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wordpressservices-blog · 8 years ago

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Best WordPress Blogs To Follow

Looking for the best WordPress blogs to follow ? You will find the list of websites below really useful

WP Beginner

With a tagline of “Beginner’s Guide For WordPress”, WPBeginner is a great resource for people still finding their feet. Founded by Syed Balkhi back in 2009 it’s gone on to be hugely popular. Providing quality tips, hacks and tutorials its main goal is to help beginner WordPress users to improve their websites.

WP Mayor

Launched in 2010 by Jean Galea and later joined by his wife Alyona and cousin Mark, WP Mayor is rich with content focused on WordPress themes, plugins and service reviews. The site is updated multiple times per week and is widely read in the WordPress community.

WP Tavern

For those of you more interested in keeping up with the latest WordPress news and updates, WordPress Tavern is the site for you. Every day their small team of contributing writers will furnish your feeds with everything there is to know. With topics from BuddyPress and blogging to plugins, polls and themes, you’ll never be without a quick WordPress fix.

Yoast

From the creators of the popular WordPress SEO plugin, the Yoast SEO Blog is packed full of useful info to help you optimize your site for search engines. While the topics primarily focus on SEO, there’s still plenty of value to take from the articles – particularly if you’re a user of the plugin.

WP Shout

WordPress Developers will find WPShout their go-to treasure trove. Piloted by Fred Meyer and David Hayes – both WordPress Developers and contributors, they publish weekly in-depth WordPress tutorials. You’ll also find that each day they curate articles from other sources in the WordPress community, meaning you’ll have plenty to read if you can’t wait a whole week.

WP Lift

With hundreds of thousands of WordPress users reading its articles every month, WPLift keeps the community informed and up to date. Founded by Oliver Dale in 2010 as a resource for theme roundups, plugin guides and news, it’s now gone on to include a theme and plugin directory, as well as coupon codes, hosting reviews and recommended tools.

#wordpress blogs #best wordpress blogs

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wordpressservices-blog · 8 years ago

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Crucial WordPress Maintenance Tasks You Must Do

Ever wondered which WordPress maintenance tasks you should be performing regularly? After starting a blog, often users don’t perform maintenance checks unless something breaks. By running regular maintenance tasks, you can make sure that your WordPress site is always performing at its best. In this article, we will share 13 crucial WordPress maintenance tasks to perform regularly, and how to do each one of them.

Crucial WordPress maintenance tasks to perform regularly

Why and When to Perform WordPress Maintenance Tasks

Your WordPress site is a powerful system made of several parts. This includes your WordPress hosting, WordPress software itself, plugins, and themes. On top of that, you add your own content with text and images. Together, all of them make a website that is loved by your visitors and customers. However, this system needs to be looked after to ensure optimal performance. There are few simple maintenance tasks that you can perform on a regular basis to ensure that your website is working at its best. How often should you perform WordPress maintenance tasks? If you run a busy website with a lot of traffic, then every three months. For smaller websites with low traffic and content, you need to do these maintenance tasks every six months. Now that being said, let’s take a look at the essential WordPress maintenance tasks you need to perform and how to do them.

Change All Your WordPress Passwords

Change all your passwords regularly Passwords are your first defense against unauthorized access to your website. You should always use strong unique passwords for all your online accounts including your WordPress website, FTP accounts, and database. However, even if you are using strong passwords and they are compromised, then it is possible that you wouldn’t even notice it. That’s why WordPress security experts recommend changing your WordPress passwords regularly. This includes passwords for your WordPress admin area, FTP or SSH accounts, and your WordPress database password. For more details on this topic, see our beginners guide on how to manage passwords for WordPress users.

Create a Complete Backup of Your Website

Create manual backup Backups are one of the most important WordPress tool in your arsenal. There are plenty of great WordPress backup plugins that can help you completely automate the WordPress backup process. However, sometimes your backup solution may suddenly stop working without you even noticing. Once in a while, you need to manually run your backup plugin to create a complete backup of your website. After running the backup, you need to verify that your backup files are properly stored at the remote location of your choice (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc).

Check and Update All WordPress Files

Check and update all WordPress files WordPress comes with a built-in system to manage updates for WordPress core, plugins, and themes. You should always use the latest version of WordPress and keep all your plugins and themes updated. However, there are some situations when you may miss an update. For example, when a premium plugin or theme’s license expired, and it failed to check for an update. Go to the WordPress Updates page to manually check for updates. Review all your installed plugins and themes to make sure that they are running the latest version.

Check and Delete Spam Comments

Review spam comments If you are using Akismet to combat comment spam in WordPress, then it automatically keeps spam away from your comment moderation queue. However, sometimes Akismet may end up marking a legitimate comment as spam. Once in a while, you need to take a quick look at the spam comments to ensure that there are no real comments incorrectly marked as spam. Once you are done, you can safely delete all spam comments from your website. If you have thousands of spam comments, then you should use this method to batch delete all spam comments in WordPress. It wouldn’t necessarily improve performance, but it will ensure that you don’t miss out genuine comments.

Test All Your WordPress Forms

Test all your WordPress forms WordPress form builder plugins like WPForms make it super easy to create beautiful forms on your website. However due to misconfiguration on your WordPress hosting server or your email service provider, sometimes these forms may suddenly stop sending emails. You need to check all forms on your website to make sure that they are working properly. If a form is not working, then see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

Optimize Your WordPress Database

Optimize your WordPress database WordPress stores most data in your WordPress database. It contains all your content, comments, users, and settings. However, overtime your database may gather a lot of unnecessary data. This increases your WordPress backup sizes which may affect uploading, downloading, and restoring backups. Optimizing your WordPress database allows you to clean up clutter, defragment tables, and improves database performance. For step by step instructions, see our guide on how to optimize your WordPress database with one click

Run Performance Tests

Run performance tests Many users optimize their WordPress performance when they first start and then forget about it. Meanwhile you keep adding new content, install new plugins, or may even change your theme. All of them may affect performance of your WordPress site. Faster websites are not just good for user experience, they also improve your website’s performance on search engines. This is why you need to regularly do a thorough performance review of your website. When reviewing your site’s performance, don’t just limit it to improving your homepage. Also test your most popular content, and all your important pages. For best results, follow our step by step guide to boost WordPress speed and performance.

Find and Fix 404 Errors

Fix 404 errors When a user requests a page that doesn’t exist on your website, then WordPress will show them a 404 error page. 404 errors that occur because a user mistyped an address are normal and nothing to be worried about. However, 404 errors that occur because a page is no longer available can cause bad user experience. If you are not already tracking 404 error pages, then see our guide on how to easily track 404 error pages in WordPress and redirect them.

Find and Fix Broken Links

Find and fix broken links in WordPress As your website grows, you will realize that some external websites that you linked to in your older articles do not exist anymore. Some may have moved to new locations, while others may just disappear. The broken links issue is not just limited to external links. You can accidentally add broken images, poorly formatted links, or misspell your own links. This causes bad user experience and affects your site’s bounce rate and page views. You need to check your website for broken links as part of your WordPress maintenance routine. For instructions, see our guide on how to find and fix broken links in WordPress.

Perform a Thorough Content and SEO Audit

SEO Audit Next thing you need to include in your regular maintenance tasks is a thorough in-depth review of your content. This is where the data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics comes in. Google Analytics shows you where your visitors are coming from and what they are doing on your website. This data allows you to discover content on your website where users are coming but are not converting into customers or subscribers. Google Search Console shows you Search Analytics which helps you find search keywords where your site appears in the results. You can sort it to show you keywords where your site can easily rank higher by updating those articles. Search Analytics in Google Search Console If you are using Yoast SEO, then you can set particular keywords as focus keyword, and it will analyze your content for that keyword. Improving SEO score of an article in WordPress Even with an excellent SEO score, you can still further improve content by adding new information, images, and linking to it from other pages on your website. For more SEO tips, follow our ultimate step by step WordPress SEO guide for beginners.

Optimize Images on Your WordPress Site

Optimize images and media library Images take longer to load hence they decrease your page load speed. Some of them you’ll discover during the performance checkup of your site. However you will definitely miss those in your less popular articles. If you run a multi-author WordPress site, then some of your authors may not be as careful about image sizes as you are. Adding image and media library review to your WordPress maintenance checklist, allows you to stay on top of the issue. You can perform this check to find out images that can be reduced in size or images that are just too large. For more information, see our guide on how to save images optimized for the Web.

Review WordPress Security Logs

WordPress security review Some WordPress users don’t realize that their site is under attack until it slows down or their search rankings drop. We have already mentioned some security precautions like changing passwords, and creating manual backups as proactive measures. You also need to review your site’s access and error logs to see if you can find any unusual activity on your site. We also recommend using Sucuri. It is a website security company that offers website firewall to protect your website against common threats. For a complete security audit of your WordPress site, follow the instructions in our step by step ultimate WordPress security guide.

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wordpressservices-blog · 8 years ago

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Is Your WordPress Site is Hacked

Sudden Drop in Website TrafficDrop in website traffic

If you look at your Google Analytics reports and see a sudden drop in traffic, then this could be a sign that your WordPress site is hacked. There are many malware and trojans out there that hijack your website’s traffic and redirect it to spammy websites. Some of them don’t redirect logged in users which allows them to go unnoticed for a while. Another reason for the sudden drop in traffic is Google’s safe browsing tool, which might be showing warnings to users regarding your website. Each week, Google blacklists around 20,000 websites for malware and around 50,000 for phishing. That’s why every blogger and business owner needs to pay serious attention to their WordPress security. You can check your website using the Google’s safe browsing tool to see your safety report.

Bad Links Added to Your WebsiteSpam and malware injection

One of the most common signs among hacked WordPress sites is data injection. Hackers create a backdoor on your WordPress site which gives them access to modify your WordPress files and database. Some of these hacks add links to spammy websites. Usually these links are added to the footer of your website, but they really could be any where. Deleting the links will not guarantee that they will not come back. You will need to find and fix the backdoor used to inject this data into your website. See our guide on how to find and fix a backdoor in a hacked WordPress site.

Your Site’s Homepage is Defaced website

homepage defaced after hacking This is probably the most obvious one as it is clearly visible on the homepage of your website. Most hacking attempts do not deface your site’s home page because they want to remain unnoticed for as long as possible. However, some hackers may deface your website to announce that it has been hacked. Such hackers usually replace your homepage with their own message. Some hackers may even try to extort money from site owners.

You are Unable to Login to WordPress

If you are unable to login to your WordPress site, then there is a chance that hackers may have deleted your admin account from WordPress. Since the account doesn’t exist, you would not be able to reset your password from the login page. There are other ways to add an admin account using phpMyAdmin or via FTP. However, your site will remain unsafe until you figure out how a hacker got into your website.

Suspicious User Accounts in WordPress

Suspicious user accounts in WordPress If your site is open to user registration, and you are not using any spam registration protection, then spam user accounts are just common spam that you can simply delete. However, if you don’t remember allowing user registration and notice new user accounts in WordPress, then your site is probably hacked. Usually the suspicious account will have administrator user role, and in some cases you may not be able to delete it from your WordPress admin area.

Unknown Files and Scripts on Your Server

Unknown files and scripts in WordPress folders If you’re using a site scanner plugin like Sucuri, then it will alert you when it finds an unknown file or script on your server. You need to connect to your WordPress site using a FTP client. The most common place where you will find malicious files and scripts is the /wp-content/ folder. Usually, these files are named like WordPress files to hide in plain sight. Deleting these files immediately will not guarantee that these files will not return. You will need to audit the security of your website specially file and directory structure.

Slow or unresponsive website

All websites on internet can become victims of random denial of service attacks. These attacks use several hacked computers and servers from all over the world using fake ips. Sometimes they are just sending too many requests to your server, other times they are actively trying to break into your website.

Any such activity will make your website slow, unresponsive, and unavailable. You will need to check your server logs to see which ips are making too many requests and block them.

It is also possible that your WordPress site is just slow and not hacked. In that case, you need to follow our guide to boost WordPress speed and performance.

Unusual Activity in Server Logs

Server logs

Server logs are plain text files stored on your web server. These files keep record of all errors occurring on your server as well as all your internet traffic. You can access them from your WordPress hosting account’s cPanel dashboard under statistics. serverlogscpanel These server logs can help you understand what’s going on when your WordPress site is under attack. They also contain all the ip addresses used to access your website which allows you to block suspicious ip addresses.

Failure to Send or Receive WordPress Emails

Email errors in WordPress

Hacked servers are commonly used for spam. Most WordPress hosting companies offer free email accounts with your hosting. Many WordPress site owners use their host’s mail servers to send WordPress emails. If you are unable to send or recieve WordPress emails, then there is a chance that your mail server is hacked to send spam emails.

Suspicious Scheduled Tasks

Suspicious scheduled tasks

Web servers allow users to set up cron jobs. These are scheduled tasks that you can add to your server. WordPress itself uses cron to setup scheduled tasks like publishing scheduled posts, deleting old comments from trash, and so on. A hacker can exploit cron to run scheduled tasks on your server without you knowing it.

Hijacked Search Results

If the search results from your website show incorrect title or meta description, then this is a sign that your WordPress site is hacked. Looking at your WordPress site, you will still see the correct title and description. The hacker has again exploited a backdoor to inject malicious code which modifies your site data in a way that it is visible only to search engines.

Popups or Pop Under Ads on Your Website

Spam popup ads

These types of hacks are trying to make money by hijacking your website’s traffic and showing them their own spam ads for illegal websites. These popups do not appear for logged in visitors or visitors accessing a website directly. They only appear to the users visiting from search engines. Pop under ads open in new window and remain unnoticeable by users. Securing and Fixing Your Hacked WordPress Site

Cleaning up a hacked WordPress site can be incredibly painful and difficult.

This is why we recommend you to let experts clean up your website. We use Sucuri to protect all our websites. See how Sucuri helped us block 450,000 WordPress attacks in 3 months.

It comes with 24/7 website monitoring and a powerful website application firewall, which blocks attacks before they even reach your website. Most importantly, they clean up your website if it ever gets hacked.

If you want to clean up your site on your own, then take a look at our beginner’s guide on fixing a hacked WordPress site. You should also check out our ultimate WordPress security guide to follow the best practices and protect your site.

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wordpressservices-blog · 8 years ago

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Custom WordPress Theme Cost

What is a Custom WordPress Theme?

A custom WordPress theme has a unique design, layout, and set of features that are made specifically for your business needs.

Since there are thousands of free and premium WordPress themes available, a custom WordPress theme helps your company / brand stand out. The benefit of getting a custom WordPress theme is that you’re not limited by the constraints of a pre-existing template or layout. You have full freedom to customize your website and get any specific functionality built within your theme.

Factors that Affect the Cost of a Custom WordPress Theme

Since each custom WordPress theme is built specifically for the individual client, the cost of the project varies based on the requirements. Below are some of the factors that will impact the cost of your custom WordPress theme: Individual Freelancer vs Agency

To create a custom WordPress theme, you will need someone who can design (designer) and code your theme (developer). Depending on your needs, you may be able to find an individual who can do both design and develop the site, but remember it’s hard find a person who’s excellent at both design and code.

When you go with a full-service agency, it’s a one-stop shop because they have designers and developers in their team. This is also the reason why sometimes agencies can be more expensive.

Alternatively, you can hire an individual freelance designer and developer separately and mange the project yourself.

Experience and Expertise

Design and development is a creative process, so the project cost vary based on expertise, experience in the field, and creativity. Well reputed WordPress development agencies may cost more than an individual developer or freelancer. However, a well known WordPress developer can sometimes charge even more than an agency.

Features, Functionality, and Expectations

Adding more features and functionality to your custom theme will increase the development time and cost. Normally, clients have higher expectations than their budget allows. High quality work with custom features will take more time and hence it will cost more.

Change orders and Revisions

If you change the scope of your custom WordPress theme project in the middle of the process, then this can significantly increase your cost. While minor changes are ok, often freelancers and agencies will charge change-order fees for major change requests.

Hosting, Maintenance and Support

A custom WordPress theme does not include WordPress hosting, website maintenance or offering support after delivery of the project. Some agencies and freelancers might offer these services at an additional cost.

How much a Custom WordPress Theme Actually Costs?

Cost estimates for a custom WordPress theme Because there are several factors that affect the cost, it is extremely difficult to explain how much a custom WordPress theme cost in fixed numbers. A typical custom WordPress theme for business or personal website theme could cost between $1,500 – $5,000. A custom WordPress theme with additional built-in features or companion plugins can cost anywhere between $6,000 – $10,000. If you have a complex enterprise level project, then is not uncommon for the prices to go above $30,000.

How to Avoid Overpaying for a Custom WordPress Theme?

Controlling cost of your custom WordPress theme project With over a decade of experience in the WordPress industry, we have few tips that you can use to avoid overpaying for a custom WordPress theme. Have a Clear Scope of the Project When you’re building a house, you typically have a list of features that you want such as 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, living room, etc. You need to make a similar list for your website and list down all the things that you would like to have such as: Editable home page with a testimonial slider and services list Contact page with a contact form and a Google map with ability to find directions Gallery area to showcase the work Blog section with Social media share buttons Having a detailed list makes it easier for someone to give you an accurate quote. It also helps limit revisions / change-order fees. Find Live Website Examples for Inspiration when Possible Going along with a detailed scope, having a list of inspirations really help with the design process. You can have a list of websites and list out what you like about each of them. This gives the designer a clear idea of what you’re looking for thus reduces the revisions and overall cost. Use Premium Plugins vs Custom Built Functionality Most reputable WordPress professionals will always choose a premium WordPress plugin vs build it out from scratch because it’s more efficient and saves cost. However as a customer, we always recommend that you also do your research. Often the developer that you choose may have other suggestions, and it’s important that you understand why they decide to choose one plugin over another.

Customize Premium Themes vs Build from Scratch

One of the ways to significantly reduce cost while still getting a “custom” look and feel is to find an existing theme that has 90% of what you want. While this cheats the custom theme concept, it can significantly reduce the overall cost. Powerful drag and drop WordPress page builders like BeaverBuilder and Divi has given birth to an entirely new industry of “Website Assemblers”. Professional website assemblers use existing WordPress plugins in combination with a drag & drop page builder to build you a custom-looking WordPress site at a much more affordable price. How to Find the Right Developer or Agency for a Custom WordPress Theme

Finding developer for your custom WordPress theme

Due to its ease of use and low barrier of entry, there is a wide-range of people and companies offering custom WordPress theme services. Finding a developer or agency with right experience and skill set can be a bit difficult. Specially because a lot of “website assemblers” also call themselves developers. Here are some places where you can find experienced developers for your custom WordPress theme project. Genesis Developers – StudioPress, creators of the famous Genesis theme framework has a developers showcase where you can find experienced WordPress developers to work on your custom theme. WPEngine Consultants – Managed WordPress hosting company, WPEngine, also has a dedicated page that lists experienced WordPress developers and agencies. WPHired – This is a job board where you can post your WordPress jobs. Developers can then apply for the job, and you can discuss your project with them. You’ll have to look for developers with relevant experience and skills.

Upwork – An online freelancing website where you can post your job and interview developers from all over the world. This would allow you to find developers with lower rates. It is an enormous community with designers and developers of varying skills and expertise. Conclusion

A custom WordPress theme can make your website stand out with its unique design and custom features. However, not all beginners and small businesses can afford that right away.

If you are just starting out, then you can use a premium multipurpose theme and build your website at a fraction of a price.

Most modern themes have enough customization options that you can use to make them unique. Check out our showcase section where we regularly publish collection of themes for different industries and niches

However if you can afford a custom WordPress theme, then it is definitely worth the investment. Unique branding, custom design, and tailor made functionality will help you grow your business faster and give you an edge over your competitors.

We hope this article helped you understand how much does a custom WordPress theme cost and how you can avoid overpaying. You may also want to see our list of most notable big name brands using WordPress.

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wordpressservices-blog · 8 years ago

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Appear in Google Answer Boxes with Your WordPress Site

Do you want your articles to appear in Google answer boxes?

Answer boxes are Google’s push to answer questions directly on the search results page. In this article, we will explain how to appear in Google Answer Boxes for WordPress users.

Google Answer box is part of Google’s Knowledge graph. It is an algorithm that tries to answer user’s questions right on the search page.

It uses carousels, side boxes, lists, tables, and answer boxes to display the most relevant information at the top. This information is gathered from various sources and the algorithm decides which results should be displayed inside an answer box.

According to research conducted by Advanced Web Ranking, Answer boxes secure almost 32.3% CTR. This makes them immensely important for your

The purpose of Answer Boxes is to offer instant gratification to the users. This works particularly well when users are looking for factual information like public figures, distances, conversion rates, scores, and similar information.

In such cases, if users got the exact information they needed, then they can move on and search for something else. For many queries it can just display a sidebox from the web’s most reliable knowledge sources like Wikipedia.

In a way, it might sound like Google is trying to keep all the traffic for itself. However, not all users are looking for information that Google’s knowledge graph can answer with accuracy.

If user’s keywords require an opinionated, well thought, or research based answer, then Google relies on other web sources.

If you are among the top 10 results for a keyword, then you are already closer to appear in Google Answer Box.

How to Make Your Pages Appear in Google Answer Box?

Google Answer Box results change quite often, and you can easily appear as the best answer by simply improving your content.

Let’s explore a number of content optimization steps that you can take to appear in the answer box.

Add Short and Helpful Answers in Your Content

The purpose of Answer Boxes is to provide quick answers. Make sure that your article answers the question as early in the article as possible.

You also need to make your answer short, concise, and easy to understand.

Optimize Your WordPress Page’s Meta Description

Meta description is a brief description explaining what your page is about. It is added in the <head> section of your site’s HTML. You can add meta description for your articles by using a WordPress SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO plugin. Optimize meta description for answer box Make sure that your meta description includes your target keyword. It also needs to explain what questions or topics this particular page will be answering. For example, our article about WordPress SEO tools and plugins uses this meta description: “Are you looking for best WordPress SEO plugin and tools to boost your SEO? Check out our list of 9 best WordPress SEO Plugins and Tools.” Here is how it appears in the answer box. Meta description optimization effect on Google Answer Box Utilize Lists, Tables, Table of Contents

Users love properly formatted content because it helps them quickly get the information they need. That’s why websites like list25 are so popular. They publish informative content in a viral listicle format that is easier to consume and share. Google understands that and tends to highlight the websites that use formatting to make content consumption easier for users. Tables in Google Answer Box This includes:

Pages that use tables to list items.

How to articles that use step by step instructions.

Top lists that simply just list items.

Lenghty articles that utilize table of contents

and more.

This does not mean that you must always use one of these formats to write your articles. However, if using formatting can help your users get to the information quickly, then use it.

Lists in Google Answer Box

Optimize Content with Data Driven Decisions

Data is the most important thing you need for an effective content strategy. This is where Google Analytics comes in. It helps you understand your audience and plan accordingly. You will need MonsterInsights to properly track user engagement in WordPress. It is the best Google Analytics plugin in the market, and it will help you learn where your users are coming from, and what they do while they are on your site. These stats provide you a clear picture of what’s already working on your website. You can then expand on it and make informed decisions for better SEO. Follow SEO Best Practices

Apart from answering the user questions, you also need to make sure that Google can find your page and understand it just as easily. This means you still need to optimize your posts for SEO just like you would normally do. Include your keywords in SEO title, description, and keywords. Add your focus keyword in content and sub-headings in your article. Properly utilize categories and tags. Make sure there is enough content to cover the topic. Make internal linking a habit and link to your other posts and pages Add title and alt tags to your images.

Are Google Answer Boxes Worth The Effort?

Yes, absolutely. As we mentioned earlier the click-through rate for results in the answer box is way higher. Depending on the topic and your content, it could go as high as 51.2%. However, we do not recommend you overthink it. The purpose of Answer boxes is to help users find information quickly. If you focus on answering questions through helpful and informative content, then search results will start picking it up. Google’s search features are always changing. There are no shortcuts that will help you win forever. Building your website as an authority / reliable source of useful information will help you win in the long run.

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