How do-i-rank-higher-in-search-engines1

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RANK HIGHER IN
SEARCH ENGINES?
How Do I
Answers to your most common SEO questions

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JOHN BONINI
Marketing Director
@bonini84
CARLY STEC
Content Marketing Manager
@carly_stec

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Intro 5
How does Google search work? 7
How long does it take Google to index my new website/article? 9
What is “crawling” as it relates to Google? 11
What is “indexing” as it relates to Google? 13
Does the age of my domain matter? 15
How do inbound links affect our SEO? 17
TABLE
of
CONTENTS

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What is on-page SEO? 19
What are title tags? 21
How many times should I use a specific keyword in a blog article? 23
What is “keyword stuffing”? 25
How much does duplicate content hurt my search rankings? 27
Is the SEO plugin included on my CMS enough to rank high in search results. 29
Does Google+ have any affect on my search rankings? 31
How do I remove content from Google’s search results? 33
What are Google’s most important search ranking factors? 35

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The biggest determining factor in achieving success online is getting found.
Without visibility and proper distribution, your efforts are more or less wasted.
This is why, for better or worse, marketers and business owners have essentially become
slaves to search engine optimization (SEO).
Problem is, most don’t fully understand how it even works. This results in bad practice,
frustrated marketers, and even harmful effects to your search engine rankings.
This is why we’ve collected some of the most common questions as they relate to SEO
and included answers from some of the most reliable sources on the web.
We know the rules of SEO can seem foreign to many business owners. It’s our goal to
make it a little less confusing.
INTRO

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SO STOP GUESSING,
& START RANKING.

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HOW DOES GOOGLE SEARCH WORK?
A: “When a user enters a query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the
results we believe are the most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one
of which is the PageRank for a given page. PageRank is the measure of the importance of a page
based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link to a page on your site from
another site adds to your site’s PageRank. Not all links are equal: Google works hard to improve the
user experience by identifying spam links and other practices that negatively impact search results.
The best types of links are those that are given based on the quality of your content.” (Source: Google)
Question

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THE QUALITY OF YOUR CONTENT
The best types of links are those that are given based on

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HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE GOOGLE TO
INDEX MY NEW WEBSITE/ARTICLE?
A: “Crawling and indexing are processes which can take some time and which rely
on many factors. In general, we cannot make predictions or guarantees about when
or if your URLs will be crawled or indexed. When looking at a site’s indexing in
Webmaster Tools, make sure that you have both the “www” and the “non-www”
versions (like “www.example.com” and “example.com”) verified and have a set a
preferred domain. Keep in mind that while a Sitemap file can help us learn about
your site, it does not guarantee indexing or increase your site’s ranking.”
(Source: Google)
Question

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From our experience, it can take several days, or perhaps even several months for
Google to index your content. This is reliant on a multitude of factors, including the
age of your site domain (newer websites take longer to index) as well as the authority
your current website and/or content has. The amount of traffic currently generated
by your website directly affects your authority. The more website visitors you have,
the more authority your domain has.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU

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WHAT IS “CRAWLING” AS IT
RELATES TO GOOGLE?
A: “Crawling is the process by which Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to
the Google index.
We use a huge set of computers to fetch (or “crawl”) billions of pages on the web. The program
that does the fetching is called Googlebot (also known as a robot, bot, or spider). Googlebot uses an
algorithmic process: computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many
pages to fetch from each site.
Google’s crawl process begins with a list of web page URLs, generated from previous crawl processes,
andaugmentedwithSitemapdataprovidedbywebmasters.AsGooglebotvisitseachofthesewebsites
it detects links on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New sites, changes to existing
sites, and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index.” (Source: Google)
Question

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Not much, really. Unless you decide to remove your content from search results, your
pages will be crawled and indexed by Google and other search engines.

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WHAT IS “INDEXING” AS IT
RELATES TO GOOGLE?
A: “Googlebot processes each of the pages it crawls in order to compile a massive index of all the
words it sees and their location on each page. In addition, we process information included in key
content tags and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes. Googlebot can process many, but
not all, content types. For example, we cannot process the content of some rich media files or dynamic
pages.” (Source: Google)
Question

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Make sure your title tags, alt tags, and other key elements of your pages are fully
optimized for the keywords you’re looking to rank for.

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DOES THE AGE OF MY DOMAIN MATTER?
A: Like most answers provided by Google, this answer can seem a little ambiguous to
some. Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google, answers this question here.
Hearing Cutts use phrases like “not to worry too much” and “the difference between
a domain that’s six months old versus one year old is really not that big at all” means
it’s clear that, however small, there is a difference.
Question

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If you’re launching a new website, it could take time in order to gain traction in search
engines. Don’t get discouraged. Plan in advance for this. In most cases, older domains
will have greater authority, as they’ve had more time to accrue inbound links and
have more pages indexed.

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HOW DO INBOUND LINKS AFFECT
OUR SEO?
A: Inbound links are one of the top ranking factors in Google’s determination of
your Page Rank. These are when other websites and domains contain links that drive
people to your website. It could be a mention of your product or service, or simply
a reference to any content published through your website. Because inbound links
are perhaps Google’s most important ranking factor, they can have a significantly
positive impact on your overall search rankings.
Question

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There are no shortcuts here: the only way to get more inbound links is to create content
that’s worth sharing and referencing. Blogging on a consistent basis gives you the
greatest opportunity to generate more inbound links, as the more pages you publish,
the more opportunity there is for others to link to it on their own websites.

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WHAT IS ON-PAGE SEO?
A: “On-Page factors are the aspects of a given web page that influence search engine ranking.”
(Source: MOZ)
The main on-page SEO factors that affect your search engine rankings are:
• Content of the page
• Title tag (See “what are title tags?”)
• URL
• Image alt text
Question

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Every page of your website should have a clear goal in regards to its purpose and what
you’re trying to rank for. Ensure every element of each web page is optimized with the
relevant keywords necessary to meet these goals.

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WHAT ARE TITLE TAGS?
A: “Title tags—technically called title elements—define the title of a document. Title tags are
often used on search engine results pages (SERPs) to display preview snippets for a given page,
and are important both for SEO and social sharing.
The title element of a web page is meant to be an accurate and concise description of a page’s
content. This element is critical to both user experience and search engine optimization. It creates
value in three specific areas: relevancy, browsing, and in the search engine results pages.”
(Source: Moz)
Question

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Ensure each page of your website is accurately portrayed in the title tag. From an SEO
standpoint, you’ll also want to make sure that each page’s title tag is optimized for
the content it contains.
For instance, rather than simply using “Home” as the title tag for your website’s
homepage, use a title tag that reflects the product or service your company offers.

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HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD I USE A
SPECIFIC KEYWORD IN A BLOG ARTICLE?
A: While this is more of an inexact science, the general rule of thumb is to include
specific keywords no more than five times in a standard blog post. Anything else
can be considered spammy to the reader and negatively impact the user experience.
Google even warns against “repeating the same words or phrases so often that it
sounds unnatural.”
Question

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Avoid including keywords more than five times simply for the sake of including
them to increase SEO value. This can actually detract from your efforts, as Google
penalizes for “keyword stuffing.”

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WHAT IS KEYWORD STUFFING?
A: Google defines keyword stuffing as “the practice of loading a webpage with keywords
or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results. Often these
keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with
keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking.”
Question

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Create helpful content that speaks to the needs of your audience. Include keywords in an
appropriate manner and within context of the article. The general rule of thumb among
marketers is to keep mentions of a specific keyword to around five in any blog post.

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HOW MUCH DOES DUPLICATE CONTENT
HURT MY SEARCH RANKINGS?
A: “In some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to
manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Deceptive practices like this can
result in a poor user experience, when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated
within a set of search results.
In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent
to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we’ll also make appropriate adjustments
in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may
suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no
longer appear in search results.”
(Source Google)
Question

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While Google defines duplicate content as a “deceptive practice aimed to manipulate
search rankings,” there doesn’t have to be malicious intent on the part of the marketer
for there to be consequences. For instance, many companies are simply looking to
fill slots on their company blog, so they feature blog posts from other publications
in an effort to publish more content and generate more traffic. Because of Google’s
guidelines on duplicate content, this can actually have an adverse effect.
If you’re serious about driving more traffic to your website and improving your search
rankings, then you also need to be serious about creating original
content on a consistent basis.

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IS THE SEO PLUGIN INCLUDED ON MY
CMS ENOUGH TO RANK HIGH IN
SEARCH RESULTS?
A: Platforms like HubSpot and WordPress offer their own plugins that enable
users to optimize each page in accordance to SEO best practices. However, because
most modern platforms and blog software include this feature, it’s inaccurate to
assume that the plugin alone will boost you to the top of search results. In fact,
many of these plugins focus solely on keyword placement and density and ignore
some of the more complex factors that more recent Google algorithm updates
have employed.
Question

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Unfortunately, most plugins focus on keyword density and also where they should be
included. Google’s algorithm, however, has continued to get smarter and more complex
with each new update, focusing more on how conversational your titles and content are
in relation to a user’s search queries. This means density and having an exact phrase
listed word-for-word is less important, while clearly answering a specific query in
your content has become even more important. Focus on natural conversation, not
stuffing keywords wherever they fit.

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DOES GOOGLE+ HAVE ANY EFFECT ON
MY SEARCH RANKINGS?
A: THERE ARE TWO PARTS TO THIS ANSWER.
Question
First, just like any other web page, a Google+
company page or profile will perform well in
search as long as it is optimized using best
practices. This means including links in
your profile, optimizing your G+ title tags,
sharing new content consistently, etc. So in
this case, G+ doesn’t necessarily affect your
search engine rankings any more than a
normal web page would.
However, when it comes to social
networking, Google+ has a bit of an
advantage.Facebook,forinstance,prevents
Google from crawling most of its content.
(None of the tech giants like sharing data
with each other.) This means that Google+
pages have a clear advantage when it
comes to outranking Facebook pages. The
problem is, there’s far more content being
published and shared on Facebook, so it’s
unclear if there’s any real advantage.

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Don’t post to Google+ because of some preconceived notion that it greatly affects
your search rankings. Post to Google+ only if it makes sense for your business.
There are no shortcuts to the top of the search engines, not even by using platforms
created by Google itself.

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HOW DO I REMOVE CONTENT FROM
GOOGLE’S SEARCH RESULTS?
A: “You can put a noindex meta tag on a page, a noindex X-Robots-Tag in the header,
password-protect that page, or return a 404 or 410 HTTP status code. After we recrawl the
page, it will naturally drop out of our index after a while. If you need to urgently remove
content, you can use our URL removal tool to request removal of URLs or cached pages from
Google’s search results.”
(Source: Google)
Question

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Formarketers,protectingyourthank-youpagesisnotonlyrecommended,it’snecessary
if you wish to sustain your lead generating efforts. If your thank-you pages are easily
discoverable on search engine results pages, you’re missing out on opportunities to
capture valuable contact information. Essentially visitors will be able to access your
lead generating offers without having to pass through the “gate” that visitors who come
across the content via the corresponding landing page would. While Google suggests
including a noindex meta tag, or a noindex x-Robots-Tag, we’ve found that the first
option requires a lot less technical proficiency. Simply place this little snippet of code
<META NAME=”robots” CONTENT=”noindex”> in the <head> section of your page’s
HTML and you can rest assure that your thank-you pages will be safe and sound.

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WHAT ARE GOOGLE’S MOST IMPORTANT
SEARCH RANKING FACTORS?
A: WhenmarketersthinkofSEO,they’reusuallythinkingofsearchterms,keyword
density, and on-page best practices for optimizing their content. However, these
aren’t even the most important factors in determining where your website ranks.
The chart below, compiled by Moz, is the result of a survey of 120 search experts on
the most important search ranking factors.
Question
(i.e. How they determine where you rank.)

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As you can see, it’s not just about keyword placement and density. Inbound links
from authoritative domains and social shares carry far more weight in determining
your website’s search ranking. What does this mean? Focus more on creating great
content that others can’t help but share and reference on their own websites. You’ve
heard it before, but quality content is the most effective optimization tool, as people
don’t share content because of keyword density. They share because it’s great.

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What you can expect:
• A 30 minute phone conversation with one of our consultants
• An evaluation of your current marketing strategy
• An analysis of your website
• Suggestions for improvement
REQUEST YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
impactbnd.com/getstarted
More than anything, we want to find out what’s holding you back from achieving your
business goals. We’d like to fully understand your current marketing strategy, the challenges
your company is facing, and most importantly, determine what we can do to help.
Let us walk you through how inbound marketing can transform your business, and why it’s
the proven method for doing business online.
Let’s talk about your marketing. We’re really great listeners.

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