However, this mainly applies to dofollow backlinks. 

If a backlink is marked with the nofollow HTML tag, it tells search engines not to count the link towards the website’s SEO. 

Conversely, the dofollow HTML tag does the opposite. It tells search engines to count the backlink as an endorsement of your content’s quality, accuracy, and trustworthiness. 

Does this mean that nofollow backlinks aren’t worth building?

While it may seem that way at first, nofollow backlinks are still valuable. 

Even though they won’t have as strong of an impact on your rankings (there’s evidence that they still provide some, but more on this later), they can still:

• Generate referral traffic 
• Raise brand awareness 
• Balance out your backlink profile and make it appear more natural 

These are all significant benefits, so you should aim to build a mix of dofollow and nofollow backlinks, which is what we’re going to show you today! 

Stick around to learn everything you need to know about dofollow vs. nofollow links, including how to identify them quickly. 

What are Backlinks, Anyway?

Before we explore dofollow and nofollow links, it’s important that we quickly clarify what backlinks are and why they matter for SEO. 

If this isn’t your first rodeo, feel free to skip this section! 

A backlink is a link on another website that directs back to your website.

For example, here’s a backlink to our site on Semrush’s website:

They chose to link to our case study page to exemplify what strong case studies look like (we have an entire page dedicated to our success stories). 

Thus, linking to us made sense because it provides a valuable resource to their readers. Also, the fact that they linked out to us means they’re endorsing our content. 

That brings us to why backlinks matter on search engines. 

Remember how we said backlinks are commonly called ‘credibility votes’?

It’s because Google’s search algorithm views backlinks as endorsements of a website’s quality. 

Each backlink carries what SEOs refer to as ‘link juice,’ which you can think of as authority or ranking power.

For a backlink to have lots of link juice, it must:

• Come from a trusted website. Backlinks on low-quality websites won’t carry as much clout as links coming from high-quality sites that Google trusts. 
• Be relevant. The only way backlinks count toward your search rankings is if they relate to your website’s content. Irrelevant backlinks aren’t worth building. 
• Have the dofollow HTML tag. As we’ll cover more thoroughly in a bit, the dofollow HTML tag means the site owner wants to pass authority to the site it links to. 

The backlink above checks all these boxes, as Semrush is one of the most trusted names in SEO. It’s also a relevant link since it directly relates to the topic of the blog and our services (SEO case studies). Lastly, it’s a dofollow backlink because the folks at Semrush wanted to endorse our high-quality case study page. 

Backlinks are a hugely important part of SEO, and they’re a top ranking factor on search engines like Google. The entire practice of link-building centers around building backlinks, so it’s critical to know what they are and why they matter. 

With that out of the way, let’s dive into the specifics of dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

What are Dofollow Backlinks?

The dofollow and nofollow tags give site owners the power to choose which backlinks they endorse and which they do not. 

The dofollow tag is a green light for passing link juice, and is the site owner’s way of saying, “This is good content and we vouch for it.” 

A dofollow backlink from a high-quality domain is kind of like a mini letter of recommendation. 

Therefore, dofollow backlinks will have the most impact on your search rankings. 

This means that most of the links you try to build intentionally should be dofollow links, although that’s not always the case. 

The importance of balancing dofollow and nofollow backlinks

As stated in the intro, it’s important to maintain a natural-looking backlink profile that contains a balance of dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

Why does this matter?

It does because Google’s algorithm can detect unnatural backlink profiles. Google does NOT want websites to artificially manipulate their algorithms just to rank higher, as that could mean ranking dangerous or misleading content at the top of page one. 

This is why they have search guidelines in place that prohibit things like buying backlinks, using link farms, and setting up PBNs (private blog networks). 

If the algorithm detects an unusually high number of dofollow backlinks pointing to your site, it may see this as a sign of manipulation, which could lead to manual actions (penalties). 

To Google, a truly high-quality website will acquire a mix of dofollow and nofollow backlinks naturally due to the strength of its content. As a result, the algorithm expects to see backlinks from news sites, social media profiles, forum comments, and other types of nofollow backlinks. 

What are the benefits of dofollow backlinks?

Okay, now that you know why achieving a balance is ideal, let’s look at the primary benefits of dofollow backlinks:

• Better search rankings. Since dofollow backlinks pass link juice, they have a direct impact on your content’s search rankings. The more dofollow backlinks you have from trusted websites, the more you’ll build trust with Google, making it easier to rank higher. 

• Generate more organic traffic. The whole point of ranking at the top of page one is to generate more traffic, which is thankfully what it does. If you’re able to improve your rankings with your dofollow backlinks, you’ll start generating more traffic as a result. If you do your keyword research right, the traffic will come from qualified prospects, increasing the chances of converting them into leads and customers. 

• Faster indexing. For any website to appear in Google’s search results, it has to show up in its index first, which can be easier said than done. Crawling the internet takes time and energy, which is why Google uses crawl budgets. However, if you have lots of dofollow backlinks, it’ll be easier for Google’s bots to crawl your content and make sense of your website, which leads to quicker indexing. 

• Boosted credibility. As long as you build backlinks on trusted websites, you’ll start to build your brand’s reputation. Not only will your rankings improve, but users will start to notice your brand popping up on important industry websites, which can help establish you as a thought leader in your field. 

These attractive benefits are why dofollow backlinks are such a powerful SEO asset. 

How to build dofollow backlinks 

Most link-building strategies center almost entirely around acquiring dofollow backlinks from relevant, trusted websites. 

While the goal is always a backlink, the way you build them is what changes from strategy to strategy. 

Here’s a brief look at some of the most popular dofollow link-building strategies in use today:

• Guest posting. This technique involves targeting websites in your niche that accept guest posts. From there, you reach out to the site owner via email to pitch an idea for a blog post. If they like it, you’ll get to create a post on their website, earning you a backlink in the process. This technique is so popular because it’s A) very effective and B) a great way to generate referral traffic. 

• Link insertions. A strategy that’s gained popularity recently is to target link insertions, which are also called niche edits. This is where you reach out to site owners to request that they insert a link to one of your pages in an existing piece of content. An example would be finding a blog where it makes sense to link to one of your products. A perk of this method is that it doesn’t involve any original content creation. 

• Fixing broken links. Nobody likes broken links, but they’re something every site owner has to deal with regardless. Savvy digital marketers found out that they could build backlinks by fixing broken links on other websites, which is a technique that’s still in heavy use today. In particular, you should look for broken links on relevant websites that have content similar to yours. That will increase the chances that you find a broken link that’s easy to replace (like if you have a similar blog post to one that’s broken). 

To learn more about link-building techniques, check out our Learning Hub guide. 

What are Nofollow Backlinks?

The nofollow HTML tag lets site owners link out to sites but withhold their endorsement. 

This means that very little link juice passes through. 

Notice that we didn’t say ‘no’ link juice, because that’s not true. 

Granted, when nofollow was first introduced, it really did negate any influence nofollow backlinks had on Google’s algorithms. However, that’s no longer the case. 

Here it is straight from the horse’s mouth (an official post on Google’s blog):

As you can see, Google now considers all link attributes (including nofollow) when determining its search results. 

However, the link juice you’ll receive will be minimal, and you’ll still get way more from dofollow backlinks. 

We just wanted to clarify that the commonly repeated statement that ‘nofollow links are useless for SEO’ isn’t true anymore. 

The benefits of nofollow backlinks 

So, why would anyone ever want to actively build nofollow backlinks?

There are a few reasons why, so let’s take a look at the main benefits of using nofollow backlinks:

• Preventing spam. This first benefit is from a site owner’s perspective, so it’s important to bear that in mind. Let’s say that you notice a user on your blog who keeps linking to their shady gambling site in the comments section. By hitting all user-generated content with a nofollow attribute, you won’t pass much link juice to these pages, which will discourage spammers from continuing the practice. 

• Avoid penalties from search engines. As mentioned previously, a balance of dofollow and nofollow links is necessary for your backlink profile to appear natural. As such, building some nofollow links will avoid suspicions of spam and manipulation. 

• Generate referral traffic. Even if you build a nofollow link on another website, it’s still a hyperlink that users can click on. This means you stand to generate referral traffic from each nofollow link you build. This is why press releases are a popular link-building tactic, even though Google requires all links contained in press releases to be nofollow. 

• Build brand awareness. Just as nofollow links can still generate traffic, they can also raise brand awareness. Even if a user doesn’t click on one of your links, they may still remember your brand name just by seeing it (especially if it’s catchy or clever). 

Popular nofollow links include links coming from social media sites, forum comments (without being spammy), and links in press releases. 

How to Check if a Backlink is Dofollow or Nofollow 

Before we wrap things up, you’re probably wondering how you can tell if a backlink is dofollow or nofollow. 

After all, if you have no way of distinguishing the two, what’s the point?

The good news is there are plenty of ways to identify dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

Here are 3 methods to do so! 

Method #1: Using your web browser’s inspect tool 

The first method is the most technical, but it’s actually really easy to do. 

Right-click on any link you want to inspect, and click on Inspect or Inspect Element. 

If you’re using Safari on a Mac, you’ll need to go to Settings > Advanced Settings and make sure Show features for web developers is enabled. 

This will add the Develop drop-down menu to the Safari bar at the top of the page. From there, you’ll be able to inspect the web page and individual elements. 

What are you looking for when inspecting a link?

In the HTML, look for the <a> tag that corresponds with the link you’re inspecting. If you see a ‘rel=nofollow’ element, it means the link is nofollow. If there is no such tag, then it’s a dofollow link. 

Here’s an example of a nofollow tag on a Reddit comment (since it’s user-generated content, they made it nofollow to discourage spam). 

Let’s right-click on the link and hit Inspect Element:

This will take us straight to the link’s HTML, where we can clearly see the nofollow tag:

If you’re ever curious whether a link is dofollow or not, this method is typically pretty quick and easy. 

Method #2: Using our free backlink checker tool 

Next, you can always use our completely free backlink checker tool. 

It will show you any website’s backlinks, including whether the link is dofollow or nofollow. Simply enter the URL you want to check and hit View Backlinks Report. 

Here’s what some of our backlinks look like as an example:

As you can see, each backlink is clearly marked dofollow or nofollow. You also get to view the percentage of dofollow links the domain has, which comes in handy when analyzing competitors. 

Method #3: Using Ahrefs 

While our free tool is great, a paid service like Ahrefs will provide a more comprehensive solution. 

Sign into Ahrefs, and then navigate to the Site Explorer tool. Enter the URL you want to check, and hit the Search button. 

From the Overview, navigate to the Backlinks report on the left-hand sidebar. 

Here, you’ll get to see a complete list of the website’s backlinks. At the top of the page, you can choose whether to show dofollow or nofollow links with this filter:

This will help you quickly identify all of a domain’s dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

Wrapping Up: Dofollow vs. Nofollow Backlinks 

Alright, we covered a lot so let’s do a quick refresher:

1. Dofollow and nofollow tags let site owners choose the links they endorse and the links they don’t. 
2. Building a balance of both link types is essential for building a natural backlink profile. 
3. Dofollow backlinks pass the most link juice and are most impactful on search rankings. 
4. Nofollow backlinks still pass some link juice but can also generate traffic and raise brand awareness. 
5. You can use your web browser, our free tool, or Ahrefs to identify dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

Do you need help putting together a winning SEO strategy that includes a mix of dofollow and nofollow backlinks?

HOTH X, our fully managed service, will simplify your SEO success, and that includes a comprehensive link-building strategy that combines dofollow and nofollow backlinks, so you should definitely check it out.  

Don’t wait to get in touch for a free SEO consultation to discuss your needs in more detail!    

The post Dofollow vs. Nofollow Links: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on The HOTH.

Tactics to acquire backlinks that were viable just 5 years ago are now obsolete (like paying for low-quality links and automating mass outreach emails). 

Why is that?

There are many reasons, including Google Algorithm Updates, emerging search trends (like the use of AI), and the fact that some tactics simply lose their effectiveness after a while. 

For example, generic outreach email templates used to work fine for acquiring backlinks – but now site owners have grown tired of seeing them overflow their inboxes. 

That’s why SEOs need to periodically rethink their backlink strategies. 

If your tried-and-true tactics are no longer yielding results, it’s time to try something new. 

New link-building techniques are always popping up, so you shouldn’t have to look too far to find some new tactics to test out. 

To make things easier for you, we’ve compiled 6 up-to-date link-building tactics that have yielded amazing results for our clients. 

Read on to discover the best ways to get backlinks in 2024 and beyond.

Do Backlinks Still Matter for SEO?

Since SEO changes so often, is it still worth pursuing backlinks for your SEO strategy?

The answer is yes, especially if you’re optimizing your website for Google Search. 

Backlinks are still among Google’s strongest ranking signals, and they’re essential for achieving top rankings (positions 10 and above). 

As proof, research by Ahrefs shows that the #1-ranking page on Google’s search results gets an additional 5% – 14.5% dofollow backlinks from websites each month. 

In fact, whether a website can outrank a competitor usually depends on the strength of its backlink profile. 

That’s because, on search engines, a backlink is more than just a link. 

It’s effectively the site owner saying, “This is a source that I trust, go and read it!” As a result, backlinks act as endorsements of your brand. 

So, if you’ve hit a snag and can’t seem to climb higher than your current rank, your competitors likely have more backlinks coming from high-authority websites. 

The good news?

There’s no reason why you can’t pursue backlinks from the same sources to help even the odds. 

With the right tactics, you can acquire your competitor’s backlinks (or similar ones) and surpass them on the SERPs. 

However, if your SEO campaign focuses on Bing instead of Google, backlinks won’t matter as much. That’s because Bing uses different ranking factors, and backlinks aren’t very high on the list. 

Check out our Bing SEO guide to discover how to optimize your website for it instead of Google. 

What Makes a Backlink High-Quality?

The quality of a backlink matters, but what makes a backlink high or low-quality?

In terms of backlink quality, the #1 deciding factor is the source. In other words, a backlink must come from a relevant, trusted domain to be considered ‘high-quality.’ 

Remember how we said that backlinks act as endorsements of your content?

Well, you wouldn’t want your endorsements to come from untrusted spam sites with terrible reputations, would you?

It’s important to note that in the past, it was entirely possible to boost your search rankings with backlinks coming from spam sites. However, Google has become incredibly adept at identifying spammy backlinks, so you should only stick to links coming from trusted domains. 

Here are the characteristics of a high-quality backlink:

1. Authoritative: When a link is authoritative, it means the linking website has a strong reputation itself. It will have a solid backlink profile, high traffic, and good search rankings. Links from established industry leaders or educational (.edu) and government (.gov) websites carry extra weight since they come from such trusted sources.
2. Relevant: The page linking to you MUST cover a similar topic or niche to positively impact your search rankings. For example, a tech company won’t get much SEO juice from a backlink on a golfing blog.
3. Unique: If a website links to you but not your competitors, it’s a valuable backlink. It shows that you’re offering something distinct and worthy of recognition.
4. Natural: For a backlink to appear natural to Google, the link must appear organically within the content and shouldn’t be overly promotional. The anchor text (the clickable words) must be relevant and not spammy. 

Some SEOs falsely assume that they should build hundreds (or even thousands) of high-quality backlinks to safeguard their search rankings. 

However, this isn’t necessary. 

Even if you only build 20 – 30 backlinks, as long as they contain the characteristics listed above, they can significantly boost your search rankings. 

Building backlinks is an art form, and focusing on quality more than quantity is the key to success. 

6 Effective Ways to Get Backlinks for Your Website 

If you want to find lasting success with a link-building campaign, using the latest and greatest tactics is paramount. 

Here’s an in-depth look at 6 modern ways to get backlinks that will provide the best results for your SEO campaign. 

#1: Link insertions 

This technique involves contacting site owners to ask them to include one of your links in an existing piece of content. 

All you have to do is write some optimized anchor text for the link, and you’re done. 

The catch?

You will have to find a way to add value to the original post, as adding one of your links to an old post doesn’t do much for the website owner. 

To sweeten the pot, you can add new insights/images/infographics to the post to make it fresh and rankable again. 

Our favorite method is to find one of our client’s products, services, or free tools and find web pages where it makes perfect sense to link to them. 

Here’s a real-world example. 

When building links for a landscaping company, we focused on sites where mentioning their mulch delivery service made sense and added value to their readers just by inserting one of our client’s backlinks. 

Here’s what it looks like in action:

As you can see, the link makes perfect sense in the context of the post and provides a valuable resource for readers – a true win-win! 

Also, since link insertions don’t involve any content creation (unlike guest posts), they’re a lot faster to acquire. Not only that, but you won’t have to wait long for the backlink to start affecting your SEO, as you’re inserting it into a piece of content that’s already in Google’s index. 

#2: Using Connectively (Help-a-Reporter-Out Requests)

Another effective way to acquire backlinks is to become a resource for bloggers, reporters, and journalists on Connectively (formerly called HARO). 

Here’s how it works: 

1. Sign up as a source: Create a free account on Connectively and select whether you’re a journalist or a subject matter expert (choose subject matter expert).

2. Select relevant queries: Search for keywords related to your industry or niche. Browse through the queries and identify those that align with your knowledge and experience.

3. Pitch your expertise: If a query aligns with your knowledge, you can submit a well-crafted pitch highlighting your expertise and offering valuable insights on the topic. Be sure to request a backlink to your website if your pitch is used. 

4. Get published and earn backlinks: If your pitch is selected, the journalist will typically include your information in their article and include a backlink to your website.

Here are some tips for finding success on Connectively:

Be thorough! Only respond to queries that you’re truly knowledgeable about. Your pitches should offer unique insights and demonstrate your expertise.

Be quick! Respond to queries within 30 minutes of receiving them.

Be resourceful! Before pitching, check the media outlet’s domain authority (you can use our free domain authority checker) to ensure a backlink from them is worthwhile for your SEO efforts.

#3: Guest blogging 

Some classic ways to get backlinks never go out of style, and guest blogging is definitely one of them. 

Writing high-quality guest blogs on trusted sites in your niche is still one of the most reliable ways to acquire desirable backlinks. 

In addition to landing backlinks, guest posts are excellent for raising brand awareness and introducing your content to a new audience. 

They’re a bit trickier and more time-consuming than link insertions, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth it. 

Securing guest posts 

Guest posting is a powerful tool for building backlinks, but it requires a strategic approach to achieve impressive results. 

Here’s what it takes to identify and secure high-quality guest posts:

Identify target websites

Look for blogs and websites that cater to your target audience and cover topics related to your niche. To find these websites, head to Google Search and type in the following formula:

niche keyword +”guest posts”

Here’s what happens when we use this formula for the gardening niche:

Once you have found a relevant website, check its domain authority and see if the website has specific guidelines for guest contributors. This will help you tailor your pitch and content accordingly.

Craft your pitch 

Website owners and editors are constantly flooded with guest post requests. To stand out, your pitch needs a personal touch that shows you’ve done your homework.

First, address the editor or website owner by name. Then, mention a recent article or blog post you enjoyed, or a specific topic they cover that aligns with your expertise. 

You must also clearly explain why your proposed topic is relevant to their specific audience. 

What unique insights, data, or expertise can you offer that their readers won’t find elsewhere?

You’ll also get bonus points if you can provide links to your previous work or published articles to demonstrate your writing style and expertise.

Develop high-quality content

If the website owner finds your pitch compelling, it’s time to create engaging content that offers a fresh perspective.

 Your copy should: 

• Follow guidelines: Adhere to the website’s preferred submission format, including its word count, image specifications, and citation style.
• Be well-structured: Use clear headings, subheadings, and bullet points to make your content easy to read and digest.
• Be optimized for SEO: Include relevant keywords naturally throughout your content, but avoid keyword stuffing (which is using the keyword even when it doesn’t make sense).
• Include visuals: Include images, infographics, or videos to enhance your content and make it more shareable.

Promote your guest post 

Once your guest post is published, share it across your social media channels, email list, and other relevant platforms.

Make sure you engage with readers by responding to comments and questions on your guest post to foster discussion and build relationships with new readers.

#4: Create ultimate guides and infographics 

If you create outstanding content that provides value to your niche, then you’ll be able to acquire backlinks without even trying. 

That’s because content like ultimate guides and infographics (especially ones containing relevant statistics) generates the most backlinks online. 

So, if you can write an ultimate guide for a topic your target audience wants to learn about, the backlinks will start raking in. 

How do you find suitable topics to write about, though?

After all, the only way that ultimate guides and infographics are effective is if they’re relevant to your target audience’s current interests and needs. 

Enter keyword research and trending topics, both of which will help you get your finger on the pulse of your target audience. 

Our free keyword planner will let you know which keywords related to your industry are generating the most search volume (and how difficult they are to rank for):

Google Trends is an excellent tool for discovering what’s trending in your industry. 

Simply enter a keyword related to your niche, and pay attention to the Interest Over Time graph. If it’s pointing up, users are gaining interest in the topic. 

If it’s on the way down, that means interest in the topic is beginning to wane. 

Google Trends also provides a geographic view, which is helpful for identifying locations where your topics are popular:

This comes in handy if you’re trying to appeal to a local audience. 

#5: Build free tools 

Free tools are backlink magnets, and we can attest to this first-hand. 

That’s because our website contains a suite of free SEO tools, and they generate most of our high-quality backlinks. 

As proof, whenever we look at our top pages report in Ahrefs (which lets us know which of our web pages are performing the best/generating the most backlinks), our free tools dominate the list:

As you can see, virtually every URL on this list is one of our free SEO tools, and they all drive massive traffic for us. 

The concept is simple: free tools attract shares due to the helpful tasks they perform. 

Which types of tools should you create?

It depends entirely on your target audience. 

For instance, if you provide accounting software, then you’ll want to develop free accounting tools. As far as writing the code for the tool, you’ll likely need to enlist the help of a freelance developer (unless you’re savvy with programming). 

#6: Fix broken links

Broken link building is an SEO strategy where you find broken (dead) links on other websites and offer the site owner a replacement link to a relevant page on your website.

It’s a fantastic link-building technique because it’s mutually beneficial: you get a backlink, and the site owner gets to fix a pesky broken link on their site. 

How can you find broken links?

First, you should only target broken links on relevant websites. 

The free option is to use a crawler like Screaming Frog. Enter a competitor’s URL, crawl their site, and check the broken links. 

If you have a paid subscription to Ahrefs, then you can check for broken links using its Site Explorer tool. 

Here’s how:

1. Enter a competitor’s domain. Enter a competitor’s domain or a website in your niche from which you’d like to get a backlink.

2. Navigate to “Backlink profile” then “Broken Links”. This report will show you all the broken outbound links from that website.

3. Analyze the results. Look for broken links with high Domain Rating (DR) or referring domains. These are prime opportunities.

4. Create or identify replacement content. Check if you have relevant content on your site that can replace the broken link. If not, create a replacement post.

5. Reach out. Craft a personalized email to the website owners that A) links to the broken page and B) offers your content as a replacement.

Building Links = Relationship Building 

Since generic outreach templates are all but antiquated today, SEOs are flocking to building links by forming relationships instead. 

What’s that?

Relationship-based link-building involves forming long-term bonds with other website owners in your niche. 

That way, you can continue to generate backlinks for one another instead of a one-and-done deal. 

Not only that but forming relationships with other websites is a great way to network and discover new link sources. You’ll find new opportunities to acquire backlinks by sharing your sources with a partner. 

Of course, you should only try to form relationships with thought leaders in your industry, as partnering with low-DR sites will not do you any favors. 

Taking this approach requires most SEOs to rethink how they approach backlink outreach. 

Instead of asking for a link outright, you aim to connect with the website owner and form a bond. That means connecting with them on social media platforms and interacting with their posts in a genuine way. 

You introduce the idea of building links together only after getting to know them. 

Forming a network of high-authority link partners in your industry will make dominating the SERPs much easier. 

Wrapping Up: 6 Currently Effective Ways to Get Backlinks 

Link-building changes constantly for various reasons, which means that eventually, the tactics you use will go out of style. 

For now, the 6 techniques in this guide are the cream of the crop for boosting your backlink profile. 

Do you want to reach the top of the SERPs in your industry?

Don’t wait to check out our Link Insertion and Link Outreach services from The HOTH!

Our link-building gurus are well-versed in all the most effective techniques, so feel free to book a free SEO consultation with us today.       

The post 6 Modern Ways to Get Backlinks to Boost Your SEO Profile appeared first on The HOTH.

By the end of this year, the industry is set to hit $317.55 billion, up from $273.55 billion in 2023. 

It’s no wonder why SaaS companies have found so much success since they virtually eliminate the need for sophisticated hardware. 

Pretty much any service you can think of is bound to have a cloud-based software solution available, which is both affordable and convenient for users.

However, search engine optimization (SEO) for SaaS companies is a bit tricky, and there are a few reasons why. 

First, since the industry is filled with tech-savvy professionals, their SEO knowledge tends to be a step above other niches. 

Second, since the market is so saturated, the competition for top search rankings is especially fierce. 

Also, there’s an often overlooked aspect of SaaS SEO that you can’t afford to neglect, and that’s SaaS technical SEO. 

Technical SEO refers to optimizations that occur ‘behind the scenes’ on your website’s code and server levels. 

Without flawless technical SEO, your website could have a poor user experience and may not appear in Google’s index – meaning you won’t appear in the search results at all. 

We don’t want that to happen, so we prepared this comprehensive yet easy-to-digest SaaS technical SEO checklist. Stay tuned to learn more!

Understanding Technical SEO and its Importance 

Technical SEO is something that applies to all SEO strategies, not just SaaS websites. 

It’s part of the three core aspects of SEO, which are:

• • On-page SEO: These are all the optimizations that occur on the front-facing side of your website (i.e., your content and service pages). 
  • Off-page SEO: These are search optimizations that take place off your website, such as building backlinks and engaging with your audience on social media. 

• Technical SEO: These are technical, behind-the-scenes optimizations that ensure a pleasant user experience and proper indexability for search engines. 

On-page and off-page SEO tend to steal most of the limelight, as the lion’s share of articles online deal with things like content creation and building backlinks. 

However, you can have the best content and the strongest backlink profile in the world, but without airtight technical SEO, your SEO strategy will likely come crashing down. 

Why is that?

It’s because technical SEO ensures that search engine bots can properly crawl (identify and understand your content) and index (store your web pages in the search engine’s catalog) your website. If any errors take place during either process, your content won’t appear in the SERPs (search engine results pages). 

That means the outstanding content you created and top-tier backlinks you built won’t have any impact at all, so mastering technical SEO is a necessary step for any strategist. 

The four key areas of technical SEO 

Technical SEO is centered around four distinct areas:

• Crawling. You must ensure search engine crawlers can A) find your most important pages and B) understand your content and the keywords you used. 

• Rendering. This refers to how fast your website loads and renders for users and search engines. If your site loads too slow, you won’t pass Google’s Core Web Vitals test, and users may become frustrated and click off your site. 

• Indexing. Once a page gets crawled, a decision gets made whether to include it in a search engine’s index or not. Certain factors can interfere with this process, such as noindex tags and broken links. 

• Page experience. Lastly, you need to ensure a pleasant user experience for anyone visiting your website. This is crucial not only for your search rankings but also to satisfy your target audience. The stronger your user experience is, the easier it will be to land conversions and generate leads. 

A solid SaaS SEO strategy will include optimizations for all four of these areas, and we’ve included them in our checklist below. 

The Unique Challenge SaaS Companies Face with Technical SEO 

Technical SEO can be especially tricky for SaaS companies, and there are more than a few reasons for this. 

In particular, tech SEO is challenging in the SaaS space because of:

1. High competition from tech-savvy companies 
2. A complex customer journey that requires lots of nurturing through content 
3. Diverse collections of product pages and content that need regularly updated 
4. Site speed complications from the vast volumes of data found in SaaS products 
5. Technical SEO is complex and time-consuming, causing lots of SaaS companies to ignore it

Let’s take a closer look at each challenge so that you can better understand how to overcome them.

Fierce competition from other tech-savvy businesses 

We can prove that the SaaS industry is extremely competitive by sharing one simple statistic. 

What statistic would that be?

The keyword difficulty (KD) score for the query ‘software as a service.’

Check it out:

As you can see, the KD score is 83, which is extremely high (for reference, KD scores are measured on a scale of 1 – 100, with 100 being the hardest). 

That means it’ll be extremely hard to rank new SaaS content if you target popular industry keywords. To do so, you’d have to outrank existing content in the top 3 organically ranked positions, and those sites tend to have immaculate SEO and ridiculously high domain authority scores. 

Not only that, but the CPC (cost-per-click) is also astronomical at $5.01. 

In the paid search world, a keyword’s CPC gauges how many advertisers are bidding for it, and in the case of SaaS, TONS of advertisers are trying to get their brands ranking for ‘software-as-a-service.’ 

Both these statistics reflect the fierce competitiveness in the industry. Also, notice that related keywords (called phrase matches) also have high KD scores and CPCs. 

A complex customer journey 

The customer journey for SaaS products tends to be more complex than other industries. 

This is because SaaS programs tend to be expensive, and there are tons of options for any given functionality. As a result, SaaS customers do a lot of research before deciding to subscribe to a service. 

For SaaS site owners engaging in SEO, the complex customer journey requires a sales funnel chock full of content for each stage. 

This includes things like informative blogs and how-to guides, product demos, whitepapers, buyer’s guides, and other types of content. 

Technical SEO-wise, more content equals more web pages, which can make your site architecture needlessly complex. Also, the more pages you create, the more likely it is that you’ll have orphan pages (which are web pages containing no internal links). 

Lots of product pages and content requiring updates 

It’s common for SaaS products to have different versions aimed at small businesses, SMEs (small-to-medium-sized enterprises), and large corporations. 

This creates the risk of duplicate content, a notorious technical SEO hazard. 

Whenever two pages are nearly identical and try to rank for the same keywords, Google’s search bots become confused and will either A) not rank either page or B) alternate between ranking the two, causing major drop-offs in traffic for both pages. 

Proper use of canonical tags and noindex tags will solve this problem, but we’ll dive more into the specifics later. 

Slow site speed due to vast volumes of data 

Most SaaS websites are intrinsically linked to the products they sell. After all, they act as a portal for subscribers to access their tools, so it only makes sense that they’re tied to their products at the hip. 

However, this can create serious issues for technical SEO. 

In particular, the vast volume of data and content found in SaaS products can cause their websites to load poorly, which isn’t good. 

Google has its Core Web Vitals test that favors fast times for loading, responsiveness, and interactivity. 

Fail the test, and you won’t be able to rank your content in the top 3. 

Moreover, users have little-to-no patience for websites that don’t load at the drop of a hat, so slow loading speeds will negatively impact your user experience, too. 

Technical SEO is time-consuming, causing SaaS companies to put it on the back burner 

Lastly, technical SEO is complex, confusing, and time-consuming endeavor, regardless of your industry or niche. 

This can cause SaaS companies to focus on product development instead of improving technical factors on their website, which can lead to disastrous results. 

If you neglect your technical SEO, the following can occur:

• Your content (or entire website) may disappear from the search results entirely 
• Due to poor loading speed and confusing site navigation, you’ll actively draw your target audience away from your site 
• A lack of internal links can cause some web pages to become next-to-impossible to find, which is bad news if they’re important (like thought-leader blog content or one of your product pages)

Due to these reasons (and more), you should never neglect your technical SEO for longer than a few months. 

The End-All SaaS Technical SEO Checklist: A Step-by-Step Guide 

It’s time to dive into the nitty-gritty of a SaaS technical SEO audit. To help you stay on track, we’ve compiled all the components of a thorough audit into a convenient checklist. 

For quick reference, we broke the checklist into the four key technical SEO areas from before, which are:

1. Crawling
2. Rendering
3. Indexing
4. Page Experience 

Let’s get started! 

Section #1: Crawling 

We’ll begin by auditing all the factors that will affect bots crawling your website. As stated before, if Google’s bots can’t properly crawl your content, it won’t get indexed – meaning you won’t appear in the search results. 

The main factors that impact web crawlers include:

• Site architecture 
• The presence of an XML sitemap 
• Broken links 
• Metadata 
• URL structure 

Let’s take a closer look at each one. 

• Ensuring you have a clear site architecture 

Your website’s architecture matters to both users and search engines. 

By architecture, we mean the way you organize and categorize the various pages on your site. 

If you don’t follow a logical flow, your site will become a cluttered mess that’s extremely difficult to navigate. 

Here are the core concepts behind solid site architecture:

• • A flat design for your page hierarchy. By flat, we mean a shallow page hierarchy where each page is only a few links away from the homepage. This helps keep things clean and makes websites easy to navigate. 

• Breadcrumb navigation involves providing a visual ‘trail’ of a user’s journey through your website. This is most commonly done through hyperlinks at the top of the page that recount the pages a user has already visited. A simple example would look like this: Home > Products > Gardening > Shears. As you can see, the user is currently on a page displaying different gardening shears for sale, but the breadcrumbs retrace their steps so they don’t get lost in your inner pages. 

• Subdomains and subfolders are another staple of sound site architecture, but only when used appropriately. At its core, a subdomain is just a prefix added to your domain name. In practice, it’s a way of separating off a piece of your website. This is useful for expanding into foreign markets (adding a subdomain that’s in a foreign language), implementing an online store, and parsing off sections of your site (like your blog). 

• Optimize your URL structure 

This is in line with site architecture, but it’s distinct enough to warrant its own item on the checklist. 

Once again, search engine crawlers can become easily confused if your URL structure is confusing or too complicated. 

As a rule of thumb, keep your URLs as short as possible and give them logical names that correspond with each web page. 

Other best practices include:

• Using target keywords in URLs (this is more important for Bing than it is for Google) 
• Describe the page in question (i.e., blog, service page, etc.) 
• Implement a category-based structure 

An example of a well-optimized URL would look something like this:

www.yoursite.com/products/gardening-shears 

As you can see, it’s short, descriptive, and uses a categorical structure. 

• Create an XML sitemap 

The next item on the list is to create and upload an XML sitemap. 

It’s important to complete this step after checklist items 1 and 2 to ensure your site and URL architecture is where it needs to be. 

This is because if you create a sitemap before these steps, you could still have a confusing site architecture, which an XML sitemap won’t fix (it’ll just provide a roadmap for the confusion). 

Once the first two checklist items are crossed off, then you can move onto creating an XML sitemap, which helps crawler bots better understand the layout of your website. 

Uploading your XML sitemap to Google Search Console (GSC) has become standard practice for SEOs. This is because you’re uploading your sitemap directly to Google, providing easy access to your site architecture for its crawler bots. 

GSC’s Sitemaps Report will give you a detailed overview of your sitemap, including which URLs were uploaded (some may not have made it through and will require adjusting). 

If you’re engaged in a Bing SEO campaign, you should upload your XML sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools, its equivalent of GSC. 

How can you create a sitemap?

You can create one manually, but the easiest way is to use a tool that creates one for you. 

Here are some popular tools and plugins that will generate XML sitemaps:

1. The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress 
2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider 
3. XML-Sitemaps.com 

Most of the time, generating a sitemap is as easy as entering your URL, so it shouldn’t take you much time or effort to create one. 

• Fix broken links 

You’ve seen a broken link in action if you’ve ever clicked a hyperlink only to get directed to a 404 Not Found page. 

Broken links happen for a variety of reasons, most of which occur under the radar. 

For this reason, you could (and probably do) have numerous broken links on your site and not even realize it. 

Website updates, CMS migrations, and URL changes are three common reasons for broken links. 

This means that editing your URL structure (checklist item #2) could create broken links, so it’s important to check your links after changing your URLs. 

The aforementioned Screaming Frog is your best friend here, as it will crawl your website and discover any broken links. 

Fixing a broken link typically takes the form of either A) relinking to the proper page or B) using a 301 redirect for pages that were permanently moved or deleted. 

• Optimize your metadata

Your metadata is the very first thing search engine crawlers will encounter on your website. 

As such, you want to include target keywords in your metadata to signal to search engine algorithms that your content directly relates to them. 

Metadata elements to optimize include:

• Title tags 
• Meta descriptions 
• Robots meta tag 
• Meta viewport 
• Meta charset 

There are two steps to ensure a meta element is optimized for SEO, which are:

1. Fill out the metadata/provide the appropriate HTML tag 
2. Include relevant keywords 

Section #2: Rendering

That concludes all the optimizations related to crawling, so now let’s look at what you must do to ensure proper rendering. 

This aspect of technical SEO focuses on making your website as easy to render as possible, so you’ll need to tweak things like your HTML and CSS. 

Here’s a look at the essential rendering optimizations to make during a technical SEO audit. 

• Don’t overcomplicate your HTML 

Your HTML must be as simple as possible to provide a seamless rendering experience. Overcomplicated HTML will make your website difficult to render, which can confuse search engines and frustrate users. 

Excessive code can also slow down your loading times, causing your content to fall in the search rankings (remember, if you don’t pass Google’s Core Web Vitals test, top-tier rankings will always elude you). 

Here are some ways you can simplify your HTML:

• Streamline the code. Do your best to simplify your HTML by removing redundant or outdated code. Ensure that every line of code has a distinct purpose, which will cut down on fluff and improve loading speeds. 

• Enhance on-page text. Google views content that contains less than 1,000 words as ‘thin.’ Spruce up web pages that are thin on copy or merge them with other pages so that your content is always at least 1,000 words. 

• Clean up your web pages. Stay vigilant for unnecessary or old web pages, and delete them to free up space and improve loading speeds. 

• Ensure JavaScript and CSS aren’t blocking rendering 

Next, you should check for render-blocking JavaScript and CSS. 

Why is that?

It’s because the browser won’t be able to paint any part of the page until the render-blocked files are fully downloaded, parsed, and executed. 

Translation: A loss in page loading speed. 

Google’s recommendation is that you use server-side rendering, static rendering, or hydration as an alternative to render blocking. 

Here’s a brief rundown of each:

• Server-side rendering: This is where you render a client-side or universal app to HTML on the server. 

• Static rendering: Instead of dynamically generating HTML files at runtime, you generate them during build time. 

• Hydration: This involves ‘booting up’ JavaScript views on the client so they reuse the server-rendered HTML’s DOM tree and data. 

Section #3: Indexing

Indexing is where a search engine stores your web pages (or entire website) in its catalog of websites used to generate search results. 

Numerous errors can take place during the process, which is why the following optimizations are necessary. 

• Configure robots.txt file 

Your robots.txt file sits in the root directory of your website. 

What is it?

It’s a simple text file that provides instructions for search engine crawler bots. In particular, it lets them know which web pages to store in its index and which to ignore. 

Your robots.txt file is how you prevent certain areas of your website from appearing on a search engine’s results pages, such as the admin section of your site. 

Since the administrative section of your website has no value to users (and won’t do anything to promote your business), it should stay off the search results. 

Here’s how you would configure your robots.txt file to tell search crawlers to keep out of the admin side of your site:

User-agent: *  

Disallow: /admin/

This instruction tells search engine bots to avoid your admin directory and keep it off the search results, which is what you want. 

However, if your robots.txt file is configured improperly, it will cause all sorts of SEO problems, such as blocking essential parts of your site from the SERPs. 

While it’s beneficial to keep areas of your site like your admin directory off search results, other sections (like your content and product pages) very much NEED to be indexed. 

That’s why you should go over your robots.txt file with a fine-toothed comb to double-check that you aren’t blocking crawlers from indexing crucial pages on your site. 

Here are some tips for properly configuring your robots.txt file:

• Be specific: Clearly specify the directories and web pages you want to block. If you’re too broad or vague with your directives, it may cause crawlers to block important content, so be careful. 

• Test changes: Whenever you make a change to your robots.txt file, you should test it out to ensure it works properly. One of the best ways to do this is to use Google’s free Robots.txt Report to validate your configuration. 

• Monitor your progress: Keep a close eye on your robots.txt file so that you spot any changes or errors as soon as they occur. Time to pay the most attention includes after major site updates or whenever you edit your content strategy. 

• Look for duplicate content 

Duplicate content is an SEO issue that affects certain industries more than others, and SaaS is one of them. 

Don’t you feel lucky?

Essentially, duplicate content is a risk whenever a site has lots of pages that are nearly identical and are attempting to rank for the same keywords. 

For eCommerce brands, they tend to have multiple pages for different colors or sizes of a product, causing duplicate content. 

For SaaS companies, pages for slightly different versions of their products (such as versions for small and large companies) can cause duplicate content issues. 

The solution?

Hit similar pages with canonical tags or noindex tags. In the case of canonical tags, you designate one page as ‘canon,’ as it’s the one that will appear in search engines. The rest won’t appear on the SERPs, but they’ll be available to your users on your site, which is when they matter most, anyway. 

Section #4: Page experience 

The last section deals with optimizing your page experience for users. 

It’s a crucial step because even if your content ranks in the #1 spot, your site still needs a pleasant user experience for anyone to care. 

• Make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices

Google has used mobile-first indexing since 2017, meaning they rank the mobile version of a website first. 

This is because approximately 60% of all online searches (it’s even higher in some industries) occur on mobile devices. 

So, if your website doesn’t display properly on smartphones or tablets, you won’t rank well, and users won’t stick around to consume your content. 

Here are some quick mobile-friendly tips:

• Use a responsive design so that your site changes its dimensions according to a user’s device
• Optimize your pop-ups (remove some; the ones you keep should be brief and to the point) 
• Leverage AMP (accelerated mobile pages) 

Test out your site on your smartphone or tablet to confirm that it works properly on mobile devices before moving on. 

• Audit your speeds for loading, responsiveness, and interactivity 

Slow loading speeds will not only cause you to fail Google’s Core Web Vitals test, it can also deter users from interacting with your content, signing up for product demos, and making purchases. 

There are a whole host of reasons why your site may experience loading issues, so it’s important to audit your site speed on a frequent basis. 

Which tools can you use to simplify the process?

GTMetrix is an excellent tool, as is Google PageSpeed Insights, which is now included with Google Lighthouse. 

Here are a few tips for improving site speed:

1. Compress all images and videos (without reducing quality)
2. Minimize JavaScript and CSS wherever possible
3. Implement proper serving and caching practices 

Google Lighthouse will recommend other ways to improve site speed, so it’s worth checking out. 

• Deal with any localization issues 

The last item on the checklist is to see if you have any localization issues. 

It’s a vital step for SaaS companies who operate internationally (or plan on expanding worldwide in the near future). 

Key localization elements to watch out for include:

• Language translations 
• Localized examples and references 
• Local keywords 
• HREFLANG tags 

Ideally, you want to make the localized version of your website as relevant and relatable to the local public as possible. 

Improve SaaS Technical SEO for Better Rankings and More Traffic 

Completing this checklist means you’ve rounded home base on a thorough technical SEO audit, so congratulations! 

Don’t forget to save this page so that you’ll have the checklist ready for quick reference whenever you need it again (it’s standard practice to conduct a technical SEO audit every 6 months). 

Do you need expert help with improving your technical SEO?

We’d love to take the process off your hands with one of our comprehensive Technical SEO Audits. You can focus on running your business while we give your website a soup-to-nuts audit. 

Once we’re done, we’ll hop on a call and provide you with a detailed report of all our findings. 

Front here, you can either choose to A) fix the issues yourself or B) get our team to fix everything for you. 

The top of Google awaits, so don’t wait to get in touch today!    

The post SaaS Technical SEO: The Ultimate Easy-to-Follow Checklist appeared first on The HOTH.

However, Google is by no means the only search engine out there, even if it is the most prominent. 

Coming in at a modest second place is Microsoft Bing, with just 3.74% of the total search engine market share.

While it may not seem like it at first glance, conducting a Bing SEO campaign can actually drive lots of targeted traffic to your site, so you shouldn’t ignore it. 

Why is Bing SEO worth your time?

Here are the cliff notes:

1. There’s less competition on Bing, making it easier to rank higher for your money keywords 
2. While Google is the mogul of mobile search, Bing controls 10.5% of all desktop searches
3. Console gamers prefer Microsoft Bing (it’s the official search engine on Xbox) 
4. Over 50% of Bing users are younger than 34 
5. Bing Chat, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, received higher performance scores than ChatGPT and Google Bard (according to Cornell University)  

As you can see, Bing actually has a lot going for it. 

It’s worth giving Bing SEO a try if your demographics feature gamers, young people, and prominent desktop users (like professionals who use Microsoft Edge) – or if you’re tired of the steep competition on Google. 

Stay tuned to learn everything you need to know about Bing SEO, including how its search algorithm differs from Google’s. 

The Basics of Bing SEO 

First, you should know that if you optimize your website for Bing, you’re also optimizing it for:

• DuckDuckGo
• Yahoo
• Ecosia
• Qwant 

This is because these search engines are all powered by Bing, so your optimizations will enjoy extra ranking power through those platforms. 

With that out of the way, let’s dive into the specifics of Bing’s search algorithm. 

Bing features a dynamic ranking system that makes heavy use of machine learning, more so than Google. 

Since it’s dynamic, the model is learning and making changes continuously, and certain ranking factors may receive more weight than others depending on current search trends. 

This means optimizing your content for specific ranking factors on Bing won’t necessarily equate to higher rankings 100% of the time. As a quick example, let’s say you place heavy emphasis on building backlinks to boost your rankings for a blog post. 

However, the algorithm has determined, based on user behavior (and countless other factors), that fresh content and strong social signals matter more for this particular query. 

As a result, your link-building efforts won’t have as much of an impact as producing up-to-date content and sharing it on social media. This is unique to Bing, as Google SEO campaigns don’t deal with this issue. 

For this reason, it’s best to take an all-encompassing approach for Bing SEO campaigns, meaning you focus on as many ranking factors as possible. This ensures that you include the ranking factors that the algorithm currently values the most, which is what you want. 

Primary Differences from Google SEO 

If you’re a level-100 Google SEO guru, you’ll run into some surprises if you try to migrate your tactics over to Bing. 

To ensure you don’t wind up in shock, here’s a look at the core differences between Bing and Google SEO:

• • Google places more emphasis on quality backlinks coming from relevant domains. Bing definitely values quality backlinks, too, but there’s more of an emphasis on domain age. 

• Bing takes a precise, straightforward approach to keywords. Google takes a semantic approach that considers the ‘intent’ behind keywords. 

• • Social media is a crucial ranking factor on Bing, while it’s only slightly important on Google. 
  • On Google, meta descriptions are strictly for the user and have no impact on your rankings. On Bing, meta descriptions are a direct ranking factor, so they need to contain your target keyword. 
  • Including keywords in your URLs matters more on Bing than it does on Google. 

• Bing has the capability to crawl and understand various types of multimedia, such as images and videos. Google’s bots lack computer vision.

• Google crawls and indexes the web far more often than Bing does. 

It’s important to remember these differences when developing your Bing SEO strategy. 

What are the Top Ranking Factors on Bing?

Bing’s algorithm uses a similar yet different set of ranking factors than Google’s. Here’s a look at the top 5.

• Relevance. Bing will examine how closely your web page matches the user query, so ensure you produce relevant content. 

• Quality/Credibility. Just like Google, Bing wants to ensure that your content is high-quality and trustworthy. It does this through backlinks, social media signals, and author reputation. This means it’s imperative to provide author bios in your content optimized for Bing.  

• Freshness. Bing favors content that’s fresh for its search results. Ensure that your content is factually accurate and up-to-date. 

• User Experience. Bing’s algorithm looks at crucial user experience and engagement metrics when determining its search rankings. It analyzes things like dwell times, click-through rates, and social media signals. 

• Page Load Time. Also, like Google, Bing only wants to rank websites that feature fast loading times. If you want to rank #1 on Bing, you need a website with fast speeds for loading, responsiveness, and interactivity. 

Top Bing SEO Tips 

Now that you know how Bing’s search algorithm ticks, let’s look at some best practices for Bing SEO campaigns. 

Creating content 

Content creation is a staple of any SEO strategy, regardless of the search engine you’re targeting. Bing is no different, so you’ll need to create plenty of rich content to draw in audiences. 

Remember to include:

• The author’s name, social links, and a short biography 
• Up-to-date information (update your articles frequently) 
• Keywords in your meta description 
• Sources for every claim 

Keyword research 

Something to bear in mind when researching keywords is that most tools are configured for Google only. 

This means the data you receive won’t pertain to Bing, so you’ll need to use tools that include its search data. 

The best way is to use Bing’s very own Keyword Research Tool, which is included in its Webmaster Tools.

It contains data straight from the horse’s mouth, and it’s intuitive and easy to use. Simply type in some head keywords for your industry, and the tool will work its magic. 

Backlinks 

Bing values quality backlinks over large quantities. Therefore, you won’t have to worry too much about closing significant backlink gaps like you do on Google. 

As such, your link-building strategy should focus entirely on going for the ‘big dogs,’ so to speak. 

Try to build links from reputable news outlets, relevant blogs, and websites with high domain authority scores. Also, look for established domains that have been around for a while since Bing places a lot of emphasis on domain age for backlinks. 

You can read more about specific link-building tactics here (the techniques work on both Google and Bing). 

Diversifying Your SEO with Bing 

That’s how Bing works in a nutshell, and expanding your SEO to include it can do great things for your website. 

Whether you want to escape from Google’s fierce competition or appeal to new audiences, Bing SEO can be a great investment. 

Do you need help putting together a winning SEO strategy for your business?

We’d love to help with our managed SEO service, HOTH X. We’ll take the entire process off your hands to simplify your SEO success, so don’t wait to try it out!      

The post A Complete Guide to Bing SEO: How it Differs from Google appeared first on The HOTH.

While this certainly isn’t wrong, it’s not always right 100% of the time, either. 

For example, long-tail keywords (which tend to contain more than one word) are notorious for having low search volumes, but due to their highly specific nature, they’re still worth pursuing. 

This is because long-tail keywords have stronger conversion rates (the average conversion rate for a long-tail keyword is 36%, while the best landing pages only convert at 11%). 

But what about zero search volume keywords? There couldn’t possibly be a reason to pursue them, right?

Wrong! 

It turns out that keywords with no search volume are actually extremely valuable if they have the right search intent. 

Moreover, you can generate a TON of traffic without worrying about competitors getting in the way when you pursue zero search volume keywords. 

In fact, 16 – 20% of ALL keywords on Google are brand-new, meaning that no one has searched for them yet. 

This means that if you’re smart enough to create content for those keywords before they start receiving thousands of searches, you’ll already rank in the #1 spot! 

The trick is knowing which keywords are about to blow up and which are truly worthy of their null search volume status. 

In this article, we’re going to teach you how to uncover valuable zero search volume keywords. 

You’ll also learn about long-tail keywords, the unreliability of keyword planner tool data, and how to use the Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) technique – so stick around. 

Understanding Zero Search Volume Keywords 

Search volume is a keyword metric that displays how many users are currently searching for the query on search engines (most typically Google). 

Essentially, a keyword’s search volume tells you how popular the keyword is at the moment. 

As stated in the intro, the most popular SEO strategy is to target keywords that have high search volumes.

This ensures the content you create for the keywords has a sizable audience, increasing the chances of boosting your organic traffic. 

Long-tail keywords are the exception to this rule, as these types of keywords don’t receive much search volume. 

Offsetting the low search volume is how highly targeted long-tail keywords are, which contributes to their strong conversion rates. 

Still, a long-tail keyword is bound to have 50 or maybe 100 searches per month. 

What about keywords that truly have zero search volume?

We’re talking nil, nada, zilch in the way of search volume, at least according to keyword planner tools. 

It could be that the research tools have yet to update their data, or the keyword could be brand-new and truly have zero search volume. 

Either way, these types of keywords require a special approach for them to bear fruit. 

Finding a zero search volume keyword 

Let’s use our free keyword planner tool to hunt down a zero search volume keyword so you can see what we’re talking about. 

steep.

First, let’s search for an example of a short-tail keyword that has a high search volume. An industry keyword like ‘organic traffic’ should do the trick:

As you can see, it has a search volume of 1,600, which is quite high, and a keyword difficulty score of 69, which is pretty steep. 

A keyword’s difficulty score refers to how difficult it will be to rank #1 for it, given the amount of competition. 

One of the major benefits of long-tail and zero search volume keywords is their low keyword difficulty scores. 

Now, let’s add some more words to our keyword to see if we can trigger a zero search volume keyword. Here’s what happens when we search for the keyword ‘SEO for organic traffic’ using our tool:

As you can see, the keyword and its related keywords are all registering 0s across the board. Not only is the search volume 0 but so is the keyword difficulty score. 

If you were to take these numbers at face value, there’d be no benefit in targeting the keyword ‘SEO for organic traffic’ since nobody is searching for it. 

But is this really the case?

Let’s find out. 

Zero Search Volume and Long-Tail Keywords: What’s the Difference?

First, let’s briefly distinguish the difference between zero search volume and long-tail keywords, as it can quickly get confusing. 

Here’s the main difference between the two:

Long-tail keywords have some measurable search volume, even if it’s small.

Zero search volume keywords show no search volume in keyword tools.

Where things get a tad complicated is that every zero search volume keyword is also a long-tail keyword. 

This is because even though these keywords have zero search volume, they still appear on the long-tail of the search demand curve. 

Therefore, if you ever hear an SEO referring to a zero search volume keyword as a long-tail keyword, they aren’t wrong! 

Also, users can phrase long-tail keywords in various ways. For example, with the keyword “SEO for organic traffic,” users might also search for:

• How to do SEO for organic traffic
• Organic traffic for SEO
• Using SEO to generate organic traffic

These variations all share the same search intent and count as phrase matches (closely related keywords that contain the same phrase in different ways) for the original keyword ‘SEO for organic traffic.’

Why does this matter for zero search volume keywords?

While a single keyword may show no search volume, the combined search volume of related keywords can be substantial. This is because search engines recognize the shared intent behind different phrasings of the same query.

Speaking of which.. 

Here are a few more ways zero search volume keywords are sneaky little devils:

• Aggregated value: Individually, these keywords might appear insignificant on keyword planner tools. However, together, they can drive significant traffic to your website.
• Search intent alignment: The best way to determine if a zero search volume keyword is worth pursuing is by understanding its search intent. If you optimize your content for a relevant user query variation, such as “how to do SEO for organic traffic,” your website will likely appear in search results for all related searches.
• Google’s algorithm: Google’s algorithms are advanced enough to recognize when different phrases have the same intent. This means your webpage can show up in search results for all variations of a keyword as long as they have identical search intent.

To summarize, zero search volume keywords are valuable when you understand and leverage their search intent. By optimizing for one variation of a pertinent user question, you can capture traffic from all related searches, in turn maximizing your reach and effectiveness.

Keyword Planner Tools Are a Guide, Not a Crystal Ball

Most SEO advice emphasizes targeting high-volume, low-competition keywords. 

Keyword planner tools are essential for finding these opportunities, but it’s important to understand their limitations:

Search volume data isn’t always accurate. Different tools can show very different search volumes for the same keyword. This is because they rely on estimates, not exact figures.

Low-volume keywords might be underestimated. Many tools have a threshold for how much data a keyword needs to register. This means low-volume keywords, especially those with informational intent, can be overlooked.

Why the discrepancies?

Most tools get their data from Google Keyword Planner, which primarily focuses on commercial keywords and doesn’t cover all search types.

Also, the sheer volume of Google searches (8.5 billion every day) makes it impossible for any tool to track everything with 100% accuracy. Plus, some keywords might not have enough data to register in a tool’s database to begin with (due to them being brand-new). 

Lastly, Google Keyword Planner groups keywords into “buckets” of estimated search volume. This means the number you see is often just an approximation.

This means you shouldn’t take search volume numbers at face value when it comes to your keyword research. 

Use them as a guide, not a definitive answer.

All this should show you that it’s beneficial to look beyond high-volume keywords, especially if you’re in a fiercely competitive niche. 

That’s why you need to consider low-volume and zero-search volume keywords, especially if they align with your target audience’s needs.

The Benefits of Targeting Zero and Low-Volume Keywords 

You may be wondering, “What’s in it for me? Is there really enough benefit in targeting zero search volume keywords? Will it deter me from my already successful SEO strategy of targeting high-volume keywords?”

The answer is no, it won’t – and you stand to gain quite a bit from zero search keyword phrases if you do it right. 

With the perfect zero search volume keyword, you’ll be able to operate in a space with virtually no competitors, which is an incredible advantage. That dramatically increases your chances of ranking on the first page of search engine results pages, and who’s not a fan of that?

Higher rankings aren’t the only perks of targeting keywords with no search volume, either, so let’s look at some of the most appealing benefits.

#1: Be the early bird for hot new search trends 

Whenever a trend takes off, established websites (think Forbes, The New York Times, and Reddit) sweep in and take over. 

At this point, it’s incredibly difficult to outrank major websites for short-tail keywords related to trends. 

Since behemoths like Forbes have Domain Rating scores in the 90s, they’re always going to outrank smaller sites – especially in the top 5 organic results. 

However, if you’re savvy about monitoring social trends and news sites, you can get ahead by targeting emerging keywords before they become trendy. 

So, while these keywords may have zero search volume at the moment, they’re about to blow up in a big way. 

Here’s how you can spot potentially trending keywords in your field:

Know your niche: Stay up-to-date on industry news (big and small) and try to predict what users might start searching for. 

For instance, if a company is about to launch a new software product in your industry, it’s likely your target audience will search for tutorials and ways to use it. These detailed, long-tail keywords (i.e., ‘how to use (new software product)’) likely won’t have any search volume yet, but you’ll know that’s about to change. 

Use social media: Monitor trending hashtags on X and Instagram to identify potential search terms. Also, consider relevant communities on Reddit. 

Search for emerging trends: Use Google Trends or Exploding Topics to see if a keyword is gaining popularity and track its progress over time.

If you have the budget, a social listening tool like Hootsuite is a wise investment. 

That’s because you can configure it to automatically track relevant:

1. Hashtags
2. Topics 
3. Social conversations 
4. Trends 

You can set up notifications so that you’ll know precisely when crucial trend-forming conversations take place. This helps you spot trends extremely early, which is great for honing in on zero search volume keywords. 

How to use Google Trends

The benefit of using Google Trends is that it’s completely free. 

Here’s how to use it.

1. Access Google Trends:

Go to the Google Trends website.

2. Enter Your Search Term or Topic:

Type a keyword, phrase, or topic into the search bar and press enter.

3. Analyze the Results:

After you hit the Explore button, Google Trends will present you with a few sections of data:

• Interest Over Time: A graph showing the search term’s popularity over a selected time period (you can adjust the time frame).

• Interest by Region: A map showcasing the search term’s popularity in different geographic locations.

• Related Topics: Other topics related to your search term are also trending.
• Related Queries: Specific search queries related to your term that are also popular.

As you can see, Google Trends equips you with plenty of data to spot keywords that are rising in popularity. In particular, look for keywords that are starting to trend up on the Interest Over Time line graph. 

#2: Generate more organic traffic 

Even if your website is thriving with high-volume keywords, there’s always untapped potential in long-tail keywords, even those with seemingly zero search volume.

Why?

As mentioned above, 16-20% of daily Google searches are entirely new. That’s a significant portion of potential traffic that you shouldn’t overlook.

Most businesses focus solely on popular short-tail keywords, leaving the vast majority of long-tail searches (70%) wide open for you to capture.

With 56% of buyers preferring search phrases of three or more words, long-tail keywords offer a powerful way to reach a highly targeted audience actively seeking solutions, which results in higher conversion rates.

So, by targeting these longer queries, you’re tapping into a largely untapped pool of potential customers who have shown interest in what you do. 

#3: Far less competition 

Too much competition has been the undoing of many an SEO strategy. 

Even with outstanding original content and flawless technical SEO, you can be outranked by:

• Competitors with more authoritative backlinks
• Optimized local business listings 
• Established pages with long-standing rankings

Also, PPC ads, the new AI Overview, and SERP features like snippets, knowledge panels, and image carousels can outrank your content. 

Targeting zero search volume keywords offers a solution to this frustrating issue.

These keywords have minimal competition, allowing your content to become an authority on the subject. Google and other search engines will prioritize your content during indexing, increasing your chances of ranking highly.

As competitors eventually target these topics, your well-established content will already hold the top spots, making it difficult for others to dethrone you.

#4: They help you pin down your target audience 

Another benefit of long-tail zero search volume keywords is that they’re highly specific, which means they’re highly relevant to your audience. 

There’s often a lack of content addressing these queries, so your content can be the very first of its kind!

For example, consider the keyword “increase SEO for SaaS companies.” Despite its zero search volume on Ahrefs, many SaaS digital marketing managers are likely searching for this term or similar phrases. Most current content focuses on the broader term “SEO for SaaS.”

By creating content optimized for the long-tail keyword, you can attract these marketers.  

Your specific, in-depth content will better meet their needs than generalized articles. This can lead to more traffic and insights into your audience’s preferences and search behavior.

How to Target Low-Volume Keywords 

Now that you know that targeting zero search volume keywords is more than worth it, you need to learn how to discover and target them. 

After all, just because a keyword has no search volume doesn’t automatically make it an untapped goldmine. 

Plenty of low-volume keywords live up to their reputation – and if you target them in your content, you likely won’t see any results at all. 

Does that mean zero search volume keywords are one giant gamble?

Not at all, as there are plenty of ways to discover if a low-volume keyword is worth your time and money or not. So, before you go targeting every long-tail keyword you can find that relates to your niche, stop and read this section first. 

As a rule of thumb, before you target a keyword, you should take the following steps:

1. Conduct detailed keyword research 
2. Ensure its relevance with your audience
3. Focus on keywords that have commercial intent 
4. Add strong supporting keywords (LSI)
5. Try the KGR method (keyword golden ratio)
6. Test your conversion rates and tweak accordingly 

It’s important to follow these series of steps before pulling the trigger on a zero search volume keyword, so let’s take a more in-depth look at each one. 

Step #1: Conduct keyword research 

The keyword research you’ll need to conduct for zero search volume keywords differs a bit from the traditional route. 

Instead of relying on keyword planner tools, you’ll want to search for specific long-tail keywords on Google. 

To see this in action, let’s try it out with the short-tail keyword ‘SEO for SaaS.’ 

We entered the term into Google. Here’s the long-tail keywords that came up under the People Also Ask section:

As you can see, these are all excellent long-tail keywords (that likely have low search volume) that you can target for content. 

Sure enough, if we run one of the phrases through our keyword planner tool, we can see that it returns no results or phrase matches, which means it definitely has no search volume:

Use Google Autocomplete 

Another secret weapon you can use is Google Autocomplete. You’ll see it in action the second you type a single letter into the search bar. 

Google immediately starts recommending keywords that it thinks you want to search for to speed things up. 

Here’s a quick overview of how it works:

1. You start typing in a search query.
2. Google’s algorithms analyze and compare your input to vast amounts of data.
3. Predictions appear in a dropdown menu below the search bar.
4. You can click a prediction to complete your search or continue typing to refine your query.

This is huge because these aren’t random suggestions; they’re real keywords that users search for – so they’re all valid keywords you can use. 

To make this feature even more effective, get the Keyword Surfer add-on for Google Chrome. 

That way, you’ll see each keyword’s search volume next to it in the autocomplete section. This is EXTREMELY useful if you plan on implementing this strategy, so don’t pass it up. 

Step #2: Ensure the keyword is relevant to your audience 

Targeting zero-search keywords requires a bit of detective work. 

Since these keywords lack search data, you’ll need to assess their relevance to your target audience through other means. Here’s how:

Tap into community conversations: Explore platforms like X, Reddit, forums, and Facebook groups where your audience gathers online. Look for discussions and mentions of your potential keywords. Frequent mentions can indicate growing interest and potential search volume, so keep your eyes open.

Leverage social listening tools: Tools like Moz and Semrush can help you track keyword mentions across social media. Remember to filter out brand names for a more accurate picture.

Step #3: Focus on keywords that have commercial intent 

If you want to boost your sales and enjoy higher conversion rates (which, who doesn’t?), focus on zero-search volume keywords with strong commercial intent. 

In other words, whenever a keyword has commercial intent, it means the prospect has their wallet in their hand, and they’re ready to buy something. 

Commercial intent keywords often contain the following phrases:

• Vs. (or comparison) 
• Best 
• Top 
• Suppliers 
• Discount
• Coupon
• Deal 
• Providers 
• Get 
• Where to buy 

All these phrases represent an intent to buy, so you should pepper them into your long-tail queries whenever possible. 

Why is it beneficial to focus on these types of keywords?

Prioritizing commercial and transactional keywords allows you to capture high-intent users who are ready to buy, directly impacting your bottom line. 

While informational keywords can be useful for building brand awareness, they are less likely to generate immediate sales, so you shouldn’t focus on them too much if your primary goal is to increase your revenue. 

Step #4: Add supporting keywords 

Next, adding latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords to your primary keyword is a good idea. 

Yet, the accumulation of traffic from these additional keywords can be quite profound. 

These keywords often take the form of questions (such as the queries found in the People Also Ask section of Google). 

As such, answering these questions in your content will increase your chances of gaining additional search engine real estate for those queries.

An example would be snagging a featured snippet, which is a powerful SERP feature that typically provides answers to questions:

Step #5: The KGR method 

The Keyword Golden Ratio is a formula developed by Doug Cunnington that helps identify keywords with low competition and decent search volume. 

The goal is to find keywords that are easy to rank for and can drive targeted traffic to your site.

The KGR formula is:

KGR= Monthly search volume / Number of Google results that have the keyword phrase in the title

To break it down:

Allintitle search: Use the “allintitle:” search operator in Google to find the number of pages with the exact keyword phrase in their title.

Monthly search volume: Find the monthly search volume for the keyword using tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Keyword Planner.

Ideal KGR values: 

<0.25: Golden opportunity! These keywords are ripe for ranking quickly.

Between 0.25 and 1: Moderate competition. Ranking is possible, but it might take longer.

<1: Highly competitive. Avoid these, especially if your website is new.

Here’s an example to illustrate our point:

A keyword with 50 “allintitle” results and 200 monthly searches would have a KGR of 0.25, making it a prime target for quick ranking.

Using this formula, you can predict (with surprising accuracy) where you’ll rank in the SERPs and how long it will take!

Concluding Thoughts: Zero Search Volume Keywords 

If your SEO efforts have hit a snag, it could be that you’re targeting keywords with too much competition. 

After all, everyone and their brother goes after short-tail keywords, so be a trendsetter and do the opposite. 

With the proper research and preparation, zero search volume keywords can generate loads of traffic and conversions for you. 

Remember to do thorough research, focus on commercial intent keywords, and use the KGR method wherever possible. 

Do you lack the manpower or resources at your company to launch an SEO strategy?

Then, you’re a perfect candidate for HOTH X, our fully managed SEO service. Our team will simplify your SEO success, so don’t wait to get in touch for a free consultation!      

The post Targeting Zero Search Volume Keywords That Bring Loads of Traffic and Conversions appeared first on The HOTH.

White hat this, black hat that, but what does the color of your hat have to do with ranking on Google?

The whole white-hat/black-hat dynamic is a reference to early American Western movies, where the hero wore a white hat, and the villain wore a black hat.

In the SEO world, the color of the hat you wear represents whether you adhere to Google’s Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines) when optimizing your content. 

For example, ‘white-hat’ practices include:

• Creating excellent content that provides value to your audience.
• Using keywords organically in your content (avoiding spam). 
• Naturally acquiring backlinks due to the strength of your web pages. 

These all follow Google’s guidelines, and they align with its goals as a search engine – which is to provide users with valuable, trusted content. 

Your spiffy white hat will turn black if you don’t follow the rules and use frowned-upon tactics like buying backlinks in bulk, spamming keywords, and cloaking.

Choosing to pursue white-hat links will benefit you in the long run when it comes to link-building. 

That’s because they’re cost-effective, virtually risk-free, and can help you build long-lasting relationships with other websites in your niche. 

Stay tuned to learn how to build white-hat links for your website.

White-Hat Links vs. Black-Hat Links: What’s the Difference?

White-hat and black-hat links have some distinct differences, but let’s define them first. 

What are white-hat links?

A white-hat link is a backlink that you earn organically, meaning that other websites choose to link to your content based on its merit alone. 

Your methods adhere to Google’s (or another search engine’s) search guidelines, and your main focus is on creating high-quality, relevant content that’s truly helpful to your audience. 

White-hat link-building methods include the following:

• Writing guest posts on high-quality sites within your industry. 
• Creating resources that generate lots of shares, like infographics and videos. 
• Conducting outreach (without offering money) and building relationships with news sites, media outlets, and related websites that aren’t direct competitors. 
• Naturally attracting backlinks due to the strength of your blogs, guides, social media posts, and other types of content. 

What are black-hat links?

Black-hat links are acquired through manipulative tactics that A) violate search engine guidelines and B) don’t provide any value to users. 

These tactics aren’t concerned with playing by Google’s rules or catering to their target audience. Instead, they only aim to game the system and artificially boost search rankings and organic traffic generation. 

Google’s guidelines make it explicitly clear that they don’t tolerate black-hat link-building tactics, which they refer to as link schemes. 

The black-hat game is a notoriously risky one, as Google actively penalizes websites that it finds using manipulative tactics. 

Punishments and consequences of black-hat link-building include:

• Severe search engine penalties like getting a page (or your entire site) removed from Google’s index 
• Damage to your website’s reputation, which may cost you valuable backlink opportunities in the future 
• Significant drops in organic traffic

Here’s an overview of the types of ‘link schemes’ Google penalizes websites for:

• Text advertisement links that don’t use sponsored nofollow tags 
• Buying links 
• Offering goods or services in exchange for links
• Excessive link exchanges (trading links exclusively with another website in bulk)
• Low-quality bookmark site or directory links
• Forum comments with backlinks in the signature 
• Hidden backlinks contained in widgets distributed across multiple websites
• Sitewide links that appear in footers and website templates 

Participating in any of these link-building tactics will earn you a hat black enough to make Lee Van Cleef jealous. 

Why is that?

It’s because black-hat link tactics rely on trickery instead of gaining backlinks based on the merit of their content. 

Google takes this very seriously because its reputation is on the line. 

If they were to let every black hat tactic fly, their search results would be chock full of irrelevant, low-quality results that wouldn’t satisfy their users’ intent. 

That’s why they use SpamBrain, their AI-powered algorithm that hunts down spammy websites and links. 

On the other hand, white-hat link builders use the quality of their content to acquire links, which is what Google wants. 

While strictly using white-hat tactics is a bit difficult and time-consuming, it is possible – and can yield many benefits. 

Are White-Hat Links Worth the Trouble?

The reason many SEOs give into the dark side and use black-hat techniques is how hard it can be to build links without violating any guidelines. 

In fact, according to a study by Conductor, 41% of companies consider link-building as the most difficult aspect of SEO.

Even the most talented link builders tend to use a mix of white, gray, and black-hat techniques out of necessity for this reason. 

Yet, white-hat links are undoubtedly the safest and most powerful type of links you can acquire, and they’re the most likely to withstand new Google algorithm updates. 

For instance, the Link Spam Update from December 2022 negated the impact paid backlinks had on SEO profiles, and the effects were drastic on websites that had bought lots of links. 

Backlink profiles consisting entirely of white-hat links, on the other hand, were completely unaffected. 

Benefits of white-hat backlinks

In addition to being practically update-proof, white-hat links also provide the following benefits:

Cost-effective. Black-hat link tactics tend to involve shelling out cash for links, which is expensive and wasteful if the links don’t pan out. Since there’s no paying for links in white-hat link-building, it’s the more affordable option. 

Improve your reputation. White-hat tactics like guest posting and being a resource for reporters involve creating valuable content that’ll help establish your brand as a thought leader. Conversely, black-hat tactics will actively harm your reputation if you get caught, which can spell disaster for your future outreach efforts. 

Build relationships. Writing guest posts, targeting link insertions, and engaging in broken link building are all ways to form long-lasting relationships with other website owners – which will lead to acquiring more high-authority links in the future. Also, as you continue to grow and expand your network, it’ll become increasingly easier to generate the backlinks you need. 

White-hat links provide many benefits and involve virtually zero risks for digital marketers. 

How You Can Start Building White-Hat Links 

Are you ready to don a white hat and save your website from costly penalties?

Then, you’ll need a reliable bag of tricks (and maybe a six-shooter) to use if you want to see better SERP rankings. 

While it’s true that white-hat link-building techniques can take some time, once they get going, they tend to keep on giving. 

Here’s a look at the most effective ways to build white-hat links. 

Create content that generates shares

Let’s begin by looking at the link-building tactic that Google values the most: creating high-value content that other websites can’t wait to share. 

This makes Google happy because you’re acquiring backlinks in a 100% natural way. Not only did you not have to offer website owners any money to link to your content, you didn’t even have to send them an outreach email. 

An example would be creating a fun infographic that provides relevant statistics for your industry. 

Bloggers are always looking for statistics and visually engaging infographics to share in their posts. By creating a stellar infographic containing relevant statistics, you’ll be doing them a huge favor. 

As a result, they’ll link to your content without you having to lift a finger, and you’ll start raking in backlinks like mad. 

Resource pages, ultimate guides, and free tools also generate lots of shares and backlinks, especially if you go into lots of detail. 

We can attest to this, as our free tools generate thousands of backlinks for us. For example, our backlink checker tool currently has 1,932 backlinks coming from 219 referring domains:

If possible, try to develop a free tool for your target audience. 

Also, one content type that’s scarcely used but is still excellent for generating shares is surveys. 

Conducting a relevant survey in your field will provide original, relevant statistics for your audience and other professionals in your industry. A survey like this is a goldmine for generating shareable content, as you can mention the findings of the survey in:

• A dedicated blog post
• An infographic (containing stats that your competitors won’t have yet) 
• A video
• A whitepaper 

As you can see, one survey can turn into numerous content types, all of which have the potential to generate backlinks. 

Another benefit of creating linkable assets is that they will keep generating links for you over time, especially if the topics are evergreen. 

Write guest posts on related websites

Another classic white-hat link-building tactic is to write guest blogs on other websites in your industry.

This involves sending outreach emails to website owners, but you don’t offer money or products/services in exchange for a link.

Instead, you’re requesting to write a guest blog post on their website to provide value to their audience. For this reason, guest posting is not considered a link scheme. 

The challenge comes in finding websites in your niche that accept guest posts and then getting one of those websites to allow you to write one. 

The site owner benefits because you’re providing them with a piece of content they don’t have to create, and you benefit via a backlink on their site that points to yours. 

Using search operators to find guest post opportunities 

There are a few ways to hunt down websites that accept guest posts, and using Google search operators is one of the most popular. 

What are search operators?

They’re special phrases you type into Google to receive unique search results. The most popular search operator for guest posts looks something like this:

Industry/niche keyword + “guest post”

It’s crucial to use the ‘+’ sign and quotation marks for the search operator to work properly. 

However, you shouldn’t stick with just one, as you probably won’t find many guest post spots that way. Here are some more suggestions:

• Gardening + “guest blog”
• Gardeners + “guest blogger”
• Gardening tips + “guest column”
• Gardening + “guest article”
• Pruning + “guest author”
• Planting + “write for me”
• Gardening blog + “write for us”
• Gardening magazine + “become a contributor”
• Gardening journal + “contribute to this site”

Plugging these into Google should provide a viable list of websites that you can contribute guest posts to, but sometimes it takes a little experimenting with the search operators to find the best opportunities. 

We recommend compiling the most promising guest post opportunities into a spreadsheet to make the outreach process easier. 

Analyzing competitor backlink profiles to find guest posts 

If you’re burned out on using search operators, you can also analyze competitor backlink profiles to discover where they’re writing guest posts. 

Take to Google and type in your most important keywords, then run the top #5 results through our free Backlink Checker tool.

From there, dig through their link profiles to find guest blogs, and then add those websites to your list of guest post opportunities. 

Sticking with the gardening example from before, let’s give this a whirl. 

If you sold gardening tools, one of your top competitors would be Raw Rutes, so let’s peep at their backlinks. 

After doing some digging, there’s a backlink from a site called Gardening Know How where Raw Rutes has been writing some guest blogs. 

Voila, now you have a website in your niche that you know accepts guest posts, so you’d be able to pitch them guest blog ideas. 

Running a domain authority check on each website

Before you start reaching out to each website owner to request a guest post, confirm that they have a strong domain authority score. 

What’s that?

Domain authority (DA) is an SEO metric developed by Moz that predicts the likelihood of a website ranking high on the SERPs. 

While it’s a third-party metric (not officially created by Google or any other search engine), it’s a reliable judge of the ranking strength of a domain. 

A domain authority score is a number from 1 – 100, with 1 being the weakest and 100 being the strongest. 

If you write a guest post for a website with very poor domain authority, the backlink placement won’t improve your SERP rankings. 

Ideally, you only want to obtain backlinks from trusted, relevant (their content must relate to yours) websites with high domain authority scores. 

DA scores above 40 are considered high authority, so look out for those whenever they pop up. 

Broken link building 

This white-hat tactic will provide you with a backlink while providing the internet with a great service by removing a busted link. 

Broken links pop up on websites all the time, usually when a site owner moves or deletes a page without updating the hyperlink. 

Broken links on your website are a no-no that you should always fix. However, broken links on other websites in your niche present golden link-building opportunities. 

How’s that?

Let’s say that a website in your niche has a link to a blog post that’s broken. Not only that, but it just so happens that you have a blog covering the same topic on your website, which would be the perfect replacement. 

By sending an outreach email to the site owner, you can offer to fix the broken link by linking to your blog instead. 

This technique tends to work because broken links are bad for SEO, and offering a replacement link provides a quick fix. That’ll save the site owner the time and hassle of creating a new piece of content to fix the link. 

It doesn’t always work, as sometimes the site owner may have moved the post without updating the link, meaning they don’t need anything from you.

However, you should still add it to your white-hat link-building repertoire – as it doesn’t violate any guidelines. 

Ahrefs saves the day again, as they have a free Broken Link Checker that will find broken links on any URL you enter. Simply enter a URL, complete the captcha, and presto – you’ll have a breakdown of all the broken links on any given website. 

Unlinked brand mentions 

The last white-hat link-building tactic we’ll look at is unlinked brand mentions. This is where you find instances where other websites mentioned your brand but failed to provide a backlink – hence the name. 

It’s a great technique because it targets websites that have already mentioned your brand, meaning that they’re genuinely interested in what you do. 

Ahrefs’ Content Explorer has a nifty feature where you can enter your brand name in quotes, choose ‘In Content’ from the drop-down menu, and then select the highlight unlinked filter. 

This will display all your unlinked brand mentions, so get ready to start sending outreach emails. 

Sign up for HARO

HARO stands for Help-a-Reporter-Out, and it’s a platform that connects journalists with industry experts for quotes, insights, and stories. 

It’s an excellent resource for backlinks since responding to journalists’ queries will score you a backlink in their story (if they choose your reply, that is). 

Here’s how HARO works:

• Journalists submit queries detailing the kind of information and expertise they need for their stories.
• Sources (individuals, businesses) with relevant knowledge respond to these queries with pitches, offering their insights and potential quotes.
• If the journalist likes the pitch, they’ll often use the source in their article and possibly provide a backlink to the source’s website.

HARO is 100% a white-hat tactic because it provides value to users through journalists’ stories, so Google has no problem with it. It’s also an excellent opportunity to gain media exposure, earn valuable backlinks, and position yourself as a thought leader in your field. 

Here’s how to get started using HARO:

1. Sign up: Create a free account on the HARO platform (https://www.helpareporter.com/).
2. Set your preferences: Choose categories relevant to your industry and expertise. This determines the types of journalist queries you’ll receive.
3. Monitor your inbox: HARO sends out emails three times a day (morning, afternoon, and evening). Scan these quickly for relevant opportunities.
4. Craft quick and compelling pitches: When you see a good fit, respond promptly with a concise pitch. Highlight your expertise and how you can uniquely add value to the journalist’s story.
5. Follow-up: If you don’t hear back within a reasonable timeframe, a polite follow-up email can be effective, but don’t get pushy! 

Run a digital PR campaign

Digital public relations (PR) is where you get in touch with bloggers and online journalists to share relevant information about your organization. The goal is to A) generate backlinks and B) improve your company’s reputation in the eyes of the public. 

Digital PR involves conducting outreach to media outlets, news websites, bloggers, and social media influencers. 

Here’s how you can use digital PR to boost your SEO:

• Share newsworthy content: The core of digital PR is having something worth sharing. This could be:
  • Original research or data
  • Expert insights and commentary
  • Charitable donations 
  • Adding a new department/launching a new product 
  • Announcing new C-suite members (CEO, CFO, CMO, etc.)
  • A unique company announcement
  • Thought leadership pieces
• Craft your press release: Write a newsworthy press release and optimize it for online distribution.
• Targeted media list: Build a list of journalists, bloggers, and influencers in your niche who might be interested in your story.
• Outreach: Personalize your pitches when contacting the media. Highlight the value your content offers their audience.
• Track coverage & mentions: Monitor news outlets, social media, and blogs to see who covers your story. Look for backlinks to your website.

Concluding Thoughts: White-Hat Links 

If you don’t want Google to penalize your content, it’s best to be like John Wayne and always wear a white hat. 

You can build a strong backlink profile that raises zero suspicion by creating valuable content, fixing broken links, and adding backlinks to your existing brand mentions. 

Do you need expert link-building services for your website?

Then don’t wait to check out our Link Outreach and Link Insertions Services from The HOTH. Our link-building techniques are squeaky clean, and we’ve helped countless clients dominate the SERPs in their industry, so don’t wait to get in touch now.   

The post Grow Your Authority With White-Hat Link-Building appeared first on The HOTH.

Digital marketing side hustles provide some of the best ways to supplement your income, and there are more than a few reasons why. 

For one, you can tackle most digital marketing tasks on a laptop with an internet connection, so you’ll be able to do the work remotely. For two, the digital marketing landscape is vast, as virtually every business needs an online presence in the current era. 

The global digital marketing industry was valued at an impressive 780 billion in 2023, and it’s estimated to have a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 11.1% from 2024 – 2030. 

From affiliate marketing to graphic design, digital marketing offers a wide variety of side hustles that cater to different talents (writing, designing, influencing, etc.). 

That means you should be able to find a digital marketing side hustle that meshes perfectly with your existing skills. 

Yet, it can be difficult to know which marketing tasks are worthy of a side hustle and which are more of a full-time gig. 

For example, there are plenty of articles out there claiming that SEO consulting is a ‘side hustle.’ Well, without a massive existing knowledge base (and plenty of real-world experience), you won’t have any valuable insights to provide to your clients. 

In other words, it’s definitely not something beginners can do ‘on the side.’ 

That’s why we put together this list of realistic digital marketing side hustles, so stay tuned to find the perfect one for you.

What’s a Digital Marketing Side Hustle?

Any business that wants to survive needs promotion, and now that the majority of the world is online, digital marketing reigns supreme. 

That’s not to say that traditional marketing has gone by the wayside, although its growth is halting in certain areas. For example, it’s predicted that B2B professionals will decrease traditional advertising methods by 3.64% in 2024. 

What’s digital marketing?

It refers to promoting a brand’s products and services through digital channels, such as:

• Search engines through SEO (search engine optimization) 
• Email 
• Social media 
• Digital content (videos, blogs, infographics, etc.)
• PPC (pay-per-click) advertising 
• Paid ads (YouTube, banner ads, etc.)

A digital marketing side hustle, then, is when you perform specific digital marketing tasks for businesses as part-time work (typically through freelancing). 

For instance, if you’re a competent graphic designer, you can make extra money online by designing logos, infographics, general graphics for videos/websites, and banner ads. 

Once you build a portfolio and pick up a few clients, you’ll officially have a digital marketing side hustle (woo-hoo!). 

Since most of these side hustles involve freelancing, it’s common to look for digital marketing work on freelancer marketplaces like:

• FreeUp. Whether you specialize in cold calling, copywriting, or web design – you’re bound to find work on FreeUp’s bustling marketplace. All skill levels are welcome, as there are different rates for beginners and experts. 
• Upwork. Currently, Upwork is the largest freelance marketplace online, and they have plenty of digital marketing work available. However, it is noticeably difficult to gain traction on Upwork, which is something to consider.
• iWriter. Specifically for copywriters, this marketplace connects clients with content writers of varying skill levels – making it a viable option for both beginner and expert writers. 

Why Should You Consider a Digital Marketing Side Hustle?

Are you not sure about committing to something on the side?

If so, your hesitation is understandable. After all, we’re talking about taking on more work here, which isn’t something most people jump for joy about, especially if you’re already working 9 to 5. 

Yet, before you decide that being a human couch cushion is your new side gig instead, you should take a look at the benefits a digital marketing side hustle can bring:

• Earning potential. One of the biggest perks of choosing digital marketing as a side hustle is how much money you can earn. For example, freelance UX designers can earn up to $97,426 annually, while content marketers and copywriters can earn up to $150,000. Regardless of the avenue you choose, digital marketing side gigs tend to pay a lot more than other side hustles. 

• Learning opportunities. There’s never a downside to learning a new skill, and digital marketing skills are always in demand. Whether you choose to start managing social media accounts or writing content, you’ll be learning the ins and outs of valuable skills that can lead to full-time employment down the line. 

• Lots of demand with diverse opportunities. Digital marketing services are in demand from businesses from all industries, so there’s no shortage of work available. Beyond that, the opportunities are extremely diverse, from SEO to user experience design and many others. As a result, you’ll be able to mix and match if you so choose (like learning WordPress design while writing content for clients). 

• Work from home. Why wear out your car making deliveries when you can tackle a digital marketing side hustle from your couch? As stated before, digital marketing tasks are easily handled online, so you’ll enjoy more freedom than other side gigs (like making food deliveries). 

As you can see, digital marketing side gigs offer many attractive benefits. If you want to further your marketing education while earning great money working from home, don’t sleep on digital marketing side hustles. 

The Best Digital Marketing Side Hustles for 2024 

Now that you know why digital marketing gigs are worth your time, let’s look at some of the most popular options. 

While each hustle requires some existing marketing knowledge, they are beginner friendly. If you’re a total marketing rookie, remember that you can request beginner rates/work on marketplaces like FreeUp. 

Graphic and UX (user experience) design 

If you’re savvy with programs like Illustrator, GIMP, and Figma, graphic and UX design are the perfect side hustles for you. 

On the graphic design side, businesses from all industries need visually pleasing graphics for their websites and online content. 

For example, you could focus on creating eye-grabbing infographics for content marketers, as those are excellent for generating backlinks and social shares (both of which are integral for digital marketing campaigns). 

Infographics are a diverse content type that feature things like statistics, detailed instructions, data visualizations, and even maps. 

Besides that, every business needs logos and original graphics for their website/videos/social media profiles. 

On the UX side, you can help businesses nail their user experience, both through product and website design. UX is a crucial component of any company’s customer journey, so there’s no shortage of opportunities related to it. 

Content writing and copywriting 

If your writing skills are constantly scoring you compliments at your day job, why not monetize them through a digital marketing side hustle?

Content marketing is a HUGE industry that’s projected to reach a staggering $2 trillion by 2032 with a 16.9% CAGR. 

It’s a form of inbound marketing where businesses educate, inform, and entertain their audiences with valuable content. This not only builds brand awareness and loyalty, but it also drives traffic to crucial landing pages for products and services. 

As a result, countless businesses release regular blogs, videos, and social media posts – and someone has to write all that content. 

Enter content writing, a side hustle where you write compelling, SEO-friendly content for brands online. 

Copywriting is a bit different, as your primary goal is to convince the reader. Businesses also make heavy use of copywriting, especially eCommerce businesses (being able to write a stellar product description is an in-demand skill). 

A great way to get your foot in the door with this side hustle is to work at the beginner tiers on platforms like iWriter to gain experience and meet clients. 

Affiliate marketing 

One of the most reliable (and easiest) ways to make money through digital marketing is to become an affiliate. 

What’s that?

An affiliate is someone who promotes a business’s products and services through their own digital channels, such as:

• Their blog 
• Social media accounts 
• Their website 

You’ll receive an official affiliate link, and you’ll receive credit for every sale made through it. 

If you already have a large following online, affiliate marketing can almost become a passive source of income. Set up a few posts, get the word out to your followers, and sit back and let the money roll in. 

How do you get started?

There are hundreds of affiliate programs online, with Amazon Associates being the most popular. We also have our own affiliate program offering 50% commission and an unprecedented 120-day cookie window (more on this in a bit). 

Social media management 

If you’re social media savvy, or if you just love scrolling through TikTok and Instagram all day, you should consider becoming a social media manager. 

Practically every business has a presence on social media (definitely every major company), and they’re often far too busy to manage it themselves. 

That’s where social media managers come into the picture, who regularly handle tasks like:

• Reacting and responding to follower’s comments 
• Deciding which content to create and when to release it 
• Analyzing engagement data to determine which content types work best 
• Addressing any complaints or concerns from followers 

Being a social media manager also offers lots of flexibility, as you can easily handle the tasks from home or even on-the-go in some cases. 

Start Earning Money with a Digital Marketing Side Hustle Today 

Digital marketing gigs are great because they offer the best of both worlds: high earning potential and the freedom to work from home. 

That’s not to say that there’s no hard work involved, as the digital marketing space is fiercely competitive and results-driven. 

Yet, if you’re motivated and eager to improve and change with the trends, you can make lots of money and further your career with a side gig related to digital marketing. 

Are you looking for an easy side hustle that will earn you money?

Then, you need to check out The HOTH affiliate program, which offers generous 50% commissions for all new sales. Not only that, but you’ll gain access to branded HOTH assets that make promoting our services a breeze, so don’t wait to sign up now.   

The post The Top Digital Marketing Side Hustle Ideas for 2024  appeared first on The HOTH.

Google Ads users can now run ads on Pinterest, which opens up a new range of possibilities for marketers running paid ads through Google. 

The partnership with Reddit focuses more on improving the quality and convenience of Google’s search results. 

Google now has access to Reddit’s Data API, and Reddit gained access to Vertex AI to improve its internal search capabilities. 

It’s also rumored that Google could partner with TikTok. 

Why would they want to do that?

This is because, despite being a short-form video platform, TikTok has become the search engine of choice for younger generations (Gen Z and Gen Alpha). 

A Google partnership, then, could potentially benefit both parties. Google could lend its search algorithm expertise to TikTok to enhance its user experience, all while enjoying boosted traffic flowing from TikTok searches. 

It’s not yet clear whether the TikTok partnership will become official, but there’s currently a beta test in the works, so it’s clear both parties are open to the idea. 

Speaking of TikTok, YouTube Shorts (Google’s answer to TikTok) has some impressive capabilities that not enough businesses utilize. 

More importantly, all these partnerships pose interesting opportunities for SEOs and digital marketers. Read on to learn how you can leverage these new partnerships (and YouTube Shorts) to expand your online reach. 

Partnering with Pinterest for Ad Placements

Pinterest had a less-than-stellar Q4 2023 due to decreasing revenue. Since their earnings fell beneath analysts’ expectations, their stock fell by almost 28%. 

However, they had an ace in the hole. 

CEO Bill Ready announced Pinterest’s ad partnership with Google, which stands to boost its ad revenue by a significant margin. Ready claimed that they began the rollout a few weeks ago and that third-party ad demand is rising. 

The partnership is also an attempt on Pinterest’s part to capitalize on its sizable international audience. 

While 80% of Pinterest’s users reside outside the United States, they only account for 20% of the platform’s revenue. 

Pinterest hopes the Google partnership will boost the amount of revenue coming from international markets. 

This marks the second time that Pinterest has partnered with a third party to boost ad revenue, as they initiated a similar deal with Amazon last year. 

Much like the Amazon deal, the Google partnership will roll out over several business quarters. 

What does this partnership mean for digital marketers?

Marketers running Google Ads campaigns can now place ads on Pinterest from their Google Ads Manager. 

This is significant because it provides businesses with new ways to appeal to their target audiences. 

Pinterest is a massive platform with users from virtually every industry and niche, making it an ideal channel for third-party advertisements. 

Also, Pinterest is adding several new AI-powered features to boost user engagement and interactivity. 

The new collage feature lets users create scrapbook-style images using a combination of objects, stickers, and pictures. There’s also a new auto-organizing feature that encourages users to create boards whenever it identifies similar pins – which has led to an increase in user boards. 

These engagement-boosting features increase the chances of Pinterest users interacting with your ads, which is a plus.

Pinterest has more than 498 million monthly active users, so it’s definitely an advertising channel that’s worth your time. 

Improving User Search by Partnering with Reddit 

While Google is no stranger to Reddit (the two have a longstanding relationship), they’re taking things to the next level with their newly announced partnership. 

Google values the authentic human conversations and experiences that Reddit provides, and its goal is to highlight relevant Reddit content whenever possible. 

To make this happen, Reddit granted Google access to its Data API – providing Google with real-time, structured, and unique content from Reddit that relates to Google searches. 

This means SEOs can expect to see more SERP features from Reddit, which may be good or bad. 

On one hand, if the Reddit posts mention your brand, then it’s a way to broaden your online reach. Yet, if a Reddit SERP feature appears at the top of the page and answers the user’s question, it can lead to a zero-click search. So, if you’ve put a lot of hard work into creating a piece of content for a keyword that triggers a Reddit SERP, you may lose out on traffic. 

That’s why it’s essential to check keywords for SERP features before targeting them for your SEO strategy. 

SEMRush’s Keyword Overview tool is a big help in this regard as if you select the SERP feature filter, it’ll let you know if a keyword will trigger something like a featured snippet or knowledge bar. You can get a free trial and check out their tools here. 

The Rumored TikTok Partnership 

This one is still up in the air, so there’s no need to panic (or rejoice) just yet. 

Google has been keeping a close eye on TikTok ever since the platform took over social media a few years back. 

As stated before, younger generations are now using TikTok as a makeshift search engine. Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s SVP of search, said, “Almost 40% of young people, when they are looking for a place for lunch, don’t go to Google Maps or search – they go to TikTok or Instagram.”

The plan is to combine Google’s search prowess and credibility with TikTok’s explosive popularity amongst young people. 

There are talks of including links to Google queries straight from TikTok. 

It would work like this:

• A user conducts a search on TikTok for a new restaurant or news story 
• A built-in Google link lets the user validate the information through Google search and reviews

It’s a best-of-both-worlds type deal where users can use their search engine of choice (TikTok) while still enjoying accurate and trusted information (Google). 

While a TikTok spokesperson claimed a trial version is underway, Google declined to reveal whether a financial agreement is part of the partnership. 

Broadening Online Reach with YouTube Shorts 

SEOs need to capitalize on every channel available to them, especially in the rapidly changing search landscape. 

After all, putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea. 

That’s why it’s wise to take advantage of platforms like TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, and YouTube Shorts to build brand awareness and generate more traffic. 

That way, should one channel start to falter (like strict organic SEO), you’ll have other channels to fall back on. 

Many aren’t aware that Google expanded YouTube Shorts to include video reach campaigns back in May of last year. 

What’s a video reach campaign?

It’s an AI-powered video ad campaign designed to place your ads in front of the right people at the right time. 

Google gives the example of a Paramount + Mexico movie called At Midnight that used video reach campaigns to build an audience. The campaign resulted in significantly higher ad recall and efficiencies, so YouTube Shorts is a channel you shouldn’t ignore. 

Much like Pinterest, YouTube Shorts runs the gambit of all industries and interests, so your target audience is bound to have a presence there. 

Leveraging Google’s New Partnerships for Your Benefit 

These new partnerships are yet another example of the significant changes the search engine world is going through at the moment. 

The good news?

You can use Pinterest ads, Reddit mentions, and YouTube Shorts to expand your online influence and generate more leads and sales. 

Need help adjusting to this strange new SEO world?

Then don’t wait to try out HOTH X, our managed service that simplifies SEO and yields outstanding results.   

The post Google Partners with Reddit, Pinterest, and Possibly TikTok  appeared first on The HOTH.

Or maybe your content disappeared from search engine results entirely?

Either way, SEO ranking drops are something every website owner fears, as they can end up costing you a lot of money. 

That’s because the effect of a significant ranking drop is two-fold – you lose the ability to generate as much organic traffic as before, and the resources you spent on creating the content are now going to waste. 

We don’t want you to experience this, so we’ve created this SEO rankings drop guide for 2023. 

That way, you’ll know exactly what to do should one of your web pages experience a rankings dropoff. 

While losing a top-ranking spot is never an easy pill to swallow, there are plenty of website changes you can make to gain it back. 

With the right tweaks, you may even rank in a higher spot than you did before. 

Many factors can cause your SERP rankings to drop, including Google algorithm updates (like the most recent Link Spam Update), indexing errors, lost backlinks, and making changes to your website. 

Since there are so many causes, it can be tricky to pinpoint the underlying cause of your ranking drop. 

We will cover all the most common ranking issues in this guide, so stay tuned to learn how to become an SEO rankings recovery expert.

Why Did My SERP Rankings Drop?

Most SEO experts religiously check tools like Google Search Console (GSC) weekly to monitor their SERP rankings. 

They do this to ensure that they maintain or improve their rankings. 

However, on some dreaded occasions, they open GSC only to realize that their web pages have dropped 10+ positions – causing them to hemorrhage traffic.

Besides having to clean off their computer screens after spitting coffee all over them, SEO experts also have to gather their composure and attempt to find out why their rankings have fallen so far. 

Sometimes it won’t be such a mystery, such as if you reorganized your URL structure or made other significant changes to your website. 

In these instances, it’s normal to expect some changes to your SERP rankings, and you can even make preparations for them. 

Yet, it’s the unexpected rankings drops that really cause website owners to pull their hair out, such as when their content disappears from the SERPs entirely. 

There are many factors that can cause unexpected drops like this, including the following:

1. Slow loading speed 
2. Your target keyword lost popularity 
3. Your domain name or hosting plan expired
4. An improperly formatted robots.txt file 
5. Competitors outrank you
6. Lost/poached backlinks
7. A newly released Google algorithm update 
8. On-page SEO factors
9. Crawling errors
10. Broken links and redirects 

As you can see, there’s a long laundry list of suspects to cross off whenever you experience a rankings drop. These issues can all negatively affect your online visibility, so let’s take a more in-depth look at them. 

#1: Page loading speed 

If you aren’t able to pass Google’s Core Web Vitals test, you’ll see a drop in your SERP rankings. 

Even if your rankings don’t drop, slow loading times will negatively affect your bounce rate and dwell time – as modern internet users won’t want to wait more than 3 seconds for your content to load. 

That means you have every incentive to ensure all your web pages load as quickly as possible. 

Luckily, Google has its PageSpeed Insights tool, which is a huge help. 

It will let you know how fast your loading times are and recommend speeding things up. 

Tweaks like compressing images, using browser caching, and minimizing code are all great ways to speed up your site if things have slowed down. 

Also, Google Search Console lets you view how well you did on the Core Web Vitals test, which measures not only how fast your site loads but also how long it takes for users to begin interacting with your content (i.e., typing their email address into a newsletter form). 

#2: Your keywords are losing popularity 

Another cause for a rankings drop is the target keyword you used for the web page isn’t as popular as it once was. 

It’s normal for search terms to rise and fall in popularity, and most keywords won’t stay on top forever. 

Keywords that pertain to trending topics, fad products, and current events tend to fizzle out after a few months, which can cause significant ranking drops. 

While this is to be expected for content topics that aren’t evergreen, sometimes keywords can lose traction sooner than you thought. 

In this scenario, your best bet is to find another related keyword to target that still has a decent search volume.

Our free keyword planner tool from The HOTH is your best friend in this regard, as it includes the trend for each query – so you’ll know if a keyword is gaining or falling in popularity before choosing to target it. 

#3: Domain/hosting issues

If you don’t have an active domain name or hosting plan, all your content will disappear from the SERPs entirely. 

So if you awake one morning into every SEOs nightmare and realize that none of your content is ranking, don’t forget to check your website to see if it’s working. 

If it doesn’t appear, it could be an issue with your web hosting company, such as a DDoS attack. 

Or it could be that your domain name has expired, in which case you’d need to renew it. 

It may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s hard to think logically when you suddenly realize that you’ve disappeared from the SERPs – so don’t forget to check your website to ensure that it’s working. 

In the past, we knew a website owner that was in a full-on panic because their SEO rankings dropped, but they had no clue why. They had checked all their on-page and technical SEO factors, only for everything to appear normal. 

The culprit?

They were in the midst of a 5-day DDoS attack that caused their site not to load. 

That shows that ranking drops aren’t always within your control, so it’s important not to panic when they happen. 

#4: Improperly formatted robots.txt file 

Your robots.txt file tells search engines which web pages their crawlers can access. 

Why does it matter for your SEO?

It does because it helps you allocate your crawl budget more effectively. Crawling URLs takes a lot of bandwidth, and search engine bots will only crawl a limited amount of URLs to avoid overloading their servers. 

Crawl budget tends to matter more for large websites with millions of URLs, as smaller websites usually don’t have to worry. 

However, it could be that some of your most important URLs aren’t getting crawled because your robots.txt file isn’t granting them access. 

So if a piece of content you spent a lot of time and money on isn’t appearing in the SERPs, you should check your robots.txt file to ensure that it’s not keeping search engine bots from crawling it. 

If a search engine can’t crawl your content, it cannot appear in the SERPs, so keep an eye on your robots.txt file and noindex tags. 

#5: Competitors have outranked you 

Sometimes an SEO rankings drop occurs because one of your competitors outperformed you and dethroned your content. 

While it’s certainly a bummer, this type of thing happens all the time, and it’s the nature of SEO (and digital marketing in general). 

How can you find out if your competitors are stealing your rankings?

First, it’s likely that you’ll experience rankings drops across a few pages, not just one. Next, you can find out by simply searching for your target keyword and then clicking on the website that’s in your old spot. 

Try to identify what they’re doing that you aren’t. 

That way, you can possibly outdo their content and reclaim your previous rankings. 

There are a few key factors you should pay attention to when evaluating competitors, including:

• Their backlink profile. Do they have more high-authority backlinks than you?
• Do they have more high-quality web pages than you? Websites that have a large volume of outstanding content tend to rank higher. 
• Do they have a better user experience than your website?
• Is the content that outranked you longer and more insightful than yours?

These are all vital questions to ask. 

To get a clear picture of a competitor’s metrics, you can plug them into our free SEO Audit tool. It’ll give you an overview of their backlink profile, on-page SEO factors, technical factors, and more. 

#6: Check your backlink profile  

Your backlink profile plays a huge role in determining your rankings, especially for Google Search. 

The more high-authority websites online that point to your content, the better. 

However, if you were to lose some of your most powerful backlinks, your content would drop in the SERP rankings, sometimes by a significant margin. 

What causes you to lose backlinks?

It could be that a competitor used the skyscraper technique to poach one of your links, or the webmaster may have simply removed it for a variety of reasons (i.e., deleting the content containing the link, redesigning their website, purging old links, etc.). 

To discover if you’ve been losing backlinks, you can use our free backlink checker tool. 

Spammy and unnatural backlinks can also cause SEO rankings to drop, so you should keep an eye out for them, too. 

Here’s what to check for when evaluating your backlink profile:

• Too many links coming from the same IP address appear unnatural to Google (and they may suspect you’re using a PBN). 
• Ensure that you don’t have too many links coming from foreign-language websites. A handful is okay, but it will raise some red flags if you have 6,000 French websites linking to your American website. 
• Duplicate content will hurt your backlink profile, so use a tool like Copyscape to ensure every URL is original. Also, you should canonicalize pages that are too similar (such as eCommerce product pages). 

As long as your backlink profile is spam-free and you didn’t lose any links, you can rule out lost/spammy backlinks as the reason why your rankings dropped.  

#7: A Google algorithm update 

Google is constantly updating and changing its algorithm to resolve problems and provide a better user experience. 

However, these algorithm changes often affect SERP rankings, and sometimes in a big way. 

For example, the Link Spam Update that occurred in December 2022 made a big splash, as it negated the effect paid backlinks had on SEO profiles. 

That caused many websites to lose rankings virtually overnight due to the lost impact of paid/spammy backlinks. 

It’s an example of how Google updates can seriously affect SEO campaigns, so you need to keep up with them. 

If you determine that a Google update affected your rankings, the solution is always to optimize your website in accordance with the new update. 

Stay in the loop with the new updates with HOTH Technical SEO.

#8: On-page SEO factors 

Next, you need to check your on-page SEO to ensure that everything is in order. 

The top on-page SEO factors that can cause rankings drops include:

• Thin content 
• Over-optimization or under-optimization of keywords 
• Lack of a keyword-rich title tag and meta description 

Google isn’t a fan of thin content (500 words or less), so your web pages should contain at least 1,000 words. If they’re meant to be informative blog posts, aim for a 2,000-word minimum. 

That’s because long-form content ranks higher and generates more backlinks. 

Also, there’s a sweet spot for keyword usage. 

If you use your keywords too much, it’ll be viewed as spam. If you don’t use them enough, crawler bots may not associate your content with your target keywords. 

As a rule of thumb, use your keywords in the following places:

• Your title tag and meta description 
• Your H1 header 
• The first 100 words of the content 
• 3 – 7 times in the body content (if it’s a 2,000-word article)

Also, don’t forget to include a detailed title tag that contains your keyword and summarizes what your content is about. 

#9: Crawling/Indexing Errors 

As stated before, if a search engine can’t crawl and index your content, you won’t appear in the SERPs. 

That means you need to take measures to ensure your most important web pages get successfully crawled and indexed. 

The best way to do so is to use Google Search Console and view its Index Coverage Report and Page Indexing Report. 

Both will show you the exact number of URLs Google has indexed and the presence of any crawling/indexing errors. 

#10: Check HTTP status codes  

If a page has dropped rankings or disappeared from the SERPs, it could be due to a failed status code such as a 404 not found or a broken redirect. 

Checking your HTTP status codes will help you determine if a broken link or redirect is the reason for your lost visibility. 

Every piece of content you want to rank & generate traffic should display a 200 OK status code.

You can use this free HTTP status code checker to ensure that all your content is displaying the way it should. 

Closing Thoughts: SEO Rankings Drop Guide 

Ranking drops are never fun to deal with, but they’re a regular part of SEO – so you shouldn’t let yourself get too discouraged if you experience them. 

This guide will help you pinpoint the underlying cause of your loss of online visibility, so don’t forget to bookmark this page! 

Want to form a winning SEO strategy for your business to dominate the SERPs in your industry?

Then don’t wait to check out HOTH X, our managed SEO services that have yielded impressive results for countless clients.     

The post SEO Rankings Drop Guide: 10 Steps to Fix Common Issues appeared first on The HOTH.

The artificial intelligence-powered chatbot from OpenAI uses a series of natural language processing (NLP) models that enable it to understand user text and generate human-like responses, simulating an open-ended conversation.

From web developers on Twitter to mainstream news outlets, over 100 million people currently use ChatGPT to answer questions, solve coding problems, write college essays, and more. 

It’s proved to be a very powerful tool, with users receiving accurate responses to their requests most of the time. 

One user got ChatGPT to write a piano piece in the style of Mozart, and another got it to generate a dairy-free recipe for mac and cheese. 

There are hundreds of use cases for AI chatbots like ChatGPT that span many industries, such as using it to revamp your resume, write original jokes, solve complicated math problems, and even receive relationship advice. 

Yet, that doesn’t mean there are no disadvantages of ChatGPT, as its language model does have some noticeable flaws. 

Besides that, there are many nefarious things users can do with the chatbot, such as using it to create malware or proliferate hate speech. 

That’s why we’re here to present both sides of the coin by pointing out the big pros and cons of ChatGPT, so stay tuned to learn more.

Unpacking ChatGPT’s Features 

ChatGPT is currently open-source software from OpenAI, meaning that anyone can download and start using it for free. 

What does GPT stand for?

It’s an acronym for generative pre-trained transformer, a neural network of machine learning models that uses deep learning to understand & generate human-like text. 

GPT is one of OpenAI’s creations, and it’s currently in the early stage of its fourth generation, as GPT-4 just dropped on March 14th, 2023. 

ChatGPT was based on GPT-2, the second generation of the technology. While it features a massive amount of training data, its data sets are a tad outdated at the moment. 

Still, the chatbot’s ability to generate human-like outputs in real-time is undoubtedly impressive, and the tool is effortless to pick up and start using. You can speak to ChatGPT as you would any friend or coworker, as it can comprehend common human language patterns. 

As far as functionality goes, you can use ChatGPT for just about anything. 

For instance, if your digital marketing strategy involves a boatload of content creation, a cost-effective way to knock it out is to let ChatGPT generate it all for you. Or, if you’re simply in need of a starting point, you can use it to cure writer’s block by writing the intro for you. 

As many software engineers on Twitter found out, ChatGPT is an excellent code debugging companion. Not only does it discover bugs and fix them, but it also provides detailed explanations of what it did to fix the issue – making it a fantastic educational tool for programmers.

The Big Pros 

Now that you know a bit more about what ChatGPT is and how it works, let’s dive into the pros and cons of ChatGPT. 

There are many advantages of ChatGPT, from increasing customer engagement to automatically generating e-commerce product descriptions for boosted productivity. 

The program can converse with users on various topics, and it has massive potential for improving customer service and virtual assistant services. 

Superior customer service automation

Speaking of customer service, ChatGPT is available 24/7 and can handle a large load of customer queries at a time, making it the ultimate customer service chatbot.

No longer will your customers have to wait hours or days in a queue for responses to their questions, as ChatGPT is fully capable of solving simple issues by itself. That will improve your response time metrics and overall customer experience, benefiting your company. 

Your customers will also appreciate conversing with a chatbot that understands them so well, as it’s nearly identical to chatting with a live customer service agent. 

As a result, you can let ChatGPT handle all your simple & repetitive customer service calls, which will free up your live team of customer service agents so they can handle more complex issues that require human intervention. 

That will add to your bottom line through increased efficiency and saved labor costs, which is definitely a plus. ChatGPT can also help small businesses and startups provide more robust customer service, even if they don’t have many live agents or much of a budget. 

As such, AI can help smaller companies level the playing field when competing with their enterprise-level counterparts, both with customer support and other business areas.

Automate tedious manual processes

Another way you can use ChatGPT to boost your productivity is to rely on it to knock out repetitive menial tasks. 

Data entry & categorization are two examples of tasks ChatGPT can help automate, freeing up a lot of time for your team. 

Instead of spending hours entering numbers into spreadsheets, your team members will have more time for important things like strategic planning, following up with client needs, and brainstorming new ways to innovate. 

Not only that, but you can integrate ChatGPT into many existing applications, such as CRM & data analytics tools. From there, you can use the chatbot’s superior data processing abilities to aid with future forecasting, spot trends in client data, and provide insights on employee performance. 

Coding-wise, ChatGPT’s ability to instantly generate accurate user documentation is a huge timesaver for programmers. Once you paste all your system’s information into ChatGPT, you can ask it FAQs from users, and you can use the answers it provides in your own documentation. 

Not only that, but the AI chatbot has the potential to transform non-programmers into developers through its ability to create code from natural language prompts. 

Now users don’t need to know a programming language to develop an app, as they can simply ask ChatGPT to write the required code for them. Its code-writing abilities can also save seasoned programmers a ton of time and effort when developing new applications & software. 

Content generation 

Digital marketing & SEO campaigns require quite a bit of content creation, which doesn’t come cheap. 

That’s why digital marketing agencies often have large in-house teams dedicated to creating content comprising writers, editors, graphic designers, and content strategists. 

ChatGPT is capable of generating entire blog posts, rephrasing & simplifying paragraphs, summarizing topics, and even creating image prompts for other programs like DALL-E. One college student shared on Twitter that he got ChatGPT to write an essay that received an A- from their professor. 

With the content generation capabilities of ChatGPT, companies can drastically reduce the costs associated with developing, creating, & releasing content. 

Writing a brief blog post can be as simple as typing a short request into ChatGPT, which will generate human-like text that’s free of plagiarism. However, the technology still isn’t capable of producing original insights or understanding human emotions, so there are some limitations. . 

The Big Cons

Now that you’re familiar with the biggest advantages of using AI chatbots at your company, it’s time to examine the cons of using ChatGPT. 

The platform has a genuine dark side, and it would be irresponsible of us not to mention it. Particularly, ChatGPT’s machine learning algorithms still need some tweaking and development. We’ve already mentioned that its language model is based on an older generation of GPT, but it doesn’t end there. 

Besides the inaccuracies and hallucinations exhibited by the chatbot, there are also many nefarious uses for ChatGPT that raise some ethical & moral red flags.

Outdated data sets 

When OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, the AI’s training data only reached the year 2021, and so far, nothing has changed yet. 

That means whenever you interact with ChatGPT, the chatbot will have no knowledge or awareness of anything that occurred after 2021. As a result, you won’t be able to get information on any recent events or discoveries until the data sets get updated. 

Factual inaccuracies & limited understanding 

While ChatGPT’s language model is robust and can understand most basic human language patterns, it isn’t perfect and can sometimes get confused. In particular, it still has difficulty understanding context and complex queries. 

That can lead to ChatGPT generating irrelevant user results, which can be frustrating. Also, since ChatGPT is still learning, it has some biases and even the tendency to lie and make up facts. For example, this writer received a different answer whenever they asked the chatbot, “What was the first cartoon?” 

The only thing the different answers had in common was that they were all incorrect. 

Nefarious uses 

Lastly, ChatGPT can be used for not-so-great purposes. While it’s capable of writing code and creating software, it can also create malware. 

It also lacks emotional intelligence and a sense of morals, so it can generate distasteful content when prompted. It has also produced racist and sexist content due to some users abusing the program, which is a real concern. 

Final Thoughts: Pros and Cons of ChatGPT 

There are many pros and cons of ChatGPT, and it’s clear that the chatbot still has many kinks to iron out. 

Yet, there’s no denying that it shows massive potential for helping companies save money, automate tasks, improve customer experiences, and more. 

At the same time, there’s a growing need to keep some of its capabilities in check, such as creating malware and writing phishing emails. As long as OpenAI continues to tweak the program and as long as the AI continues to learn from interacting with users, the future should be bright for ChatGPT. 

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