Fixing Website Issues

This article is about fixing website issues using Google Webmaster Tools.

All websites that you want to be indexed in Google need to be set up on Google Webmaster Tools. You will need to verify that you own the site by going through their site verification process and it is also a good idea to submit an XML sitemap.

In the past I have used Google Webmaster Tools to primarily check my search traffic keywords, links to my site and that the pages were being indexed by Google.

I have not systemised these checks and it is certainly a good idea to make sure you check your site with Google Webmaster Tools on a regular basis and here is the reason why.

From time to time you will get messages from Google flagging up errors on your website which you need to fix. I have just discovered 2 huge general errors and, because I was not checking Google Webmaster Tools regularly, was not aware of this until today.

Much of the content on my pages was blocked to Google because of a faulty robots.txt file which I needed to correct and re-upload via FTP. I discovered this using the ‘Crawl’ menu within Google Webmaster Tools which firstly flagged up the crawl errors. I was then able to see how Google was viewing the page using the ‘Fetch As Google’ function in the ‘Crawl’ menu. It is easy to use and very illuminating!

These errors were also affecting the mobile-friendliness of my web pages – 22% of my pages were flagging mobile errors including the fact that some of the mobile ‘touch’ elements on my pages are too close together. I may need to change my WordPress theme to correct these as Google has announced that it is de-indexing pages that are not mobile friendly as from 21st April 2015! As mobile related traffic accounts for roughly 50% of all traffic, sites that are not mobile-friendly will be at a serious traffic disadvantage.

This demonstrates why it is important to invest in a good professional theme which is tried and tested by a lot of users i.e. to make sure that all the wrinkles are ironed out. Errors like these will severely affect the amount of search engine traffic you and I will attract to our websites and therefore should not be ignored.

So I recommend that you check out your websites using Google Webmaster Tools and set about fixing website issues that this site flags up for you.

How To Get Your Offline Business Noticed Online

In this video I briefly cover the burning issue ‘How To Get Your Offline Business Noticed Online.’

In the video I cover:

how potential customers find your business online
an example of an actual client
the importance of keywords and keyword research
on page optimisation
off-page optimisation
paid advertising
the importance of having a clear call to action and value proposition
the importance of optimising your website for mobile devices

If you need any help solving the problem of how to get your offline business noticed online, then please feel free to contact me

How To Target Long Tail Keywords

This is a brief article about how to target long tail keywords when doing keyword research for seo purposes.

Long tail keywords are a good option for getting good search engine rankings for your content because the competition for keywords is very intense.

However, always bear in mind that the most important strategy for ranking your content is to ensure that it is of high quality i.e. that it is well-researched, well written and the on page seo gives the search engines a good steer on how to index your content by using on-page SEO strategies such as:

having the keyword in the title, first and last sentences and used in headings and scattered naturally through your article together with relevant LSI (related) keywords.
that images and video titles etc are titled or tagged with your keyword
that you link to other relevant content both on and off your blog as appropriate to maximise the value of your content to the reader.

So how do you target long tail keywords?

Well here are 3 suggestions – the first two are completely free to use and the third is a paid tool that takes your research to the next level:

use Google Suggest to find related keywords
go to http://keywordtool.io and do a search on you main keyword
use a software tool called Long Tail Pro

In the video below, I demonstrate each of these methods to show you exactly how to target long tail keywords for your website using these tools:

GET LONG TAIL PRO HERE

Early Ranking Results – Proof That Targeting Long Tail Keywords Works…

Let the rankings settle down and I expect these rankings to improve over the next few days.

Tynt.com – Backlink Attribution

Tynt.com has a free product entitled ‘Copy & Paste’ that is effectively a little snippet of Javascript that you add before the header tag on your website (-if you are not sure how to do that Tynt show you how-) and if anyone then copies and pastes your content then it will automatically add a link back to the web page from which the content was copied so that you get backlink attribution.

Potentially this is a good way to get more backlinks to your website from content curation i.e. other people copying and pasting your content onto their own websites or social media sites.

Did I mention it was FREE!!! Go to Tynt.com and do this now! The video below shows you how:

3 Excellent SEO Tips

Here are 3 excellent SEO tips that you may wish to adopt for your websites in order to generate more search engine traffic.

1 Keyword Research & Site Structure

Prior to setting up your website do some keyword research using the Google Keyword Planner to ensure that the keywords that you are optimising for have a reasonable amount of searches.

I prefer to use a silo structure for keywords i.e.

– choose a primary keyword and 4 secondary keywords for each website and each web page on the site

– these are chosen using the Google Keyword Planner to ensure relevance i.e. input your primary keyword and choose your secondary keywords from the relevant keyword ideas listed

– the website landing page is optimised for the primary keyword of the website and then create articles for the 4 secondary keywords i.e. they become the primary keyword for the article with another 4 secondary keywords chosen using the Google Keyword Planner

– this creates a pyramid structure of relevant articles all linking back to the primary keyword at the top of the pyramid.

– hypertext link between the articles

– ideally you also need to add your site to Google Webmaster Tools and add an XML Site Map.

– ideally your chosen domain name should include the primary keyword for the website

If you are looking for website ideas Digital Trends is a great way for coming up with ideas for trending topics that you can rank for.

2 Install the ‘WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin

Install the above plugin into your WordPress site and configure this plugin as per this article: https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

3 Install the Transposh translation plugin

Install the free Transposh plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/transposh-translation-filter-for-wordpress/) and configure as follows (- you will need to tick the upgrade box on the xyz settings page and then update the plugin to enable you to select all languages -):

Then add the Transposh Widget to your sidebar

Summary

Now let’s summarise what we have achieved.

We have chosen keywords that get a respectable amount of traffic (because it is pointless ranking for keywords that don’t get much traffic.)

We have structured our content so that it is relevant to the primary keyword and, if we then create high value articles, we should get lots of relevant keyword rankings. (If you would like a tool and training to help you with your keyword structure and creating silo websites then Peter Garety’s P1 Traffic Machine is an excellent tool for this purpose.)

We have added the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin and followed the instructions so that our site content is correctly configured for the search engines.

We have added the Transposh translation plugin so that our website appeals to searches from almost any source on the planet – Google will like this!

These 3 excellent SEO tips will put you a long way ahead of your competition.

SEO Resources

Here are some more SEO Resources to help you:

How to Write an SEO Article – Part 1
How to Write an SEO Article – Part 2
SEO Copywriters: Don’t Let Awkward Keywords Defeat You

Mark Salmon

Post Category → SEO