• • E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): Search engines will continue to prioritize content that demonstrates clear experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
    • Highlight the real human experience behind your content and prove its value with detailed information.
    • Build credibility through verifiable authors, relevant quotes, testimonials, and backlinks from authoritative sources.
    • Ensure your content is well-researched, accurate, and free of errors.

• • AI and Machine Learning in SEO: AI and machine learning are transforming how search engines rank content and deliver results.
    • Leverage AI tools for tasks like keyword research, content optimization, and predictive analytics.
    • Focus on creating high-quality, human-driven content that resonates with your audience while utilizing AI as an assistive tool.
    • Prepare for the expansion of AI Overviews and other AI-driven SERP features, optimizing your content to be easily understood and presented by AI systems.

The rise of Search Generative Experience (SGE), which provides AI-generated summaries on search results pages, highlights the need for content to be authoritative and trustworthy to be featured as a source. AI also drives the development of voice search and visual search, requiring new optimization strategies.

• Voice and Visual Search Optimization: Voice and visual search are becoming increasingly popular, influencing how users interact with search engines.
  • Optimize for conversational and long-tail keywords that mimic natural speech.
  • Ensure your site is mobile-friendly and fast-loading, as voice searches are often conducted on mobile devices.
  • Optimize images and videos with descriptive file names, alt text, and relevant keywords to improve visibility in visual searches.
• Zero-Click Searches: The rise of featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other rich results leads to an increase in zero-click searches.
  • Optimize your content for featured snippets by providing concise answers to common questions within your content.
  • Utilize structured data and schema markup to enhance your brand’s presence on the SERP
• User Experience (UX): Core Web Vitals and overall user experience remain critical ranking factors.
  • Optimize your website for speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
  • Ensure your site is mobile-friendly, with responsive design and fast loading times on mobile devices.
• Local SEO: Local SEO will be more important than ever, especially for businesses targeting a specific geographic area.
  • Optimize your Google Business Profile with accurate information, encouraging customer reviews and utilizing local keywords.
• Structured Data and Schema Markup: Structured data helps search engines understand the context of your content and present rich results.
  • Implement schema markup for FAQs, reviews, and events to enhance search visibility and click-through rates.
• Multi-Platform Optimization: The search ecosystem is expanding beyond Google, with users relying on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and other social media sites.
  • Develop tailored strategies for different platforms and optimize your content for specific formats (e.g., short-form videos for TikTok).
  • Diversify your content distribution to reach users on various platforms and capture their attention wherever they’re searching.
• Content Relevance and Depth: Focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that addresses specific user needs and challenges.
  • Develop cornerstone content pieces and topic clusters to establish topical authority.
  • Prioritize user intent, creating content that answers questions and solves problems effectively.
• Building Brand Authority: Establish a strong brand presence across all relevant digital channels to build trust and recognition.
  • Actively engage on social media, respond to user questions on forums like Reddit and Quora, and secure brand mentions in relevant publications.
• Link Building Evolution: Quality backlinks remain a crucial ranking factor.
  • Focus on earning backlinks from authoritative and relevant sources to boost your website’s credibility and rankings.
  • Utilize diverse link-building strategies, including guest blogging, creating shareable content, and participating in online communities. 

The post SEO trends for 2025 and how to leverage AI appeared first on Ready to Run Designs.

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) remains a cornerstone for driving organic traffic to websites. As we stride into 2024, the SEO terrain continues to shift, influenced by advancements in technology, changes in search engine algorithms, and evolving user behaviors. To stay ahead in this dynamic realm, businesses must adopt agile strategies that align with the latest SEO tactics. Here’s a breakdown of key tactics for SEO success in 2024:

1. Voice Search Optimization: With the proliferation of smart devices and virtual assistants, voice search has become increasingly prevalent. Optimizing content for voice search queries involves understanding natural language patterns, focusing on conversational keywords, and providing concise, informative answers to common questions.

2. Mobile-First Indexing: As mobile usage surpasses desktop, search engines prioritize mobile-friendly websites for indexing and ranking. Responsive design, fast loading times, and intuitive navigation are essential for optimizing websites for mobile devices, ensuring a seamless user experience across all platforms.

3. Video SEO: Video content continues to dominate online consumption, presenting a lucrative opportunity for SEO optimization. Implementing video transcripts, optimizing titles and descriptions with relevant keywords, and leveraging video schema markup can enhance visibility and engagement on search engine results pages (SERPs).

4. Semantic Search Optimization: Search engines are increasingly sophisticated in understanding the context and semantics of user queries. Marketers should focus on creating comprehensive, authoritative content that addresses diverse aspects of a topic, leveraging semantic keywords and related terms to signal relevance and depth to search algorithms.

5. E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): Google’s emphasis on E-A-T principles underscores the importance of establishing credibility and trustworthiness in online content. Demonstrating expertise, building authoritative backlinks, and fostering a positive reputation within the digital ecosystem are integral to enhancing SEO performance and user trust.

6. Local SEO: For businesses targeting local audiences, optimizing for local search is paramount. Claiming and optimizing Google My Business listings, maintaining consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information across online directories, and soliciting positive reviews from satisfied customers are essential for improving local search visibility.

7. Zero-Click Searches: With the rise of featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other SERP features, many searches now result in zero-click interactions, where users obtain information directly on the search results page. Marketers can capitalize on this trend by optimizing content for featured snippets, aiming to secure prime real estate atop SERPs and drive traffic through informational queries.

8. User Experience (UX) Optimization: Beyond keywords and backlinks, user experience plays a crucial role in SEO performance. Factors such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, intuitive navigation, and engaging multimedia elements contribute to higher rankings and improved user satisfaction, signaling relevance and quality to search engines.

9. Sustainable SEO Strategies: In an era of constant algorithm updates and evolving best practices, adopting sustainable SEO strategies is imperative for long-term success. Focus on creating valuable, user-centric content, building organic backlinks through genuine relationships, and adapting flexibly to emerging trends and technologies.

10. AI-Powered Content Creation: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized content creation, enabling marketers to generate high-quality, relevant content at scale. AI-driven tools analyze search trends, user intent, and competitor data to produce content that resonates with target audiences and ranks well on search engines.

In conclusion, mastering SEO in 2024 requires a multifaceted approach that encompasses cutting-edge techniques, user-centric principles, and adaptability to the evolving digital landscape. By staying informed, embracing innovation, and prioritizing user experience and authenticity, businesses can navigate the complexities of SEO and drive sustainable growth in the competitive online marketplace.

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With the release of Chrome 68 in July of 2018, Google announced that Non-HTTPS sites will now be declared “Not Secure” sites, acting as a beacon and warning off potential site visitors and potential customers. This is big news, but you may not fully understand all of the layers and implications this announcement can have on your business.

What is a HTTPS website? How does this announcement affect my current web page? Will it affect the traffic my website receives? Don’t worry. We’ve taken a moment to answer these questions and others to help you understand the importance of properly securing your site and protecting your company. Keep reading below and we will simplify what all of this means to you.

Protect Information Exchange with Secure Socket Layers

Acronyms can be confusing, so let’s break down what they mean. The “s” you find at the end of the “http” portion of a URL means the website represents an extra layer of protection. HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a secure version of HTTP, the protocol in which data is sent between a website and a browser. These websites have something known as an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate that protects users by securing information in three separate layers:

1. Data Integrity: Files will not be corrupted when transferred
2. Authentication: Protects users from attacks
3. Encryption: Makes users data hard to track, protecting their information from hackers.

The main benefit of HTTPS is it offers a secure connection to your website visitors where they can share personal data with you. For example, when a customer of an online vendor shares credit card details, HTTPS offers an additional layer of protection.

Taking a Deeper Look at SSL Certificates

To enjoy the benefits of HTTPS, you will need to install a SSL certificate. This will help ensure data between browsers and your web service stays secure and private. Once an SSL certificate installed on your server, it acts like a padlock  — engineering a secure connection between the browser and web server. While a hacker may find a way to intercept vital customer information — they will be unable to decrypt it or use it without the special key or code for your padlocked data.

Enhance Your Search Engine Optimization

If you don’t already know, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of increasing the visibility of your website. Websites with higher visibility will attract more high-quality traffic, which have a higher probability to turn into paying customers. In short, a robust SEO strategy is similar to having a giant neon sign in the digital world that attracts customers looking for the products or services you offer.

Simply put, having an SEO strategy is a must-have for any business looking to capitalize on the 63,000 Google searches performed every second. And the security of your website can have a direct impact on SEO strategy and your ability to gain high visibility.

Are SSL and SEO Connected?

Yes! SSL and SEO are very connected. Research was conducted to understand the importance of an SSL certificate to SEO. The results were telling! After analyzing over 1 million search results on Google, it was concluded that having a Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure domain directly impacts the rankings on Google’s first page. This means not having an SSL certificate or an HTTPS site can cause your web page to have less visibility and less traffic. In addition:

• Google Chrome will label HTTP sites as insecure, which can warn users away from your site because the connection isn’t secure.
• HTTP sites will load much slower than HTTPS, and the speed at which a page loads is proven to be a huge SEO ranking factor.
• Since 2014, Google’s ranking algorithm has included HTTPS as a signal.

However, not having a secure site can affect more than your traffic and search engine results page (SERP) positioning: it can affect your ability to convert sales.

• A staggering 84% of users will ditch a purchase if their data is being transmitted over an insecure connection.

Contact Ready to Run for Assistance with SSL Certificates

Don’t scare visitors away from your site, increase the number of cart abandons, or lose valuable SEO positioning because your site isn’t secure. Instead, it’s vital to install the right SSL certificate to provide the best user experience. 

However, when it comes to choosing SSL certificates, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Fortunately, the experts at Ready to Run Designs can help! We are a team of digital marketers and website design professionals who will guide you to the best SSL certificate based on your needs and goals.

Don’t wait! Contact Ready to Run today for assistance with SSL Certificates.

The post Do SSL Certificates Have an Affect on SEO Rank? appeared first on Ready to Run Designs.

The potential benefits of landing in position 0 on a search engine results page are tremendous. You stand to enjoy more traffic, more SERP visibility, and a significant jolt in the credibility of your brand. Fortunately, you don’t have to be in a top-ranking position to land in position 0.

Getstat reports a stunning 70% of featured snippets are from sites not currently in top-ranking organic positions. Let’s take a closer look at featured snippets and a few suggested ways you can increase your chances of landing in position 0.

What Are the Most Common Types of Featured Snippets?

Featured snippets can come in virtually all sizes and shapes, including:

• Numbered lists
• Paragraphs
• Tables
• Bulleted lists
• Images
• YouTube Videos
• Charts

According to Getstat, the most popular type of snippet is the “paragraph” type at 81.95%, list snippets came in at 10.77%, while table snippets came in at 7.28%. And when it comes to the types of queries receiving the most featured snippets, they include:

1. Health
2. DIY processes
3. Mathematical
4. Financial
5. Status
6. Requirements
7. Transitional

How Can I Get a Featured Snippet?

No doubt, this is the million dollar question! The sobering answer is Google will decide which user’s queries will be most effectively answered by a featured snippet. At the same time, Google will decide which domains they’ll use for the answer.

Although you can tell Google to not use a page for a featured snippet — by including <meta name=“googlebot“ content=“nosnippet”>  in the page header — there are no official markups that will make Google use your page. This also means you don’t need to have any type of special HTML markups for search engines to feature content from your site in position 0.

Claiming Position 0 Starts with Keyword Research

Most studies confirm featured snippets are regularly triggered by long-tail keywords, such as the “What are featured snippets?” query demonstrated above. As a matter of fact, the more words you type into the search box, the more likely you’ll be presented with a featured snippet. If you’re looking to land in position 0, start your keyword research with featured snippets in mind. Consider:

• You may find more success with long-tail question-type of queries. Look to answer one of the Five W’s — who, when, what, why, or where — of intermediate difficulty. It’s a good place to start because these are the easiest to identify, but you shouldn’t stop there.
• You should also target informational intent — not just questions. Although featured snippets usually look to answer a searcher’s immediate question, question-type queries are not the only kind that trigger featured snippets. According to an Ahrefs study, large majority of keywords that triggered featured snippets were long-tail queries without any questions in them.

Keep Your Sections Tight

If you want to land a featured snippet, it’s vital to keep the section concise and tight. One commonality we’ve noticed throughout most featured snippets is brevity. In addition, you should section off your paragraphs and lists instead of simply letting them run all together.

For example, this list is only 55 words. And SEMrush suggests it’s a relatively normal length for featured snippets. Their analysis discovered the most common length for featured snippet content is anywhere from 40-50 words.

However, it doesn’t mean your entire article should be a single paragraph. On the contrary, Google has consistently given preference to longer-format content, which is commonly referred to as cornerstone content. This content should be broken into smaller, more digestible subsections with attention-grabbing images.

Even if you do not believe longer-format cornerstone content receives preferential treatment in Google, you can still cover more related questions in a single piece by creating longer, more in-depth content. Here are a few tips that have delivered exceptional results for others:

1. Ask questions in subheaders throughout the article. These subheaders should be closely related to the title.
2. Once you ask the question, immediately answer it in a shorter one-paragraph answer.
3. You can elaborate on the topic later on in the article.

Use Headers to Section off Your Content

In the process of formatting your content for featured snippets, it’s critical your break up content using SEO best practices. Make sure you organize your lists, steps, or paragraphs with headers in natural chronological order. You can use H1 headers, H2, H3, and H4 headers to organize your content and communicate the right message.

Keep It Well Organized and Factual

Similar to users, Google simply loves lists, steps, facts and numbers. You’ll see this time and time again, the information presented in featured snippets will be numbered lists, actual ingredients, cooking times, city of birth and birth years, as well as other fact based elements. Make sure to get as factual as possible and always employ numbers, lists, and proper names. Google seems to notice and like certain HTML codes, such as:

• <ol> Order Lists
• <table> Table
• <ul> Unordered list

Create a Single Article that Answers Several Related Question

Based on data from Ahrefs, once your page gets featured for particular information, it’s much more likely to be featured in other related queries. As a result, you should word your article and structure it in a manner that provides a lot of answers to several similar questions.

Google is exceptional at determining closely related questions and synonymic questions, which means there is no point in creating a new page to answer closely related questions. Having problems coming up with great questions? Use the Serpstat tool under “Questions” to help you create an awesome list of questions with your core keyword.

Got SEO questions? Don’t hesitate to contact Ready to Run for solutions and answers.

The post Climbing to Position O with Featured Snippets appeared first on Ready to Run Designs.

While off-page SEO refers to external ranking signals like backlinks, citations, etc. — on-page SEO refers to both your HTML source code as well as content. Let’s take a closer look at a few simple and actionable on-page SEO steps you can take to improve the performance of your pages.

If Your Content Isn’t Solving a Problem…You Have a Problem

Far too often, we see companies who are doing it all wrong! Instead of looking to solve a problem for potential readers and/or prospects, they create content that is self-serving. Today, consumers are smarter than ever and are more hip to overtly-used sales language.

It’s best to create content that solves a unique problem. When you start with a problem and link it to a solution your business provides, you are well on your way! In addition, make sure your solution-based content checks all of the following boxes:

• Title tags and meta descriptions are still super important. So much so, your title tags and meta descriptions are the first — and may be the only — impression potential readers will have of your site. Make sure your title tags and Meta descriptions are irresistible enough to arrest the reader’s attention and make them click.
• Short and long-tail keywords should be well integrated. As you’re writing to solve a problem, you should think like a consumer thinks! Furthermore, you should include the words your potential clients would use to learn more about a solution to their problem. Make sure you’ve done your research and are including relevant short and long-tail keywords in your content, title tags, and Meta descriptions.
• Keep your content fresh. Make it a practice to review your content and keep it up to date. This should be a continual wash and repeat cycle, which will help influence the freshness ranking factor for your pages.
• Headlining with your header tags. It’s critical your H1, H2, and H3 are in a logical order to communicate the importance of subheaders to search engine crawlers. For example, the title of your page is the H1 and the H2 header tags should be related to (or be a sub-question) the title.
• What’s a picture worth? We know an image is worth a thousand words, but they can significantly slow down the performance of your site, which can negatively affect your SEO. Make sure your images are compressed to make your page nimble. And adding title file names and alt text can help your pictures rank in image searches as well as make them more accessible to all readers.

Elevating Your On-Page SEO to the Next Level

If you’re looking to elevate the profile of your website and take your on-page SEO to the next level, make sure you do the following:

• How easy is your content to read and digest? In general, the easier your content is to read, the better. You can use Flesch-Kincaid Readability tests to determine where you content ranks.
• Term frequency-inverse document frequency or TF-IDF may sound pretty intimidating, but it’s not. This term simply refers to the number of times a keyword (such as “How to fix a leaky faucet”) is mentioned on your page divided by the number of time in other places. It’s nothing more than a calculation to determine the relevance of “how to fix a leaky faucet” is on your page. If you can master this relatively simple technique, you can take your on-page SEO to the next level and help improve the visibility of your content.
• Get your content featured in Position 0 —Google’s Featured Snippets. Featured Snippets are type of search engine result designed to provide users with a direct, concise answer to their questions — directly on the SERP page without the user needing to click through on any specific result. Featured snippets come in a range of sizes and shapes, including bulleted lists, paragraphs, numbered lists, tables, YouTube videos, images, and more.

Make Your Content Crawler Accessible

A web crawler is a spider bot used by search engines to systematically scour the World Wide Web. If you want your page to be found or improve your visibility, make sure you can confidently check the following accessibility boxes:

• Meta robots tag allows crawling. If you’re blocking Google bots from crawling your website, you will never be found. In addition, you should make sure your URL is included in the sitemap.
• Internal linking is critical. If you create a blog post called “How to fix a leaky faucet,” you should have other pages linking to this page with anchor text that includes “How to fix a leaky faucet.” This will help ensure Google knows the keyword is important and the page is actually about fixing leaky faucets.
• Schema markup is a semantic vocabulary code you can add to your site to assist search engines in returning better results for users. By adding relative schema markup, you can spoon feed search engines what your content and pages are about.

Amplify Your Content with SEO Solutions

We get it — optimizing your content can seem confusing, especially when you consider the countless other tasks vying for your attention as a business owner. However, you don’t have to do it alone. Ready to Run offers a full team of SEO specialists who will work to optimize your content and improve visibility, so your content won’t go unnoticed.

The post Make a Difference with the On-Page SEO Content Checklist appeared first on Ready to Run Designs.

What is AMP?

Simply put, the AMP version of your website is essentially a bare-bones framework that contains only the most important parts of what you have to offer. Google, along with many other observers, are convinced that the greatest opportunity for growth lies with mobile devices. In order to make the most out of this, websites need to be able to load quickly, even in areas that have less than optimal data coverage.

Will AMP Affect Your Website?

Google has made it clear that if your website loads slowly in a mobile browser, you are going to be penalized for it. Since AMP is at such an early stage in its development, implementing it on your site now could give you a leg-up on your competition. AMP results are at the top of search pages, meaning even if you have the top spot for a keyword, if you do not have AMP set up for your website, you will be below pages that do.

How Does AMP Work?

AMP works by using a specific type of code called AMP HTML which puts certain constraints on what can or cannot be published. Third-party Javascript code on your site will generally not load within an AMP page, since it can considerably increase loading times for someone on a mobile device. It is still possible to use third-party code on the AMP version of your site, but the code will need to fall in line with AMP guidelines. Major third-party developers such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram already have AMP-specific versions of their plug-ins so that they will continue to work on your website.

Implementing AMP on Your Website.

If your website runs on WordPress, there are a few plug-ins you can download straight from the dashboard that will do most of the work for you. One of the best, and most frequently updated, is the official Automattic/Wordpress AMP plugin, which can be found here. This plug-in creates an AMP version of all of your existing pages, which will then be indexed over the next few days.

For sites that do not run on WordPress, the process of creating AMP-compatible pages for existing content will require an overhaul of your CSS. This is something usually best left to a professional, since it can take a lot of time to do the right way.

Tracking with AMP.

Keeping track of your visitors through Google Analytics is fairly simple throughout the AMP version of your website, as you only need to add a bit of code to your pages. Other tracking programs may not work quite as easily, which is where professional help would usually come into play.

The post Everything You Need to Know About the AMP Project appeared first on Ready to Run Designs.

What It Means for You

What is Google Hummingbird and why should your business care? Since there are many misconceptions about this topic, I will try to explain what Hummingbird actually does in order to illustrate the reason it matters to your businesses.

Google Hummingbird is the new search algorithm and is widely believed to be a one of the most significant evolutions search engine functionality. As we have mentioned in previous articles, search engine algorithms are continuously being altered to improve user experience. Google implements several hundred subtle modifications to its algorithm each year, but according to Amit Singhal, Vice President of Google Search, Google Hummingbird is perhaps the most significant alteration to the algorithm since 2001.

After Google’s announcement about the update, many outrageous predictions about Hummingbird leading to a SEO apocalypse surfaced over the Internet. Despite the over reactions of some misguided individuals, Hummingbird will not dramatically impact your ranking on Google. That being said, it does represent a significant step forward for semantic search and provides a wealth of insights into the direction the Internet is heading.

What Does Hummingbird Do?

Google Hummingbird is a major milestone in semantic search, or the effort to improve search results by making search engines better at understanding the intent of a search query. This is nothing new to Google. For over a decade, Google started using information in custom settings and profiles to influence search results.

In the past, Google would deliver search results based on the content that matched the queried terms. But relying on individual keywords alone has its limitations.

Here are two related queries:

Query 1: “Where can I find a place to eat in Poughkeepsie, NY”
Query 2: “Restaurant in Poughkeepsie”

Both of the queries are essentially looking for the same information in two different ways. But what if a business describes itself as a restaurant and not a place to eat on its website?

Google is getting better at recognizing the meaning of terms or phrases in the context of a query. In this case, Google may consider “restaurant” as a possible substitute for “place” to better satisfy this query.

Dealing With Long-Tail Search

In developing the Hummingbird update, Google’s primary concern was coming up with a better way of dealing with “long-tail” searches. For anyone unfamiliar with long-tail search, it simply refers to searches with a larger number of words in the search phrase. For example, a short search may be, “Directions, 3 Neptune Rd., Poughkeepsie”, while a long-tail version would be something like, “How can I get to 3 Neptune Road in Poughkeepsie, New York?”

According to Google, longer search queries represent a significant portion of the total search volume. Before Hummingbird, these queries have tended to produce less accurate results because they usually include several words with no correlation to the intended search. This presents a number of issues, which brings us to our next section.

Why do long-tail searches matter to Google?

From an advertising perspective, Google is interested in long-tail search for the ability to sell ads for these queries. Google has a difficult time showing the volume around these queries and establishing a value behind bidding for these Adwords.

In just a few years, tremendous growth has been seen in mobile and tablet devices, capturing a significant portion of the total search marketshare. One mobile search trend has interesting implications for Google, is the popularity of using long-tail “conversational” or “natural language” search queries on mobile devices. Smartphone users often have the ability to speak their commands into the phone to voice recognition artificial intelligence programs, such as Apple’s Siri, which causes a more speech-like, conversational query.

Mobile represents a new and emerging market over which Google will want to quickly establish dominance. The ability to better understand conversational search queries is therefore crucial. Without a way to improve long-tail search results, mobile searches would be skewed toward the irrelevant terms in these more verbose searches rather than what was intended. Hummingbird attempts to address this issue, using the entire search query to better understand and apply intelligent scoring to the individual words as they relate to each other in the context of the whole.

Google understands that mobile has a role to play in the future of search. In order to remain the top search engine, Google must be able to offer a superior experience for users across all devices.

Do Keywords Still Matter?

Keywords still play an important role in the semantic analysis (or method for recognizing the concepts and themes associated with your content). However, website owners should move away from long-tail search optimization and focus on creating content with greater depth about specific concepts.

In the past, the only way to appear in results for longer, often unusually worded searches, meant including them in your website content. As a recent post by Ammon Johns explains in greater detail, Hummingbird will (in theory) have the ability to interpret these verbose queries and return the same results as a clearly worded short-term search.

For website owners, targeting and tracking long-tail search results should be a thing of the past. Google wants us all to stop focusing on wording and start creating great content around specific topics. The goal should be to offer original, high-quality content that provides value or addresses a specific topic will improve your Author Rank Authority.

What does Google mean by better content? Google offers great insights in a post on their official blog. Although it was posted in 2011, the advice holds true today and the bullet points will help you to “step into Google’s mindset.”

What Does Google Hummingbird Mean for Me?

It is not a coincidence that the most significant update to Google in over a decade, which deals primarily with mobile search issues, comes on the heels of an unprecedented growth in mobile search. Hummingbird is likely just the first in a number of changes Google will make to improve user experience – including new indexing criteria.

During a presentation at the the 2013 Pubcon Conference, Matt Cutts, Head of the Google Webspam Team, emphasized that focusing on mobile strategies, such as a responsive website design, will be a crucial aspect of any online presence.

“Mobile is huge,” said Matt Cutts. “No matter how savvy you are, I think you might be surprised at how quickly mobile is growing.” Matt Cutts also highlighted some remarkable facts about mobile searches on Youtube, which are illustrated by the charts seen below.

Round up: What you need to know about Google Hummingbird:

• Hummingbird will favor marketers: Offer interesting, unique content tailored to your target audience’s interests.
• SEO Rules Remain the Same: If you have developed a SEO strategy that complies with Panda and Penguin, these current SEO efforts should not have to change.
• Improved Conversational Search: Examining terms within the context of the entire query, Google is understanding and providing more weight to the relevant terms in a search.
• Mobile is Huge: If you have not started making mobile web experiences a major factor, now is the time.

Hummingbird is certain to have more changes and implications in the future. It is impossible to predict just how this newest update will play into future for Google, but the smart online marketer will begin adopting these best practices today and be prepared for what may come tomorrow.

The post Google Hummingbird Update: Adapting to the New SEO Landscape appeared first on Ready to Run Designs.

How to Optimize Images for Search Engines

Images not only help a webpage look great, they are also an important part of a website’s search rankings. The following will examine some of the most important elements search engines use to determine which images to index.

Numerous specialty search engines, also known as “verticals,” exist within major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. A vertical is simply search engine that focuses on a specific type of Web content, such as the items on the Google menu bar (YouTube, Google Shopping, Google Images etc.). Following the best practices will not only increase the likelihood of a webpage being ranked higher for relevant keywords in a general search, but also the image being found through a vertical.

In addition to being found through searches on these verticals, content within these categories can also appear in the general web search results. Therefore, it is important to optimize all forms of online content to be indexed by search engines.

Here are a few ways to improve the likelihood of getting search engines to index an image:

1. Descriptive Alt Tags: Search engines are able to see that an image is on a webpage, but it cannot read what the image is without a little help. Alt tags provide search engines with a description of the image, which are used in indexing images in search results.
2. Title Tags: Like alt tags, title tags also help search engine bots know what the image displayed is all about. It should be short, catchy and descriptive. In FireFox, Opera, and other browsers, the title tag pops up when a visitor hovers over an image.
3. Image File Names: Include keywords that describe the image in its file name. For example, the file name web-design-professional.jpg would be a better name than stockpic18662k334d772.jpg for the image below. Also notice that the name of the file is more than one word, which have been separated or “parsed” with hyphens. Although website copy should be written naturally, image files should exclude non-keywords in the title.
4. Image Size: Large photos should be resized to help preserve page speed. The image size should also be included in the html on the page to give search engines details on the size of the photo. (Note that the image size code should not be used to resize the image on the page). Images should be resized prior to being uploaded to the website.
5. Add Keyword Rich Captions: Adding keyword-rich captions directly above or beneath an image can also improve its chances of being indexed higher by search engines.
6. Anchor Text: Just like using links to a page or article, including good anchor text is important when linking to an image. Using the picture below as an example once again, change generic links, such as “View Photo,” to something like “Website Developer – View Larger” to include keywords in the anchor text.
7. File Formats: If you have access to Photoshop or a similar program, take advantage of the “Save for Web” option to optimize a photo. If this is not an option, try to save photos in JPEG format and set to a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. A full discussion of image format & SEO is beyond the scope of this article, website owners may also want to look into Google’s WebP image format.

Image Optimization Helpful Hints

Image Optimization Helpful Hints

In addition to these more technical aspects, some general SEO rules apply to images as well.

• Avoid Keyword Stuffing: Stuffing keywords into any of the areas discussed above will be seen as a “black hat” SEO tactic by search engine and have a negative impact on search rankings. Instead, use keyword-rich text that is written in plain English.
• User Experience: Like all other content on a website, images should be chosen based upon the value it will add to the visitor’s experience. Carefully select pictures or graphics that will both resonate as well as immediately communicate the message of that web page. Put differently, if a picture is worth a thousand words, make sure it reinforces a message consistent with the text on the page.
• Consider Image Quality: Good quality photos make for a better user experience, so avoid using blurry or low resolution photos. However, before you start uploading huge, high resolution images; remember files that are too large will take longer to load, slowing down page speed and diminishing the overall user experience.
• Image Placement: Many visitors will not scroll to the bottom of a page, so it is generally a good idea to position images higher on a page. According to Google’s guidelines, image captions, titles, and other content surrounding an image provides search engines with important information used to understand an image.

To conclude, be mindful of how search engines read and index content and how that relates to search ranking. Following best practices for image optimization and general search engine optimization, your website will see drastic improvements.

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In 2009, Google announced on its official blog that it does not use meta tags for ranking websites (and has no intention of using them in the future). Why? About a decade ago, keyword meta tags quickly became a way to stuff a website with irrelevant keywords to dive traffic from unrelated search terms. As a result of this persistent abuse, most search engines quickly abandoned (or significantly reduced the importance of) keyword meta tags in ranking websites.

Below is a video of Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, giving an explanation of why keyword meta tags are not a factor for Google.

In addition to Google, other search engines have made similar announcements regarding the keyword meta tag. In October of 2009, Yahoo! had made an announcement similar to the one Google made just one month before. In addition, Bing representatives have stated that meta keywords are mainly used to identify spammers, but if used perfectly will make very minor improvements to a website’s search ranking.

In the end, meta keywords are basically a waste of time and energy. But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Here are a few basic steps to improve user experience to improve a website’s search rankings:

• Focus on improving user experience factors, such as page speed 
• Make it easy for users to find related content to improve click through rates
• Develop high quality, engaging content that will drive visitors to your site and keep them clicking on pages
• Include rich snippets or detailed information that help users find specific information
• Improve user experience across all platforms with a responsive website design

It is very likely meta keywords will hang around for some time, but we hope this article will make even a small contribution towards debunking this myth. There are many factors that effect search rankings and many more articles will be posted to provide methods and insights into improving SEO. But for now, we encourage all website owners to focus on improving user experience, which is perhaps the most important place to start in any SEO strategy.

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Social Media Strategy

Social media sites are great tools for businesses to connect to customers, capture new leads and improve its website’s rank on major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. However, as important as it is for a business to have social media accounts, it is even more important to use them appropriately.

• Do a few things well: Rather than try to be on every social media site, pick only a few that are most likely to have your target audience and actively participate on them.
• Understand the platform: Different social settings can call for very different behavior, which is also true for social media. Try to look at the ways other users already interact on the social media site to get a better understanding of the ways to participate.
• Monitor social media sites: Customers use social media to communicate with businesses and expect responses to be made promptly. Failing to check social media sites can result in customer dissatisfaction.

Developing a Professional Website

A professional website does not mean complex or expensive per se. In fact, a small business should create a website that is well laid out, easy to navigate and engages the target audience.
Small businesses drive website traffic with the following:

• Demonstrate Value: Keep the language clear and easy to read. Avoid industry jargon and focus on the benefits of your products and services.
• Mobile Design: Allow customers to visit your website from any location with mobile and tablet version.
• Frequent Updates: Websites that are active with frequent updates are heavily favored by search engines. Consider adding a blog to your website and publishing content on a regular basis.

Local Business Search Optimization

Local business search sites are a powerful tool for allowing customers to find your business online. These are websites that provide reviews and other information about businesses, such as Superpages, Yelp, Citysearch etc. In addition to submitting a website to major search engines, find business directories that will help potential customers find you online.

• Provide details: Add as much relevant content in your listing as possible, including contact information, link to your website, photos, videos and the products or services the business offers.
• Update information: Remove any out dated content, such as old contact information.
• Niche directories: Local directories that are relevant to your business can provide better results. These directories also appeal to an audience that is interested in your industry and will likely drive more traffic to a website.
• Build over time: Avoid submitting to as many directories as possible all at once. Search engines look unfavorably on businesses that just spam directories.

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