SEO Hero Guide 2017: Learn the Mystic Arts of Optimization

1 | P a g e S E O S u p e r h e r o e s . n e t

Chapter 1: The Basics 3
What is SEO?
How search works
What makes a good SEO?
Different kinds of SEO Strategies
Importance of SEO to businesses
Chapter 2: Link Building 8
What is link building?
Link acquisition
Link signals and metrics
Samples of link building strategies
Chapter 3: Content Marketing 12
Content marketing
Content strategy
Content marketing strategy
What will businesses gain from content marketing?
Chapter 4: Social Media and SEO 15
Social media and ranking factors controversy
Social reputation and sharing
Chapter 5: Step-by-step Guide to Optimizing Your Website 18
Step 1: Analyze target market business
Step 2: Develop keyword/s
Step 3: Optimize your content
Step 4: Monitor your results
Chapter 6: Local SEO 24
What is Local SEO?
Optimizing for local search
Chapter 7: Mobile Optimization 27
What is Mobile Optimization?
Optimizing for mobile
Chapter 8: SEO Violations 30
Manipulative link schemes
Keyword stuffing
Cloaking
Hidden text
Thin content
Irrelevant links and keywords
Chapter 9: SEO Today: Google Algorithm Updates, SEO Trends, and Experts 33
Google Algorithm updates
SEO trends that will shape 2017
Top SEO experts to follow
Table of Contents

What is SEo?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a marketing discipline focused on growing
visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results (Source: Moz). It focuses on
implementing strategies and techniques, both creative and technical elements, to
improve rankings in search engines and drive more visitors (traffic) to a website.
How search works
If the world wide web is an enormous library, search engines serve as the “librarians”,
crawling and indexing billions of pages, documents, news, videos, and other media
on the web in order to provide you the best answer for your query.
In other words, when you do a web search, you aren't actually searching the web.
You are searching the search engine's index of the web.
Search engines have automated robots known as “spiders.” These
spiders are able to reach a vast number of interconnected
documents on the web with the help of links. Once the search
engines locate web pages, they decrypt the code from them and
store selected pieces in massive databases, which are retrieved
later on when needed for a search query.
After collecting every piece of information on the web, search engines present lists of
relevant pages they have retrieved and ranked to help users find exactly what they
are looking for whenever they type something on the search box.
Search results matter if you own a website since the majority of web traffic is driven by
Search is undeniably growing at a rapid pace. In today's digital age,
billions of people around the globe are relying on search. More
companies are taking advantage of this by creating websites their
consumers can easily access. But no matter how interesting their
websites may be, they'll be invisible to search engines and human
users if not for this superhero – Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

search engines – a higher rank placement means a higher chance people can find
you. To search engines, the more popular a site or a page, the more valuable the
information it contains.
What makes a good SEO?
Every search engine has an “algorithm,” a secret recipe that turns all information into
useful search results. Though search engines are smart, they still need help in order to
understand your content and return the most relevant results.
If search engines have their so-called “secret recipe”, your website should provide
the ingredients they need for their recipe. Next to creating exceptional content,
adding proper structure to it is essential in SEO and obtaining a higher ranking.
A good SEO is able to establish the following:
Words
 The text on your web page matter. As discussed, search engines are responsible
for crawling and indexing every word on the web to provide answers to users. So
when a user searches, “Real Estate in Australia”, the search engine narrows the
results only to the pages that contain those words.
Titles
 Each web page, like a book, has an official title, which summarizes the content of
the whole page.
Links
 A link (also called a hyperlink) is a way for both human users to navigate between
pages and for search engines to crawl the web. A web page that has a lot of links
coming to it looks great to search engines but the engines can also detect when
a web page has a lot of bogus or fake links.
 Basically, there are three kinds of links and link building: organic links, whitehat,
and blackhat. Organic links are the best kind of links that are naturally given by
sites that link to you. Whitehat stands for good, quality link building while Blackhat
stands for low-quality and spammy link building that can often be penalized.
Anchor text (words used in links)
 For instance, if you use the word “wedding dress” as a link to your website

sampleclothingline.com, search engines can establish that your website is related
to the terms "wedding dress". In this way, your site can rank well when someone
searches for those terms.
Reputation
 Search engines love websites with a consistent record of engaging and unique
content and growing numbers of quality links. Sites like these are considered as
rising stars and they do well in search rankings.
From the choice of words on your page to the way other sites link to you, SEO is
usually a matter of ensuring your site is structured in a way that search engines can
understand and making your site better for users.
Different kinds of SEO Strategies
backlinks to your site and web pages.
These proven SEO strategies will further be elaborated later in this guide.
Link Building
A methodology of
techniques aimed
at generating
powerful backlinks
to your site and
web pages.
Content Marketing
–a strategy that uses
authoritative content
like blog posts,
infographics,
whitepapers, and
videos to give people
something to link to.
Social Media
Marketing
– a strategy that
involves building a
good company
profile on social
media to attract
social shares.
Optimizing for
Local Search
(Local SEO)
– a strategy that
focuses on search
aimed at finding
information within
a specific
geographic area.
Adding schema.org
markup
– a strategy that
focuses on using a
type of markup that
you put in the code
of your website to
help your site rank
better in Google
search.
Mobile
Optimization
– a strategy that
aims to create a
website that mobile
users can easily
access and
navigate.

The importance of SEO to businesses
Investing in SEO can have an excellent rate of return compared to other forms of
marketing and promotion.
If your website aims to provide valuable content and information or offer products
and services, targeted traffic and higher rankings in the search engine results page
(SERPs) are critical to visibility, publicity, and revenue no other medium of marketing
can provide. Being listed at the top of the SERPs can also instill trust and loyalty in
consumers as to the credibility of the company or website.

Though SEO experts claim that link building is one of the most challenging and tiring
parts of their jobs, they tend to agree that it's also one of the most critical to success.
What is link building?
Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites (backlinks) to
your own website. Building high-quality links and mastering it requires time and
creativity, and often a budget. Doing it well can put you ahead of your competition.
Links are used by search engines to crawl the web and there are two ways search
engines are able to use links; (1) to discover new web pages, and (2) to help
determine how well a page should rank in their search results.
When crawling the web and examining a web page's quality, the
search engine spiders consider not just the content of the page but
also the number of links pointing to that page from external websites
as well as the quality of those sites.
In a nutshell, the more high-quality websites that link to your site, the more likely you
are to rank well in the SERPs.
Link Acquisition
To help you with link building, we'll introduce three basic types of link acquisition.
Editorial Link Building (organic)
Editorial links are innately given by websites and pages that wish to link to your
content or company site. The links require little to zero effort from the SEO, other than
creating a worthy content and sharing it to create awareness.
Manual Link Building (outreach)
You, as an SEO practitioner, may do certain approaches such as manually emailing
relevant bloggers and site owners and asking them to link to your site, submitting sites
to directories, or paying for business listings. You should also convince bloggers and
site owners as to why linking to your site or resource page is in their best interest.
Non-editorial Link Building (self-created)
Self-created links are non-editorial links that carry the lowest value in link building.
Some of the examples are press releases with optimized anchor text, guest post
signatures, infographic embeds, blog comments that aren't moderated, user profile

pages, advertorials, and embeddable widgets.
Self-created links have gained a bad reputation since most of them aim to fool
search engines in terms of a content's relevance, and Google has begun devaluing
and penalizing them.
Link Signals and Metrics
Various link signals and metrics associated with links help you determine the value of
a potential link:
Ranking for relevant search terms
To see how highly Google values a given page, search for some of the keywords and
phrases the page targets, like title tags and headlines. For instance, if you're aiming to
rank for the phrase "coffee maker," try to earn links from pages that already rank for
the phrase.
Domain Authority and Page Authority
One great way to ensure you're getting links from a strong website is by examining a
site's domain strength, the collective value of an entire domain.
Domain Authority, which predicts how well a domain will perform in search results,
and Page Authority, which predicts how well a given page will rank in search results,
are developed and calculated by Moz to determine a website's strength. They run on
a scale of 0-100, with 100 being the highest.
Another metric is PageRank, an algorithm used by Google to rank websites in their
search engine results. It is based on the number and quality of links pointing to a web
page. It is measured on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest.
Anchor text
An anchor text is a text that appears highlighted and can be clicked to open a
target web page. It is one of the strongest signals search engines use in rankings to
designate the subject matter of the page being linked to. Search engines use this
information as a part of its ranking algorithms.
Number of links
The number of links you have built indicates the progress or success of your link
building campaign and determines how far you have gotten in comparison to your

competitors' sites.
Position of links on a page
The placement of the links is also crucial. Try to place them somewhere obvious,
probably near the top of the page or the first paragraph, the main body of the page,
or within the part that explains how great your product or service is.
Samples of link building strategies
Get people to link to you
The digital age continues to trend upwards and you can use this to your best
advantage. More people are creating their own sites and blogs and you can
capitalize on this by asking them to link to your site. You may ask loyal customers (who
patronize your brand) for a link or send out partnership badges or graphic icons that
link back to your site. You can also take advantage of your friends, relatives,
colleagues, clients, and other people you know who may have a relevant website.
Build an informative company blog
A blog not only has the ability to provide fresh and engaging material on a consistent
basis but also gives you the ability to naturally attract links to your content. It also has
the capacity to participate in discussions across the web where you're likely to earn
listings and links from other blogs, like blog directories and blogrolls.
Craft a creative content
A unique, well-written content with an engaging headline can go a long way. It can
easily go viral once users are enticed to read it and share it on social media. Not to
mention, these high-quality materials, whether they are informational marketing
pieces are vital to building trust, authority, and potential rankings.
Guest post
You may submit a guest blog post to strong and popular blogs related to your
industry. In most cases, you get a backlink included in an author box which is located
at the top or bottom of the content.
Submit your website to directories
You could get listings with a link back to your site on high-quality directories that are
related to your industry. Refrain from low-quality directories that often link to shady
websites.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "content is king"?
Content, which is anything that communicates a message to the audience, is the
heart of today's marketing strategies. Content may be in a form of:
 Infographic
 Blog post
 White paper
 Podcast
 Data visualization
 Video or image gallery
If you'd come to think of it, SEOs would have nothing to
optimize for search engines without content. Every link
earned by the marketer, as well as every keyword people
type into search engines points to a piece of content.
Content Marketing
Content Marketing is one of the widely used terms in the industry. It is defined as a
marketing approach that involves the use of valuable content in meeting a goal for
an organization, such as attracting audiences, retaining existing ones, making more
people aware of your brand, and driving profitable customer engagement.
Content marketing focuses on the tactics and execution of the content– the
creation, editing, publishing, and measuring content marketing pieces for specific
audiences.
Content Strategy
Content strategy and content marketing are often used interchangeably, but they
aren't the same. Content strategy is all-inclusive while content marketing focuses on a
single part of an overall content strategy. It refers to the planning, development, and
management of a content. Content strategy is your master plan or your blueprint that
lays out how onsite or offsite content will be used to achieve the goals of your
business.
It is all about seeing a vision and creating a foundation that aligns the branding,
messaging, and all the aspects of content marketing.

What makes a good content strategy?
A content strategy should be able to answer the following questions:
 Why should the content be published?
 Who are our target audiences?
 What types of content do they need or want?
 When should we publish the content?
 How often is content being published
 Who is posting and maintaining the content?
 What feedback do we want audiences to receive from the content?
Content Marketing Strategy
Basically, when the two disciplines overlap, it is called the content marketing strategy.
It is an appendage to your content strategy, combining sales tactics and organic
marketing in creating and delivering a relevant content that is in line with the
business' blueprint. Marketers work on disguising efforts well so customers feel like they
are becoming more informed rather than being sold.
There's no universal template in developing a great content marketing strategy.
However, every strategy should consider these four priorities to be on top of the
game:
 To build a reputation
 To build your visibility
 To build your audience
 To be perceived as approachable
What will businesses gain from content marketing?
Strong brand awareness
If you're a business owner,
an engaging content
gives your audience
something to talk about,
which may include
discussing your company,
and passing
recommendations and
links around the process.
Site traffic
A great content, as well as
an effective marketing
strategy, will bring people
to your site, where they'll
hopefully be interested in
your company and
products/ services.
Direct and indirect
customer conversions
You don't just want to
increase traffic. You want
to turn these viewers into
customers. Well-written
content, as well as
product descriptions,
convince people you've
got something unique to
offer, which will bring your
customer numbers up.
Improved SEO
Great content attracts
editorial links – and these
inform the search engines
that you're authoritative
and worthy of a higher
ranking.

Once upon a time, using links was the first thing that would come to mind when we
talk about off-the-page ranking factors. But over time, links have become less
trustworthy. Since links can be bought and sold, some sites get a little hesitant about
linking out. Some sites even block links to help combat spam.
Then, social media, which changed the idea of SEO, entered the game. Social
media relies on creating top-notch content that is compelling enough for sharing and
attracting visitors naturally. With social media, it would be easier for companies to
increase brand presence and broaden consumer reach.
Most search marketers will tell also you that social signals are emerging as ranking
factors. However, most search marketers leave the details blurry when discussing
"how" social media can affect Google rankings.
Social Media and Ranking Factors Controversy
Everything was fine, until Google's Matt Cutts released a video in January 2014,
claiming that social signals which show profile's influence and authority, do not affect
search rankings.
Social signals, like the number of Facebook likes or Twitter followers, aren't factored
into Google's search algorithm as an indication of trustworthiness. Search marketers
were dismayed for they had been operating under the assumption that social has a
huge impact on SEO.
Despite all the uproars about Google's revelation, Neil Patel, a renowned SEO expert
and founder of Quicksprout, urged marketers not to neglect social too quickly. In his
April 2014 article “Why Social Is The New SEO,” Patel laid out some convincing
arguments as to why marketers should still integrate social into their SEO strategy.

Neil Patel:
Social Reputation and Sharing
Social media marketing will only be effective if you have established a good social
reputation - which leads to social sharing. The success of your strategy can be
measured by:
Number of followers and connections
Invest in people who can see and potentially share your content. And it's not just
about the number of followers but the quality as well. You want to gain references
from social accounts with credible reputations to boost your social presence.
Just like fake links, fake accounts can often be easy to spot. Fake accounts have less
to zero "quality" friends or followers in their network who can barely pass along the
materials they share.
Number of external inbound links
Social media encourages more sites to link to your content and it's safe to say that
the more diverse external links you gain, the more authority you'll have, You just have
to produce a compelling, high-quality content to attract links.
Number of social shares
Social sharing contributes greatly to a brand authority.
The more people who share your content or post, the
better. Aside from producing a great content and
waiting for followers to see and share it, you can
also increase social sharing by appealing to it
directly – like offering rewards for “liking” and
sharing your post.
“Social is still a valuable channel for promotion,
content, distribution, virality, and sharing. Social is
still a crucial aspect of search even if it doesn’t
register as one of Google’s many algorithmic
ranking factors. Social is a search engine too.”

Step one: Analyze Target Market Business
Analyze the website
Optimizing your website starts with a thorough analysis of its performance and
accessibility. Here, you should be able to analyze keywords as well as the visible text
and code to know how well the site is positioned for search engines. Website analysis
answers queries like, "how much code do you have on a page compared to text?" or
"what are the keywords and the current ranking for those selected terms?"
You can use tools like Google Webmaster Tools, Moz Pro Tools, and Woorank in
website analysis.
Spy on competitors
After analyzing your website, you can head to the next step: competitive analysis.
Here, you'll identify your top competitors, look into their present engine rankings,
discover which keywords they are targeting and adapt an effective engine
positioning strategy.
Let's say you have a keyword list. Type those terms into the search box and pick the
top 5 websites in the Google listing results. You may see the same sites appearing
over and over again – they are your competitors. Grab general metrics from them
such as link velocity, domain authority, domain age, inbound links, and social shares.
One valuable tool is SEMrush, where you type the domain into the search box to
discern their organic traffic as well as the number of organic words ranking in Google.
Initial keyword nomination
After website analysis and competitive analysis, develop a list of search terms - which
are related to your market segment and customer base - you can realistically target.

Start with a query: what should I type into the search box in order to find my business
website or page?
Step two: Develop your keyword/s
Keyword research
Keywords are considered as the cornerstone of the entire SEO campaign. After
keyword nomination, dig deeper into your targeted list of keywords and phrases. Take
a look at competitive lists and other relevant industry sources to determine a
suggestive number of recent search engine queries as well as the number of sites
competing for each keyword.
Keyword placement
The placement of keywords also matter. Understand how keyword density,
prominence, frequency, and proximity can help you leverage the power of your
selected keywords.
 Density
Keyword density is the ratio of your keywords given the total number of
indexable words present in a single webpage. For instance, if you have a 100-
word content, then having 1% keyword ratio means that you have the
presence of your keyword one time within that 100-word text.
 Prominence
Keyword prominence refers to the notable placement of keywords or phrases
within a web page. The significant keywords should be the most eye-catching
in your web page, and thus shall be positioned at the prominent places – the
page header, meta tags, beginning of a sentence, or opening paragraph.
 Frequency
Keyword frequency refers to the number of times you insert your keyword or
keyphrase in a web page. The more times a keyword appears on your page,
the more relevance a search engine will likely ascribe to it whenever someone
searches for those keywords. Just keep in mind that there's a fine line between
a good keyword frequency and keyword stuffing, which we will further discuss
later on.
 Proximity
Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords.

Ideally, the closer they are to each other, the better.
Step three: Optimize Your Content
Let's assume you have a killer content. The next step is to leverage it with some
fundamental on-site elements:
Title Tag
A title tag (which is placed between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags) tells the search
engines what your page is all about. It gives you a great foundation for your desired
keyword. Title tags are also used on search engine results pages (SERPS) to display
preview snippets for a page's content.
Remember the following in creating your title tag:
 An ideal title tag should be 70 characters or less.
 Include your business or brand name in the title tag.
 Another great strategy is placing the keyword/s you want to rank for in front of
the title tag.
 It is advised that the keywords in the title tag should appear in the body of the
content for a higher rank.
 The headlines should be compelling enough to attract people to click the
moment they see it in the SERPs.
Meta Description Tag
The meta description provides search engines as well as human audiences a little
more insight into the content of your page. While they aren't directly used for
keyword rankings since Google doesn't use keywords tag anymore, meta descriptions
do influence click-throughs.
A good meta description:
 Consists of 160 characters or less.
 Should include the page's main keywords since it shows up in the SERPs.
Header tags
Header tags help break up the content into digestible segments, allowing both users
and search engines to know more about what each section of content is about.
 <H1></H1> tags surround the post title and there should only be one set of

these tags per page
 <H2></H2> and <H3></H3> tags, on the other hand, surround subheadings on
the webpage and there can be multiple instances of both.
Internal (Inbound) linking
Internal linking gets your web pages interconnected with each other. Inbound links
within your content are often used to recommend an internal page so it'll be easier
for users to discover good information within your website.
Aside from recommendation and navigation, inbound links are also a great way to
rank better. Internal linking allows search engines to learn more about your website
and see how well it is structured.
External (Outbound) linking
Most websites, if not all, have outbound links. Outbound links are links intended to
direct you to another specific webpage or website. There are two types of an
outbound link: do-follow and no-follow.
 A do-follow is a normal link that passes on Google Pagerank juice from your
webpage to the targeted webpage.
 A no-follow link, on the other hand, is an abnormal link that blocks off the
Google PageRank Flow.
Image SEO
An image alt text refers to an alternate text for an image. Like what we have
discussed, search engines' crawlers cannot interpret images. With this, an image alt
text should describe what the picture is about so it may rank well in various image
SERPs for certain keywords. This is critical when the image contains a lot of helpful
information.
URL slugs
URL slugs are the exact address of a particular website, or where web pages are
located when you type their URL in the address bar. They appear in the SERPs and
they are important for indexing and ranking.
New Sitemaps for Google
Sitemap refers to an XML file that contains your individual webpage's URLs - an
archive of every webpage in your website. It is used to let search engine spiders

follow the links to all your individual webpages without missing out on anything. XML
sitemaps can also be submitted through Google webmaster tools to make it easier for
the search engine to index your website.
How do you create a Sitemap?
For WordPress users:
 Download the Google XML Sitemaps plugin
 After the plugin has successfully generated your Sitemap, you can
access the Sitemap at an address like this: http://YourURL/sitemap.xml
For those who are not using WordPress
 Use an online XML-Sitemaps generator tool, like xml-sitemaps.com. The
site also provides simple steps in implementing your own sitemap.
Step four: Monitor Your Results
Test and Measure
You have to analyze search engine rankings as well as web traffic to assess whether
your SEO campaign is effective or not. To keep track of your SEO progress, there are
two most important tools you can utilize.
 Google Analytics
This tool is used to learn more about audience. Google Analytics monitors your
organic search traffic sources and determine the keywords people are using in
order find your website in the search results. Since it allows you to see which
specific keywords lead to visits, it will help you identify what keywords you
should be targeting with your SEO campaign.
 Authority Labs
This tool is primarily used to track keyword rankings for your website and see if
they are progressing in the SERPs. You can use the 30-day trial of the pro
account so you can create a free account.

What is Local Search?
Local search refers to any search aimed at finding information
within a specific geographic area. Users, who may be potential
customers, turn to local earch to look for goods and services
online, learn about the businesses accessible in their area and
evaluate the ones they'd choose to patronize.
Optimizing for Local Search
Whether you're intending to localize or are making the most of your budget across
best performing locations, optimizing your local listing is one great way to get your
company or business to rank in the SERPs listings and have it found by users.
When optimizing for local search, there are four important factors you have to
consider:
Content
 Be as genuine as possible by creating a website that answers the visitors'
questions about your company's products or services. Determine the top things
users search for as well as the top questions they ask.
 Consider putting case studies of previous projects and customer interviews and
testimonials to engage present and potential customers. If you have an image
or a video, don't forget to include a text transcript of the conversation below
for search engines.
 The more local the vibe of a given page, the more likely Google is to rank the
page.
Website Organization (Site Architecture)
 Allow search engines and human visitors to understand what your most
significant content is. It should be featured on and linked to from the website's
homepage.
 Your most important content should also be included in your primary
navigation.
 Consider putting an internal link within the content of other pages to your most
important page.
 Target a specific key phrase (or a set of relevant key phrases) on each web
page.

 If you have multiple locations, it's a great practice to create a dedicated page
for each location for consumers to see what's unique about every area.
User experience
 Make sure your web pages load quickly. Web pages that are slow to load are
likely to experience large bounce off rates.
 Use catchy yet direct headlines for every page rather than using generic ones.
Have them in big, bold letters.
 Include contact details (phone number, address, and e-mail address) in the
header and/or footer of every page.
 Focus more on sub-headlines and images and less on the text. Remember that
most visitors don't read. They scan, and you have a few seconds to retain their
attention and capture their imagination.
 If you have text, break them down into bullets or short paragraphs.
Technical aspects
 Your site should be indexable. To get indexing and ranking data, try to search
google with the string site:yourdomain.com. The number of results returned for
that search should be close to the number of pages you have on your website.
 Your site should be crawlable. To know if the search engine can understand the
content on each of your pages, search Google with the string
cache:yourdomain.com/pagename, then click “text only version.” This will tell
you what Google can see when they visit your website.
 Register to Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Central
 Your website should be mobile-friendly.

Gone are the days when most websites get the majority of their traffic from PCs.
Today, people spend more time on their phones and tablets which mean the
traffic distribution is shifting from desktop to mobile.
This is why mobile optimization, or the process of ensuring that your site is
designed for mobile search, is a must.
What is Mobile Optimization?
Mobile optimization focuses on site design, site structure, and page speed to ensure
that visitors who access your site from a touch screen mobile device (which may
have connectivity issues), will have a quality experience.
Optimizing for Mobile
When optimizing your site for mobile, there are a few things to keep in mind:
Page Speed
 Consider minification, the process of removing all insignificant characters from
source code without altering the functionality. Use compression tools.
 Leverage browser caching.
 Optimize the image.
 Minimize redirects.
Site design and functionality
 Design for fat fingers. Buttons that are too big or too small may lead o
accidental clicks.
 Use a responsive or mobile-friendly design. Users don't want to pinch too much
to zoom in or just to tap on something. Learn more about "fluid layouts", which
adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes.
 Avoid using flash. The plugin may not be enjoyed by mobile users. If you'd like
to create special effects, try HTML5.
 Avoid using pop-ups. Closing them can be frustrating for a mobile user, which
may lead to high bounce rates.
Content
 Make all your content available to all users. Instead of hiding some of it to
minimize the clutter on the mobile layout, try to move other content to other

screens.
 Use concise titles, URLs, and meta descriptions without sacrificing the quality of
the data.
 Use Schema.org structured data. If you are using rich snippets, your site is more
likely to stand out on a limited screen space.

There's good SEO and there's bad SEO.
Good SEO focuses on:
 Creating quality content
 Striving to improve user experience and mobile accessibility
 Engaging in good schema markup practice
 Having a healthy linking practice
 Localizing content for pigeon
Then, we have the bad SEO, which often leads to penalties.
Manipulative link schemes
Link schemes are tactics intended to gain unnatural links that artificially inflate a site's
visibility and reputation. It can come in a variety of forms such as:
 Link farms
Link farms are fake, low-value websites built as link sources to artificially increase
popularity.
 Paid links
People who'd love to earn higher rankings often choose to just buy links from
sites and pages that are willing to place a link in exchange for money,
providing value to both buyers and sellers.
 Low-quality directory links
Next to sites selling links, we have pay-for-placement web directories for
building backlinks that “guarantee” instant success. Google takes action by
removing the PageRank score from the toolbar.
Link schemes can be detected by search engines. They can detect connections
between site registrations, link overlap, and other methods, and can penalize these
acts.
Keyword stuffing
So for a keyword or keyphrase to rank higher, can we just repeat them over and over
and over again, about 50 times in a row? A resounding “no.”
It is called “keyword stuffing,” an old (and obvious) spamming tactic that refers to

littering keyword terms excessively on a page. Well, there's no universal law as to how
often is too often. But going for the extremes, like putting a specific keyword ten times
in a short, five-sentence paragraph, can surely cause the penalty to kick in.
Don't dare to trick search engines with this tactic because scanning a page for
stuffed keywords is a piece of cake to engines' algorithms.
Cloaking
Have you ever clicked on an impressive content on the search result, only to find that
the web page has nothing to do with what you're looking for, or worse, is a page of
adult websites or spam?
That, my friend, is an example of cloaking – the act of showing search engine's
crawlers a completely different version of your content than what human visitors can
see. Hiding text in the HTML code of your website, or presenting text users can't see
are also examples of cloaking. It attempts to manipulate search results, and therefore
is a heavy violation.
Hidden text
Okay, how about making the text white so it can blend with the page's background?
Is that a violation too? Again, search engines don't like anything hidden. You can get
penalized for tricking them by using styles, fonts, or any means of hiding text.
Thin Content
It's safe to say that content is the heart of SEO, and a good SEO knows the
importance of providing such valuable answers to web users. It's a good thing that
Google rolled out its “Panda” update in 2011, which targets sites with content
described as “thin” or “lacking in substance.” Producing shallow content created
solely for building backlinks, recreating duplicate or plagiarized content, and using
misleading titles and tagging are surefire ways to receive penalties.
Irrelevant links and keywords
Having a lot of different links pointing to your site is a great idea if and only if they are
relevant links. Google hates backlinks that lead to pointless sites or websites that have
nothing in common with the content on your site. They will lower your relevancy
rating. Same goes with irrelevant keywords, especially the ones in your meta tags.

Google Algorithm Updates 2016
Google uses a complex algorithm that they update around 500 times a year. Though
most of these updates are minor, they still affect search results in many significant
ways and therefore should be recognized by search marketers.
Below are some of the major algorithmic updates that made a huge impact on
search last year. (source: Moz)
 January 8, 2016 – “Unnamed Update”
Google confirmed a “core algo update” after various
tracking tools reported historically-large rankings movement.
Google officially confirmed that it was not a Penguin update.
 February 23, 2016 – “AdWords Shake-up”
Google made major changes to AdWords, switching to four
ads on top and none on sidebar, which had implications for
CTR (paid and organic results) especially on competitive
keywords.
 May 12, 2016 – “Mobile-friendly 2”
Google continued to make the web more mobile-friendly by
rolling out another ranking signal boost to benefit mobile-
friendly sites on mobile search.
 September 1, 2016 – “Possum”
MozCast recorded extreme temperatures of 108° and a drop
in local pack prevalence. Local SEO community noted a
major shake-up in pack results. This update, as data
suggested, heavily impacted organic results.
 September 13, 2016 – “Image/ Universal Drop”
MozCast recorded temperatures of 111° and a 50% drop in
SERPs with image results (universal/vertical) which opened up
an organic position on page 1 and caused ranking shifts.
 September 23, 2016 - “Penguin 4.0 Announcement”
Google announced a major Penguin update after two years.
Penguin will now be real-time and baked into the core

algorithm.
 September 27, 2016 - “Penguin 4.0, Phase 1”
The first phase of Penguin 4.0 was the rollout of the new
Penguin algorithm, which devalues bad links instead of
penalizing sites.
 October 6, 2016 – “Penguin 4.0, Phase 2”
The second phase of Penguin 4.0 was the turnaround of all
previous Penguin penalties. Algorithm temperatures finally
started to drop after October 6th.
 November 10, 2016 – “Unnamed Major Update”
MozCast detected an extreme (106°) spike on this date and
another on November 18th.
SEO Trends That Will Shape 2017
Over the last few years, there have been a lot of shifts in the direction of SEO. The old
SEO used to focus on a single keyword and ranking. Today, SEO is all about creating
connection with your audience rather than merely promoting a product or a service.
Google's algorithm is constantly changing and these updates keep business owners
on their toes. With this, several trends are expected to emerge and grow in 2017.
1. Denser, meatier content
 Old content marketing efforts were concentrated on creating short, bite-sized
content. Then, they have been defeated by long, comprehensive content. But
since the internet has been flooded with both types of content (and people are
sick of reading the same content with slightly different wording and length),
experts agree that a new, happier medium should rise - dense, meatier content.
 2017 may be the year content pieces, which are focused more on quality than
length, to take internet by storm. It is centered on providing as much information in
the smallest possible space, benefiting both writers, who get to spend less time
writing, and readers who'll get to receive more value.

2. Increased mobile accessibility and rise of AMPs
 Mobile accessibility has reshaped SEO through the years and it isn't showing any
signs of slowing down. In fact, it will prove to be mandatory in 2017.
 Mobile search is constantly growing at a rapid pace, with websites getting the
majority of its traffic from mobile devices and traffic distribution shifting away from
desktop to mobile devices as well. With this, 2017 will give way for accelerated
mobile pages (AMPs), or open-source protocols that let webmasters create pages
that load rapidly on mobile devices, to rise. Google has already slanted toward
sites that have switched over to AMPs and favored them in search results.
3. More rich answers and snippets
 Rich answers and snippets will continue to be a hit this 2017. They are made
possible by schema markup (or structured data markup), a code that websites use
to assist search engines in understanding website content and returnintg more
valuable results for users. Implementing schema markup for your website can
increase your chances of making it to the top SERP listing and being featured in a
rich answer.
4. Voice search is the next big thing
 Voice search will become one of the fastest-growing search options. Tech
industries have been working on voice search for a few years now and it has been
improving with each update. In fact, Behshad Behzadi, Google's director of
conversational search, confirmed that the speech recognition error rate has been
reduced from around 25 percent (2 years ago) to just 8 percent today.
 The goal for 2017 is not just to improve voice recognition but to evolve into voice
understanding, which involves changes concerning location-based context,
personalized information, keyword research based on spoken queries, and
context based on frequently used apps.
5. User experience at its best
 The expectations of average users have increased over time. people aren't
satisfied with "reasonable" experience - they expect websites to have immediate
load time and top-notch navigation. With this, user experience optimization (UEO)
has started to blur the lines with SEO.
 Google will favor sites with increased emphasis on user experience and it is

measured on low bounce rates and users' high average time on the page. So start
improving your site's speed and navigation, and investing in a complete overhaul
that executes brand new hosting and design in order to maintain a high search
ranking in 2017.
6. Personal Branding as a core strategy for SEO
 Internet sensations such as big name YouTubers and bloggers are shining
examples of the power of personal branding. With a personal brand, you can
secure guest posts, boost user trust and engagement, and drive more traffic to
your website.
 This 2017, experts anticipate more companies take advantage of personal
branding which will lead to more opportunities and competition.
Top SEO Experts To Follow
Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts is an American software engineer who is the former head
of the Webspam team at the most prominent search engine in the
world, Google. He has helped a lot of webmasters and business
owners with their SEO strategies over the years by releasing videos
and sharing worthy pieces of SEO advice. Cutts is undeniably one
of the most influential "web celebrities" to look up to.
Neil Patel
Another influential web personality is Neil Patel, the co-founder of
several successful businesses including Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics,
Quick Sprout, and Hello Bar. He has been named a top influencer
on the web (by Wall Street Journal), a top ten online marketer (by
Forbes), and a top 100 entrepreneur under 30 years old (by former
U.S. president Barack Obama).

Danny Sullivan
Danny Sullivan is the founding editor of another popular and
authoritative SEO blog on the web, Search Engine Land and the
founder of Marketing Land. Sullivan has been writing about how
search engines operate since 1996, way back before Google was
founded. He has also been referred to as the "Godfather of SEO."
Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin, also known as the "Wizard of Moz" is the founder and
the former CEO of Moz, one of the most popular SEO and online
marketing website. He has given numerous public speaking
presentations at big-time companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and
Google.
Brian Dean
Brian Dean is the founder of Backlinko, a traffic generation
company that specializes in SEO, link building, content marketing,
and conversions. According to Neil Patel, Brian Dean is the "best in
the business" when it comes to link building. Dean offers
specialized strategies to help business owners who've been beat
down by Google lift their search traffic and rankings up.

SEO Hero Guide 2017: Learn the Mystic Arts of Optimization

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SEO Hero Guide 2017: Learn the Mystic Arts of Optimization