of them feel very natural to the users who use them in reviews. And Google is seeing them as signals, therefore noticing your online presence.

Whether we’re talking about general keywords in your niche or long-tails, they are all necessary for your SEO strategy. Good reviews can take your ranking scores a bit higher, while negative reviews will bring you down if you are not careful.

They help you compete in your market!

Besides affecting your SERP rank, customer reviews can also affect your overall market performance.
Specifically, when somebody searches for a term in your niche, a list of results will be displayed. Some results have customer reviews, while some of them don’t. Let’s take things logically: won’t you be tempted to check out the result with reviews, as It looks legit?

It was proven that people are more likely to trust an online business with a mix of reviews, whether they are positive or negative. By displaying these, a company shows that it’s far from being perfect, not to mention that it somehow guarantees that the reviews are real!

They provide a lot of value for local SEO campaigns!

When a user leaves a review, which contains local references, your local SEO efforts receive an unexpected boost. This review is a small piece of organic content, after all. The more you get, the stronger your presence will be in Google’s eyes.
The more positive customer reviews integrating local terms you’re competing for, the better for your business.

They help you establish a relationship with clients

When somebody wants to buy something online, Google offers the information about the product or service they are after, giving the best possible options available. As for customer reviews, these are real deal sealers.

Some people like to go through a couple of reviews before making the final decision, so it’s obvious that what past customers have to say matters a lot. Their opinion makes your business feel genuine and if the reviews are good, potential new clients want to feel the same thing.

Make sure you always answer the reviews, including negative ones, as you will help people know you better.

Keeping up with all reviews can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. If you want to build relationships with your clients, but also improve your presence in Google, SEO Jacksonville is here to help. Competitive search engine optimization packages, able to help you make a difference for your business, are just one call away, at (904) 425-9679.

Does Ranking At the Top On The Search Engines Still Important?

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Web publisher · 3 min read

SEO refers to a collective set of activities that are inclined towards increasing rankings for a particular keyword or niche. Ranking at the top on the major search engines can help a business or a website to drive traffic to their websites and hence reach a large base of targeted audience.

Statistics indicate that a website ranking at the top receives 32.5% of search engine traffic, while the second and third position receives 17.6% and 11.4% respectively. Assuming that there is equal search traffic for every page, the first position on one page is equivalent to second positions on two pages and third positions on three pages. Thus, a website which ranks second can climb to the 1st position on a page as they can afford to let go of their second position. However, there has been a change in such views about SEO and at present they may not be as important as they were deemed before.
Following are some reasons why rankings may be losing their importance:

• Advancements: Search engines like Google, Yahoo and others are constantly making progress in the field of analytics. They devise new ways to filter websites that post information on their pages ensuring that readers get nothing less than valid and authentic answers for their queries. Apart from ranking, Google also has a knowledge graph box that shows three websites answering a query in the most efficient manner. This may influence the readers to view these websites rather than blindly following the top ranking sites. It might reduce

• Difficulty in finding keywords: Earlier, integrating most searched keywords or phrases were enough to generate traffic. Once a site achieved a certain rank, they could remain in the same position for a considerable time. However, with progress in semantic search, search engines no longer judge websites on the basis of the exact integration of the keywords or phrases in the content but on the basis of its relevance.

• Content: Web developers and writers have realized that it is the content that matters the most with regard to optimization. If the content is written in a way that is easy to understand for the readers and is elaborate as well, leading to many links it will receive greater traffic. Moreover, content that is written in great details already has keywords and phrases that were used unintentionally. Hence, good content will always get precedence over forcible optimization.

• Click through rates (CTR): The CTR is generally higher among top ranking sites. However, a site that is designed in a way that is meant to receive higher number of clicks by its users may become popular, irrespective of its position. This requires optimization of the site and appeal of the metadata to the users.

• Time spent by the user: Ranking at the top or having great traffic either of these will hold value only if the user spends some time on the website. If majority of the incoming visitors end up bouncing before taking any meaningful action on the website, their presence would hardly matter. Even ranking for all the major keywords related to your website won’t be of any use in such a scenario. Hence, adding value to the content by allocating resources for achieving a balance between both value and quantity should be the key focus area.

However, the above points in no indicate that ranking at the top has no relevance today. It is still one of the most essential means to drive traffic but the concept of SEO has changed drastically over the years. There are more elements that contribute towards popularity of a business of a website now.

Local SEO Jacksonville Company offers advanced SEO facilities to clients from across the world. They can be reached by calling on 9044259679 or filling out the contact form at https://www.localseojacksonville.biz.

Guidelines on safeguarding your site from black hat SEO

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Web publisher · 3 min read

Negative SEO has been discussed animatedly and has been in the news of late. But what exactly is it? And to what extent does it prevail? Are there enough valid reasons to be worried about negative or black hat SEO? In case your website is broken into and hacked using negative SEO techniques, what steps can you take to restore your portal and preempt as well as prevent such malicious attacks in the future?
This blog takes you through the guidelines you have to follow in order to safeguard your site from the damaging aspects of a SEO strategy. But first let us familiarize you with the common features of a negative SEO campaign.

Defining Negative SEO

Negative SEO usually implies unscrupulous tactics that a hacker or an aggressive competitor of yours resorts to for bringing down your site’s ranking on SERPs or search engine results pages. Negative methods of search engine optimization also referred to as black hat SEO has to do with infiltrating and sabotaging a website by stationing innumerable spam links to the portal. Owing to the harmful impacts of such stratagems, the affected site’s ranking takes a beating and the site eventually loses quality traffic.
Instead of waiting for the hacker or the jealous competitor to bring down your portal, it’d be better on your part to thwart such spiteful attempts much before they cause heavy damage.

1. Keep Regular Watch On The Speed with Which Your Site Loads
The speed with which your portal loads on the browser is a significant ranking parameter. In case, the loading of your site is inordinately delayed on a regular basis, there is good reason to suspect that your site has become a victim of negative SEO. Thereafter, when you take the help of crawling software to detect what you have been suspicious of all along but cannot trace anything but your site loading is delayed, then you can be sure that your site has been.

If you are technically competent, you can weed out the culprits on your own or else you have to fall back on your web hosting service or the webmaster.

2. Carry out Link Audits Routinely
Carrying out link auditing frequently not only contributes towards improving the ranking of your site on Google’s or Yahoo’s SERPs (search engine results pages) but also helps in screening out links to unauthorized portals. If your site is linking to quality backlinks, the graphs and flow charts for ‘backlink progress’ and ‘linking domains’ will have a more or less smooth gradient. But if you espy a steep drop or spike in the slopes, then there is a good possibility that your site has been hacked into. Either conduct an audit manually or take advantage of auditing software app.

3. Weed out Negative Reviews
You could lose quality traffic due to a deluge of negative reviews loaded on your site by a malicious competitor. Find your business listing on Google Maps, select the listing, and click on review summary> reviews, flag the fake negative feedbacks, and complete the report form.

4. Be on the Lookout for Scraped Content
It could happen that your original content is lifted word by word by a hacker and posted on his or her site that gets reviewed by Google before yours. Use a Copyscape software to find out if your content has been plagiarized.

5. Keep a Tab on Click through Rate of Your Keywords
Review your keywords’ CTRs using Google Search Console and if you spot an inordinate spike, report the matter to Google and start disowning the bad links.

6. Keep Checking Your SERP Ranking Once in a While
Although this goes without saying, you need to check your SERP rank routinely just to make sure that your site’s ranking is at least maintained. Make the most of tracking software to check the site’s visibility across the net.

7. Ensure That Your Security Arrangements are updated periodically
Make sure that all your security arrangements are up to date. For instance, ensure that your site is stationed on a server that uses SSL encryption technology.

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