There is nothing more jarring than finding out that your website has been banned by Facebook. This often occurs with no warning because the algorithms that run to protect users from spam and malicious websites are completely automatic. This article will discuss why a website URL might be banned from Facebook and the steps that can be taken to resolve the matter.

Why Was the Website URL Banned from Facebook?

Facebook cares about its users and, as a result, has very strict rules about what is allowed on Facebook and what is not. Unfortunately, some of those rules are not actually written anywhere that can be accessed by the common user. There are several reason why a person or website might be banned, but the most common is if a user does the same action “too many times.” The number of times an action can be performed is unknown by most people, but doing it more than that number will have your account labeled as potentially malicious. Actions that cannot be performed too many times include friending people, messaging people, joining too many groups, and sending too many identical emails. The most common reason why a website URL might be banned is it was posted too many times in a promotional manner by the same person.

Another reason why Facebook might block a URL is if it on a list from another website, such as a security company. These companies can have problems with their watch lists, just like Facebook can.

Why is it Important to Not Be Blocked?

It is critical to ensure that a URL for a business is not blocked because, should customers encounter a link that is labeled “possibly malicious,” they are much less likely to actually continue to the site and will distrust the company. This will result in a smaller audience, a greatly reduced amount of web traffic, and falling revenue. As a result, being blocked from Facebook is a problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

How Can I Fix This Problem?

There are a few different methods that can be used to stop a website from being banned on Facebook.

Contact Facebook

One of the most reliable ways that can be used to get a website unblocked from Facebook is to contact them. There are two ways that this can be done. If there is no message that is alerting the person who manages the page that the website has been blocked, then that person will need to go through the contact forms located on the “Help” page. If there is a message that alerts users to the fact that a website has been banned, then the first thing that needs to be done is to click on the “Let Us Know” link that is located at the bottom of the message. This button will lead to a form that can be used to contact Facebook and inform them of the precise problem, as well as alert them to the fact that the URL is not spam. The reply times differ from person to person, but this is definitely the first step that anyone can try.

Contact the Company that Might Have You on a List

One common culprit is McAfee’s advisory listing. McAfee is a highly respected web security company that has a list of websites that potentially pose threats to the common user. The algorithms that they use to determine if a site is potentially dangerous can create false positives from time to time. Facebook’s algorithms take these advisory listings seriously, so the fastest way to get back onto Facebook is to get off the advisory listing. Simply contacting the company and explaining the situation will solve the problem in many cases.

Appeal to Friends, Family, and Customers

If it seems as though Facebook is not taking notice of the fact that the website has been blocked, then it might be time to contact friends, family, and customers and ask them to also contact the company on your behalf. This will result in a greater number of messages being sent to Facebook about the problem, which will force a greater amount of attention to be paid to the problem. This does not produce immediate results, but will usually cause Facebook to work more quickly to unblock the URL.

Appeal Directly to Facebook Security and Developers

There are many different Facebook officials that have their own pages, including the security network, the developers, marketing, and Facebook in general. One way to get more attention paid to the problem is to like all of the official pages and then, when any of them posts content, make a comment. At the end of that comment, be sure to mention the problem. One great way is to start a forum thread on Facebook Help about the problem and then link that forum question to the comment. This will repeatedly draw attention the problem and hopefully get it resolved within as short a time as possible.

Use a URL Shortener

Another option for addressing having a blocked URL on Facebook is to use a URL shortener. Facebook blocks most URLs that have been run through programs such as these, but there are a few that have had some degree of success with regards to getting past the ban. The main one that is used is the Google Shortener, which can be found here. When attempting this method, it is best to be careful about the number of times a shortened URL is posted because, in many cases, posting a URL an excessive number of times is what caused the URL to be banned in the first place. Posting a limited number times and seeing if the URL is still blocked is advisable.

Change Your Domain Name

This method of action if a URL is blocked on Facebook may seem to be slightly extreme, but it is the most effective way of resolving the issue if Facebook has done nothing. Before using this method, it is best to give Facebook at least a month to act. If you have not received a message from Facebook regarding the matter, or if the URL has not been unblocked within this time, other options should be sought. It is possible for you to purchase a new domain name. Transfer all of the content from your site so that it is under the new domain name. Once this has been completed, all of the links that used to be directed to the original URL can now be redirected to the new URL.

Having a URL blocked on Facebook is often simply a waiting game. It is up to Facebook to determine whether or not the URL is worth reinstating and sometimes that decision-making process takes an extended period of time. Because there are not a lot of reliable ways to bypass the block, it is best to appeal to Facebook and draw as much attention to the problem as possible. In extreme cases, purchasing a new URL and having it be the redirect to all of the old links might be the best option.

Twitter is arguably the most popular and powerful social media platform of the day. Promoting your product or service on Twitter is essential in 2014, particularly if your target demographic is the 30-and-under group. Consumers expect to see relevant businesses successfully utilizing the platform to promote their brands.

Twitter now offers advertisers several options for promoting their brands on the platform. Promoted tweets, trends and accounts offer advertisers a wide range of opportunities for raising the profile of their products and services on the Twitter platform.

Promoted trends and tweets can display in the timelines of users who are targeted using several methods. Ads may be targeted to users who search for a specific term or hashtag. Ads can also be targeted to users based on cookie data stored in their browsers. For example, if a Twitter user visited a particular brand site that saved cookies in his browser, advertising software can be configured to respond to the user’s past visit to the brand’s site with a targeted tweet for the brand on Twitter.

Promoted Tweets

The most basic form of paid advertising on Twitter is the Promoted Tweet. A promoted tweet is targeted to one or more audiences, and the post is highlighted in users’ timelines. Promoted tweets can appear in users’ timelines as the result of searching for a particular hashtag or search term, or the ads can appear in timelines of users identified as being a member of a targeted demographic. Users do not need to follow the brand account to receive paid tweets in their timelines.

Cost-Per-Engagement

Twitter utilizes a cost-per-engagement price structure to charge for promoted tweets. Advertisers are only charged when users interact with the post. In other words, the advertiser only pays for the ad if users click on the post, reply to, favorite or retweet the post.

User Privacy

Promoted tweets appear at the top of users’ timelines when the page refreshes to accommodate new tweets. The “Dismiss” icon appears next to a promoted tweet so that users have the option to delete the tweets from view. Users can also completely disable promoted tweets by deactivating the option in their Twitter settings. Additionally, the Twitter platform supports the Do Not Track (DNT) feature, so users who have configured their browsers for DNT will not see tweets based on their saved cookie data.

Promoted Trends

Promoted trends are sponsored hashtagged topics that advertisers can purchase to expand their reach on the platform. Promoted trends display at the top of users’ Trends list on their timeline pages. The word “Promoted” displays next to the tagged term. When the user clicks on the hyperlinked term, a search results page with tweets tagged with the promoted tag opens. The user can then save the search by clicking the “Save” option in the upper right corner of the search results page.

Analytics

Twitter provides a unique dashboard for each promotion type. The dashboard provides the business user with analytic tools and performance indicators with which you can assess the performance of your campaigns.

Efficacy Comparison

Analysts report that tweets and trends targeted based on searches are more effective than tweets that display in users’ timelines. This assertion stands to reason because users who are actively searching for a certain topic will be more likely to respond to an ad promoting a brand relative to the topic they are researching. Note that targeted tweets based on searches receive considerably less exposure than those blasted to timelines of the target audience.

Promoted Accounts

Marketers can also advertise with promoted Twitter accounts. Promoted accounts are devoted entirely to a brand, and can be timeline-based or configured to respond to user searches, as well. Additionally, promoted accounts display in users’ “People to Follow” lists. The main goal for many with promoted accounts is to build a follower base for the brand’s Twitter account. Research shows that users who follow brand accounts are much more likely to engage with the brand, both on the platform and in terms of product purchases. One study found that Twitter users who follow a brand are 72 percent more likely to purchase the brand, and 85 percent of users feel more connected with the brand when they follow the business on Twitter.

Followers

When advertisers promote a brand account on Twitter, the goal of most is to attract followers. Followers are important to a brand’s Twitter account for a few reasons. First of all, accounts with a large number of followers get noticed on the platform. Studies find that 73 percent of users who follow a brand account do so to obtain timely updates about the product or service. Sixty-one percent follow a brand in order to provide feedback and share ideas with the company.

Beyond Followers

Promoted accounts get noticed even by those who do not follow the brand. Thirty-four percent of users in one study interacted with a small to medium sized business based on seeing the business’ Twitter handle in an ad. Moreover, 32 percent indicated that they would be more likely to use the business or purchase the product as the result of seeing a paid tweet.

Reaching a Target Audience

Twitter now supports advertisers’ CRM contact lists for creating targeted audiences on the platform. Businesses working with Twitter ad partners can cross-reference email addresses from CRM systems with addresses associated with Twitter handles. Promoted tweets can then be created to display only to these high potential leads.

CRM

If your CRM system collects Twitter handles or IDs from leads and customers, advertisers can utilize publicly available information, such as users’ profiles, followers list and public timelines to create a targeted audience list.

Twitter Ad Partners

Twitter works with several companies to provide integrated ad services to businesses of any size. As of early 2014, Twitter’s ad partners include:

• – Adara
• – AdRoll
• – BlueKai
• – Chango
• – DataXu
• – Dstillery
• – Lotame
• – Quantcast
• – ValueClick
• – [x+1]

Getting Started

Twitter provides an online tool to help advertisers get started promoting their brands on the platform. Just open the Twitter Business Start Advertising page in a browser and answer a few questions. Create a business account, or add advertising functionality to your existing account, if prompted. Provide payment information. You must have a payment source on file in order to create your first campaign. Identify where your business is located, and then select a general monthly budget for your digital advertising campaigns.

Take advantage of Twitter creative partners and advertising consultants if you need assistance identifying your target audience and creating a campaign that will generate a significant ROI. You also have the option of exploring the well-documented processes for advertising on the platform, then moving at your own pace to create and conduct your campaigns. Remember that, with Promoted Tweets, your account is only charged when users interact with your ad. Explore the possibilities and get your brand known on this year’s hottest, most influential social media platform.

Now, with SEO and the content game, many struggle to adapt since it seems Google changes their mind all the time. It does not help a site owner that people like Matt Cutts say one thing but mean another. This is a serious problem if you own and run a website or blog. For this reason, you should always do your own research on a variety of topics. In fact, recently, Matt Cutts proclaimed a little duplicate content will not hurt your site’s rankings. When saying duplicate content does not hurt a site, here is what Matt Cutts meant.

Product descriptions

Now, when writing a product description, it is hard to write on with 100 percent unique content. Think about it, if you are writing a 200 word Web page on a garden hose, you are going to struggle to keep things different. In fact, many site owners will copy and paste the description provided by the original manufacturer. This is an easy way to get your pages ready and still have a great product description. Of course, when searching on Google, the content will not rank too highly as it is not unique. For this reason, many site owners opt to change the original content as a way to remain different.

This is a great way for the writer to provide the reader with a completely different and relevant description about the product. On the other hand, if you own and run an e-commerce site with thousands of products, you are going to have a hard time writing new product descriptions. For this reason, many opt to keep this content the same as the manufacturer. When doing so, you will still enjoy decent SEO rankings; however, your site is unlikely to surpass more established blogs and e-commerce sites.

Quoting

As mentioned, when writing some pages, you will want to quote the original writer or manufacturer. Without doing this, you are unlikely to provide the reader with the best possible description of the idea, service or product. To quote, you should, of course, offer everything in detail, mentioned by the original writer. At the same time, you should offer a reference to the quote and a hyperlink. When doing so, you will not run afoul of any rules, written or unwritten. Sadly, many fear duplicate content and end up foregoing this option.

Instead, some site owners will leave out the quote or change its original meaning. When doing this, a site owner is likely to give the reader a less than stellar description. For this reason, instead of fearing the wrath of Google when quoting a source, you should include the hyperlink and attribute the writing to the original author. When doing so, you will not anger the original writer; at the same time, you will provide your reader with the most relevant and interesting information he or she seeks.

Similar keywords and phrases

Now, when running a search on Copyscape, it is easy to see the same results and find duplicate content. This is extremely hard to avoid as there are only so many phrases one can use when writing about a given subject. Think about it, when a writer makes a blog post about a subject, he or she is unlikely to write something unique. Instead, many end up using the same phrase others used in the past. In itself, this is not a huge deal as Google will, naturally, see a writer used his or her own words most of the time. At the same time, while a writer should not worry too much, he or she should make sure to create content in their own words.

Meaning, if a blogger sees a website and wants to write a similar article, he or she must avoid copying and pasting any part of the content. Instead, when writing about a similar subject and researching another site, the writer, at minimum, should write the words in his or her own way. When doing so, a site owner will avoid duplicate content with little effort. Either way, when a writer uses some related keywords and phrases sparingly, he or she should not worry too much as long as it is not part of a larger trend in their writing style.

Usability

In other cases, you will have duplicate content for usability reasons. Think about it, when you run a company with multiple offices throughout the United States, you will have plenty of websites listing the same content. This is okay most of the time as long as a writer provides value to the reader. Remember, when a company has offices all over, it is hard to avoid using the same phrase for plenty of sites. As long as a business does not go overboard with this, it should not suffer any problems. On the other hand, when spamming the Internet with thousands of Web pages that do not vary, one will have problems. For example, some directory sites will list services in every city of the United States. When doing it, at minimum, a company will devalue its own content and cause serious problems. However, if a site owner wants to offer valuable content and information for a few dozen cities, he or she should not fear the wrath of Google and its duplicate content checker.

Multiple sites

Some companies will have many sites. For example, it is often beneficial to have a site for each country, region or state. Of course, when doing this, some major websites will have plenty of duplicate content. This is okay, and Google will simply value the content from both websites. When understanding this, a writer will not have to make two unique versions, or more, of a site. Sadly, many do not understand this and they end up writing a completely different mobile site. When doing this, a site owner will waste valuable time and money. Instead, when realizing how things work, a blogger or writer will not work all the time simply changing his or her content around slightly. Remember, Google knows and understands many businesses will have multiple sites with the same, or very similar, content.

A site owner must understand the truth behind Matt Cutts ideas. Luckily, when a writer knows this, he or she can create a great reading experience without sacrificing quality. While it is wise to understand why duplicate content is bad in most cases, it is wiser to understand it is not always a big deal. No, often, a writer will have little choice to keep things the same. Of course, if a site owner has a hard time seeing his or her duplicate content rise to the top, they will face an uphill battle. Fortunately, an e-commerce site owner can do more to see his or her website rise in the ranks. Then, with an overall wise plan, one can see their site rise to the top of Google. Without a doubt, when understanding all of this and providing plenty of value to the reader, a site owner should not worry too much about falling in the search engine rankings. Simply put, while it is wise to understand what Matt Cutts said, it is also smart to think a little more about his views.

Over time, Google has released hundreds of changes to its search engine. It doesn’t take a genius to see what has been happening to keyword data. Unfortunately, Google wasn’t very vocal about the changes that were being made to keyword data.

Webmasters first noticed the change quite some time ago. Upon reviewing their website analytics, webmasters started to see keyword data encrypted, which means they weren’t able to see what keywords organic visitors were using to find their website.

When Google first started encrypting search activity, not all keyword data was encrypted. However, it didn’t take long before Google decided to make the switch to fully encrypted search activity.

Why Google Encrypted Search Activity

There is a lot of speculation regarding why Google really made this change. However, Google says the reason why it started encrypting search activity is because it wants to protect the privacy of its users. To this day, many SEOs wonder if what Google said is true, and they wonder if the search giant actually has ulterior motives.

The problem started in 2011. During this year, Google rolled out what is called secure search. Basically, secure search made it so that keyword data is encrypted, and while logged in, Google users are unable to pass keyword data to website analytics tools.

It started with SEOs noticing that many of the keywords in their analytics reports were not provided. The secure search that Google implemented strips all of the keyword data out of the information that is absorbed by analytic software.

It’s important to understand that this is only a problem for organic search traffic. Google still provides the keyword data for paid search traffic, which makes it much easier for SEOs to track.

In the beginning, Google said that the percentage of stripped keyword data would only be a tiny percentage of a website’s total search traffic. However, over time, the percentage of stripped keyword data grew steadily.

Not too long after the release of secure search, many webmasters were seeing over half of their keyword being stripped from their website analytics reports. Later, webmasters were seeing over 80 percent of their keyword data being encrypted.

The Reality

Currently, almost all organic search traffic is encrypted, so webmasters and search marketers only have access to a sample of the keywords that searchers are using to find their website. Unfortunately, the amount of keyword data that is provided for organic search traffic is nearly gone.

With the way secure search is progressing, it won’t be long until 100 percent of all organic search traffic is encrypted, which means webmasters won’t be able to see any of the keywords that searchers are using to find their websites.

The Problem

Secure search creates a huge problem for SEOs. The main role of a search marketer is to optimize web pages for desirable keywords, but if SEOs have no way of measuring the effectiveness of their optimization, then it’s almost impossible to measure and plan campaigns.

The Reasoning behind the Madness

Many SEOs will argue that there are several reasons why secure search is a bad idea, and there is no doubt that it has caused some massive headaches for search marketers. However, there is something that has many SEOs completely stumped.

Search marketers don’t understand why Google has chosen to only affect keyword referral data for organic search. For many marketers, it almost seems unfair that AdWords customers still have complete access to all of the keyword data.

A lot of professional SEOs believe that the real reason why Google has made this move is because they want to force people to increase their AdWords spend, which would give them access to keyword data, but Google still insists that the move to secure switch was made to protect user privacy.

Many people from Google have said that they believe SSL is very important. In fact, they think SSL protection is so important that they’ve already started encrypting search data for users who aren’t logged in.

They’re rolling out SSL protection across as many regions as possible. People from Google continually say that the switch to secure search has nothing to do with increasing the use of AdWords campaigns, but they don’t have too many SEOs who believe them.

What to Do Next

As mentioned earlier, Google is now blocking the majority of keyword data for organic search visitors, so many search marketers have no idea what to do about the problem.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter why Google is stripping this data. There are several ways for SEOs to get around this issue. The reality of the situation is that there is no full workaround for the problem, but there are ways to lessen the damage.

The impact of this data stripping is forcing SEOs to find other sources of data. Without these alternative data sources, search marketers will find it difficult to optimize their campaigns.

The Interesting Solutions

What many search marketers will find interesting is that most of the alternative data sources actually come from other Google products. This fact is enough to make many SEOs even more suspicious of Google’s motives. The first tool that SEOs can use is Google webmaster tools.

One of the reports provided by this tool displays 2,000 different keywords that have brought organic search visitors to a website. However, the report only shows the top 2,000 queries. Although the report also shows the number of clicks delivered by these queries, the numbers are only approximations.

The numbers of clicks that are displayed in the report do not represent an accurate number of organic search visitors. The second tool that SEOs can use is Google AdWords organic and paid report. Ironically, this is another Google product. Inside of the AdWords interface, there is a tab called dimensions.

Fortunately, this report can be used to view organic and paid keyword data, which can be viewed next to each other. All of the organic keyword data that is shown in the dimensions tab is extracted from webmaster tools.

Does It Really Help?

Sadly, many problems arise when comparing keyword data from different sources. SEOs end up being forced to use data from three different tools, and as one can imagine, this presents several issues.

Many search marketers have performed studies on the data from these different tools, and unfortunately, these studies reveal that the combined data from these tools is quite inconsistent. In some cases, the numbers looked completely random.

All SEOs want to make data-driven decisions because that is what optimization is all about. However, if the data sources that SEOs have access to are regularly reporting inconsistent data, then it’s nearly impossible to make decisions that are strictly data driven.

Some SEOs might feel comfortable with the data acquired from these various tools while others will continue to avoid using any of it. Regardless of what data sources are used as workarounds, this issue of stripped keyword data is a large one, and even today, thousands of SEOs are still angry with Google’s move to secure search.

404 pages are considered by most to be an extremely bad sign. Although they are commonly called errors, they are technically the page that shows up when a website is not able to perform a request. The most common action that results in a 404 page being displayed is when there is a person clicks on a link that has a URL that is not able to be delivered. It’s common knowledge that people who click on links with URLs that cannot be delivered have the tendency to become frustrated quickly and abandon their search for the page. If too many customers become frustrated, a business has the potential to lose a lot of web traffic and therefore a great deal of money. Experts in search engine optimization, or SEO, even goes as far as to have every 404 redirected to another page, such as the homepage or a page that is close proximity to the page that was requested.

This is not advisable because, in reality, 404s are not horrible. Those who work on web pages even consider them to be part of a normal web experience. Most of the worry about 404s stems from the belief that Google will cause the search page result rankings to go down if there are any 404s that exist. Another common concern is that a great deal of link equity, or the number of in bound links that connect to any page of a given website, will be lost should quality links direct to 404 pages. Despite the fact that this latter concern is actually valid, 404 pages are fairly normal and not ordinarily threatening to a website’s rankings on any search engine.

When They Are Dangerous:

A website that has a lot of 404 pages, meaning a number that is abnormally high, does have the potential to be rated lower on a Google search results page. When a customer clicks on a link, that means that there is information that he or she needs. If the link does not connect to the page that is expected, instead redirecting to a 404 page, then the customer will not be able to have access to that information. This will reduce the efficiency of the SEO system that the website is currently using to remain high on a search page. When a customer is not able to get the information that he or she wants, then he or she will not use the site. This will reduce the amount of traffic on the site, as users travel elsewhere. The search engines follow the users and, if a website is not getting a lot of views, then the search engines will turn away from that website.

Another issue is if a URL has a lot of valuable links. Link equity does not demand that every single 404 be redirected to a valid page. A 404 page is never a good reason to direct a link to a page that is in no way relevant to the page where the link was supposed to go. However, if the links are hard to obtain and secure on a site, then it’s recommended to create relevant content for the link that exists, or finding a page that approximates what is supposed to be on the page.

Ideas for Dealing With 404 Pages to Help SEO

Assure the User that it is Just the Page That Doesn’t Work

Users will often feel as though a page that is directed incorrectly is indicative of the entire site not working. This will cause them to leave the site and reduce the amount of web traffic. If the customer is told that the overall site is working and provided with links to get to the site’s homepage, less web traffic will be lost.

Tell the User Exactly What is Wrong

It is best to be upfront with the user and let him or her know why he or she has reached a 404 page. Explain that the link might have been bad and the page might have moved, or talk about how the URL might be misspelled and resulted in the incorrect redirect. This will make the user feel empowered and give clues as to how best to find the information that was originally being sought.

Post Helpful Links on a 404 Page

Another excellent way to deal with 404 pages in an SEO friendly manner is to have the 404 able to be used as a springboard to get to other information pages. It is important to always let the user know that he or she has reached a 404 page in order to clarify his or her experience. Then, some of the website’s most popular pages, or pages that are relevant to the page that wasn’t able to be returned, can be linked to that 404 page. This will allow the users to continue onto the site, so that no web traffic is lost. It will also increase the chances that the users to find the information that they were searching for and be satisfied with their experiences on the site.

Provide a Way for Users to Report Broken Links

Another way to deal with 404 pages in an SEO friendly manner is to provide users with a way to report broken links. This could simply be adding a link to the 404 page redirecting the user to a contact page where he or she can enter the URL that didn’t work. This will cut down on the total number of 404 pages in the system and reduce the chances that Google or other search engines will no longer index it.

Use the Enhance 404 Widget

Many search engines provide tools that allow web developers to customize the 404 pages. This customization tool lets developers create pages that, when accessed because of a broken URL, provide ways for the customers to find the information that they need. There are various ways to do this. A list of different alternatives or common misspellings will help users fix the URL themselves. A search bar will allow users to search for the information that they were originally looking for. Both of these ideas will allow users to find the information on the website and prevent the loss of traffic.

Update the Website’s Address

A common reason for an increased number of 404 pages is because a website might change its web address. Most search engines will provide a page that allows the web address for the website to be updated so that it is correct. It essentially tells the search engine about the new URL and will result in the pages being directed correctly.

Use a 301 Redirect

It is possible to take a link that directs to a 404 page and label it with the HTTP status code 301 Moved Permanently. This will allow anyone who tries to click on the link to be permanently redirected to whatever new URL is provided by the company that is hosting the website. The response is entirely cachable and will prevent 404 pages from ever being formed.

The most exciting part about creating a new website with WordPress is how quickly and easily you can deploy it. You can then tinker with every little setting, add in new plugins to extend your WordPress installation and customize your code until your website reaches perfection.

On your way to making that perfect website, it’s important to keep in mind that you will need to customize certain things like your titles, meta descriptions and links while enabling things like sitemaps for search engine spiders to use.

Below is a comprehensive list of must-have SEO and SEO-related plugins for your brand new WordPress site.

Bear in mind that not all of these plugins have to be installed together as some bring the same or similar features that other plugins allow. Some plugins may be better for you to install due to the technical skill required or the degree of optimization that you can perform. This means that you should thoroughly review the plugins and their features individually before installing them.

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast

This WordPress plugin has been around for years and it has attained the status of being one of the most highly rated plugins available for WordPress. It brings the basic features that allow you to optimize meta keywords and descriptions on each page or post while bringing some more advanced features that make creating a high quality website easier.

For example, WordPress SEO by Yoast comes with a feature that allows you to provide a “Focus Keyword” that you can optimize your post or page for as you create it. If your focus keyword is lacking in density, this plugin will suggest a few ways you can include it in your content to make it more agreeable with search engines. This makes it a must-have for your WordPress site if you plan to blog or to fill it with hundreds or thousands of articles.

WordPress SEO by Yoast provides XML sitemaps, RSS feed optimization, social sharing integration and the standard SEO features like tweaking the meta content of your pages.

2. All-in-One SEO Pack

While debatably not as feature-rich as WordPress SEO by Yoast, the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin makes it easy for novice webmaster and website owners who want to perform quick SEO on their website to deploy a brand new WordPress site.

The basic set of features that other SEO plugins for WordPress provide are available with the All-in-One SEO Pack. You can change individual page titles, meta keywords and descriptions.

The unique features that All-in-One SEO Pack provides includes the ability to fine-tune navigational links, utilize advanced canonical URLs and generate meta tags automatically based off of your content. All-in-One SEO Pack is also one of the few plugins that supports the features needed for WordPress e-commerce websites.

3. SEOPressor 5

SEOPressor 5 provides you with real-time recommendations that refresh as you write content in the WordPress administration section of your website. It analyzes keywords in places besides your content’s main body, which means that your title and header tags are included in its evaluation of your keyword usage.

The interesting part about this plugin is that it seems to rate keywords in a way similar to how Google and other major search engines value them. This allows you to stop focusing on just one exact phrase or long-tail keyword while trying to aim for other keywords that are related due to latent semantic indexing and other newly added features to search engines.

In addition to this, SEOPressor comes with a handy feature that will automatically stylize and decorate keywords while adding alt text to images.

4. SEO Ultimate

SEO Ultimate provides all the standard features that other SEO plugins provide, but it also gives you a few handy features that you won’t find in any other SEO plugins.

The most important feature that it provides is referred to as “Deeplink Juggernaut”, which is just a fancy way of saying that it can automatically create a deep interlinked scheme for your website by searching for keywords in your post and then automatically linking them. You can use this to link your posts and pages while creating your content with the autocomplete link tool provided, or you can scan your post after you’ve completed them to create links.

The best part about the Deeplink Juggernaut feature of SEO Ultimate is that it allows you to avoid most over optimization penalties by giving you the ability to control how many times a page is linked across your entire website in content or just how many times it’s linked on just one page.

The other key feature that SEO Ultimate provides is Open Graph integration, which allows you to maximize your content’s documentation and compatibility across other networks like Facebook.

5. Google XML Sitemaps

While most SEO plugins include the creation of XML sitemaps as a standard feature, not all of them do. Sometimes, you may just want to ensure that your sitemaps will be as compatible as possible with search engine spiders.

To achieve this, you can use the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. It will create a sitemap that can be easily interpreted by search engines, which in turn ensures that every piece of your content is crawled and indexed. This is especially useful for brand new WordPress sites, as search engines tend to miss content even when it’s linked directly from the main page simply because your website is new.

The other plus that this plugin brings is that it will automatically notify search engines when you create new content. This will help foster more visits by search engine robots, which in turn means that your content can begin ranking faster.

6. W3 Total Cache

The speed at which your website loads is one factor that search engines like Google use to determine how useful your website is to visitors. It’s also one of the most influential factors on statistics that can negatively affect your website, such as the bounce rate of your visitors.

W3 Total Cache works by taking everything that would normally be left up to a potentially lengthy database query and then caching it as a plain HTML page that can then be served up almost immediately. This is a great plugin for websites that are likely to receive a lot of traffic in the future or for websites hosted on shared hosting plans that can potentially be affected negatively by other customers with unoptimized sites.

7. Contextual Related Posts

With the recent Google Panda and Penguin updates, interlinking content that is closely related has become more important than ever before. Although there are a few plugins that can link related posts, they don’t do so with the same depth that the Contextual Related Posts plugin does.

It comes in two flavors: you can have posts linked automatically right after you install the plugin or you can create custom templates for a manual placement. It supports WordPress thumbnails and allows you to define which of your posts should be excluded from displaying related posts.

8. 404 Redirection

As you rearrange the pages on your website and tweak the URLs, you’re almost guaranteed to have links that will ultimately provide 404 errors. Instead of letting these pages become completely removed from Google’s listings, you can use 404 Redirection to turn 404 errors into 301 redirects to your home page.

This will allow you to pass any link authority that your old links had to your website’s homepage.

SEO is full of different responsibilities and things you need to consider—analytics, content, social media, design—so it can be tough to know where to start. You might have your website up and running with a little bit of content, but actually optimizing that site will take a collaborative effort between all the departments in your company. Everyone needs to be on the same page, and that all starts with prioritizing your tasks correctly.

A List to Help You Prioritize SEO Tasks

Taking a look at all of the different things you need to do in SEO is a great way to help make sure you’re on the quickest path to success. I recommend putting your different tasks into groups based on priority so you’re not wasting any time having to go back and re-do things.
Below are a few different categories you might want to consider:

First on the SEO Priority List

• • Check your indexing.

If your website isn’t being indexed by Google, you’re not showing up on the SERPs. This means that when people search for something related to your company, they have absolutely no way of finding your website. Oftentimes a noindex is just a small button you need to press or code you need to change, so it’s easy to miss.

Resource: You can visit this article learn more about changing your index status.

• • Get rid of duplicate content.

If you have a lot of duplicate content on your site you are going to get penalized, which means your company will drop in rankings on a SERP (sometimes eliminated altogether). You need to either delete these pages completely or go through and put fresh content on them in order to remain in good standings with Google.

• • Install social sharing buttons.

I always make this a priority because it’s easy to do and it’s an easy way to start building visibility for your company. Social sharing is important, so the faster you can give your visitors access to sharing your content, the better.

• • Check your navigation and design.

Before you can really begin optimizing your site, you have to have a site that works. Navigation is something that is important to Google when it comes to rankings, so make sure you don’t have too many deep pages (4 clicks to get somewhere from the homepage) and your site isn’t too confusing.

Second on the SEO Priority List

• • Mobile compatibility.

Once you have your desktop website all set to go, it’s time to move on to mobile. Even if you haven’t fully optimized your desktop site yet, I still recommend starting to think about mobile so that you have something out there. Have a responsive web design and make sure that pages can load quickly for a phone.

Resource: You can learn more about mobile optimization in this Forbes article.

• • Local search.

Again, once your website is all setup and ready to go, it’s important to get involved in local search. You need to claim your business (it may already be created even if you didn’t do it) or create a new business listing on sites like Google+ Local, Yahoo Local, and Bing Places so that you will show up for those searching locally.

Resource: Visit this article if you need help getting started with local search.

• • Get started with keyword research and content.

It’s important to do some keyword research to get an idea of what your audience is searching for and where your competition lies. Once you have an idea about terms you may want to rank for, you should get started writing content. Find good writers and put out fresh content a few times per week to get into a good rhythm.

Resource: The Google Keyword Planner is the best and most popular for keyword research.

Third on the SEO Priority List

• • Being building links.

Once your website is set and ready to go, it’s time to start building links and promoting your website by working with other authoritative sources. There are many black hat tactics out there so you have to be careful, but in general earning links for your website just takes some good quality work. Consider guest blogging for quality sites in your niche and playing around with social media contests to start creating buzz about your company.

• • Use relevant title tags.

Your page title is going to be how Google and the search engine bots learn what your page is about and then categorize it accordingly. After you’ve done your keyword research, go back and check to make sure that the content on your site has relevant title tags, or title tags that match up with your keywords/goals.

Last Priority

• • Experiment with some SEO tools.

SEO tools are an absolutely necessity for many small businesses, but I still think they can be put last on your list of things to do. You shouldn’t get fancy with SEO tools under you know you have a solid website and have a good rhythm going regarding content and link building. Once you do, tools can be very helpful (especially with analytics and data).

Resource: Check out this article for some of the best SEO tools out there.

Of course, there are quite a few more SEO tasks that you’ll need to deal with as your company continues to grow, but above are some of the biggest and most important. Let us know how you prioritize your SEO efforts or if we’ve missed anything important in the comments below.