Website SEO to rank your website at higher position on Google search results.
What is website SEO?
Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing/tweaking text, images and videos in order to improve their organic search engine visibility.
We optimize our websites so that search engines can index them to identify where they should rank in relation to user searches.
Important ranking factors for website SEO
Uses of Keywords
keywords are the search queries that users type into search engines when they are looking for specific content. When you’re aiming your content at a specific keyword, you should try to include this in the title, content, permalink (URL), images etc.
Content Length and Quality
Search engines place a lot of emphasis on the use of original and valuable content. It is advised to write at least 300 words of original content for a blog post. Search engines can identify duplicate content and it can affect your ranking heavily.
Optimizing everything
It isn’t just your text content that needs to be optimized, images and videos also need to have relevant keyword tags in order to achieve a high ranking.
Internal and Outbound links for website SEO
You will want to include links to other content on your website as well as outbound links to sources or relevant content on other websites. You should try to limit the amount of outbound links otherwise Google will identify you as a bridging website which will affect your ranking.
Off-Page Ranking
Getting links to your content and website from other trusted websites is a big plus for SEO. Trusted websites that link back to yours will tell Google your content is valuable and will improve your ranking. Social media also plays a big role. When active and popular social media accounts link to your website, this also favors your ranking.
Read more: Use Social Media to Drive Website Traffic
Other Factors for website SEO
When you submit your sitemap, it tells Google how many pages are on your website and how they link together, making it easier for Google to index your website.
Having a mobile optimized website is an important factor. We will be using mobile responsive themes when making our websites that means they should work well on mobiles.
Your page speed plays a big role; try to avoid large images and videos as well as hundreds of unnecessary pages.
We use compression plugins to reduce our image sizes and caching plugins to improve overall performance.
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Keyword Research for website SEO
Earlier on, we carried out some keyword research to find a name that wasn’t popular in order for our website to rank high on Google.
When aiming your content at specific keywords, you will want to research popular keywords in your topic.
Pick a short keyword phrase at first and enter it into the keyword tool at Google Keyword Planner.
We already mentioned how to do volume data keyword research at the start of Best way to create a website for your onling business – Part one.
We will now show how to search for data on websites, categories and trends.
To be able to use the Google Keyword tool effectively, you will have to create a Google Adwords account. This involves entering your billing details but you will not be charged until you create a campaign.
We are only using the tool to research keywords so will not be paying anything. I created a campaign with a £0.10 budget, and then remove the campaign when on the Adwords dashboard.
From here, hover over Tools at the top and select Keyword Planner.
If you wanted to blog about or review TV shows for example, you could enter the following information.
This will give you a list of popular searches for TV shows. You will want to choose a search with low competition to have a higher chance of ranking on the top page.
When you find a topic you would like to blog about, switch from Keyword Ideas to Ad group ideas in order to see groups of popular searches for a particular keyword.
For example, clicking on Breaking Bad will give you the following
This is just an example of how to find popular search terms that you may want to blog about.
Setting up your website SEO
Head to the dashboard for your Yoast SEO plugin:
Under the Your Info tab, enter your Website name, an alternate name if you have one, and choose whether you are a company or person. If you select Company, you can then upload your logo.
The Webmaster Tool section is where you will verify the ownership of your website to Google.
Head to Google Search Console and log in using your Gmail account. Click Add a Property
Enter your website name and click Add. Continue to press verify using the GoDaddy.com verification tool.
Log in using your GoDaddy username or Customer # and password and then press Accept to continue. This should take around 60 seconds to verify.
Once this is finished, you should be notified that your domain has been successfully verified, click continue.
You should be then redirected to the Google Search Console dashboard. You can navigate away from this now but we will be revisiting it when we submit our XML sitemap and set up analytics on our website.
Back to Yoast SEO
Navigate to the Titles and Meta section under Yoast SEO.
General
This is where you can select the Title separator that will appear between your site name and site description.
You can leave the readability analysis and keyword analysis enabled.
Homepage
This is where you enter how your homepage will show on Google, you can leave the default values for the title template and it will be generated automatically. Alternatively you can add your own values as well as a meta description.
The result is this:
Post Types
You can change the default settings for your posts, pages, media etc. pages here. You can input information into these parameters when you create a new post.
If you want the date of the post to be shown in search engine results (recommended) then enable the Date in Snippet Preview.
You can use a number of variables for title templates as shown below.
Taxonomies, Archives & Other
You shouldn’t need to change these settings. Many people haven’t heard the word taxonomy before. An explanation of WordPress taxonomies can be found here.
The same goes for Archives, but the principle is the same as the other post types.
Other Yoast Settings
At this point we will not be adjusting the settings for Social, XML Sitemaps, Advanced & Tools. When we reach the stage of creating social media accounts to link to our website we will revisit this section. When we have some content on our website we will then submit the XML sitemap to Google.
Search Console for website SEO
To allow your website to fetch the Google Search Console information, press the ‘Get Google Authorization Code’ button.
A pop up window should appear, press allow to continue. Copy and paste the code given into the box, then press Authenticate.
This should now show your website profile, press Save Profile to finish.
Adding a new post with website SEO
To add a new post you can navigate to posts on the left and press Add New or click the ‘+ New’ menu at the top and then on Post.
It may look confusing at first, but is very simple once you understand what’s going on.
Optimizing your post for SEO
Keywords for website SEO
Include your keyword in your Title, Headings, Image ALT attribute, Permalink, Meta Description, Excerpt and a number of times throughout your actual content. However, do not try to stuff your keyword into your content unnaturally.
Yoast will give you feedback on how to optimize your post; you will want to achieve a good rating before you publish.
47 ShoutMeLoud – What’s optimum Keyword Density for Better Ranking?
Headings for website SEO
Try to include a variety of headings to split up your content into sections. Nobody wants to feel like they’re reading an essay. Try to use your keyword in a H2 heading at some point.
Include Links to seo your website
Include links both to other websites and to other pages/posts on your own website. This will encourage users to view more of your content.
Images for website SEO
Include a main featured image and a number of additional images in your blog post. When you upload an image, ensure that the Title and Alt Text contain your keyword, this is very important in improving your ranking.
Yoast will continue to give you feedback on your readability and SEO scores, you will want to aim for Readability as Good or OK and SEO as Good before you post your content.
Comments for website SEO
Encourage visitors to post comments by asking questions at the end of your post.
Adding & optimizing a page for website SEO
Adding pages in WordPress is even easier than a post as there are fewer options to consider.
The SEO aspect is the same and the only difference to consider is the parent attributes and templates for the page.
For example, if you have a section of your website dedicated to the staff that work at your business and want each member to have their own page, you would have the Team Members page as the parent to each of the individual team member’s pages.
The template gives you options on what layout the page will follow, this is particularly useful if you use a sidebar on your website and want to hide it on specific pages.
Google Analytics & XML Sitemap In order to track the analytics of your website, you will first need to get your tracking code. Follow the instructions in the article to get this… Get your tracking code.
Once you have your tracking code you will need to add it to every page. We can do this by adding it to the theme.php file on your website.
Head to Appearance Editor:
Select the Theme Header (header.php) file from the list on the right:
Insert your code after the <body <?php body_class); ? >> line.
This may just be <body> on certain themes.
Go ahead and press update file.
Google analytics is now set up on your website. It will take Google around 12-24 hours to start providing you with data on your website.
XML Sitemap for website SEO
To submit your sitemap and let Google know about your website head to Google Search Console, under Crawl on the left side, select the Sitemaps option:
Press ADD/TEST SITEMAP:
Head back to WordPress and from the Yoast SEO option select XML Sitemaps:
Press on the XML Sitemap button:
This will open up a new webpage, copy and paste the part of the URL after www.mywebsite.com/COPYTHIS.
Paste this into the box on the Google Search Console page and press submit.
This will now take 12-24 hours to be submitted to Google, at which point your website should start to appear in the Google search results.
Related articles:
SEO Copywriting: 41 tips for writing great SEO content.
Best Tips for Improving On Page SEO in 2020.
How to get backlinks to your site? The beginner’s guide.
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