SEO Basics

SEO can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the world of online marketing. There’s a lot to learn, and it can be difficult to know where to start. However, understanding the basics of SEO is essential if you want your website to be successful. In this article, we’ll cover some of the basics of SEO so that you can get started on the right foot.

Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools

If you want to rank in Google, you need to set up and verify your website with Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools). This is a free tool that gives you insights into how Google sees your website. It also allows you to submit your sitemap, which is a file that tells Google about all the pages on your website.

To set up GSC, go to www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home, click “Add a Property,” and follow the instructions. Once you’ve verified your website, click “Sitemaps” in the left-hand sidebar and then “Add/Test Sitemap.” In the box that pops up, type in “/sitemap.xml” (without the quotation marks) and click “Submit.”

If you want to rank in Bing, you need to set up and verify your website with Bing Webmaster Tools. This is similar to GSC; it’s a free tool that gives you insights into how Bing sees your website. It also allows you to submit your sitemap.

To set up BWT, go to www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster, sign in with your Microsoft account, and follow the instructions. Once you’ve verified your website, click “Configure My Site” in the left-hand sidebar and then “Sitemaps.” In the box that pops up, type in “/sitemap.xml” (without the quotation marks) and click “Submit.”

Set up Google Analytics

One of the most important things you can do to set your website up for success is to set up Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track your website’s traffic and understand where it’s coming from.

To set up Google Analytics, you’ll need to create a Google account and then sign up for Analytics. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be given a “tracking code” that you’ll need to add to your website. The easiest way to do this is to add the tracking code to your website’s header file.

Once you’ve added the tracking code, it can take up to 48 hours for Google Analytics to start displaying data. But once it does, you’ll be able to see how many people are visiting your website, where they’re coming from, what pages they’re looking at, and more.

Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)

Most SEO plugins will take care of the basics like meta tags and sitemaps, but you may need to configure some of the settings to get the results you want. Depending on the plugin, you may be able to:

-Choose which post types and taxonomies to optimize
-Set the robots meta tag for individual posts and pages
-Generate a sitemap and submit it to search engines
-Add social media meta tags for share buttons
-Connect your site to Google Analytics for traffic tracking
-Edit .htaccess and robots.txt files (if your server allows it)

Keyword Research

One of the most important steps in the SEO process is keyword research. In order to rank for certain keywords, you need to first understand what keywords your audience is searching for. You can use keyword research tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner and semrush.com to find keywords that are relevant to your business. Once you have a list of keywords, you can start optimizing your website for those keywords.

Identify your competitors

In order to find the right keywords for your website or blog, you need to know who your competition is. A great way to do this is to type your main keyword into a search engine and see who comes up first. These are the people you need to beat in order to get ranked higher. Take a look at their website and see what keywords they are using. You can also use a tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find out what keywords your competitors are bidding on.

Conduct a keyword gap analysis

A keyword gap analysis is a process that you can use to figure out which keywords your competition is ranking for that you are not. It’s a simple yet effective way to make sure you’re not missing out on valuable traffic and can help you improve your SEO strategy.

To conduct a keyword gap analysis, follow these steps:

1. Make a list of the keywords you are already targeting.
2. Use a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to research your competitor’s keywords.
3. Compare your list of keywords to your competitor’s list and look for gaps.
4. Target the keywords that you are not already ranking for.

By conducting a keyword gap analysis, you can make sure you are targeting all the relevant keywords for your business and improve your chances of driving traffic and generating leads from search engines.

Find your main ‘money’ keywords

As you conduct your keyword research, you’ll want to focus on finding what are called “money keywords.” These are the keywords that are most likely to result in sales or leads for your business.

To find money keywords, start by brainstorming a list of words and phrases that are relevant to your business. Then, use a keyword research tool to see how many people are searching for those terms. Ideally, you want to find keywords that have a high search volume and low competition.

Once you’ve found several money keywords, try to incorporate them into your website and marketing materials. Use them in your titles, meta descriptions, blog posts, and even in your ads. By doing this, you’ll be able to attract more visitors who are actually interested in what you have to offer.

Technical SEO

technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website for Google with the goal of earning higher search engine rankings and driving more traffic to the site. The focus of technical SEO is on optimizing the website itself, rather than its content. This includes optimizing the site’s code, structure, and on-page elements like titles, metatags, and anchor text.

Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC

The “Inspect URL” feature in the Google Search Console can be extremely useful when it comes to identifying potential technical SEO issues with your website. This tool allows you to see how Googlebot sees your website and can help you resolve any issues that may be preventing your website from being properly indexed by Google.

Ensure your website is mobile-friendly

Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
Making sure your website is mobile-friendly is essential in today’s tech-savvy world. According to Google, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead. In addition, starting April 21, 2015, Google will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This means that if your website is not mobile-friendly, you could see a drop in your search engine rankings.

So how do you make sure your website passes the Google Mobile Friendly test? Follow these tips:

• Use responsive design: This is Google’s recommended design configuration. Responsive design serves the same HTML code on the same URL regardless of the device, but uses CSS media queries to alter the rendering of the page on different devices.
• Use separate URLs: Google also recommends this configuration for mobile websites. With separate URLs, you create different HTML versions of your website specifically for mobile devices. You can then use either redirection or a rel=canonical tag to send users from the mobile version of your site to the appropriate desktop URL.
• Size content to fit the screen: Make sure your text and other content is easy to read on a smaller screen. You can do this by using large font sizes and keeping your line lengths short. Also, avoid using Flash or Java since they are not supported on all devices.
• Use touch-friendly designs: If you want people to be able to easily tap and click on links and buttons on your website, make sure they are large enough and spaced far enough apart so that people with fat fingers can easily click on them.
  Check your site’s loading speed

There are a number of ways to check your site’s loading speed, but one of the most popular is Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Just enter your URL into the tool and it will rate your page’s speed on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being the fastest. The tool will also give you specific suggestions for how to improve your site’s speed.

On-page and Content

When you have millions on your mind, it can be difficult to make sense of it all. This is where on-page and content come in. On-page and content can help you organize your thoughts and information so that you can make sense of it all.

Fix duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags

What’s a title tag?

The title tag of a web page is the HTML element that specifies its title. The title tag is placed between the tags in the HTML code of a document. It is meant to give search engines and visitors a preview of what the contents of a specific page are about.

A properly formatted and keyword rich title tag is one of the most important on-page SEO factors. It tells search engines what your web page is about and encourages them to click through to your site. In addition, it appears at the top of your browser when someone visits your site and is used by social media sites when users share links to your pages.

How do I fix duplicate, missing, or truncated title tags?

If you have multiple pages with the same or similar title tags, you run the risk of confusing both search engines and visitors as to which page is most relevant for a given query. To fix this issue, make sure that each page on your site has a unique and descriptive title tag that accurately reflects its content. If you’re using a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress, there are usually plugins available that will allow you to dynamically insert unique titles into your pages’ code.

If some of your pages are missing title tags entirely, or if they are severely truncated (cut off prematurely), add or edit the tags so that they are no longer an issue. Keep in mind that each title should be no more than 60-70 characters long, including spaces, so as not to get cut off in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions

Your website’s meta descriptions are what show up in the search engine results pages (SERPs) when someone performs a relevant search. They’re also what show up on social media when someone shares one of your pages.

Because they play such an important role in how people find and interact with your website, it’s important to make sure that every page on your site has unique, relevant meta descriptions. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done — especially if you have a large website.

One way to find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions is to use a tool like Screaming Frog. This tool will crawl your website and generate a report that includes the meta description for each page. You can then use this report to quickly identify any pages that don’t have a meta description or have the same meta description as another page.

Once you’ve found all of the duplicates and empty fields, you can start writing unique, compelling meta descriptions for each page. Keep in mind that yourmeta descriptions should be short (under 160 characters), accurate, and persuasive enough to convince someone to click through to your website.

Find and fix multiple H1 tags

If you want to rank well in search engines, it’s important to use proper on-page and content optimization techniques. One of the most common on-page optimization issues is using multiple H1 tags on a page.

While it’s technically not incorrect to use multiple H1 tags on a page, it can cause problems for both users and search engines. For users, multiple H1 tags can be confusing and make it difficult to understand the structure of the page. For search engines, multiple H1 tags can be an indication that the content is not well-organized and not relevant to the topic of the page.

To find and fix multiple H1 tags on your website, you can use a free online tool like Screaming Frog. Simply enter your website’s URL into the tool and it will crawl your site and identify any pages with multiple H1 tags. Once you have a list of pages with multiple H1 tags, you can go through each one and fix the issue by removing all but one H1 tag.

Off-Page SEO

Analyze your competitor’s link profile

The first step in any good link building campaign is to analyze your competitor’s link profile. There are a few different ways to do this, but the easiest is to use a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer.

Once you have your competitor’s link profile, you can start to analyze it. Look at the quantity and quality of their links, and try to identify any patterns. Are there certain types of sites that tend to link to them? Are their links coming from a wide variety of sources, or are they concentrated in just a few places?

Once you have a good understanding of your competitor’s link profile, you can start to build your own links. Try to replicate their success by targeting the same kinds of sites that they’re getting links from. And if you can find any unique opportunities that they’re not taking advantage of, go for those too!

Conduct a link intersect analysis

In order to give your website the best chance to rank for your target keywords, it’s important to build links from high-quality websites that are also relevant to your niche. But how do you determine which websites are most likely to link to your site?

One way is to conduct a link intersect analysis. This is a process of finding all of the websites that link to your competitors, and then seeing which of those websites also link to you. This can give you a good indication of where you should focus your link building efforts.

There are a few different ways to conduct a link intersect analysis. You can use a tool like Ahrefs, or you can do it manually by searching Google for links to your competitor’s website.

Once you have a list of potential linking websites, you can check to see if they also link to you by doing a quick Google search. If they don’t, then you may want to reach out and try to get a link from them.

Link intersect analysis is a great way to focus your link building efforts and make sure that you’re getting links from high-quality, relevant websites.

Target your competitors’ broken backlinks

One great way to start building powerful backlinks is to find your competitor’s broken links and start seeking out opportunities to replace them. By targeting your competitors’ broken backlinks, you can:

-Build relationships with the site’s webmaster
-Get your site mentioned on a popular, high-authority site
-Potentially increase traffic to your site
To find your competitor’s broken backlinks, you can use a tool like Ahrefs. Just enter your competitor’s URL into the “Site Explorer” tool and then click on the “Backlinks” tab. From there, you can view all of the links that are pointing to your competitor’s site.