There’s no shortage of quick start SEO guides out there, but how many of them actually make sense? In the spirit of making things as simple as possible, we’ve put together this plain English guide to 9 different SEO factors you need to consider. I will explain WHAT you need to do, followed by WHY it needs to be done.
Here’s our complete SEO expert guide to on-page analysis starting from the top down.
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Why? – The title tag is used by search engines to index the page. This is where you tell Google what the page is about. It’s also the first thing users will see when your site shows up in the search engine results page. Make sure it’s something worth clicking on.
Why? – Ditching the numbers and other nonsense in favour of a descriptive URL that includes your keywords can help your site rank for a keyword or phrase.
Why? – Like your meta title, the meta description is like a mini advertisement for your website on the SERP. You want to make it descriptive for search engines, but user-friendly so people actually want to click through to your site.
Why? – Adding keywords to the meta keywords element does nothing for your ranking positions. If anything, all it does it show your competitors which keywords are most important to you.
Why? – Search engines don’t see what users see, so even if your website is stunning to look at, search engine crawlers need to be able to parse all the code and see what the page is about. Some outdated web design practices don’t allow this, so make sure your site is up to speed.
Why? – Header tags improve the user experience and also give search engines an indication of what content is most useful on the page.
Why? – The XML sitemap should be submitted to Google and Bing to ensure the search engines know what content is on your site. The Yoast WordPress plugin can automatically generate a sitemap for you.
Why? – Google Analytics can help you to see what is working and what isn’t. It can also help you to identify problems with the user experience and which content is most valuable to your visitors.
Why? – Sometimes, you need to have duplicate content on your site. This shouldn’t be a problem, provided you tag everything correctly using canonical tags. Used incorrectly, canonical tags can actually hurt your rankings, so make sure everything is set up correctly.