Simply adding a bunch of ranking keywords to your content is considered keyword stuffing, and Google will likely recognize and penalize those who engage in this black hat practice. When sites simply add ranking keywords to their content, they’re not focusing on creating meaningful, quality content, which is what Google prioritizes above all else when it comes to ranking. Instead, keywords should be incorporated naturally and where appropriate.

The best way to avoid Google penalties is to practice white hat, rather than black hat, SEO tactics. Black hat SEO tactics include things like stuffing pages with keywords rather than quality content, creating duplicate content, featuring irrelevant or poor links, and over linking with direct keywords. If an SEO tactic doesn’t have user experience in mind, it’s likely a black hat practice, and Google will take notice. Additionally, your site could also be penalized for things like overlooked 404 redirect pages, an outdated XML sitemap, and an overuse of anchor text.

One of the first steps to starting a social media campaign is writing engaging posts on a frequent basis. These posts should be highly relevant to your viewers, but should also be fun and contain meaningful links. In addition to regularly posting on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google Plus, FourSquare and Tumblr, you’ll also want to kick off your social media campaign with ads. Facebook ads and promoted tweets for desktop and mobile users provide nearly 10x the click-through rate that traditional web ads do.

Leveraging social media with posts that include links back to your website is one key way to funnel traffic to your site within a relatively short time frame; posts that include promotions, contests, giveaways, and other engaging, time-sensitive material can be particularly effective. Additionally, generating leads through engagement in online public relations – such as answering a HARO (Help a Reporter Out) query in which you function as a subject expert, or writing a press release for online distribution – are also strong tactics for quickly amassing digital traffic.

Yes! Video marketing can actually create immediate SEO results; in fact, one study reported that web pages with videos are 53 times more likely to rank on the first page of a Google results page. Because searches are blended (meaning that a results page can display a mix of web pages, PDFs, videos, and images when keywords or phrases are queried), videos are definitely in the running to appear in top result spots. Google’s inclusion and seeming emphasis on video results is also reflective of its move away from keywords and towards quality content; because videos are seen as more engaging and favorable to users, they often rank extremely well.

Organic rankings refer to those generated as a result of natural traffic to your site; in other words, your site generated traffic based on the services it offers, the appeal of its title and meta description, the brand recognition you’ve built, your implementation of white hat SEO tactics, etc. Conversely, Google Ads is an advertising platform in which businesses pay to run ads for their sites. These ads will appear on the top or side bars of a results page and will indicate that they are not organic. However, Google Ads shouldn’t be dismissed; Google Ads is a good tool for targeting niche audiences based on specific keyword searches, and only operates on a pay-per-click basis.