SEO Basics
Search Engine Optimization 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 factors that contribute to a website’s ranking, and SEO is the process of optimizing those factors to increase the ranking. There are a number of ways to market your business, but organic marketing is one of the most effective.
Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools
Setting up Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster tools) and Microsoft/Bing Webmaster tools should be your next step after verifying your site in Google Analytics. These tools will give you insights into how the search engines are indexing your site as well as how visitors are interacting with your site once they find it in the SERPs.
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools will also send you alerts if there are any errors with your site that need to be fixed. For example, if you accidentally block a crucial page on your site with your robots.txt file, you’ll be notified so that you can fix the issue and get that page indexed and ranked!
Set up Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free website traffic tracking tool provided by Google. Setting up Google Analytics is essential if you want to track the performance of your website and see how people are finding and using your site.
To set up Google Analytics, you’ll need to create a Google account and then sign up for an Analytics account. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be given a code to add to your site. This code will allow Google to track the traffic on your site so that you can see how many people are visiting, where they’re coming from, and what pages they’re looking at.
Adding the code to your site can be done yourself if you have a basic understanding of HTML, or you can ask your web developer to do it for you. Once the code is added, it can take up to 24 hours for data to start appearing in your Analytics account.
Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)
If you want to make your WordPress website more search engine friendly, then you need to install an SEO plugin. There are a few great ones to choose from, but we recommend Yoast SEO. It’s free, it’s easy to use, and it’s constantly being updated with the latest changes in search engine algorithms.
Once you’ve installed and activated the Yoast SEO plugin, you need to configure it. The first thing you need to do is go to the General tab and add your site title and meta description. Your site title should be your business name or a brief description of what your website is about. The meta description is a short (155 characters or less) summary of what your website is about. This will show up in the search results, so make sure it’s catchy and accurate!
After you’ve added your site title and meta description, click on the Features tab and enable all of the features that you want to use. We recommend enabling all of them, but if you’re only interested in improving your website’s SEO, then focus on the features under the SEO heading.
The next step is to click on the Titles & Metas tab and configure the settings for each type of page on your website. For example, if you have a blog post, then you would want to choose “Post Titles” under the heading “Title Settings for WordPress Posts & Pages”. If you have an eCommerce shop, then you would choose “Product Titles” under the heading “Title Settings for WordPress Products & Archives”.
Once you’ve configured all of the settings, click on the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page. Congratulations! You’ve just taken your first step towards better WordPress SEO!
Keyword Research
The first step to marketing your business organically is keyword research. You need to find out what keywords people are searching for that are relevant to your business. There are a number of tools that you can use to do this, such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner, Google Trends, andWordtracker.
Identify your competitors
As a small business, it’s important to know who your competition is—not only so you can differentiate your own products and services, but so you can also stay up-to-date on industry trends and news. After all, if you don’t know what your competitors are doing, you could be missing out on some great opportunities for your own business.
There are a few different ways to identify your competitors. The most obvious method is to simply Google keywords related to your business. For example, if you sell handcrafted jewelry, you might search for “handmade jewelry” or “jewelry stores.” This will give you a general idea of who is selling similar products to you.
Another way to find your competitors is to look up industry associations or directories. These can be great resources for finding businesses in your field, even if they’re not specifically competing with you. For example, the Jewelers Board of Trade provides a directory of members, which includes retail jewelers, suppliers, designers, and more.
Finally, don’t forget to ask your customers! They may be able to give you some insights into who else they’re considering when they make a purchase from you. And once you have a list of potential competitors, you can start to research them in more depth.
Conduct a keyword gap analysis
A keyword gap analysis is the process of identifying the keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are not. This is important because it allows you to identify opportunities to rank in search engines for terms that will drive traffic to your website.
To conduct a keyword gap analysis, start by generating a list of all the keywords you are currently ranking for. Then, using a tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush, generate a list of your top 10 competitor’s domains. Finally, enter all of this information into a tool likeKeyword Gap to get a list of the keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are not.
Find your main ‘money’ keywords
Your money keywords are the ones that are going to make you the most money and help you reach your business goals the quickest. To find your main money keywords, start by brainstorming a list of around 50 potential keywords that you think best describe your business. Once you have your list, use a keyword research tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or KWFinder to get traffic estimates for each of your potential keywords. Look for the keywords with the highest monthly search volume and low competition, as these will be your main money keywords.
Technical SEO
Most digital marketing agencies will tell you that SEO is all about Link Building and Content Creation. And while those two tactics are important, they make up a very small part of the puzzle. The real key to ranking in the search engines is what’s known as “technical SEO.”
Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC
Google offers many tools to help website owners improve their visibility in search results, and one of the most useful is the “Inspect URL” feature in Google Search Console (GSC). This tool allows you to check if your website is properly indexed by Google and to find and fix any errors that might be preventing it from being listed.
Here’s how to use “Inspect URL” to help improve your website’s organic search visibility:
1. Sign in to GSC and select your website.
2. In the left-hand sidebar, click on “Crawl.”
3. Then click on “Inspect URL.”
4. Enter the URL of the page you want to check and click “Inspect.”
5. GSC will show you whether or not the page is indexed, and if not, why not. It will also show you any other errors that might be preventing the page from being indexed.
6. To fix an error, simply click on it and follow the instructions provided.
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
Google’s mobile-first index is now live for all websites, meaning that the search engine uses the mobile version of your site for ranking and indexing purposes. That means your website needs to be optimised for mobile devices if you want to rank highly in Google’s search results.
To ensure your website is mobile-friendly, start by checking if there is a responsive design in place. Responsive design ensures that your website automatically adjusts to the screen size of the device it is being viewed on. If you don’t have a responsive design, you will need to create a separate mobile website.
Once you’ve ensured your website is optimised for mobile devices, take a look at the following technical aspects to improve your mobile SEO:
-Page load speed: A slow loading page will negatively affect your ranking in Google’s search results. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to check your page speed and get recommendations on how to improve it.
-Meta tags: Meta tags provide information about your web page to search engines and visitors. They are used to optimise your web page for specific keywords and improve your click-through rate (CTR).
-Image optimisation: Large images can slow down your website, so make sure to compress your images before uploading them to your website. You can use a tool like TinyPNG to compress your images without losing quality.
-Structured data: Structured data helps search engines understand the content on your website and provides them with information about your products and services. Adding structured data to your website can help you appear in rich snippets, which are special listings that include additional information about your business such as reviews and prices.
Check your site’s loading speed
Slow site speed is a huge problem. Not only does it frustrate users, but it can also negatively affect your position in search engine results pages. In fact, Google has stated that site speed is one of the signals used by their algorithm to rank pages.
There are a number of ways to improve your site’s loading speed, but one of the easiest is to simply check your site’s loading speed and look for ways to improve it. There are a number of free tools that you can use to do this, including:
– Google’s PageSpeed Insights: This tool will give you a report on your page’sspeed and how to improve it.
– Pingdom: This tool will test your page’s loading speed from multiple locationsaround the world and give you a detailed report on what needs to be improved.
– GTmetrix: This tool will test your page’s loading speed and give you bothPageSpeed and YSlow scores, as well as recommendations on how to improve your score.
On-page and Content
Organic marketing of your business can be a great way to save money and get more customers to your website. You can start with on-page optimization, which is optimizing your website for the search engines. This can be done by including keywords in your titles and descriptions. You can also create great content that will attract new visitors to your site.
Fix duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags
One of the most common issues we see with title tags is incorrect implementation. This can take many forms, but some of the more common ones include:
1. Duplicate titles: This is when you have multiple pages on your site with the same or similar title tags. This can happen if you have duplicate content on your site, or if you have a template that is used across multiple pages (e.g., product category pages).
2. Missing titles: This is when a page does not have a title tag at all. This is often due to errors in the code of your site, or because the CMS you’re using doesn’t automatically generate title tags for every page.
3. Truncated titles: This is when a title tag has been cut off mid-sentence due to length restrictions. This generally happens because the title tag is too long, and has been cut off by Google to fit within their character limit (which is currently 60 characters for desktop and 55 for mobile).
There are a few ways to fix these issues:
1. If you have duplicate titles, you can either remove the duplicates or use unique titles for each page. If you have identical or similar product pages, for example, you can use unique titles that focus on different aspects of the product (e.g., “Product A – Best for X” and “Product A – Best for Y”).
2. If you’re missing title tags altogether, you can add them in manually by editing the code of your site or using a plugin if you’re using a CMS like WordPress.
3. If your titles are being truncated, you can try to shorten them so they fit within Google’s character limits. You can also try adding wealth statements or other information that will encourage users to click through to your site (more on this below).
Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions
A meta description is a brief summary of the content found on a web page. It is typically between 150-160 characters long and appears under the title in search engine results pages (SERPs).
If your meta descriptions are missing or duplicated across multiple pages, this can negatively impact your click-through rate (CTR) and organic search traffic. In this article, we’ll show you how to find and fix missing or duplicate meta descriptions using Google Search Console and Yoast SEO.
Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to view your website’s performance in Google Search. This includes data on your website’s clicks, impressions, CTR, and position in SERPs. You can use this information to identify which of your web pages are not appearing in search results, or have low CTRs.
To find and fix missing or duplicate meta descriptions using Google Search Console:
1. Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about
2. Click on the property you want to examine
3. In the left-hand sidebar, click on “Search Analytics” under “Search Traffic”
4. In the “Pages” section, select “Meta Description” as your primary dimension
5. If any of your web pages are missing a meta description, you will see them listed here
6. To fix these pages, add a unique and compelling meta description to each one
7. You can also use the “Average CTR” column to identify which of your web pages have low CTRs
8. To improve the CTR of these pages, make sure that your titles and meta descriptions are accurate and compelling
Find and fix multiple H1 tags
One of the most common SEO issues that we come across is multiple H1 tags on a page. This can mean anything from having more than one H1 tag in the code to having multiple H1s when the font-size is increased.
While there are some argue that having multiple H1s can be helpful for usability, from an SEO perspective, it confuses both users and search engines. Google’s algorithm is designed to select a single piece of content on a page as being most relevant to the query. So, if there are multiple H1s on a page, it’s not clear which one is most important.
There are a few ways to fix this issue. The first is to simply remove all but one H1 tag from the code. If you’re using WordPress, you can do this by going to Appearance > Editor and finding the header.php file. From there, you can look for any instances of
After you’ve removed the extra tags, you can then update your title and meta descriptions to reflect the changes.
The second way to fix this issue is by using font-size instead ofH1 tags. This can be done by adding a bit of CSS to your stylesheet:
h1 { font-size: 24px; }
h2 { font-size: 18px; }
This will ensure that all of your headings are properly sized and that only one appears as an H1 tag when viewed in a web browser.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is all about promoting your website or blog by creating links on other websites. The more links you have pointing back to your site, the higher you will rank in the search engines. There are many ways to create links, and we’ll cover some of the most effective methods in this section.
Analyze your competitor’s link profile
One of the most important aspects of off-page SEO is link building. In order to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), your website needs to earn links from high-quality websites. But before you can start earning links, you need to do some research on your competitors’ link profiles.
Analyzing your competitor’s link profile will give you insights into the types of links they are receiving, where their links are coming from, and what strategies they are using to build links. This information will help you create a link building strategy that is tailored to your niche and your goals.
Here are some tips for analyzing your competitor’s link profile:
1. Use a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer or Majestic’s Site Explorer to research your competitor’s link profile.
2. Look at the quantity and quality of their links. A high quantity of low-quality links is not as valuable as a small quantity of high-quality links.
3. Analyze the anchor text of their links. This will give you insights into the keywords they are targeting with their link building efforts.
4. Look at the sources of their links. If most of their links are coming from guest posts, you may want to consider using that strategy as well.
5.Finally, take a look at their recent linking activity. This will give you an idea of what strategies they are currently using and allow you to adjust your own strategy accordingly.
Conduct a link intersect analysis
A link intersect is when you find a site in your industry that’s linking to multiple competitors, but not to you.
The idea is to identify these sites and build relationships with the site owners in an effort to get them to link to your site as well.
Here’s how you can conduct a link intersect analysis:
1. Use a tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or Majestic to research your competitors’ backlinks.
2. Identify any sites that are linking to multiple competitors, but not to you.
3. Reach out to the site owner and let them know that you’re also in the same industry and would love for them to include you in their list of resources as well.
Target your competitors’ broken backlinks
Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors in SEO. But not all backlinks are created equal.
A broken backlink is a link to a page that no longer exists. When this happens, the link “points” to a 404 error page.
Broken backlinks are bad for two reasons:
1. They damage your SEO efforts.
2. They provide a poor user experience (UX).
To find broken backlinks, you can use a tool like Ahrefs Backlink Checker or Majestic Site Explorer. Both tools will show you the total number of backlinks pointing to each page on your website, as well as the number of referring domains.
To get the most accurate results, make sure to set the filters to show only “live” links (i.e., links that are still indexable by Google). You can also use the “Site feature” filter to find links that point to pages that don’t exist anymore.
Once you’ve found some broken backlinks, your next step is to reach out to the website owner and ask them to update the link. In your email, include a link to your website so they can easily find and update the link.
About the Author: Impruvu Team
