Author: Terry Cane

Terry Cane is a technical writer for SEOHost.net, a reliable and supportive SEO hosting partner.

What Are the Four Pillars of SEO, and Why Are They Important?

To hear some people talk, search engine optimization (SEO) is some sort of arcane, incomprehensible craft. Those are the snake oil salespeople of the SEO sector—we’ve warned you about them in the past. The truth is that SEO isn’t actually as complicated as you might think.

Though with that said, it can be overwhelming, particularly if you’re new to the discipline. With that in mind, we’re going to break things down to be a bit more digestible. At a high level, SEO can be separated into four distinct pillars.

They are, as defined by Search Engine Land, your main areas of focus—and the primary determinants of your success. 

On-Page SEO: What’s On Your Website

This is what most people immediately think about when you mention SEO. It includes keyword research, website metadata, URLs, internal links, and page titles. There’s also a great deal of overlap between on-page SEO and technical SEO, as both are concerned with user experience. 

Technical SEO differs from on-page in a few key ways, however. 

Technical SEO: What’s Under the Hood

Technical SEO is, in many ways, the most complicated of the four pillars. It’s focused on your website’s backend—the factors that influence page speed, security, responsiveness, and overall performance. Technical SEO is also concerned with the way search engines crawl your site, as defined by your XML sitemap, robots.txt file, and meta directives. 

Generally, mucking about with technical SEO is something that’s best left to the experts—failing that, most decent SEO tools provide you with the necessary functionality to tweak the technical side of things. 

iphone with google open

Content: Your Bread and Butter

Content, as they say, is king. In addition to being a crucial component of any inbound marketing strategy, effective site content is a pillar of SEO. Good content is not only high quality, but also highly relevant to your audience. Your goal with content is to provide visitors with exactly what they’re searching for, whether that’s a food recipe or guidance on how to build a deck. 

In most cases, you’re going to want to strike a solid balance between content that’s sales-focused and content that’s audience-focused. 

Off-Page SEO: Promoting Awareness

Last but certainly not least, off-page SEO is sort of an umbrella term for everything that doesn’t fit under any of the other three pillars. It’s all about how people find, perceive, and talk about your website and brand. Unsurprisingly, there’s a great deal of overlap between off-page SEO and social media marketing. 

Off-page SEO is also a cornerstone of local SEO, as that requires that your business maintain a Google My Business Page and monitor factors such as reviews. Inbound links are another element of off-page SEO, alongside your business’s outreach strategy and any mailing lists you maintain. 

What Role Does Page Speed Play in Search Engine Optimization?

Faster is better. 

That’s been common knowledge for a while now. Unless there’s a noticeable gap in quality,  a faster website will almost always outperform slower sites in the same niche. We aren’t solely talking about search engine optimization (SEO), either. 

More than half of mobile users abandon a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Bounce rates increase exponentially for each additional second it takes a page to load, topping out at 123% for 10 seconds. On top of this, for every second above the average a page takes to load, customer satisfaction plummets further. 

All this is to say that if your website is slow, you’re getting hit from multiple angles—by Google’s algorithms as well as a dissatisfied audience. 

How to Optimize Your Website for Speed

So, we’ve established the importance of page speed. Let’s wrap things up with a brief overview of what you can do to optimize yours. We advise the following while also using Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check on your progress as you do: 

  • Minimize HTTP requests wherever possible. 
  • Implement a content delivery network positioned geographically close to your primary audience. 
  • Leverage browser caching. 
  • Use adaptive web design, including both images and layout. 
  • Compress your website’s content. 
  • Minify your code, and only use scripts where absolutely necessary.
  • Avoid using rich media where possible.
  • If you must use JavaScript or rich media, asynchronous loading is your friend.  
  • As an addendum to the above, defer resource-heavy files so that they only load after the most crucial elements on your site. 
  • Work with your host to improve your backend and minimize time to first byte.  Note that this may require you to choose a new web host if your current one does not meet your needs. 
  • Consider running a compression audit with a tool like GIDNetwork. 
  • If you’re using a content management system such as WordPress, assess your plugins and uninstall any that you don’t absolutely need. Factors to look for include: 
    • Overlapping functionality.
    • Tasks that can be easily accomplished manually.
    • Poor performance optimization. 
    • Lack of consistent updates.
    • Security flaws.
  • Cut down on redirects. 
  • Optimize for mobile first, desktop second. 

We realize that’s a bit of a comprehensive list. But we also promise it’s worth the effort to incorporate every piece of advice. Not only will Google’s algorithms like your website a lot more, your audience will thank you for your efforts. If you want to see other ways you can increase the SEO performance of your site, check out our post on the role of Backlinks in SEO.

Remember that you also don’t need to incorporate all of our advice overnight. SEO has always been a gradual, ongoing process. This is really no different—ironically, if you try to rush your page speed optimization, you might end up shooting yourself in the foot before you even manage to get off the ground. 

How to Successfully Target Keywords in your Blog Posts in 2022

Content is king. SEO is dead. Relevance, relevance, relevance. 

You’ve heard it all before, the buzzwords, sweeping assertions, and half-truths. We’d wager you’re just as tired of it as we are. 

See, although content is important, it’s only part of the equation. You still need a strategy—something to inform what you write and to whom you address it. The best way to achieve that, believe it or not, is still with keywords. 

So with that in mind, let’s discuss what it takes to successfully target keywords in your blog posts in 2022.

Initial Research

What are people searching for? 

That’s the first question you need to answer. Look at Google Trends, examine your own analytics data, and assess competing websites via a keyword analysis tool. The goal here is to identify keyword opportunities that fit into your brand and niche. 

Generally, though, you’re not going to directly use any of the keywords you discover during this research. Most of them are going to be too broad in scope, too competitive, or both. Your next step will be to narrow things down. 

Topic Ideation

Once you’ve established a few broad keyword opportunities, it’s time to narrow things down to come up with topics that are a bit more focused. Consider what you know about your audience. Not just the search terms they’re using, but the intent behind those terms and why they chose to visit your site specifically. 

Drawing on this knowledge, your goal is to generate a list of topics that align simultaneously with your brand, their interests, and their intent. 

Topic Keyword Research

Next, for each of the topics you came up with in the previous step, you’re going to drill down a little further. The goal here is to come up with subtopics and related keywords for each. In particular, pay attention to the questions people are asking on search—these are all questions you will likely want to answer in your content. 

Optionally, you can check out Q&A communities such as Quora for both inspiration and information. 

Content Creation & Optimization

Finally, it’s time to start creating. By now, you have both your topic and a general outline in place. All that remains is creation.  To that end, there are a few best practices you’ll want to follow: 

  • Make sure to identify whether you want to create Horizontal or Vertical content before you put the pen to the paper. This is the true measure of whether you understand the searchers intent.
  • Make sure your URL and meta title both contain your core keyword. It’s recommended that your meta description does as well, but that won’t directly influence how you rank.
  • Add internal links to any other relevant blog posts or pages on your website. Ideally, you’ll want to anchor those links to relevant keywords. 
  • Once you’ve finished creating and your post goes live, promote it. Share it to every social network on which you’re active. 

What Role do Backlinks Play in Search Engine Optimization in 2022?

Remember back in the earliest days of search engine optimization? Back when the Internet was akin to the Wild West, and tactics like keyword stuffing and link farms were still relevant? We’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we? 

Especially lately. It seems like every single one of Google’s more recent algorithm updates have been released with a single goal in mind—to gradually depreciate the importance of technical SEO in favor of content quality and relevance. As far as we’ve seen, they’ve done a pretty good job thus far. 

That isn’t to say the technical side isn’t still important. It most definitely is. It just plays a slightly different role these days. 

Backlinks are included under that umbrella—and recently, we’ve seen plenty of people wondering what their purpose, role, and relevance are to SEO in 2022. 

Scrabble tiles spell out SEO

Not Quite Irrelevant

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front. Backlinks are still incredibly important and should be a centerpiece of any successful SEO strategy. With that said, it’s important to understand that not all backlinks are created equal. 

For instance, backlinks from a site that’s considered authoritative in the consumer electronics space isn’t going to do you much good if your niche is industrial machinery. As the first step in your backlink strategy, you’re going to want to do a bit of research and figure out: 

  • Which websites related to your niche have the highest E-A-T score.
  • Who the top thought leaders and influencers are for your sector.
  • If there are any websites you should avoid or brands that are considered toxic. 

Once you’ve put together a shortlist of sites that are worthwhile from a backlink perspective, you’ll next want to check if any of them have guest editorial guidelines. Now, it’s certainly possible to reach out and get a piece placed on a site that doesn’t have a clear program in place. However, it’s also a great deal more difficult to even get a response, particularly if you try to reach out via a cold email. 

Beyond exchanging guest posts, the best advice we can give is to simply take a collaborative approach to content creation. What we mean here is that you should look to establish yourself not just on social media, but also in any communities that are relevant to your niche.  Focus on building partnerships and cultivating relationships first and foremost. 

With any luck, you’ll find some valuable backlink opportunities as you do so. Also, check out our post on vertical and horizontal content to get a better understanding of how you should structure your informational pieces. The way your content is written and the audiences it appeals to should be considered when you’re trying to build backlinks.

Even in Backlinks, Content Remains King

Ultimately, the best way to get yourself out there and start generating backlinks is through the creation of high-quality content. If you can establish your brand as a thought leader,  then people will naturally start linking back to you.  From there, you’ve nowhere to go but up. 

What is Virtual Environment Optimization (VEO)?

People are obsessed over how virtual reality and augmented reality will disrupt the marketing sector. Unsurprisingly, with hype comes buzzwords. And the latest phrase that seems to be on everyone’s lips? 

Virtual Environment Optimization (VEO). It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Just as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves tweaking your website’s performance and content to appeal to search algorithms, VEO represents all the proposed tactics, strategies, and technical adjustments required to market to users in virtual reality. 

But is this actually a trend we should all prepare for, or is it like the metaverse—an overdone buzzword referencing technologies that have already existed for decades? 

questions marks spread across black surface

Honestly, at this point, the jury is still out. While it’s true that all the talk of a completely immersive, completely interconnected virtual world is largely bunk, it’s also true that we’ve already seen some very exciting applications of VR and its less advanced cousin, augmented reality. For evidence of this, we need look no further than online apparel and home goods retailers. 

Seeking a means of replicating in-person retail during lockdown, many of these eCommerce brands turned to augmented reality. Users could visualize how a particular type of furniture would look in their space or how a ring would look on their finger using their smartphone. They could compare the sizes of different types of products, browse dynamically-generated lifestyle photography, and generally enjoy a shopping experience that was the next best thing to actually being there.   

Of course, that alone doesn’t mean we’re on the verge of a deep dive into full immersion. There are still far too many roadblocks for the technology to reach its full potential. If you recall the shape of the smartphone market prior to the early 2000s, it’s a very familiar picture:

  • Current VR headsets are far too expensive for the general public and are held back further by issues with availability. 
  • VR technology is either too bulky or too uncomfortable to be worn for an extended period of time. 
  • Immersion-breaking technical and performance glitches are still far too common. 

It’s important to note here that we’re not saying VR will never be a reality, nor are we denying the notion that someday, VEO will be every bit as important as SEO. But the simple fact is that we’re just not there yet. For now, marketing through virtual reality is a niche pursuit at best, and at worst little more than a pipe dream. 

Learn about it if you so choose. But don’t expect to see practical applications for that knowledge for at least a few years. And for the love of everything sacred about SEO, please stop talking about the metaverse—it’s not going to happen.

Not in the way people who promote the concept believe it will happen, anyway. Interested in more SEO content? Check out our monthly blog, and posts on topics such as Three Potential Reasons You’re Not Ranking on Google!

Is it Possible to Predict the Outcome of an Algorithm Update?

Google’s algorithm remains one of the most enduring mysteries in search engine optimization. Although we know the general rules, no one is entirely clear about how they’re enforced. Similarly, there’s rarely a clear consensus on the nature of upcoming releases—every expert tends to have their own take on what’s coming.

Given how arcane Google’s algorithm is and will likely remain, it should follow that it’s impossible to predict algorithm changes and their impact with any degree of accuracy, right? 

Not exactly. While figuring out what Google intends to do next is largely a guessing game—only their engineers know for certain—it is possible to determine how an update will impact your position on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). As with so many other things, the answer lies with artificial intelligence. 

Scrabble tiles spell out SEO

As noted by Search Engine Journal, through a combination of machine learning, real-time data, and historical data, AI-driven solutions can: 

  • Test how website changes will impact your PageRank. 
  • Display how an algorithm update will impact your website. 
  • Identify weaknesses and bottlenecks that may be lowering your PageRank. 
  • Understand why competitors outrank you.
  • Anticipate how your SEO efforts will impact your site’s long-term growth. 

Granted, these tools don’t offer a direct window to the inner workings of Google’s algorithms. No tool can truly claim to accomplish that—not without drawing the ire of the search giant, anyway. What they do provide is the next best thing, getting you as close to fully accurate predictions as possible. 

One might say it’s something of a moot point, anyway. Thanks to pending regulations in the European Union, we might have that insight within the next few years. Should this legislation pass, both Meta and Google would be required by law to: 

  • Reveal to the public how their content algorithms work
  • Establish a clear process for users to contest content moderation decisions
  • Define mechanisms to be adopted during public security or public health emergencies. 
  • Pledge to stop allowing targeted ads based on sexuality, religion, or ethnicity.
  • Pledge to stop allowing targeted ads directed at minors. 

If the EU is successful in this, the implications would be enormous. SEO and marketing professionals would finally get what we’ve wanted for decades—a genuine peek behind the curtain. As for the AI-driven SEO solutions currently gaining popularity? 

With a thorough understanding of Google’s backend, they’ll only become more effective, efficient, and formidable. 

But we’re getting off track. Our initial question was whether or not it’s possible to predict the results of an algorithm update. As you’ve seen, the answer is yes, albeit with a few notable caveats. 

At the end of the day, all this pontification is ultimately a moot point, anyway. The one common thread in all of Google’s recent algorithm updates is an effort to promote better, more relevant, and more valuable content. What that means is that if you focus exclusively on your audience, and on providing them with what they’re searching for, the rest will eventually fall into place. 

For more info about all the latest developments in SEO, check out our blog!

Struggling with a Search Engine Optimization Skill Gap? Here’s What You Can Do

Given that it’s been plaguing the IT sector for years, it was inevitable that the ongoing digital talent shortage would eventually sink its talents into marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). As noted by MarketingWeek, upskilling has become crucial for specialized agencies and ordinary businesses alike. An annual survey from online marketing agency Verbli, meanwhile, found that SEO expertise is one of the most desirable skills in marketing.  

It follows that, if you currently lack that expertise internally, you need to start looking for ways to bridge that gap. We’ll walk you through how to accomplish that.

Start With a Decent Tool

Tools like Moz, Ahrefs, and Semrush can seem incredibly overwhelming at first glance.  But they also provide an excellent—albeit temporary—solution to a lack of internal SEO knowledge. All three tools are relatively simple to use once you get past the initial growing pains, and all three organizations maintain comprehensive knowledge bases to help you and your employees learn the basics of SEO.

In some cases, this might even be enough. These tools could serve as the foundation from which your business builds up skills in everything from content marketing to PPC advertising. On the other hand, you might find that you simply aren’t getting your money’s worth. 

At this point, you have three options—though there’s no rule saying you can’t attempt all three:

  • Initiate a hiring push to bring in the necessary expertise
  • Hire an agency to manage marketing and SEO for your business
  • Implement training and reskilling programs to develop SEO professionals internally 

Handling Things Yourself

If you’ve decided to take the talent acquisition route, start by looking at a few job listings for similar roles in your industry. This will give you an idea of what constitutes a competitive offer, as well as what to look for in a candidate. Ideally, you’ll want to hire someone with a proven track record—but failing that, they should at least be able to demonstrate a baseline knowledge of SEO. 

If instead you choose to develop SEO skills within your existing staff, start by looking at materials like Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO. Consider how you might translate that into hands-on, self-directed training courses—if possible, allow anyone interested in this training to engage with it while on the clock. 

Bringing In an Agency

group of people sitting in front of computers

Believe it or not, hiring an agency has a great deal in common with hiring someone internally. Here as there, you’re looking for someone with a proven track record, an established client base, and clear expertise. A prospective agency should be willing to sit down with you in a discovery call to hash out your requirements, expectations, and budget. 

Be wary of anyone who over-promises. We’d also advise establishing at least a baseline understanding of SEO so you’re able to spot the scammers. Their knowledge is often only surface-level, and they rely on their targets knowing even less than they do. Want to learn more about how to avoid missing out on opportunities to increase traffic with SEO? Check out our blog where we cover SEO-related topics monthly!

Why You Should Include Sentiment Research With Your Keyword Research

Like most content creators with a mind for search engine optimization, you understand the importance of thorough keyword research. It’s at the heart of developing an effective inbound marketing strategy. And for any given piece of content, it’s crucial in determining which keywords you should focus on when it actually comes time to write. 

What you may not realize, however, is that keyword research is only part of the equation. It’s not enough to devise a list of potential topics without context. You also need to know what people are saying about those topics and how they feel about them.

This is especially important with topics where there may be some degree of controversy. And if you don’t know what side of an issue your audience falls on prior to writing? There’s a very good chance you’ll end up leaving a significant portion of your audience feeling alienated. 

Let’s say, for instance, that you decide to write about non-fungible tokens (NFTs). If your audience is against them and you attempt to cast them in a positive light, you can and will lose their interest and likely their trust. Similarly, if your audience is involved in cryptocurrency and you try to claim NFTs are the same as Bitcoin, most people probably won’t appreciate the comparison. 

As for where you can conduct this kind of research? That’s the good news. You have a nearly limited well of information upon which you can draw, including: 

  • Social media. Figure out the social networks on which both your audience and your competitors are most accurate, and pay careful attention to comments, shares, mentions, and hashtags. This will not only allow you to gauge sentiment around a broad range of topics, but also regarding your brand as a whole. For ‘trendy’ news, Twitter will typically be the best bet.
  • Ratings and reviews. Although generally more useful for determining direct sentiment around your brand, customer reviews also have the potential to provide unexpected inspiration for both possible topics and the approach you should take with them. 
  • Customer surveys. Provided you can properly incentivize your audience to take them, surveys are easily the best way to gauge sentiment on virtually any topic. These could be offered via email, on your website, or even through your existing social channels. 
Facebook home page

Ultimately, sentiment analysis is about more than simply figuring out tone and angle. That’s really only part of it. What’s more important is that it helps you understand who your audience is and how they think. 

And from that understanding, you can brainstorm more compelling topics and express them in a way that’s much more likely to resonate.

Word Count is Not A Ranking Factor, But it Does Matter

If you’re like many people, you probably believe in the unimpeachable word count. The notion is that the longer you make a piece, the better it will perform on the search engine results page. The idea is that there’s some sort of magic ‘sweet spot’ for content length that will land you on the first page of Google.

It’s somewhat unclear how these became such common beliefs in the search engine optimization space.  Because the truth is that content length has no direct bearing on PageRank. It never has. 

This isn’t just us saying this, either. As noted by Search Engine Journal, Google has stated as much on more than one occasion. More specifically, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller, who’s posed the question on a regular basis. 

“Word count is not a ranking factor,” wrote Mueller on Reddit. “Save yourself the trouble.” 

“Word count is not indicative of quality,” Mueller explained, this time on Twitter. “Some pages have a lot of words that say nothing. Some pages have very few words that are very important & relevant to queries. You know your content best (hopefully) and can decide whether it needs the details.”

Search Engine Journal noted in another piece that Mueller has also stated that word count is a quality factor rather than a ranking factor. Adding more text without good reason will do nothing to improve your content. In short, there is no arbitrary ‘perfect’ word count. 

Content should be exactly as long as it needs to be in order to convey its message. A piece with 1000 words is no more likely to be relevant than a piece with 100 lacks relevance—in actuality, longer content could potentially perform even worse than short form, depending on device and audience. 

Therefore, the best advice we can give you is to stop stressing about length. Just focus on creating high-quality, compelling content, and everything else will fall into place. And remember that there are many elements that are significantly more important than meeting some milestone that doesn’t actually exist:

  • Page speed
  • Performance
  • Ease of use
  • Bounce rate
  • Domain age, history, authority, and registration length
  • Keywords—primarily whether or not they appear in your title tag, header tag, and copy 
  • Backlinks
  • Optimization

If you’re looking for affordable web hosting that is built around SEO development, check out our services! In an era of microblogging and mobile Internet, length is functionally irrelevant. What matters isn’t how much space something takes up on a page. What matters is that it fulfills your audience’s search queries. What matters is that it provides people with genuine value.

Beyond that, everything else is ultimately secondary. 

Horizontal Content vs. Vertical Content

If there’s one thing about any industry that always holds true, it’s that people love their buzzwords. And while such industry parlance can make things easier for someone who’s been around for a while, it can be downright overwhelming for newcomers to the field. That’s why we intend to keep doing our part to clear the air—to walk people through all the definitions bandied about by marketing professionals.

To that end, today we’re going to discuss the difference between horizontal content and vertical content. As you’ve probably guessed, these two phrases have a lot in common with business markets, at least in that they define scope in a very similar manner. 

man writing on macbook

What Is Vertical Content? 

The clue is in the name—vertical content is, quite fittingly, a catch-all term for any piece of content targeted at a specific industry, market, or niche. Typically, when someone discusses vertical content, they’re specifically focused on business to business marketing. However, this need not always be the case.

A vertical is any specialized niche with a highly-defined audience. A healthcare cybersecurity publication and a Portland-based craft brewing business will both publish vertical content as part of their inbound marketing efforts. The thing that defines vertical content is specificity.

Its audience is incredibly well-defined, and it’s incredibly unlikely that anyone outside of that demographic will have any interest in a vertical-focused business or its content. 

What Is Horizontal Content?

While vertical content is highly specific, horizontal content is a little more generalized. Rather than targeting an exclusive market or sector, horizontal content focuses on broader problems or needs. Again, although horizontal content is frequently targeted at the consumer sector, there are plenty of business audiences for which this content is beneficial, as well.

With that said, since horizontal content is by its nature a bit more nebulous than vertical content, we’ll offer up a few examples of topics that might typically have a horizontal focus:

  • General cybersecurity.
  • Consumer electronics.
  • Grocery. 
  • Renovations.
  • Home decor. 
  • Health and wellness. 
  • Productivity. 

Choose the Best Content for Your Needs

It’s important to understand that neither of these content types is superior to the other. Some businesses are far better suited for horizontal content, while others, by their nature, will see the most success with vertical content. It’s also worth noting that in most cases, you can take a horizontal topic and narrow it down to a particular vertical and vice-versa. 

The best advice we can give you here is to first define your customer base and their needs. Once you understand who you’re marketing to and what their interests are, it will be a far simpler matter to figure out what time of content to publish. Just remember that at the end of the day, what truly matters is that you provide value to your audience—everything else is secondary to that.