61 Ways to Improve Your Site’s SEO

June 2, 2020 ReachingWorld

For whom this article:

for web designers and developers who want to create sites that are initially optimized for SEO,
for owners of online resources who want to understand SEO on their own to increase search traffic.

Disclaimer: these tips are unlikely to help you get on the top for high-frequency queries, but you can fix all the technical and text errors according to the suggestion of best seo expert on the site to improve your position.

SEO work consists mainly of 5 stages:

Technical audit of the site.
Audit of commercial factors.
Selection of the semantic core.
Internal and external site optimization.
Link building

Website technical audit

1) Check if all pages of the site are in search:

by the number of results in the search (in Google – using site: site.com )
in the Google Search Console (Google Index → Indexing Status).

2) Check for duplicates on the site. Duplicates are pages with the same content, but with different URLs. Doubles can be full (if the content is 100% identical) or partial (with a high% match). Page duplicates must be deleted.

3) Check for blank pages (which do not contain content). Blank pages can:

delete
close from indexing ( in the robots.txt file, see below),
fill with content.

4) Check for garbage pages (which do not contain useful content). Trash pages can:

close from indexing,
make useful.

5) Check for robots.txt file. This is a text file in the root directory of the site, which contains special instructions for search robots. For more information, see and Google Help . File size should not exceed 32 KB.

6) In the robots.txt file, you can specify general rules for all search engines.

7) Check for sitemap.xml file. This is an analogue of the site map, designed specifically for search robots. For more information, see Google Help . You can create a sitemap using the link . You can check the sitemap.xml file in Google.Webmaster .

8) Check for broken links (links to non-existent or inaccessible pages). It is necessary to remove all broken links, both external and internal. You can check broken links in the Screaming Frog Spider SEO tools (downloaded to your computer, there is a free version) or online using the Technical Analysis tool from SeoWizard (paid service). You can also check broken links in Google.Webmaster: Indexing → Crawl statistics (see HTTP code 404).

9) Check for redirects on the site. Types of redirects:

301 – the requested document is finally transferred to the new URL,
302 – The requested documents are temporarily available at a different URL.

It is better not to abuse redirects, since the presence on the site’s pages of links leading to redirected pages contributes to the “loss” of link weight.

You can check in Google. Webmaster: Indexing → Bypass statistics (see HTTP code of the page).

10) Check the site loading speed (should be less than 3 seconds). This is one of the important factors that affects the ranking of a site by search engines. You can check it using Google Page Speed or in the Google Search Console (Scan → Crawl statistics → Time taken to load the page).

11) Configure 404 error for deleted or non-existent pages. This can be done in the .htaccess file. See Google help for more information.

12) Check the server responses and the .htaccess file. The most common errors that occur:

Both versions of the site are available with and without www (for example, site.bd and www.site.bd ). This has a bad effect on indexing, as the search engine tries to exclude duplicates and may choose the page you are promoting as the original.

There are no redirects for pages with “/” at the end and without it. If the pages of the site without a slash at the end and with a slash give the response of server 200 (the page is available), then falling into the index of search engines they are complete duplicates.

13) Check if the URL is correct. Non-final pages (sections, subsections) must contain “/” at the end of the URL, and final pages (product pages, articles) must not contain “/”. But it is recommended to apply this format only to new pages, since for old ones this will lead to a loss of age of the document.

14) Try to use “Human-Understandable URLs” (abbreviated “CNC”) or nice and friendly URLs. An example of a missing CNC: yoursite.net/viewpage.php?page_id=23. Key recommendations:

you can use foreign words (/ contacts /) or translit (/ kontakty /),
use the hyphen “-” as a separator between words,
between the delimiters “/” in the URL should be no more than 2-3 words,
URL length should not exceed the average value for competitors.

15) Observe the hierarchy of folders in the URL. For instance:

site.bd/section-section/name-section-subsection/end-page

This will help Google make navigation chains and display them in the snippet of your site when displayed in the search. See Google help for more information .

16) Check the display of the site on mobile devices. This can be done in Google.Webmaster (Tools → Check mobile pages) or in the Google Search Console.

17) Specify in the head the encoding of the pages meta charset = “utf-8”.

18) Check the presence and uniqueness of the title, description and h1 tags on each page.

19) The title tag should be as close as possible to the beginning of the head.

20) Try to add all keywords to the title tag, while the most popular keyword should be closer to the beginning of the tag.

21) The maximum length of the title tag is 150 characters, optimally 60 characters.

22) In the title tag, identical words should not be repeated (maximum no more than 2 times), you can use synonyms, related words or other words from queries. For example: A bank loan secured by a room. Get a loan secured by a room in Moscow.

23) To separate different phrases in the title tag (for example, the name of the page and site), use the symbol “|”.

24) The description tag does not directly affect the ranking of the site, but search engines can use its content to snippet the site when it is displayed.

25) The length of the description can be from 100 to 250 characters, optimally – 155 characters. Usually these are one or two meaningful sentences for describing the page, including search queries.

26) Indicate in the head metadata on the Open Graph Protocol for the correct presentation of the site on social networks.

27) Add the site favicon to the root directory.

28) Styles and scripts should be loaded into the head in separate files.

29) There can only be one h1 heading per page.

30) The heading h1 should not copy the title.

31) The heading h1 can contain from 1 to 7 words and should include the exact occurrence of the main search query. For example: A loan secured by a room.

32) Try not to use nested tags in the h1 tag (e.g. span, em, a href, etc.).

33) Follow the h2-h6 heading sequence and include the rest of the keywords. H2-h6 tags should be used only for marking up SEO texts.

34) Use semantic layout (for paragraphs – p, not div), try to include keywords in lists, tables, pictures (alt, title tags), emphasis (em, strong).

35) The alt and title attributes for the pictures should be different. Alt is an alternative text for a picture if it did not load. Title is the title of the image that pops up when you hover over the image, and also goes out in the search.

36) Add Schema.org micro- marketing to the site. Micro distributor validator in Google Webmaster

37) If you plan to move the site to https, read this article.

Audit of business factors

38) Commercial factors are important for commercial sites.

39) The site must have contacts:

Phones
online consultant,
back call,
address, location map,
schedule.

40) Post legal information on the website:

offer agreement, terms of service,
Company details,
exchange / return terms,
delivery terms.

41) Post the assortment on the website:

price list,
quantity of goods in stock,
discounts, promotions.

42) Add information that is credible:

reviews
portfolio (examples of work),
video,
vacancies

43) Post an email on your domain (for example, info@site.ru).

44) If the site publishes news, stay tuned for their updates.

45) In copyright (c) indicate the current year.

46) Strive for the site design to be modern and adapted for mobile devices.

Semantic core selection

The selection of the semantic core is a big topic that deserves a separate article. Here we will focus on the basic principles.

47) Before proceeding to the selection of the semantic kernel, you need to understand what types of user queries are and by what queries you will promote the site:

Navigation (brand) requests – search for a specific site or place on the Internet. Typically, for such requests, sites are in the first place, and promotion is not necessary.

Information requests – information search, no matter on which site (for example, how to treat a cold).

Transactional requests – the user wants to perform some action (“download”, “buy”, etc.). Commercial requests are always transactional. But not all transactional requests are commercial (for example, “download for free”).

Commercial pages (online stores, company sites) need to be promoted by commercial requests, information (forums, blogs, and articles) – by information.

48) To determine whether a request is informational or transactional, you can use the search. Enter a phrase and look at the search results. If there are mainly informational articles, then the request is informative, if commercial pages – then commercial.

49) Information and transactional requests should not be sent to the same page at the same time. If the request is informational, then we are promoting the article. If commercial, then we add commercial information (price, delivery terms, etc.).

50) One page should lead to one request. You can group query groups into clusters. Clustering helps to combine queries within the meaning and check compatibility of promoted words (for example, car rental, car rental). Tools for automatic clustering of requests (services are paid, but there are free limits):

Rush Analytics,
SEMParser,
JustMagic,
Free up to 500 requests.

51) The site structure (menu, navigation) should be determined only on the basis of search demand.

52) To access any page from the main page, there should be no more than three clicks.

53) If you use bread crumbs, instead of “Home”, indicate the main keyword. For example, the name of the online store.

Internal and external site optimization

54) The text should be unique (not less than 70%, depending on the subject). You can check the uniqueness of the text by searching by quote (request in quotation marks) or using the following services:

Watch the content
Text

55) Take the length of the text, as well as the density of keywords from the TOP-10. You can check using the Text Analysis tool from SeoWizard or JustMagic .

56) Place text with keywords closer to the beginning of the text.

57) Use additional terms and synonyms in the text. These can be highlighted words on demand in Google search results, “Queries similar to” from Google Wordstat.

58) Write concisely, avoid stop words. You can check the text in the Glavred service .

59) Write without errors and be attentive to the design of the text. You can check spelling errors using Google Speller

60) To increase the CTR of referrals to a site from search, it is necessary to improve its snippet in search results. Snippet consists of:

title (title tag),
descriptions (in Google – the description tag, in Google – part of the text with the keyword),
URL structures (breadcrumbs, breadcrumbs, and quick links).

61) To improve the snippet in Google, take the paragraph that shows Google by keyword in the search results, a nd change its text.

Miscellaneous

Google reindexing occurs on average once every 2.14 months (more than 60 days). SEO is a long time, you need to be able to wait. SEO results can usually be obtained after 1-6 months, depending on the age of the project.

You can speed up the process of indexing a site using: