Take the SEO Readiness Quiz and Get Your Grade (2020 Edition).
So you’ve launched your blog and you’re ready to start growing your audience. Now, you’re interested in generating some free Google traffic.
Not sure you’re covering your bases? Take the quiz to see if your blog is set up for SEO success.
Answer each question honestly for the best results.
I'll also send you my FREE 5-Day eCourse on how to optimize your Wordpress blog for SEO. This course is packed with information based on my 10-years working in the corporate world as a digital marketer- including as a paid SEO specialist.
It looks like you know how to optimize your website for SEO, but - there's always room for improvement!
It looks like you know how to optimize your website for SEO, but - there's always room for improvement!
You're on the right track. A few more tweaks and your blog should be well-optimized for SEO!
This just means there's lots of room for improving your blog's SEO!
This just means there's lots of room for improving your blog's SEO!
Question One: Have you setup Google Analytics and Google Search Console?
That's great! These tools are integral to SEO tracking.
Make sure to install Google Search Console too - it tells your blog performs on search.
Make sure to install Google Analyics too - it tells your visitors use your website.
Uh oh! These tools are the first step to tracking SEO success.
Google Analytics is integral to understanding how your blog visitors use your website. Basic information like total traffic numbers and where your traffic is coming from is provided. But even more telling information, like how long a user stays on specific pages, most common exit pages, and slow loading pages will help you improve your engagement rate for your entire blog. And, Engagement is an important ranking factor for SEO.
Google Search Console is one of the most underutilized tools by bloggers. It's the only way to see what specific keywords you're showing up for in Google Search, what percent of the time your search listing is clicked when it's on the page, and your average position for search terms. This will tell you how well you're ranking for your target keywords.
Question Two: Have You Submitted Your XML Sitemap to Google Search Console?
That's great - but when's the last time you updated it?
Make sure to submit a sitemap if you want Google to crawl your website thoroughly.
A sitemap helps Google discover your website, especially when your website is brand new. Make sure to update as soon as you post any new content to help Google detect new content as soon as possible.
Google will scan websites without XML sitemaps, but this ensure your website is covered better.
Question Three: How do you usually decide on what blog post to create next?
An initial brainstorm is a good first step, but it can set you up for disappointment by leading you to create content that's too hard to rank for, or that no one is actually searching for.
That's great! Hopefully you're finding keywords that are rankable, searched for and you're creating content that matches searcher intent.
If you're not strategically creating content that's realistically going to bring traffic to your website, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment when it comes to SEO.
Keyword tools will help you easily determine how much search traffic a keyword gets and how competice it is.
Question Four: Does every page and post of your website have a custom meta-description?
A meta-description is the text that shows up under your page title and other search engines when your blog posts show up on Google.
It's essentially your chance to convince someone to click on your search listing versus someone elses.
A great meta-description will encourage more visitors to click through to your website. This tells Google that your page matches the user intent and indirectly helps you move up the search rankings.
Question Five: Do you optimize your URLs?
That's good, but if your URL is too long, your target keyword could be diluted by too many words.
Yay! This helps users and search engines easily read your URL.
Uh Oh! If you didn't set up permalinks, then your URLs could just be a random mix of numbers. URLs should be as readable as possible.
Your URL shows up on Google as part of your search listing. You want to make sure it's concise so that the entire URL displays to the user. You also want to make sure it contains the target keyword so the user can see your URL matches what they're searching for.
Additionally, if the URL is random numbers and dates, this means nothing to Google. By customizing the URL to include the keyword you're giving users, Google, and other search engines insight to what the page is about.
Question Six: How do you include your target keyword in blog posts?
Be super careful. Google can see this as a spammy tactic called keyword stuffing.
That's great! Sounds like you know how to include your target keyword in content.
This all goes back to keyword research. You want to create content around a keyword you can rank for and use that keyword appropriately in your content.
Putting your keyword in your content appropriately helps search engines (and users) understand what your page is about.
Once your page starts to rank, including the target keyword in your URL, page title, and meta description will help improve your clickthrough rate.
Be carefuly not to overdo it though, always write for the user. If your content doesn't make sense and is spammed with a keyword, no one will want to read it.
Question Seven: Have you used Google PageSpeed Insights for your blog? What were the results?
You'll definitely want to test this. Site speed is important for both SEO and usability.
That's awesome! Sounds like you already know how to make a speedy website.
It's great that your desktop speed is fast! It's notoriously difficult to make a speedy mobile website, but you're on the right track...
At least you're aware! Follow the instructions provided by Google to get your site speed up. I find big, uncompressed images are the lowest hanging fruit.
PageSpeed is an important ranking factor for Google. The slower your website is, worse for SEO.
More importantly, if you have a slow website, people won't wait for it to load. This is especially true for mobile. This is bad in general, but it's also a negative ranking factor when someone hits the back-button quickly after hittin your website on Google.
Question Eight: Have you used Google PageSpeed Insights for your blog? What were the results?
Awesome! Make sure to keep testing as you create new pages and posts.
Not all themes are responsive.
Not only is a mobile-friendly website important to Google for SEO, it's also important for your users.
It's estimated that in 2020, approximately 50% of Interent traffic is mobile. If users are coming to your website from social media like Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook, it's even more likely that they're browsing on mobile.
If users can't easily use your blog on mobile, you're alienating half of your blog traffic.