seo-tips-for-beginners-2018-featured-compressed

SEO Tips for Beginners 2018

Finding effective SEO tips is one of the first main concerns for the beginners bloggers.

A lot of SEO techniques has been deprecated as search engines started to become more intelligent in understanding the contents of you page without the human inputs.

Image byĀ GeraltĀ ofĀ Pixabay

Here are the updated SEO tips for beginners that you can easily apply in your website.

1. Research Your Article Keyword

The very first thing you need to do is research the keyword you wanted to focus on.

There are a lot of keyword tools that let you do this but my recommendation is KWFinder.com as I find it very easy to access and very thorough on the data it represents.

For instance my idea is to create an article the revolves around ‘cooking tips’ so I just go to KWFinder, type my ideal phrase and it will show me the suggestion for keywords I may be interested in.

KWFinderĀ Search Results

As you can see in the image, KWFinder gave me the columns for the Keyword Suggestions, Trend, Average Monthly Searches, Average Cost Per Click, Pay Per Click and the Keyword Difficulty.

You will also see the top performing competition websites on the right side based on the keyword you are currently highlighting.

Now it is all completely up to you to choose which keyword suggestion you would like to focus on.

You may want to focus on the keyword with high Average CPC or a keyword that has low Keyword Difficulty or the keyword with a high Average Monthly Search and so on.

This is just to give you an idea at where to start in Keyword Research.

The Keyword Research can actually be branch into multiple other steps. I will discuss about it into a more comprehensive article later on.

2. Optimize Meta Tags

The meta tags influence and effect on your ranking has gone down since the past couple of years.

But there are still important meta tags that you should prioritize if you want to keep your website to look and function as professional as possible.

The first is the description meta tag.

Google Search Description Tag Usage

Do you see the sentence after the date on Google search result above? That is where your description tag goes.

People are more likely to click on a search result that has a relevant description tag that is why it is still important.

The second is Open Graph meta tags.

A great example is the Apple.com Open Graph meta tags below.

<meta property="og:title" content="Apple">
<meta property="og:description" content="Introducing the new iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, and Apple Watch Series 4.">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://www.apple.com/">
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://www.apple.com/ac/structured-data/images/open_graph_logo.png">
<meta property="og:type" content="website">
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Apple">

Open Graph is made by Facebook to make it easier for Facebook to identify the contents of your website whenever your website is shared on their platform.

In the instance your website is shared in Facebook, your website will pass the data entered in the Open Graphs meta tags and customized the Facebook post appearance based on those data.

Not only that, popular social media sites like Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn now also added support on Open Graph.

The third is Twitter Cards meta tags.

Another great example is the Investing.com Twitter Card meta tags below.

<meta name="twitter:url" content="https://www.investing.com">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@investingcom">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Investing.com - Stock Market Quotes & Financial News">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Investing.com is a global financial platform offering financial news.">

The Twitter Card works similar to Open Graph and that it enhances the appearance of your website content when shared on Twitter.

If you use Twitter, you most certainly have seen one already. The most common one has an image then a title and description right below it.

If you are a new website creator, you might be asking how do I add these meta tags to my pages?

No worries, if you are in a popular platform like WordPress, Drupal, Magento, WooCommerce and so on. You can just download an SEO plugin that support these meta tags automatically.

No coding skills required.

3. Create Quality Content

Creating a quality content is gonna take you time but it is very important that you keep the quality high.

The reason behind this is even if you manage to get an impression and a click to your website. If the visitor find your content to be half-done or boring, then they would just immediately leave giving you a high bounce rate.

There is a long argument about bounce rate affecting SEO but it has never been proven nor disproved.

But the point is, statistically, 70% of visitors that leave your website will never back. So as soon as you got a click on your website, you should be doing everything in your power to keep them hooked in your website.

Do you remember those keywords we found in KWFinder?

You should be creating statements that will include them naturally.

The way I do it is I create the whole article first then later on I get back to KWFinder and study where I can add the keywords in my article where it would look genuine.

One final thing about this, every time you come up with a new idea that you can include to an already published article. Do not hesitate to come back and update your article.

4. Fix Google Search Console Errors

The SEO tips above are mainly article based but this one is gonna benefit your whole website.

Basically you need to submit your website and your sitemap to Google Search Console then wait for a day or two until it finally shows some data in your dashboard.

When your data finally shows up, I would recommend clicking on the lower left corner and go to the old version just so you can see the Current Status summary report.

Google Search Console – Current Status Summary

You need to make sure that the DNS, Server Connectivity and Robots.txt Fetch are all green.

It also has a summary forĀ URL Errors which will show the broken links that you have. Fixing a broken link is attained by redirecting the broken link to a working page.

My suggestion is to redirect the broken link to a closely related article and not just on your homepage which I see a lot of people do.

Do not worry if you find multiple errors here, Google will give you a suggestion on how to fix all of it and I assure you they are all fixable.

Once you applied a fix, you will need to wait one more day in order for Google to check that you really did fix them then update the status the next day.

5. Link Building

I honestly think that this is the most time consuming part in this list.

Yes I said time consuming, not hard. It really requires you to interact with other websites similar to yours. But before that lets work on some free alternatives first.

In link building you need to ask other websites to add a backlink to your website. But not all websites will agree on adding your link. In the past people spam the comment sections, forums, discussion platforms etc. but the community has grown tired of it and found ways to disable those now.

Those are not ideal anyway as those are considered spamming and not ethical at all.

Now let’s go to the valid and ethical ways of doing this.

1. The first method is setup your websites social media accounts.

For me, the very first step you should do in link building is create a Facebook Page, Twitter Account and Google+ Account for your website.

After you created them you need to stay active on it. And you need to make sure that every time you publish a new article is that you share it immediately on those social media platforms.

2. The second method is by guest posting.

This is exactly what mutual benefits is like and the best thing about it is you do not have to ask for permission.

Your article will help the website you are guest posting on and in return he is also helping your site by giving a free backlink to your website.

There are hundreds if not thousands of websites out there that allow guest posting for free. A simple search in Google for ‘Best Websites for Guest Posting’ returns tons of results and it is up to you to look for a credible site to guest post on.

I also allow guest posting in this website myself. Just go to my Become an Author page and signup for a free account.

3. The third method is through testimonials.

For instance you are currently using a paid product related to your website be it digital or tangible.

Now lookup if that product has a website and if they have a testimonials page.

If they do and they have a submit testimonials page go ahead and use it. If they don’t have a submit testimonials page just use their contact form and ask if they could add your testimonials and if possible add a link to your website.

Now this is just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to more ways you can build your backlinks but these steps alone will keep you busy for weeks.

I will create a more comprehensive article about link building later on.

Conclusion

I hope that these SEO tips help you understand how the modern SEO market works.

As you can see it is not really hard once you know where to start. It is just time consuming that’s why the SEO marketers are a fortune to hire.

best-shutterstock-alternative-featured-v2-compressed

Best Free Shutterstock Alternatives in 2018

If you are on a tight budget and looking for free Shutterstock alternatives. You have come to the right place.

There is a saying that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ and I honestly agree with it. Maybe so where you that’s why you are here in this article.

Photo by DariuszSankowski from Pixabay

Photos, and at great quality at that, is one of the best recipe to make your website engaging and attractive.

That is why the full-width above fold images are a thing for websites right now.

I can’t count how many times a new client of mine says that they want a full-width large background image or slider on the above fold of their website. 

If you have been struggling to find good high quality stock photos for your website then you have come to the right place.

We are so lucky that we are now at the age where royalty free images are all around us. No need to spend fortunes on them anymore.

Here is the list of free Shutterstock alternatives in 2018.

1. Pixabay

Pixabay is another free stock photos website which is backed by a huge online community sharing high quality photos, illustrations, vector graphics and footage.

The most recent record shows that Pixabay currently has over a million photos under their website.

Each of the photos uploaded in the website is expected to pass the quality standards set by Pixabay which contributes to the overall high quality vibe of the website.

All photos and videos in Pixabay are release under Creative Commons. This means that they can be used freely.

2. Burst

Burst is a free stock photo website brought to life by Shopify.

Their website currently has thousands of high resolution royalty free images, all came from the community of talented photographers.

Of all the websites in this list, this is the only platform that openly encourages the community to use their images for commercial use. Maybe that is the Shopify influence.

All the images in Burst are free for commercial and personal use.

3. Unsplash

Unsplash currently has over 550,000+ free stock photos in their website and this number will just keep growing.

The Unsplash community has some of the most active photographers and creators in the market counting to 90,000+ active members.

They boasts in their website that their photos has been used in world’s biggest stages including Apple Keynotes, default themes shipped by WordPress and some of the most popular websites.

You can freely use all the photos in Unsplash for personal and commercial use.

4. Pexels

Pexels is probably one of the biggest free stock photos provider in this list with hundreds of thousands of stock photos in their website.

One reason behind this is that they collaborate with other free stock photos websites in this list and added their images in their database.

All photos in Pexels are free for personal and commercial use under the Pexels license.

5. PikWizard

PikWizard currently have over 100,000 completely free images on their site.

Over 20,000 of those are exclusive to PikWizard. They are also adding new images to their library daily and their ultimate goal is to get to more than 1 million images.

What makes PikWizard stand out from the rest of the Shutterstock alternatives in this list. Is that they have a lot of pictures of people which tend to be rare in free stock photo sites.

And you can see this characteristic immediately once you visit their homepage.

Another thing that really caught my attention in PikWizard is that every image I clicked is in high quality. Which is really amusing.

Actually there is a second thing! PikWizard actually allows you edit their images using their online tool called Design Wizard.

This online tool allows you to add text heading, shapes or other image etc. on the image you are editing.

Alright I will stop there, I am not sure why I am discussing that in this list but it just caught my attention. And I think that it is a pretty good feature to add on a stock photo website.

All the images in PikWizard are free to use for commercial and personal use. You will see in some images that it mentions the Creative Commons Zero license while in others it just says Free.

But they both mean the same. You can use them all for free with no attribution required.

6. StyledStock

The StyledStock collection though small is one of the best high quality stock collection I have ever seen in my life.

They provide stunning and beautifully designed free images, they call it a by-product of feminine stock photography.

StyledStock images are free for commercial and non-commercial use.

7. StockSnap

StockSnap is another successful community backed website which provides high quality stock photos and their website is a treat to browse.

You will also see how humble the creators of the website are by thanking their talented photographers and showing gratitude to them.

Browsing through the site, immediately, you will see the quality in the images. And by reading some of their articles you will see a statement saying they review the first images the photographer submit.

This explains the great quality I see in their photos.

All the images in StockSnap are free to use for personal and commercial purposes as they also use the Creative Commons license.

8. Gratisography

Gratisography boasts that they have the quirkiest collection of free high resolution pictures and most creative images.

This is very telling when you start browsing through their collection. You will just immediately see the different vibe the images project compared to your usual stock website.

If you read through one of their articles, you will also see they pick the only images that gives them the interesting appeal. Thus why you can really see the consistency in quality of their images.

All the images in Gratisography can be used for personal and commercial projects.

9. Kaboom Pics

The story behind Kaboom Pics is just astonishing. Apparently, the website and it’s high quality images are made by a single person.

And the people in the photos are actual friends of the photographer. Browsing through her collection you can just see the talent and effort exerted in all of them.

The one thing that really caught my eye is the ability to search her photos with a color filter. This is so useful if you are looking for particular image color to match the color of your website.

All photos of Kaboom Pics can be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes.

10. SplitShire

SplitShire currently only has 992 photos under its name but the quality on all of its images is just remarkable.

This another personal collection website whose stock photos can now be seen in the popular websites like Huffington Post, CNN, Book Covers, Magazines and thousand of other websites.

All the images of SplitShire can be used for personal and commercial purposes.

11. Foodiesfeed

If your website is about food then you’re gonna consider this website a gold mine.

Foodiesfeed is the best place for you to get natural looking food stock photos, and the best part is they are all free.

The site also started as a personal collection of food photos website but later on transformed to a full online community of food photography enthusiasts.

All photos in Foodiesfeed is under the Creative Commons Zero license which means you can use them for personal and commercial use.

12. ISO Republic

ISO Republic is a quality stock photo website which currently has more than 3,000 stock photos in their website.

They are an independent website which is manage by a small team of contributors.

Looking at their collection, the quality is very apparent. In addition to this they also have free stock videos which quality are also just astonishing.

Reading through their article it appears like they created a food and drinks focused stock images website named Foodie Factor so go ahead and visit it as well.

All images and videos of ISO Republic is under Creative Commons Zero license which means you can use them for commercial and personal purposes.

13. PicJumbo

PicJumbo is another personal collection website with great and inspiring story behind it.

Believe it or not PicJumbo was originally planned as a paid service in the beginning. But we are all so glad this changes immediately as the quality of the free photos in this site is super awesome.

The site currently has 2,000+ quality images under its name and since the creator is still an actively traveling and talented photographer, this number will just keep growing.

All the photos in PicJumbo are free, however you would need to read their FAQs section thoroughly.

Conclusion

When I started creating this list of free Shutterstock alternatives. I actually started with a whole lot more. But at the end, I ended up with just 12 websites.

I have added a new one on November 13th and updated the list as well based on my experiences on the stock sites since then.

As I was getting down on my list and checking the website’s license information. Some of them are just not clear about the usage, sadly some doesn’t even sound like completely free at all considering the way they word things.

I was actually contemplating for so long whether to keep PicJumbo in this list because at some cases he would need you to buy his Photo Redistribution license.

Just thinking about it now my mind and heart is battling whether to remove it again as it is the only odd one in this list when it comes to the license.

But in the end I decided to keep it here because I was so captivated and moved when I was reading his story.

Just be sure to read his FAQs section thoroughly.

My main goal when I created this list is to provide the best websites that has very high quality and free stock photos that creators can use in personal and commercial purposes freely.

If you found an image that you wanted to add on your website. Be sure to use one of my recommended compression plugins so your website will not be slowed down by the image you are adding.