Auditing a Website: First Step Towards SEO

The first and the most important step before you start SEO of a website is Auditing. By auditing, we mean analyzing a website for required optimization for a better performance in search engine results. There are a large number of factors that a search engine consider while ranking a website for a particular keyword in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). So, if not for all factors, we can optimization our website/blog for as many factors as possible. 

The whole website analysis or auditing can be done by analyzing a website for most common factors like Meta Tags, Google Analytics & Webmasters Integration (Learn About Integration of Google Analytics, Webmaster & URL Redirection), Page Speed, Broken Links, Alt Tags, Social Media presence etc. Now we will discuss in detail about all the factors to be analyzed while doing SEO auditing of a website. 

1. Title Tag: First of all check for the presence of "Title" tag for all the pages of the website including Home Page. You can do this by opening source code for all the major landing/services pages of the website by hitting "Ctrl+U". Once the source code is opened, simply find for Title tag by pressing "Ctrl+F"
 and typing in Title. If the Title tag is present, then check if it is optimized for search engines? Check the length of Title tag which should be max 70 characters or 600 pixels. If it exceeds this limit, it will be displayed truncated in search results. Use "Moz Title Pixel Checker" for checking Title pixel length.

Standard Format: <title>Your Website Title Text</title>

2. Meta Description: Another Meta Tag which is very important is "Meta Description". Meta description allow you to influence how your web pages are described and displayed in search results. A good Meta Description can be of max 300 characters (including spaces) and it should include all the important keywords of that specific web page. You can check Meta Description tag in source code of web page.

Standard Format: <meta name="description" content="This is an example of a meta description. This will often show up in search results.">

3. Image Alt Tag: Alternative text allows you to add a description to an image. Since search engine crawlers cannot see images, they rely on alternative text attributes to determine relevance to a search query. Alternative text also helps makes an image more likely to appear in a Google image search and is used by screen readers to provide context for visually impaired users. Alt Text should not exceed 150 characters for a particular image.

Standard Format:  <img src="abc.gif" alt="Text" height="42" width="42"> 

4. Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free tool from Google and is basically use to capture & analyze website traffic information. Google Analytics is the best tool to get exact information about total no. of users, user sessions, page-views, bounce rate, sessions duration etc. for a website or a blog. For this you need to integrated or add Google Tracking Code for your website. (Google Analytics, Webmaster & URL Redirection ) To check if a website is having Google tracking code or not, simply press ctrl+U for opening the source code of the website's home page. Search for "UA-". If found, it means Google Analytics setup is already done for the website else not.

5. Google Webmasters: Google Webmasters or Search Console is a medium of communication betwwen a website and Google. Google Webmasters usually summarize all the issues related with a website. You can submit xml sitemap there for your website's crawling & indexing. You can intergrated Google Webmasters setup for your website by placing HTML code, Tag or by verification of website using Google Analytics code. You can learn more about it by referring our post related to Google Webmaters' setup.


6. Website Page Speed: Website's page loading speed is one of the most prominent factor in improvement the reputation of a website over world wide web. It is usually measured in numeric value. You can check website's page speed for mobile and desktop devices by visiting this link: Check Website Page Speed

7. W3C Errors: W3C errors occur when a website doesn't follow some rules related to markup languages like HTML, XHTML, SMIL etc. You can check for W3C errors/warning for your website here: validator.w3.org

8. WWW Redirect: Search engines see www.abc.com and abc.com as different websites. This means they could see a large amount of duplicate content, which they don't like. So, to overcome this, we need to apply permanent redirection so that our website get redirected to preferred domain from non-preferred domain.

Also Read: First Step Towards Becoming A SEO Freelancer

Best Micro-Blogging Websites for Link Building

Micro-blogging is a broadcast medium that exists in the form of blogging. A micro-blog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregated file size. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the major reason for their popularity. These small messages are sometimes called microposts.

Micro-blogging is a powerful technique to build good quality of backlinks for your website. With a micro-blog, you will not only get a good quality of backlink but also be able to promote your website/blog among masses. Most popular micro-blogging website these days is Twitter. But here you will get to know about other less known micro-blogging websites.

Top Micro-Blogging Websites 2018

• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Micro.blog
• Plerb
• Plurk
• Soup IO 
• Mastodon
• Identi
• Solaborate 
• Weibo (China) 
• LiveJournal
• Wattpad
• Storify
• FmyLife 
• Twitxr

Also Read: Free 150+ Profile Creation Websites for Link Building

Google Analytics, Webmaster & URL Redirection

One of the most important aspect of on page SEO is Website Traffic analysis and removal of Website errors. There are two major tools to do so. Google Analytics, one of the product of Alphabet Inc. is used to measure the traffic a website is getting from different sources. Where as Google Webmasters use to check website errors, crawl errors, sitemap submission etc. One another important thing is URL redirection which is used for temporary as well as permanent redirection of your website from Old URL to a New URL. Now I will explain all these 3 things one by one for you. I will explain how you can integrate all these in your website.

Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free website analysis tool provided by Google (Alphabet Inc.) for tracking and managing website traffic. Google Analytics can be integrated into website with the help of a google account. If you have a website and want to track your website's traffic, simply copy paste, Google Tracking code into your website's Head Tag and start getting website traffic information within 24 hour into your Google Analytics account. Now here at One Stop SEO Guide, I will explain you all the steps that will help you in Google Analytics Integration into your Website or Blog.

Steps for Google Analytics Integration into Website/ Blog:

1. Go to www.google.com/analytics and signup for Google Analytics with a Google account.
2. Select an account name, website name and website URL you want to track. 
3. While entering website, keep in mind if your website in following HTTP or HTTPS protocol.
4. Then click on get tracking code. And Google Analytics Tracking code will be displayed for your website. 
5. Copy and paste that tracking code anywhere between Head tags of your website's home page.
6. Now within 24-48 hours you will start getting traffic report for your website on Google Analytics.
7. You can get tracking code again from Google Analytics. Simply go to Admin tab and click on Tracking Info and then on Tracking code.
8. You can also add multiple properties or websites i.e. upto 100 websites under one Google Analytcis account. 
9. To do so, Go to Admin Tab. Click on the drop down "Your Account Name" on Left side. And then click "Create New Account". 
10. Google Analytics Dashboard looks like this.

Google Webmasters: Another free web tool, provided by Google is Google Webmasters. It is very powerful tool to get a lot of information about your website. From search traffic to search appearance, from Google Index to Google Crawling, you can analyze most of the website's aspects here easily. To add your website to Google Webmasters, simply follow these steps.

Steps To Setup Google Webmaster's for Your Website:

1. Go to www.google.com/webmasters and signup for Google Webmasters.
2. Click on "Add a Property" and paste your website in the box. 
3. Click on "Add" and you will be asked to verify your Webmasters setup for your website.
4. Click on Verify and use "Alternate Method".
5. Click on "Google Analytics" and then click "Verify" button. 
6. Then click on "Continue" and you will be redirected to "Search Console".
7. You can add up to 100 websites to webmasters.  
8. You can submit your your website's sitemap.xml file and your website for google indexing there. Explore other options in webmaster to improve your website's rank on Google SERP and other search engines.
9. This is how Google Webmasters' Search Console looks like.

URL Redirection:  Sometimes, you need to redirect your website from old URL to a new URL. For this we can either use 301 or 302 redirect. If you are moving your website temporarily to new URL then use 302 URL redirect and if you want to permanently move your website from old URL to new URL and also want 90-99% link juice to new URL then use 301 redirect. To do so, you need to include redirection code into your website's Head Tag. Below is the Website Redirection code that you can add into your website's header. 

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL='http://www.yoursite.com/'" />

Replace "http://www.yoursite.com" with the URL of the website to which you want to redirect your blog/website.

More About On-Page SEO Optimization

In my last post on One Stop SEO Guide, I discussed with you about few major on-page factors. Now we will discuss few more on page factors that will help you in becoming a SEO expert. Earlier we discussed about Keyword Research, Meta Tags, Title Tag, Image Alt Tags, URL restructuring & redirection, internal and external linking (Inbound and outbound linking). Read our previous post Learning On-Page SEO via One Stop SEO Guide to learn about these all.

Now we will discuss about Keyword density, HTML header tags, sitemap and robot.txt files.Then lets start now.

• Keyword Density: It is the % of no. of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page or we can say in the content of a webpage as compared to the total number of words on the webpage/ content. When we talk about search engine optimization, keyword density is the factor used in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase. Keyword density is an important part of On and Off page SEO. For example, if a keyword appears 4 times in a 100 word text the keyword density would be 4%. From the point of view of search engines, a high keyword density is a good indicator of search engine spam. If a keyword appears too often in a website, search engines will downgrade the website and it will then appear lower down in search results. The density for every keyword you use on a webpage should be between 2 to 4.5%. This % is considered as good practice in terms of SEO.
  
• HTML Header Tags: HTML Header tags are used to differentiate the headings and sub-headings of a webpage from the rest of the content. These tags are also known heading tags or simply header tags. The most important heading tag is the h1 tag and least important is the h6 tag. In SEO use a mix of header tags is a good practice and increases the readability of the content of a webpage. There a six types of HTML header tags. These tags are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6.
  
• Sitemap (.xml and .html file): A sitemap is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site or a HTML file for the end users. In SEO both are important but we usually focus on sitemap.xml as it is the file that we send to various search engines with the help of their webmasters to help them crawl our website or blog. If you want to generate .xml or .html file for your website, simply visit www.xml-sitemaps.com and enter your website's home page like "http://www.example.com", set the frequency to according to your choice. (Recommended monthly or weekly depending on the rate at which you update your website). Let the last modification to "Use Server's Response" and priority to "Automatically Set Priority". Click on 'Start' button and in few second, your sitemap.xml and sitemap.html files get generated for downloading.
  
• Robots.txt File: The robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to communicate with web crawlers and other web robots. The standard specifies how to inform the web robot about which areas of the website should not be processed or scanned. Robots are often used by search engines to categorize web sites. Not all robots cooperate with the standard; email harvesters, spambots, malware, and robots that scan for security vulnerabilities may even start with the portions of the website where they have been told to stay out. The standard is different from, but can be used in conjunction with, Sitemaps, a robot inclusion standard for websites. Include all webpages or URLs that you don't want web spiders, bots or crawlers to crawl with Disallow tag. To learn how to create Robots.txt file, visit here. 

In my next post, I will explain about Webmasters & Analytics integration and use. I will also explain how you can apply URL redirection for your website or webpages. Keep on reading and do share the blog with your friends.

Learning On-Page SEO Optimization

One of the basic step in getting started with Search Engine Optimization is doing the On-page SEO work for your blog or Website. On-page factors plays a crucial role in optimizing your website/blog for search engine results. And in turn helps in driving more traffic to your website to grow your business. Here at One Stop SEO Guide, you will learn every aspect of SEO in easy steps.

In this post, I will explain about major on-page factors that you should perform on your website or blog to get better indexing and ranking on SERPs. I will explain in detail about on page steps and factors like URL restructuring, Meta Tags, Keywords research, URL redirects, HTML body tags, Image Alt tags, internal linking or inbound links, external linking or outbound links. In later posts, I will explain about Google Analytics integration for Website Traffic Monitoring, Setting up Google Webmaster and Google Adsense for your website/ blog. So, lets get started with On page SEO.

What is On Page SEO?   

On-Page SEO deals with all the things that you do on your website or blog to help it rank higher in SERPs. It includes adding page titles, internal linking, meta tags & descriptions, Image Alt tags, HTML heading tags etc.

• Keyword Research: Keywords' research is the most important on page factor as choosing right keywords helps you get better ranking of your website in search engine results whenever someone searches that keyword. Keyword is simply the word a normal user types in search engines' search box to get desired results. So, your website must have 5-6 keywords related to your website on its home page and sub pages. The keyword research can be done using online keyword research tools. Two most popular keyword research tools are Google Keyword Planner, Keywords IO Tool or Keyword Finder. Add 4-5 keywords for every page of your website depending upon its content type. Meta keywords code must be placed in header tag. Alternatively, you can also add your targeted keywords into your website's content. You can add keywords on your web-page using following Meta tag:

          <meta name="keywords" content="Keyword1, Keyword2, Keyword3"> 

• Title: Title tags is also an important element of a website. Title tag usually contains the heading that get displayed on first when your website is displayed in search engine results. It is also the text that get displayed into your browser title bar. If not set, displayed text will be "None". Ideal length for a title must be between 50-60 characters.The title pixel length must be between 512 pixels so that it will not get truncated in SERP display. (Check Title Pixel length here: Title Pixel Checker). Title tag must contain your website's targeted keywords as many as possible. HTML title tag code should be placed in head tags and can be written as below:

          <title>Page Title</title>

• Meta Description: Meta description is HTML attribute that is short explanation of content of a web page. Meta descriptions are commonly used on SERPs to display preview snippets for a given page. Meta descriptions should contain maximum keywords of a website by keeping in mind the keyword density. For every page of your website, there should be different description as well as title depending on the content of the webpage/subpages. Ideal length for a Meta description is between 150-160 characters. Below is the sample code for writing Meta Description tag. It should also be placed in HTML head tag just like Title and Keyword tags.

          <meta name="description" content="Here is a description of the applicable page">

• URL Restructuring: URL restructuring or URL rewriting is the process of writing yout website's sub-pages's URL in an optimized way. URLs like :"http://www.yourdomain.com/profile.php?mode=view&u=7" are less SEO friendly. We need to restructure our Static as well as dynamic URLs according to search engine requirements. While rewriting our website's sub pages URLs, you should include few keywords too in the URL. The problem with a dynamic URL structure (example: www.siteexample.com/page.php?cat=231&prod=55234) is that you can end up with lots of different variations of the URL getting indexed. This can potentially create a huge duplicate content problem and split your link value. Changing your URLs to a static structure will give you one URL for each page on your website. The URL should can the most important keywords of your website and each word must be separated by "-" instead of "_" because words separated by "_" are considered as single word where as words separated with "-" are considered as separate words. E.g: You can write the URL: www.example.com/page-1-new-post as www.example.com/one-stop-seo-guide 

      After restructuring and updating your present website URLs, you need to perform following actions:

1. Apply 301 Redirect Old URLs to New URLs
2. Update XML Sitemap and Resubmit to Webmaster Accounts
3. Update All Internal Links

• Internal Linking (In-Bound Links): Also known as In-around your website.bound link, an internal link is the link that connects to other page of the same domain. It is link a link on any subpage of your website that redirects to home page of your website or vice-versa. Internal links is very important for a website because they help users in easy navigation through your website and they help in spreading link juice. You can include internal or inbound links using Anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. below is the code for the same.

          <a href="http://www.same-domain.com/" title="Keyword Text">Keyword Text</a> 

• External Linking (Out-Bound Links): External Links or out-bound links are hyperlinks that redirect to pages of other domain unlike In-bound links. This help in increasing the authority and ranking of your website. You can use external link anywhere on your website including in the content of your website and its subpages with the help of anchor text. Below is the code for the same.

         <a href="http://www.external-domain.com/" title="link anchor text">Link Anchor Text</a>

• URL Redirects: Redirection is the process of forwarding one URL to a different URL. There are three main kinds of redirects: 301, 302, and meta refresh.

1. 301 redirect, "Move Permanently": A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website. It is used when you have either purchase/ moved to new URL from old one or you need a another URL of yours to redirect to targeted URL of your choice.
2. 302 redirect, "Move Temporarily": A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect. It passes 0% of link juice and, in most cases, should not be used. 302 referred to the status code "Moved Temporarily." These redirects are used when you temporarily want to redirect your one domain to other. Can be used in cases when you are creating a webpage and yet have not added any content to it but created the link for the same. And then redirecting that link to some other page like "A page with message: Under construction or coming soon", till the time original URL is ready to be presented to users.
   
3. Meta Refresh: Meta refreshes are a type of redirect executed on the page level rather than the server level. They are usually slower, and not a recommended SEO technique. They are most commonly associated with a five-second countdown with the text "If you are not redirected in five seconds, click here." Meta refreshes do pass some link juice, but are not recommended as an SEO tactic due to poor usability and the loss of link juice passed. 

Do apply these important factors into your website to make it Search engine friendly. I will explained more On-page SEO factors like Keywords density in content, HTML header tags, Sitemap and Robots.txt files in my next post on One Stop SEO Guide.

 

Check here: Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool

Also Read: First Step Towards Becoming A SEO Freelancer

 

First Step Towards Becoming A SEO Freelancer

This is in continuation to my earlier post "How To Get Started With Search Engine Optimization". In that post I have explained about what are various Online Marketing techniques. Now here in this post, I will make you learn more about White Hat SEO (Search Engine Optimization). We will discuss other techniques like SMO, SEM, SMM in future post.

Search Engine Optimization (White Hat SEO) is a powerful technique in the hands of a IT professionals which help them to manipulate the search result of Major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing as per their requirement.

With White Hat SEO, you can help your website rank well on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) against many keywords. The first and the foremost step to get started with SEO is Bidding for a SEO project on websites like Upwork and Freelancer. After bidding, you have to present to client the detailed website analysis report. We will explain you how to prepare a Website Analysis Report and what things you should include in website analysis report.

WAR aka Website Analysis Report is a detailed report of the website on which SEO work is required to be done. To analyze a website you can either use various website analysis tools or can do it manually. You can analyze your website www.site-analyzer.com , www.seoptimer.com or www.woorank.com You should include details of following in the report:

1. Website Score on Woorank (Visit https://www.woorank.com/en/www/google.com): Simply replace the google.com with your website name in url and enter that url in address bar for results. With woorank, you can check website score and other related issues with the site easily.
2. Google Analytics: On home page of website, press key combination as "ctrl+U" and a new window with source code will open up. Now find "UA-" with find box. If it is present, the Google Analytics must be installed else not.
3. Google Webmasters
4. Meta Title and Description: Check home page and subpages source code by pressing "ctrl+U" for Tile, Meta Description and Keywords tags.
5. HTML Header Tags
6. Mobile Friendliness
7. Website Speed for Desktop and Mobile (To check visit: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ )
8. Check for W3 errors (Check it here: https://validator.w3.org/ ) 
9. Check for robots.txt file. Type website_name/robots.txt (e.g. example.com/robots.txt). You can also create robots.txt file or can simply make one by yourself.
10. Check for sitemap.xml file. Type webiste_name/sitemap.xml (e.g example.com/sitemap.xml). You can generate sitemap.xml or sitemap.html files here https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
11. Check for social media page plugins. Check if website has Facebook page, Twitter, Google+, Linked-in and Pinterest account or not. 
12. Check if the website has its blog.
13. WWW Resolve: Check if the website has 301 or 302 redirect. That is if the website get redirected to www.example.com for both instances of typing example.com and www.example.com
14. Check in woorank, if the website has broken links or not. If yes, mention those links in report. 
15. Check for website backlinks.
16. Check Alexa Rank for the website at Alexa.com
17. Check all images for Image Alt tags.
18. Check Text to HTML ratio.
19. Mention Moz PA and DA for the website. 

These are some of the most important things that you should include in Website Analysis Report of a client's website. In my upcoming posts, I will tell you about On-Page SEO, Url-Structuring, Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions, Meta Keywords Analysis and many other On-Page & Off-Page SEO techniques to make your website search engine friendly and to make it perform well on search engine results. stay tunes and share this blog with your friends to support my efforts. Thank you.

Also Read: Learning On-Page SEO via One Stop SEO Guide

How To Get Started with Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an Online Marketing Technique which helps to affect your website/blog's online reputation/ visibility on popular search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

The major search engines for which we usually do SEO are Google, Yahoo and Bing. 80-90% businesses target Google for better results on its SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Google and other search engine doesn't count SEO as a good technique to increase online reputation of your website in its SERPs because SEO affects Google's generic/ natural/ organic results.

Search Engine Optimization

Usually Search engine optimization is divided into two parts.

• On-Page SEO: In this method, we usually make changes in our website's content, Meta, Title and Image Alt tags. Here we also do URL re-structuring, installing Google and other search engine's analytic, Google webmasters integration, fixing if errors, improve page speed and many other techniques.
  
• Off-Page SEO: The basic purpose of Off Page SEO is to increase back-links fr your website or blog. There are a number of techniques used for this starting from search engine submission to Article/Blog submission. All techniques are mentioned below.

SEO Process

There are two types of SEO:

1. Black Hat SEO: As the name suggest, Black Hat SEO is a bad practice. It finds loopholes in the search engine algorithms released by Major Search Engines to obtain high rankings for a website. This method is a shortcut and always violates guidelines of search engine guidelines. If Google finds a website is using wrong tactics to increase its ranking on Google's SERPs, Google simply penalize that website and the website will not appear in Google's search results.
2. White Hat SEO: White hat SEO uses methods to improve the search engine rankings of a website by keeping in mind the search engine (mainly Google) guidelines. Even if Google doesn't encourage use of any type of SEO but because most techniques used in White Hat SEO are basically targeted to improve our website according to Search engine requirement, Google will not penalize your website for using White Hat SEO technique.

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

As you are now aware of both type of SEO techniques, now we will tell you about different techniques used for link building and other performance improvement in both technologies.

Most Common Black Hat SEO Techniques:

1. Keywords Stuffing/Stacking
2. Tiny or Hidden Text/Links
3. Cloaking
4. Doorway or Gateway Pages
5. Bait-and-Switch or Page Swapping
6. Duplicate Content or Mirror Site
7. Spam Ping or Sping or PIngback Spam
8. Spam Blogs or Splogs
9. Unrelated Keywords
10. Blog Spam or Comment Spam
11. Trackback Spam 
12. Referrer Spam
13. Link Farming 
14. Cybersquatting or Domain Squatting
15. Typosquatting or URL Hijacking
16. Social Networking Spam
17. Cookie Stuffing or Cookie Dropping 

SEO and Its Effect on Search Engine

Most Common White Hat SEO Techniques:

1. Adding more effective content on Website.
2. Social Bookmarking
3. Search Engine Submissions
4. Website/Blog Pinging
5. RSS Feed Submission
6. Classified Ads Submission
7. Directory Submission
8. Business Listing/ Citations
9. Blog Commenting
10. Question Answers
11. Forums Posting
12. Infographics Creation, Submission and Promotion
13. Article and Blog Submission related to your website
14. PPT and PDF Creation, Submission and Promotion
15. Photo Sharing
16. Article and Blog Directory Submission
17. Article and Blog Bookmarking
18. Video Creation and Submission
19. Press Release

These all are the techniques that someone can use for Off page SEO link building. Focus on creating back-links for your website from high PA (Page Authority) /DA (Domain Authority) websites. I my next post I will explain all these White hat and Black Hat SEO techniques. I will also tell you more about how you can start with SEO of your website or become a SEO freelancer at your own.You can drop your suggestions and questions in comments block below. 

Don't forget to share the post with your friends and support me for in learning you best SEO techniques for your website/blog.

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