They can still generate traffic, even if they don’t pass authority and influence your rankings. In the early days of search engines, backlinks were the main signal for ranking web pages in Google. Each link would pass value (known as PageRank) to the linked page, which Google would use to gauge how much authority a webpage had.
Search Engine Marketing vs. Search Engine Optimization
It’s helpful to know if a prospective keyword is a high value or low value. Considering keyword competition can be helpful with making your final decision of which ones to use but keyword difficulty would be the better metric for SEO. Let’s dive into each of these factors so you understand what you should be looking for.
How To Create & Pitch Content That Attracts Incredible Links
Step 5) Finalize ranking and traffic reports and starts with the SEO process. Moz’s proprietary metrics have SEO Anomaly helped shape the SEO industry since 2004. Plug into the Moz API to build or enhance your custom data tools and dashboards. Identify competitors, keyword gaps, and link opportunities to improve organic share of voice and surpass your competitors.
- Organize your selected keywords into themed groups or clusters and map them to specific pages or sections of your website.
- We started our search with a list of dozens of agencies to consider and then pared it down with qualifying features.
- Other tools like Ahrefs can also help you see all links pointing to specific pages or whole domains.
- By understanding what keywords to target and building your website content around those words, you can improve your site’s rankings in search results.
How long does SEO take to work?
Take note of everything you see, including the terms suggested after you type in your head term. Focus on helping them, always, and not just gaming the algorithm. Your goal isn’t just to rank highly — it’s to get the right content in front of the right people. Mobile optimization is also essential because Google practices mobile-first indexing. Instead of crawling a desktop site, the algorithm will use the mobile version of your site when indexing and ranking pages for SERPs.
Or use them as seed keywords and pop them into a keyword research tool. This is a way to get high-quality backlinks WITHOUT having to grind with outreach. Most keywords are competitive for the simple reason that there are LOTS of sites trying to rank for them. For example, this post was targeting the keyword “how to get more traffic”. When I first got started with keyword research I’d focus 100% on search volume. Today you’re going to learn EXACTLY how to improve your site’s ranking in 2025.