18 Things everyone should know about SEO

TECHNICAL SEO 

1. How to install Google Analytics, as it helps you: 

• See your most important analytics data first.
• Find out which online campaigns bring the most traffic and conversions.
• Determine where your best visitors are located.
• Learn what people are searching for on your site.
• Visualise what people click on the most.
• Identify your worst performing pages.

2. Using WordPress? Download the Yoast SEO Plugin. It will make your life 10x easier. Use it to complete many of the Technical and On-Page SEO best practices in one place.

3. Register on Google Search Console This free tool allows you to check how the search engines view your site with reports about indexing status, search queries, crawl errors and penalties. To learn more, visit A Beginner's Guide to Google Search Console

4. Improve Website Performance & Speed. Analyze your site with GTMetrix. Check out these 24 Must-Have WordPress Plugins for Business Websites in 2018

5. Take the Google Mobile-Friendly Test. It's easy to use; simply type in the full URL of the web page that you want to test. Any redirects implemented by the page will be followed by the test. The test typically takes less than a minute to run.

KEYWORD RESEARCH PROCESS

6. Create Buyer Persona: Buyer personas (sometimes referred to as marketing personas) are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers. Remember, customers, are not searching for your site. They are searching for valuable information to solve their problems. Learn here: How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business

7. Keyword Strategy. Aim to target less competitive “body and long tail keywords” that competitors have overlooked. Create content around a portfolio of keywords rather than one single term

8. Brainstorm for Keyword Ideas. Make a copy of this Keyword Research Template. Check Wikipedia for Topic Ideas and Synonyms. Generate the number of long tail keywords ideas by using 3 automated tools: Google Autocomplete, Ubersuggest & Keyword Shitter [all free].Discover untapped keywords and topics using Quora.

9. Narrow Down Your Keyword List: Use search volume data from Keyword Everywhere Extension or Google Keyword Planner to cut down the list. Be sure to consider commercial intent using Cost-per-click (CPC) figures as a guide.

10. Choose Target Keywords: Once you have a list of possible keywords & phrases, start by reviewing the first page of Google for each keyword. Look to see if there are well-established sites with high-quality content. Then, use data from the MOZ SEO Toolbar to see the authority and number of links competitors have. Eliminate overly competitive keywords and focus on keywords you actually have a chance to rank for. Your chosen keywords will be the centerpieces of your content.

ON-PAGE SEO 

11. Include Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name in Title tags, avoid duplicacy and maintain the length I.e. 55 characters or less, including spaces. If you’re interested in learning more about the new title tag guidelines, check out this post by Dr. Pete.

12. Follow Best Practices for URLs. Use short and sweet URLs that include your target keyword. e.g. www.yourdomain.com/target-keyword. Avoid numbered URLs like www.yourdomain.com/p=123. Always-use-hyphens-in-URLs. Never_use_underscores_in_urls_instead-use-hyphens.

13. Write compelling meta descriptions of 150 to 160 characters and avoid any use of quotes or any non-alpha characters. 

14. Create extremely relevant content for the targeted keywords, avoid keyword stuffing and using keyword phrase 4 times within the content and Include links from other pages within your website that point back to the appropriate page

LINK BUILDING 

15. Link Building Strategy. Not all backlinks are created equal. Your goal should be to earn quality “do follow” backlinks from high ranking pages in your niche. Earn these naturally by creating (and promoting!) content worth linking to.

16. Analyze Your Competitor’s Backlinks, Rankings & Traffic by tools like Ahrefs, Open site explorer, etc. This is the easiest way to get started with link building. Look at each of Top 10 search results for your target keyword, views link for each page using the MOZ SEO Toolbar. Focus on their “Inbound Links” from “Only External” sources to see who has linked to them.

17. Maximise Links for Your SEO Campaigns. Find authoritative links in the tools above and reach out to those sources to pitch your latest blog post or product. Expect 5% response rate from these cold emails.

18. You can also search for existing non-linked content using Mention or Buzzsumo. Contact the owner or author of the piece and ask them to kindly link back to you if possible.

I hope you like this article 18 Things everyone should know about SEO, if yes, please don’t feel shy to comment here or get in touch with me via [email protected].

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