SEO Basics
Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools
Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools are both essential for any website that wants to rank in Google or Bing. They provide valuable insights into how your website is performing in the search engines, and they can help you identify and fix any issues that are holding back your website’s rankings.
To set up GSC, simply go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home and sign in with your Google account. Once you’re signed in, you can add your website and start exploring the wealth of data that GSC provides.
Bing Webmaster Tools works in a similar way to GSC, but you’ll need to create a Microsoft account before you can sign in. Once you’re signed in, you can add your website and start exploring the data that Bing provides.
Set up Google Analytics
If you don’t have Google Analytics set up for your website, you’re missing out on valuable data about your traffic and marketing performance. Google Analytics is a free tool that tracks all sorts of data about your website visitors, including where they come from, what pages they visit, how long they stay on your site, and what actions they take.
Setting up Google Analytics is quick and easy. Just create a free account at Google Analytics, add the tracking code to your website, and start collecting valuable data about your traffic. You can use this data to improve your marketing efforts and make better decisions about where to allocate your resources.
If you’re not sure how to set up Google Analytics or where to find the tracking code, there are plenty of resources available online. Just do a quick search for “Google Analytics set up” or “Google Analytics tracking code” and you’ll find all the information you need. Once you have Google Analytics set up, you can start using it to track important data about your website traffic.
Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)
Adding an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugin to your WordPress site is one of the simplest ways to improve your site’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). A good SEO plugin will help you to easily add important on-page elements, such as page titles and meta descriptions, as well as optimize your website’s structure for better crawling and indexing by search engine bots. In this article, we’ll show you how to install and configure the popular Yoast SEO plugin.
First, you’ll need to install the Yoast SEO plugin. You can do this from the Plugins -> Add New page in your WordPress admin area. Simply search for ‘Yoast SEO’, then click the Install Now button.
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will be redirected to the Yoast SEO configuration wizard. This wizard will help you to quickly set up some of the most important settings for the plugin. We recommend that you complete this process, as it only takes a few minutes.
After completing the configuration wizard, you can access all of Yoast SEO’s features from the sidebar menu in your WordPress admin area.
Keyword Research
If you’re doing any kind of SEO, whether it be on-page or off-page, keyword research is absolutely essential. You need to know what keywords people are searching for that you want to rank for. Without keyword research, you’re just shooting in the dark. In this article, we’ll be talking about how to do keyword research for your website.
Identify your competitors
In order to determine which keywords to target, it’s important to first identify your main competitors. You can do this by conducting a competitor analysis. This will give you an idea of the online presence of your competition and what keywords they are targeting.
Once you have a list of your main competitors, you can use a variety of tools to research their keywords. Google AdWords Keyword Planner and semrush.com both offer excellent keyword research tools. With these tools, you can enter a competitor’s URL and get a list of the keywords they are targeting.
Once you have a list of potential keywords, it’s important to prioritize them. Start by identifying the keyword phrases that are most relevant to your business and that have the highest search volume. These should be your priority keywords. You can then identify other potential keywords that you may want to target in the future.
Conduct a keyword gap analysis
A keyword gap analysis is a process of narrowing down a list of potential keywords to those that will provide the most benefit for your website. It involves looking at what keywords your competitors are targeting, and then assessing which of those keywords you are not targeting but should be.
There are a number of tools that you can use to conduct a keyword gap analysis, but one of the most effective is Google AdWords Keyword Planner. This tool allows you to enter in a list of competitor websites, and then it will generate a list of keywords that those websites are targeting.
Once you have this list, you can then assess which of those keywords you are not targeting but should be. This is usually done by looking at the search volume for each keyword and assessing whether or not it is something that would be beneficial for your website to target.
If you decide that there are some keywords on the list that you should be targeting, then you can start planning how to incorporate them into your website. This may involve creating new content or changing existing content to target those keywords more effectively.
Find your main ‘money’ keywords
If you want to make money from your website or blog, you need to make sure you’re targeting the right keywords. Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines when they’re looking for information.
To find your main ‘money’ keywords, start by brainstorming a list of potential keywords related to your topic. Then use a keyword research tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or MozKeyword Explorer to get more ideas and find out how many people are searching for each keyword.
Once you’ve found your main keywords, you can use them to optimize your website or blog for search engines. Make sure to include them in your titles, headings, and tags, and use them throughout your content.
Technical SEO
Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC
Most of the time when people talk about Google Search Console (GSC), they’re talking about the web interface. While the web interface is great for getting high-level insights into your website’s search performance, the “Inspect URL” feature is a powerful tool that can be used for more technical SEO tasks.
In this post, we’ll take a look at what the “Inspect URL” feature is and how you can use it to troubleshoot common SEO issues.
What is the “Inspect URL” feature?
The “Inspect URL” feature in GSC allows you to submit a URL to Google and get back information about how Google sees that URL. This information includes things like:
- The HTTP status code returned by your server when Google tries to crawl the URL
- Any robots.txt directives that are blocking Google from crawling the URL
- Any sitemap entry for the URL
- Any links to the URL from other pages on your website
- Any structured data found on the page
This information can be very helpful when troubleshooting common SEO issues, such as why a particular page is not appearing in search results or why Google is not able to crawl a certain type of content on your website.
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
In today’s mobile-first world, it’s crucial that your website is optimized for mobile devices. In fact, Google now uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in its search algorithm. So if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you could be losing out on valuable search traffic.
Luckily, there are a few easy ways to make sure your website is mobile-friendly. First, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to check if your website is correctly formatted for mobile devices. If it’s not, you’ll need to make some changes to your website’s design.
Another important factor to consider is page speed. Google has said that it uses page speed as a ranking signal in its algorithm, so you need to make sure your website loads quickly on all devices. One way to do this is by compressing your images and using a content delivery network (CDN).
By following these tips, you can ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and ready to rank in Google’s search results.
Check your site’s loading speed
Too much time spent loading web pages is one of the main reasons people will leave your site. If your pages take too long to load, you could be losing customers and damaging your business.
There are two main ways to check your site’s speed: using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool and Pingdom’s Website Speed Test.
PageSpeed Insights will give you a general idea of how quickly your pages are loading, as well as specific suggestions for improving their speed. Pingdom’s Website Speed Test will give you a more detailed analysis, including the exact time each page takes to load and a breakdown of the different elements on the page (e.g., images, CSS files, etc.).
Both tools are free to use, so there’s no excuse not to check your site’s speed regularly. If you find that your pages are taking too long to load, there are a number of ways to improve their speed, including:
- Optimizing images by reducing their file size
- Minifying CSS and JavaScript files
- Reducing the number of HTTP requests
- Using a content delivery network (CDN)
On-page and Content
It is believed by many in the SEO community that on-page and content are two of the most important success factors for any website. While the quality of your website’s content is certainly important, on-page SEO is what tells the search engines what your website is about and how they should rank it. In this article, we’ll take a look at both on-page SEO and content and see how they work together to help you rank higher in the search engines.
Fix duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags
One of the most common mistakes that we see people make when it comes to their title tags is that they either have duplicate tags, missing tags, or truncated tags. All of these can have a negative impact on your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
Duplicate title tags are when you have more than one title tag on a page. This can happen if you have multiple pages with the same content, or if you have a dynamic title tag that is generated based on the user’s interaction with the page (e.g., clicking on a link). Having duplicate title tags can be confusing for search engines and can result in lower rankings for your pages.
Missing title tags are when a page does not have a title tag at all. This is often due to poor template design or forgetting to add a title tag to a new page. Missing title tags can also occur if you are using a content management system (CMS) that doesn’t give you the option to add a title tag. Regardless of the reason, having missing title tags will hurt your SEO as it makes it harder for search engines to index your pages.
Truncated title tags are when your title tag is cut off due to it being too long. This usually happens because people try to cram too many keywords into their title tag, or because they don’t properly structure their code. Truncated title tags can be just as detrimental as missing title tags, as they provide search engines with incomplete information about your pages.
Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions
If you want your website to rank well in search engines, it’s important to have unique and relevant meta descriptions for each page. Duplicate or missing meta descriptions can hurt your website’s search engine optimization (SEO), so it’s important to find and fix any that are present on your site.
To find duplicate or missing meta descriptions, you can use a number of different tools, including Google Search Console and Screaming Frog. Once you’ve found any duplicates or missing meta descriptions, you’ll need to either edit the existing ones or add new ones. Be sure to include keywords that are relevant to the page’s content, as this will help improve your website’s SEO.
Find and fix multiple H1 tags
One of the most important aspects of on-page SEO is the proper use of H1 tags. H1 tags are HTML tags used to indicate the most important heading on a page. While most CMSs allow you to set a H1 tag for your blog post or website page, sometimestheme developers forget to add them in, or multiple H1 tags accidently get added. Either way, it’s important to check for multiple H1 tags and make sure there is only one per page.
Here’s how:
-Inspect the HTML of your pages using a web developer toolbar like Firebug for Firefox or Web Inspector for Chrome.
-Look for the <h1> tag. If there are multiple on the page, that’s an issue.
-If you see more than one H1 tag, you’ll need to either remove the extras or correct the problem with your theme code.
Off-Page SEO
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).
Analyze your competitor’s link profile
One way to figure out what kind of links your competition has is to perform a link analysis. A link analysis is an audit of all the links that are pointing to a specific website. This includes links from other websites, social media platforms, and even from within the website itself (internal links).
Link analyses can be incredibly helpful in understanding how your competition is ranking so highly in search engine results pages (SERPs). By understanding what types of links they have, you can start to build similar (and hopefully better!) links for your own website.
There are a few different ways to perform a link analysis. The most common method is to use a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. These tools will crawl the internet and compile all the links they find into an easy-to-use interface.
Once you have your list of links, you can start to analyze them. Look at the anchor text (the text that is linked) and see if there are any patterns. Do the majority of the links use keyword-rich anchor text? If so, that’s a good indicator that those keywords are helping the website rank well.
You can also look at the type of links pointing to the site. Are they mostly from other websites? If so, that’s a good sign that the site has built up a strong reputation online. Are they from social media platforms? If so, that could be why the site is ranking well for social media-related keywords.
By analyzing your competitor’s link profile, you can get a good idea of what type of links you need to be building for your own website.
Conduct a link intersect analysis
Link intersect analysis is the process of finding out where two or more websites link to the same resource. This is also known as link referral or listening in on the conversation.
The most common use for link intersect analysis is to find new link building opportunities, but it can also be used to track down lost links, monitor competitors, or even find out which websites are linking to a particular resource.
There are a few different ways to conduct a link intersect analysis, but the most common is to use a tool like ahrefs, Majestic, or Moz. Simply enter the URL of one website into the tool and then add the URL of another website. The results will show you all of the pages that both websites link to.
Link intersect analysis can be an incredibly powerful way to build new links or track down lost ones. However, it’s important to remember that not all links are created equal. A link from a high-quality website will be worth more than a link from a low-quality website, so be sure to take that into account when you’re looking at your results.
Target your competitors’ broken backlinks
A broken backlink is a link from one website to another that no longer works. When you come across a broken backlink on a website, you can often reach out to the website owner and offer to replace the broken link with an active link to one of your own websites. This is called “link reclamation.”
There are two ways to find broken backlinks on other websites:
- Use a tool like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. Enter your competitor’s domain into Site Explorer and switch to the “All pages” report. Then, click on the “Best by links” tab and sort by “404 errors.” This will give you a list of all the pages on your competitor’s website that have broken backlinks.
- Use Google Search Console. Go to your Google Search Console account and click on the “Crawl” tab. Then, click on “Crawl Errors” and you’ll see a list of all the 404 errors on your website. You can then reach out to the websites that are linking to these pages and offer to replace the broken link with an active link to one of your own websites.