Most SEO firms will tell claim it takes 4 to 6 months to start seeing results. It varies wildly but that's generally in the ballpark for most projects. Note that SEO results are cumulative & escalate over time. If you're getting positive results after 6 months these will compound after 12 …

Buttons, links and image file names should contain keywords instead of computer generated text, lengthy and hard to index. The algorithm applies to only individual pages, not entire websites. A holistic approach to organic growth often requires buy-in from internal stakeholders that may have little previous experience, or even worse …

Post your content on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+ - this will give your outbound links a wider coverage and the likelihood that it will get shared by others and seen by your intended target audience. Study your niche (a.k.a. know your target audience!) and …

We can judge a site visually in as little as 50 milliseconds. And when performing a task, we focus on that and become blind to anything else. While blogs might be a great way to position yourself as an expert, they have a way of producing challenging feedback. Content is …

Get your important words and phrases in there. It's particularly important for links that only contain an image to have descriptive alt text so screen readers and search engines are able to understand what is being linked to. If you're using a rank tracking tool, you may also want to …

Getting free hits from organic results can minimize or eliminate the need to use PPC campaigns. Today, there aren't a lot of free methods left to get organic traffic. Plus, for those that do exist, they often require an incredible amount of technical knowledge. Although search engines can read text …

The obvious engagement related thing is social media. Check some social platforms, starting with Facebook and Twitter and Instagram to see if your desired audience is present on these platforms. RankBrain is Google's machine learning artificial intelligence system that's used to help provide the best search results for users. It …

Both search engines and readers like frequently updated websites. Although you will find hundreds of researchers who indicate the best time and days to publish your content, it's more important to simply be consistent with your publishing and to publish about the same amount of content each week. Content marketing …

The pages have to create unique enough value that they can be distinguished from other similar pages by the search engines. Lacking that intrinsic value, they will have to be distinguished by inbound linkage. Your headline is among the first things that users will come across when carrying out a …

Consumer-generated advertising works best when targeted to current customers and customers who have high levels of brand loyalty. If you are new in the business then remember that the big guns are already optimizing for the most popular keywords and you don't stand a chance for those keywords. Hence, choose …

No images, 500 words or less and a random link to a site. As Panda updates keep rolling out, the focus has switched from content farms and scraper sites to websites that offer "thin" content - content that's full of keywords and copy, but light on any real information. Many global …

Most major forms of advertising contain visual and verbal or written elements. Focussing on understanding the intent of the user is not only because it helps in getting conversions or click throughs, it is also important for the SEO perspective and provide value to your visitors. It helps in creating …

Visitors who really like the look or feel of a website are more likely to recommend the website to their friends, coworkers, family members and other people with whom they are close - people just have a way of sharing the things they like, as well as the things they dislike …

Watch out for tools that attempt to capriciously control your future, like how some CDN's hijack one's link-juice via overzealous subdomains. If these things happen to you, it's unfortunate, but you can report violations with terms of service easily for either paid or organic issues to the engines themselves. Hopefully …

From an organizational perspective, when an entire company has not embraced the importance of SEO, you run into problems where you get a developer who goes out and they they code page and then they completely break your canonicals or they obfuscate all the content behind a Javascript script or …

How do you measure success? In most cases, quantitative models are limited to larger organizations with strong computer and statistics departments. Internal linking is the process of linking one page to another on your site. This is done in a few ways including your navigation menu, sidebar links, and links …

Unlike channels like PPC which can easily be switched on and off SEO isn't so instant. Values frame attitudes and lead to the judgments that guide personal actions. I cover everything you need to know about outsourcing later in this book so take a deep breath and relax. Have you …