There are many SEO tactics that will help your website rise in the search rankings. In a nutshell, you need to audit your website, create a content strategy and build high authority backlinks. There are many free tools available online to make the process simple.
Table of Contents
Audit Your Site
It is important to perform an SEO audit before proceeding with any other SEO tactics. This audit will show you where you need to focus your energy for your site quality and your content. The audit should give your page loading speed, reveal broken links, break down where your site traffic comes from and display your most popular content.
Improve Page Loading Speed
Your page loading speed has a high impact on your search engine rankings. Faster loading times mean higher page rankings. The following free tools will report your site speed:
- Google Pagespeed Tools: This service reports your site speed and offers suggestions for improving site speed through Google Webmaster Guidelines.
- GTmetrix: GTmetrix provides a thorough analysis of your site speed, then prioritizes the steps you need to take to improve it.
Mend Broken Links
Having broken links on your site is akin to closing your brick and mortar store in the middle of the day. It leaves visitors disappointed, and in the case of broken links, it harms for search rankings with Google. Check for broken links regularly and repair them quickly. These tools can help:
- Check My Links: This handy tool scans your site for broken links. It highlights damaged and broken links so you can fix them.
- Siteliner: Checking for broken links is one of the tools offered through Sideliner.
Traffic Sources
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for your website. It has many benefits including providing a list of your traffic sources, including breaking them down by location, type of referral (search engine, social media, etc) and whether visitors came from their mobile devices or their computers.
Popular Content
Understanding what type of content is performing well on your site can help you provide the information your readers want. Some tools for examining popular content include:
- Google Analytics: Provides a list of popular pages and can break it down by date or location.
- Siteliner: Shows you what pages are ranking well and how many links in and out are on each page.
Choose Keywords
You must use keywords to rank with the search engines, and you don’t want to use keywords that are too competitive or rarely searched. These tools assist in choosing the right keywords.
- Google Keyword Planner: Displays a list of keywords and shows how difficult it is to rank for each one.
- Ubersuggest: Suggests keywords to you based on the topic of your article.
- Keyword.io: Makes keyword suggestions based on location and topic.
Use Plugins
There are many plugins available to make SEO optimization easier. Here are some examples:
- WP Smush: Reduces the size of images on the website, decreasing load times.
- Yoast SEO: Uses a green, yellow and red-light system to show you how well your article is optimized and offers suggestions for improvement.
- SEO Autolinker: Provides a list of possible pages to use for internal linking when you input your keyword and URL.
Build Backlinks
Link building is essential for SEO optimization. This is achieved by having your website link appear on other websites, preferably those with high authority. You can build new links by using Bloggers Outreach to trade links with popular bloggers or by commenting on other sites with your website link.
Internal Links
Internal links are keywords that are linked to other pages on your website. It is ideal to link to cornerstone content and high-ranking pages.
External Links
External links are keywords that are linked to websites other than your own. You want to link to high authority pages. These free tools are helpful for building external backlinks:
- Open Link Profiler: Provides information about your current backlinks.
- Wikigrabber: Finds relevant Wikipedia links for you to link to.
Once you complete your site audit, develop a content strategy and build your backlinks, your website traffic will start to soar.
Create a Content Strategy
Now that your site is loading quickly and you know what content works well for your readers, it is time to create a content strategy. Choose your keywords, create cornerstone content, structure your content well and use plugins to make the process easier. With social learner, you can create and arrange your content with just a little effort for easier consumer access.
