Affiliate Marketing - What is SEO? The Ultimate Guide for Webmasters

Here to learn about all of the aspects of SEO? Well, before I get into that, I want to give you an overview of what is SEO marketing, how it works, and why you should care in the first place.

What is SEO?

What is SEO in digital marketing: SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and in its simple form, SEO is the process of improving your site to help increase its visibility so that it can be found by more of your intended target audience.

Typically, this would be the people who are looking for information in your niche who are searching on a search engine such as Google.

In essence, the more visibility the pages of your site has in Google, the more chance your website is going to gain attention and clicks, and eventually those posts can turn these eyes into paying customers.

There are different ways you can use SEO to help increase your visibility on Google.

These ‘ways’ are what I’m going to cover in this very article on SEO, so stay tuned.

How does SEO work?

Search engines, like the popular Google or Bing, use bots to crawl pages on the web, these bots collect information continuously on almost all sites and put them together into an index; think of it as a big digital library.

The algorithms analyze these pages and take into account specific ranking factors (which you can learn about later on this site) to determine which pages should be at the top and which pages should be at the bottom.

This depends on what search query has been entered into the search engine of course.

Essentially, if someone wanted to find ‘how many legs does a horse have’ any and all pages that have this information will be ranked against each other, and the one Google or whatever search engine they’re using, determines to be the best, will show up first.

Google and other search engines want to give their users the best experience possible, so they will always rank the best page first, to ensure they can get the information they were looking for as soon as possible.

This is an important factor to consider when creating content for your site.

As you want to use their ranking system to your advantage by doing all the things they want you to do so that you too can rank high for whatever search terms you want.

Ensuring that your website becomes a success and generates the clicks views and money you hoped it could.

Should you care about SEO?

You’re probably here, on this site, reading this article because you run a website of your own.

Whether that site’s primary monetization method is selling products through e-commerce or by generating funds from affiliate links; you’re going to need real people to come to your page if you want to see any financial success.

And one of the best ways to do this; essentially a free way to do this; is through the use of SEO.

So yes, you should absolutely care about SEO and use it to your advantage.

If you’re not catering your site and its content to the niche you’re trying to sell to, by finding search queries your audience is looking for and helping to solve these problems through creating informative articles (just like this one), you’re practically leaving free money on the table.

The alternative to getting traffic from organic SEO is paid traffic, but that's for another day.

This very article will give you all the information you need to know to start generating long-term money with your website and allow you to achieve your financial dreams by using SEO.

The Core Elements of SEO: On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO

How many types of SEO? There are two core types of SEO: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

Content is the most important type of on page SEO since it helps you rank higher on SERPs and can be done for absolutely free! The best way to do this is by incorporating keywords into your content and pages, by constantly writing high-quality content for your readers to get their teeth into as well as making things like metatags and titles as keyword-rich as you possible can.

Off-page SEO involves optimizing outside of your website, such as earning backlinks. This aspect takes time and cannot be cheated (buying links) since it's hard to build relationships when you’re on a relativity new webmaster, but you can achieve this by creating content that people want to share - this aspect of SEO is crucial for your success.

I will explain the types of SEO on-page and off-page is this article, so keep on reading.

SEO Strategies of Note: Black Hat vs. White Hat

Just like the two different core elements of SEO, there are two different strategies you can opt for when doing any sort of SEO on and off your website - they are black hat and white hat SEO.

Using black hat SEO tactics to rank quickly is often described as going for quick gains. People who practice black hat SEO employ tactics such as keyword stuffing and link scraping.

On the other hand, In order to build a sustainable online business, you should use white hat as your SEO strategy of choice. When you implement white hat SEO, you will focus on your human audience; providing the best while still fulfilling what the Google algorithm wants of you.

SEO Marketing Basics: Everything you should know

Content is King of the SEO Digital Marketing World

You’ve no doubt heard it before, “Content is King” and even though it’s repeated by me and everyone other SEO marketing expert online, it is completely true - the content you produce can significantly affect whether or not your dinky little money site is going to make any skrilla at all.

And because of this, I want to cover this aspect of search engine marketing first.

Whenever you search for something on Google, it tries to give you the best results as it possibly can.

Let’s say you’ve entered “How to make tuna pasta bake?” into Google, it’s going to throw the best results your way.

It won’t show you things like simple recipes, or websites where you can get the frozen alternative. Nope. It’s going to show you exactly what you’re looking for.

This is because Google is always trying to deliver you the best possible results, to give you the best possible experience - so you’re satisfied with using their services and won’t use another search engine.

From an SEO perspective, this means you’re going to need to put a ton of work into your content, creating work that Google is going to actively want to show to its users as it helps to answer a question they have.

Don’t skimp on quality

Once upon a time, you would post a piece of content, stuff all your SEO keywords in, and voila you got the number one spot.

Slightly unrelated, here is a little SEO joke for you that pretty much sums these times up:

“And SEO consultant works into a bar, a restaurant, a pub, a gaf, a table, a chair, and a stool.”

Jokes aside, you’ll need to come up with much better copywriting SEO content if you want to get on top of Google’s search engine results pages. But don’t worry about coming up with this content on your own though, you can piggyback off of other people’s hard work if you just increase the quality by 1%.

I’m piggybacking off a certain SEO nerd whose name rhymes with ‘steal’ with this very post. ; )

The bottom line of being an SEO blog writer is that it needs to solve the problem the user came to your website for; if not, sure you get 1 more view, but they’ll leave quickly which will let Google know your website isn’t up to scratch and you can kiss goodbye to your SERP result.

Make sure you fit the intent

Writing content to use a particular keyword is all fine and well, but if it doesn’t match the intent of the search then it’s never going to be liked by the user or the search engine which means you’ve wasted your time and you’ve got nothing to show for it.

So, when it comes to SEO content marketing, you need to understand the intention behind the keyword search in the first place, that way you can cater your content towards answering the question properly - thus providing the user with the information they want/need and you’ll get your precious ranking.

Keep things as fresh as possible

Posting new content is the only way to signal to Google that your blog is full of fresh content, but there are plenty of things you can do with your content to keep things as fresh as possible WITHOUT damaging your current rankings.

I won’t get into it here, but in most cases, it can be a bad idea to touch a piece of content that is already doing well for you in terms of SEO.

BUT if there are new statistics you need to add, or links that you need to fix, then ignore this little ‘rule’ and go sort that out - this also lets Google know that you’re still worthy of the top spots on their SERPs since the piece of content is still providing a good user experience.

Helpful tips for creating quality content

With all this new information, I want to give you some digestible points on how to produce quality content for your blog:

Produce a customer avatar: Sure, you’re probably not an eCommerce brand, so this may seem a little silly BUT it’s still useful to know how your audience is so you can figure out how to better cater your content towards them.
Understand user intent: Following on from the last point, you need to figure out why people are coming to your blog in the first place, so you can create content they’re going to love.
Break up your text: Much like you see on this page, break up your text when you’re writing content - people have short attention spans, so cater towards this.
Talk like they talk: You’re going to want to position yourself in a way that makes them feel you understand them, talk as if you are THEM. For example, if your niche uses any certain phrases or they speak academically, then write accordingly.

Keyword Research and what to choose

I’ve just briefly touched on keyword research, and it will ultimately dictate the entire direction of your website including the sort of content you’re going to be creating for it.

Firstly I want to let it be known that keyword research never ends, from the moment your website is born you’re going to be doing research right up until its final breath. This is because you need to keep up with the industry trends and in general, always be on top of your keyword profile so your competitors aren’t stealing placements from you.

Doing all of this will help you with your SEO ranking on the Google SERPs by making sure you’re always pumping out relevant SEO copywriting content, whether you’re doing local SEO or on a much wider scale.

The Aspects of Keyword Selection

There is a lot more that goes into figuring out what your SEO writing content is going to look like than just simply looking at your keyword research tool and dumping every keyword you see into your content.

You need to understand things like competitiveness and the intent behind it; so you can produce the correct content which includes the keywords for SEO you’ve found.

Confused? Here is an article that can help; What is a keyword in SEO?

How to choose the right keywords

Trust me, this isn’t complicated, it’s all common sense - you’ll understand it after you read the following example:

Let’s say you’ve got an SEO company, and you run consulting services that could cost someone $20,000 over one year.

You probably don’t want to put your effort into ranking for keywords like ‘free keyword consulting’ simply because you’re going to be attracting an audience that is looking for free stuff!

Sure, your Google Analytics numbers are going brrrrr (up) like the Governments money printer, but it’s all for nothing because they are not the right audience for your content.

So, rank for things that actually make sense - doing this will put you far in front of SEO marketers in your space.

Competition Analysis

You’ve selected the right keywords and you’re ready to write for SEO purposes that match the search intent of the users and finally bring in some traffic to your website…but wait…there is something else you need to do!

You need to analyze your competition.

No doubt, you’ll have keywords on your list that have 1000’s of searches every month, but this might be all for nothing if your competition is way too much for your dinky little money site.

It could take you years upon years and plenty of $$$ to get backlinks coming your way before you even hit the front page of the SERPs.

But how do you know if a keyword is too competitive?

Well just like everything, it takes a little common sense. If you go search one of your keywords right now and the websites that are ranking for them are popular websites like Social sites, New outlets, eCommerce stores, etc then your chances of ranking are slim.

But if you see new blogs that don’t look like they’ve been around for too long, then you have a great chance at taking the number 1 spot for yourself!

Keyword search tools like UbserSuggests are of great use when you’re looking to find longtail volumes and competitiveness.

Tips for selecting the right keywords for your blog

Here are my tips on how you can better conduct keyword research:

Use tools to help: You can’t effectively do keyword research on your own, so don’t. Use keyword tools to help - there are plenty out there. Things like Ubersuggests and Ahrefs (if you have the money for it) will give you plenty of insight.
Understand semantic keywords: you don’t need every variation of a keyword to get ranked - Google algorithm has come a long way and it can now rank you for words that are similar to your main keyword.
Learn the intent: I’ve said it many times already, but it’s worth reiterating; make sure you understand the intent behind the search before you incorporate the keyword into your content. Understanding this will allow you to better cater to your content and be favored by Google.
Don’t forget to spy on your competition: The best way to do keyword research is to simply see what your competitors are targeting and to do the same…but better.
And don’t overthink it: Keyword is important, to get me wrong, but if you rabbit hole too much on your keyword research, you’re never going to get to the part which actually matters: producing the content and making sure your website can get ranked.

Let’s Talk: HTML

“Oh no, coding” you might be thinking to yourself, and whilst HTML is exactly that, you do not need any coding knowledge to do the HTML part of SEO.

With that being said, you need things like tags, headers, and descriptions all done correctly if you want to make sure Google knows exactly what you’re talking about; they won’t consider you when ranking websites on SERPs otherwise.

And this should put a smile on your face: changing HTML from an SEO perspective is a simple copy and paste job.

Elements of SEO

Let’s break down the aspects of HTML from an SEO specialists point of view.

Title Tags

The title tag is what displays at the top of your browser as well as what is going to be shown if your webpage appears on the Google search engine.

You get about 60 characters of space, so use it wisely.

This is your opportunity to not only tell Google what the page is all about, but it is also your chance to convince someone that they should click your page over someone else’s - you need to construct the title tag based on the user intent.

There is a lot of magic that goes into this title tag, which you’ll unravel when you continuously test, but as a rule of thumb: make sure to at the very least include your keyword.

Meta Description

The meta description is the area just below the title tag - Here is the second and final chance you have to tell the searcher what your content is all about; keyword optimizing this section is a must and just like your title, you’ve got limited space. 160 characters to be exact, so use it wisely!

Schema

Schema is a collaboration of several search engines, on its most basic level it’s a subset of specific HTML tags that allow you to improve the way your result appears on the SERPs

For example, if you look at the below screenshot, the webmaster has used Scheme to help show the Google rating of their services. You might think of it as nothing, but it definitely allows the result to stand out from the rest and give even more info to the searcher - something Google loves.

Tip: Using Schema can be a little fiddly, so make sure you test your page to make sure it runs smoothly or you’ll do more damage than good.

Subheadings

Subheadings are important, especially your H1, for the same reasons your title and meta descriptions are; they are another opportunity for you to add your keywords and let the world know what content is to follow.

Making use of H2, H3, H4’s is also as crucial; it possesses another opportunity for you to add your keywords as well as allowing you to further navigate people through your content - they don’t need to read everything on the page to find the information they need, they can just skip to the heading that works for them.

Alt Text

Alt-text is attached to every image on a webpage; you’re going to be ahead of the competition if you actually add something between these tags as many people are too lazy to do it.

The true purpose of alt text is so that the search engine can verbally despicable the image to people who are visually impaired - so when you add alt text to your image, make sure you’re describing the image as best as you can AND this is also another opportunity to add keywords.

URL Slug

Going back to our helpful image from the SERPs, you’ll see a URL aka the URL slug, which again is another place Google looks when they are trying to figure out what your content is about.

And guess what? This is another area where you can insert your keyword.

5 Tips on making the right HTML improvement on your blog

Tools are your friend: I’ve said it before but SEO tools will help you identify the problems you might have missed, especially if you’re running things solo it can be a huge task to make these small but crucial HTML edits.
Look at your competition: Don’t completely rip off their content but if you’re struggling to figure the wording out for these HTML tags, then you should see what your competitor is doing and draw inspiration from that.
Clear writing over keyword stuffing: Keywords are important as you can tell the crawlers what your webpage is all about, but if it doesn’t read properly, Google isn’t going to like it. So if it comes down to sacrificing keyword space to give a better user experience, then so be it.
Don’t get lazy: I’ll be honest, the first couple of times you do this, the fun will subside and you’ll get sick of looking at HTML tags - but trust me, it’s worth your time and soon your rankings will reflect this.
Always be updating: Keywords will die off and some will flourish like flowers in the spring. Point is, you should always be experimenting with the keywords you’re using to make sure you’re on top of current trends in your niche.

Site structure

Site structure is another important aspect of SEO, if your visitors don’t enjoy the time they’ve spent on your website, Google will know about it and your website will be smashed down in the rankings

Focusing on things like fast loading times, safe connections, intuitive design, and most importantly as the years go on: mobile-friendliness.

Ideally, this would have all been thought up before you even bought your domain, but sometimes this doesn’t happen - which is fine - you might be hearing all of this for the first time, and it’s never too late to reorganize your website for the better!

Beyond just reading the next couple of headings to see what you should be doing, look at your competitors’ websites; Backward engineer what makes their website so great, and copy it!

Elements of good Site Structure

So, if you’re an SEO writer struggling to understand the architecture side of your website, then look no further than the below sections which will help you optimize your website for SEO!

Crawlers have easy access

You’ve no doubt seen the world crawl a lot ever since you got into SEO, and to put it simply; crawling just means the Google bots are going through your site and figuring out what it ‘is’. The ‘is’ part is things like the keywords you’re using, diagnosing any site issues it finds, and then using these parts to determine the identity of the website and what ranking it should have.

It all comes down to how easily they can index things; if they can index things well then they will report a good result, which will help you to get ranked on their SERPs much easier.

One of the ways you can make Google’s little bots’ lives so much easier is by creating a sitemap that will contain all of the pages you want crawling; making things as easy as possible for Google.

Duplicate Content

There are plenty of arguments about duplicate content and how it can affect your overall rankings on your website, but let me give you the gist: Duplicate content is not a completely bad thing - in most cases.

If you’ve got to copy statistics, thoughts, or opinions from another website to help back up claims you’re making in an article (and of course linking back to these same places) then although this as duplicate content, you’re not going to be penalized for it since you did it with good intention.

However, if you take a post from a website, and just paste it on your own website - then yes you’re going to be penalized.

There are also instances where you’re going to have content syndication due to your CMS where the original is posted elsewhere as part of the overarching strategy for SEO. As long as this is done the right way, then you won’t be penalized. This is also known as a ‘canonical issue’ that might be affecting your website already.

Mobile Friendliness

Mobile usage is ever-increasing, so much so Google indexes the website’s mobile design first. It has become one of the key signals Google takes into account when they’re deciding to rank your website.

Because of this, it is important to keep up with what’s going on, on the Mobile side of things on your website, which can be easily seen on your Google Search Console, just like below:

If you see any issues, then drop everything you’re doing and fix them right away.

Page Speed

Now, this is one all of us can understand whether we’re SEO veterans are just simple users of the web. There is so much emphasis on Page speed and usability from Google’s point of view, so much so you’ll be penalized if your website runs too slow or certain elements of a page don’t load right away.

Just like finding out about mobile-friendliness, your Google Search Console is the place you want to be to find out how your website is doing; a great place to figure out where your websites stands on other technical SEO aspects too.

You can also run your website through PageSpeed Insights, a great search engine optimization tool from Google, to get a more in-depth look at how things load from a user point of view.

HTTPS and SSL

Security and safety are also important factors. If Google thinks you’re a spammy website or you’re simply set up to take people’s personal information, you can wave goodbye to your rankings.

One way they filter out these sketchy sites is by taking note of their SSL certificates and HTTPS. It’s fairly simple to set these up, and you’ll know you have done when you see the little lock next to your URL string.

While this doesn’t help to provide any sort of SEO juice, it is an important signal to take advantage of + people will trust your website much more.

4 Tips to help improve your site’s architecture

As always, I want to give you some tips that you can keep at the front of your mind when it comes to thinking about site architecture.

Understanding the Core Web Vitals: Although I haven’t touched on this as a whole, I have done so partly - Core Web Vitals is the largest piece of the puzzle you’re going to need to figure out first. Knowing what they are and how they affect your rankings will be the difference between sinking or swimming in the SEO ocean.
Set up your sitemap: Sitemaps allow you to place all of your pages into categories so the crawlers have an easier time scanning your site, without you need to put much effort in - if you’re using a WordPress site, then get the plugin! If you’ve built it from the ground up, there are plenty of sitemap generators you can use.
Fix those canonicalization issues: I’ve already mentioned this, but I want to reiterate its importance here; fix your duplicate content issues! It could be as simple as removing a line of code or rebuilding your entire site, whatever it is, do it - it’s going to play a huge part in how your SEO blog is perceived by Google.
Always be thinking about the mobile user: The fact is since you’re building your website from your desktop/laptop, it is easy to see things from this viewpoint only - but as we already know, mobile usage is getting more and more popular which means it becoming more and more important for you to have a website that functions crisply for a mobile user.

Trust

PageRank, developed by the brilliant minds at Google is not the only thing that you should be looking at when you’re trying to figure out how Google sees your website - Trust is getting ever increasingly important with each update the algorithm is hit with. TrustRank is one of the ways Google can see whether or not you’re worth their time, or you’re just another obscure and spammy site trying to get some easy SEO rankings.

Elements of Trust on Your Website

Let’s talk about the elements of Trust, and what you can do about these signals.

Authority

There are two SEO types of authority you should concern yourself with; Domain authority and Page authority.

Here is a better description of both of these aspects:

Domain Authority: This is based on the widespread domain of your name (brand). For example, a website like Facebook.com is authoritative because the entire world has heard of it.
Page Authority: Relating to how authoritative a particular page is, this is based on things like; incoming links, outgoing links, visitors.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is simple; it’s the measure of how many people view only one single page on your website before leaving the website.

From Google’s point of view, if your website is right for its audience, then you’re going to have people sticking around to read more - if they’re doing this, then they’ll put more trust in your website because you’re delivering exactly what people want.

Of course, it’s not only about your content that affects this number - things like loadings timeless and usability all affect the bounce rate of a user, so make sure you have all of these in order alongside your content.

Domain Age

For whatever reason, they naturally trust someone who is older than use and this same thinking is reflected in how Google’s algorithm trusts sites on the internet.

If a website has been around for a while producing content = they are to be trusted, especially when it has held top SERP rankings for a while due to the content they’ve been putting out.

Tips to Help Build Trust

Here are some helpful tips when it comes to building trust on the Google Search Engine.

Patience is a virtue in SEO: Unfortunately, you can’t speed up the age of your website, unless you had a time machine. The fact is, Google isn’t in any hurry to rank your site, so do what you need to do and then sit tight.
Give your audience what they want: Don’t just try to snatch easy rankings to bring an audience in, make sure you’re catering content so that they actually stick around - giving you good bounce rate numbers and consuming some of your more brilliant content.

Let’s talk Links

The importance of link profiles is debated constantly in every SEO corner on the internet, some believe that they are the most important factor and others believe they’re not as important as content.

When it comes to link building, there is very much a wrong and a right way to go about things; a long-term plan should be your go-to choice since although it will take longer, it will be much more beneficial to you down the line. Not to mention you can avoid being penalized than if you were to go the other route.

The Elements of Link Building

As usual, let’s talk over some of the important aspects of link building and how to get a good profile built up.

Link quality

Whilst links might not be everything, the quality of the link is definitely the most important thing. It matters waaaay more than the number of links you have directing towards a website; building these links is about reaching out to the right people in your niche and offering value in exchange for a high-quality link.

There are many ways to go about link building, so it pays to know how to do it - so Google can pay you dividends when you do so.

So, how do you identify a good link?

First things first, the website you’re getting the link from needs to be relevant; the website needs to be a part of your niche or at least related to it so the link makes sense to Google. On top of this, the website, ideally, would have plenty of authority and plenty of traffic so you can actually gain some real value.

You will get most of your links naturally by just producing good content, but you can write for other blogs to get them - you provide value in return for your precious SEO link.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text which is used to ‘advertise’ the link, just like you’ve seen throughout this article and any others you’ve read on the internet. The goal is to make this text feel as natural as possible whilst being relevant to whatever it is you’re linking out too but you need to keep them varied.

Essentially, you want to tell Google, as clear as possible, what you’re linking out to - and of course, so the reader can understand it clearly too.

Number of Links

I’ve already touched on this, but the number of links matters as well this number needs to be built on over time - Google notices when you’ve been linked to and if you jump from 0 to 100 too fast, they’ll know it.

You also want these links pointing to the right place. This should be towards a product you know is a hot seller or to a piece of content, you know many people are going to love. And if you’re not sure where to link to, the home or blog page is always a safe bet.

A Few Tips to help improve your Link Profile

Let’s condense down what you’ve just learned…

Don’t cut corners: The link-building strategy is this; make great content and you’ll get links in return. There are ways you can get links, which I won’t talk about here, that go against Google terms that you’ll definitely get punished for if you even try, so don’t. Be patient, create great content and always be networking.
Just like SEO, link building never ends: There is always a better link you can grab or a broken link you can fix - just like SEO, your link-building profile should always be growing so you can take advantage of new opportunities and always stay on top.
Don’t forget about internal linking: Backlinks and backlinking are all important aspects of your link profile, but making sure you’re pointing to your own content in the form of internal linking is just important. You have the ability to direct traffic around your website, helping to keep people on your blog.
Remove bad links: Just like you’re adding links around your website, you’re going to want to remove links that are going to affect your link profile poorly - links that are irrelevant or that point to sites that are malicious should be removed immediately.

Personal

Personal factors are the next off-page SEO factor worth considering. Personally relevant factors include demographics and location. While these factors immediately affect how people react to your content, your SEO efforts are also different depending on your location.

Even though most of these factors are beyond your control, there are a few actions you can take to increase your chances of reaching a specific audience.

Elements of Personal SEO factors

Personal SEO is impacted by the following factors:

Country

The word "can" has different meanings in different countries. Someone searching for it in the U.K will see a can of pop (or soda as you may know it as elsewhere) , while someone in the U.S. may literally just see a can.

The way you get around this issue is that you include the countries as keywords in your writing, naturally of course.

But first, ask yourself whether it's worth it to go multinational. Competition levels are different from country to country. Remember how keyword selection is largely determined by how the competition is already performing?

Google UK is going to have a different competition to Google USA, Google Canda, Google Brazil, etc. Make sure you focus on these specific language differences as it might open your website to ranking for other native languages, allowing you to increase your reach.

I’ve noticed that creating multilingual content is one of the easiest quick wins in SEO. However, doing it well isn’t easy. The majority of translation plugins that you’ll find on WordPress aren’t very good; promising to translate your content writing SEO naturally, but looks anything but.

There is an alternative; paying someone to do it for you - whilst its money directing coming out of your pocket, you will be opening yourself up to a larger part of your niche, which could x10 your traffic and in turn, your profit.

City

Using city names as keywords helps, but don't lock yourself into a corner, especially if you go down to the city level when geo-targeting. You’ll convince Google that you’re only a local authority, which isn’t going to be good for the scope of your website.

Although, if your company deals primarily in the local market, and you're a local authority, then you should take advantage of this local SEO opportunity.

3 Tips to improve the personal Factors of your content

Understand who your customer is: Personal SEO is all about understanding who your customer is, so you can target them properly. There are plenty of avatar spreadsheets out there you could use, but here are a couple of questions you should be asking yourself to help build a better image if your ideal audience:
- What does your customer want?
- Why would they be looking for you?
- Why should they choose you over a competitor?
- What do they expect from you?
Product multilingual content: It isn’t as hard as you think; just pay a native to do it for you instead of using a barley function plugin on WordPress.
Don’t forget to do your research: It's all good having a multilingual website, but make sure you’ve done your research so you know it's worth your money/time and you can actually reach the people you intend to.

Last but not least, let's talk about the social aspects of off-page SEO. Besides social signals from the search engines, you can rank higher on social media by performing well there.

There are two main areas I want to look at:

Number of Shares

The more shares the better when it comes to using social media to your advantage; getting you the rankings your website deserves.

Seeing one of your posts go viral is a dream to any marketer, regardless of the niche you find yourself in - but it’s overrated, kinda.

Don’t get obsessed with going viral, just produce content that your audience is going to love and your social shares will begin to grow naturally.

But don’t just think if numbers go up, it's better for you - you don’t want to post content just because you think it's going to get you traction - posting content where you’re promising people free money will get you short-term gain in terms of traffic, but it will give you long-term pain as these number will drop-off hard when they realize that’s not what your website is all about.

And on top of that, you’re just making a bad name for yourself in the space.

It’s all about balance, make sure you’re producing content so you can get the right people coming to your website in herds.

Quality of Shares Matter More Than Numbers

Continuing on from our last point, you want to make sure that these shares are high quality.

Marketing for SEO and social media are intertwined because the goal is to let Google know you're great. If people share your content and broadcast your reach far and wind, they are essentially telling Google that you have something to offer; they should show it to people just like them.

If it’s getting shared from the authoritative accounts (ones with lots of legit followers) then you’re going to benefit a lot from these social shares.

Here are a few tips on how to get more shares on social media:

Remember; content is King: if you create great content, people will have no other option but to share what you’re posting on your social accounts - make sure it fits the audience needs and gives them a reason to go find more of your work (your main website in this case).
Always be posting: Fresh content is King when it comes to SEO, and social media is no different - regular posting, say once every day, will eventually make the algorithm love you and give you a great chance at finding the audience you’re targeting. And of course, a greater chance at this audience social sharing it too.
Make it easy for your reader: Not only should you be posting on your social channels, but you’ll want to make it as easy as possible for your readers to share your content - now of course they’ll know how to retweet on Twitter, but they may not know how to repost content on your website. - Make this as easy as possible by installing a social share plugin on your site.

Google’s EAT Guidelines

Examining your SEO practices allows you to identify what Google uses in the training of its human content evaluators. See, in addition to an enormous amount of algorithms, Google employs Quality Raters in order to give users a better search engine experience.

According to Google’s own guidelines, a high-quality page should possess the following qualities:

Expertise
Authority
Trust

You’ll want to remember this guideline in this order, as it's commonly known as EAT by SEO professionals and webmasters alike.

It depends on the topic, the posting's background, a website's reputation, and more what factors influence the display of EAT in content.

Keep EAT in mind when creating content, even if you don't have control over all of the factors from the get-go. EAT can help to direct your content in the right direction.

How to improve your EAT score: 4 tips for success

Research, Research, Research: The obvious way for you to be able to share accurate information is to of course do your research - having experience in the field you’re writing about will make things so much easier for you too, as you’ll have an even greater grasp on things.
Cover every aspect: Quickly dismissing a question with a simple amount of information can leave your audience feeling underwhelmed and under the belief that you’re not an expert; be thorough and give all the information and evidence you need to confuse your audience that this is the best content for them; you’re the expert.
Keep it on brand: You want to give Google and anyone else coming to your website a good understanding of what you’re all about. This means, only producing content that is relevant to your brand, not because you think it’s going to be easy to rank for.
Give them what they want: Your audience will be coming to you to help solve a problem they might be having; how to fix their car engine, how to cook potatoes, whatever it is they are coming for accurate and actionable information - so give them exactly that.

Touching on SEO and Google Algorithm Updates

Because of the term "algorithm," SEO can seem unreachable or impossible. An algorithm refers to the series of steps a search engine uses to rank websites based on a search query.

Google makes so-called “core updates” multiple times a year to better serve users. You may have heard that algorithms are constantly changing, and that is true to some degree. You can check out the Moz website for a history of Google algorithm changes.

However, despite their ever-changing updates, your full focus should not be "gaming the system" when it comes to Google's search algorithms, even if Google is often making tweaks to its algorithm. Focus on creating excellent content, finding the right keywords, and building reputable backlinks for your link profile.

You’ll hurt your rankings if you focus too much on the algorithm, since something that might be working well for you now, might not be in the future.

And from what we know from Google, we know high-quality content is always going to be something they’re looking for, so always put 90% of your attention into this.

SEO Marketing Guide: Conclusion

Phew, that was a long one, wasn't it?

Well, there is a lot to get through when it comes to SEO, but thankfully, it’s all in one place for you to be able to look back on in the future when you want to jog your memory or delve into things a little deeper.

Remember; there are no shortcuts! Don’t cheat the system, or you and your website(s) will be regretting it in the future when Google Thanos snaps you out of existence when they make changes to their algorithm.

Oh, and expect to set a lot of time aside when it comes to learning SEO - it’s not a one-and-done job, you’ll need to stay on top of your content if you want to stay on top of the competition and truly become an SEO expert in your niche.

What is SEO? The Ultimate Guide for Webmasters was first published to http://www.affiliatingfromhome.com/

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