Category: SEO

It’s been around 4 months (a little longer actually) at the time of writing this post, since I purchased an SSL certificate and switched to https on my website.

Please make sure to read my first post here on switching from http to https to see the reasons for this change.

I’m still surprised how many websites I see using an http protocol, when there are so many advantages of converting to https.

Anyways, I wanted to provide an update on my results of switching to https to hopefully help you understand why you should consider making the change as well.

Before we dive in, one important point I’d like to mention is if you do make this switch, you must ensure that all old URLs (http) are being 301 redirected to your new URLs (https).  You do not want two versions of your website as this will negatively impact your overall SEO and search engine rankings.

Now let’s get to the update…

Update: 4 Months Since Switching to https

A good way to track some of these big changes on your website is to use the “annotation” feature in Google Analytics…see screenshot below.

 

You can find this feature under the traffic chart inside your Google Analytics account and it’s a great way to gauge how your website is performing in terms of traffic after you make a change.

Since making the switch to https my organic traffic has noticeably increased when compared to the time period I was using the http protocol.

In fact, organic traffic is up a total of 310% when comparing August 5, 2017 – December 22, 2017 to March 18, 2017 – August 4, 2017 (basically this is approximately 4 months prior to and 4 months after switching to https).

See the screenshot below for a visual comparison:

 

The blue line represents “https” and the orange line represents when my website was “http” (this is tracking organic search visits).

I think it’s safe to say that this was a good decision.

Switching to https really helped my overall search engine rankings which in return is bringing me in more organic traffic to my website.

Let’s take a look at the screenshot below that shows the overall progress from switching to https (organic traffic again): 

 

As you can see again, there is a noticeable improvement in organic traffic after switching to https.

Now it’s also important to point out that this increase in organic wasn’t all due to switching to https.

I believe two other key factors to the increases I’m seeing in traffic and search engine rankings is due to consistent content generation and link building as well.

However, I wouldn’t be able to make this kind of progress if I was still using the http protocol.

The combination of all these SEO techniques are working together to help the organic growth of my blog.

This is evidence that adopting the right marketing strategy pays off…maybe not right away but eventually down the road.

Stay patient!

I hope this post was insightful/helpful and you received some value from it.

When combining the right strategies and constantly monitoring, tracking and testing your results, you can really begin to make some progress.

My goal here is to share with you what is working well for me, so you can go ahead and implement the same strategies.

Have you made the switch to https yet?

If not, what are you waiting for?

The past couple of months, I’ve been noticing an increasing number of people reaching out to me to see if they can get a guest post published on my blog.

If you’re new to this, guest posting is basically a link building technique, where you reach out to other relevant blogs in your general niche to see if you can get an article published on their website (with a link back to your blog within the article).

It’s a very powerful strategy for strengthening the overall SEO of your website, and more specifically increasing your search engine rankings as well as organic traffic.

I recommend you check out my blog post “What Is Guest Posting- Powerful Link Building Tips” if you’re unfamiliar with this method or if you’d like to try it out for yourself.

Google heavily favors websites that have a healthy backlink portfolio (meaning a number of natural, quality and authoritative backlinks pointing to your website).

And guest posting is one of the best techniques to achieve this.

Now I know I’ve talked about the power of guest posting on other websites, but why is it also powerful to accept guest posts on your own website as well?

There’s a reason why so many successful bloggers accept guest post submissions on their website…

A few of the main benefits that jump right out at me are:

1.) Consistent Content Generation: Accepting guest posts not only saves you time, but it also provides you with consistent content from other established bloggers. It’s really excellent when you receive a 1,000 word article from someone you’ve connected with and literally all you have to do is hit publish. This is a great way to boost your blog and provide your readers with additional content. It’s important to note that even if you’re getting a ton of guest post submissions, it’s still vital that you continue to publish your own blog posts as well. Think of how your blog got to this position in the first place…by you creating valuable content yourself.  The majority of your articles on your website should be written by you, and then if you’d like, you can supplement that with external posts from other bloggers.

2.) Additional Stream of Revenue: Guest posting can actually turn into a form of revenue for your website. Many people charge for guest posts (sometimes called sponsored posts if someone wants to include a commercial backlink to their website). This is entirely up to you if you want to charge money. If another blogger sends you a post that is a bit more promotional rather than informational, it may be worth it to charge $50-100+ given the content style. This is somehting you will have to decide for yourself depending on your vision and mission of your website. It could be a nice way to create some passive income and an additional revenue stream from your blog.

3.) Connections with Other Bloggers: Last but not least, accepting guest posts is a great way to connect with other bloggers in your niche. Sometimes you can pitch them back and ask if you could have a guest post published on their website to build a quality backlink for yourself. It’s also a great way to both give and receive tips, brainstorm marketing strategies etc. Not all bloggers and blogs are competition, in fact, many will help you get to the next level. Look at guest posting communication as a great way to network with like-minded individuals who share similar goals as you do.

At the time of writing this, I currently don’t have a page dedicated to guest post submissions, however it is something I will most likely be creating within the next few months.

This is a good way to go over your writing guidelines, details, pricing etc…

If you’re not at the stage of accepting guest posts yet, no problem…your main focus then should be getting your articles published on other websites until you build up enough authority to begin accepting content for yourself.

Try to start really moving the needle in your backlinking and content generation efforts.

Once you start, the momentum continues to pick up.

Stay patient and remain consistent!

The wonderful thing about search engine optimization (SEO), is that there are so many tools available at your fingertips to help you monitor and improve your overall SEO efforts.

SEO marketing tools are continuing to get more advanced, detailed and accurate, which can alleviate some of the complexity that comes with properly optimizing websites for search.

However, it’s important that you find the right mix of tools that aligns with your goals and your aspirations.

Below are the SEO tools that I personally use on a regular basis.

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of other powerful marketing tools to choose from online…if there are any

that you use, that are worth checking out, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

My Favorite SEO Marketing Tools (In No Particular Order)

1.) Screaming Frog– This is a unique SEO spider and website crawling tool where you are able to scrape out any website/URL to gain additional insight and analyze onsite SEO elements.  Screaming Frog is excellent for checking things like Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, H1 Tags, Image ALT Tags, 301 redirects, 404 errors, canonical tags and much more.  There are also more advanced reports you can pull as well. One of my favorites is identifying unnecessary redirect chains for websites that have too many redirects in place. Feel free to explore Screaming Frog more on your own, I would not be able to do my SEO work without it. Absolutely amazing tool.

2.) MOZ– MOZ is a powerful platform that allows you to keep track of your search engine rankings, monitor important crawl issues related to your website, analyze link metrics (backlinks, competitor backlinks) and much more. The team behind MOZ really knows what they’re doing when it comes to SEO, and the software they’ve built is extremely helpful whether you’re doing SEO for yourself or other companies. Being able to track your rankings effectively will ultimately help you increase your position in Google overtime as well as bring in more organic traffic. If you haven’t tried MOZ yet, you need to take it for a spin.

3.) Ahrefs.com– Ahrefs provides all the necessary tools any serious SEO specialist needs, including ranking insights, keyword data, in-depth backlink analysis, site auditor/crawl error data and much more. I find myself using Ahrefs more and more as time goes on and I especially take advantage of the comprehensive backlink features they have to offer. This is an incredibly robust SEO platform that can be very helpful in monitoring, maintaining and growing your or your client’s website.

4.) Serpfox– This is similar to MOZ but on a smaller scale (and does not track crawl errors). However the reason I added it here is 1.) because I use it for some of my smaller accounts and 2.) it is a great starting point for someone who is just getting into tracking their search rankings. Serpfox has packages starting at $10 per month and allows you to track your keyword phrases and pull ranking reports.  It’s a really solid little rank tracking tool, and perfect for someone who is just getting their feet wet in terms of SEO (and beyond).

5.) Google Search Console– It is highly recommended that Google Search Console is set up for every website you do SEO for. If Google gives you access to these tools for free, it’s a no-brianer to use them to collect data.  Google Search Console allows you to submit your XML sitemap to Google, gain more insight on organic traffic, monitor crawl errors, check your index status, disavow spammy backlinks, analyze your search appearance and a whole lot more. It is beyond valuable for any SEO specialist and provides the information you need for a better optimized website.

6.) Google Analytics– Another no-brainer is making sure Google Analytics is set up on your website.  This allows you to track all of your traffic data, including total traffic, organic traffic, referral traffic, direct traffic, page views, bounce rate, average time on page, conversions and about a million other metrics. Google Analytics is powerful in comparing traffic year-over-year and month-over-month traffic to see how your SEO campaign is performing. It is also a vital resource to identify what pages are driving the most traffic/conversions and which pages need some work. Every website need Google Analytics set up, regardless if you’re doing SEO or not. Take advantage of all the free information Google is giving us and utilize Google Analytics to take things to the next level.

Now I do use other SEO marketing tools in addition to what you see above, but these are the core ones I go to on a daily and weekly basis.

Actually a recent SEO tool I’ve been testing is called Seomator, which is a very useful website crawler and auditing tool to help improve the overall SEO of your website.

Everyone will have a somewhat different lineup in terms of SEO tools, so it’s always interesting to see the variation from person to person.

If you use different SEO tools that aren’t on this list, please leave them in the comments section below…this could really help anyone who is reading.

What SEO marketing tools do you use?

Are you a fan of any listed in this post?

Link building is an SEO strategy that I personally really enjoy doing.

Mainly because it results in the most noticeable improvements/movement for my blog and other external websites that I work on (this is assuming all other SEO is in place properly as well).

And by movement I mean increases in search engine rankings, organic traffic, engagement, conversions etc.

Unfortunately, link building for many people can be a very daunting and confusing process.

This is quite common actually.

There are many bloggers out there who write great content, optimize all of their SEO tags with target terms, post on a consistent schedule but hit a wall when it comes to link building…This makes them and their blog stagnant.

If they just mastered this one link building technique I’m going to share with you below, it could potentially sky rocket their results.

In this post, I want to go over one of the most natural, easiest and ethical ways to build quality backlinks to your website.

So what is the technique I’m talking about?

Guest Posting For Maximum Results!

That’s right, guest posting!

This is as simple as reaching out to other websites/blogs in your general niche and asking them if you could write an article that would be published on their website…which in return would contain your website link within the article, building you a natural backlink.

Other bloggers and website owners are constantly looking for unique and fresh content to put on their websites…and this is where you come in to help out.

There should never really be a shortage of guest post opportunities (unless you’re operating in an extremely specified niche) because every website needs quality and consistent content….Remember content is king!

If you want more information on how to actually get started with guest posting, make sure to check out my article on “What Is Guest Posting?” for more details on the process.

One thing I’d like to point out is that you must remain patient with guest posting and link building in general.

Some of these websites you reach out to may take a little while to respond, or some time to publish your article but if you stick with this approach it WILL be worth it.

On the topic of patience, it’s also important to understand that if/when you do get a guest post published, it will take Google some time to recognize that backlink pointing to your website.

Don’t expect to see the benefits immediately.

Sometimes it can take a few weeks and even months before you really see your hard work pay off.

And I say hard work, because although this is a simple link building technique, it will take a little while to master the process from start to finish.

But when you do, watch out!

Link Building Benefits- Don’t Put This Off

I’ve already mentioned some of the link building benefits above but this will help bring everything full circle.

If you truly master link building and make it a main priority in your marketing efforts, the results can really be exciting.

Let’s take a look at the main benefits of link building below:

1.) Increased Search Rankings:

This to me is the biggest benefits overall of link building. When Google starts recognizing the backlinks pointing to your website, you really start to jump up in the search results. It’s exciting when you start hitting the first page of Google for relevant and highly searched keyword phrases….which brings me to the next benefit.

2.) Increased Organic Traffic:

As a result of higher search rankings, this will ultimately bring your site more organic traffic. I don’t know about you, but organic traffic from the search engines is my favorite traffic source.  It’s free, it’s highly targeted and sky is the limit with how much you can generate.

3.) Strengthens Overall SEO/brings everything together:

Link building strengthens the overall SEO of your website and really brings everything together.  It helps you rank for the keywords you’re targeting in your Title tags, H1 tags, Image ALT tags etc.  It also helps build authority to specific blog posts, web pages and your website in general.

4.) Referral Traffic From Other Sites:

Although not the main benefit, but an added bonus is the referral traffic you could potentially receive from having your article published on another website.  Depending on the popularity of the site, this could bring in a healthy amount of traffic and new readers.

5.) Create New Relationships:

Another great benefit is the relationships you build with other bloggers.  These are people you can possibly work with in the future, share ideas, tactics and strategies with. Networking in this industry is always important, and this is a great way to connect with like-minded people.

To summarize this post, if you master the strategy of link building, your website will thank you for it and respond over time.

This is one of the most important skills you can have in your toolbox when it comes to the organic growth of your blog.

Don’t take this lightly and more importantly get out there are start building some links.

It may feel difficult at first, but stick with it.

And if you need extra support, either contact me or refer to this post here.

What are your thoughts on this?

Have you had success with guest posting?

Have you not even tried yet?

My blog here is currently 1 year and 4 months old and is just now starting to show noticeable signs of improvement in terms of search engine rankings.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term “search engine rankings” or “Google rankings”, this essentially means where you are positioned in the major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. for the keyword phrases you are tracking.

I cannot stress enough that anyone who wants to start a blog, needs to be in this for the long-term!

The majority of people would have quit by the 3-6 month range (and even sooner), if they hadn’t seen any results by then.

But from experience, I know firsthand how common it is to not see results until 6, 12, and even 24 months into your blog or website.

Which is why I keep plugging along.

My first 6 months or so, I saw very little movement in organic traffic and search rankings.

Now that I have a healthy amount of content up, optimized pages and a solid amount of quality backlinks pointing to my website, things are really starting to ramp up.

What’s exciting about this process is that I’m documenting my wins here so you can see exactly what I am doing to get these results.

How To Increase Google Rankings

This latest surge I saw in search rankings has really come down to 4 main areas in my opinion:

1.) Switching my website from http to https– This is crucially important for anyone that owns a website or blog.  Please read my article in the link above to see why. Purchasing an SSL certificate not only offers security, but could give your website a slight boost in Google rankings as well.

2.) Consistent Content Creation– I post at least one article per week to my blog (lately it has been a bit more).  Content creation and generating valuable posts for your audience is key to success.  Content is king and you can really start to experience momentum with the more that you produce (and especially over the long haul).

3.) Optimizing blogs/pages with proper SEO tags and copy– Each and every blog post should contain optimized SEO tags as well as copy.  This will help Google better understand what keywords you are trying to rank for.

4.) Link Building- This really helps bring everything all together as Google loves websites that have quality links pointing to them. The link building I’m talking about here is guest posting, which is a very straightforward process and one of my favorite ways to build quality links (there are many other methods to build backlinks as well- feel free to test away).

The good news is, these four points above can be used for any website/blog as they are universal SEO strategies.

To help make even more sense of this, below is a screenshot of a particular keyword phrase that I’m tracking closely as it’s highly relevant to my blog and has a fairly high search volume.

 

You can see the significant improvement over the past month or so…when comparing say Aug. 31 to Sept. 25th.

In fact, I’ve noticed a similar pattern across most of my keyword phrases that I am tracking.

Again, it’s important to note that you must stick with the process of blogging and the steps I laid out above for months and years to come.

These positive “spikes” in search rankings came after 1 year and 4 months of consistent blogging, optimizing and link building.

That’s not to say I wasn’t seeing results prior to this, because I was (and making sales too)…but the people who realize that this blog will only strengthen over time, see the true power behind this.

So in order to increase your Google rankings you must be consistent in your strategy and patient with your mindset.

This is much more a marathon than a sprint.

Please take the time to implement these SEO techniques for yourself and see how they help your website.

So let me ask you now…

What other SEO strategies have helped your Google Rankings?

Have you seen success with any of the methods laid out above?

If you haven’t started your blog, what are you waiting for?

If you run a blog or website, switching from http to https is highly recommended for various reasons.

Now you may be wondering what a simple switch from http to https can do for your website and if it’s worth going through the effort to implement this.

Let’s just give a quick summary of what exactly this entails so you better understand the benefits of moving to https.

Switching from http to https means you would be buying what is called an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate through your web host or an external source.

Essentially an SSL makes sure that any and all information that is passed between the web server and browsers is both secure and private, which is not the case when your website is of http protocol.

Even though having an SSL installed is not required or mandatory by any means, it is highly recommended as it provides peace of mind to your visitors and can additionally help with the overall SEO of your website.

So the two key benefits here are:

1.) Security: It ensures all sensitive information is private and secure.

2.) SEO Benefit: It may give your website a slight boost in search rankings which in return will help with the overall SEO.

The third benefit is one that I wanted to put separately to give you a specific example using screenshots.

Google Chrome will soon be flagging any http website as “Not secure” in the very near future.  See screenshot below:

Alternatively, if you have an SSL installed and your site is now https, this is what it will look like in Google Chrome.

As you can see in the screenshots above, this could make a HUGE difference in people staying on your site versus leaving.

Most people when they see the “Not Secure” signal will immediately leave your website without a second thought.

This could mean all the difference in the world when it comes to running a successful blog or website.

Seriously, do not take this lightly.

301 Redirects!

Now I want to bring up one more critical point if you plan on making the switch from http to https.

You must ensure that all instances of http are 301 redirected to https.

Many SSL installations will automatically do this for you, however it’s vital that you make sure of this first and work with any support service you can to get this squared away.

If you do not have 301 redirects in place forcing http to the https protocol, you will ultimately have two versions of the website which causes a whole mess of duplicate content issues that can negatively impact your SEO.

Consider yourself warned and make sure 301 redirects are implemented.

I Switched From Http to Https on August 5th, 2017

I will be tracking my progress to see if I notice any significant increases in search rankings and organic traffic, as this is one of the main reasons I made the switch to begin with.

I even created an annotation in my Google Analytics account to represent this transition so I can accurately keep track of any improvements.

Although this blog is still fairly new, I suspect I will be able to make some conclusions as to whether or not this has helped my SEO for my blog.

At the very least I have a more secure website, and that’s okay with me.

I am a true advocate of testing your marketing constantly to see what works and what doesn’t (like switching to https for example).

This is something I will test over the next 6 months or so and report in on any successes I see going forward.

Little tweaks like these can help out big-time in the long run.

If you’re lazy with this kind of stuff, your competition will eat you alive.

I hope this post helped clarify any questions you had about SSL Certificates or maybe even gave you to motivation to go out and get this set up.

So let me ask…Is your website http or https currently?

If you’ve made the switch, what were your results?