How to Optimize Your WordPress Website for SEO

Posted on 8 de November, 20185 de November, 2019 by Greg Lacan

Learning about tips and plugins to help you optimize your WordPress website for SEO will save you time and headaches.

Many people seem to believe that just getting a WordPress site up, running, and filled with content is the hard part. It’s not. Optimizing your site for SEO can not only be confusing but also time-consuming and defeating for a new user.

Optimizing your WordPress website for SEO is super important for getting it recognized by search engines. Once your page is properly recognized, you can enjoy more traffic and exposure. Which is necessary to create the buzz you need to get you noticed. These tips and plugins are sure to make that task loads simpler by helping you optimize your WordPress website for SEO without all of the hassles.

Don’t make your site visible until you’re ready to launch

A big mistake that many beginners make is publishing their site or pages before they’re public ready. This can not only confuse search engines and lower your rank, but it can also turn viewers off to your content. There are a few great ways to keep your content under wraps until it’s ready.

WordPress Admin

To keep your entire website hidden from search engines, WordPress features a “Search Engine Visibility” option. You can access this from the Admin area by selecting Settings >> Reading page. Make sure that you uncheck this box when you’re ready to launch.

WordPress NoIndex/NoFollow Tags

Use rel=“noindex” or rel=“nofollow” tags in the pages of your blog to keep them from getting crawled before they’re ready. Additionally, use the rel=“nofollow” tag for hyperlinks that don’t relate directly to your page content. The rel=“noindex” on less important pages that have duplicate content or titles to keep Google bots from thinking you’re duplicating your content across multiple pages.

Use SEO Friendly URLs

Permalinks are a great place to stash some SEO friendly keywords and improve your site rankings. WordPress defaults to using ?p=[id number] to generate permalinks for your pages. Search engines don’t recognize this format.

Circumvent this issue by manually switching permalinks to a text-based structure. Using the structure of “Yourdomain.com/year/whatever-your-post-is-titled”.

You can input specific keywords that search engine bots can recognize. You can alter your permalinks structure in the WordPress Settings >> Permalinks page.

Get an SEO Plugin

If you’re just starting out, getting an SEO plugin is one of the easiest ways to optimize your WordPress website for SEO. These plugins allow you to monitor traffic, keywords, meta descriptions, and loads more depending on which you choose to go with. There are a number of free online plugins for SEO (Yoast or All-In-One-SEO for instance), so don’t feel like you need a paid version to start.

Create a XML Sitemap

Sitemaps provide search engines links to all of the content on your site. This makes it easier for the search engine to index your content. A sitemap won’t necessarily boost your rankings, but it does allow search engines to find and rank your pages sooner.

Some SEO plugins will automatically curate a .xml sitemap for you. When you have the .xml sitemap created, submit it to Google and Bing. Adding your site to Google Search Console can streamline any processes that your sitemap plugin may not perform for you (I.e. submitting your sitemap).

Google Search Console

Google Search Console (old Google Webmaster Tool) is an SEO tool that shows you exactly how Google views your site. It gives users reports and data on how their site is seen by Google, which can tell you what’s working well on your site, and what isn’t. To learn more about Google Search Console, check out their page.

Keep Your Site Quick

Speed is an important factor when it comes to search engine rankings. Your site should always load quickly. There are a few tricks to ensure that this happens without fail:

– Use a caching plugin
– Pick a good Webhost / server
– Use a CDN for larger site performance
– Optimize images on your site (weight – use image compression – and ALT text)

Each one of these tricks and plugins can considerably improve the speed of your site. This will not only benefit your site with search engine rankings, but it also makes your site more user-friendly for viewers.

SEO Strategy: Are you the egg or the chicken?

Posted on 25 de August, 20175 de November, 2019 by Greg Lacan

If you are reading this article, I’m pretty sure it is not the first time you have been hearing about SEO strategy. (Just in case I’m wrong you can check our previous post first here).

In which case I won’t bore you with “the greatest strategies of SEO” or “The hidden secrets” that you already know! Instead, I will help you analyse your SEO in order to define which strategies are the best for you. Where are you at you’re best and when are you failing.

This will allow you to occupy your precious time with the best SEO strategy for you!

This SEO strategy will tell if you are the egg or the chicken!

Recently, someone got to the bottom of this question and after I don’t know how much time, but I’m betting a lot, he figured out the answer. So what the hell does this have anything to do with SEO strategy?

First, don’t you want to know the answer? The answer is as simples as this: an egg can become something that is not a chicken, and because of that every chicken had to be first of all and egg, but not all of the eggs came from chickens.

So the answer is: First came the egg.

Now to the point: If you are used to SEO techniques you are the egg, if you are new to this whole thing, you are the chicken!

Best SEO strategies for eggs

The strong thing about “eggs” is that they understand what is happening, they’ve seen it arrive and they know how to deal with it.

The problem with this type of SEO marketeers are the “old habits”. They forget to do their homework and keep looking for new and better ways to have things done.

Even if you are the best, you’ve studied, you’ve read. It is not enough, the digital age is transforming everything at overwhelming speed, including itself. So the best strategy for the “eggs” is to keep informed.

Generally, this type of marketeers also differs from the “chickens” when it comes to technical skills. So take advantage of that and work on content and innovation.

Do not settle! Now that you know your strengths here is a list of current and amazing tools to help you keep up with SEO changes.

Google Webmaster YouTube Channel

Local SEO Changes

SEO Patents

Google or HubSpot Analytics

Google Search Console (aka Google Webmaster tools)

And then came the chicken…

A totally different story is the chicken SEO strategy. Actually, it’s the opposite. Unlike the egg, the chicken came after and is working hard to keep up. Because they are new, they research a lot, they keep reading, asking questions and learning about different and new ways to do things.

The problem with these chickens is that they are all over the place. Trying to fix everything and learn everything and they do not focus. Also, they can’t really tell if something is great or terrible advice and just go for it. On the other hand, those tend to have the most interesting contents because they are writing genuinely from their hearts.

I’m the chicken, now what? Well, if you are the chicken, the answer to your problems is focus and practice. Focus on your SEO strategy, and practice until you know it by heart. Otherwise, you will be wondering around in between tips and techniques and nothing will ever become strong enough to work.

Hope you found this useful!

If you want to check out some more of our SEO related articles, we suggest the one on “Keyword Research Tools“.

What is On-Page SEO?

Posted on 9 de August, 201725 de February, 2020 by Greg Lacan

The On-Page SEO and its Attractiveness

When discussing SEO strategies, many people get carried away with tips and techniques and few bother learning what “On-Page SEO” really is all about.

On-page SEO comes up a lot when you are deciding your strategy, and so does off-page, but, what do they have in common?

Let’s go back a little.

When you are doing SEO, the main goal is to “seduce” search engines, so that they choose you instead of millions of others.

But let’s take a look at the other side of this relationship: what do search engines want from you? What are they looking for in this “relationship”.

This is where we can separate things.

See, if search engines are looking for a relationship, and you are the candidate, your personality is the on-page SEO and your appearance is the off-page SEO.

Come have a closer look to the meaning of all of this.

What is on page SEO and off page SEO?

We’ve said that on-page SEO is your personality and off-page SEO is your appearance and by that we mean: on-page SEO is the quality of content and off-page SEO is quality and quantity of external links leading to your website.

On-page SEO is about writing the right keywords, good content, define alt descriptions that are relevant and everything that you can find inside your website.

Off-page SEO is the opposite, speed, backlinks, social media promotion, everything you can find on the outside.

Do you understand now why, in order to seduce search engines, you need to have both on-page SEO and off-page SEO?

Looks aren’t everything: improve your on-page SEO

Ok, if you got this far you realize that the way you look matters, but also you gotta have some sense of humour, some intelligence, some quality content.

And how can I do that?

Well, on-page SEO is all about making your content the best. We made a checklist for you to verify if you are killing it or if you need a little more preparation!

Let’s elaborate:

To be able to check the full on-page SEO checklist you must have:

Title tag

A title tag is a title that is displayed on search engine results pages and it is supposed to be a description that correctly defines your page’s content.

Title tags are very important for your on-page SEO because they are a ranking factor that could make you or break you. Few people put the effort on title tags and this could really hurt your on-page SEO.

To check this box you must make sure to write unique title tags.

Use this tool to see if your title tag is looking good: Title tag tool

URL

“Valuable A URL (Uniform Resource Locator), more commonly known as a “web address”, specifies the location of a resource (such as a web page) on the internet.” Moz

Once again, the importance of checking this box is about describing what can be found on your page. The more accurate it is, the better.

Remember this: URLs must be shorter than 2,083 characters if you want them to work in all browsers.

Meta Description

The meta description is that little description that appears underneath the title tag in a search engine results page.

Keywords

We got you covered on this topic. Check out our post about keyword research!

Once you’ve covered this topic, check the box!

Rich content

Research shows that the best-placed content on Google has about 2000 words.

So, try to make super-complete articles that can really enlighten your audience about the topic you are writing about, especially if it is a competitive one. Dig deep into the subject, approach different views, make it complete but interesting!

Visual content

Visual content is great for increasing the user’s on-page time. That matters a lot because it can decrease your bounce rate which is a ranking factor.

Invest in multimedia resources and make sure your images have ALT attributes. What does this mean?

It means that you can also practice on-page SEO with your visuals, by using relevant keywords.

There are also ways to optimize videos, incorporate them in your content to rank better.

Now you can check off every item of your box, but pay attention, looks are important too.

Do you really want to seduce search engines? Then combine looks and personality and they won’t resist you!

On-page SEO + Off-page SEO = Success!

Hope you can now know what is on-page SEO!

For more articles check out other posts!

Competitor Analysis: Know Your Competition!

Posted on 20 de July, 20178 de March, 2020 by Greg Lacan

Competitor Analysis

Why is a competitor analysis so important for your business?

Did you already notice some traffic drop, lower sales, sudden lack of visibility online?

In order to successfully increase your traffic and create brand awareness, it is vital that you know your business!! But is that enough?

Why do you need a competitor analysis?

A competitor analysis is a great way to learn more about your competition, your niche, your environment and activity. All this while improving your own business!

With this process, you will be able to identify your SEO targets and get relevant insight in order to help build your strategy and most importantly get in front of your main competition in the run for organic traffic and keywords ranking in the SERP (Search Engine Result Pages).

How do you conduct a competitor analysis?

When trying to beat your main competition, it is necessary to be methodical and always follow the same analytical process.

Let’s start the competitor analysis by following these basic steps.

Identify potentially relevant competitors

It is very important that you don’t limit your research to other companies or websites that offer the same type of products or services. Broaden your scope and search for everyone who is competing with you in search results pages for keywords related to your business and niche activity. That is the only way to cover all your bases.

Here are some tools that will greatly help you to make it happen: Alexa Top Sites, SimilarWeb Websites Ranking & Sites Profile.

Identify relevant Keywords from Competition

Then, you will need to identify as many Keywords as possible that are used by your competition to drive: organic traffic, sales, social media visibility, brand awareness, etc…You will also need some tools to help you identify the main keywords used by your competition:

SEMRush for keyword data, Ubersuggest or SEOchat Suggestion Keyword Finder) to gather Google suggestions for your keywords.

If you are specifically looking for Social Signals (such as shares, twitter, comments, etc…), we would suggest for you to use http://buzzsumo.com/. It is a great tool to be able to identify how content is performing globally for any topic or competitors. It helps you decide which piece of content is relevant and thus where you should be focusing your content production efforts on.

Analyse your Competitors

Now that you know who your competitors are, which keywords and content to work with, you will need to analyse your competitions’ websites as well as their link profiles (or backlink profiles).

Here is when it gets a little tricky: none of the tools we selected for you will help you find all the links. In fact, each tool might find different links. Now what? Do not panic, we can help.

If you want to make sure you have a complete competitor analysis (for the backlink point of view), we can let you in on our little secret: combine all tools, extract and clean all data in order to get the complete picture.

Here is a list of the main tools you will need:

Authority labs, Positionly, Advanced Web Ranking, The Moz SEO Toolbar, OpenSiteExplorer, CognitiveSEO Backlink Explorer and MajesticSEO; Moz On-Page Grader, and Web page SEO analysis tool

Compare Businesses & Strategies

Once you have arrived at this phase, it’s time to see where you really stand. Compare their website to yours.

For this step you might want to use the following tool : SEOchat’s Page Comparison tool

The analysis to your competitors is done, now go compete!

Hope you found this article useful, to learn more about Auditing your Competition, you can check our dedicated page on Digital Audits.

How to do Keyword Research: Keyword Tool for SEO Optimization

Posted on 12 de April, 20178 de March, 2020 by Greg Lacan

In a world where SEO and content marketing go hand in hand, doing your keyword research is as important as creating a good content marketing strategy.

You can create the most beautiful and well-written piece of content, but if you don’t address the keywords your prospects are looking for then they won’t land on your page. The key is to master both.

We’ll talk about content marketing on the upcoming blog post, so for now, let’s just focus on keyword research for SEO optimization.

Category: SEO