Website optimization is a practice that can produce significant impact to a business when it comes to pulling in new traffic. But we all know that getting ranked on the 1st page can be difficult, especially when the keywords have a high keyword difficulty score.
I’ve listed my top 10 SEO factors when analyzing sites for SEO. If your dealing with a larger site full of content, pick the top priority pages and start from there. It’s always good to start with a baseline to measure performance.
1) SEO Meta Titles and Descriptions
The meta tags are usually the most commonly known elements for SEO. These two tags have been around for a long time. These tags are what I like to call your SERP business card. It’s likely the online visitor’s first impression of your website.
Meta Title Tags for SEO
The SEO Title tag is represented on every page of a website. It acts as the page’s title and is displayed within the search snippet on the search engine results page (SERP).
Title tags are meant to be accurate and concisely sum of the messaging on the page. Primary keywords should be placed at the beginning of the title followed by any secondary or supporting keywords. Including your brand name is optional, however I tend to exclude it. I prefer my title tags to look neat and professional which doesn’t include the trailing ellipses.
Most desktop and mobile browsers are able to display the first 50-60 characters of the title tag. Google’s SERPs can usually display up to 600 pixels which is right around the 60 character mark. It’s recommended to avoid all caps in the title tag to help keep the title tag visible. For example, a capital W takes up more space than a lowercase w.
In some cases the title tag may be altered on the SERP. If this is the case, make sure the title doesn’t have keyword stuffing, the title isn’t too long, the title has relevance to the page content, or there’s an alternative title use for social that might be causing conflict.
Meta Description Tags for SEO
The meta description is the part that better describes the messaging on the page. The meta description doesn’t have a hard stop with character count but it only displays around 155-160 characters (again depending on pixel width). It’s recommended to keep description short and precise with 50 to 160 characters.
Social sites like Facebook are known to pull in a page’s meta description when shared on the network . Without the meta description, the social sites may use the first text found on the page to display as the description.
In some events, Google may choose to exclude the description provided on the page. This is a common occurrence over the past couple years when Google doesn’t think the existing description adequately answers a search query and instead displays a bit of text from the page that may be of more value.
Screaming Frog is an excellent tool that I use to analyze website meta title and description tags. This tool is a website crawler that can help improve onsite SEO, by extracting data & auditing for common SEO issues (more above this tool further down).
SEO WordPress Plugins
WordPress has a variety of SEO plugins available that manage both manual and automatic settings for the meta title tags and description tags. Yoast SEO and All In One SEO are two of the most popular and downloaded. Both plugins are similar in providing SEO Meta Tags, sitemap functionality, SEO content analysis, schema, social cards, and third-party integrations.
There are other SEO plugins worth noting that have their benefits. For example, I use the Rank Math SEO plugin as my primary choice for my sites. To start, Rank Math’s free version offers more features than most free SEO plugins although I prefer using the premium version. Here are a few reasons I like Rank Math:
- It offers an easy setup wizard that can import settings from other SEO plugins.
- Rank Math supports Keyword Analysis which brings insightful data directly to the page.
- Rank Math is more affordable, providing more features at a lower price.
2) Header Tags and Structural Hierarchy
Most content writers know about using SEO header tags. These are normally referred to as: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6 tags that are usually coded into the headlines. Headlines typically correspond with the H1 tag and subheadlines are the H2 tag. Google has documented that these header tags should be structured similar to how books contain stories or sections within chapters.
- H1 is singular book title
- H2 are the chapters
- H3 could be topic within a chapter
- H4 could be a topic or call-out
- H5 could be a bulleted list
- H6 could be a bold keyword
It’s important to keep the structural hierarchy in mind when coding these header tags. For example, H2 followed by an H4 or H5 breaks the hierarchy flow of content. An acceptable pattern might be H2 > H3 > H4 > H3 > H4 > H5 > H2.
3) Schema Markup Is Much More Than Just A Plugin
Schema Markup is one of the latest SEO updates. In fact, Schema launched back in 2011. In fact, Google has updated Schema 20 times in just the past three years. SEO plugins with Schema Markup features can be a great starting point as a solution for Rich Snippets. The WordPress SEO plugins listed above all add basic Schema functionality. However, free plugins have very limited features available and the premium plugins need to be further configured to provide the best results.
What Exactly Is Schema Markup?
Schema Markup in short tells the search engine what the data means from the web page. It uses a unique semantic vocabulary in microdata format to communicate further context behind the page content that helps Google more accurately rank that page based on search queries.
Schema Markup helps websites rank better based on the content type. These content types include:
- Articles
- Local businesses
- Restaurants
- TV episodes and ratings
- Book reviews
- Movies
- Software applications
- Events
- Products
- Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
To date, around one-third of Google’s search results include Schema Markup. However, usually less than one-third of websites actually use Schema Markup correctly.
The Schema.org vocabulary currently consists of 797 Types, 1453 Properties 14 Datatypes, 86 Enumerations and 462 Enumeration members. Plugins only know what they know and need manual direction.
I encourage diving into the examples provided on Schema.org for best practices. There are many other great resources like the SchemaApp.com blog for additional content.
4) Web Core Vitals Impact on SEO
Website performance has always had some level of impact on search rankings. We’ve heard that websites should load fast. The faster the website, the higher you “might” rank.
In May of 2021, Google added further context to this topic creating the phrase Web Core Vitals. With this new update, there were many new factors that can impact where a website falls on the SERPs. For the first time, the mobile experience became a ranking factor. On top of that, new words such as Cumulative Layout Shift and First Contentful Paint became a part of our vocabulary.
These new performance metrics had a BIG impact on site owners. In short, here’s what Web Core Vitals mean to website owners:
- Everything above the fold should be optimized and load quickly
- Lazy Loading should be applied to all images / media on the page
- I limit no more than two Google fonts per page
- Javascript scripts should be deferred (some scripts may need to be exempt)
- I recommend loading scripts via Google Tag Manager if possible
- Fonts and Images shouldn’t be resizing based on screen width
With this new update came about some new plugins that provided some help in addressing these new metric requirements. I use Cleanup Asset Pro and WP Rocket on all my client websites. These are great tools that can help optimize website code. I also recommend using a theme that is supported – meaning it gets regular relevant updates. My theme of choice is the Divi Theme by Elegant Themes. The Divi Theme was recently updated after the Web Core Vitals announcement with a focus on performance and smart modules (loading only modules that were used on a page).
5) Keyword Research Can Help Increase Organic Search
Keyword Research is one of my favorite parts of SEO. It can really help shine some light into the performance metrics. It also has a lot of crossover with Keyword Density – which we’ll talk about next.
There are some great tools available that provide further insight into the keywords and phrases we choose to use on a page. Google Ads has their Keyword Planner tool which provides estimated monthly search volume for a keyword or phrase along with similar phrases that may be used. This tool helps advertisers know which words to target their ads but it’s also useful for SEO experts.
The estimated monthly search volume can give you a better idea of the keyword’s performance. For example, if SEO Markeitng only had 10-20 searches a month, I’m better off finding another keyword. However, if the same keyword had 15k+ searches, I may reconsider knowing my site will be lost in the crowd. Depending on the page and the audience, I like to find keywords that have around 1,500-2,000 estimated monthly searches. I’ve found these keywords to have less competition and better chances for ranking higher on the SERPs.
I enjoy using SpyFu and Ahrefs.com as my primary keyword research tools. I’ll be posting additional articles to further dive into using these keyword research tools.
6) Finding Value with Keyword Density
Keyword Density is the number of times a keyword is listed on the page. I like to use this keyword density tool by InternetMarketingNinjas to get a quick glimpse into the 1 word, 2 word/phrases, and 3 word/phrases listed on a page. This free online tool is great because it also shows me the keyword groupings within links.
To increase the chances of ranking higher on the SERPs, I aim for the primary keyword to be between 10%-15% on the page. I’ve learned that more than 20% starts to sound like it was written for robots instead of a person.
7) Why Page Size Matters To Google
There are many factors that affect the size of a page. A few factors might be:
- The amount of copy resulting in a longer page
- Number of images or videos on the page
- Additional functionality with script libraries
Although its good to provide value to the end user, the user experience should be noted. Long page with lots of content might be better served as a primary overview page with select feature pages to better break up the content. This can also help as a funnel approach to provide further insight into which features users visit/click on which can help further develop those areas of interest.A great tool to consider for long pages is HotJar or CrazyEgg. These services provide heatmaps showing how users interact with your page including click events, scroll depth, and session recordings.
8) Most Common Mistakes with Images and Video
Media often has a significant impact on the page size. It’s one of the top issues I find on pages that need to increase in rank.
Image DPI For Web Is Lower Than Print
Many website owners purchase their images from a stock photo service. These images are often high resolution images that aren’t formatted for web. For images that are purchased from stock images, these images need to be reformatted for web. The best DPI setting for websites is 72 DPI. The 300 DPI resolution is intended for print media.
Image Size Best Practices For SEO
After adjusting the DPI, I recommend looking at the intent of the image on the page. Will the image be placed next to a text section or will it be a hero image? Based on the answer, I would size the image accordingly. This helps keep the image size lower. My target file size for images is no larger than 150kb. I use .jpg formats for most images and .png formats for logos and smaller images that have transparency. Please do not upload and use the image directly from the stock photo site. These images are usually 2mb+ and not suitable for optimized load time.
Image compression plugins (like Smush) can help but it’s very low compared to reformatting the image properly. I use Photoshop to format my images for the web. I’m sure there are other tools that can adjust the DPI and image dimensions.
Video Implentation Best Practices For SEO
Videos have been the primary medium source for years. However, website owners have become “video happy” on their pages which results in negative performance. Videos should help entice your online visitors to perform an action from your page.
How a video is installed or embedded on your page is very important. When a video is embedded to your page (meaning the video starts to play when user clicks the play button), all the video resources have to load on page load. This always slows down the page load time as many additional resources are required to load even if the user doesn’t watch the video. I recommend using a plugin or applying javascript that adds popup functionality to your webpage. This allows the visitor to click an image or a text link resulting in a popup window that loads the resources at that time of the click rather than loading all the resources on page load. This helps your page load time to stay low while keeping your video resources on the page.
9) Don’t Talk About Bruno… I Mean Backlinks
Backlinks are a powerful ranking factor that every site owner should prioritize. Backlinks help Google determine if your site is credible or adds value. I have a paid account with ahrefs.com that provides detailed information on backlinks.
When creating new backlinks for a site, try to keep the backlinks within a similar niche. For example, a backlink from a photography site to a WordPress developer site doesn’t quite match. Instead try to acquire a backlink from a WordPress developer blog.
For websites that have thousands upon thousands of backlinks, I continue to use ahrefs to find the backlinks that are broken or no longer have any value. This cleanup process can also result in higher rankings.
10) Powerful SEO Tools for 2022
There are many tools available to help provide additional performance and SEO metrics. I’ve used them all but over time use a handful that I find most beneficial.
Screaming Frog is a great free resource (upt to 500 pages) that provides detailed information with on-page SEO. The annual license is affordable (199 pounds or around $256) and the program is installed on your computer. The data is all exported into spreadsheets which makes it easy to sort or apply pivot tables.
I mentioned earlier that ahrefs.com is one of my favorite tools for analyzing backlinks. It also does a good job of reporting website performance after integrating with Google Analytics. Pricing starts at $99/mo.
SEMrush, MOZ, Spyfu, Longtail Pro, and the many others are also great tools to use. They all provide very similar information but laid out differently.
Recently I worked with a company that utilized MOZ because they had over 20 products and wanted to easily keep track of each product’s ranking performance. MOZ let’s you create multiple accounts based on a URL that provided a great solution. Other platforms have additional costs for these types of features so it depends on each user’s business case to find the right SEO tool. The last tool I really enjoy using is KeywordTool.io. This tool is very similar to Google’s Keyword Planner but is much simpler to use. It also let’s you search other engines such as YouTube, Bing, Amazon, Ebay, and Instagram for relevant keywords. Pricing starts at $199/mo.
BONUS – Google Accounts You Need For SEO
Every website should have its associated accounts setup with Google. I always create a Google Analytics account when creating a brand new site. For the time being, I create both a GA4 and Universal account knowing that Universal Analytics will be expired in 2023. Other analytic services are used for medium to enterprise companies such as Adobe Analytics or Marketo. Regardless of the service, every site should have analytics installed.
Google Search Console is the next account on my list. This requires some form of ownership from Google Analytics, meta tag, or server file to confirm ownership of the domain. After the account is confirmed, the console provides useful information including search queries with their impression and click rates, URL performance, search issues, and sitemap submissions. Most of this data can be exported into spreadsheets for further edits.
Google Adwords is next on my list. I setup Google Adwords for every site to get instant and free access to the Keyword Planner. This tool alone provides great insight into keywords that should be used for pulling in organic traffic. It’s also helpful when creating ads for search, display, youtube, or retargeting.
Google My Business should be setup if the website is for a small business. This is a free account/service that Google provides for businesses. It can also be utilized with Google Ads when creating an ad for Google Maps to push your business within the Maps search results.
Google Tag Manager is a great service that I highly recommend. It helps keep your header section of the website clean and organized. It also let’s Google efficiently load the necessary scripts for the website.Google Optimize is the last service I like to recommend. Split testing is one of my favorite activities for websites. My number one go to test is for H1 headlines. The H1 is like the first virtual handshake and can make a big impact. There are better split testing services available but Optimize can help you get started quickly.
