Content marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand, like fries and a milkshake or peanut butter and jelly. It’s not the brightest idea to do one without the other. The issue is that SEO is a dynamic and tumultuous enterprise. As the rules of the SEO game continually shift, your content marketing strategy needs to similarly adjust. Enter: topic clusters.

Getting seen by your target audience is no small feat. You're competing with hundreds, if not thousands, of competitors in your industry all vying for the same eyeballs. It's why just having a website up isn't enough, and why SEO is such a vital part of any marketing strategy.

But what good are all your efforts to be seen if Google and other search engines don't even realize you're there?

While hindsight can be 20-20, there’s no substitute for proper planning. There’s a lot that goes into designing a website, but one frequently overlooked aspect is search engine optimization (SEO). Many forget that SEO should be part of the initial process rather than a mere afterthought, and that mistake can cripple marketing efforts and render websites ineffective shortly after launch.

Around this time last year, we did a roundup of the top SEO trends in 2018 that website owners could use to improve their page rankings. We hope you took some of those tips on board and managed to improve your SERP results over the past year!

As we’re now in Q4 of 2018, we figured it’d be the perfect time to do another SEO roundup—this time discussing seven of the best SEO practices you can use to boost your results as we move into 2019.

Link building, for a long time, has been considered an important ranking factor. Backlinks are Google's go-to ranking signal, with each of these links considered as "votes" for your website and content.

Even so, a growing tribe of webmasters have noticed a decline in their link-building value:

• Link spamming—the out-of-context links on websites, discussion forums, blog comments, guestbooks, etc.—is getting devalued and will not rank your site anywhere.
• Google's ambiguous Penguin update is making marketers rethink or avoid link schemes completely.

The truth is, you can't ignore link building. A website can't really rank well without its two undisputed ingredients—content and links that point to its site.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an ever-changing beast that at times is difficult to tame. Google and other popular search engines continually adjust their algorithms and assessment tools to provide the types of results that are most likely to satisfy those doing the searches.

For some online marketers, those changes represent threats to their businesses. Yet, those who take proactive steps to improve their SEO strategies and tactics will find opportunity in changes employed by search engines. The following tips will help you create opportunities for improving your online marketing efficiency.

There’s a long history to the changes Google has made to its algorithm over the years, but in 2018, SEO best practices suggest that ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs) boils down to relevancy and user intent. In other words, Google’s aim is to deliver high-quality pages that best match the user’s search.

Mobile is one of the fastest-growing marketing channels of 2018. Maybe that’s because mobile isn’t just a channel. It’s a platform. It’s a strategy. And for some, it’s a way of life.

Research published in the Internet Trends 2017 Report highlights this well. Look at how fast mobile use has grown since 2008. In 2016, it reached a full 3.1 hours per day—far outpacing desktops, laptops, or any other type of connected device.

The first major Google update that put the spotlight on local SEO came in 2016 with Possum. Multiple iterations since have continued to refine algorithms that affect local SEO with increased focus. The rules of the game are in a state of perpetual flux, which is why you need to stay informed on what lands hits in your area. Some of your work starts right on your homepage with on-site SEO, part of it involves reaching out, and the rest is about using the tools that Google provided to make your local search just a bit friendlier.

The SEO community presents few authoritative voices amidst the endless crowd of upstarts, self-proclaimed gurus, and DIY enthusiasts. Taken in combination with the regular updates to Google algorithms that fuel constant shifts in SEO, the inevitable result is a community plagued by rumors and misconceptions. To help clear the muddied waters, here are a few SEO myths that belong up there with Bigfoot and fan death.