The vast majority of brands, when they “enter the Internet”, start by starting their own website. It is almost always a sensible choice – your own piece of the Web allows you to present your brand, products or services to customers, offering freedom in form and content, without limiting the reach, as in social media.

When designing and publishing the brand’s official website on the web, it is difficult to do without SEO. SEO advertising is a long-term investment, but this marathon usually pays off! Moreover, it fits well with other online promotion methods such as Google Ads.

SEO as an advertising channel

But let’s start with what exactly is SEO advertising, otherwise known as website SEO. SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, i.e. website optimization in terms of their visibility in search engines.

Pages displayed in the search results of individual phrases in the engine (for example, Google or Bing) are not accidental – their set and order is the work of an advanced and constantly updated selection algorithm. It is based primarily on the so-called keywords, i.e. keywords. So when we enter any phrase, the engine returns a list of results that in theory best match a given query – that is, Google tries to limit the time spent by the user on searching and redirect him to the desired destination as quickly as possible.

On the part of the algorithm, such page ordering to actually shorten the search time to the absolute minimum is a huge challenge. The search engine has to “guess” what type of information the user is looking for – are these the products they want to buy? Or maybe he wants to broaden his knowledge on a given topic and collect specific data? Teaching the algorithm a sensible “understanding” of the user’s intentions is the greatest difficulty – and although the search system is still far from ideal, thanks to updates the algorithm becomes slightly better at fulfilling this function every day.

SEO – what it is all about

The algorithm largely takes into account the content placed on the page, i.e. its length, quality and presentation, but content is only one of over 200 factors analyzed by the algorithm. Below, we will describe the most important elements that make up the position of the website in search results – their refinement can, under favorable conditions, bring amazing results when it comes to SEO advertising.

However, before we get into the SEO advertising guidelines and rules, let’s start with how to prepare for SEO. The first step should always be an in-depth analysis of keywords – what phrases are entered by users into the search engine if they want to find products, services or data contained on competing websites? What keywords are related to the industry in which you operate?

Many programs and services that analyze key phrases and positions of specific pages come to the rescue. It is worth paying attention to free Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner, as well as various paid solutions: Ahrefs, Semstorm and Senuto, among others. In the case of positioning, your intuition must give way to the collected data – if you think that a certain keyword will attract valuable (i.e. converting) traffic to the website, but the analysis suggests something exactly the opposite, probably in 99% of cases the program will be right.

It is worth remembering that from the point of view of the business owner, the value is only the user who converts – buys a product or service or performs another action that we have planned (e.g. watching a video on the website or downloading a PDF file). This means that your keywords must be related to your image or sales goals. You can easily attract many users to your website, but the wrong choice of keywords will bring people who are not interested in the topic to the website, without having a positive impact on important business indicators.

Without meaningful keyword analysis, SEO is an internet wandering in complete darkness – sometimes you can attract a client, but you have no real chance of competing with someone with night vision. If you haven’t had anything to do with SEO before, perhaps in your case you should consider outsourcing an SEO audit to an SEO professional who will check the keywords with the greatest potential and suggest necessary changes to the website.

There are many tools on the web that allow you to perform an independent SEO audit. This is a good start to understanding what a page is missing and worth paying attention to. Automatic audit, however, will not replace an analysis made by a specialist, taking into account the specificity of the website, industry and other aspects that the machine is not able to properly develop.

SEO advertising starts with content

When adapting your website to the requirements of the algorithm, it is worth starting with the content. It has to be – of course – user-engaging and encouraging to buy, but also search engine-friendly. This means that the content should be:

– Full of keywords – so that it does not obstruct reading as much as possible and does not give an unnatural impression. The potential customer will reflect on the inauthentic and simply strange-sounding text. The same will be done by an algorithm that better and better recognizes “junk” content.
– Long enough to comprehensively describe the topic – the user can learn more (and your brand gains an expert image). It also enables collision-free interweaving of more keywords.
– Properly formatted – divided into paragraphs (nobody likes a compact wall of text – neither does the Google algorithm), decorated with graphics and written in a readable font. It is also good practice to include your title and subheadings, possibly with keywords, in the form of H1, H2 and H3 headings.

If you don’t have a site where you can post more content, it might be a good idea to start a corporate blog. This gives you basically unlimited possibilities – you can strengthen the expert image of the brand, show off your successes, present your know-how and specialists, and at the same time, thanks to the publication of content, attract valuable traffic from the search engine to the website.

On-site SEO

Content optimization is one of the elements that make up the so-called on-site SEO, i.e. activities that can be performed directly on a positioned website. In addition to refining the content, other important aspects of the website are also important for Google and it is worth bearing in mind for seo advertising to be as effective as possible.

Google also places great emphasis on technical issues, such as:

Page loading speed
The faster your site loads, the better – it’s obvious. If the entire process takes more than a few seconds, a large number of users simply give up their visit and turn to the next page in search results. Google knows this, so loading time is an important ranking factor. How can the waiting time be shortened? Actions include JavaScript minification, image compression, server migration with faster response times, and more. Google PageSpeed Insights can help you find out what you can improve on a page.

Responsiveness
Users browse pages on a variety of devices – desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, TVs and many more. This means that your website must display properly and allow comfortable viewing on multiple screen resolutions. The algorithm pays attention to, among other things, whether the text is readable (for example, whether individual characters do not extend beyond the screen).

SSL certificate
Encrypted communication is absolutely essential today – Google knows it too. The correct installation of the SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate is indicated by a green (or gray in some browsers) padlock next to the website address.

Friendly URL’s
The URL has a specific structure, but the form of the URL may vary depending on the administrator’s actions. Friendly addresses are much more intuitive for the user, and at the same time allow network bots to better “understand” the content of the subpage.

Internal links
We have devoted a separate section of this text to links, but it is worth mentioning internal links here. These are the links in which you redirect to subpages within your own domain, making it easier for both the user and the bot to navigate.

Picture descriptions
Each picture can be provided with a title and the so-called alt attribute, i.e. an alternative description. They are not usually visible at first glance, but they are in the code, which makes them well understood by web crawlers.

These are just some of the actions that should be performed on the website to improve its position in search results as part of on-site SEO. However, SEO is much more than just the methods presented above. In addition to other ideas for adapting the website to the requirements of the algorithm, it is also worth taking an interest in the second SEO department.

Off-site SEO – the power of linking

Off-site SEO can be simply called all activities that focus on obtaining links from other pages pointing to a given domain. This is largely what a page’s rank is based on – often referred to as (digital) social righteousness. The algorithm assumes that if many other pages of high “value” link to a given page, the linked page is also considered valuable – so it is probably worth raising its position.

However, it is not that simple. The key is getting quality links that will often be worth much more than a few hundred links from a zero-reputation microsite.

It is also worth paying attention to the attribute of a given link. There are several types, the most important of which at the initial stage are:
– Dofollow – a link that “opens the door” to a web crawler – encourages him to go to the linked page, ergo has a clear positioning value.
– Nofollow – a link that the bot theoretically does not pay attention to – i.e. sees it, but does not go any further. This includes links from social media such as Facebook or Twitter, as well as Wikipedia.

However, it is not that every nofollow link is meaningless from the point of view of SEO advertising, and each dofollow link will bring a specific value. The natural link profile is important for the algorithm – suspected spam may result in the imposition of a filter that will limit the website’s visibility in the search engine.

Where to get the links? Valuable content will organically diverge to some extent, but this is usually not enough. So you can arrange an exchange of links with the owner of another website or simply buy them. There are many websites on the Internet market that allow you to buy space for a given domain, but the selection of the “linking area” must be supported by thorough research – otherwise you can burn out the budget allocated for it, and in extreme situations, severely damage the painstakingly built position of the website.

SEO Advertising – What Should You Remember?

SEO of websites does not bring immediate results – you have to wait up to several months for the first noticeable changes. The power of SEO inertia is considerable, especially when compared to PPC systems (Google Ads or Facebook Ads), where a well-configured campaign brings profits right away. For this reason, positioning should be planned in the long term – only this approach provides meaningful results.

Why is it worth putting an FAQ on the website?

– Provides the customer with immediate help – the user can quickly find an answer to his question, which shortens the shopping path. You can read more about customer path mapping in e-commerce in the article on our website.
– It saves time – both for you and the client. Regardless of whether the questions are answered exclusively by you or the company is handled by an extensive customer service and technical support department, each interaction takes time and involves an employee. The FAQ allows you to skip direct contact for the most common questions, but do not leave them unanswered.
 – It proves that you care about consumers – the FAQ in a clear, friendly form presents various procedures on the company-client line. Transparent presentation of opportunities in future cooperation (whatever form it may take) is a great value for the user, as well as a great way to show your experience, customer-friendly approach and build trust.
– It has a positive effect on SEO – the FAQ is a full-fledged subpage that, like others, affects the positioning of the entire website. This creates a great potential for improving SEO, including thanks to internal linking. In addition, it is a subpage with a lot of content, willingly “clicked”, with opportunities for systematic expansion of the content – web robots like it!
– Allows Google Featured Snippets to appear – a properly constructed question-answer scheme may be considered by Google as valuable enough to appear as a highlighted fragment above the search results.
– Provides data – thanks to analytical modules, you can check which issues (and how) are most often checked by users, which allows you to refine procedures and implement the necessary changes. The FAQ is a great source of knowledge about customer needs.

In many places – from large online stores to small service business sites – the FAQ, despite being published by poor execution, is on the verge of uselessness. A poorly made list of frequently asked questions is not only of little value to the user, but can even irritate him and lead him to redirect his internet steps elsewhere.

FAQ – selection of questions

The first step, of course, will be to refer to your and customer service experience. You perfectly know the needs of customers and the topics that are most often discussed in communication. It is also worth taking a look at the websites of the closest competitors operating in the same industry – many issues will probably be similar. In the case of online stores, must-have is, for example, a clear presentation of payment mechanisms, returns policy or warranty procedures.

FAQ – structure

A typical FAQ list has a rolling question-answer structure. It is very important to properly group the questions into specific categories – asking about the features of a product or a selected service package is a slightly different matter than a loyalty program, login data or the account deletion process. Categorizing topics greatly facilitates navigation and accelerates the user reaching the issue of interest.

The questions should be presented in first-person form – just as the client would type them. You should also use friendly language and avoid industry jargon.

The answers in the FAQ are usually short and as specific as possible – the user came to the page in order to obtain a concise, factual answer. This is no place for grass-talk. If the explanation requires more than a few paragraphs of text to be accurate, it is probably worth considering creating a separate subpage, and providing basic information in the FAQ, followed by a link to a more comprehensive article. If you decide to publish an extensive answer in the FAQ, be sure to take care of the appropriate structure of the text – take care of the right headings, legible text and division into paragraphs.

It is worth paying attention to the right choice of keywords – the question must be easy to find. An appropriate structure based on structured data also means that in the search results the elements of a given FAQ will be presented in an extended form, the so-called rich snippets.

At the end of the list, it is worth placing a contact form or at least a link to it in case the user does not find an answer to his question or needs clarification of some issues with the consultant.

Video and FAQ

Sometimes short films appear as part of the FAQ, most often simple animations (so-called explaining). This may be a good solution in some situations (e.g. when an issue requires specific steps that are easier to present graphically than text), but it has many disadvantages. First of all, a large part of people “scans” the text with their eyes faster, ergo assimilates the necessary information more efficiently than it would be in the case of even a few dozen seconds long film. The video itself will not affect SEO as much as the traditional text form, and it will also slightly extend the loading time of the subpage.

The answer in the form of a video makes sense especially in the case of typical technical support issues, e.g. assembly instructions for a given product or presentation of its specific function. Of course, you can always use a mixed form – text and video, which will complement each other.

FAQ – update

First of all, the FAQ cannot be treated as a complete whole. It is an important element of the website and should be a constantly evolving organism – in most companies, new questions arise every day, some of which perhaps should be on your website.

Quantity over quality – linking in the first decade of the 21st century

Before SEO became a sophisticated art, SEOs didn’t play around with conventions. Optimization for the search engine guidelines was simplified, and the keywords just poured out of every line of code. Nobody cared too much about the user’s needs, which was due not only to the lack of technical capabilities (these have developed with the growing popularity of HTML5 and CSS3), but also to a smaller number of network users.

How did we link these several years ago? I think the term “without moderation” will be the most accurate here. Initially, it was mainly the quantity that mattered, hence the spammer websites popped up like mushrooms and immediately became a base for various types of websites. Sites of this type were called “presell pages.” These types of sites were the perfect answer to the question “where to link the page?”. Some of them were not moderated or thematic – it was enough to find access to the site, set up an account, sometimes pay a few dollars and prepare a text suitable for use in a blender. These types of programs allowed for the creation of synonymized texts that could be used on a larger scale. The texts were similar, but the use of synonyms gave the illusion of uniqueness. Unfortunately, reading them was not recommended – the written texts did not contain valuable information, and were only carriers of links to positioned pages.

Over time, the weight of the links has changed – high positions were provided by links from educational (edu) and government (gov) sites, and the role of blogs piled up with junk articles began to decline.

Penguin – the Google update that turned the SEO world upside down

In 2012, an update was added to the search engine’s algorithm that ended the golden years of carefree linking. An update called “The Penguin” has reduced the importance of links from spammy sites and significantly reduced the possibility of black hat link building practices.

The “Penguin” analyzed the links coming to the website and assessed their naturalness. Links from cluttered pretzels, low-quality internet forums and other sources with dubious reputation received very low marks, which for the website usually resulted in a drop in the Google ranking. It also performed the detection of duplicate linking patterns, suggesting the operation of linking scripts on a massive scale.

Initially, the Penguin update was “fired” from time to time – its operation was most often manifested by a rapid change in the visibility of the site and a decrease in traffic. The penguin filter forced the SEOs to rapidly “clean” the profile of incoming links. Resignation from low-quality links allowed for a stable increase in position, but the return to its former glory was not always possible. In some cases, the banned page returned to the Google search engine only after a few months, when a new version of Penguin was added to the algorithm.

The update that wreaks havoc on links on Google debuted at the end of March 2012, and the effects of its subsequent hits could also be seen in October 2012, May and October 2013 and October 2014. In September 2016, Penguin joined the basic elements of the search engine algorithm and since then works in real time. Its constant activity allows you to react faster to the negative effects of ineffective linking, without having to wait for the next update. Additionally, the version of the update, which has become a permanent fixture in the search engine’s repertoire, seems to be milder for reckless linkers – controversial links are usually simply ignored. However, this does not mean that you are allowed to link from everywhere – sites that practice spammy tricks can still be punished with elimination from search results.

Link anatomy – how to link?

Linking, while different from Google’s early days, still matters a lot. Therefore, it is worth taking a closer look at the correct link structure.

A link, also known as a link to a page, is one of the basic elements of HTML – a markup language commonly used to describe web pages. Link – hyperlink – is an element referring from one document to another, which is displayed most often after clicking on the indicated tag. The structure of the global internet is based on links.

What does the link look like?
– <a> – tag
– href – attribute containing the address of the link’s landing page,
– anchor – link text visible on the website,
– the link can point to documents within the same document (href = “#”), within the same domain (href = “/ about us /”), or to any document on the Internet,
– In the <a> tag, there may also be a title that will be displayed when you hover the cursor over the link, and a target that will determine whether the document will open, for example, in a new browser tab. In the hyperlink tag, you can also add guidelines for web robots, e.g. prohibiting them from going to the specified URL.

In the context of positioning, the importance of the link anchor element is often emphasized – this is where you can place a keyword that will be the “title” of the link pointing to our website. In the case of planning a link-building strategy, selecting the right anchor will be one of the key elements that will make our activities look natural. The most important thing here is diversification, i.e. the use of various methods of link labeling:
– URL address – the anchor is the website address pasted into the content of the article or post. It looks the most natural – after all, who of us want to describe a link sent in forum posts or comments? Hyperlinks with an anchor containing a URL are often created automatically, such as by pasting the address into text in Google Docs;
– brand – name of the company or website to which we link. It is a safe form of link naming that allows you to promote your brand;
– keyword – a more risky form of linking, which too careless use may be punished by the search engine. An anchor link containing a keyword looks the least natural. Keyword linking helps in website positioning, but it should be used in moderation as one of many solutions;
– graphics – a link to the page can also be placed within a photo or file with the company’s logo. It is then necessary to describe it in accordance with the requirements of the <img> tag.

Links can be placed in any section of the website – in the menu (top, side), in the text, in comments, in the footer. They can be located on one subpage of the website or repeat within a category or the entire domain – then they are called site-wide.

Link quality – where to find high-quality links?

With the advent of the Penguin era, collecting links to a site has become a more demanding activity. Finding a good source of links requires more selection and rejection of pages of questionable quality – for example, which are dominated by texts consisting of chaotic texts with a high concentration of keywords.

So where to link the page? It is worth looking for sources of links with high authority, i.e. a good Google rating. The search engine does not officially inform about the scores obtained by the site, but there are external tools that allow you to determine their level. One of them is Ahrefs, which uses the Domain Rating indicator, which evaluates the number and quality of links.

When looking for the perfect place to throw your link, we should also look at the number of users visiting the site. High organic traffic is associated with a high level of visibility of the domain, and this in itself tells a lot about the assessment of it by Google. This type of information can be obtained with the help of SEO Surfer programs.

Another element worth our attention is the link profile of the website, which is to be the carrier of our hyperlink. The number of outbound links is also important – too many links weaken the “link juice” directed towards our website. What is “link juice”? This is how the power (authority) is transferred from one domain to another. Too many links to external websites “watered down the juice” and reduces the value of the obtained link.

In addition to these techniques, the seeker of links should direct their attention to websites thematically related to the content of the linked page. It will also be helpful to get links from local websites promoting activities in our country. Links that are to direct to the domain in English should be placed on native websites and similar – other language versions on the corresponding portals.

Where to link the page?

Gaining links is a tedious process that requires attention as long as the idea of good online visibility is important to our business. Activities in this area should be wisely planned and take into account other aspects of marketing activities undertaken under our brand.

So let’s discuss the most popular link sources:

NATURAL
Natural links are created without the participation of interested parties – Internet users spontaneously share interesting links in comments, on forums or within their blogs. These types of links testify to good quality content on our subpages, and sharing it by users can bring a lot of traffic within our website.

Gaining links in this way will require a lot of involvement in the preparation of website content. Elements that are willingly recommended by users are, among others tips, rankings, summaries and attractively presented smaller doses of knowledge, e.g. in the form of infographics. In some industries, it is also possible to prepare witty material that will have a chance to become a “viral”, which will quickly reach many potential recipients. After this type of online fame, there will probably be links that will complement the profile of the domain that we want to position.

FORUMS
Internet forums in recent years have lost their popularity in favor of thematic groups on Facebook, but those that have remained in the Internet reality are a source of high-quality links. Adding links in these places, however, must be consistent with the topic of the forum and its rules, mostly limiting the possibility of spamming. Links placed in response to a question asked by another person have the best chance to escape the harsh judgment of admins and support the site for a long time. It is worth linking in places where we already have an account and were previously participants in the discussion.

COMMENTS
Some websites and blogs allow you to comment on articles and even supplement them with active links. Links left here should be thematically related to the entry. Adding a link in a comment does not constitute its approval by the webmaster. In addition, this type of link will often have the rel = “nofollow” parameter, which will not allow web robots to go to our site, but users can still click the link.

CATALOGS
This is one of the older forms of getting links, which allows for a large increase in the number of links in a relatively short time. However, modern catalogs boast much higher quality and oblige the link provider to be more involved. A good catalog will require supplementing the entry with basic information about the company’s activity, a unique description, and sometimes also graphics. Catalogs allow for additional promotion of activities, e.g. by higher positions of our entry in the search engine for services of a given website or by placing a link to the entry on the main page of the catalog.

GUEST ARTICLES
A fairly popular method of getting links and new readers is publishing articles outside your website, e.g. on a blog. A guest article allows the blog owner to get new, valuable content. It is assumed that these types of publications are not advertising in nature, but rather focus on providing information and sharing knowledge. Adding an active link to the content depends on the goodwill of the portal owner.

SPONSORED ARTICLES
Sponsored articles are aimed at promoting the site, although the texts published in this way do not have to be typically advertising texts. Articles usually contain 1 to 2 links, most often with an anchor of your choice. This type of service is payable, and the cost depends on the reputation of the portal – the greater the traffic and size of the website, the higher the price.

Cooperation in the field of sponsored articles can be established in person, through the site administrator and the marketing department. Websites specializing in mediation between publishers and those looking for space for content marketing activities are also very popular.

BACKGROUND
A good source of links is your own backend – websites, mostly thematic, where links to the promoted pages will be placed. The back office requires the purchase of a domain, space on the server and a CMS system or other solution that will allow you to conveniently add articles. Additionally, content creation should be added to the costs – especially if we do not plan to do it on our own.

For building your backend, it’s a good idea to choose legacy domains that can be captured when they expire. Those with a good story are especially valuable – the content previously posted on it coincides with the topic of our website, the website has not been penalized by Google, and the incoming links come from trusted sources.

High-quality facilities can also be the subject of other marketing efforts – well-written, widely read articles can become an additional source of traffic and an element of building the position of an expert.

PARTNER SITES
The cooperation of two companies can be expressed in many ways, including by mentioning partners or contractors within the website. The partner’s logo is usually placed on the website, entered in the <a> tag. When analyzing your marketing activities, it is worthwhile to review the list of places where the name of our business is mentioned and ask for a link next to it pointing to our website.

It is also worth approaching other places in a similar way – e.g. lists of companies offering certain services in a given area, prepared by an independent unit. It is worth finding those that have been operating for a long time and complete the data about your company.

OFFLINE ACTIVITY
One of the effective ways to get high-quality links is to increase the reach of impact also outside the Internet. These types of treatments are very effective, especially in the case of local positioning – social activity, participation in meetings or financial support for events, usually results in the mention of our brand on the event pages. These “few words about us” can always be supplemented with a link to the website (usually with an anchor with the name), which will perfectly complement link-building activities. Among other places, it is also worth mentioning biographical notes, e.g. on the website of the university or conferences in which we participate.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Links from social media do not allow us to accelerate the climbing of our site in SERPs, but they do help to increase traffic on the site. Profiles in SM are an excellent channel of communication with customers and it is here that the links to attractive content are usually transferred the fastest.

Other linking ideas

Getting valuable links is not an easy task and in many cases requires creativity. Some approaches will be effective in one industry and may not be feasible in another. An example is an attempt to get a link from Wikipedia. In the case of promoting the website of famous people, sportsmen, politicians, etc., the publication of an entry with a short biography and description of activities will not be hindered by the editors of the online encyclopedia. Attempting to get a link to the website of a company specializing in screw production will require a lot of effort, e.g. creating a source complementing Wikipedia content, and will probably be rejected anyway.

It is also worth looking for inspiration from the competition – thanks to tools such as Ahrefs, Majestic or Seo Surfer, we have the opportunity to see links directed to their websites. Note, they will certainly not contain information about all links! Some sources may block bots collecting this type of data. “Parroting” the linking sites allows you to get a good link to your site and weaken the link to your competitor – on the principle of the aforementioned “lens” dilution.

When looking for places where you can link your website, it is worth paying attention to the quality of links and emphasizing their naturalness. Brazen, rapid building of the link profile usually does not improve the health of the website … As in the case of some on-site activities, off-site also pays off thanks to systematic work, control and analysis of effects.