Both blogs and articles add value to a website, but each has distinct characteristics that make them more suitable for certain purposes. Think of blogs as white wine and articles as red wine; although they have many similarities, they pair best with specific dishes and enhance the taste of the food. In the same way, blogs and articles enhance the credibility of your website.

Many people use the terms blogs and articles interchangeably. Understanding the difference between the two types of content is key to developing an effective content marketing strategy. What is a blog vs. article, and how can each type of content be beneficial?

What Is the Difference Between Blogs and Articles?

In simple terms, blogs are relatively short pieces of content used to present information in a casual yet engaging way. Articles are more in-depth and written to cater to an expert audience.

Both blogs and articles offer information. The primary difference between the two is how they accomplish this goal. They are different in six ways:

1. Tone: Blogs have a casual, conversational voice. Articles are more authoritative and formal because they cover technical topics in-depth.
2. Research: Blogs require relatively simple research. Articles contain expert levels of research with studies and scientific facts that lend credibility to the content.
3. Engagement: Blogs encourage reader engagement. They are for people to share, discuss and comment on. Articles are often too technical for casual readers to understand. Their audience is experts and specialists in specific subjects.
4. Length: There is no set word count for either blogs or articles, but generally, the former option is significantly shorter than the latter. Blogs are usually between 300 and 2,500 words, while articles may contain up to 5,000 words.
5. Place of publication: Blogs have a single feed with many short posts to inform readers of specific topics. Articles are much longer and are usually on different web pages.
6. Point of view:  As part of their conversational style, blogs usually feature a first-person point of view (I/we). Articles may use the first person if they cover a scientific study, but most use a third-person (they/them) point of view to maintain a formal tone.

How Do You Know If a Website Has a Blog or Articles?

The easiest way to determine if a website features a blog or article is to identify the layout. Blogs have many short articles about the same topic or industry posted on a single web page. Articles take up an entire page.

Another way to tell if a piece of content is a blog or article is to identify the purpose behind the content. A blog intends to share broad information about a subject in an engaging way so readers continue to visit the website to view future posts. In contrast, an article should authoritatively present in-depth information. Readers probably won’t revisit an article frequently, but they may use it in other articles or blog posts as research.

The final way to distinguish a blog post from an article is to examine the writing style. Blogs are often casual in tone, making them easy for everyday readers to understand. They break down bigger topics into small, more manageable chunks that are easy to digest. Articles have a technical tone that is usually hard for people to understand unless they already have a thorough grasp of the article’s subject. Articles cover more complicated topics for industry experts rather than casual readers.

How Do Blogs and Articles Help Your Website?

Blogs and articles can be part of an effective search engine optimization strategy. If the content contains strategic keywords, it helps the website rank highly on search engines. Each type of content also boosts the website in a specific way.

Blogs usually feature multiple posts. You may update them on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. The major benefit of this regularly updated content is that it continues to draw traffic to your website. With each new post, you can draw new readers to your site. Old readers are more likely to return to your site consistently to consume new content if they expect it regularly.

Articles are single posts. While they may generate a limited amount of continued new traffic, they are more likely to appear in search results when users search for technical terms and subjects. When other websites cite your articles, it not only positions you as an expert but also points traffic to your website. Articles are great for link-building purposes.

Which Type of Content Offers More Value?

Blogs and articles both offer value, so the type of content you choose depends on the value you need to bring to your business.

Consider blog posts like four quarters and an article as a single dollar bill. Both have the same value but offer different benefits. The quarters are more beneficial if visiting an arcade or vending machine. The dollar bill is more useful if you pay a store for goods.

Your website likely doesn’t need blog posts and articles, but you may not know which type of content serves your business best. You can figure it out by answering one simple question: What do you hope to accomplish with your website content? Encourage reader interaction and make your company seem approachable through a blog, or offer users an in-depth look at a subject in an article that may be cited frequently in the future, further enhancing your credibility.

Should You Have Blogs or Articles on Your Website?

If you want to boost the visibility or credibility of your website, blog posts or articles can be useful. They are each effective for different tasks, however, so you rarely need both types of content on your website. BKA Content can help you decide whether a blog or article will help you accomplish your business goals. We can also create content to save you time, money and effort. See for yourself how our content creation services help you build an effective marketing strategy.

It’s easy to recognize the importance of search engine optimization when 93% of all web traffic starts with an online search. However, keeping up with ever-changing methods can feel like climbing uphill. Compound SEO can help. What is compound SEO? It’s a long-term strategy that helps your site create a snowball effect in winning more and more rankings on the search engine results pages.

What Is Compound SEO (and How Does It Involve Snowballs)?

If you’ve ever built a giant snowball, you know it starts small. Rolling it takes time and effort, but as you work, it grows.

Unlike short-term methods such as pay-per-click advertising, compound SEO is in it for the long haul, with its benefits growing over time. You build your “snowball” by adding and maintaining high-quality content. The more excellent content you add, the more it boosts your site overall. Just like rolling a snowball, though, it takes time. Work consistently on your site, and you will see results.

What Are the Fundamentals of Compound SEO?

How do you start building your snowball? By understanding what compound SEO’s four elements are.

1. Providing High-Quality Content

Excellent content delivers value. It informs readers, carries authority and is industry-relevant.

Good content also delivers value. It enhances your site and helps you rank consistently for a variety of keywords. It provides stability even when Google changes its algorithms thousands of times yearly. Follow these guidelines to make quality content.

Study Your Target Audience

Learn about your target readers. Who do you want to reach? What are their search intentions? Google’s natural language processing algorithms work to understand the context and meaning behind user queries, so to rank high, you need this information.

Do Your Research

It’s time to fact-find. Investigate keywords to determine what compound SEO elements call up high-ranking content. Which questions do your readers want answered?  Ensure you address them, then use your focus keyword in an attention-grabbing headline. Content writers can help you with this big step.

Break It Up

Make your content easy to read. Giant blocks of text are no fun. Break it up with headings,  bullet points and visuals. Use natural language to improve readability and help Google’s NLP algorithms recognize your context.

Pro tip: Add alt text to your visuals. First, it increases accessibility for low-vision readers. Second, it gives web crawlers contextual information to improve indexing and ranking.

2. Delivering Technical Elements of SEO

Technical SEO develops your website’s architecture, making it easy for search engines to find and readers to navigate. It involves behind-the-scenes work to add what compound SEO technical elements you need.

Rev Up Your Site Speed

Increase your site’s speed by optimizing images, using a content delivery network and minifying CSS and JavaScript files.

Make It Safe and Mobile-Friendly

Use HTTPS to assure your audience that security matters. Make your site mobile-friendly by using a responsive layout, spacing out links to make them easy to click, decluttering web design and using readable fonts.

Keep It Clear

Help web crawlers find and index your site with internal links and a sitemap.

3. Creating and Maintaining Backlinks

Backlinks are links on other webpages that link to your site. They are vital SEO elements because they increase your authority. Backlinks are votes that tell search engines, “This is good stuff.” The more backlinks or “votes” you have, the higher your site ranks.

How do you get another site to find you, see your awesome content and link to it? Sometimes it happens organically; an author for a trusted site finds your content and wants to link to it. It’s a reward for your hard work.

However, as you may imagine, sometimes getting backlinks requires proactivity.

Write Guest Posts

Offer to write guest posts for authoritative sites in your industry and niche. However, dodge spammy, low-quality sites that want a fee.

Monitor for Broken Links

If broken links to your site exist, reach out to the linking site’s owner. Offer to replace the broken link with updated information or ask site owners to correct broken ones.

Change Up Your Anchor Text

What is compound SEO’s relationship to anchor text? It requires diversification. Your anchor text should fit naturally with your content and the linked site. Avoid using keywords as links — search engines can penalize you for an exact match.

Get Into Directories

Submit your site to local and industry-specific directories. They can create high-quality backlinks that help people find you — 97% of search engine users look online for local businesses.

4. Staying Consistent

You’ve added great content to your site, brought your technical SEO up to par and built a network of backlinks. Congratulations — it’s time to begin reaping the rewards of compound SEO!

However, you still must focus on the last element: consistency. Growing your snowball means keeping the momentum.

How do you maintain consistency? By continuing the fabulous work you’ve begun.

Add New Content

You know what compound SEO does for your business, so keep adding high-quality content. Publish new blog posts or web pages regularly — weekly or a few times a month. We know this can cut into your time, but BKA can help. We’ll create relevant, engaging blog posts on your schedule.

Update Existing Content

Go through your site, going back through the first three steps:

1. Revise dated information. Add or change keywords as necessary.
2. Ensure your page speed is optimized.
3. Look for broken links.

Once you’ve checked these areas, consider adding more value with multimedia elements such as video, tables or infographics.

How Do You Know Compound SEO Is Working?

You can measure your success in a few ways:

• Your organic search traffic and rankings increase.
• Your audience spends more time on your website.
• Your conversion rate increases.

These are long-term results, so hang in there — it can take a few months.

How Can SEO Be a Long-Term Investment?

SEO elevates SERP rankings over time, not as a quick fix.

Conducting research, posting good content and maintaining your site is methodical. It also takes Google time to crawl and index your pages. However, the long-term results pay off. SEO leads have a close rate of more than eight times that of traditional marketing.

What Is Compound SEO? It’s Our Specialty

At BKA, we’ve answered the question of what compound SEO is many times with success. We create quality content, track and monitor your existing content, refresh and revisit old content and build white-hat backlinks. Start your compound SEO strategy today.     

If you are like many business owners, you understand the value of an SEO strategy. Most companies (90%) plan to expand their SEO investments in part because the average SEO marketing return on investment is 22:1 or 2,200% in a field where a good ROI is 5:1. However, you may want to work with a company that offers no-contract SEO.

What Is No-Contract SEO

Many businesses, particularly small businesses, prefer no-contract SEO. This option allows you to choose and adapt your SEO outsourcing without signing a contract. For example, you may find that you need to change your website before SEO will work.

In addition, companies define SEO differently, which could lead you to misunderstand the services you purchase. Also, your needs as a company may change, requiring you to change your strategy. In addition, you can obtain ownership of all the work your SEO company does on your behalf because these products become assets that accrue in value for your company.

1. BKA Content

Hand drawing Content flow chart with white chalk on blackboard.

BKA Content values family, integrity, quality, fun and giving. This company has received several industry awards, including placement in Utah’s Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies for four years and gratitude for much charitable giving and support. The company provides a dedicated account manager and SEO services that are scalable, flexible, custom, reliable, optimized, affordable, high quality and integrated with your current processes. You can find the following no-contract SEO services:

• Monthly plans that include SEO content creation, keyword research and analytics
• SEO writing services
• Small project options (one-off projects) with no minimums and fast turn times
• Customized plans (a la carte options)

BKA Content also provides high-quality white hat link building, which is highly valuable because companies that hold the first position on Google tend to have at least 3.8 times more backlinks than those directly below them. In addition, only 5% of websites have backlinks, and only 2.2% have multiple unique backlinks. Many companies find link building to be the most challenging aspect of SEO, so many (60%) outsource this process.

2. TopHatRank

TopHatRank is an atypical internet marketing firm that started small in Los Angeles in 2009. Today, this company is nationally recognized with multiple awards, including Interactive Marketing Awards for Best Low Budget Campaign and Best SEO Campaign. The company has worked with Bombas, Beyond Yoga, The Walking Dead and Student Loan Hero. TopHatRank offers website enhancements, keyword analysis, SEO audits, local SEO as well as content marketing, curation and development.

Most companies (75%) expected to increase their content marketing expenditures in 2022. These are some statistics you should know about successful businesses and their use of content marketing:

• 62% have a content marketing strategy
• 90% analyze the performance of their content
• 57% outsource their content and strategy
• 75% believe content increases loyalty
• 64% use it to gain high-quality leads

Many small businesses prefer no-contract SEO with content creation options.

3. OneClick SEO

OneClick SEO opened in 2013 and rebranded in 2017. The company has several awards, including Top Inbound Marketing Company, New Orleans. The company specializes in real estate, healthcare and local SEO as well as SEO web design. However, OneClick SEO also offers backlink services, technical SEO, social media marketing and content production. The company focuses on organic SEO.

In 2022, consumers pursued internet searches at a 20% higher rate than in 2021. Did you know that 73% of the websites these consumers click on are the result of organic web listings? This is why most (90%) companies will focus more on their organic search SEO than in previous years. However, this process requires that companies increase their keyword usage by at least 20% because this increase drives a much higher response (120% more clicks without media fees).

4. Actual SEO Media, Inc.

Actual SEO Media, Inc. services people in the Houston, TX area, but not exclusively. The company’s values include providing high-quality service and ensuring that its customers have all the information they need to build a solid, customized marketing plan that allows its clients to reach large-scale markets. The company serves companies such as Don Hines Ford in Indianapolis, Mel Northey Company, Fusion Inc. and Titan Business Suites. Because the company prioritizes your success, Actual SEO Media, Inc. offers a wide range of no-contract SEO services.

• Content marketing, curation and development
• Website enhancements, including mobile-friendly upgrades
• Keyword analysis and research
• Social media and digital marketing
• Backlink services.

Most companies have some form of social SEO strategy. However, it may not be extensive enough to reach their target audiences. For example, 81% and 69% of adults use YouTube and Facebook, respectively. However, 18–29-year-olds prefer Instagram (71%), Snapchat (65%) and TikTok (50%). Most Americans (79%) visit social media sites, and 46% and 54% say they check Twitter and YouTube, respectively, multiple times each day.

5. Ottaway Digital Communications

Founded in 1999, Ottaway Digital Communications has an in-house staff in its Detroit, MI, headquarters. This full-service marketing agency offers several services, including social media marketing, content marketing, lead generation and various no-contract SEO services. Some of Ottaway Digital Communication’s clients include Ashley Homestore, GT Scrap Recycling and GE Payroll Services.

This firm prides itself on being a local company, and local information is the focus of 46% of searches on Google. In fact, 97% and 86% of consumers search for local businesses and their locations, respectively, and 72% of these searches lead to visits to the local business if they are within five miles of the company, and 86% use Google Maps to find their locations. Mobile searches are significantly location-related, and 78% of these customers make in-store purchases. Most consumers (72%) conduct local searches and learn about local merchants before they visit a store.

Why Choose Our Team for No-Contract SEO?

Although SEO efforts can take several months to show a solid return on investment, our no-contract SEO tends to offer faster. We become true collaboration partners who can produce long-term results that we can track. We use our analysis to adjust or update your SEO services as necessary. Don’t forget the SEO ranking benefits of our high-quality white-hat link-building services, all of which you can gain while keeping the ability to change and adapt your plan as needed. Find out how we can help you meet your SEO goals.

In the digital era, having an effective website is crucial for the success of any business. Having an effective website means generating organic traffic, and one of the best ways to accomplish this is to rank highly on search engines.

Research shows that less than 1% of search engine users look past the first page of results. The top results draw the most attention from potential users, and because organic search engine results account for the majority of all website traffic, having high-ranking website content should be one of your top priorities. Hiring someone to improve the quality of your content for search engine optimization is a great investment, but what exactly is an SEO company and how can hiring one benefit your business?

What Is an SEO Company?

An SEO company specializes in optimizing website content so that it ranks highly on search engines.

SEO increases the amount of organic traffic to your website. Studies show that 53% of all website traffic comes from organic searches, while only 15% comes from paid ads. To drive traffic to your website, your content needs to feature specific keywords and links to boost credibility and rank highly on search engine algorithms.

SEO is a complicated process with many nuances. It’s possible to learn SEO on your own, but it’s a time-consuming effort that takes your focus away from other aspects of your business. Outsourcing the task to an SEO company is a good investment. SEO professionals understand the many layers of optimizing content and have the skills and knowledge necessary to grow your business while you focus on your areas of expertise.

What Does an SEO Company Do?

An SEO company boosts the visibility of your website on search engines using a combination of strategies to accomplish the goals of any project.

One-time SEO projects generally involve reviewing and adjusting existing content to ensure it effectively catches the interest of your target audience. Longer projects require experts to develop SEO campaigns that evolve with the needs of the company. To answer the question of what do SEO companies do, the strategies we use include:

• Content creation: We build content around specific keywords related to your industry. In addition to including high-ranking keywords, we make sure that each piece of content is credible and informative to position you as an expert in your industry.
• Link building: Search engines view websites with links to other sites as credible sources. The more links your content has, the more likely it is to rank highly when users search for its topic. Moreover, adding links invites other businesses to link back to your content, which further boosts credibility. We also help manage backlinks to maintain the credibility of your website.
• Keyword research: Finding the right keywords for your content is not as simple as randomly choosing words that are closely related to your topic. It requires careful research to see which specific terms generate the most traffic and rank highest on search engine algorithms.

Depending on the duration of your project, SEO companies use any combination of these methods to optimize content. A one-time strategy may help boost companies in the short term while they get the hang of SEO, but the most effective strategies involve monitoring the results of an SEO project, leaning into what works, and adjusting as necessary.

What Should You Expect When Working With an SEO Company?

Even on short-term projects, SEO goes beyond creating and optimizing content. You should expect an SEO expert to work with you to monitor results and ensure that the content in question meets your goals.

A good SEO service should perform both a technical and content audit at the start of your optimization project. This information allows the company to see what does and doesn’t work for your specific business so you can adjust your campaign as needed. For ongoing projects, the company should repeat these audits periodically to ensure that the strategy continues to work.

Keyword analysis and link audits are two other critical aspects of effective SEO. An experienced SEO service will monitor the ROI for its chosen keywords and be ready to alter the strategy when a certain keyword no longer yields results. For a link audit, the service analyzes all of the sites that link back to your website and eliminates spam and broken links. These two practices significantly boost ranking on search engines.

Website monitoring is an ongoing project for SEO companies. They need to see how their strategies are working to improve your business. Analytics give them the information they need to know when a specific SEO strategy is working and when they need to adjust it.

You should expect detailed reports from the SEO company handling your content. These reports may come on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis, but they should include all of the above information so you can see exactly how your business is benefiting from the SEO service.

What Should You Look For in an SEO Company?

Because there are so many SEO services on the market, finding the right one can be daunting. You need a company that is credible and affordable, but you also want to work with a service that values transparency.

SEO takes time, even for short-term projects. It takes a while to see a return on your investment, and you may get frustrated wondering whether the money you have spent is helping your business. When you choose a company like BKA Content that provides transparent SEO services,  you receive regular updates about which strategies are working best and how we plan to update the ones that need adjusting. Working with a content pro who knows SEO and can boost your organic website traffic to drive sales gives you peace of mind that your business is growing and thriving.

Optimize Your Website With the Help of an SEO Content Pro!

If you’ve ever wondered what an SEO company is, think of it as the vehicle that drives traffic to your website and generates sales. We can help you take your website to the next level by optimizing your content for search engines. Trust us to help with all of your SEO projects and save you time and money in the process.

The right SEO package can help the pages on a business website rank higher in search results, increase site traffic and drive conversions. Comparison shopping for the best SEO packages can pose a challenge, as many companies advertise these services. Learn more about the features and costs of the leading SEO services to help you select the best package for optimizing the online presence of your business in 2024.

What the Best SEO Packages Include

Based on the industry you operate in and the needs of your business, you may prefer to take a content-based, e-commerce-oriented, local, national or international approach to SEO. Competitive SEO packages often include the following services:

• Competitive analysis
• Keyword research
• Technical audits
• Content writing
• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO
• Site updates

Some SEO companies specialize in on-page optimization, while other companies primarily provide off-page optimization, including paid search engine marketing or social media advertising. Many SEO providers also offer link building services.

No matter which approach to SEO you are considering for your business, you should look for an SEO company that has competitive pricing and publishes metrics about results. For example, BKA Content has a 99.7% acceptance rate from clients for SEO content and saves clients who outsource content writing 30% on average. Find out more about seven of the best SEO packages.

1. BKA Content Organic SEO Packages

BKA Content is an organic SEO company founded in 2009 in Ogden, Utah. We provide organic SEO packages with customizable options. In addition to managed SEO writing, we also offer a full range of on-page SEO and off-page white hat link-building services.

We help you design a powerful strategy that fits your desired budget and then build out a package to match. Our pricing is competitive and our services are designed to scale up or down according to your needs. 

2. WebFX Custom SEO Packages

Another option for organic SEO is WebFX, a company founded in 1995 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This company provides SEO strategies summed up by the acronym ROCKET, which stands for research, optimization, content, keywords, earned media and testing. 

SEO packages from WebFX start at $3,000 per month. You can select the Bronze plan to optimize up to 100 keywords and 20 web pages for an initial $5,400 investment plus $1,375 per month for ongoing optimization. Other packages include Silver, Gold, Diamond and enterprise plans.

3. SmartSites Organic SEO Packages

SmartSites is a digital marketing agency founded in 2011 in Paramus, New Jersey. This company offers SEO services for businesses seeking to optimize site performance and search engine results rankings. SmartSites claims that clients who buy SEO packages often double organic site traffic within six months.

When you are seeking the best SEO packages, you might consider SmartSites for SEO analysis and consulting as well as blogging, copywriting and link building. SmartSites does not advertise the cost of its web design, SEO, pay-per-click advertising, email or social media marketing services.

4. Funnel Boost Media Local SEO Packages

Funnel Boost Media is an internet marketing service that specializes in local SEO. This company, founded in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas, has high ratings for customer service. Funnel Boost Media does not publish campaign statistics but pledges to use only white hat SEO practices.

This agency offers local, national, PPC, search marketing, web design and development packages. You can determine which services are the best fit in a free consultation. The average price range for SEO services is between $300 and $2,000 per month. 

5. HigherVisibility SEO Packages

HigherVisibility is an SEO company founded in 2009 in Memphis, Tennessee, that offers a full range of SEO and SEM packages. You can select e-commerce, local or franchise SEO services. This digital marketing agency also specializes in PPC search engine and Facebook advertising.

The HigherVisibility website offers several free SEO tools, such as a bulk keyword generator, a click-through rate grader and a search engine results page snippet optimizer. You can also request free digital marketing strategies on the website. Pricing depends on the scope of services, and HigherVisibility does not post rates for the best SEO packages.

6. Victorious SEO Packages

Victorious provides SEO services for B2B and B2C brands, e-commerce sites, software as a service companies, local businesses and niche businesses. You can choose from local, national or international SEO packages. Victorious also offers SEO services tailored to the needs of new sites.

This SEO provider based in San Francisco and founded in 2012 considers over 200 technical optimization factors. The best SEO packages from Victorious address six areas: keyword research, site audits, SEO strategy, on-page optimization, off-page optimization and content services. This company provides free consultations with a site analysis but does not have a set pricing model.

7. SEO Brand Organic Search Packages

Businesses that want to strengthen online branding can consider packages from SEO Brand, a digital marketing company founded in 2006 in Boca Raton, Florida. SEO Brand uses a method called “The Discovery Process” to guide optimization, in which a dedicated account manager analyzes the current online standing of your business and the target demographic of your brand.

SEO Brand offers custom software solutions along with organic SEO, paid search marketing and Amazon SEO packages. The company claims to use the same techniques for all brands, regardless of size, which could result in less flexibility for small businesses and startups. This service offers free proposals but does not advertise pricing for SEO services.

How To Decide On the Best SEO Packages

When you are comparing the costs and benefits of SEO services, it is important to factor in the features of each package and the provider’s track record of getting results. The best SEO packages deliver results at a rate that fits your budget. Check out the pricing for organic on-page optimization services from BKA Content and choose the right package to increase the online visibility of your business.

If you think of a blog post as a delectable dinner, a meta description is an appetizer meant to whet the reader’s appetite. It’s a short, catchy summary of your article that should capture interest and drive traffic to your website.

In their rush to generate enough content for a website, though, many businesses use identical or nearly identical descriptions across multiple web pages. Such duplication hinders the ability to rank highly on search engines. When you want to boost your search engine optimization strategy, you should know how to fix duplicate meta descriptions.

What Are Duplicate Meta Descriptions?

A meta description serves as a brief summary of a website article. Duplicate meta descriptions occur when content creators use the same description for multiple articles.

When internet users search for a keyword on a search engine, they receive many pages of results. Each result features a small snippet or summary of the article, helping users more easily find the information they’re seeking.

Studies show that the vast majority of internet searchers never look past the first page of results. For this reason, well-written meta descriptions are vital for driving traffic to your website. Having a good meta description for each page of your website helps your articles rank higher on search engines, increasing the likelihood that users visit your site and interact with your content.

Meta descriptions are also important because they help search engines categorize your articles to determine rankings. If your descriptions include high-frequency keywords, your articles are more likely to rank highly on search engine algorithms when users type in that term.

Creative meta descriptions engage users and show them that a piece of content has the information they need. They can’t be longer than 160 characters, so they must summarize an article concisely while also convincing readers to visit the website to engage with the actual piece of content. In addition, meta descriptions must be original to be an effective tool for SEO.

How Do Duplicate Meta Descriptions Harm My SEO Strategy?

Duplicate meta descriptions affect your SEO strategy by confusing search engines and causing each page on your website to compete against the others. When the search engine chooses one meta description to showcase, it pushes the other pages further down in the results. Users may not find the information they are looking for because they don’t know that another page on your website contains it.

Each page on your website offers visitors a different type of value. Unique meta descriptions for each article make each page an individual competitor when search engines look for specific keywords. When you have the same meta descriptions for multiple pages, they essentially compete and cancel each other out. Some search engines mark this practice as spam, which further buries your website on the results page.

Even if search engines do not penalize you for using duplicate meta descriptions, the practice has a negative impact on your SEO strategy. The goal of SEO is to boost your website’s visibility on search engines, so when duplicate meta descriptions confuse search engine algorithms, your website ranks lower and receives less traffic.

How To Find Duplicate Meta Descriptions

Checking the meta descriptions on each page of your website and comparing them for duplication is time-consuming. The easiest way to find duplicate meta descriptions is to use a search engine like Google to compare all of the indexed pages on your website’s domain.

Go to your chosen search engine and type in “site:” followed by the domain name of your website (for example, “mywebsite.com”). The meta descriptions for each page show under the results. If you see the same meta description under multiple page results, your site has duplicate descriptions and you should take quick action to fix them to improve your SEO strategy.

Note that similar meta descriptions can also have negative effects on your SEO efforts. Even if two meta descriptions are not identical, if they have too many similarities they may impact search engine algorithms. Each meta description should be entirely unique; avoid simply rearranging the words or sentences in an existing meta description to make a different one. Originality is a key feature of an effective meta description.

How To Fix Duplicate Meta Descriptions

The easiest way to fix duplicate meta descriptions for SEO purposes to to rewrite them so they are each original and unique.

Once you know how to find duplicate meta descriptions, you can easily see how many you need to rewrite. In many cases, duplicate descriptions don’t actually summarize the article they are attached to but rather give a broad overview of the website as a whole. Isolate each page and ensure the attached meta description accurately conveys what the content is about.

If the meta description is too broad or is a duplicate, you should rewrite it. A well-written meta description:

• Effectively summarizes an article’s content in one or two sentences
• Includes a call to action
• Uses the right keywords
• Engages internet users and convinces them to visit your website

If a duplicate meta description is accurate, you can rewrite it with synonyms. You should also rearrange word and sentence order to ensure that each meta description is entirely unique.

Rewriting meta descriptions can be time-consuming if you have a lot of duplicates to fix. Hiring an SEO company to revise duplicate meta descriptions can save you valuable time. It also ensures you end up with unique, engaging meta descriptions that boost your SEO strategy and benefit your business.

How Can We Help You Fix Duplicate Meta Descriptions?

Original meta descriptions are an important element of any effective digital marketing strategy, but crafting descriptions that are both creative and successful requires time, effort and knowledge. Our team has the skills and know-how necessary to boost your SEO strategy with great meta descriptions. We also know how to fix duplicate meta descriptions that already exist on your site. See for yourself how our services can benefit your business.

If you utilize BigCommerce as your online sales platform, your store needs to be easily discoverable on Google. Fortunately, BigCommerce comes loaded with user-friendly SEO features that make optimizing your website for search engines simple. Here’s an overview of the tools available through this e-commerce platform and the proper steps for executing your BigCommerce SEO strategy.

An Overview of the BigCommerce SEO Platform

BigCommerce is a leading SaaS e-commerce platform that allows businesses to create and manage their online stores. From entrepreneurs to retailers, business owners can access a full suite of tools, including in-depth SEO features, to build their online presence, sell products, and grow their businesses.

The Benefits of Using BigCommerce for an SEO Site

One of the primary benefits of BigCommerce is that the platform is flexible and scalable according to your business’s needs. Whether you’re just starting out with e-commerce or you are a large enterprise company, BigCommerce offers affordable pricing plans and competitive features at every level. Several household names utilize BigCommerce for their website, including Solo Stove, Toyota, Ben & Jerry’s, and Gibson Guitars.

The platform is particularly well-suited for online-only companies that have a very large inventory to sell, such as B2B wholesalers or private-label B2C businesses. According to 2022 BigCommerce statistics, over 30% of BigCommerce stores are product retailers in the home and garden, apparel, and automotive sectors. Additionally, the e-commerce platform is popular among small business online stores, with close to 50% of BigCommerce stores employing less than 10 people.

While BigCommerce is generally considered less beginner-friendly than its competitor Shopify, the platform offers an intuitive interface that most tech-savvy individuals can easily navigate. Understanding the many customizable options on the platform can take some time, but BigCommerce comes with many useful features that can streamline your sales, marketing, and SEO efforts.

Key BigCommerce SEO Features   

BigCommerce is well-known for providing a wide range of SEO features out of the gate.

Modifiable URL Structures

BigCommerce allows you to modify your URL structures, ensuring they are clean, concise, and include relevant keywords. This helps search engines understand the content of your pages and improves their visibility in search results.

Additionally, BigCommerce can generate unique, SEO-friendly URLs for every page on your site. If you change the name of a product, BigCommerce automatically alters this generated URL and redirects the old one.

Meta Tag Customization         

You can easily customize title tags and meta descriptions for each page on your BigCommerce store. Meta tags are what appear in search engine results, providing a description of the page’s content and enticing users to click on your store. Additionally, meta tags are prime real estate for inserting primary keyword terms and helping Google bots more easily index and rank your e-commerce web pages.

Auto-Generated XML Sitemaps

BigCommerce automatically generates XML sitemaps for your store, which helps Google discover every page on your website more easily. Sitemaps are especially useful for large sites with a lot of pages — such as e-commerce websites with hundreds of products to browse through.

Robots.txt File Controls

BigCommerce SEO tools allow you to customize the robots.txt file, which helps control how search engines crawl and index your store. You can specify which pages or sections you want to allow or disallow from search engine indexing.

Mobile Responsiveness

BigCommerce provides responsive themes and ensures that your store is mobile-friendly. This is crucial for SEO, as mobile optimization is a major ranking factor in search engine algorithms. Responsive design helps deliver a seamless user experience across different devices and screen sizes.

Fast Page Loading Speeds

With its Content Delivery Network, BigCommerce prioritizes fast page loading speeds, which is crucial for technical SEO and overall website performance. Slow-loading pages can negatively impact user experience and search engine rankings. BigCommerce’s infrastructure and caching capabilities help automatically optimize page speed performance.

Image Optimization

BigCommerce allows you to optimize product images by specifying descriptive file names and alt tags. This helps search engines understand the content of your images and improves visibility in image search results.

Automatic Canonical Tags

BigCommerce automatically adds canonical tags to your pages, which helps consolidate duplicate or similar content. Canonical tags inform search engines about the preferred version of a page, preventing potential duplicate content issues.

Schema Markup Options

BigCommerce supports schema markup, which allows you to add structured data to your pages in the form of rich snippets. Schema markup provides additional context to search engines, offering business owners more opportunities to gain online visibility and drive web traffic.

BigCommerce has a built-in rich snippet feature, which can display additional information about your products, such as their ratings, reviews, pricing, availability, and more.

SEO Keyword Tools

While BigCommerce doesn’t have a built-in keyword research tool, it can help you gauge whether your web pages utilize keywords effectively. The platform will look at keyword density, helping you use the ideal number of SEO keywords in your web copy.

6 Helpful BigCommerce SEO Strategies  

Since BigCommerce comes with many incorporated SEO features, you can start optimizing your web pages without downloading any plugins. Of course, you can always look into additional apps to enhance your optimization abilities and integrate your e-commerce store with other channels, such as Amazon or Google.

To boost your rankings and get your business in front of online shoppers on Google and other search engines, follow these BigCommerce search engine optimization tips.

1. Start With Keyword Research and an SEO Strategy

The first step to optimizing your BigCommerce website starts off the platform. Before you start writing or publishing any content on your site, you should have a BigCommerce SEO plan and keyword strategy in place. You can use tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, Moz, Ahrefs, or UberSuggest to identify which keywords have the right search volume and keyword difficulty. The key here is to understand your website SEO goals and to have a game plan for keyword optimization.

If you have already written pages on your site you’d like to boost performance for, you can start by analyzing the content’s performance by looking at data such as current keyword rankings, clicks, impressions, and bounce rate. Then, perform keyword research to reach your target customer and drive more sales to your products. For example, if you sell wool socks, you can consider optimizing blogs, product pages, or other pages on your site for long-tail keywords such as “wool socks for hiking” or “moisture-blocking wool socks.”

2. Fill Out the Appropriate BigCommerce SEO Fields

We’ve listed the many customizable SEO features available through BigCommerce. However, when optimizing your website for SEO, you need to make sure you are using these tools effectively. With every page you write or optimize, fill out the following fields:

• URL Structure: Allow BigCommerce to auto-generate an SEO-friendly URL for your web pages or reformat the URL if needed to make it shorter or to fit your keyword strategy.
• Title Tag: The titles you see on Google search listings are title tags. You should always create a title tag to appeal to your target audience and include your SEO keyword. As a general rule, keep title tags 60 characters or fewer to ensure the full text shows up in the search result. One template you can use is “Primary Keyword | Company Name.”
• Meta Description: Similar to title tags, Google results all feature a meta description that briefly describes the web page. It’s best practice to include the primary keyword or a close variation of it in the description. Keep it short — no more than 160 characters — and make sure it’s interesting enough that someone wants to click it. It’s important to note that Google frequently changes meta descriptions even if you provide your own.
• Product Information: BigCommerce utilizes product information to support schema markup and add rich snippets to your products on Google. The key information BigCommerce needs to add rich snippets are the product price, stock levels, user ratings, reviews, and brand name. It’s also important to provide comprehensive and keyword-rich product and category descriptions as part of your BigCommerce SEO strategy.
• Keyword: Since BigCommerce can’t generate a keyword for you, it’s important to insert your primary keyword into BigCommerce to get insight into keyword density. While this step doesn’t impact your SEO score directly, it is a useful guide if you’re new to optimizing content with keywords and aren’t sure how often to use them.

3. Submit Your XML Sitemap to Google Search Console

Submitting your XML sitemap to Google Search Console is an important step in optimizing your BigCommerce store for search engines. The XML sitemap is a file that lists all the pages of your website in a structured format, making it easier for search engines to discover and index your content.

To submit your XML sitemap in BigCommerce, follow these steps. First, generate your XML sitemap using BigCommerce’s built-in sitemap generator. Next, sign in to your Google Search Console account and select your website. Navigate to the “Sitemaps” section within Google Search Console, where you can enter the URL of your XML sitemap and click on the “Submit” button. Google will then process your sitemap submission and start crawling and indexing the pages listed in it.

4. Understand How Header Tags Impact SEO

Header tags, such as H1, H2, H3, etc., aren’t just there for design purposes. These headers play an important role in helping Google accurately index and rank your website. Make sure that you correctly mark the headings and subheadings in BigCommerce before publishing your content.

Headings provide a hierarchy for your site content, allowing you to structure and organize your writing for readers and help Google’s bots understand how each section of your content connects. Use H1 headings for your page title, which should include the primary keyword or a close variation.

Use H2 headings for primary sections, which should include keywords where possible. For subsections, add H3 or H4 headings as needed. These header tags have less of an impact on SEO but are still important for readability.

5. Include Links to Other Products and Web Pages

Internal links are another way to help Google bots understand how your website as a whole connects. Additionally, including links to other pages on your website helps keep web visitors on your site and leads them down a clear path to purchase.

Writing a blog post offers a great opportunity to talk organically about a topic related to your industry and link to your products. This soft-sale method allows you to educate your users on the benefits of items like yours while directing them to specific products on your site.

You can also include links to similar products, guides, or informational content on products, other core web pages, and blogs. You may also have call-to-action links that lead to a “Contact Us” or “Get a Quote” page.

6. Develop a Backlink Strategy

Google looks to other websites to determine how trustworthy and authoritative your web pages are. Backlinks are when another website links back to yours, showing Google that others recommend and vouch for your brand.

A common way to gain backlinks to products is through written reviews or influencer content. You’ll gain the biggest benefit when sites that are authoritative and relevant to your products include a link to your site. For example, if you sell athletic shoes, a review from a professional athlete or a high-performing website dedicated to shoe reviews can boost your SEO rankings. On the other hand, a link from a spam or untrustworthy website can actually hurt your position on SERPs.

Partner With BKA Content for Expert BigCommerce SEO Content

BigCommerce is a great option for selling your products online, and our team at BKA Content can help you create engaging and friendly product descriptions, meta tags, web pages, sales landing pages, product reviews, and more to boost your content’s performance and generate more sales. Get started now to learn more about how BKA Content can support your BigCommerce SEO efforts with our tiered content marketing solutions.

Ever heard people joke about how every new construction project is probably another bank or car dealership? With nearly 70,000 new car dealerships in the United States, the amount of competition is no laughing matter for business owners. Getting noticed among the sea of competitors is critical for your success. Fortunately, SEO for car dealers can give you a leg up on the competition.

What Is SEO for Car Dealers?

SEO for car dealerships is optimizing your website and other content to rank higher on search engine result pages. Because most people don’t go past the first few results on the page, higher rankings translate into more traffic to your website.

What Are the Benefits of SEO for Car Dealerships?

More than 90% of car buyers research cars and dealerships online before buying. If your page isn’t one of the top results, you could be losing sales. SEO helps you land one of those coveted top spots, which can:

• Increase traffic to your website
• Boost sales
• Drive up targeted and qualified leads
• Improve brand awareness and trust
• Translate into better conversion rates

The better your SEO strategy is, the more likely you are to stand out in a competitive industry.

What Is a Good SEO Strategy for the Automotive Industry?

SEO for car dealers focuses on improving your website rankings in both national and local searches. A successful strategy incorporates several components.

Keyword Optimization

The key to ranking well in both national and local search results is to build your content around the words and phrases your customers are searching for. Examples of keywords include specific car models, financing offers, automotive features, and geographic areas.

To discover the best keywords to use, you need to do keyword research. You can start by brainstorming the words and phrases you think your customers will look for. You can also analyze your competitors’ pages to identify the keywords they are targeting.

Additionally, you can use keyword tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, or work with an SEO expert like BKA Content. Don’t forget to include keywords that are unique to your local area.

For example, customers in some parts of the United States might search for “car lots near me,” while in other areas “auto dealers near me” might be more commonly used. You should also consider the unique needs local customers may have.

For example, if your dealership is in an area that gets a lot of snow, your customers may be looking for four-wheel drive vehicles or have questions about the best snow tires to purchase. Customers in warmer places might be looking for a convertible or want to know how to protect their car from the sun.

Long-Tail Keywords

Local SEO is an important component of SEO for car dealers, but it can be difficult to get on the first page for local keywords in places with many car dealerships. Prioritizing long-tail keywords can help.

Long-tail keywords are more specific than other types of keywords. As a result, not as many people are searching for them, but there is less competition. This gives you a better chance of getting seen by the people who are making that particular search. Examples of long-tail keywords include specific vehicle features, such as “one owner used Ford pickup” or geographic information, such as “new Chevy Tahoe in St. Louis.”

Local SEO Optimization

While shopping for cars online is more common than it used to be, most customers still come into the dealership to test-drive a vehicle or make a purchase. Because many start their search for a dealership online, ranking well in local searches will help you get more foot traffic.

If you haven’t already claimed your Google My Business listing, do so. Make sure your business name, address, phone number, website URL, hours of operation, and other information is correct. Choose an enticing image for your profile and page header.

Include important information, such as the types of vehicles you sell and the expertise of your staff in your business description. Make sure customers know why they should come to you instead of a competitor.

Another good strategy is to build localized pages on your website for your key products. For example, if the Ford F-150 is your best seller at your Denver, Colorado, location, you might create a page specifically for customers searching for a Ford F-150 in Denver.

Backlink Building

Backlinks are links from other relevant and authoritative sites to your website. Search engines consider how many quality backlinks you have when determining how authoritative and trustworthy your site is.

The more the algorithm thinks customers can trust your site, the better your site will rank. Additionally, getting other relevant sites to link to you can increase your reach by directing the audience of those other sites to yours.

There are three main ways you can obtain more quality backlinks. You can get backlinks organically by creating high-quality content that other sites will naturally want to link to. Content that provides useful information, such as tips on choosing a used vehicle, will naturally attract links from other sites.

You can also reach out to local businesses, organizations, business directories, bloggers, and influencers and ask them to link to your content. For example, if you sponsored a local charity event, you could ask the charity you worked with to link to your site.

Finally, you can work with a white-hat link-building agency, such as BKA Content, to help you acquire high-quality backlinks.

Content Optimization

SEO for car dealers requires more than creating a simple website that just has your business name and address and a bit of information. Vehicles are major purchases and most buyers want to know as much as possible about the car they are considering before they buy it. Pack your inventory pages with as many details about the vehicles you sell as possible.

Include an FAQ section with answers to commonly asked questions. Write a blog with information about how to choose a car, vehicle maintenance, auto financing, product reviews, and other relevant topics.

Focus all of your content around the keywords your customers will be searching for. Because Google indexes the mobile version of websites and many customers search for car dealerships on their phones, make sure your content reads and navigates well on mobile devices.

Many shoppers don’t start with a specific car model in mind. Include user-friendly navigation on all your pages and internal links to help shoppers navigate from more general topics to specific products.

SEO Audit

Regular audits to check your site for problems, such as broken links, slow load times, and underperforming content, are an essential component of SEO for car dealers. Without regular maintenance, your rankings will decline because Google penalizes sites for technical errors.

Additionally, changing customer preferences, market conditions, and products can impact the effectiveness of your keyword and content strategy. You can use your SEO audit to identify aspects of your SEO strategy that are performing well so that you can duplicate that success.

How Do I Market My Dealership Online?

The best way to market your dealership online is to combine organic SEO with paid content and social media promotion to drive more traffic to your website.

Organic SEO

Organic SEO campaigns center around your company website, so it is important to make sure your site is SEO-optimized. Include lots of useful information, high-quality images and videos, and make sure your site loads quickly and is easy to navigate on desktop and mobile devices.

Enhance your website with useful content, such as detailed product description pages, blogs on relevant topics, and video content, such as virtual test drives.  Frequently update your content and refresh it with relevant keywords.

Paid Search

Organic SEO is the best way to generate long-term results, but it takes time to improve your rankings. You can supplement your organic SEO efforts by purchasing pay-per-click ads from networks such as Google Ads.

Paid ads expand your reach because they show up on platforms your potential customers are already using, such as Google search and blogs and websites that display ads along with their content. Because you only pay when a user clicks on the ad, PPC ads can be cost-effective.

Social Media Promotion

Social media provides a low-cost way to reach potential customers by sharing your content and engaging with people who follow your social media channels. By sharing engaging content, you can get your followers to advertise for you by sharing your content with their followers.

Where Can I Get Help With SEO for Car Dealers?

SEO is a valuable tool for any business owner wanting to improve brand visibility and sales. However, many dealerships do not have the resources required to run an effective SEO campaign. BKA Content offers a range of services, such as white hat link building, keyword research, and SEO content creation, that get results while saving you time and money. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you with SEO for car dealers.

When you want to launch a new personal or professional blog, finding the best SEO-friendly WordPress theme for free is a great place to start. New themes are constantly released and existing themes get updates for compatibility with the WordPress platform and changing best web development practices. Find out more about five contenders for the best SEO WordPress theme in 2024 that offer free versions.

Finding The Best SEO-Friendly WordPress Theme for Free

Themes are sets of style sheets and templates that customize the appearance of WordPress websites. There are currently over 30,000 options to choose from, including free and paid themes. Many theme designers provide free versions of themes and give site owners the option to upgrade for additional features or to use a theme on more than one site.

You can browse or search for free themes on the WordPress website, but this approach is time-consuming. Some themes also work better than others for organic SEO purposes. Our shortlist of free SEO WordPress themes points you towards the best starter themes.

How To Choose the Best SEO WordPress Theme

Site owners seeking the best SEO-friendly WordPress theme for free should consider several factors. While the criteria that leading search engines use to rank pages change over time, the following features set the best WordPress themes for SEO apart from the rest:

• Fast page speed
• Light page weight
• Native Accelerated Mobile Pages support
• Schema markup
• SEO plugin compatibility

The average loading time for websites that rank on the first page of search results is 1.65 seconds. Lightweight pages load more quickly than larger pages. Some of the best free themes for SEO can create pages that weigh less than 50 kilobytes. Native AMP support can also make sites load faster, as search engines cache and pre-render AMP pages.

Integrated schema markup is another useful feature for the best WordPress theme for SEO. Themes that support contextual microdata for HTML elements allow for rich snippets, or the inclusion of details from web pages in search results. The best SEO WordPress theme is also compatible with SEO plugins or third-party auditing tools that measure site performance.

Top 5 Free SEO WordPress Themes

The following themes have many demo site designs and are compatible with leading page builders for customization with minimal coding.

1. Astra

Arguably the best SEO-friendly WordPress theme for free is Astra by Brainstorm Force. Astra is a lightweight theme that can create pages that weigh less than 50KB and load in under half a second. The codebase adheres to SEO best practices, including native AMP support and schema markup. Astra is WooCommerce ready and compatible with popular WordPress page builders.

The technical SEO advantages of Astra include self-hosted Google Fonts and the fact that the free theme does not use jQuery, which can create insecure code. There are no reports of serious security incidents involving this theme at the time of writing. Astra offers a free version and users can upgrade to extend functionality. Brainstorm Force regularly updates this theme, which currently has over 1 million active installations and a five-star average rating on WordPress.

2. Neve

The runner-up for the best SEO WordPress theme is Neve by Themeisle. Neve is a minimalist theme that is WooCommerce ready and optimized for AMP. The free version of Neve actually includes more features than Astra, but this may not be desirable for new WordPress site owners.

Neve is compatible with popular page builders, but performance tests indicate that these plugins can slow down loading speeds. Color customization options are also limited in the free version. Some users also report slow support response times. This frequently updated theme currently has more than 300,000 active installations and an average rating of five stars.

3. OceanWP

The third best SEO-friendly WordPress theme for free is OceanWP. This theme is relatively fast and responsive and follows best practices for high search rankings. OceanWP features WooCommerce integration and the free theme includes a wide range of features.

OceanWP ranks third on our list because this theme recommends the use of additional WordPress plugins and requires the Ocean Extra plugin for theme functionality. Some reviewers also remark on the number of ads in the free theme. Ocean WP gets regular updates and currently has over 700,000 active installations and a five-star average rating on WordPress.

4. GeneratePress

GeneratePress by Tom Usborne ranks as the fourth-best WordPress theme for SEO. This theme prioritizes fast loading and light page weight. GeneratePress outranks some of the preceding themes solely in terms of performance. Its fourth-place position is due to limitations of the free version and the technical challenges of optimizing this theme.

This free SEO-friendly WordPress theme is compatible with all major page builders, but theme controls take precedence. A fresh GeneratePress installation adds less than 10KB to page sizes with GZIP compression. GeneratePress gets periodic updates and currently has more than 600,000 active installations and an average rating of five stars.

5. Zakra

Zakra by ThemeGrill is last on our list of the best SEO WordPress themes, but it still can be a great choice for your site. Zakra has a five-star average rating on WordPress, though it only has around 50,000 active installations. ThemeGrill regularly updates Zakra.

The Zakra theme is SEO-friendly, integrates with popular page builders and offers more than 50 starter demo sites. This theme prioritizes fast load speeds and mobile-first responsive design. Should you decide to upgrade to access premium features, Zakra is more expensive than the other themes on this list.

Customize the Best SEO-Friendly WordPress Theme for Free

These SEO WordPress themes allow for customization out of the box. The best SEO WordPress theme should include features that you can use to raise the search ranking of your site. When you are ready to launch or optimize the best SEO-friendly WordPress theme for free, get in touch with the content marketing experts at BKA Content. Use our content shop to boost search rankings and add lasting value to your WordPress site.