SEO Basics
Autoblogging can be a great way to quickly generate content for your website without having to put in a lot of effort. You can find PLR articles, spin them, and post them to your autoblog which will save you time. Autoblogging can also help you rank higher in the search engines because you will have more content on your site. However, there can be a few downsides to it as well. Let’s get into the details.
Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools
If you want your website to rank in Google search results, you need to set up Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster tools.
Google Search Console is a free service from Google that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s appearance in Google search results. You can use GSC to submit your sitemap, request indexing of new content, and check the status of indexed content.
Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service from Microsoft that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s appearance in Bing search results. You can use BWT to submit your sitemap, request indexing of new content, and check the status of indexed content.
Set up Google Analytics
Setting up Google Analytics is a critical first step in understanding your website traffic and SEO performance. To set up Google Analytics, you’ll need to create a free account and then add a Tracking ID to your website.
Creating a Google Analytics account is free and only takes a few minutes. You’ll need to provide your name, website URL, time zone, and some other basic information. Once you’ve created your account, you can add your Tracking ID to your website.
Your Tracking ID is a string of numbers that looks something like this: UA-XXXXXXXX-X. You can find your Tracking ID by going to the Admin tab in Google Analytics. Under the Property column, click on Tracking Info, and then click on Tracking Code. Your Tracking ID will be displayed at the top of the page.
Once you have your Tracking ID, you can add it to your website using one of several methods. The easiest way is to use a plugin like Yoast SEO for WordPress. Yoast SEO will automatically insert your Tracking ID into the header of your website without any coding required.
If you’re not using WordPress, or if you want more control over where your Tracking ID appears on your website, you can manually add the code to your website’s header yourself. You’ll need to insert the following code into the section of your website:
Replace UA-XXXXXXXX-X with your own unique Tracking ID before adding the code to your website. Once you’ve added the code, Google Analytics will begin tracking traffic to your site immediately.
Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)
There are a few things you need to do in order to set up an effective SEO strategy for your WordPress website. One of the most important steps is to install and configure an SEO plugin.
There are many SEO plugins available for WordPress, but we recommend using Yoast SEO. Yoast SEO is a popular and powerful plugin that can help you to optimize your website for better search engine visibility.
Once you have installed and activated the Yoast SEO plugin, you will need to configure it. Start by going to the Yoast SEO Settings page and clicking on theGeneral tab. Here you can enter your site’s title and description, as well as your preferred keywords.
Next, click on the titles & metas tab. On this page, you can configure how your titles and meta descriptions will appear in search results. We recommend keeping the defaults for most of these settings, but feel free to experiment and see what works best for you.
The next tab is the Social tab, which lets you connect your website to your social media accounts. This is optional, but we recommend doing it if you want to increase your website’s exposure on social media.
Finally, click on the XML Sitemaps tab. On this page, you can generate an XML sitemap for your website. An XML sitemap is a file that contains a list of all the pages on your website, which makes it easier for search engines to index your site. Once you have generated your sitemap, be sure to submit it to Google Search Console so that Google knows about all the pages on your site.
That’s it! You have now successfully installed and configured Yoast SEO on your WordPress website.
Keyword Research
Identify your competitors
In order to identify your direct and indirect competitors, you’ll need to do some research. Fortunately, this is a relatively easy process thanks to the internet. Start by doing a general search for your main keyword, and take note of the websites that come up. These are your direct competitors.
Next, try searching for keyword + “directory”. This will give you a list of directories that contain websites related to your keyword. These are your indirect competitors.
Now that you have a list of all your competitors, you can start to do some research on their keyword usage. Look at their website content, as well as any advertising or social media campaigns they may be running. Identify the keywords they are targeting, and add them to your list.
Conduct a keyword gap analysis
A keyword gap analysis is a process where you compare your website’s keywords to those of your competitors in order to find gaps in your keyword coverage. This can be an important part of your SEO strategy, as it can help you to identify opportunities to rank for new keywords.
To conduct a keyword gap analysis, you will need to first identify your website’s keywords, as well as those of your competitors. You can use a variety of tools for this, including Google AdWords Keyword Planner and Moz Keyword Explorer. Once you have a list of keywords, you can then compare them side-by-side to see where the gaps are.
If you find that there are some gaps in your keyword coverage, don’t panic! This is perfectly normal, and there are a few different ways that you can fill these gaps. One option is to create new content targeting these keywords. Another option is to optimize your existing content for these keywords. And finally, you can use pay-per-click advertising to target these keywords until such time as you are able to rank organically for them.
Find your main ‘money’ keywords
Your main ‘money’ keywords are the ones that are going to bring you the most traffic and conversions. They’re usually fairly broad, and they’ll be the foundation of your SEO strategy.
To find your main ‘money’ keywords, start by brainstorming a list of potential keywords for your business. Then, use a keyword research tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or Moz Keyword Explorer to get search volume data and other metrics for each keyword.
Once you have your list of keywords, prioritize them by traffic potential and conversion rate. The keywords with the highest traffic potential and conversion rate are your main ‘money’ keywords.
Technical SEO
Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC
Google’s “Inspect URL” feature in Google Search Console is one of the most useful tools for technical SEOs. It allows you to view a summary of how Google sees your website, including information about your website’s structure, content, and technical configuration.
This information can be used to identify and fix issues that may be preventing your website from appearing in search results, or that may be causing your website to rank lower than it should.
Here’s a quick overview of how to use the “Inspect URL” feature in Google Search Console:
- Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about and log in with your Google account.
- Click on the website that you want to inspect.
- In the “Inspect any URL” box, enter the URL of the page that you want to inspect, and click “Inspect”.
- Review the information that is shown about your page. You can click on the tabs at the top of the page to view different types of information, including:
-Sitemap: This section shows you the sitemap for your website, which can be used toping issues with sitemaps or improve server performance by fixing crawl errors. -Content: This section shows you information about your page’s content, including titles, meta descriptions, and whether or not your pages are being served as AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). -Structured data: This section shows you information about any structured data that is on your page, such as schema markup or open graph tags. -Robots tags: This section shows you whether or not your pages are being blocked by robots.txt files or meta robots tags. -URL parameters: This section shows you any URL parameters that are set on your pages, which can be usedto improve crawlability and indexation by search engines. 5. If you see any issues with your page, click on the “Request review” button to submit a request to Google for them to review and take action on your behalf.”
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
In order to ensure your website is mobile-friendly, follow these steps: - Use responsive design
- Use a mobile-friendly browsing experience
- Use shorter loading times
- Test your website on different devices
- Use an HTML5 doctype
Check your site’s loading speed
One of the most important technical SEO factors is site speed. Search engines want to provide their users with the best possible experience, and that includes delivery of search results as quickly as possible.
A slow site can negatively impact your search engine ranking, and it can also frustrate your users, leading to a higher bounce rate. There are a number of ways to improve your site’s loading speed, but one of the best is to optimize your images.
Image optimization involves reducing the file size of your images without reducing the quality. This can be done using a number of methods, including compressing the file or using a tool like Adobe Photoshop to reduce the physical dimensions of the image. Reducing file size can have a significant impact on your site’s loading speed, so it’s worth taking the time to do it right.
On-page and Content
On-page optimization is the process of making your website as friendly as possible to both search engines and human visitors. This includes ensuring your site loads quickly, is easy to navigate, and has high-quality content. Great content is one of the most important aspects of on-page optimization, as it is what will keep people coming back to your site.
Fix duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags
Google Webmaster Guidelines state:
“If you have a single page with multiple versions of a title tag, make sure that the version you want Google to index is the one that appears on the page, and use canonical tags to point Google to that version. If your site has pages with missing or truncated title tags, make sure that each page has a unique and descriptive title.”
Duplicate title tags can be caused by a number of factors, but the most common is when there is more than one version of a page accessible to Google. This can happen when there are multiple URLs for the same page (e.g. http and https) or when dynamic parameters are used in the URL (e.g. & or ?).
Missing title tags are usually caused by pages that are accessible to Google but don’t have a defined title tag in the HTML code. This can happen if the page is generated dynamically and theTitle Tag Generator doesn’t have access to the underlying HTML code, or if the page is blocked by robots.txt.
Truncated title tags can be caused by long titles that exceed the maximum length allowed by Google (60 characters for desktop devices and 512 pixels for mobile devices).
Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions
Most people don’t realize that having duplicate or missing meta descriptions can cause serious problems with their website. Not only can it hurt your search engine rankings, but it can also lead to lost traffic and potential customers.
Here are a few ways to find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions:
- Use a tool like Screaming Frog to crawl your website and look for pages that have no meta description.
- Check your Google Search Console account to see if there are any errors related to missing or duplicate meta descriptions.
- Use a tool like Yoast SEO to scan your website for missing or duplicated meta descriptions.
- If you find any pages with missing or duplicate meta descriptions, add unique descriptions for each page.
Find and fix multiple H1 tags
A recent study by Google shows that having multiple H1 tags can actually have a negative effect on your SEO. The study found that pages with more than one H1 tag were less likely to rank in Google than pages with only one H1 tag.
This is because the H1 tag is supposed to be a unique identifier for your page, and using more than one can confuse Google and other search engines.
If you have multiple H1 tags on your page, you need to find and fix them as soon as possible. The best way to do this is to use a tool like Screaming Frog, which will help you quickly find and fix all the H1 tags on your site.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO (also called “off-site SEO”) is the process of optimizing a website for improved performance in the search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s a fundamental part of any successful SEO strategy.
Analyze your competitor’s link profile
Off-page SEO is used to optimize your website for search engines with the help of external, or “off-page,” factors. These include things like backlinks, social media engagement, and brand mentions.
While on-page SEO is important for optimizing your website’s content and structure for search engines, off-page SEO is just as important for giving your website the “social proof” it needs to rank higher in search results.
One of the best ways to improve your off-page SEO is to analyze your competitor’s link profile. This will give you an idea of which websites are linking to your competitors, and how you can get those same websites to link to you.
To do this, you can use a tool like Ahrefs or Majestic. Just enter your competitor’s URL into the tool and it will show you all of the websites that are linking to them.
Once you have a list of potential link prospects, reach out to them and let them know why it would be beneficial for them to link to your website. If you can provide them with value (e.g., a helpful article or piece of content), they’ll be more likely to link to you.
Conduct a link intersect analysis
Link intersects are a powerful way to find link opportunities. By finding the right websites and influencers, you can get your brand in front of a whole new audience.
To start, you’ll need to gather a list of competitor websites. Once you have that, you can use a tool like BuzzSumo to find the most popular content from each site.
Once you have a list of popular content, it’s time to find where those links are coming from. You can use a tool like Majestic or Moz’s Open Site Explorer to do this.
Finally, it’s time to intersect the lists. Look for any websites that are linking to your competitors but not to you. These are websites that you could potentially get links from as well.
By conducting a link intersect analysis, you can quickly and easily find new link opportunities for your website.
Target your competitors’ broken backlinks
One of the quickest ways to give your site a boost is to target your competitor’s broken backlinks. Just like it sounds, a broken backlink is a link to a website that no longer exists or has moved.
There are a few ways to find broken backlinks:
- Use a tool like Check My Links. This Chrome extension will quickly scan a page and highlight any broken links in red.
- Use Google Search Console. Go to the Links report to see who is linking to your competitors’ pages, then contact those sites to let them know their link is broken and offer them your page as an alternative.
- Look for 404 errors in your competitor’s website using Google Analytics. Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages, then look for pages with high bounce rates and low pageviews. These are likely 404 pages, which means they’re getting traffic but not delivering what people are looking for. You can then contact the site owner and let them know you have a similar page that would make a great replacement.