Archives for April 2017

In this article, I’m going to show you show to add Document Titles (also known as HTML titles) and Meta Descriptions to your WordPress site. In this example, I’m going to be demonstrating this with the Yoast SEO plugin. It’s our go to plugin for managing search optimisation on WordPress sites. If you’re using another tool the mechanics may differ slightly.

I’m assuming that you have already spent some time thinking about your keywords and mapping them to the URLs in your WordPress site.

Get started in the WordPress editor

Regardless if you’re working with a page or a post (or even a custom post type) the process is the same. Begin by editing the page (or post etc.. ), then scroll down below where the editor shows the content.

Here you’ll see the Yoast SEO setting meta box, see the screen show below. It will show you the current document title and meta description. If you have not already created these it will default to the page title and the first sentence or two from your content.

Click the “edit snippet” button here and you’ll be presented with an editing tool.

As you can see in the below screenshot, there is one field for the document title (SEO title) and another for the meta description. The editor has a nice user interface that shows you when your text is the correct length. Below you can see that my title has a green bar below it, the length is fine. If it turns red then you need to shorten your text, it will be truncated when displayed on Google if you leave it too long.

Setting your focus keyword

If you’re following along the SEO Boot Camp series you would have competed my method for setting up keywords for each of your URLs (webpages) in a spreadsheet. The keyword that you have selected for each page should be saved in the Yoast tool too. Below where you’re working now you will find another field “Focus Keyword”.

At this stage, click the ‘Update’ button in the editor to save the page.

Further Optimise Your Content

Now, you could stop there. Setting a document title and a meta description for your page is a good move forward for your SEO rankings. However, based on what you have setup so far, the Yoast plugin will guide you on further operations that you could do to further optimise this page.

No SEO genius required. Just follow the tips that are presented. Try and get as many green lights as you can.

When you’re done, save your page again. Move onto the next page and hopefully work your way through all of the pages, posts and other content in your website. Importantly, you need to also follow this process when you create something new for your site.

This article is part of a series that we are publishing during April for those signed up to our WordPress SEO Boot Camp.

In this article I’m going to show you how to setup a simple SEO keyword strategy for your WordPress site. We’re not going to worry too much about analysing the keywords. When we do SEO work for clients we do get a bit more involved in looking at the search volume (how popular keywords are) and how much competition there is (how many other websites rank for the keywords).

So let’s get started.

SEO Keyword spreadsheet tool

If you’re following along our SEO Boot Camp this month, you would have received a link to download the spreadsheet template. There are two files, one is Excel for Windows users and the other is a Numbers file for Mac users. Grab a copy of that spreadsheet and then below I’ll outline what to do with it.

Brainstorm your key products and services

Start by listing all of your main and secondary products and services. In the example spreadsheet, I’ve used a sample plumbing company to give you an idea on how to do it. Fill the first column with these.

Next, think about where you operate. Not just the name of a town or suburb, also think about regions or area names that people would commonly use. In the example my fictitious plumber works in Mona Vale. This area is also commonly referred to as the ‘Northern Beaches’. You don’t even need to use the word Sydney. If a Google searcher is in Sydney, Google will know that they are referring to Sydney’s Northern Beaches as opposed to the Northern Beaches in Cairns, for example.

Then pair the key product / service style keywords with geographic locations. It’s ok to use the same geographic location more than once. So you may have ‘plumber Northern Beaches’ and ‘gas fitting Northern Beaches’. That’s fine.

Map your keywords to your website URLs

Now that you have that done, it’s time to look at the third column – Site URL. Look through your website and find a page that is relevant to your selected keyword. For example if you have a page about gas fitting put the URL for that page next to the keyword. Don’t forget your home page, it should have your most obvious keyword. In the spreadsheet the first row would be my home page – plumber northern beaches Sydney.

Write your document titles and meta descriptions

For each URL in your website we now want to write a document title and a meta description. The easiest way to understand what they are is to who you a screenshot from a Google result page. The following is a search for WordPress developer. The text in blue is what we call a document title. The description below it is called a meta description.

The text that you’re crafting here will not actually be shown on the screen as part of your website. Instead, it’s displayed on a search engine result page. The idea is to write keyword rich titles and informative descriptions. It does not have to be a perfectly structured sentence, it does need to make sense to a human though.

Important thing to remember here:

• You do need to use your chosen keyword in the document title
• Ideally you should also use it in the description but it’s less important
• The description should really be written to attract a user’s click – tell them exactly what they’re going to get on the page
• In the spreadsheet there is a column after document title and meta description that shows the character count – keep your entries under these counts – Important!
• If you have a 1300 number or you want to attract calls use your phone number consistently in titles and descriptions (see my example in the spreadsheet)

To learn more about writing Meta Descriptions review this post. It has a little more detail on the topic.

Commonly your website will be made up of a homepage, pages of static content (these might be your product or service page) and then your blog or news pages. Ideally you should follow this process for every single one of your URLs (pages and posts).

This article is part of a series that we are publishing during April for those signed up to our WordPress SEO Boot Camp. In the next instalment we’ll discuss how to embed these document titles and meta descriptions into your WordPress site.

This article is the first of a series that we are publishing during April for those signed up to our WordPress SEO Boot Camp.

We all know what SEO is right?

Not so sure? Well let’s not take anything for granted. Let’s spell it out so that we have a concise, useful definition to work with.

Let’s begin with the acronym: Search Engine Optimisation. Ok you probably knew that so let’s talk more about what it actually is.

SEO is a collection of techniques, that when pulled together result in your website ranking well. That is, it comes up on the first one or two pages of a Google search.

As always though the devil is in the detail. I’m going to outline some of the main techniques below to familiarise you with them a little more. Before we do that I’d like to make a point: You, the business owner / marketing person / who ever you might be – can actually do a lot yourself to improve your standing in the major search engines. It all starts with a basic understanding of how SEO works. Sure some items you might need a little technical help, so ask for it when you’re out of your depth. Let’s dig in and discuss these mysterious techniques. :)

1) Understand Google’s mission

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful

From an SEO perspective the mission statements sounds reasonable. Understand that Google implements its mission statement consistently in products and services. The mission statement impacts SEO, a lot, at a much deeper level.

Google wants a user on its search engine to get the answer to their question, as quickly as possible. Many of the policies that are implement by Google here are directly in response to their mission statement. More on this as we discuss other techniques below.

2) SEO: it’s all about the text on the page

Okay, may not all about the text but it plays a significant role.

To begin with, ensure you understand that Google reads the text on your web pages. If you want to rank well when a user searches for Financial Planner in Sydney you have to have words to that effect, in your web pages. 10 years ago I would have said “those exact words” but thing have moved on, I’ll explain that in more detail below.

Key points

1. Ensure you are writing about your products and services a lot on your web pages using the same language that a potential visitor might use
2. The words need to be text on your pages; not text that is in an image or video

3) Where you place the text on the page matters

Google has a sophisticated method (often you’ll hear it referred to as “the Google Algorithm“) that works out which pages it will favour. Which pages will be placed at the top of the search results and which pages will… well never be seen by anyone.

Part of this method is to understand, actually comprehend the content on your pages. By learning some simple techniques on how Google weights different parts of a web page, you can help Google understand which are the main topics that are presented in your web page.

Key points

1. Take the time to learn about simple web page structure (not coding, HTML etc..  but the structure of a page of content)
2. Implement what you learn to all of your existing pages AND to all new content that you add in the future

In our SEO Boot Camp you are going to learn more about this in weeks 2 and 3.

4) Keywords keywords keywords – what is it all about?

If you’ve listened or read much about SEO you would have heard people talking about keywords. Yes, there is a technique to learn. Yes there are very sophisticated methods that are used to work out which keywords should be used. Do you have time of all of this? Probably not. So let’s strip it back to the basics and at least get that nailed.

What you need to do is talk about your product, services, outcomes etc.. in your web pages. And as stated previously, in the language of your potential client. If you’re an expert in a particular field, you’ll tend to use a lot of jargon, try and use simple language. Picture one of your clients. An actual person. Sitting in front of their computer, what would they search for.

As well as this you need to refer to your location. If you’re a location based business (i.e. you operate in one city or region) then you need to reference your location more than you think.

People search for things like: “landscaper in Mona Vale“. Think: product or service plus location.

Key points

1. You need to stop and think about this a little
2. Agree on the common phrases and terms that you want to focus on
3. Write them down, perhaps in a simple spreadsheet
4. Use them regularly in all of your new content and if you can go back and look at your existing web pages with this new perspective
5. Ensure that everyone that is working on your website content is across this and is ( bad SEO pun coming ) on the same page

If you’re going to improve your SEO, you do need to get a simple plan around keywords.  In our SEO Boot Camp series we are going to expand on this idea in week 2.

5) Your website needs to be fast

Back to Google’s mission statement. To give a user the best experience the search engine wants to deliver them to a webpage that answers their question, quickly. Literally. As fast as possible. This means that your WordPress hosting should be delivering your pages as quickly as possible.

If you’re sitting there waiting for more than 2 or 3 seconds for an individual page to load, things need to be improved. Again, there are loads of advanced techniques to evaluate page load, start with the basics though. If it loads nice and snappy for you then you’re probably ok. If you’re waiting a lot for individual pages to load, it’s time to act.

Still on the same topic. I want to cover another quick, related point. Even with the best WordPress hosting, if the images that you upload into your site are too large then you’ll still have problems. The file size of your images need to be as small as possible so that they can be delivered to your users quickly. Mobile devices in particular are not always on high speed Internet connections, large images will have an even bigger negative impact here. Sure this is a little general but under 100KB is a good rule of thumb. Even smaller if possible.

Key points

1. Ensure your web pages (all of them not just the home page) load quickly

6) Your website needs to be mobile responsive

Again, keeping Google’s mission statement in mind here. Your website needs to work well on desktop computers as well as tablet devices like iPads down to smartphones. For a user on a mobile device, Google will actively show websites that will work well on the searcher’s device. Keeping the best possible experience for the user front and centre. If you site does is not mobile responsive Google will push you down the search rankings or even not show your site at all to a user on a smartphone / iPad.

Key Points

1. Visit the Google mobile testing tool and test your website