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If you want your web pages to appear at the top of the Google Search Engine Results Page for your keywords, you have to use the most effective SEO techniques.

Here are 10 fast and easy SEO-related things you can do to instantly improve your page rankings:

• Don’t include characters like “&” and “?” in your permalinks. Google doesn’t like them and they can slow things down.

• To make your content more readable, separate ideas and phrases with hyphens whenever possible.

• But don’t use underscores (__) instead of hyphens because these can confuse the search engines.

• Any time you include an image or photo, always create alt tags and descriptions that include your keywords.

• Anytime you can — if appropriate — use internal linking. This is when you link to somewhere else within your page or website, rather than to an external page or document. Search engines like to see internal links and will rank your pages higher if you have them.

• Use sticky posts when possible. These are posts that include a lot of links that keep you on the page, rather than being sent off to another site.

• Include a category description paragraph on your page.

• Encourage page visitors to subscribe to your website, blog or other content using a category specific RSS feed.

• Make sure you understand the target audience you are addressing. If necessary, do some research by looking at other pages that are aimed at the same audience you want. Then update your content appropriately.

• Speaking of updating content, make sure you are continually providing high-quality content that your page visitors can actually use in their everyday lives. This will make it more likely that they will return to your pages again and again.

Use these 10 fast and easy SEO tips to improve the SERP rankings of your web pages so you can attract more visitors.

Getting the attention of the Google search engine is getting harder and harder. With more 10,000 new websites launching every day, there’s more reason than ever to use SEO to attract more page visitors.

Here are five on-page SEO techniques you can use starting today to drive more traffic to your web page:

Stick to a Single Keyword or Topic

Many web page creators try to do too much with their content. Pick the one keyword phrase or topic that is the most likely for people searching for pages like yours to enter into Google and stick with it.

It’s often helpful if you tie your keyword to your geographic location. For example, instead of focusing on “dry cleaners”, use “New York City dry cleaners” to promote your small dry cleaning business in Manhattan.

Don’t Be Strict about Keywords

Google recently changed its algorithm so that it looks for variations of the same keyword, rather than the exact same keyword every time.

If you are using the same verbatim keyword throughout your content to boost your SEO, it can make your content seem stiff and unnatural. Instead, don’t be afraid to use variations that help with the flow.

Page Titles Are Critical

Google will use the title tag to display your page in its search results. So you want to make sure your title tag explicitly states what your page is all about. It may be your one and only chance to get people to click on it.

5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Boost Traffic – Include Natural Links

Google prefers pages that have natural, high-quality inbound links that lead into them from authoritative sources. pay attention the inbound links leading to your page to make sure they are continually growing and that they come from reputable, high-quality websites.

Implement these five SEO techniques on your pages starting right now and you should see more traffic by the end of the day.

Google recently announced that it was cancelling its PageSpeed service, effective earlier this month.

Google’s PageSpeed Service, which was first launched in 2010, uses tools to analyze and optimize websites in order to implement the best web performance practices. Fast and optimized pages lead to better visitor engagement, retention, and conversions.

But Google is pulling the plug on the service, although the free tools it offers will still be available on other open source platforms.

What to Do Now

Google recommended that webmasters using the service login to the PageSpeed console and look at the list of their domains. Any domains that are labeled “Enabled” were affected when the service shut down.

If a web page’s DNS wasn’t changed prior to the shutdown of PageSpeed, it is now completely unavailable.

PageSpeed Cancelled – Options to PageSpeed

Google offered PageSpeed several options – some free and some paid — that they can switch to as an alternative to the service.

Webmasters are advised to check with their service provider to see if they offer provider hosted PageSpeed. In some instances, switching to this version could be as simple as checking a box in the provider’s control panel.

There also are PageSpeed modules available for many of the most common web servers. So web page owners who run their sites of their own server are advised to install one of these.

Google also has developed the open-source Apache module mod_pagespeed. There are currently two pre-built binary modules available: Apache 2.2 and Apache 2.4.

Plug-In Option

There’s also a plugin for Nginx that Google has developed. But this must be compiled from the source.

Other options include:

• IIS – WeAmp has a commercial port of PageSpeed to Microsoft IIS.

• Apache Traffic Server – WeAmp also has ported PageSpeed to the Apache Traffic server.

• OpenLite Speed – This platform supports a PageSpeed module that can be compiled and loaded into a webserver.

• Cloud-Based Alternatives – If webmasters prefer to use a cloud-based product, EdgeCast EdgeOptimizer integrates Google PageSpeed with its CDN offering. Or, many CNDS offer similar functionality that don’t use PageSpeed technology.

PageSpeed Cancelled –  Why PageSpeed Mattered

PageSpeed was designed to allow web pages to load faster for users. It featured a quick and easy setup and allowed users to keep up with the latest optimization technologies without having to constantly search for them online.

One of the biggest benefits was that it used Google’s existing fast and secure infrastructure, which won’t be available for webmasters who switch to open source server modules. It was widely praised for creating happier users and better conversions.

Most SEO techniques used to improve web page rankings are considered “on-page SEO”. These are the things you can do within the content of your web pages to make your websites more appealing to  Google and other search engines.

But there also are “off-page SEO” techniques you can use that don’t involve manipulating the content of your page.

Backlinks and Their SEO Value

The first are backlinks. These are links that lead to your web pages from other sites.

Google assigns additional value to a web page if it has a lot of backlinks, particularly from web pages that it considers “authoritative”.

Authoritative web pages are places users will go when they are seeking answers to questions about a particular subject. They include such sites as Wikipedia, About.com, eHow.com and any website whose address ends in the suffix .edu or .gov.

Social Approval Signals

Up until the Panda and Penguin upgrades to the Google search engine algorithm, backlinks were the primary determiner of a site’s ranking.

But because too many unscrupulous marketers learned how to artificially create backlinks, making their pages appear more authoritative than they actually were, Google changed its algorithm so that social approval signals played the most important role in a site’s ranking.

It’s Nice to Be ‘Liked’

Social approval signals are things such as Facebook “Likes”, Google+ +1’s, or how often the link is shared on Twitter. The theory is that because everybody uses social media to share sites they enjoy with their contacts, the more frequently a site is shared, the more useful it is.

SEO success today is inextricably linked to getting the most social approval signals for your page as possible. Make it easy for visitors to give you these signs directly from your page using the free widgets and plugins offered by most web builders, and encourage visitors to share your page with their social media contacts whenever possible.