In this video you’re going to get a 45-point checklist of everything you Need in order to maximize your organic Traffic on google in 2014 i wrote the Evergreen on-site seo guide and always Up-to-date definitive playbook on On-site optimization that’s been Downloaded over 143 000 times by search Engine optimization professionals Worldwide it’s called the evergreen On-site seo guide because it’s Constantly being updated in response to Google algorithm changes and in this Video i’m going to lay out the whole Guide for you in checklist format plus I’ve added in a ton of new key on-site Seo changes that are critical in today’s Google environment but before we get Started let’s answer the question what Is on-site seo to simplify things seo Search engine optimization can be broken Down into two halves on one side we have On-site seo also known as on-page seo This is everything you do to your Website in order to get it to rank Higher on google for example your Content your design and your technical Setup this all falls under on-site seo On the other side we have off-site seo This is as you guessed everything you do Off your website to increase google Traffic this mainly boils down to link Building getting other sites on the Internet to backlink to your site now
Why is on-site seo important oh boy Think of it like this seo is like a Competitive race between people trying To get to the top of google in this race Your onsite seo your website itself is Your car backlinks are the fuel fuel is Important but even if you have the best Gas on the planet if you have a crappy Car you’re not going to be going Anywhere the problem is there’s a huge Misconception in the industry on what On-site seo actually is some people Think that it means quality content and That’s no surprise according to google There’s over 190 million articles Talking about the importance of quality Content in seo but take a step back and Think about that is google a human can It really read digest and absorb content Like a human would how does it even Figure out what quality is the truth of The matter is that google is a robot and It’s looking for certain signals to Figure out if content is good enough and Trust me being written by a noble author Is not one of them it also keeps them on Your pages longer which is a ranking Factor in itself but it’s a small one I’m going to show you the on-site Ranking factors that really matter On-site seo includes keyword Optimization copywriting design and user Experience expertise authoritativeness And trust and conversion it’s the
Intersection of these facets that gets You to the top of google but at the same Time keeps your readers on your pages Longer by building trust which Ultimately encourages them to convert so Your website’s goals are met that’s what This video’s checklist is all about now Bear in mind this video’s checklist can Be used in two ways if you’re about to Write a new piece of content you’re in a Perfect position as this on-site Checklist will steer you in the right Direction or if you’ve already written An article and are wondering what you Can do to improve its traffic here’s Where you figure that out now before we Get started there’s one thing that you Can help me figure out it’s how to get This like button to change colors with a Simple tap of your finger you can help This video reach new people which will In turn get more like button taps and The cycle will continue plus you get Digital confetti and you can complain About that thanks the first set of On-site seo checks falls under the Umbrella of keyword research a keyword Is another word for a search phrase for Example if you search for the phrase how To shave a cat then how to shave a cat Is your keyword pretty weird one with That every piece of content should be Optimized for a particular set of Keywords going back to our car race
Analogy keyword research is like having A map to your destination if you don’t Have a keyword plan then you’re just Writing and praying for the random Chance to get traffic which happens Never the first thing you want to check Is has your article been written about Before on your website there’s this Concept called keyword cannibalization Google does not like it when the same Website tries to write an article on the Same topic more than once otherwise You’d google something like does justin Bieber shave his chest and you’d see Wikipedia for every single answer in the Event you do actually write on the same Topic twice the articles compete against Each other and none of them will perform So don’t do that note sometimes this Happens by accident you write two Articles that are on completely Different topics but google thinks They’re the same by accident there’s a Protocol for getting unstuck from Keyword cannibalization in the Downloadable on-site seo guide so i left A link in the description so you can Grab it next does your article fall Within the main topic of your blog if Your website is about surfing and you Write a new article about surfing that’s Great google likely thinks your site is Relevant to surfing so your new article Should do well but if you decide to
Randomly write an article about scuba Diving on your surfing blog don’t expect It to perform there’s a concept called Topical authority the more you write About a topic google starts to think You’re an authority on that topic so Make sure you’re always focusing on one Topic at a time on your website your Articles perform much better if they’re In your lane next on the list is your Article targeting keywords within your Difficulty range there’s two main Factors that determine what kind of Keywords you can conquer the first is The amount of topical authority you have On a subject if you already have a mega Blog on surfing you can tackle the Hardest surfing keywords on the planet The second is your backlink authority The more links you have to your website The better it will do period there’s Various tools out there that will Attempt to assign a difficulty score to Keywords to be straightforward they’re All rubbish Here’s a direct way to find keywords That you can definitely rank for toss Your website into a tool like ahrefs to Find out what its domain authority is Also known as domain rating or dr this Example website’s dr is 41. now find Three other websites in the same niche With less domain rating and plug it into The content gap tool this is going to
Give you a list of keywords that these Other weaker websites rank for that you Easily could nice the next checklist Category we’ll visit is the preparation Category now that you got your map your Keyword research let’s start prepping For the trip make sure you track your Keyword rankings in a rank tracker Business guru peter drucker said if you Can’t measure it you can’t manage it a Rank tracker will show you your progress Over time for a given keyword without Tracking how are you supposed to figure Out if you’re doing the right things or Not my favorite rank tracker for Beginners is serp fox which gives you 10 Free keywords to start with once you Level up you can use accurancer the link In the description gives you a free 14-day trial and by using it you help Support the channel after that you want To start tracking your traffic and the Best tool for that is google’s own free Tool google analytics install analytics By going to Analytics.google.com and following the Steps to connect it to your site you’ll Then get a deep dive into all your Traffic stats so you can make sure the Actions you’re taking are getting you to The top of google next we move on to the Technical seo category i always Recommend prioritizing the discovery of Technical issues first finding technical
Seo problems can be a good thing because When you solve them makes a quick and Profound difference in your rankings the Best place to find technical seo issues Is google search console also known as Gsc gse is another free google tool Which basically acts as a technical Health dashboard for your website you Know when you take your card to the shop And they plug it into a diagnostic Computer it’s like the same thing now The list of issues that gst checks for Is quite long but some of the ones you Want to watch out for are google manual Action penalties index coverage issues 404 errors schema markup errors which We’ll get to later mobile experience Problems we’ll also get to that later And website speed issues you know what We’ll get to all this stuff later next You want to make sure your web page is Crawlable in other words is it possible For google to even find your page in the First place take your url and plug it Into the free tool httpstatus.io You’re looking for a status code 200 Which means everything’s cool google can Access your page now that you know Google can find your content make sure They can index it as well oh no not more Technical jargon no worries indexing Means that google has not only found Your page but it’s added to its Algorithm and is counting your page in
The rankings to figure out if your page Is indexed go to the google search bar Type site colon then your url you should See a result come up like this if you Don’t it means your page isn’t indexed It doesn’t exist to google if you’re not Indexed here’s a list of things you Should check make sure you don’t have This freaking discourage search engines From indexing wordpress setting turned On that will completely block your site From being indexed make sure you’ve Actually published your article and it’s Not in draft mode make sure your article Is in your site map check your html make Sure you don’t have a no index tag set The gsc url inspection tool will tell You as well and make sure you’re not Blocking the page from indexing in the Robots.txt file after you’ve checked all That use the url inspection tool again To request indexing the last technical Check you’ll want to do is make sure you Have an ssl certificate set up properly On your site you’ll know it’s set up Correct if you see a padlock next to Your url when you load it in chrome a Handy command that you should add to Your mental archive is to run a site Colon domain name minus in url https This is going to tell you what Non-secured pages are still indexed by Google which is a bad thing the easiest Place to get an ssl certificate is
Through your registrar the place where You registered your domain now it’s time To check how well your article is Optimized by looking at the three kings That is your title h1 and url i call Them the three kings because of the Three spots that have the highest chance Of influencing rankings when optimized Properly to check your three kings have Your keyword research on hand i’ll walk You through the process by using my Keyword research for the term diy Vitamin c serum make sure it’s sorted by Highest search volume like i have it Let’s start with title optimization Your title is what’s displayed as a Clickable link on google’s result page And as you can imagine it can influence Your click-through rate if it’s written Well you fill it out with your typical Seo plugin like all-in-one or yoast Here’s the rules for creating a Perfectly optimized title try to get Each single word of the top phrases in There keep the top phrase together and Towards the front don’t repeat any words This just creates unnecessary over Optimization keep it about 65 characters And if there’s space at the end you can Add some click bait but prioritize Keywords unless you’re on page one of Google oh yeah and ideally you only want One h1 per page i’ll talk more on this Later so for this diy vitamin c serum
Keyword research i’d use this title tag Notice how each of the rules was Followed next we have the h1 also known As the heading title the h1 is typically The large font title that is displayed At the top of your article the great Thing about optimizing h1s is that it’s Super easy you simply copy the same Thing you use for your title tag it used To be the case where you’d want these to Be different so you could cover more Keyword area so to speak but ever since Google started rewriting titles i’ve Changed my advice back in 2021 google Started rewriting titles to what they Think is a better version of it a lot of The time they don’t do a good job which Can affect your click-through rate when You make your h1 the same as your title The chances they rewrite it are greatly Reduced the last of the three kings is Your url the url is the most impactful Of the three kings so make sure you Optimize it carefully here’s your rules Like with the title get the single words From the top keywords into it don’t Repeat words again and make it short and Sweet a maximum of three to four words For this set of keyword research i’d Make the following url website.com diy Dash vitamin c serum a little side note Of advice if your url isn’t optimized Properly seriously don’t bother changing It unless it’s absolutely terrible
Changing url structures after they’re Created can do more harm than good for More examples of three kings Optimization make sure to download the Guide next on the checklist we have meta Description optimization your meta Description is what’s displayed here at The bottom of the search result and just Like with the title you fill it out Using your seo plugin like all in one Now despite popular belief putting Keywords in your meta description does Not improve rankings That said your meta description does Influence how many clicks you get from The search result here’s your meta Description optimization rules add your Keywords and google will bold them which Will draw eyes and clicks you can even Use capitalization to draw the eye to Trigger words be persuasive inspire Curiosity and lastly keep it to about 156 characters here’s what i’d use for The meta description for the diy vitamin C serum article notice the cliffhanger Which encourages people to click now we Move on to checking one of the most Important items on the onsite checklist Which is the heading structure you Already know what the h1 is i’ll explain The h2s and the h3s and so forth google Likes your content to follow an outline Your main topic is the h1 here at the Top and that main topic is broken down
Into h2s which are the subtopics and Those subtopics are broken down into h3s Which are the sub subtopics similar to How you might have created an outline For an essay in grade school this kind Of semantic structure makes it really Easy for google to figure out what your Content is about and if you’re Addressing all the subtopics that are Required to answer the main question as With this example here you can’t write An article about losing belly fat unless You talk about exercise but where do you Actually figure out the ideal outline Structure for your content from your Competitors open them up one by one and Look at their heading structures this Health line article says you should also Mention eating fiber in your belly fat Article so add that to your outline you Can use a free tool like the detailed Seo plugin to download all the h2s h3s In one shot another essential item for Your heading structure is an faq section Google your keyword and go down to the People also ask section and start Clicking around to get some awesome Ideas for an h2 faq section and its h3 Question and answers and there’s another Free tool called seominion that can Download people also ask questions for You in one shot too now we get into the Meat and potatoes of the checklist which Focuses on your actual content first you
Want to check the word length of your Article old seo common practice used to Preach that longer articles will always Win on google that advice is outdated Google knows that an article on how to Tie your shoes doesn’t need to be 10 000 Words to determine the target word count For your article google your keyword and Take the average word length of the top Articles still not convinced that word Count matters check out my video where i Deleted 1 000 words from an article and It went to number one on google next you Want to check if you got the search Intent correct there’s basically four Different types of searches Informational search queries represent When people are just looking for Information such as how-to guides on how To do this or that like how to tie your Shoes then we have navigational type Queries like twitter login or mat Diggity contact then transactional like Buy crypto online or car insurance Quotes and lastly comparative such as What is the best crypto exchange or Coinbase review depending on your Keyword google is expecting a different Type of content if you get it wrong you Will not perform well for example if you Google the keyword best wireless router All these articles are listicles listing Out router reviews if you don’t make Your content the same and match the
Search intent you will not rank another Example if you wanted to rank for buy Cbd oil google is expecting to see E-commerce pages your content needs to Be ecommerce format as well google your Keyword and match what’s already ranking On page one next you want to make sure You’re making google’s natural language Processing algorithm happy also known as Nlp according to ibm nlp refers to the Branch of computer science and ai that Gives computers the ability to Understand text in the same way humans Can so basically it’s google’s way of Reading your content this is an Extremely difficult challenge for google As you can imagine so what you want to Do is write content that is super easy For google to understand and they’ll Reward you for it make sure that Somewhere in your content you echo back The main search query add the word is Then give your answer if there’s any Units associated with the answer tack Them on two so for the search query What’s the best temperature to brew beer Have a sentence like this in your Content the best temperature to brew Beer is 60 degrees fahrenheit period That makes it extremely easy for google To know that you answer the question and When you make life easy for google they Make life easy for you in fact i used This tactic and they gave me the number
One featured snippet ranking for the Keyword organic seo services next are You using google synonyms in your Content watch what happens when i search For the phrase how to sell an automobile Online see how google bolds the words Car and vehicle this is google’s way of Saying that these words all mean the Same thing as automobile so sprinkle Them in your content for some extra Google love after that make sure your Content is well researched sure i showed You how to research your competition to Figure out your heading outline but There’s more to it if you’re writing an Article on whey protein versus pea Protein you should actually know the Research behind it or at least know Where to find that information so you Can add it to your content similarly is The information in your content fresh And up to date google’s quality rater Guidelines stresses content freshness Multiple times periodically revisit your Content and update anything that’s Become aged or inaccurate next i got a Bunch of checks for you that have to do With copy how well your content is Written and displayed will keep your Readers on your page longer plus more Importantly it will get them to convert To whatever your article’s goals are Such as signing up for an email list or Buying a product you should have a
Strong introduction paragraph that hooks The reader if someone googles what is The best juicer don’t start off with Something like juicers are incredible Machines that allow you to extract juice From fruits they already know what a Juicer is they want to know which one is The best so get to the point instead Talk about the amount of research you’ve Done how many juicers you’ve reviewed And how one of them stands above and Beyond the rest do you see how much more Interesting that hook is next you want To avoid walls of text this is a wall of Text an intimidating block of content That no one in their right mind is Excited to read instead break up your Content into bite-sized 1-3 sentence Paragraphs this article on writing Readable paragraphs delivers it Perfectly you also want to have a high Html versus text ratio this means that You have a lot of decorative elements on The page in comparison to the amount of Text check out my guide on content for Conversion notice how there’s lists that Break up the content images large text Callouts there’s always something on the Screen that’ll keep the eye entertained Speaking of images you want to make sure They’re optimized as well first and Foremost use high quality images don’t Skimp out on grainy images that will Turn off your reader also when you can
Create unique images maybe that requires You to hire a designer to create unique Graphics or maybe you need to take some Photos on your own unique images go a Long way in establishing credibility for Your brand you also want to pre-size Your images before adding them to your Page if you have huge 20 000 pixel Images that you fully load on the page But shrink down later that’s going to Kill your page load speed which is Something we’re going to talk about Later lastly remember to fill out your Alt tags you can find this in your WordPress settings when uploading an Image i always set my alt tags to Describe whatever’s in the photo the Actual use of the alt tag is used by Screen readers to describe images to Blind people who are visiting a webpage So a real description of the image is Best if it’s an image of a kid with a Baseball then kid with the baseball is Your alt tag another media format not to Be ignored is video adding video to your Content will increase the amount of rich Media on your page which google likes But it’ll also keep people on your page Longer which google likes even more There’s tons of video formats out there But the best to embed is youtube Google’s baby just copy the embed code From any youtube video and plunk it down In your wordpress editor and you’re good
To go next you want to bust out the high School teacher on you and check your Article for grammar and spelling Mistakes it’s never been admitted by Google that grammar and spelling are Ranking factors but you know from common Sense that it’s important to users You’re likely to get more people leaving Your page if it’s chock full of grammar Mistakes and time on page is a ranking Factor if you want a tool to help with Your grammar and spelling checks Grammarly is the industry standard but Free google docs isn’t bad either next You want your content to be readable by 8th graders seriously throw away your Fancy harvard vocabulary it’s not Welcome here it’s all about making your Content readable to as many people as Possible if your readers can’t Understand what you’re talking about They’re gonna leave choose from a Variety of free flesh concatenated Readability tools to see how your Content stacks up next it’s time to Optimize your content for entities what Is this fancy word entities google’s Natural language processing algorithms Break down content into entities think Of them as the nouns the people places And things of your content if you’re Writing a piece of content on dui law Google is expecting to see certain words Coming up in your content words like
Court trials suspension and they’re Expecting to see them come up in certain Frequencies in your content another term For this is keyword density here’s the Story i had a website that ranked number One on google for how to brew beer you Hit a ton of traffic for this keyword But for some reason i ranked number 60 For how to make beer how could that be Possible you can’t make beer without Brewing it you can’t brew beer without Making it they’re one in the same when i Loaded my article on the content Optimization tool surfer it told me that I’d written the word make on the page 300 more than the other sites on page One i was outside the norm of what Google expected to see for this entity Once i fixed it i went straight to Number one definitely check out surfer Save my ass more times than i can count Next now that your content is written It’s time to make sure google knows who Wrote it it’s time to satisfy google’s Eat requirement eat is an acronym the e Part expertise requires your content to Be above and beyond typical information That people can find on the subject a Authority requires your content to be Created by a credible source and t trust Requires that content should be Factually correct and backed up by External sources now it’s pretty obvious That google isn’t going to break into
The uc berkeley archives to figure out If your author went to school there but What they can easily check for is a Complete lack of authorship on your site Here’s what you should do if you have a Blog section on your website make sure To include who wrote each article with a Byline add a short author bio to any Informational articles on your site Including evidence of the author’s Expertise within the subject such as Qualifications credentials etc add links To their social media profiles and make Sure to include all the stuff plus Contact information on the about page of Your website remember when we talked About if you make life easy for google They make life easier for you google Loves when you do this by adding schema Markup to your website what a schema Schema is code that you put on your web Page that makes it super easy for google To figure out exactly what your content Is about if you write content that’s a How-to guide then you just tell google Straight up this is a how-to guide you Can also add review stars to your Articles which display in the search Result as well but at the very least you Want to add author schema which will Help satisfy the whole eat requirement To get started with schema use merkle Schema markup generator open it up and Start filling the stuff out the title of
Your article the author all of it you’ll See your schema code getting generated Here on the right when you’re done copy It to your clipboard then you simply Paste it into the html editor of your WordPress page make sure to check for Errors using google’s free structured Data testing tool over 50 of global Search traffic is on mobile devices so For google it’s extremely important that Your website loads fast my favorite tool To test load speeds is pingdom ideally You’re shooting for a load time faster Than two seconds anything longer than Four seconds is an issue that you want To get fixed some of the checks to Improve your load time include Pre-sizing images as we discussed before Setting up a content delivery network Remove any extra javascript improving Your host if you want someone to take Care of this for you i recommend wp Speed fix use coupon code digity10 for 10 off along the same lines as pagespeed You need to look at your core web vitals To check your code vitals you can use Chrome’s free lighthouse tool open up Your web page and right-click inspect or Control shift i then find the lighthouse Tab in the menus make sure performance And mobile are selected then generate Report here’s what your report looks Like you’ll want a first contentful Paint less than 2.5 seconds time to
Interactive less than 100 milliseconds And a cumulative layout shift less than 0.1 i’ve left a link in the description To a full video on core web vitals check It out after you finish here next you Want to take a look at how your website Appears on mobile devices as you know Already mobile search is very important To google run your website through Google’s mobile-friendly test tool it’s Going to let you know if you have any Issues that you need to fix but don’t Stop there load up your site on a Smartphone and navigate around do you See images bleeding off the page are Fonts overlapping each other your Website needs to look as good on mobile As it does on desktop you can also load Your website in chrome right-click Inspect and then select various devices To simulate your website on for our next Category we’re going to look at internal Links these are the links you have going Between various pages on your website Make sure that your page has a crawl Depth no greater than three huh the way Google finds pages on the internet is by Crawling through links one by one you Want to make sure that the page you’re Auditing is no more than three jumps Away from your home page you can use Various tools like the free version of Screaming frog to check your site in Bulk how do you figure out which pages
Should link to each other i generally Use two simple rules for internal links Rule number one link to pages that are Relevant to each other if you want to Link your protein powder page to a page On muscle gain that makes sense but Don’t link a protein powder page to golf Content rule number two link to pages That you want to rank or should i say Link more to pages that you want to rank More when you link from one page to Another you’re sending what google likes To call page rank to the receiving page The relevance and link authority that One page gathers can send that sweet Google love to another page just by Linking to it so make sure that your Priority pages are linked to from Relevant content there’s also various Interlinking configurations that you can Use such as the top down recycle the Reverse silo and the serial silo to Learn more about internal linking check Out my video on seo silos after you Finish this video how about the anchor Text you use in your internal links are There any rules here there certainly are Anchor text is a highlighted text that Creates a link from one page to another If you have an article trying to rank For something like best wireless router Do not make every link go into this page Have the same anchor text best wireless Router this is called over optimization
Instead you can indeed use keyword rich Anchor text but vary it up recommended Router wi-fi router my favorite wireless Router etc i have a specific ratio i use For internal anchor text optimization in My downloadable guide next let’s take a Look at the outbound links category that Is links that are going from your Articles to other websites make sure to Include outbound links to other sites to Enrich your content if you reference Another website’s data in your content It’s not only polite but you get a Better result on google if you provide a Link to your reference many seos debate If this is a ranking factor or not i Encourage skeptics to actually run their Own seo tests and let data do the Talking like this single variable study From reboot on outbound links if you Have outbound affiliate links on your Site you have two things to check off Your list first make sure they’re marked As nofollow with the rel nofollow tag And second make sure they open in a new Window with the target blank tag not Only is nofollow the recommendation from Google but i’ve seen massive gains at my Agency by just now following all the Affiliate links on new client sites next Make sure you have no broken outbound Links that is links that are going out To places that don’t exist anymore you Can use the ahrefs free broken link
Checker to scan for broken outbound Links and incoming broken links as well That’s other websites linking to your Pages that don’t exist anymore both are No-no’s speaking of inbound links coming From outside sources let’s dive into That category as well make sure you Audit your site for spammy inbound links Google’s penguin algorithm is one of the Most severe penalizing your site for Having too many links coming from Untrustworthy places here’s a list of Link types that google often thinks are Spamming blog comments forum links low Quality press releases hacked links Bookmarks directory submissions and Automatically generated links start by Downloading your inbound links from a Tool like ahrefs and sort through them One by one ask yourself does this link Look natural to google would i consider This a quality link if the answer is no Take care of it with a removal request From the site’s webmaster or disavow if You want a service to take care of this For you authority builders link audit Service is really good another way Google’s penguin algorithm can attack Your site is if you have over optimized Incoming anchor text if you have an Anchor text profile that is Predominantly target rich anchor text Google knows that would never happen in The real world so they’ll assume you’re
Manipulating your link building you Should instead look at each page on an Individual basis the anchor text coming Into each page should have a natural Blend of target brand url topical and Miscellaneous anchor text check out my Webinar and anchor text optimization to Learn more the next category is all About monetization or namely are you Monetizing your website to such a degree That you’re ruining the user experience First look out for over-intrusive Pop-ups on your page pop-ups are okay But if they’re aggressively covering a Majority of the screen google is gonna Slam you for that also look out for Aggressive ad placements if your site Looks like this where ninety percent of What people see as ads google hates that If you wanna take a deep dive into any Of these on-site seo checklist concepts Including step-by-step solutions on how To fix these issues make sure to Download the full guide link in the Description