SEO Basics

One of the most important aspects of SEO is keyword research. You need to find the right keywords that people are searching for that are related to your business. Once you find the right keywords, you need to use them throughout your website, including in the title, headings, and in the content.

Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools

If you want your website to rank in Google and Bing, you need to let them know your website exists! The two main ways to do this are by setting up Google Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools) and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Both GSC and BWT are free tools offered by the respective search engines that allow you to submit your website, sitemap, and other important information so that they can index your site correctly. They also offer valuable insights into how your site is performing in search results.

To set up GSC, head over to Google’s Search Console page and sign in with your Google account. Once you’re signed in, click the “Add a Property” button and enter the URL of your website. You will then be asked to verify ownership of your website; there are several methods to do this, but the easiest is usually to add a meta tag to your site’s home page.

Bing Webmaster Tools works similarly; head over to their homepage and sign in with a Microsoft account. Once you’re signed in, click on the “Add a Site” button and enter your website’s URL. As with GSC, you will then need to verify ownership of your site; again, the easiest method is usually to add a meta tag to your site’s home page.

Once you have both GSC and BWT set up for your website, take some time explore the different features each tool offers; they can be incredibly helpful in troubleshooting any issues you may be having with getting ranked in search results!

Set up Google Analytics

If you want to learn how to improve your website’s Google ranking, you need to use Google Analytics. This free program gives you access to powerful data that can help you understand your website’s strengths and weaknesses. Once you know what needs to be improved, you can make the necessary changes and watch your website’s Google ranking improve.

To get started with Google Analytics, you’ll need to create a free account and then add the tracking code to your website. Luckily, this process is relatively simple and only takes a few minutes. Once you’ve added the code, Google Analytics will start tracking data about your website’s traffic, including information about where your visitors are coming from, what pages they’re looking at, and how long they stay on your site. This data is incredibly valuable; it can help you identify areas where your website needs improvement so that you can make the necessary changes.

If you want to set up Google Analytics on your website, follow these simple steps:

1. Create a free account at google.com/analytics.
2. Find the tracking code that Google provides for you and copy it.
3. Paste the tracking code into the section of your website’s code.
4. Test your website to make sure that the tracking code is working properly.
   Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)
   One of the most popular plugins for WordPress when it comes to SEO is Yoast SEO. While there are other good plugins available, Yoast is definitely one of the leaders in the pack. And it’s free!

SEO can be pretty complex and involved. But with a plugin like Yoast, it can be broken down into simple steps that even beginners can follow.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to do to install and configure Yoast SEO for WordPress:

1. Download the plugin from the WordPress repository and install it on your site.
2. Copy and paste your Google Analytics tracking code into the plugin settings (optional).
3. Connect your site to Google Search Console (optional).
4. Configure the plugin settings for title templates, metas, social media, etc.
5. Install the XML sitemap feature and submit it to Google Search Console.
6. Use the plugin’s built-in content analysis tool to optimize your pages and posts for SEO.
7. That’s it! You’re now ready to start ranking higher in Google search results.
   Keyword Research
   Keyword research is the act of finding, analyzing, and selecting the best keywords to target for your website or blog. The purpose of keyword research is to find words and phrases that users are searching for in Google and other search engines. The goal is to rank your content in the search engines for these keywords so that you can get more traffic to your website.
   Identify your competitors
   
   When you’re starting your keyword research, one of the first things you should do is identify your top competitors. You can do this by searching for your main keywords on Google and taking note of the websites that come up most often in the results. These are the websites that you’ll need to beat in order to get your own website to rank highly for these keywords.

To get an idea of how difficult it will be to rank for a particular keyword, you can also take a look at the number of results that come up when you search for that keyword on Google. The more results there are, the more competition there is for that keyword, and the harder it will be to rank for that keyword.

Once you’ve identified your top competitors, take a look at their websites and see what they’re doing right that you could be doing better. Are they using any particular keywords or phrases that you aren’t using? If so, start using them on your own website and in your marketing materials to improve your chances of ranking for those keywords.

Conduct a keyword gap analysis

A keyword gap analysis is an essential part of any SEO strategy. It allows you to compare your website’s keywords with those of your competitors, and determine which keywords you are missing out on.

This guide will show you how to conduct a keyword gap analysis using the free MozBar extension for Google Chrome.

1. Download and install the MozBar extension.
2. Open your website in a new tab, and your competitor’s website in another tab.
3. Switch to the competitor’s tab, and click on the MozBar icon in the top-right corner of the browser window.
4. Select “Keyword Difficulty” from the drop-down menu.
5. The Keyword Difficulty tool will display a list of all the keywords that your competitor is ranking for in Google organic search results.
6. Create a spreadsheet, and copy-paste all these keywords into it.
7. Now switch to your tab, and repeat steps 3-5 for your own website.
8. Compare the two lists of keywords, and highlight all the keywords that are present in one list but not the other. These are the keywords that you are missing out on, and should be targeting with your SEO efforts.
   Find your main ‘money’ keywords
   
   Keyword research is the process of finding and analysing the words and phrases that people type into search engines to find the content they’re looking for.

It’s an important part of any SEO or content marketing strategy, as it can help you focus your efforts on creating content that is relevant and likely to be successful with your target audience.

There are a number of different methods you can use to find keywords, but one of the most effective is to simply ask your target audience what they would search for if they were looking for your product or service.

Once you have a list of potential keywords, you can then use a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner to get more detailed data about their popularity and competition.

Technical SEO

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards. This is especially true when it comes to SEO. You can read all the books and blogs you want, but nothing will prepare you for the challenges of ranking a website in Google. The best way to learn is by doing, and that means making mistakes and learning from them.

Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC

The “Inspect URL” feature in Google Search Console is a powerful tool that allows you to submit individual URLs to Google for re-indexation. This can be helpful if you’ve made changes to a page and want to ensure that Google is aware of the changes.

To use this feature, simply navigate to the URL Inspection tool and enter the URL of the page you want to inspect. Google will then provide information on the current status of the URL, as well as any issues that were detected.

If you want to request that Google re-index the page, simply click the “Request Indexing” button. Keep in mind that this is not a guarantee that Google will actually re-index the page, but it is a good way to give them a heads up about changes that have been made.

Ensure your website is mobile-friendly

Make sure your website is mobile-friendly. This is one of the most important technical SEO considerations, as more and more people are using their mobile devices to access the internet. Google has a Mobile-Friendly Test tool that you can use to check whether your website is properly optimized for mobile devices.

Check your site’s loading speed

It’s important to make sure your site loads quickly. Visitors will leave if they have to wait too long for your pages to load, and search engines may penalize you if your site is slow.

There are a few different ways to test your site’s loading speed:

• Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
• Use Pingdom’s Website Speed Test.
• Use GTmetrix.
  On-page and Content
  On-page SEO (search engine optimization) is the practice of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results and drive organic traffic. The goal of on-page SEO is to improve the visibility and ranking of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs).
  Fix duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags

If you have more than one page with the same title tag, you may be inadvertently telling search engines that your content is duplicate. This can hurt your rankings and visibility in search results.

To fix duplicate title tags:
-Make sure each page on your site has a unique, descriptive title tag.
-Use keyword research to determine which keywords are most relevant to each page of content.
-Include those keywords in your title tags, making sure not to stuff or repeating them too frequently.

If you have pages on your site with missing or truncated title tags, search engines may not be able to properly index and rank those pages. As a result, you could be missing out on valuable traffic and conversions.

To fix missing or truncated title tags:
-Make sure every page on your site has a unique, descriptive title tag.
-Use keyword research to determine which keywords are most relevant to each page of content.
-Include those keywords in your title tags, making sure not to stuff or repeating them too frequently.

Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions

Meta descriptions are the short paragraph of text that appears under your page’s URL in the search results. They’re designed to give users a snapshot of what your page is about, and they can also influence whether or not users click through to your site.

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for websites to have either missing or duplicate meta descriptions. This can be a problem for a couple of reasons:

-It can result in users seeing different (and potentially conflicting) information about your page when they see it in the search results.
-It can also lead to search engines penalizing your site for having duplicate content.

Luckily, there are a few simple steps you can take to find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions on your website:

1. Use a tool like Screaming Frog to crawl your website and extract all of the meta descriptions on your pages.
2. Use a spreadsheet program like Excel to compare the meta descriptions on each page and look for any duplicates.
3. If you find any pages with missing meta descriptions, add unique, keyword-rich descriptions for each of those pages.
4. Publish your changes and resubmit your sitemap to Google so that they can reindex your pages with the newmeta descriptions.
   Find and fix multiple H1 tags

On-page and Content – (experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first the lesson afterwards)

Heading:Find and fix multiple H1 tags

Expansion:If you have more than one H1 tag on your page, it’s a good idea to fix that. Google typically only pays attention to the first H1 tag on a page, so if you have multiple H1 tags, you’re just diluting the effectiveness of your headings.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO is the process of optimizing a website for better search engine rankings. It involves improving the website’s visibility and position in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Analyze your competitor’s link profile

Off-page SEO is all about building backlinks.

A backlink is when another website links to yours.

When someone links to your website, they’re essentially giving you a vote of confidence.

The more votes (backlinks) you have, the more popular Google will deem your site to be, and the higher you will rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

To build backlinks, you need to analyze your competitor’s link profile. This will give you an idea of where their links are coming from and what kind of links they have. You can then use this information to build similar links for your own site.

Conduct a link intersect analysis

Link intersect analysis is a process of identifying which websites are linking to multiple competitors, but not to you.

There are a few reasons why this is useful:

-It allows you to identify websites that may be valuable for link building opportunities.
-It helps you understand why your competitors are outranking you in the SERPs.
-It helps you find potential directories or listings that you can be featured on.

To conduct a link intersect analysis, you’ll need to use a tool like ahrefs, Majestic or Moz. Once you have your list of competitor websites, simply enter them into the tool one at a time and export the list of links each site has.

Once you have all of the lists, it’s time to start the intersection process. The easiest way to do this is by using a Venn diagram tool like this one from SEOmoz.

Simply upload all of the lists into the Venn diagram tool and it will show you which websites are linking to all (or most) of your competitors, but not to you. These are the websites that you’ll want to focus on for your link building efforts.

Target your competitors’ broken backlinks

Off-page SEO (also called “off-site SEO”) refers to actions taken outside of your own website to impact your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs).

A tactics that some SEOs use to is to target their competitor’s broken backlinks. By identifying these links, they can then reach out to the website that is linking to their competitor and offer to have their own website linked instead. This is often effective because it can result in a higher quality backlink than their competitor.