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The Basics of SEO Analysis

author image Written by: Lia           Categories - Digital Marketing, SEO Tips

How to Create a Basic SEO Strategy and Improve Your Website Visibility

So, you have a website for your business but it’s not showing up on the first page of Google’s search results. It’s not on the third page, or maybe even the sixth. Either you forgot to hit“publish” when you created your website, or your SEO strategy is lagging behind! Even a basic SEO (search engine optimization) strategy will improve your web presence. It will also get your website on a Google search results page by using in-depth SEO analysis and research. There are many dos and don’ts for SEO, and one of the most important dos is to keep your content up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and search engine guidelines. A digital marketing agency can help you create and maintain a successful SEO strategy with SEO analysis and keep your website ranking near the top. The following are some basic tips to get your website noticed with SEO analysis.

Find Useful Keywords

SEO keyword search
Yes, this is a real SEO TWIST word search.
Find keywords that are relevant to your business and your business size to improve your website ranking and visibility. A basic keyword may not help your ranking if you have major competitors (which is likely). Try to aim for more specific niche keywords; instead of relying on the broad keyword “belts,” for example, you can narrow it down to your region and specialty, such as “novelty belts Bobcaygeon.” Create a list of keywords using programs such as Google’s Keyword Planner, and also research what keywords your competitors are ranking and bidding for.

Research Who Your Competitors Are

An easy way to find out who you’re competing with online is to use your newly-created keyword list to search for competitors on Google. Take note of the top 10 websites that show up on the search results page. And most importantly, keep track of those who use the same specific niche keywords—these are your main competitors.

Analyze the Competition

Once you’ve determined who your main competition is, you can begin your SEO analysis using software, or contact a reliable digital marketing agency to make your job a lot easier. This analysis will include:

  • Obtaining the general metrics for your competitors;
  • Downloading their backlink profiles and sorting the backlinks from most to least authoritative—this will help you determine the number of high-quality links you’ll need to target;
  • Analyzing their topical authority—whether or not they an expert in their topic area; and Using metrics to determine industry averages.

Research Content Marketing & Social Media Strategies You can do a social media audit to research your competitors’ social media strategies. Visit all of their social media pages—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.—and look for the following:

  • Number of followers;
  • Frequency of posts/updates; and
  • Engagement ratio.

Create Your Own SEO Strategy

Digital SEO analysis plan
No matter what the situation, having a detailed plan makes everything easier.
With all of the data from your research and SEO analysis, you can now create your own SEO strategy. For your website to show up on search results, you’ll have to determine how many links you’ll need and the quality of these links. This will depend on the site ranking averages for your chosen keywords. Out of the total number of links you’ll need, determine how many links should be based on topical categories. Using the industry averages, create a plan for your backlinks and determine how many should:

  • Be in your direct niche;
  • Be in a more generic niche;
  • Have a Domain Rank of 80 or more, 70 or more, and between 60 and 40.
  • Blogs & Social Media

Determine how many blog articles to post on your website each week. Of these articles, figure out the number of articles that should be keyword focused and topic focused. Also make a plan for a regular social media schedule. That means planning out how often you will post on your social media pages—and set a target for how many followers you want your pages to get.

Maintain Visibility

Maintain digital SEO visibility
There is no point putting so much work into a website if nobody can find it!
You’ve done your research, found your keywords, and now have a published website that is ranked, along with social media pages to target potential clients. If you stay on top of your SEO analysis and continue publishing quality content that is useful for your visitors, you should maintain visibility with search results. Google frequently uses algorithm updates to ensure the quality of the websites that appear on Google’s search engine (part of Google’s Index). If your website is lacking quality content, these Google algorithm updates can penalize you by affecting your website ranking and reducing your visibility. A recent Google Update named Fred penalized hundreds of websites around the world by taking away their Google search results visibility. Here are a few things to avoid to ensure your website won’t lose visibility on search engine results pages when Google launches its Algorithm Updates:

  • Poor-quality content—poorly written, outdated content, that lacks useful or relevant information;
  • Stuffing keywords into content—websites that stuff keywords in every nook and cranny of their pages are often penalized by Google; and
  • Ads—not only are ads annoying, the more you have, the more harm they will do for your website’s ranking and visibility. Most of the websites penalized by Fred had a combination of several advertisements, including banner ads, and poor-quality content.

It is important to stay on top of search engine guidelines and keep your website up-to-date. This way you avoid any unwanted penalties from algorithms updates like Fred. Quality content that uses SEO analysis and research will help you maintain a visible well-ranked website. As a result, you won’t have to scroll through page after page of Google search results looking for your website.

Tags - Digital Marketing, SEO Tips, analysis for SEO, basics of SEO, seo analysis, website analysis

Lia

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There are a few things you can do to conduct a basic SEO analysis on your own time - or you can get the pros to help you out!

How User & SEO Analysis Helps Boost Page Conversions

 11/17/2017

Using Analytics to Ensure Your Pages Convert and Reach Your Market

Imagine having the ability to watch how users behave on your website, down to which links they click on the most. Now imagine using this insight to improve your site’s pages and boost conversions. Still imagining it? We’ve got some good news for you. Conducting a user and SEO analysis, with the help of a few experts in web analytics, can make this insight a reality and use it to ensure your pages convert. Here’s how:

In-Page Analytics

Using the convenient Google Chrome extension, In-Page Analytics gives you…

Instant Access to User Behaviour Data

This extension lets you check user behaviour on your site’s pages quickly and conveniently. Just set a date range for the data you’re interested in and start analyzing. This data includes page views, bounce rates, and average time spent on pages, and can even be narrowed down into further segments, such as:

  • All users,
  • New Users,
  • Mobile traffic,
  • Paid traffic, and,
  • Organic traffic.

Use Click Heat Mapping

The Heat Map tool shows you how many visitors (in percentages) click on each clickable part of your website. It might surprise you to see that some parts aren’t getting many clicks, while others get a lot. Use this data to make changes to your site, such as updating or removing a call to action (CTA) that isn’t getting the conversion rate you want. These tools provide insight into user behaviour specific to your website, allowing you to make changes to parts that are in need of some TLC.

Conversion Goals

Google Analytics lets you set conversion goals to track and measure how often users take various actions on your website. This tracking allows you to measure the success of your business goals by seeing if your CTAs are working or not. You can even assign monetary values to these goals to help you calculate your marketing ROI. These types of goals include:

  • Destination Goals—these are achieved when a user visits a specific page;
  • Duration Goals—these are based on the amount of time a user takes to complete a specific action;
  • Event Goals—these are achieved when a user initiates an event, such as watching a video on your site; and,
  • Pages/Screens per Session Goals—these are achieved once users visit a set number of pages on your website.

This data shows what pages are converting so you can direct more users to these pages and work on the pages that aren’t successful. Goals provide context for user behaviour, letting you understand where they’re coming from, where they’re going, what they’re doing, and how long they stick around.

Behaviour Reports

For an even more in-depth look into user behaviour, check out the Behaviour Reports. These reports detail all the useful information on user actions, such as:

  • Whether or not users are following your intended user path;
  • The most successful pages for newsletter sign-ups;
  • Search inquiries on your site’s search bar;
  • Popular and unpopular events—i.e. watching a video; and,
  • The top converting pages.

With the help of Google Analytics and a web marketing professional, user and SEO analysis will give you a better understanding of user behaviour on your site. You can then take this information to improve your digital marketing strategies and boost conversions. You want your pages to convert, right? So start working with the SEO analysis pros to make your conversion goals a reality.

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