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.

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