So one of the first things we ask a new SEO client from Melbourne is
‘just how excited are you about optimizing your website for 2018?’
2017 was a big year in SEO and a lot of things have changed.
We’re going to run through a whole lot of things that you need to do to get top rankings in 2018.
This is the very same checklist that we run every single one of our sites through. In a minute you’re going to see exactly how powerful this list is. If you think you’re screwed right now we’re going to unplug this from the mainframe and blits fry it in liquid quiksilver.
Try to do as many of these as you can most people won’t get everything – but you – you are going to try harder than most people. Because YOU ARE A WINNER SINNER!
Install Google Analytics I don’t know why I have to say this again – Its not a GAME just do it!
Google analytics is a must-have. It is the most widely used analytics tool in the world – AND it is free. Almost everything you’ll need to track and report on any form of performance, any KPI comes free with this tool.
Now don’t get me wrong – it’s not easy to understand – It’s no walk in the park this is a commercial grade tool – the biggest brands in the world rely on this and it’s yours for free.
Put the time into learning how to use this and you can dominate the internet.
Get Google Analytics Qualification
Install Google Search Console
This used to be known as with my Google Webmaster Tools but has been rebranded as the Google Search Console – It is also free – brought to the table by Google itself; an amazing piece of toolage.
So what does does is it ties in nicely with your analytics account and it allows you to see what people are searching for when I try and find your service or your product or your website with your brand it also gives you some information about how your tracking in relation to your performance in Google’s organic search results. The internet is a lab, and we do testing every day.
Do you use WordPress?
If so you should install the free version of Yoast SEO
why should I install Yoast SEO you may ask?
We are surprised how few people use Yoast SEO – it is an extremely powerful wordpress-plugin and it makes it really easy for you create SEO friendly content. Now things that it takes care of are ‘the canonical tag’ ‘no index tags’ it even builds out SITE-MAPS. Now there is a paid version that will give you a whole lot more but we use the free version every day.
Okay now we’re going to get into the meat of this list – we’re going to talk about things that you can ‘actually do’ to increase your rank.
There’s a ton of detail in a ranking things crazy up but we’re going to break it down to just nine points that should basically take you through the majority of what’s required in order to rank 2018.
This list is pretty closely correlated to one that MOZ pulled together, and that is no accident – MOZ know what they’re doing.
CRAWLABILITY!
Crawlability is so important – so many people fail to read the content on their site. Think about the way that Google looks at your site, it is trying to replicate the end user (your prospective clients) In saying this, Google is going to parse (Process) the code on your site – then render the page as it is seen in a browser. Then Google will read your content and categorize the code and content into useful information. If Google struggles to do this, then you will not attain a rank higher than your competitors. Our recommendation is to have someone completely unfamiliar with what you are selling or providing take a look at your site. Have them read the content on your page and determine whether or not they understand it. If they ‘get it’ then you have done your job – But if they ‘can’t figure it out’ then you have to ask yourself will your clients be able to figure it out?
We need to try and uncover the words or phrases or questions that people have typing into the Google search query box in order to solve their problem. Your company or site hopefully provides the solution to that problem (if not then you may be trying to get a client that doesn’t need you) your content should be related to that solution. In other words your content should allow google to trace the path between the question and the answer.
SERP RESEARCH!
We spoke to an SEO in Australia, from Melbourne recently – and they recommended to us that we should really pictures or at least give it a try and that is Type in the query that you would use to find yourself and analyze the top 10 responses ( top 10 might be a few too many maybe do the top 3) What you’re trying to figure out here is ‘what does Google determine as relevant to your question’. You may have to look at the keywords that they are optimized for, as well as what their URL structure looks like. What words are common across the different sites? Take a look at the conceptual themes of the results as well as who they are linking out to and where their backlinks are coming from.
This may sound like a lot of work but if you look at it cost per click comparison in Google paid advertising the payback will almost undoubtably be in your favor.
CREDIBILITY!
Street cred – credibility is a very important factor when creating content, now depending on what industry you are in, you may have to hire somebody to create good content for you. There is an industry around this. It is called ‘guest posting’ we personally try to shy away from that as we prefer to create our own content, but it is a fast way to get to the front of the line. The reason for this is that people will share content created by an authority figure – that means that this content is an Amplifier of your message.
TITLE OF LOVE!
Put those keywords in your title – you need to be a little careful with this one as you can over optimize a size but at the end of the day we are trying to satisfy the first point we made which is to make this content easily readable for Google spider if your title and your url structure tells Google what is important that you are helping the spider to crawl your content and make those topical links between the content the title and the URL structure. click here to see more SEO melbourne related content
KEYWORDS AND FRIENDS!
Some SEO’s refer to these ‘friends of keywords’ as ‘LSI’ keywords – in reality they just need to be topically and semantically related to the keywords on your website. – these words do two things number one they showed Google that your site is related to other sites that also carry these words and number to the increase the number of relevant responses your site provides as the question may be asked three or four different ways. Now there is content on your site that links those questions to your solution.
LOADSPEED!
Faster faster always faster – the quicker your site loads the better the user experience.
if there were two websites that were identical except for the speed in which they load the one that loads faster will be placed above the one that loads more slowly Percentage of people that Just won’t wait.
This becomes much more apparent when you’re dealing with mobile phone applications. People who are using their mobile data don’t have time to sit around, also I think there is a psychological aspect because if something takes longer to load you assume that it is using more data – and if it is using more data it is going to cost you more. So the faster your side loads the better it is for everybody.