Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) have you ever heard of them? Do you know how they work and why they can bring great benefits to your online business? Check out all the details in this article and, if you are interested in learning more, don’t hesitate to contact us.
If you’ve never heard of Accelerated Mobile Pages, you can fix this with this article. And it’s very important that you do it. Why? We will also explain this in the next paragraphs.
What is Google AMP?
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is the open source project set up by Google to make the website’s pages more suitable for navigation on mobile sites.
The web statistics show how mobile browsing are always on the rise and will soon surpass those from desktop devices, if the trend continues.
It therefore becomes very important that our site is adaptable to all types of devices. In these cases the term responsive is used. Today almost all sites are responsive, if you use WordPress whatever template you choose it will definitely be a Responsive template.
The Google AMP is something deeper and focuses not only on the adaptability of the site on mobile devices but above all on the speed of loading a page.
Once AMP is activated on your site every page of your domain will have a new extension when a user logs in from Smartphone: scorpiustechnology.com for example becomes scorpiustechnology.com/amp.
Simply saying that the number of users connecting to the web from mobile devices is constantly growing does not make the full extent of the phenomenon. The reality is that mobile technology has profoundly changed people’s behavior: today, the vast majority of us have at least one Smartphone and we take it wherever we go and at any time. That’s why; AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) becomes even more important.
The present and future of the internet is in our hands or pockets. More and more the Smartphone is used to access the internet, and even to make purchases. Hence, that is why the Google AMP was introduced, with the aim of improving the loading speed of a web page.
Changes brought by the AMP
To improve the user experience when browsing from their mobile device, at the end of 2015 the AMP project: Accelerated Mobile Pages was presented. This open source technology driven by Google aims to reduce the loading times of a website when accessed from a mobile phone.
The AMP standard or version is not only designed for the user. It also seeks to help web developers by contributing to the creation of almost instantaneous loading websites. In this way, the task of optimizing a page becomes a much simpler task. To streamline this process, the AMP standard is based on three elements:
AMP HTML, which is nothing more than normal HTML. Although with certain restrictions that make it compile much more content than basic HTML. In this way the web offers better performance.
AMP JS, a JavaScript library that allows the appearance of images at the moment. This is thanks to the improvements made possible by the AMP HTML.
Google AMP, cache of AMP HTML pages that allow faster access to the web.
In this way, the superfluous content is eliminated by reducing the elements to only text and image. The AMP standard is very useful for some websites, especially if they generate a lot of content, but not in the case of online stores.
Take care of the user
The commitment to the AMP standard is, together with the increase in web security, another of Google’s moves to improve the user experience. Recommendations made by the search engine that, if followed, will have a direct effect on SEO positioning.
For some time now, the search engine has been prioritizing in the search results those websites that have a responsive design. And the same goes for web pages with Google AMP. When it comes to showing results, AMP websites appear among the top positions. You can identify the AMP websites by having the lightning icon. Therefore, the fact that our website is compatible with AMP will benefit our SEO but only in mobile searches. Those searches made from a computer will remain the same.
If your website is developed in WordPress, you can make it compatible with the AMP standard by installing a plugin. Thus, the number of elements that make up your website will be reduced and, in this way, loading time will not be a penalizable factor when it comes to SEO positioning.
Talking about web design trends for 2019 is an opportunity we could not miss. It does not matter if you are starting your business or if you want to give a new twist to your website, what we learned something from 2018 is that the best investment you can make for your company is to invest in your website.
The main web design trends in 2019 will see how aesthetics and technology come together like never before. 2019 is almost the last chapter of a decade. And keep in mind that the Internet has grown and changed a lot in the last ten years.
For years, design trends have driven unbridled creativity, the abandonment of grids and traditional archival photographs for vibrant illustrations, bold colors and asymmetrical designs.
Discover 9 of web design trends in 2019
In the last year, advances in technology have been seen that help to better connect with users, new styles that are overcoming limits and a greater focus on documentation and accessibility guidelines to make the sites a more coherent and accessible to all. With so many changes around it’s time to put the brakes on and look at web design trends for 2019.
1. Reinventing the Headers of the Websites
Most headers have a large image that covers most of the home and a short explanatory headline. During the last years, there have been no changes in this area of the web.
By 2019, some sites have already begun to experience changes in their headers. As they are leaving the traditional designs and introduced new features in this section of the website.
For example, some websites don’t add image and has a blank space area with a simple header at the bottom of the header. They are two examples of what you begin to see that includes changing the present content, using something different from a full-width image and treating this area as the main area to capture the viewer’s attention.
2. Natural and Organic Forms
An organic form is any form that is irregular and uneven, imperfect. Although web pages are usually configured for systematic grids, designers are turning to natural forms. With soft lines, drawn “by hand”.
Geometric structures such as squares, rectangles and triangles with their sharp corners create a feeling of stability. However, web design trends for 2019 are more concerned with giving a sense of accessibility and comfort.
Organic forms are naturally imperfect and asymmetrical and can provide depth to a web design. With their unusual appearance, they can be used to capture a user’s attention and add a personal touch to a website.
3. The Serifs Also Serve for Digital
If you move in the world of design, you have surely heard that serifs are for printing and that dry-type fonts are for the screen. While sans, with its clean legibility, still has the ideal style of the longer texts on the websites, more and more brands are using SERIFS. Especially in headings and labels.
The reason? The letters in serif are perfect to put the point of attention in a specific phrase. Within an attractive and current design. And even though the serifs are often associated with the past, they have a lot of body and are more adaptable than you think.
4. Broken Grid and Asymmetrical Designs
The concept of the grid in terms of design is an imaginary plane with horizontal and vertical lines, which is used to help design elements on the page or screen. It is a way of aligning what is being worked on.
When you have a broken grid, it means that the elements that form the design are not at a glance perfectly neat. Which makes the grid not perfectly aligned.
Some websites show a broken grid layout on most of its website. These kinds of designs that break the rules have always existed as a form of creativity. A way to stand out from the crowd. However, nowadays it starts to be part of the Web design trends for 2019.
5. Overlapping Design Elements
This is a trend related to asymmetric designs. When the grid breaks, the elements overlap each other. This allows you to develop a design on specific types of content on a website.
Users are accustomed to having each element of the web have its own space. And that they are also at a specific distance from the other elements that occupy the same website. They do not usually touch each other.
Some website presents overlapping elements as the main aesthetics of design throughout the site. In addition, subtle animations are also added that make the website feel three-dimensional.
The tendency of elements superimposed on a page can help to improve the general aesthetics of the site. It can be quite difficult to execute on mobile websites, since overlapping elements, if not done well, can cause confusion and frustration in users.
Especially when the elements overlap incorrectly. Therefore, you have to be very sure of doing it well. As you experiment more with a three-dimensional website, this trend is on the rise.
6. More Video Content
This web design trend is not new, but it is still booming in 2019. The video not only diversifies the page but it is aimed at users who do not have time to scan a large amount of text.
What is new is that video content is prioritized above all, giving it a full protagonism. This has led websites to prioritize the videos production so that they can offer content in the most efficient and shareable way.
7. Monochromatic and Absence of Color
Color is one of the most important elements in a website. Cultivate an environment, unify a brand and guide users through an interface by creating visual reference points.
What happens if you limit yourself to a single color or even bet on black and white? If done well, that type of design restriction can help improve a design.
Limiting yourself to a single color can help consolidate your brand.
Since most websites have two to five colors that are used everywhere, using only one color could make you stand out and make it more memorable for a user.
Going one step further and eliminate the color completely is definitely an option if you are looking to give a total turn to your design. Neutral colors are one of the web design trends in 2019.
8. Betting on Minimalism
Perhaps it is one of the most classic and timeless web design trends; minimalism is often the aesthetic of choice. The fewer elements and content on a website, the better. If a website is designed in the right way, it will show the user exactly what they are looking for.
Minimalism will continue to dominate web design trends in 2019. The animations and effects that make the scroll more attractive will give web pages the freedom to space their content. And, therefore, will result in more blank spaces, contrasts and clear typographies, without too many distracting elements.
9. More than Enough White Space
The effective use of white space is a design tool used by designers for decades. However, what is not so common is the amount of white space used. Or, even make the blank space the protagonist of the web.
Some websites use additional blank spaces in the header of the site. At first glance it looks like a design error. However, it is a strategy. The use of additional blanks used is intended to give a break to the information.
Adding additional blank space is part of the aesthetics of the design. By choosing to add a blank space in areas that do not necessarily need it, it becomes an important part of the design. The websites use many blank spaces to make a statement or to make it the focal point of the website.
Which of these web design trends for 2019 are you going to apply to your strategy this year? At Scorpius Technology we can help you to completely turn around your digital marketing campaign and challenge all limits.
SEO extensions for Google Chrome have become a necessity for the field of Digital Marketing, at least in my case.
Why? Because, this browser has become favorite among all the internet users around the globe
And if you are a digital entrepreneur like me and at the end of the day you accumulate an endless number of tasks to do, they will allow you to save a lot of time.
Therefore, if you already know what SEO is and its importance in a digital project, you will understand that using tools, add-ons or, as is the case, extensions for Google Chrome, will be a great idea.
How can these SEO extensions for Google Chrome help me improve the positioning of my online business?
Google Chrome is the most popular browser worldwide and has a wide collection of extensions of all kinds, so that those dedicated to SEO were not going to be less. In Chrome Web Store you will find many tools that will help you with your SEO tasks, so we have decided to save you some work and collect the best SEO extensions for Google Chrome 2019. If you are passionate about search engine Optimization, these extensions will surely be useful!
This first SEO extension is one that must be installed on your Chrome. It is very complete and offers the possibility of auditing a website. Analyze the page in general, reporting possible errors; and also offers us more extensive data on internal links, external links and keywords. In addition, it allows comparisons between several URLs.
WooRank, one of the best-known tools, creates complete reports on any website in a few seconds. It offers very interesting features. One of the most attractive features it has is that it locates errors and aspects to improve, categorizes the difficulty to fix the situation and gives advice on how to do it. This is indeed one of best SEO extensions for Google Chrome and SEOs.
This extension allows a quick analysis of a website, either yours or the competition. It is used for data collection taking into account the sources of traffic. The results of these calculations can be obtained through statistics on the demographics of the audience, the amount spent on advertising or the countries with the most traffic. It has a free version, but also has a more complete premium account.
This simple SEO extension tracks a web and locates the links that are broken, marking them in red. It is very useful, since the presence of non-functional links harms the organic positioning of our site.
Nofollow, an extension that will highlight all the nofollow links. It is a very simple way to check the links that we have decided to hide from search engine crawls, and see if we have left any that may harm our SEO strategy.
This tool is very useful, because if we do a search in Google it will show to the right of the results page two blocks of data: one with keywords related to our search and another in which other searches. In addition, under the search box you will find figures related to the words you have searched for: the search volume, the CPC and the competition. In this way, if we are short of ideas, we can always use this extension to find inspiration.
Redirect Path allows you to check the status of redirects that have been made on a website. You can imagine the usefulness of this extension, since you can easily see if a redirect has not been done correctly and avoid the emergence of error pages that will harm the SEO.
This toolbar will show you various metrics of the website you are visiting. In addition, you can differentiate the different types of links on the page.
This extension is very complete and useful, not only for SEO professionals, but for anyone who works with websites assiduously. Web Developer is a small toolbar that provides a multitude of information about a website and lets you know much about it through options such as enabling or disabling functions, highlighting certain elements … In short, it lets you play with all the elements that make up the site to be able to explore it in depth.
Google Tag Assistant is very useful to analyze the correct installation of tags on your page. By installing Tag Assistant in Chrome, you can immediately verify the inserted tags to check if they work for the purpose we want, such as those used for Google Analytics.
Open SEO Stats is really one of the best SEO extensions for Google Chrome that will allow you to quickly see a large amount of data about your website: traffic, loading speed, pages indexed by search engine, information about links … An extension that will be very useful for you to investigate in depth one page.
This SEO extension will be useful for you to do keyword studies. Just enter the terms and choose the search engine and language, and you will get scores of results. Although it does not provide data, you can export the results to other tools that have the option.
In this simple SEO extension you have the option to give a different color to each type of link (6 in total) and, when you enter a page, all the links will appear differentiated according to the configuration you have chosen. A very simple way to check all the links of a website at first glance.
This SEO extension is great to help you study the content of a page. Spark Content Optimizer will examine your content and provide you with an analysis, in this way it will be easier to detect possible failures or deficiencies that may deteriorate the quality of your content.
Do you use other SEO extensions for Google Chrome 2019?
If you know of any other tool that is useful for SEO, share it with us in the comments section.
Stop wasting time, it’s time to start being more productive, why take 3 hours to do something that you could do in half an hour? We tell you what are the best productivity tools to improve your productivity and increase your performance.
Once you manage to stop procrastinating and get down to work it can be difficult to maintain your concentration.
It is true that the electronic devices with which we work are a source of continuous distractions; however, if we use them well they can become the best tool to be more productive.
Only technology is not our ally to improve our performance at work, some more traditional tools, such as notebooks, can also increase our productivity and help us achieve better results.
The best thing is that you can get most of these tools for less than 10 dollars, and even free: if it is your career or personal performance it will be worth the investment.
Best Productivity tools for entrepreneurs
Take note of these tools that will help you improve productivity.
Rescue Time
If you want to be clear on how you spend your time, Rescue Time is your perfect ally. This productivity tool provides intelligent insights into how you spend your days.
This tool tracks the activities and duration of a users’ computer usage.
It allows you to activate notifications to notify you of the time you have been in the same activity, to block the pages that are more distracting for you, to track how much you dedicate to email, to write in Google Docs (or Word) or to meetings with clients, among other things.
StayFocusd
This extension for Chrome works in reverse. Instead of setting time periods in which you cannot surf the Internet, it allows you to decide the hours you can access.
For example, if you only intend to spend 60 minutes a day on social networks or Netflix, but you are unable to fulfill it, StayFocusd will do the hard work for you.
It will be like when you were small kid and your parents limited you the time to watch TV.
For Firefox users, the alternative is LeechBlock.
Time Out
It is impossible to maintain a deep level of concentration for 8 hours in a row. We need to rest, ventilate and recover energy. But entrepreneurs tend to not comply well with those breaks and fall into the computer beatings.
And that’s why Time Out was born. It is a Mac application that works in the background while you work and every so often (for example, 90 minutes) it reminds you to rest 5-10 minutes.
If you are a Windows user, one of the best productivity tools that exist is the Focus Booster, which we will now talk about.
Focus Booster
This application is based on the pomodoro technique, a time management method that challenges you to concentrate on a task for 25 minutes and take a break of 5 minutes.
If you scatter easily and have trouble keeping the focus, I recommend that you start working for blocks of time. And for this, Focus Booster is ideal.
Decide the task that you are going to focus and activate the counter. When the 25 minutes are completed, the counter will stop, you will receive a warning and you will know that the time has come to get up from the chair for 5 minutes.
It does not matter what operating system you use, because it works on both Mac and Windows, and is also available for mobile devices (iOS and Android).
Self Control
Of all the productivity tools, this application is possibly the most radical. It prevents you from surfing the internet when you should be concentrating on strategic tasks.
Its operation is based on defining a range of hours and the application itself ensures that you do not have the temptation of distractions.
Self Control allows you to create white lists of sites, so you can define exceptions and access those pages. Of course, the rest of the internet will be vetoed.
It works only on Mac computers. The alternative for Windows is Freedom, so I’ll tell you a little more about it.
Freedom
If your downfall is social networks, productivity tools like Freedom will be of great help.
It is similar to Self Control, but it is less radical and does not block access to the internet in its entirety.
Recommended by Tim Ferriss among others, Freedom prevents access to websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo and all the usual e-mail managers during the time you define.
Although it seems a clone of Self Control, the 2 main differences between these productivity tools are that Freedom includes a blacklist of sites by default (that you can edit) and that, if you cannot bear the abstinence to connect to the internet, you can recover the connection when you restart the computer (something that Self Control does not allow).
Keep me Out
Keep me Out is like a “detoxification” application, since it allows you to receive notifications when you try to access the pages that most distract you.
You can choose whether to activate its operation indefinitely or only during your work hours.
Focus
Focus is perfect for maximizing focus when you switch from one task to another.
In your daily routine, you must attend different fronts: write, manage social networks, plan … Well, Focus allows you to configure the tools you need to perform each of the tasks, so that you avoids possible distractions when you finish one and you pass to the next.
Let’s take an example.
Imagine that you are going to write the content. From your configuration, the application will automatically close the email and the browser, block access to your social profiles and open Word.
Similarly, when you go to manage social networks, you can customize the configuration in a completely different way, to allow you to access the sources and pages that will be necessary to execute that task.
Only valid for Mac and is a paid tool (although you have a free 14-day trial and a 2-month money back guarantee in case you try and do not like it).
Focus Writer
Creating content requires great concentration, with this app; it is easy to finish a text that costs you a lot of hours.
What this application does is recreate the environment of a word processor and avoid the interruption of possible distractions.
For this, it blocks absolutely all the elements, except the document where you are going to write and the keyboard (including the date, time and access to the desktop of your computer).
Despite the simplicity of its interface (a background and a canvas to write on), Focus Writer includes the characteristics of a text editor, such as the word counter or the spelling check.
Increase your productivity and achieve your goals in record time
Although these productivity tools help you, the truth is that they cannot force you to work or to advance more and better.
I always say it: the important thing is not the tools … but the method of work.
And now, tell me: is it difficult for you to keep focused on the same task? Have you tried any of these productivity tools? What is your biggest difficulty in being productive? I wait for you in the comments.
Cloud computing can mean big changes for Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) in the coming years. It is not only a digital solution that saves a few dollars or reduces the physical space to develop a process; it is a business scheme that can contribute a lot in the growth of companies.
Cloud Computing is a new way of making operating expenses more flexible, as well as improving the range of services that a company can offer. It also facilitates competitiveness and allows companies to be more adaptive to market requirements.
However, despite the amount of benefits it brings to SMEs, many entrepreneurs are unaware of its operation and its true potential.
What are cloud services?
Cloud services, or what is also known as cloud computing – are basically all kinds of computer services offered through a network of interconnected servers. This network is internet.
The Internet is made up of a global server’s infrastructure and data centers, where information is stored and processed.
Any company or person that stores your data, files, photos or any type of file in the cloud can access that information and work with it at any time, from any place and through any device.
WHY MIGRATE TO CLOUD
But what are those reasons that lead SMEs towards Cloud Computing? We at cloudsigma, a leading provider of cloud computer services bring you all the benefits that Cloud Computing offers to SMEs.
Cloud Computing allow SMEs to access a wide range of services previously limited to large companies, without the need to invest heavily in infrastructure or knowledge.
The cloud computing in SMEs
When talking about Cloud Computing, this is often interpreted as a solution aimed only at large companies with a huge volume of data to manage and with high financial capacity to make investments in technology.
Still many SMEs do not know the potential benefits of Cloud Computing, generally having a misperception that it is an exclusive solution for large companies with a large volume of data.
In fact, Cloud Computing is perfectly adaptable for a business of any size, regardless of the number of workers, investment in IT and other factors.
Let’s take a look at some cloud computing factors:
Infrastructure. Instead of replacing and repairing old servers in their facilities, companies can host their services in the cloud, increasing the security and integrity of their data and decreasing material investments.
User experience. Lack of resources to run applications can result in a poor user experience that affects the business. Cloud computing resources are flexible, and more profitable than dedicated infrastructure.
Unified communications. Thanks to the cloud, new communication platforms optimize remote work and the management of multiple sites.
Remote access. Remote work through virtualized desktops decreases device and office costs. In addition, control over the user’s environment is substantially greater.
Cloud applications. Thanks to the ease of access offered by the cloud computing, enabling the remote and mobile work of an application is much easier.
Monitoring. The cloud computing model allows monitoring resources as part of the service itself at all times.
Mail services. Nowadays, they make full sense as a cloud application: growing in capacity and resources is faster and more profitable.
Disaster Recovery. A DR solution in a cloud environment, off-site, immediately activates a second platform in case of failure in the main one.
Backup. Backups in the cloud computing for SMEs provide an additional guarantee to the data integrity and are restorable from any installation or server.
Focus on the business. The cloud hosting of a managed services provider allows a company the most important thing: time, resources and people focused on their business.
Cost savings. All kinds of studies show that with migration to the cloud infrastructure helps in reducing the cost of SMEs.
Why Cloudsigma
As you can see, the implementation of Cloud Computing in SMEs brings many benefits in relation to traditional software for companies.
If you have any questions about these services or want to take the first step towards a Cloud service for your SME, cloudsigma will be happy to help you.
If you want to optimize costs and make your work more competitive, at cloudsigma we have extensive experience and many successes in migration to the Cloud that has made us a leader in the IT market.
Contact us today, so we will help you take your company to the cloud.
Many websites appear in more than one language. It should be noted that building a website that supports several languages is not just about translating or locating. This site design requires additional internationalization activities. Let’s take a look at some of the website internationalization tips for Web developers.
In our work, we often meet multilingual websites that can cause headaches for SEO specialists and web developers. That is why it is worth developing guidelines for designing and optimizing international websites.
The guidelines in this article highlight all the guidelines for the optimization of multiregional and multilingual websites for search engines.
Internationalization and the location of the website
The difference between internationalization and location is as follows. Internationalization (I18N) consists in designing an internet website so that it can be adapted for different languages and regions without the need for technical changes. Localization (L10N) is the process of adapting an internationalized website to a specific region or language.
Website Internationalization Tips:
Provide the location of pages in tags, not in style sheets
The language and direction of text display are inseparably connected with the content of the document. Therefore, whenever possible, instead of style sheets, you should use HTML tags for internationalization of the website. Attributes lang and dir should be used at least in the html element: <html lang=”ar” dir=”rtl”>
Avoid your own solutions to create special classes or identifiers. The CSS specification specifies that specifies that properties such as direction and unicode-bidi can be ignored as required.
The situation is different for XML. XML does not provide special internationalization tags, so in this case it is recommended to use CSS for this purpose.
Use one style sheet for all locations
Instead of creating separate style sheets for LTR text directions (from left to right) and RTL (right to left) or even for each language separately, you must collect everything in one style sheet. Thanks to this, internationalization rules are easier to understand and configure.
Use the attribute selector dir = ‘rtl’
In order to be able to collect all rules in one style sheet, the appropriate way to specify elements whose formatting depends on the direction of text display should be used. In most modern web browsers, just use [dir = ‘rtl’], as in the example:
#sidebar {
float: right;
margin: 0 0 1em 1em;
}
[dir=’rtl’] #sidebar {
float: left;
margin: 0 1em 1em 0;
}
Use the pseudo-class: lang ()
To determine the formatting of documents in a specific language, use the pseudo-class: lang (). For example, if bold font in Chinese documents does not look good, you can turn it off as follows:
: lang (zh) strong,
: lang (zh) b {
font-weight: normal;
}
Reflect all values related to the text direction
Make sure to mirror image of all values related to the direction of the text. These are properties related to borders (border), margins (margins), padding and positioning of elements (float, text-align). There are tools to help this task, such as CSSJanus.
Pay attention to details
Depending on the text direction display, changes may require: pictures (eg arrows, background), box-shadow and text-shadow values, JavaScript animations.
The default font set (and sometimes its font) should be adapted to the character set (alphabet).
The use of specialized selectors [dir = ‘rtl’] and [dir = ‘ltr’] requires great care.
We hope you find all these website internationalization tips for Web developers helpful.
I finally have decided to create this SEO for beginners because I believe that knowledge about SEO positioning should be for everyone and not just for a few “experts”. It is true that the SEO positioning can be a little messy with certain technicalities, methods and tools, but it is also true that with the basic notions you can get very good results.
Let’s go to the mess! 😃
Let’s start SEO for Beginners
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is nothing more than optimizing a website to improve its position in the results obtained by the search engines. That is, try to make your website go first when users search on Google.
Search engine optimization or web positioning is the process to improve the visibility of a website in the organic results of the different search engines.
It is true that Google increasingly takes into account the technical aspects of SEO. The search engine little by little wants to give more importance to a more “human” web positioning, but that does not mean that it does not continue to focus on the basic aspects of SEO that I will explain to you right now.
THE 3 SEO ASPECTS
If you look around the Internet for information on SEO for beginners, you can quickly lose track – with all the terms, techniques and SEO errors. The search engine optimization is not a rocket science.
The most important thought you should always keep in mind:
“Google wants to give the seeker the best answer to his/her question!”
You should memorize this sentence if you have a problem in the future.
To make you understand SEO as a beginner, I always illustrate the subject with the three SEO aspects. If all three aspects are set correctly, your page will automatically rank high up – Google has no other choice.
These are the three SEO Aspects:
Produce relevant content for the page
Optimize this page (“Onpage-Optimization”)
Promote your content (“Offpage optimization”)
That’s it!
So if you are not at the top of search results, it’s because of at least one of these factors.
All SEO measures that you will get to know can be assigned to one of these points.
Okay – let’s take a look at each and every one of them, so you know what to do after this SEO for beginners guide.
PRODUCE THE PERFECT CONTENT
You may have heard it before:
“Content is king!”
Correctly good content on your website is the absolute must-have!
And that is not an exaggeration.
But do not worry – you’ll now learn how to easily create content that Google & your audience will love.
Let’s go!
How does Google actually know what a good site with a lot of added value is?
The answer is called “crawler”. You can think of it as a little robot scanning your page from top to bottom. The crawler needs one thing above all else: text!
The first thing you need for the perfect content is a high quality text. That is also the reason why many sites and companies have a “blog”.
A high-quality text should not only good and written error-free, but it must be relevant to your target audience and answer the questions.
You remember?????
So let’s find out what you should write about so that your content is relevant to the searchers.
THE BASICS OF THE KEYWORD RESEARCH
So we’re looking for the search term your potential visitor types on Google. This SEO term is also called keyword. With keyword research, we start looking for the right keywords.
Attention! Now it becomes practical.
It is best to optimize your text for one (long tail) keyword only . But that does not mean that you have to use the keyword again and again in the same form. You may well use synonyms and grammatical inflections. But you should already place your main keyword in the relevant places. These are:
the main heading (the title or the H1 heading)
the permalink (= the URL of the page)
the beginning of the post or page
the subheadings (H2 and H3)
the ALT tags of the photos you include in your post
the meta description in the header of the source code
PUT TO BEGIN A SOLE “BUYER PERSONA”.
With the “Buyer Persona” you determine your desired customer or typical visitor who comes to your website and should be addressed.
For this you should create a Word document or a PowerPoint slide. Points that you should definitely clarify are, for example:
Age
Sex
Income in the year
Hobbies and Interests
Objectives
Problems
This document will help you in the future to focus on your target group. So always ask yourself if your favorite customer is interested in the search for topics.
In my example, we assume that “Frank the photographer” is my favorite customer. He is a budding photographer and I want to show him how to professionalize and take the best photos in Germany.
FIND YOUR REQUEST
You have trouble filling in, because you do not know exactly what your favorite client likes?
No problem – just ask! My strategy for this: Search for relevant groups on Facebook. In the case of “Frank the photographer” I would search for photo groups.
Simply type in the industry or activity in the search field, and then you make a request, so you are included in the group.
Now you have access to a community that also reflects your target audience. Now write a post in which you briefly introduce yourself and ask nicely what are the biggest problems that your desired customer often meets.
But always pay attention to the group rules and leave the spam in countless groups. ????
SEARCH FOR FIVE NICHES
Niche topics are subjects that interest your visitor as well. Now that you know what your favorite client is interested in and what question marks hover over his head, you can now brainstorm for topics.
Just write down all the topics and keep looking at the “Buyer Persona”.
5 examples of niche topics:
Camera settings for time lapses
Data backup for photographers
Equipment for landscape photography
Take night shots
Print photos
As you can see, here are 5 relevant topics for the target group. From these we are now looking for the perfect keywords.
CHECK THE SEARCH VOLUME & THE COMPETITION
The search volume shows you how many people enter the keyword on Google.
You should always weigh between search volume and keyword competition.
And that’s what we’re doing now!
Since we first want to work without expensive SEO tools, I use the Keyword Planner from Google.
Go to Google Adwords (don’t worry – we don’t want to run an ad) and open the keyword planner.
You then open the Search for new keywords using a phrase, a website, or a category.
A helpful tool to find out the strength of your concreting is the MOZ Toolbar. With this plugin (“unfortunately” only for Chrome) you see two important values directly in the search results.
Page Authority and Domain Authority
Page Authority (PA)
it shows you how strong this subpage is (for example mypage.com/blog/blogarticle)
Domain Authority (DA)
it shows you how strong the entire domain is (for example, mypage.com)
What is On-Page SEO?
The On-Page SEO is the name given to the optimization that can be done directly on the website pages that you try to position in the results in Google, ie, everything you can change in your site to try to appear first in Google searches.
ON-PAGE SEO OPTIMIZATION INCLUDES
Header Tag Optimization (H1, H2, etc.)
Meta Tags Optimization
Canonicalization
Existing Content Optimization
Anchor & Title Tag Optimization
Image & Hyperlink Optimization
HTML Sitemap Creation & Analysis
txt Creation & Analysis
Navigation Analysis & Recommendations
XML Sitemap Analysis
Website Speed & Page Load Optimization
Responsive Website
Internal Link Structuring & Optimization
Crawl Error Resolution
SEO Friendly URLs
Keyword Research
For example:
Suppose, I have an article in which I explain “what is a blog and what is it for” and I want to try to position it better for the search “what is a blog” in Google, so I put a link from this post that you are reading now towards that article, and I also do it with the phrase (or also called anchor text) “what is a blog”.
Note that both articles are from the same blog, that’s why it would be considered On-Page SEO, because it is a way to optimize the positioning from my own blog or website.
What is Off-Page SEO?
OFF-PAGE SEO OPTIMIZATION INCLUDES
● Classified Submission
● PDF Submission
● Portfolio Listing
● Audio Listing
● Presentation Listing
● Web 2.0 Profile Creation
● Social Bookmarking
● Google Local Listing
● Image Promotion & Submission
● Video Marketing & Submission
The Off-Page SEO is the name given to the optimization that you try to do from external sites to the site that is trying to position in the results in Google, that is, everything you can do “outside your web” to try to appear the first in Google searches.
Mainly when talking about Off-Page SEO refers mainly to try to link you from other websites “relevant” and related to the theme of your site. This is what is known as link building.
For example:
So you remember the same article that I told you before about “what is a blog and what is it for?” I would like it to be linked from other external sites to my blog and also be “relevant” in the world of blogs. So I try to contact an important blogger of the sector to explain that I have a very good article that may interest your readers, in case you are interested in putting a link from your blog to my article.
In this case I would have no control of the external site from which it links to my article (and if it finally agrees to link it!), that’s why it would be considered Off-Page SEO, because it is a way to optimize the positioning from another different website.
TECHNICAL FACTORS
Some of the known technical factors that will help improve the ranking of a page are:
H1 and H2 Tags
HTTPS
Domain Type
File size / site speed
Is SEO synonymous with free traffic?
Many marketing experts make the mistake of seeing SEO as a single source to get free traffic. And although it is true that it is one of its benefits.
The true purpose of SEO is to help users find what they are looking for. Therefore, the content of your website must match what your potential audience wants to find.
Let’s see it with an example.
María sells custom knit sweaters. She has created a blog a where she often talks about the different types of yarn she uses to make garments.
The truth is that it does not have much competition for keywords related to thread types. And taking into account that Maria is creating and sharing enough content on this subject, in a short time has managed to rank on the first page of Google.
But, would you know what the potential problem is?
Users looking for different types of thread probably want information to weave themselves. Which means they will not be interested in buying a Mary’s jersey.
One thing is that Maria gets a lot of traffic, but if that traffic is not adequate, conversions will not be achieved.
The first lesson of SEO for beginners is that you should aim for is the following. If you want SEO to work for your business, you must ensure that your goals match the objectives of your visitors.
It’s not about getting more and more traffic. It’s about finding out what you want to achieve and optimizing keywords that attract users who are looking for the same.
But, how to choose best keywords?
Before entering fully into the world of keywords, it is interesting that you delve deeper into the world of SEO.
In fact, you could start by understanding the operation of the search engines themselves. Which, in addition, have two main functions:
Do a crawl and create a list with the best results.
Provide this list to users with the most relevant websites.
But how could this whole process be explained in a SEO for beginners?
Imagine the World Wide Web as a network of stops in a metro system in a city.
Each stop is a unique document, be it a website, a PDF or any file. And the search engines need to find a way to track the entire city and find all the stops. For what use the best possible route: the links.
With these two basic elements of SEO for beginners, it is interesting that you learn to optimize the content itself to achieve a good positioning. Even so, you should bear in mind that both keywords and links are a must in any SEO strategy.
SEO for beginners landing page
Choose the type of landing page you are going to work. The most important thing in any SEO guide for beginners is that you fix, from the start, all your strategy and have clear objectives. That’s why it’s vital that from the first moment you define what type of landing you will work.
Decide with what keywords you will position yourself. As you see, keywords are vital in any situation. It is important that you choose those that match your landing.
Those keywords must be in bold. This will give the user the opportunity to ensure, at a first glance, that you provide the solution they are looking for.
Choose a unique theme That is, the one that has to do with the chosen keywords.
Google rewards landing pages that constantly update their content. Modify headlines, remove or add visual content, etc.
Make link building. The best advice is to follow good practices to do link building naturally. Google takes into account, especially, those quality links that position you as a trusted source.
Include the main keyword in the URL of your landing page.
Avoid 404 errors, content that is not displayed on all devices and pop-ups.
Another factor to consider in this SEO for beginners is the loading speed of your landing page. Since it directly affects the positioning.
Responsive design is vital. Google also rewards landing pages that are optimized for any device. And this, even if it’s an SEO guide for beginners, you should have taken it some time ago.
Follow these SEO for beginners tips
Optimize keywords. Plugins like Yoast SEO will help you create the content using the appropriate keyword and including it as many times as necessary to achieve a better positioning.
The SEO title. Following the Yoast SEO plugin, you should keep in mind that the owner of your post and the one you include in the internal blog are not the same. The one that will be shown in the search engines is the SEO title, which is the one you must work with and the one that should incorporate the keyword.
Work the meta tags.
Include the keyword in the first paragraph of your content.
Use short URLs. Data indicate that there is a 250% more probability of clicking on a website if it has a short URL or if it appears just below a website with a long URL.
Avoid duplicate content.
As you can see, there are many elements to consider in SEO for beginners. But the most important thing is that you are always clear about who you are heading to, the keywords you are going to use and adopt linkbuilding as a key strategy.
In blogs, the most usual is to add related posts. Or, even include links on more specific keywords. In this way, you will also improve the user experience.
Do you want to implement some of these link building techniques and stay up-to-date in SEO for beginners to scale to a more professional level? Contact Scorpius Technology today and build a strategy to capture links that will help you improve your digital positioning.
Here’s a list of the best SEO Tools 2023 I frequently used in the year 2022. It contains some golden nuggets I’m sure a few of you will find useful in 2023. I wanted to keep this short and sweet.
Mastering SEO optimization can be difficult, especially if you are just starting with a website or an online store. Fortunately, finding the best SEO tools in 2023 is easy and we have put them together in this blog.
Let’s check out our list of some of the best free and paid SEO tools that can boost your organic rankings:
We contacted more than 30 SEO experts to find out what their favorite SEO tools 2023 are and compiled a list of the best tools available. You do not need to try all these tools, you just need to find out which works best for your needs.
Outreach / Linkbuilding Tools
AuthoritySpy – This tool is great for automating the ability to find authoritative influencers and bloggers in a chosen niche. You simply put in a keyword or niche that you’re interested in and it will return hundreds or thousands of people that you can use for your campaigns. This costs.
Guest Post Tracker – Big database containing 1500+ domains that accept guest posts.
Buzzstream – Buzzstream is an outreach platform you can use to store data you gather on your influencers. You can send emails within the platform too so you’ll be able to see if your colleague has contacted them too. It’s got a sweet analytics section too. This costs.
SERP Insights – This tool allows you to enter a keyword for a chosen vertical and produces a report that contains all the information you need to learn why your competitors are ranking so high and what metrics you need to improve on to outrank them. This costs however there’s a freemium version.
Detailed – This tools pretty cool it generates updated website rankings within your niche that is sorted out by Twitter mentions. You can see who’s talking about the biggest sites online.
Ahrefs – You can check lots of data with this tool. Broken links, competitors’ backlink profiles, anchor texts used, referring domains for your own website, get keyword volumes and more. This costs.
SEO Jet – I use this to check my anchor text usage on my urls. It splits your anchor text into three groups (Blended, exact match and Natural) and gives you a gauge that allows you to see what types of anchor text you need in order to stay fully optimised. This costs.
Majestic SEO – Looking at your referring domains are great but topical trust flow is a big thing. Having relevant domains linking to you from your topical niche is vital to higher rankings and this is exactly what Majestic shows you. I use this in combination with Ahrefs. This costs.
Scrapers / Scanners
Domain Hunter Plus – If you’re creating PBNs this tool is great. It’s similar to Check My Links as it scans the page you are on but this one checks to see if the links mentioned are available to register. It’s free.
Check My Links – This is a chrome extension that lets you scan for broken links on a page. It’s free.
URL Profiler – This is a great tool for link builders. You can stick a bunch of domains in and pull data from places like Majestic, Moz, Ahrefs, etc for those domains. You can also scrape for emails, check if the domains are indexed, and load more. This costs but proper worth it!
Screaming Frog – Another necessity for me, this tool is vital for all your onsite tweaks. It crawls your website’s links, images, CSS, script, and apps and gives you data like links, word count, Missing H1 tags, Title tags that are too long, Time to the first byte, etc. This costs but proper worth it!
Google Results Bookmarklet by Liam Delahunty of Online Sales – I stuck all that in there so you guys can find it, this is a google applet that will give you the URLs for everything in SERPS for a chosen keyword. Very useful to grab 20-40 urls for lets say “whey protein” then stick them in Screaming Frog or URL Profiler. It’s free.
Keyword Tools
Keyword Shitter 2 – Pop in a keyword and it will spit out a ridiculous amount of variations! It’s free.
Keywords Everywhere – This is a good tool for getting volumes if you don’t have access to keyword tool, accuranker, ahrefs, etc. If you put a keyword in Google search it will give you the volume for it. You can also analyse pages with this tool and it will give you frequent mentioned keywords, density, etc. It’s GREAT! and FREE.
Analytics
Google PageSpeed Insights – Google Pagespeed Insights is a tool that empowers you to make decisions that increase the performance of your website.
GT Metrix – This tool tells you how fast your site loads and gives you lots of recommendations. It’s free
Bright Local – SEO reporting, lead generation, reputation management, citation management…. It does everything you need for local search. It costs
Accuranker – Everyone needs a keyword tracking tool. Its not the cheapest but its great. It costs
Google Analytics – It provides you with web analytics. It tracks and reports the traffic from websites. It’s free.
SEMrush – SEMrush is undoubtedly the number #1 SEO toolin the market and the most effective tool to analyze the competition.
Google Search Console – This is another necessity for SEO, I’m sure you all use it already but if you don’t this will allow you to submit your sitemaps, disavow spammy links, view your pages as Google Bot sees it and much more. It’s free.
Serpbook – If you are looking to get accurate keyword ranking and tracking results in an easy way then SerpBookmay be the solution for you.
Barracudas Algorithm Tool – This tool allows you to see the latest updates by Google alongside your analytics. It’s great for analysising the effects an update has had on your domain. They just released a new version where you can purchase SEO Visibility data for your domain. It’s called seocompare. It costs
Siteliner – This tool does a lot but I use it to check common content on my site. It costs
Copyscape – Copyscape is great for checking duplicate content you have on your site that’s also elsewhere on the web. It costs
Conclusion
The best SEO tools 2022 on this list are not enough. I mean, they will definitely help you better understand how you can improve the optimization of your website, but they will not do the work for you. You will have to strive to obtain the results you want. This means producing optimized content for SEO, rewriting all descriptions of your products and converting them into something that suits your niche.
If you have a limited budget, most of these SEO tools 2023 have features or free trials that you can play with. Try them. Think of these tools as mentors that tell you what you need to improve. And follow their suggestions to be able to shoot your growth. Achieving success is a responsibility that falls on you. It’s time for you to take the next step.
SEMrush is undoubtedly the number #1 SEM tool in the market and the most effective tool to analyze the competition. In this article, we will explain step by step guide on how this SEO tool works in order to carry out a complete study on the level of SEO, SEM and social media of our direct competitors. Let’s dive more into SEMrush review 2019 guide.
SEMRush is software for SEO positioning or a platform integrated by a set of tools for SEO and SEM auditing, created in 2008 by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov.
Do you want to learn to analyze your competition like a professional and discover everything you do up to unsuspected limits?
Let’s dive into this SEMrush review 2019 guide.
SEMrush has been evolving a lot and comes with a lot of very interesting features. Although if I had to highlight its main strength it would be that it is the best SEM tool to analyze the SEM (paid) traffic of the competition.
Another good thing about SEMrush is that it is quite intuitive and easy to use even if you start from scratch.
It has a free version with no time limit, as it happens with other tools, although logically its most advanced functions are paid. The information that gives you the free version may fall short.
Why it is important to analyze the competition?
Carrying out a good analysis of the competition, that is, knowing what our competition is doing on the Internet is fundamental for an SEO strategy.
If we know what our competition does well or badly, we can take note and draw conclusions to improve our own SEO strategies and online marketing in general.
Semrush gives us a lot of very useful information that we can take advantage of.
From knowing the organic traffic of our competitors to what are the keywords that are taking more traffic (organic and paid), how they change their positions for different keywords, their profile of incoming links and much more.
With all this information we can obtain some valuable conclusions that will help us to spin much finer with our own SEO actions.
In addition, Semrush allows us to export the data and download a lot of reports so we can have all the information well organized.
But let’s go step by step.
Because SEMrush has a lot of features, some of them very new and it’s interesting to know them all so you can get the most out of it.
What SEMrush allows you to analyze?
SEMrush allows you to know much more about your competition that you ever imagine. With this SEM tool you can get various things:
Study thoroughly all your competitors
Analyze backlinks and optimize linkbuilding actions.
Know which keywords will work best for your blog and detect the number of monthly searches for those words with surprising accuracy.
Decide if a certain business has a future in the digital domain or not.
Do a review of your main keywords and assess if your SEO strategy is working or you need to make changes.
SEMRush will mainly allow you:
Do audits to your own site: Analyzing its evolution and providing the opportunity to detect points of improvement at the SEO level.
Optimize the use of keywords. Your search volume and real competition.
Analyze the competition: Your growth, your content strategy, organic traffic, Google Adwords advertising, among others.
Evaluate the Linkbuilding: both your own sites and those that you consider as direct competition. Orient towards the detection of potential niches and long tail type positioning
Main features of SEMrush
Below we summarize the main utilities of SEMrush:
How to research keywords
It is clear that to research a keyword you can use the adwords tool, but believe me; this tool is far from offering results as complete as those offered by SEMrush.
The visualization of the results is very simple; you only have to select the country in which you want to perform the analysis.
Once the keyword is entered, the tool offers you what the CPC is, the competition, and everything in a really visual numerical relation.
The keys to the analysis of a domain
With this option, we can find out what are all the domain pages that we are analyzing are positioned among the 100 best organic results of Google.
As in all other options, this information can be obtained from our own domain or from any other we want to “spy”.
In addition to the URLs of these pages, SEMrush also gives us with information on the percentage of estimated organic traffic on each page and the keywords from which that traffic comes from.
Analyze own and competitive backlinks
With the tool you will get a generic view of the link profile, but you will also get to see the best “anchor text” that points to a specific domain and the reference IPs.
In addition, we can compare the backlinks of different domains.
Domain vs Domain
This is definitely one of the most interesting functions of the tool. With this utility, you will be able to see the common keywords of up to 5 domains, and most importantly, the ranking of each keyword in a comparison of the 5 domains analyzed.
The SEMrush API
To use the SEMrush API, it is necessary to access through the link, but is only available for Business users.
This is an alphanumeric code of 32 characters that we will have to include in all requests to the API.
From the SEMRush API we will be able to access data related to domains, keywords or what they call Analytics API; But also to the data related to our projects and SEMRush account.
The best thing is that the API returns data in CSV format unlike other tool where you can do in XML or JSON format.
As we see, once again SEMrush is a 100% optimized tool, even at API level.
Final Words
As you may have seen, SEMrush is a really a deep SEM tool with unimaginable capabilities when it comes to analyzing your competition on the Internet.
We hope you like our SEMrush review 2019 guide. Don’t forget to share on your social media accounts 🙂
Explore More Here: Visit Official website: SEMrush
