How to Improve SEO: 15 Tactics to Boost Your Rankings & Traffic That Don’t Require New Content

Its functionality has expanded significantly in both depth and user base. It might not have the freshest data for backlinks, but the DA metric is a simple reference when judging domain strength. Ahrefs is my primary tool for backlink insights and competitor research. Their crawler is often compared to Google’s own – meaning you will find links that many other tools might overlook. Google Search Console (GSC) gives you a behind-the-scenes look at your website’s organic performance.

If your post is a good fit, you’ll find that many of the people that you email will be happy to share it with their audience. To use it, search for a keyword that describes what your content is all about. For example, one of the goals with my guide to learning SEO was to promote some of my older posts. The truth is, unless you already have a massive audience, you need to hustle to get the word out about your new content.

You can tell search engine crawlers things like “do not index this page in search results” or “don’t pass any link equity to any on-page links”. These instructions are executed via Robots Meta Tags in the of your HTML pages (most commonly used) or via the X-Robots-Tag in the HTTP header. 4xx errors are client errors, meaning the requested URL contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled. One of the most common 4xx errors is the “404 – not found” error. These might occur because of a URL typo, deleted page, or broken redirect, just to name a few examples. Non-text media forms (images, video, GIFs, etc.) should not be used to display text that you wish to be indexed.

We’ve tried to make it as concise and easy to understand as possible, and learning the basics of SEO is a vital first step in achieving your online business goals. You’ll get the most out of this guide if your desire to learn search engine optimization (SEO) is exceeded only by your willingness to execute and test concepts. Keyword research is the process of identifying the specific words and phrases that people search for to find information, products, or services on the internet. Keyword Research is an important step in understanding what the user is searching.

SEO tools – which ones do I need?

Occasionally the snippet may be sourced from the contents of the meta description tag, which is typically a succinct, one- or two-sentence summary of the page. A good meta description is short, unique to one particular page, and includes the most relevant points of the page. Check out our tips for writing good meta SEO Anomaly descriptions for more inspiration. You can then navigate to the “Referring Domains” tab to monitor new and lost backlinks over time. This can help you understand the effectiveness of your link-building strategies.

Google’s Updated Raters Guidelines Refines Concept Of Low Quality

When you optimize your site for search, you’re also improving the overall user experience. To show up in search results for relevant keywords, you need to first target those keywords on your site. People don’t search for local businesses in the Yellow Pages anymore. Learn how to get more business from organic search with our SEO guides for local businesses. This is where you optimize your pages to help search engines understand them. Before you start learning SEO, you need to understand how search engines work.

To describe all the features and data reports Google Analytics has to offer, we would need a separate ultimate guide. You can select one of the default segments (e.g. Organic Traffic, Mobile Traffic) or create and save a new one to speed up your workflow. You can find the date range selector at the top right of every report. It enables you to look at the data within various time frames or compare two time periods. When analyzing any change in your performance (e.g. sudden drop in clicks), always try to find the root of the problem by checking various dimensions to find what exactly caused the changes. The report you’ll spend the most time with and the one we’ll take a closer look in this chapter is the Performance report.

There’s a direct correlation between quantity and quality of backlinks and rankings. A great place to start is a keyword research tool where you can look specifically for “question” keywords. Republishing is also a great opportunity to promote your post again on social media and newsletter, or starting a new link building campaign.

• That means that it’s worth my time to get this post to Google’s first page.
• When you find keywords you want to target, save them with the “+” button.
• The next step is to find websites that might want to link to you and contact them (more on that in a while).
• For business owners, they offer a valuable opportunity to direct relevant and qualified traffic to your website.

Use Creative Seed Keywords

CO—is committed to helping you start, run and grow your small business. Learn more about the benefits of small business membership in the U.S. CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation. Learn how to connect search, AI, and PPC into one unstoppable strategy.

You can start with our guide on SEO for beginners or take free courses in Ahrefs’ Academy. At the same time, the best kind of topics are the ones that hold business value to you. Otherwise, you’re unlikely to attract potential customers through SEO.