SEO Basics
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving the ranking of a website on search engines. The higher the ranking, the more likely people are to find the website. There are a number of techniques that can be used to improve the ranking of a website, but not all of them are effective. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the most effective SEO techniques.
Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools
Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster tools are web-based services that allow webmasters to track their website’s performance in the search engine results pages (SERP).
GSC provides insights on how your site appears in Google searches, while Bing Webmaster tools offers a similar service for websites appearing in Bing searches.
The main benefits of using GSC and Bing Webmaster tools include:
-Monitoring your website’s presence in the SERPs
-Identifying which keywords are driving traffic to your website
-Receiving notifications of manual actions or malware/spam issues
-Generating and submitting sitemaps
-Viewing data on your website’s click-through rate (CTR) and average position
Set up Google Analytics
To set up Google Analytics, you’ll need a Google account. If you don’t have one yet, go to google.com and create an account. Then, sign in to your account and go to google.com/analytics.
Once you’re on the Google Analytics page, click the “Sign up for free” button in the middle of the page.
On the next page, you’ll be asked to provide some information about your website. Fill out the form, making sure to include accurate information.
Once you’ve submitted the form, you’ll be taken to a page with your Tracking ID and code snippet. Copy both of these items so that you can paste them into your website’s code later on.
Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving the ranking of a website on search engines. The higher the ranking, the more likely people are to find the website.
There are a number of ways to improve the ranking of a website, but one of the easiest is to install and configure an SEO plugin. WordPress has a number of plugins available, but one of the most popular is Yoast SEO.
Once you have installed and activated Yoast SEO, you will need to configure it. The first thing you need to do is go to Yoast SEO > General and select your site’s type. This will help Yoast optimize your site for the right kind of keywords.
Now you need to add your site’s title and description. These are what will appear in search results, so it’s important to make them accurate and compelling.
Under Yoast SEO > Search Appearance, you can also add a logo and adjust other settings related to how your site appears in search results.
Finally, under Yoast SEO > Social, you can add social media profiles for your website and specify how you want your content to be shared on social media sites.
Configuring Yoast SEO can seem daunting, but following these steps will help you get started.
Keyword Research
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Identify your competitors
Your competitors are other businesses that sell products or services similar to yours. They may be direct competitors, selling the same products or services to the same target market. Or they may be indirect competitors, selling different products or services to the same target market.
Competitor analysis is the process of identifying your competitors and evaluating their strategies to determine their strengths and weaknesses relative to your own business. The goal of competitor analysis is to help you develop strategies to improve your own performance in the marketplace.
To do a competitor analysis, you need to collect data about your competitors, including information about their products, prices, marketing strategies, and target markets. You can collect this data through market research, public filings, and other sources. Once you have gathered this information, you can begin to analyze it to identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and develop strategies to improve your own performance in the marketplace.
Conduct a keyword gap analysis
A keyword gap analysis is the process of identifying which keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are not. This can give you insights into where you may be missing out on potential traffic and help you make informed decisions about which keywords to target.
To conduct a keyword gap analysis, you will need to:
- Research your competitors: Identify your top 3-5 competitors and analyze their organic search visibility.
- Identify your competitor’s keywords: Use a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to identify the keywords your competitors are ranking for.
- Compare your keyword list to your competitor’s: Look for gaps where you are not ranking but they are. These may be opportunities for you to rank for these keywords.
Once you have identified potential keywords to target, you can then use these insights to inform your SEO strategy and focus your efforts on targeting these keywords.
Find your main ‘money’ keywords
The first step in any keyword research project is to identify your main, or “money,” keywords. These are the terms that you want to rank for in search engines, and that are most relevant to your business or website.
To find your money keywords, start by brainstorming a list of terms that are relevant to your business or website. Once you have a list of potential keywords, you can use a tool like the Google Keyword Planner to help you narrow down your options.
When using the Keyword Planner, you’ll want to focus on two main metrics: search volume and competition. Search volume is a measure of how many people are searching for a particular keyword phrase every month. Competition is a measure of how many other websites are competing for that same keyword phrase.
You’ll want to choose keyword phrases with high search volumes and low competition levels. These are the phrases that are most likely to bring you traffic and help you achieve your marketing goals.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the practice of improving the ranking of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs) through optimizing the website’s architecture, content, and on-page elements. Technical SEO is a subset of SEO that focuses on the underlying structure of the website and the technical aspects of the website’s development and performance. Technical SEO includes optimizing the website’s code, URL structure, server setup, site speed, and mobile responsiveness. Technical SEO can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it is important to the success of any SEO campaign.
Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC
Google Search Console (GSC) has a number of features that can be extremely helpful for SEOs, and one of the most useful is the “Inspect URL” feature. This feature allows you to check whether a specific URL is indexed by Google and, if not, why not.
To use this feature, simply enter a URL into the GSC search bar and click “Inspect.” If the URL is indexed, GSC will provide information on the last time it was crawled and any linked assets (such as images). If the URL is not indexed, GSC will provide information on why not. This information can be extremely helpful in troubleshooting indexation issues.
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
Mobile-friendliness is one of the most important ranking factors for search engines. In fact, Google has stated that they are “now incorporating mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in search ranking algorithms.”
If your website is not mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on a lot of traffic and potential customers. People are using their mobile devices more and more to search the internet, so it’s important that your website can be easily viewed on a mobile device.
There are a few things you can do to make sure your website is mobile-friendly:
- Use responsive design: This means that your website will automatically adjust to fit the screen size of the device it’s being viewed on.
- Use a separate mobile site: If you have a separate website designed specifically for mobile devices, make sure it is easy to use and navigate.
- Use large font sizes and buttons: Mobile users should be able to easily click on links and buttons on your website. Make sure they are large enough to be clicked on with a finger, and spaced out enough so that they can be clicked on without accidentally clicking on something else
Check your site’s loading speed
In order to ensure that your site is accessible to as many people as possible, you need to make sure that it loads quickly. There are a number of factors that can affect your site’s loading speed, such as the size of your images and the code used on your site. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to check your site’s loading speed and get tips on how to improve it.
On-page and Content
on-page and content are two of the most important factors in SEO. On-page optimization is the process of optimizing individual web pages to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. Content is the bread and butter of on-page optimization because it is the main factor that search engines use to determine a page’s relevancy.
Fix duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags
Duplicate, missing, or truncated title tags can be a common problem when optimizing your website for search engine visibility. A title tag is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. Title tags are displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline for a given result, and are important for usability, SEO, and social sharing.
If you have duplicates, it’s important to find and fix them as they can cause issues with your website’s ranking and click-through rate. If you’re missing title tags altogether, you’re missing out on an important opportunity to improve your SEO. And finally, if your title tags are being truncated (cut off), you’re not giving searchers the full picture of what your page is about, which could lead to lower CTRs.
Here are some tips for fixing duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags:
- Use unique and descriptive titles for each page on your website
- Make sure your titles are no more than 60 characters long
- Use keyword research to determine which keywords to include in your titles
- Use HTML validation tools to check for errors in your code
Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions
When you have multiple pages with similar content, search engines may be unsure which page to index. To prevent this from happening, you should: - fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions
- Use 301 redirects to send users and search engines to the correct page
- use canonical tags to tell search engines which version of the content is the original
Find and fix multiple H1 tags
If you have more than one H1 tag on your page, that’s not good for SEO. You want to make sure that your main keyword is in your H1 tag, and if you have multiple H1 tags, it’s likely that your keywords are diluted and diffused throughout the tags, rather than being focused in one specific tag.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is the act of optimizing a website for Google search with the goal of earning higher web traffic levels and improving the visibility of the site. The main focus of off-page SEO is to earn links from other websites, which can be done through link building.
Analyze your competitor’s link profile
The first step in building backlinks is to analyze your competitor’s link profile. By looking at your competitor’s backlinks, you can get an idea of what type of links they are building and where they are getting them from.
Once you have a good understanding of your competitor’s link profile, you can start to build similar links for your own website. There are a few different ways to do this:
-Reach out to the same websites that are linking to your competitor and ask for a link
-Find websites that are linking to your competitor but not to you and ask for a link
-Build new content on your website that is worthy of backlinks and reach out to websites that might be interested in linking to it
Conduct a link intersect analysis
A link intersect analysis is a quick and easy way to find out which websites are linking to your competitors but not to you.
The first step is to compile a list of your top competitors. You can do this by using a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer or SEMrush.
Once you have your list, the next step is to use a tool like BuzzSumo or Majestic to find out which websites are linking to your competitors.
BuzzSumo will show you the top 10 websites linking to your competitor, while Majestic will show you the top 100.
Finally, once you have your list of websites, it’s time to do a little Google searching. Simply go to Google and type in “link:www.competitorwebsite.com” (without the quotes). This will show you all of the websites that are linking to your competitor.
From here, it’s just a matter of reaching out to these websites and asking for a link. Many SEOs use link intersect analyses as part of their link building strategy and it can be an extremely effective way to land new links.
Target your competitors’ broken backlinks
One of the most effective ways to improve your off-page SEO is to target your competitor’s broken backlinks.
A “broken backlink” is a link on another website that points to a page on your website that no longer exists. When a backlink points to a page that doesn’t exist, it’s “broken.”
There are two reasons why it’s beneficial to target your competitor’s broken backlinks:
- By fixing the broken links, you can restore any link equity that was lost when the page was deleted.
- It’s an easy way to get high-quality backlinks from authority websites.
To find your competitor’s broken backlinks, you can use a tool like Monitor Backlinks. Just enter your competitor’s URL and click “Show links.”