I use Semrush’s Advertising Research tool to see where competitors are investing in search ads. It helps me find profitable SEO keywords that are likely converting searchers into customers. “Best of” blog posts are simply hand-curated lists of the best blogs in a specific industry. And some of those people might link to you, which can help your rankings. Google considers content ‘freshness’ when ranking results, so going through your posts and modifying them to reflect better your industry changes can significantly boost your visibility.
It helps you meet the search intent and answer what readers actually want to know. I’ve created hundreds of reports in Clearscope over the years, and I’ve watched it evolve into a powerful, all-in-one SEO content tool. As both tools are free, it’s worth trying both to see which one suits your needs best. But it doesn’t analyze your content’s readability in all that much detail, beyond paragraph length and whether you’ve included images or videos.
What Is SEO?
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is an umbrella term encompassing all strategies used to increase traffic and visibility in search engines.
- We have an entire menu of free tools anyone can access after signing up for an account.
- Moreover, print advertising is often perceived as intrusive, junk, or spam.
- So, in a nutshell, when you search, search engines look through all the pages in the index for relevant results.
- The starting point in SEO is to understand what your target customers are searching for.
First, find a competing site that’s already ranking well in Google. That way, you’re reverse engineering sites that already know what they’re doing. That said, I tend to have more luck simply looking at keywords that my competitors already rank for. Research shows that people online are more likely to click on content that contains a number. As you can see, the happier you make Google’s users, the higher you’ll rank. This includes things like testing user journeys to make sure the path to conversion is direct without any unnecessary steps.
Optimize Your Core Web Vitals
So now is the time to learn the basics and implement best practices on your site. Use the meta to encourage clicks, which will drive traffic and lead to more business. Those details matter, but the backbone of SEO is high-quality content. There are many sites, books, and guides SEO Anomaly (we even wrote one here at Search Engine Journal) to help you get started. But you might find that many resources offer conflicting information.
If you want to learn even more about Google SEO, I recommend checking out The SEO Marketing Hub. Although not as important as your title tag, you do want to use your keyword once in your page’s URL. This comprehensive resource will show you how to rank higher in Google search. If you’re thick-skinned enough, doing it publicly often provides an extra line of defense against misinformation because people are usually kind enough to call you out when you get things wrong. Look back at the roadmap, and you’ll see a recommendation to share what you learn with others. Search Engine Roundtable describes itself as the pulse of search marketing and publishes daily updates on everything search.