SEO 2016 SEO Secrets For Ranking On The First Page Of Google Introduction I want to thank you and congratulate you for downloading the book, “SEO 2016: SEO Secrets For Ranking On The First Page Of Google”. This book has actionable information on how to rank on the first page of Google. If you are the proud owner of an online business, be that business an ecommerce site, an informational website, or a niche site that affiliates to products and earns you a revenue, you are cognizant of how web traffic influences the success of your online business. You are also aware of this fact: web traffic comes from many sources such as social platforms, direct traffic, other websites, and search engines. Out of these ways, the best way to drive tons of ‘free, unpaid traffic’ to your website or landing page is by optimizing your web-pages for search. You do this by paying attention to ranking factors that search engines use to rank web-pages, and by employing white hat SEO tactics to ensure your website places in the top 1-3 positions of SERP (search engine results page) for your preferred topic or search query. For instance, let us assume you webmaster an acne niche site (yes, the acne site is a well-used cliché, but it is an awesome example). To drive tons of traffic to your website, i.e. ensure it is on the top 3 spots of Google result page, you need to optimize your website and content. How do you do that? Well, to land on the coveted first 3 spots of Google SERP, you need to pay attention to specific aspects of a website that Google and other search engines use to crawl and rank websites. And how do you do that? Well, this book is the ultimate rank-first-on-Google blueprint. This book outlines aspects of a website that Google pays attention to, and goes ahead to show you how to tweak these areas of your site, make them search engine and user friendly, and easily and quickly climb up the Google rankings to land on the first page. There is a lot of redundant Search Engine Optimization information out there. This book is cognizant of that and only outlines the most relevant, up to date information. Information guaranteed to help you achieve better website ranking that results in more free (organic) traffic for your website and content which results in more success for your website. Rev your optimization engines because by the time you finish this book, you will be a qualified to work your own SEO…. Thanks again for downloading this book. I hope it helps you fill in any SEO gaps you may have. Copyright 2016 by Utechservs - All rights reserved. This document is geared towards providing exact and reliable information in regards to the topic and issue covered. The publication is sold with the idea that the publisher is not required to render accounting, officially permitted, or otherwise, qualified services. If advice is necessary, legal or professional, a practiced individual in the profession should be ordered. - From a Declaration of Principles which was accepted and approved equally by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations. In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. The information provided herein is stated to be truthful and consistent, in that any liability, in terms of inattention or otherwise, by any usage or abuse of any policies, processes, or directions contained within is the solitary and utter responsibility of the recipient reader. Under no circumstances will any legal responsibility or blame be held against the publisher for any reparation, damages, or monetary loss due to the information herein, either directly or indirectly. Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher. The information herein is offered for informational purposes solely, and is universal as so. The presentation of the information is without contract or any type of guarantee assurance. The trademarks that are used are without any consent, and the publication of the trademark is without permission or backing by the trademark owner. All trademarks and brands within this book are for clarifying purposes only and are owned by the owners themselves, not affiliated with this document. Table of Contents Introduction Section 1: Understanding SEO What Is SEO? How Search Engines Rank Websites, and Important Ranking Factors Important Google Ranking Factors 1: On-Page Ranking Factors 2: Off-Page Ranking Factors 3: Site Wide Factors Section 2: The Ultimate Keyword Research Guide for Better Google Ranking Keywords 101: What are Keywords? Types of Keywords The Importance of Keyword Research A Step-By-Step, 2016 and Beyond Keyword Research Guide for Top Google Ranking Awesome Keywords Are: Section 3: The Definitive On-Page Optimization Guide How to Optimize Your Meta Data and Descriptions How to Write Incredible Helpful, User-Friendly Content, and Optimize It for Search Section 4: An Explicit, No-Holds-Barred Off-Page SEO Guide What Is Off-Page SEO? Link Building in 2016…: The White Hat Guide to Penalty-Free Link Building Google Will Love What Is Link Building? Section 5: A Laconic Site Wide Optimization Guide Conclusion Section 1: Understanding SEO Unfortunately, ‘gurus’ in the online marketing field have created the following false notion: search engine optimization is hard and requires a lot of technical expertise. This is not true; the truth is as follows: you do not need to hire a $200 per hour ‘expert’ (emphasis on the ‘expert’) to optimize your website for search, or even land on the coveted first three spots of search engine results page. As this book will later show you, to optimize your website, content, and pages for search, land on the first page of Google, if not the first 3 spots, and drive tons of traffic to your website, all you need to do is pay attention to specific aspects of your website. Aspects this book seeks to show you how to optimize. Before we get to that, it is only right that we commence by cultivating a SEO understanding, its importance, and look at how Google and other search engines rank websites. What Is SEO? Search engine optimization, SEO for short is exactly what the name suggests: it is the aspect of optimizing/tweaking web text, images, and videos to affect their organic search engine visibility. Now, you may be wondering “Why? Why should I bother with SEO?” Well, one of the reasons why SEO is such an important aspect of website traffic and why search engine optimization is a big bucks business is as follows. Optimizing your website content, i.e. optimizing your text, video, and image content affects how search engine spiders (not actual spiders but a generic term used to refer to search engines algorithms (called web crawlers) that periodically crawl, and index web-pages in order of relevance to search queries) view your website and the position they place it on their index. The more visible your content is to these ‘spiders’, the higher your website ranks on SERPs. The higher a page or content ranks, the more traffic it receives. Search engine optimization takes into account what users search for (the keywords they type into their search boxes), how search engines index websites and the content therein, and most recently, how relevant and user-friendly content is to users and user queries. In general, SEO involves optimizing your website design by making it easier for users to interact with content on various devices, using relevant keywords, creating links between your website and other relevant, high quality sites on the same topic, and as of May 2015, the mobile friendliness of your site. We shall touch on each of these factors and look at how to optimize them for search. Before we do that, let us briefly outline how search engines work. How Search Engines Rank Websites, and Important Ranking Factors The World Wide Web is a vast information forest. Naturally, in a forest, it is easy to get lost: enter search engines. Using the forest as an example, search engines serve two major functionalities: create an index of all trees in the information forest, and provide forest visitors with a detailed path to the tree species they want. This sounds oddly technical so let us simplify it as follows: Search engines use web crawler algorithms to craw all information placed on the internet and create an index. Then, when users use search engines to search for information, search engine spiders take the keyword, match it to information on their index, and return the most relevant information within a matter of seconds. This resource by Google, aptly named “how search works” should give you further insight into the inner workings of Google search. If you are into visuals, this info graphic by ppcblog.com should demystify Google search. To determine relevance, web crawler algorithms use a number of factors.