Knowing how to write effective SEO title tags and headlines can be confusing these days. See you're not alone! Many struggle over making it SEO optimized while at the same time enticing enough to draw in the clicks, which is the main job of a headline, right?

Related: 7 On-Page SEO Tips that Will Help your Rankings

While at first blush the symbiotic relationship between title tags and headlines can seem at odds, but you need to be able to find a happy medium. Recognize first that one without the other leads to failure is a good first step.

Let's look at both needs and see where they intersect.

Writing Effective Title Tags and Headlines

What goes into a good SEO title tag?

The properly SEO'd title tag will be around 64 characters, and also have the page's primary keyword near the beginning if possible. That's not much space to work with, so we've got a challenge right from the start.

What's also important to Google these days is the intent of the search query. What's the searcher actually searching for? Google is getting better and better at reading this, and you need to write with this in mind.

If there is room, you can include additional keywords or LSI phrase, or modify the phrase in hope of ranking for corollary terms, for instance “best blue widget for sale today”. There are around 5 possible keyword phrases in there, in addition to the main term. You get the idea. But your intent should be to make it make sense.

Related: How to Optimize Your Blog Posts for SEO

What constitutes a good page headline?

Conversely, your page headline needs to entice the reader to read on, to want more information. A lot of great headlines will invoke curiosity, promise solutions, and inject emotions.

Satisfying the needs of the reader is your primary aim here, and if you can do that in a short, pithy way so much the better.

“How to write a novel in 30 days and stay married.” This is a title you might click through to read. It makes a promise, delivers urgency and hints at humor.

Check out this infographic by Neil Patel from Quick Sprout about how to create better headlines.

Making the Two become One

Many times it's a choice you have to make: is this piece designed to rank well for the ages, or is it something that you may be using socially, or driving paid traffic to. It's not that you can't have both, but sometimes the intersect between SEO and enticing titles is quite small. Knowing your purpose for the piece can help you decide which route to take.

Since SEO changes frequently it's incumbent upon us to make sure we are up to date on the current state of affairs in regards to on-page SEO for our sites.

There's more to this than merely dropping in a keyword every now and then: Google is constantly seeking ways to deliver better search results, and a byproduct of that is an environment where change is the only thing you can count on.

And so to ensure that you get off on the right footing as it regards your on-page SEO here are 7 tips you'll want to ensure get your full attention.

Related: Check Out These 10 Tips For Small Business SEO

7 On-Page SEO Tips that You Need to Integrate If You Haven't Already!

Title Tags and the page META Description – It's important to get this right: Google wants to see no more than 60 characters in the title tags, and less than 160 in the META description. Try to employ your main page keyword in both, and make sure your description is one that will attract a visitor.

Utilize your Keywords – the right way! Don't stuff your pages with them. In fact your primary keyword (the one in the title tag and description) should have a page density of between 1-3%.

Image tags – Be sure to tag your images ALT tags properly. This will also help your images to get indexed in Google images, and get you more traffic.

Related: Steps to Deal with Negative SEO

Employ internal linking – Be sure to link to relevant and useful content within your own pages, preferably using keyword anchor text to get there. This is a major signal for Google that you're trying to be of use to your visitors.

Optimize for mobile search – Beginning April 2015, Google is going to penalize pages that aren't optimized well for mobile. Since mobile traffic now accounts for more than 50% of all traffic, what do you think you should do?

Your business minutiae – Having an accurate privacy policy, contact us page and terms of service indicates to Google that you are a real business and is also a ranking signal.

Make your pages load fast! – Make sure your pages are loading as fast as possible because this is a signal that Google really looks at. Compress your imagery, and possibly even switch to better hosting if yours doesn't get your page loaded in less than 4 seconds.

Negative SEO is a very real problem for anyone who has been victimized by it. Watching your website rankings that you've fought so hard for tank nearly overnight is not only heartbreaking, but a real financial pain as well.

So, you might ask, what does a negative SEO attack look like? Some common ways an evil webmaster may try and take you down includes tactics like creating tons of links to your pages, using spam keywords or even all of your page's primary keywords. (Google sees this as link manipulation) This may also directly hack into your server, and even impersonate you online in social media. In order to help you be prepared for the fight against negative SEO, we've included 5 ways you can be aware of what's going on with your site.

Related: Check Out How You Can Avoid Making Expensive SEO Blunders

5 Strategies to prevent Negative SEO

Use alerts – One of the best features of Google Webmaster tools is it can send you email alerts whenever your site is under different kinds of attacks, such as if you have a malware problem, pages are not indexed and more.

Keep an eye on your backlinks – If all of the sudden you notice a huge spike in backlinks, especially if you haven't actively been seeking them, suspect something is in progress. Sites like Monitor Backlinks can be a huge help here.

Related: See 5 Proactive Ways to Minimize a Drop in Search Ranking

Keep an ear open for social media mentions – Track any mentions of you or your brand in social media, as you can be getting trashed and before long, are in full reputation management mode. Sites like Mention.net can send you alerts for these.

Check for duplicate content – An old school technique used by people set on harming your SEO is copying your content and posting it all over the Web. Having the same content everywhere you look on the Web is an easy way incur a Google site penalty.

Secure your site – Be sure you have a secure installation. This is partly your host's and partly your responsibility, but you really don't want someone getting access. If you are running WordPress, this is doubly true, as it is a hacker's playground.

Local SEO has evolved over the last few years from a fairly simple proposition to one that is a touch more involved. While that might appear “harder” on the surface, what it actually offers is a lot of opportunity for those who are willing to do what's necessary to get their sites to rank well locally.

Toward that goal, we've listed a number of best practices you'll want to be aware of when it comes to local SEO for 2015. Some might not be new to you, while others will. Remember, it's a stew, and all of it works together to make it tasty!

9 SEO best practices for Local

Increase your site speed – Google loves a speedy page load, and moreover, people simply won't wait for your slow pages to load.

Optimize for Mobile – With half the traffic on the Web these days originating from a mobile device, it's crazy to ignore this any longer. Make a responsive mobile version of your site today.

On-page SEO – Make sure your title tags, descriptions, internal links and website schema are all representing your business the way they should.

Reviews and Citations – Still important for 2015, with solid reviews becoming more so.

Acquire high-quality links – Make it your business to get the best links you can, from relevant high authority sites and high traffic sites. This is best if it emanates from your content.

Color your content local – In addition to giving Google clues to where your business needs to be found for, it is also very beneficial for your visitors.

Be sure to Geotag your images – Putting specific geographic information into your image tags is helpful for Google to rank you for local terms, as well as locate you in Maps.

Encourage social signals – The active employment of social media, both as a way of sharing your content and advertising it, can do wonders for your reach.

NAP data – As always, ensuring that your business information is consistent across ALL your platforms is critical. You should probably start right here!

Local SEO in 2015 may be a bit more involved than in years past, but the rewards for getting it right are also greater. Don't let it wait another day!

It can be difficult enough getting your pages ranked well in Google, so to unintentionally (or worse – intentionally) make it harder by committing SEO mistakes that either kick you out or keep you out is a total unforced error, and one you should avoid at all costs.

While often these are unintentional blunders, it's your job to be aware of these types of things, so as to help your business keep progressing upwards in the search rankings. Failure to do so leads only to bad things, like lost sales, leads, rankings and visitors.

Let's take a little time and look at 5 egregious SEO blunders that can cost you all of the above, hoping you will then be able to avoid them!

Related: See 5 Proactive Ways to Minimize a Drop in Search Ranking

5 SEO Mistakes you don't want to make!

Lousy on-page SEO work – If your on-page SEO is incorrect, Google will have a difficult time ranking you for anything. Make sure that each page is properly optimized, with title tags, descriptions and images all dealt with and also that your pages aren't loading like molasses, another rank killer.

Not diversifying your keywords – The days of stuffing your pages with the keyword you wished to rank for are gone. You still need keywords, but make an effort not to hit visitors over the head with them, and be sure to include relevant verbiage throughout the page as well.

Duplicate content – It can be very easy to unintentionally create duplicate content these days. Tag pages, http and https versions of the same page, and several other tripwires make it easy for Google to discount your pages if they see these.

Bad link profile – If you are in the practice of buying links for your sites, your days are numbered as far as rankings in Google are concerned. The algorithm is becoming better and better at ferreting out bad links and imposing penalties on the sites that are using them. A word to the wise…

Indexability issues – If Google can't find or read your pages, you may have a problem. (You WILL have a problem!) There are a number of ways this can happen, from broken links to faulty redirects, too much flash and even blocking the search engines entirely. Hopefully this is one you'll not fall victim to!

It's all too easy to screw up your own SEO, and if you've hired somebody else to do it for you, that doubles the pain when they also make these sorts of mistakes. (You just paid for it!)

Whether do it yourself or hire your SEO out, you need to be aware of what not only just doesn't work, but also what may indeed be counter-productive, and damage you even more.

Let's have a look at 5 SEO mistakes that are easy to make and often hard to undo.

5 SEO mistakes to avoid no matter what!

Misusing keywords and anchor text – Today the Google algorithm has wised up to the point where it can sniff out attempts to game the rankings with keyword manipulation from a mile away. The best practice today is to use keywords naturally on your pages, utilizing related keywords and synonyms, and diversifying your anchor text accordingly, using natural combinations, naked URLs, and some generic terms like “click here”.

Avoid using Tags – The primary reason you'll need to avoid the use of tags is that they automatically create a duplicate content issue for you. Use categories instead. And if you use a tag cloud you've only compounded the problem by using valuable front page real estate as well.

Don't use Flash – In the quest for some stunning visual effect, many designers are tempted (or forced) to use Flash. The harm done to your SEO and mobile can make it very unwise to do this.

Not optimizing for Mobile – Since more than half of all web users now get here via a mobile device, you must make sure you recognize and account for this. Google also now devalues unresponsive pages in search with the label that your page “May not work on your device”.

Poor internal linking – The spate of recent Google updates has made this one of the last bastions of effective on-site SEO that really works well. Strive to make your site user friendly in this respect, and this is one area to not be shy about using keywords. (With prudence and diversity, naturally!)

It's very easy to screw up your own SEO, and if you've hired someone else to do it for you, that doubles the anguish when they also make these sorts of mistakes. (You just paid for it!)

Whether do it yourself or hire your SEO out, you have to be aware of what not only just doesn't work, but also what may indeed be counter-productive, and harm you even more.

Let's examine 5 ways SEO mistakes can happen, and how they can be avoided.

5 bad SEO mistakes you'll want to avoid at all costs!

Misusing keywords and anchor text – Today the Google algorithm has wised up to the point where it can sniff out attempts to game the rankings with keyword manipulation from a mile away. The best practice today is to use keywords naturally on your pages, utilizing related keywords and synonyms, and diversifying your anchor text accordingly, using natural combinations, naked URLs, and some generic terms like “click here”.

Avoid using Tags – The primary reason you'll need to avoid the use of tags is that they automatically create a duplicate content issue for you. Use categories instead. And if you use a tag cloud you've only compounded the problem by using valuable front page real estate as well.

Using Flash on your pages – While this may be necessary to achieve some sort of visual effect you'd like to use, you should ask yourself if it's worth it, as it can be bad for SEO and how well your site renders in mobile.

Not optimizing for Mobile – Since over half of all web users now get here via a mobile device, you need to make sure you recognize and account for this. Google also now devalues unresponsive pages in search with the label that your page “May not work on your device”.

Poor internal linking – The spate of recent Google updates has made this one of the last bastions of effective on-site SEO that really works well. Strive to make your site user friendly in this respect, and this is one area to not be shy about using keywords. (With prudence and diversity, of course!)

If you're like a lot of other website owners, you have yet to fully value what Google Webmaster Tools can do to help you with your site's SEO. That's something you're going to want to fix right away!

I mean what better place than to go to the horse's mouth for tips on how to better optimize your pages to rank well in Google than, well, Google!

Rather than overwhelm you with the entire suite of tools, here are 4 of the most useful ones to get you going!

4 Of our favorite reports that will help your SEO

HTML improvements – The report shows you how well your site does behind the scenes. Details like if you have missing, improper or duplicate title tags, descriptions as well as content are definitely items you'll want a heads-up on. HTML Improvements will help you do exactly that, make improvements!

Search Queries – This report is probably the most useful of all. You can divine several great metrics, including impressions, clicks, click-thru-rate, keyword terms searched, image and video SEO and much more. While the keyword data is limited, and only extends back thirty days, it is still useful.

Crawl errors – This report will tell you which pages are returning a 404 error code, that is, not found. These you'll want to address as soon as possible, as you are losing traffic, and your search engine results could very well be skewed as well.

Links to your site – Knowing which sites are linking to your pages, as well as your most popular pages is very good site intel to have. It's not uncommon to be surprised by what shows up here, as pages you had no idea were doing this well often present themselves.

Google Webmaster tools are a very useful tool for telling you what you need to be concerned with and fixing within your SEO. It ought to be your first stop, even if you do eventually use a more sophisticated paid tool to dive deeper.

Photo Credit: infocux Technologies/Flickr

It's sometimes challenging to know what exactly to do when you're trying to get your site ranked in the search engines. You'll hear a lot of advice, some of it actually good, but how do you know what to listen to and what not?

Unfortunately there's no easy answer. Most of the SEO advice you see comes with a price tag, that is, someone wishing to sell you something. SEO is one of those things that morph as time passes, and there's no certainty that what worked a year ago has any chance of doing anything for you now. Worse, it could hurt you.

So instead of raise the white flag of surrender, let's look at 5 SEO services we know no longer work, so you aren't tempted to spend any of your precious marketing budget on them.

5 SEO Services to Skip

1. Anything starting with Y – Specifically, Yelp, Yext and the YellowPages. We'll give Yahoo a pass for the time being. These companies all wish to help you get a more robust presence in local search, but the reality is they are having a tough time remaining legitimate themselves. Get listings and reviews the old fashioned way – earn them!

2. Avoid search engine submission services – You can do this on your own, and the thing is is you really don't need to. The search engines, especially Google, prefer to find your pages by themselves. Just focus on creating great content, and announcing it via your social media platforms, and the hard work is done. Not so hard, right, and it was free.

3. Don't spin your content and shoot it out all over the web – One time someone thought that since a little content was good, a lot would be better. Doesn't work that way. This was the basis for the recent Google Penguin update that purged the internet of many sites containing duplicate and spun content.

4. Don't build link farms – Farms are great, for food. Thinking you will game Google by building linkwheels and site pyramids is a fools game. This did work for a time, but that was a long time ago.

5. Don't buy links – Google knows if you purchase links, and the best you will achieve from that is that they won't do you any good; the worst, well, you won't be able to find your site in Google. Enough reason? Thought so.

Photo Credit: infocux Technologies/Flickr

Search Engine Optimization is an ever-changing field, consistently adding brand-new metrics at the forefront of value. Depending on what the search engine companies are doing and what the consumers are reacting to, it's our duty as internet marketers (if we desire to make any money doing this) to stay on top of the newest trends and calm the dynamic search engine and consumer gods. Here's exactly how to do it for the rest of 2014 (and perhaps into 2015).

Are You Managing Your Website Effectively?

1. Website or blog speed is a big issue, not merely for consumers, but now also with the search engines. With mobile websites being more and more popular, if your websites aren't loading fast (and optimized for mobile site visitors), you are getting to find yourself with less traffic. Google has stated as much in a roundabout step, informing us that these guys are looking forward at website speed a lot closer, particularly as mobile searches become predominate.

2. Branding for the lead spots on Google search performs pretty well if you're hitting the one, two or 3 spots on the SERPs, but right after that, it's all about keywords and relevance. If no one in your niche is branding their efforts, you might consider making a run for the top and executing a logical branded message into your marketing.

3. Internal links ongoing to be a hot topic, even though now that we have some returned information on the Google updates and what they think about “ideal,” we now understand that 180 internal links is the remarkable number. This number was derived as the standard across meta data gathered from thousands of websites, so try to keep your own customer's in thoughts when internal linking. What you really don't want is to overkill with the web links so that they end up being overwhelmed.

4. Full web content is in, with higher-ranking websites featuring not just longer content on average, but also content that was meaningful. Aggregate content is dropping tons of ground therefore don't be empty and short, but even more, don't be empty and long. Try to keep the keywords relevant and mix in your LSIs. Also, we're starting to see a more educated subscriber base, meaning the traditional rule of “write to a third grade level” is out the window. Compose to your target audience, whatever that is. Don't be scared to get smart.

5. Social shares and Google +1's are actually a good sign that you are crafting good material. Make use of that as a metric to see exactly what road you're headed down: good or bad. Of course, if you're receiving the social shares and still not ranking, chances are you really should look into the back end of your website with off-page SEO.

6. The metrics that influence your ranking have transformed. Click through rates are huge ranking weights while bounce rates have very small impact on your website's ranking. You must also pay attention to time spent on your website as that has a slight affect on your ranking as well.

What Else Should You be Doing?

Aside from working to get your site ranked, we're anticipating that Google Authorship from your Google+ account is finally going to start getting a big impact on your rankings since some of the bugs were worked out with the help of the Panda 4.0 release. Aside from that, it's practically smooth sailing and keeping an eye out for updates and new releases. Watch for Google My Business, which was just launched, as was Google Analytics' Universal Analytics Integration.