Is a 301 or 302 redirect best for SEO?

Confused on which redirect to use? Here are the differences between 301 and 302 redirects and how Google and Bing view each when moving web pages.

In 2018, there’s still some confusion about which redirect is best to use for search engine optimization (SEO).

There are many articles in the search marketing industry on the topic of 301 and 302 redirects, and many suggest that a 302 redirect will not pass PageRank and that 301 redirects are best for SEO.

Is that still the case in 2018? Let’s look at what we know.

Using 301 redirects

The short answer to the question, “Should I use a 301 redirect when I want to permanently move content from one webpage to another?” is “Yes.”

If you want to be sure the search engines understand that your universal resource locator (URL) has permanently moved to a new location with equivalent content and should pass link equity, then yes, use a 301 redirect.

Does a 301 (or any 30X redirect) still pass PageRank? Another short answer: Yes!

In 2016, Google spokesperson Gary Illyes (@methode) confirmed all 300 level server-side redirects pass PageRank, regardless of whether it’s a 301, 302, 307 or something else.

Gary Illyes (@methode) updated his statement again in 2017:

Gary Illyes has also recommended site owners “go with whatever you like” as far as redirects go, as 301s and 302s to identical content both pass the same PageRank.

And if you’re just concerned with Google, you don’t need to be as concerned about redirects anymore. If you follow Gary’s advice and use the redirect you think is most appropriate to the situation, you probably won’t have much indexing issues with Google.

However, if you’re in the United States, Google may not be the only engine to worry about; in 2017, Bing claimed to have 33 percent of the market share.

Bing’s webmaster guidelines still say, “Bing prefers you use a 301 permanent redirect when moving content, should the move be permanent. If the move is temporary, then a 302 temporary redirect will work fine.”

Bing said in 2011 that 302s which look permanent are eventually treated as 301s and pass link equity, but if you want to ensure the link equity is passed sooner, you should use a 301 before a 302 if you know the redirect is not temporary.

Worldwide

If you’re optimizing for users in China, where Google currently only has 1.5 percent of the market, you probably care more about what Baidu and Shenma say about redirects than Google or Bing, and you should use permanent redirects for permanently moved URLs just to be safe.

Best practice

If you’re redirecting one URL to equivalent content, and you don’t expect that content to come back to the original URL, and you want the link equity to pass sooner than later, use a 301 redirect. In general, you can’t go wrong with a 301 redirect for redirecting permanently moved equivalent content for SEO.

Still confused? Use this simple flowchart as a helpful guide:

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4 SEO Mistakes That Are Costing You Traffic (And How to Avoid Them)

Do backlinks still matter in 2018? What’s with all the hype surrounding internal linking? Should you spend more time publishing long-form content?

If you’ve pondered over these questions while doing your recent site audit, then we’ve got some answers for you.

Optimizing your website for search engine result pages (SERPs) still remains a priority for most marketers. With new search engine algorithm updates and changing user perspectives, it’s important that we as marketers stay on top of the trends and constantly evolve our SEO methods and practices to rank higher in SERPs.

Having said that, some optimization techniques tend to do more harm than good, especially in the long run. To that end, here are 4 most common SEO mistakes and what you can do to avoid them.

1. Prioritizing Social Media Over Link Building

Many publishers turn to social media when they’ve just published a fresh piece of content in an effort to get more clicks, likes, and upvotes. Once the article gets the desired number of shares, it’s often tempting to abandon the link building quest completely and move on to the next piece of content.

But sadly, despite social media being a highly useful tool to promote articles, there is no proven correlation between social media shares and improved search rankings.

On the other hand, link building takes time and effort but can help you gain more organic traffic in the long run. In fact, backlinks from authoritative sources continue to be one of the primary factors to rank high in search engines.

According to a recent study by Backlinko where they analyzed over 1 million Google search results, it was revealed that the number of domains linking to a page correlated with rankings more than any other factor.

Source: Backlinko

How to Avoid it?

The quality of backlinks plays a huge role in determining search engine success. If you’re able to earn backlinks from high domain authority sites, your organic rankings can improve in a matter of days. On the other hand, if you obtain links from bad neighborhood or indulge in black hat practices, your site may get penalized by Google into obscurity.

As a result, establish authority by publishing long-form articles in your niche (more on that later) and implement a robust outreach strategy by using the right tools to connect with the top industry influencers.

2. Not Investing in a Mobile-Optimized Website

SEO is not just about optimizing the content on your website or earning authoritative backlinks. It’s also about improving the quality of the website, especially its performance on mobile devices.

According to Google’s Mobile Playbook, 57% of users won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site.

So, if your website is not optimized for mobile devices, you’ll miss out on valuable traffic, leads, and conversions.

How to Avoid it?

Use any of the following free tools to check the mobile-friendliness of your website:

• Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
• HubSpot’s Marketing Grader.
• Bing’s Mobile Friendliness Test Tool.
• GTMetrix.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test will determine whether your website meets Google’s benchmark for mobile-optimized websites. HubSpot’s Marketing Grader and GTMetrix provide deeper insights into what you can do to improve the mobile-friendliness of your website.

3. Not Optimizing Your Internal Link Structure

SEOs often make the mistake of ignoring internal link structure. While internal links may not be as important as external links, they still have the ability to influence rankings and change crawling patterns.

By adding the right internal links, you make sure Google understands the relevance of pages, the relationship between pages and the value of pages. As a result, you need to evaluate and improve internal linking strategy on a regular basis.

How to Avoid it?

Imagine your website to be a pyramid with the most important content on top. This content is usually referred to as the ‘cornerstone content’.

So, the ideal internal linking strategy would be to have several links pointing to cornerstone content from closely-related pages in the pyramid, which would then pass a lot of link juice on to those pages.

4. Not Publishing Enough Long-form Content

Have you ever stumbled upon a resource that covered the essentials of a particular topic in all its entirety? Well, you just consumed long-form content.

Long-form guides or articles are typically more than 2000 words and involve a ton work.

But in return, they provide a lot of value to readers, tend to rank higher in SERPs and provide proof of your authority on a particular subject.

How to Avoid it?

The only way around is to focus on producing more long-form content.

Long form articles usually tend to be in the field of journalism (think of leading news publications like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc.), but these 3 examples below show how marketers and bloggers too can use long-form content to their advantage, generating traffic, user engagement, and retention.

Conclusion

Avoid these four mistakes and you should be getting a lot more organic traffic in the coming weeks.

Hope you found this article useful. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Is There Any New Innovation In SEO?

So how much innovation is there, really, in SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been a field of its own in the marketing community for the past two decades.

But in a world where most industries are constantly responding to new cycles of innovation, and in a field with a technological focus, SEO can seem almost stagnant by comparison.

Sure, there are often new Google updates and new software platforms to consider, but the basic strategies are very similar to what they were a decade ago.

What Counts as “Innovation?”

This is the most important question to ask first. What really counts as “innovation?”

SEO is an industry that has already gone through many changes in its short 20-ish years of existence. On a large scale, there are near-constant tweaks to Google’s ranking algorithm that we have to look at.

On a small scale, we have to make strategic adjustments on a client by client basis—partially because every client is different and partially because any single client could see significant ranking volatility at an unpredictable pace.

But these stand as mere tweaks to an existing system, or as responses to an external stimulus. For there to be “true” innovation, there needs to be a new idea, a new approach, or an entirely new methodology.

The Fundamental Principles

You can view SEO through multiple different lenses. At the lowest, most specific level, you can think about individual tactics or processes required for your campaign.

At the highest, almost conceptual level, you can think of SEO in terms of general underlying principles—and these SEO fundamentals haven’t changed much.

• Search indexing and tech specs. If you want to be listed in Google’s search rankings, you first need to make sure you’re in its index. The search indexing process hasn’t changed much over the years and is still the first step to getting seen in the SERPs.
• High-quality content. High-quality content gives Google more pages to index, giving you more opportunities to rank for various relevant keywords. This hasn’t changed.
• Link building. Despite advancements in link evaluation, link building is still the best way to build authority—and it’s a practical necessity if you want to rank higher, just as it was a decade ago.

These have been the gold standards for a successful SEO campaign for many years, and conceptually, they haven’t changed.

Responses to New Updates

What has changed is the way that Google fields and responds to search queries.

Google is still the dominant search engine, and it’s constantly rolling out updates that change how its ranking algorithm works—although usually, in small ways.

A tweak to the SERP layout or better semantic support doesn’t qualify as large-scale, game-changing plays.

Major updates, like Panda and Penguin, did result in major shakeups to organic search rankings, but I don’t know that you can call them innovations.

Google has always prioritized quality content; Panda just made its quality evaluation abilities a little bit better.

It has also always prioritized the quality of links; Penguin just made its evaluation better. These weren’t new ideas, though they did force many businesses to reevaluate their tactics and strategies.

Rather than innovations, these merely cleared the field of questionable practitioners.

New Techniques

So let’s look at the new techniques that have been developed for SEO. In the field of medicine, there are constant breakthroughs to introduce new surgical techniques and treatment methods—so does SEO have the same pattern of development?

With one categorical exception (which I’ll explain shortly), the answer is no. You still need to create new pieces of content to support your site’s domain authority and engage your audience.

The best ways to build links (through guest posts and link attraction through high-quality content publication & promotion) are still the best.

Keyword research and selection still have the fundamental steps it did in the beginning. And even your approach to troubleshooting index problems is much the same as it was a few years ago.

The exception I mentioned? It has to do with the technology we use to employ these techniques.

New Technologies

The real source of innovation in the SEO industry isn’t with the tactics you use or the high-level strategies you employ, but rather the technologies you use to employ them.

For example:

• Google Search Console. Originally called Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console continues to add new features and upgrades to make it easier to determine how your website is viewed.
• Keyword research. You’re still looking for high-volume, low-competition keywords, but you can do it faster and with more information thanks to tools like Moz’s Keyword Explorer.
• Analytics. Google Analytics and other analytics tools are constantly becoming more user-friendly and offering more types of data you can use to evaluate your campaign.
• Automation. Marketing automation is taking basic marketing tasks and making them more streamlined and automatic, from scheduling social media posts to coordinating email blasts.

These aren’t necessarily changing what SEO is, but they are changing how SEO can be executed.

So, How Much Innovation, Really?

So let’s return to the initial question. How much innovation is there in the SEO field?

In terms of high-level concepts, direction, and technique, there’s very little innovation.

Google works the same as it used to (with aesthetic and functional improvements, but no radical departures), and the same guiding principles from last decade work just as well today.

The innovation arises from tech companies who create and distribute new ways to use those techniques or measure your ability to achieve that high-level direction.

They aren’t changing the industry in terms of your goals or tasks but in terms of how you can set those goals and execute those tasks.

SEO is getting more accessible, more automated, and easier to understand, but its core principles remain the same.

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Four Ways To Use Social Media To Your SEO Advantage

Think SEO and social aren’t related? Think again.

Good social media marketing leads consumers to a website; good SEO practices help consumers to find that website and to stay engaged with it.

Want your own results? Here are four ways to leverage social media for SEO:

1. Get the right followers.

Followers on social media are a lot of links in the SEO world. It’s not so much about the number as it is the quality. To get these followers, don’t buy them. Consistently building your social media presence, encouraging users to follow your page for special discounts or VIP offers, and generally offering good content will result in an increased following.

We’ve seen firsthand how a large, good-quality social following can lead to increased website traffic and higher quality traffic with a greater ROI.

2. Use social media for external link-building.

To piggyback off the last point, the greater number of followers you have, the greater the potential for shares you have online as well. And the more shares on social media you have, the more opportunities people have to see your content and link to it.

Focus on creating popular content. Popular content is fun, engaging, useful, visually appealing, entertaining and most importantly, share-worthy. To create high-quality content make sure your content is original, thought-provoking, full of answers, actionable, easy to read and has a strong headline.

And always include a link back to your main website domain. If you create high-quality content that gains traction on social media, both consumers and other websites will reference your link, which greatly helps your SEO. To better reach your target audience, take advantage of content promotion tools like Facebook Targeting or Twitter Ads.

3. Build your brand.

Don’t just share content for the sake of sharing content. We ensure that everything we post for our clients reflects the company’s mission and core values. If you don’t have a mission or core values expressly stated, I suggest making a mission statement and three to four core values for every single post to relate to.

At the same time, don’t make every post overly promotional or sales-type. Our company uses a two-pronged process. We post engaging pictures, memes and articles that have to do with the client’s industry to grab the attention of those scrolling through their Facebook feed. This provides an entertaining aspect. But we also post ads, aimed primarily at getting a click to the client’s website. The website is, of course, search engine optimized.

Even if customers aren’t initially clicking on social media paid ads, this tactic is beneficial. Why? Because we generally click on the brands we know, not random brands we’ve never heard of. That means, the bigger your brand recognition is and the more consumers trust you, the likelier you are to receive a larger share of clicks on Google. The more clicks you get on Google from your new social audience, the higher you will start to rank.

4. Engage locally.

One thing search engines look for is how well you are engaging with your local community. That being the case, it isn’t just a good idea to reach out locally via social media, it’s a necessity.

To do this, update your accounts whenever your company gets involved in a local event. You can take pictures of these events or run live videos. If you are working with another organization or business nearby, let everyone know about it online. Post and comment on their social channels and encourage them to do the same on yours. Share their best content and seek out guest blog opportunities.

As you do this, you’ll simultaneously gain the trust of Google and potential customers in your area.

That’s A Wrap

Basically, if you aren’t utilizing social media, you aren’t doing SEO right. Of course, it’s not enough to just have a Facebook or Twitter account. Use them to gain followers, generate links, build your brand image and engage locally.

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How to Use SEO to Manage Your Brand’s Reputation Online

With strong SEO, your brand’s online reputation will also go up. Here are three ways to do it.

There’s quite a bit to consider when managing your online brand. Simple PR efforts that may have been effective in the print age don’t have the same impact on the internet. There are several primary reasons for this.

First, everybody on the internet has a voice. If someone has a gripe with you or your business, there is a platform on the internet for them to let you – and everybody else – hear about it. This gives the consumer, particularly the disgruntled consumer, a louder voice than ever before.

Additionally, the ease of publishing online has made it so that anybody with something to sell can advertise their product. This is great for small business owners who don’t have the financial clout to advertise on old-school platforms like newspapers or magazines. It can also, however, result in your published material getting lost in an ocean of content.

Fortunately, you don’t have to fire off your websites, advertisements and blog posts into the internet ether, just hoping that somebody will find them. Through search engine optimization (SEO), you can maximize the value of the words you use, and give yourself a good chance of showing up in a Google search for your product or industry.

SEO isn’t an exact science because the algorithms that determine its effectiveness change fairly regularly. However, there are some general rules that should apply regardless of any changes:

1. Find the right keywords.

You know the ins and outs of your products, and you’ve become an authority on your craft. While your expertise is valuable, it’s more valuable, as you build your brand online, to gain an understanding of what your market knows about your craft.

For example, you may be an incredible photographer. If you advertise your services using technical terms and touting jargon-y qualifications, other photographers might think you’re great, but people who actually need your services won’t know or care what you’re saying. Find keywords that your potential customers are searching for, and build your content around them. This way, when someone in your area is searching for a photographer, you’ve tailored your online content to answer their needs.

2. Work with professionals.

With a bit of study, basic SEO isn’t hard to understand. As it is with all things, though, producing a top-notch end service requires a more experienced hand. Luckily, there are plenty of qualified professionals on the market who specialize in making sure their clients’ online reputation management is flawless. (They’ve got the portfolios to prove it – ask to see them.) Whether you’re trying to recover from a past PR mistake, a few bad reviews or inaccurate information, there’s no better way to take back control of your brand’s reputation than with a bit of SEO magic.

3. Pay attention to what’s trending.

While you may not be able to unseat industry giants right away, you can use SEO to be quicker than them to address trending topics. If you can tell that a new area of service is opening up by keeping up with search trends, you can mobilize a marketing campaign to address the said trend. This way, you may get a chance to make a name for yourself and carve out a place in the industry before the established powers can get there. Through vigilant SEO work, you can find your niche and integrate yourself into a community, thereby forming a stronger identity and solidifying your reputation in the industry.

Wrapping things up

Again, SEO is not a perfect science, and this is by design – there’s little value to a system in which you can formulaically make yourself look good. If this were the case, every company would have an identical website to their competition. SEO, as it is, gives you the chance to stack the odds in your favor while maintaining your originality as a brand. Take advantage of it as you work to manage your brand’s online reputation.

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