The SEO Blog from cognitiveSEO

One of the first things that beginner SEOs get in contact with is link building, often far before they even hear about content quality or even basic things like proper keyword research or title optimization.    Link building is the most controversial topic in SEO and I believe that we should encourage people on not focusing too much on links alone . And in years of doing link building campaigns, I've learned a thing or two.  So here they are: 12 lessons I've learned from dozens of lin [...]

There are many questions about canonical tags that could have landed you on this page. What are canonical tags? When to use them? Do canonical tags impact SEO in any way?   We know, there's a lot to take in. But do you know what the good part is? This article will answer everything you need to know about canonical tags!     Quick answer: Canonical tags affect SEO from two points of view. For once, they directly influence how search results display. They can also influence t [...]

There's a lot of confusion when it comes to meta descriptions and SEO. Do they affect search engine rankings? Is it worth spending the time to write a good meta description?   Well, in theory, meta descriptions do not affect SEO. This is an official statement from Google, released in 2009. However, since meta descriptions show in the search engine results, they can affect CTRs (click through rates), which are linked to SEO & rankings. So, in practice, meta descriptions might have an i [...]

Rumor has it that Bing from Microsoft can really take your marketing and SEO efforts to a whole different level. Is it true though that Bing can be gold when it comes to better traffic to your website, increased ROI, affordable advertising, convertible exclusive visitors, and an overall friendlier search environment?    Given that we don't lean on rumor, we figured out it's best to check ourselves what's there that makes Bing a smart target to marketers of all kinds.       [...]

Local SEO myths - what a tangled topic to discuss. You might get caught on the subject and start feeling intimidated thinking of the high amount of work you must do to rank in local SEO. Which, obviously, is unreal. Don't get us wrong: it's difficult indeed, but far from impossible.    In the local SEO area there are always new things to discover that can help your business get new customers, improve your visibility and get more local searches. Let's bury all the local SEO myths and misl [...]

You've probably heard about internal linking a lot, because everyone is talking about it. But what's all the fuss about? Should you really bother doing it? Is it really that effective? If yes, why? There are many questions to be answered.   During our cognitiveSEO talks, many guests talked about the importance of interlinking between your own web pages. Therefore we decided to tackle this subject and let you know about the best internal linking strategies.      What Is [...]

If you own a website, especially one with English content, chances are that you will get spammed, sooner or later. If you don't start protecting yourself as soon as possible, you will definitely have some trouble with it.   To help you out, we've gathered a list of 5 most common types of SPAM and what you can do to protect yourself against them. You'll see what exactly SPAM is, why people practice it and how you can fight it back.     Comment Spam Trackback Spam Nega [...]

We can already see a convergence between digital marketers, SEOs and webmasters. Although they all have their own tasks and responsibilities, at some point all of their work will revolve, more or less, around the concept of link building. This is the topic that we’re going to talk about in today’s article.   While link building, alongside content, might have a bad name in the industry it still is the number one signal Google looks at when deciding to rank a website. There are countles [...]

Here it is: a new episode of our cognitiveSEO Talks - On Search and Traffic, this time with David Harry, one of the most important pioneers in SEO. Before jumping into the nitty-gritty, you need to know that there are 20 years since David is working in the SEO niche.    David Harry spent about five years doing forensic SEO (which is helping people with SEO problems, penalties, and things related to this) and he got to the point where he doesn’t need to pitch to clients to attract th [...]

We all know that BlackHat SEO is considered to be a bad thing. One might think: "as long as you can rank a website well with it, it must be good; there are risks of getting caught and penalized by Google's algorithms, but most people take that risk, don't they?"    Well... actually no. BlackHat SEO really is a bad thing. Not only for the one that uses it, but for you and everyone else, as well. Why? Because most BlackHat SEO tactics started off as legitimate ways to optimize your websit [...]