These are my notes from a 10 hour SEO course I took. Hoping to add value to the community. If you learn something drop me an upvote! If you can add value please do in the comments! If you see something that is BS, call me out! I want to know.
Here are my SEO notes:
Title Tag
Title tag is the most important factor of on-page SEO.
You want your keyword in the title tag.
Title tag- 50-60 characters long
Meta Description
Meta description should be 155-160 characters, summarize the page and include the keywords
URL Structure
Url that describes the page
Always use “-” and not “_” with the url
Avoid capital letters in the URL
Urls that are shorter rank higher on google
Clean url structure
Make sure your website url is HTTPS and not HTTP
“If you dont understand url then neither does google”
Header Tags
Stick with the H1 or H2 for all headers
H1 for main headers, H2 for subheaders
Avoid the same H1 tags (dont add two “moonlight movies” headers)
H1 tag should be 20-70 characters
Always answer user intent with the header
Use keywords for headers
Dont use H6
Optimize Page Speed
Optimize images bigger then 150 bytes (use Image Compressor, TinyPNG)
Use a simple web design
Use Site Speed tab on google analytics ( if the page time is over 4 secs then its likely the user will leave the page. Use Speed suggestions for adjustments.)
Leverage browser caching for files
Upgrade server response time
Minimize redirects
Keyword Usage
NLP Natural Language Processing- For Moonlight Movies, dont use keywords like “movie rental” or “screen rental”. Use more natural sentences like “where to rent a movie screen in nashville”
Site Map
Have internal linking to other pages on the site
List all the pages of your website for both the search engine and the user
2 types of site maps; HTML and XML
Balance the amount of subpages for each category on your site(about>cost,time | contact>email,address)
HTML- designed for humans
XML- designed for crawlers (google)
Learn how to create a dynamic sitemap
Create an xml site map
The process of linking or promoting your website using link building
Build recognition, credibility, trustworthiness, and authority.
Having your link on credible websites creates high domain authority for our page.
EX: a page on wikipedia that links back to our page creates high domain authority for our page.
Link Building
Drives referral traffic and increases website authority
Strategies for link building:
- High quality content
- Off-site engagement (featured on other websites)
- Social media
- Collaborate with influencers
DO’s
- Get backlinks from relevant sites
- Use keywords in your titles and tags
- Write engaging and latest content
- Do keyword research before anything else
- Do not do keyword stuffing. Do not put keywords everywhere on your site
- Build internal links that are smooth but not forced
- Wait for a while. It takes time to rank the content on google
- Make sure website is user and mobile friendly.
Tools and Practices:
Keyword research
Understand how much traffic you will get if #1 on that keyword. Use Google Keyword Planner to see this data
- Competition
- Volume
- Relevancy
Get volume from google keyword planner and competition from google search like below
Get an exact number for competition, type ‘allintitle:’ on google and then the keywords
Look for large volume and low competition
Copywrite and Keywords
For Headlines, what might look good on print, might not be great for SEO
What are content and brand associations with our brand?
Short tail keywords get more eyeballs but the conversion rates are lower than long tail keywords
Choose Keywords based on:
- Search Volume (use google keyword planner)
- Competition (use google keyword planner)
- Relevancy (use...you know)
- Commercial Intent (Choose keywords that get customer to do what you want: “rent screen”)
Keyword Spreadsheet
Create a spreadsheet that shows the keyword, volume, competition(allintitle:), and KEI (Volume/Competition)
Use the spreadsheet to decide which keywords to target based on KEI and relevance
Always choose keyword by how relevant it is over the volume/ratio(KEI)
Check commercial intent keywords and see who ranks for them.
- Discount
- Deal
- Buy
- Coupon
- Shipping
Every page should have a primary and secondary keyword. The primary keyword defines the nature of the content. The secondary keywords are relevant to the primary keyword.
EX:
Primary word:
Healthy diet plan
Secondary word:
healthy diet for weight loss
Healthy diet food
Low carb diet
Healthy meal plans
Diet plan weight loss
Ways of finding Keywords
LSI
Go on google and type your keyword in the search bar and google will show you your lsi related words at the bottom of the page.
Add these words to the secondary keywords to rank higher
Google Suggest
Type in your keyword in google search bar and look at what google is suggesting to finish the search
Keyword Clustering- Group keywords into a core topic with related subtopic keywords
EX: How does SEO work
- Introduction to SEO
- What is search engine optimization
- What are the basics of SEO
- Learn SEO step by step
Search what keywords competitors are using by using MOZ.com
Also use MOZ for site issues
Frase.io for keyword research is good too
Longer more engaging content ranks higher for organic traffic
Creating High-quality content:
-begin with a comprehensive introduction
-content relevant to the keyword
-create click worthy title
-create natural long-tail keyword
-shorten sentences and paragraphs
-always put internal links in our blog post
-use alt text for images
-update the content regularly
-finalize by including a call to action
-use images from public domain site(shutterstocks, Unsplash, Pexel)
-be relatable and clarify points.
-do not steal images from websites
Thats my notes :) let me know if you read them all!