Optimising a site for organic search is no easy task. With such a broad range of metrics now available to us, it’s easy to get carried away focusing on the wrong things. We’ve distilled our approach into this simple 6 step SEO checklist to help you stay on course.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin…
Step #1 – Cut the crap
The first step is to simply remove unnecessary or low quality pages from your site. Google recently stated that a huge site with tons of pages can be bad for SEO.
“Narrow it down as much as you can. Don’t create low quality and no value add pages. It’s just not worth it because one thing is that we don’t necessarily want to index those pages. We think that it’s a waste of resources. The other thing is that you just won’t get quality traffic. If you don’t get quality traffic then why are you burning resources on it?”
Gary Illyes, Google Rep
May 5, 2016
So there you have it. Take a good look at your site and try to identify and remove ‘dead weight’ pages.
Try Googling yourself to get started. Put ‘site:yoursite.com’ into Google, remember to replace ‘yoursite.com’ with your domain name.
Now, are you confident all the pages listed are value-adding quality pages? Or are there out-dated product pages, low quality blog posts or on-site search results being indexed? If so, these are your ‘dead weight’ pages and need to be removed.
Once you’re done redirecting, removing or updating these pages join us on step 2.
Step #2 – Plug the gaps
This is where we get technical. Meta data, page descriptions, broken links, alt text… it all happens here.
You’re never going to float at the top of SERP’s if your site has holes. So lets plug these gaps. To do this we need to identify them first. Luckily for us there are many tools available to help, here are a few:
Try some of these tools and lookout for any technical issues that could hurt user experience.
You need to make sure each page has unique meta data and page descriptions. If your pages are all value-adding pages this should be easy as the meta data simply states the value. Fix broken URLs and add any missing image alt text while you’re there.
It can take some time to complete this step properly, especially if you have a big site.
Step #3 – Prioritise and Optimise
Here’s where we look at optimising pages for specific keywords.
**Time saver** You don’t need to optimise every page on your site. Pull out your 10 most important pages and focus all your energy on those.
Start with the keywords. What’s your page about? The answer to this is probably your keyword(s)… if not, you might need to rejig your content.
Now we have the keyword(s) consider where it appears. The following list should serve you well.
Your keyword(s) should appear in:
- the SEO-friendly URL
- the page title tag
- the h1 header
- at least one h2 subheading
- in the first 100 words
- image file names
Other factors to consider when prioritising and optimising content:
- Dwell time – try long content to boost average dwell time.
- Social sharing – while social signals are unlikely to play a direct role in ranking, social shares do draw eyeballs and links.
- Devices – make sure your pages are responsive, it’s an increasingly important element for search.
Step #4 – Bounce and Dwell
Right, lets have a look at “user experience signals”. What is this? It’s basically Google putting it’s head round the door to make sure you are playing nicely.
Google looks at certain signals to build a picture of how users are interacting with your site. If these signals are negative Google won’t put your site in front of its customers, simples.
So the question is, how can you optimise your site for user experience signals?
There’s no quick answer that unfortunately. You need to try and become the user. Try to use your page exactly as a first time user would and see what puts you off. Here’s a list of suggestions to get you started:
- Content below the fold – lets not make users work for the content. Bring the content into eye view and give yourself a chance of keeping the user onsite.
- Presentation – design is important here. Give the user a nice simple page and they’ll respect that. Over complicate the design and they’ll turn their back.
- Sticky content – your first few lines are important. Make them interesting, give the user a reason to keep reading.
- Distractions – it’s unlikely you’ll have a completely clean page but try removing unnecessary distractions (breadcrumbs, CTAs, dull images).
Step #5 – Speed
Almost there now…
I’m sure you’ve read this many times over but it’s true. There’s definitely a correlation between site speed and rankings. So get yourself onto Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool and get testing. You’ll also want to try GTMetrix.com.
What’s the difference?
Google’s tool only looks at your page’s HTML.
GTMetrix actually loads your page.
Now your sites super quick head over to our final step.
Step #6 – Skyscraper content
The final step is to create new skyscraper content. Simply take your existing high performing content and make it even better.
Pull out your top pages for organic search, these are your golden topics. Consider the theme of the page or post and how you can develop it. The aim is to make your new posts bigger and better than your existing top performing pages. Try updated versions of older content, in-depth definitions of key topic areas or how-to/top tips style posts. These all lend themselves nicely to skyscraper content.
So there you have it, good luck and let us know how you get on in the comments section below.