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SEO Basics
What is SEO? SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.
Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools
Setting up Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools (BWM) for your website is a must for any serious blogger. Doing so will allow you to track your website’s progress and obtain valuable insights into how your site is performing in the search engines.
GSC provides data on your website’s search traffic, click-through rates, and the position of your site in Google’s search results. BWM offers similar data for websites that appear in Bing’s search results. Both tools are free to use and easy to set up.
Once you have registered for GSC and BWM, you will need to add your website to each service. This can be done by adding a new site in GSC or by submitting your website’s URL to BWM.
Once your site has been added, you will be able to access a wealth of data that can be used to improve your site’s SEO.
Set up Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free service that enables website owners to track detailed information about their site visitors. This information can be used to improve the effectiveness of a website by understanding how users interact with the site.
To set up Google Analytics, you will need to create a free account and then add a small piece of code to your website. Once Google Analytics is installed, you can begin tracking information about your website traffic, such as the number of visitors, the average time spent on the site, and which pages are most popular.
Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)
There are a variety of SEO plugins available for WordPress, but we recommend using Yoast SEO. It’s a comprehensive SEO solution that helps you optimize your website for both search engines and human visitors.
Once you’ve installed and activated the plugin, you’ll need to configure it. Yoast SEO will walk you through the process, but we’ve also outlined the steps below:
1. Go to SEO → General in your WordPress dashboard and click on the ‘Your info’ tab. Here you can enter your site’s title and description, as well as select your industry and social media profiles.
2. Next, go to the Features tab and enable or disable the features you want to use. We recommend keeping all of the features enabled, but you can disable them if you don’t plan on using them.
3. Once you’ve configured the general settings, it’s time to start optimizing your content. Yoast SEO will analyze each piece of content on your site and rate it based on a number of factors, including keyword density, readability, and whether or not you’ve used proper headings and meta tags.
4. To get started, simply edit a post or page and scroll down to the Yoast SEO box. Enter your focus keyword(s) and then click ‘Analyze.’ The plugin will then give you feedback on how well your page is optimized for those keywords as well as suggestions on how to improve it.
5. Repeat this process for every piece of content on your site until you’re satisfied with your results. With Yoast SEO, it’s easy to make sure that all of your content is properly optimized for both search engines and human readers!
Keyword Research
You may have the best product in the world, but without the right keywords, nobody will be able to find your site. That’s why keyword research is essential for any business with a website. By targeting the right keywords, you can attract the right kind of traffic to your site and generate more leads and sales. In this article, we’ll show you how to do keyword research like a pro.
Identify your competitors
Before you can begin to identify the right keywords for your blog, you need to first understand your competition. By understanding who your competition is and what they are blogging about, you can better craft your own content to be more unique and targeted. There are a few ways to go about researching your competition:
1. Look at other blogs in your niche – This is the most direct way to see what topics are being covered by other bloggers in your field. Simply do a Google search for blogs in your niche and see what topics come up the most.
2. Use Google AdWords Keyword Planner – This tool allows you to research which keywords are being used the most by advertisers in your field. Simply enter in a few competitor websites and AdWords will show you which keywords they are targeting.
3. Use social media – Social media is a great way to see what topics are trending within your industry. Simply do a search on Twitter or Facebook for your niche or industry + “blog” and see what topics come up the most.
Conduct a keyword gap analysis
To get started, you’ll want to conduct a keyword gap analysis. Simply put, this is a process of finding the keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are not. This will give you a clear idea of where you need to focus your efforts in order to close the gap and start ranking for those terms.
There are a few different ways to go about conducting a keyword gap analysis. The first is to simply use a keyword research tool like Google Keyword Planner or Moz Keyword Explorer.
Both of these tools allow you to input your competitor’s URL and they will show you the keywords they are ranking for that you are not. You can then prioritize those keywords and start working on building content around them.
Another way to conduct a keyword gap analysis is to manually check your competitor’s website and see what keywords they are targeting on their pages. You can do this by looking at the title tags, meta descriptions, and alt text on their site. If you see a keyword being used repeatedly, chances are they are trying to rank for that term.
Once you have a list of keywords you want to target, the next step is to start creating content around those terms. This could be blog posts, infographics, videos, or even just social media posts. Whatever content you create, make sure it is high quality and informative as this will help improve your chances of ranking for those terms.
Find your main ‘money’ keywords
You can use a variety of methods to find your main ‘money’ keywords – the ones that are going to make you the most money. Once you’ve found them, you can use them in your blog posts, on your website, and in your social media marketing.
1) Brainstorm a list of potential keywords.
2) Use a keyword research tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or KW Finder to get more ideas and find out how many people are searching for each keyword.
3) Look at your competition. See what keywords they are targeting and try to target similar ones.
4) Use keyword-rich phrases in your blog posts and on social media.
5) Use Google Analytics to track how well each keyword is performing and make changes accordingly.
Technical SEO
Does autoblogging work? If you have the time to set it up and maintain it, then yes, autoblogging can be a great way to generate content for your website without putting in a lot of effort. You can find PLR articles, spin them, and post them to your autoblog which will save you time.
Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC
The “Inspect URL” feature in GSC can be used to check if a page is eligible to appear in search results, and also to check the version of a page that Google has indexed. This can be useful for troubleshooting issues with pages not appearing in search results, or for troubleshooting pages that are not being indexed correctly.
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
Most people now use their mobile devices to browse the internet, so it’s important that your website is Optimized for Mobile. Mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor for search engines, so if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on valuable traffic.
There are a few things you can do to make sure your website is mobile-friendly:
-Use a responsive design: A responsive design will adjust to any screen size, so you don’t have to worry about creating separate versions of your website for different devices.
-Use large font sizes: Make sure your font sizes are large enough to be readable on a small screen.
-Use easy to tap buttons: Buttons and links should be big enough and spaced out enough so that they can be easily tapped on a small screen.
-Load quickly: Mobile internet speeds can be slower than desktop speeds, so it’s important that your website loads quickly. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to test your website speed and get suggestions on how to improve it.
Check your site’s loading speed
One of the most important technical aspects of SEO is site speed. Google has stated that site speed is a ranking factor, so it’s important to make sure your site loads quickly. The best way to check your site’s speed is to use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Just enter your URL and click “Analyze.”
Once you have your PageSpeed score, there are a few things you can do to improve it. If you’re using WordPress, there are a few plugins that can help with this, such as WP Rocket and W3 Total Cache. You can also optimize your images by compressing them and using proper image sizes.
On-page and Content
On-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results. The main goal of on-page SEO is to improve the visibility of a website for relevant keywords.
Your title tags are an important element of on-page optimization, and getting them right can be the difference between ranking well and not ranking at all. Unfortunately, title tags are often one of the most overlooked aspects of SEO, and as a result, many title tags are either missing, duplicate, or truncated.
Missing title tags are easy to spot – they’re simply pieces of text that should be there but aren’t. Duplicate title tags are a little more difficult to identify, but essentially they’re instances where the same piece of text is used more than once. Truncated title tags are those that have been cut off due to length restrictions, and as a result, don’t give searchers the full picture of what they can expect to find on your page.
All three of these issues can have a negative impact on your SEO, so it’s important to fix them as soon as possible. Here are a few tips for doing so:
– Use unique and descriptive titles for each page on your website.
– Keep your titles under 60 characters to avoid truncation.
– Use keyword research to determine which terms and phrases to include in your titles.
– Use a tool like Screaming Frog to help you find missing or duplicate title tags on your site.
Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions
A meta description is a brief description of the content of a web page. It is typically used by search engines to display a page’s title and a brief snippet of its content in the search results.
If you’re a webmaster, it’s important to make sure that each of your pages has a unique and relevant meta description. If you don’t, you could be missing out on valuable traffic from potential visitors who are searching for your content. Additionally, if your pages have duplicate or missing meta descriptions, it can negatively impact your click-through rate (CTR), which is the percentage of people who click on your listing in the search results.
Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions. In this article, we’ll show you how to do it using the Screaming Frog SEO Spider tool.
One of the most common problems we see with on-page SEO is multiple H1 tags. While it’s perfectly fine to have more than one H1 tag on a page, you want to make sure that you’re using them wisely. Too many H1 tags can actually hurt your SEO rather than help it.
Here’s a quick way to check if you have more than one H1 tag on your page:
-Open up your page in a web browser
-View the source code
-Search the page for “
” (without the quotation marks)
-If you find more than one “
” tag, then you have multiple H1 tags on your page
So why is it a problem to have multiple H1 tags?
Well, think about it from Google’s perspective. When they’re trying to figure out what your page is about, the first thing they’re going to look at is your H1 tag. If you have multiple H1 tags, Google is going to get confused and might not give your page the credit it deserves.
The fix is actually pretty simple: just remove all but one H1 tag from your page. If you’re not sure which one to keep, just pick the one that’s most relevant to the topic of your page.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is the process of optimizing a website for better search engine rankings. It involves improving the visibility and authority of a website through link building, social media, and other signals.
Analyze your competitor’s link profile
Off-Page SEO is all about building relationships and getting your brand mentioned on external websites. The goal is to get your brand name and website URL in front of as many people as possible, in the hopes that some of those people will visit your site and convert into customers.
One important way to do this is to analyze your competitor’s link profile. A link profile is simply a list of all the links that point to a website. By looking at your competitor’s link profile, you can get an idea of which websites are linking to them, and how you can get your website linked from those same websites.
To find your competitor’s link profile, you can use a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer. Simply enter your competitor’s URL into the tool, and you’ll be able to see a list of all the websites that link to them. Once you have this list, you can reach out to those websites and try to get them to link to your website as well.
Conduct a link intersect analysis
A link intersect analysis helps you find opportunities to acquire links by identifying intersections between sites that link to your competitors, but not to you.
When conducting a link intersect analysis, you want to find as many relevant, high-authority websites as possible that link to your competitors, but not to you. These are the websites that have the potential to give you a valuable link if you can convince them to do so.
To find these websites, start by making a list of your competitors. Then, use a tool like BuzzSumo or Moz’s Open Site Explorer to find websites that link to two or more of your competitors. These are the websites you want to focus on.
Once you have a list of potential linking partners, reach out and try to build relationships with them. If you can get these websites to link to you, it will give your SEO efforts a boost.
Target your competitors’ broken backlinks
A backlink is simply a link from one website to another. Backlinks are important because they are like votes or popularity contests for your website. The more backlinks you have, the more popular your site is, and the more popular your site is, the higher it will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).
One way to get more backlinks is to find opportunities where you can piggyback off of your competitors’ broken ones. This means finding websites that are linking to your competitors’ websites, but those links are no longer working. You can then contact those website owners and let them know about the broken link and offer them a working link to your site as a replacement. This is an easy way to get high-quality backlinks because you’re essentially getting a vote from another website that already ranks highly in search engines.
