Help with SEO

[roygore]

It's been a few years since I last tried to set up search engine options and have forgotten most of what I knew.

I've been reading all other posts about the subject but still have some question please.

I have configured Meta Tags and SEO tabs under the Page Properties for the home/index page and now need to obtain and set up the Google and Bing meta tags.

1- Do I need to setup Meta Tags and SEO under Page Properties for all the other pages in my website?

2- Having setup the Meta Tags and SEO tabs under the Page Properties, is it really necessary to have the Meta Tags codes from Google and Bing to link to my website?

3- I seem to recall that there used to be 2 long codes that had to be obtained from Google and Bing which had to be inserted into the html code - one just before </head> and the other just before </body> (I think). Reading all the other posts , they seem to only refer to one code. My question: Is there only one Google code and one Bing code, which gets inserted just before </head>?

Can anyone help and educate me please on the current set up requirements of SEO?

Roy

[Bluesman]

Hi roygore
I'm not an expert in SEO, but it works pretty good for me... some thoughts:
- I presume you have; Google Analytics, Google search console and Google My business activated for your site?
- First in Google search console you must send your "Site map" for your site.
- Second get the Google Analytics tracking script and insert between the Head tags of your page. You have a special Google analytics tool if you right-click on a free space of your page.
- Next in page properties set the "Title" of the page (important) special for every page in the project. Set the meta tags; key words and description that refers to every different page. It's important that these are repeated in H1, H2, H3 headers...
Just some to get started

[roygore]

Hi Bluesman,

Thanks for the feedback.

Just to clarify what I have so far.

Under the 'index' Page Properties, I have the following set:
'Meta Tags' tab: Arthur, Key Words, Description.
'SEO' tab: Robots, Visit after, Canonical.

Do I need to do the above for every page on my site?

I have obtained Google (and Bing) ownership verification codes via the Google search console and inserted them just before the </Head> tag on the 'index' page.
Does this need to be done for all my website pages?

I have also created a 'Site map' but have not sent it to Google - can't locate where to do this on the Google Console web page!

I haven't addressed Google Analytics and Google My business. Not really familiar with these - what is the advantage of using them; do they make a big difference?

In addition, I have been mindful of 'page naming', 'file and image naming', 'loading times', 'general layout', etc.

Is there anything else I should be doing regarding SEO?

I really appreciate your help. Thank you again.

Roy

[Bluesman]

Hi roygore
You don't nead to insert all for every page, you can click the "Make default" button and have all the settings for all pages, but notice it is good if you have unique "Title" for every page and that you have some keywords and description that are specific to the actual page.
Of cause you must set up your Google analytics and search console pages... so you can check that your actions are working.. etc. And make a big difference when it comes to your ranking.
It is also very important you use the "Site map" tool in WWB. With this you set up how the pages shall be monitored in the mapping process.

[roygore]

Bluesman,

Thanks for your help and assistance - very useful especially for someone who is still learning.

I will implement your suggestions.

Roy

[BaconFries]

Is there anything else I should be doing regarding SEO?

As you will find out SEO is a vast topic. Just do a Google search on the matter and you will find a multitude of does and don'ts. Some will conflict and say you should do the don'ts over the does and every one is a expert in the subject. Some basic rules are (note I am in no way a expert)

Keywords are great and were the main way to gain a better ranking at one time still useful but best used without over stuffing (Google shuns the over use of these). When adding them ask yourself what words or phrases would you use as a customer if you were searching for your site in any of the search engines. Use words that make sense to your sites (page) content try not to get repeat words. Depending of the page content try to keep to a minimum and maximum keywords for talking sake some pages may only need a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 50.

Using Headers H1, H2 ect
When using you should always start with H1 tag it should use keywords that are related to the page title and also to the relivence of the page content.
The H2 tag is seen as a subheading to the H1, like the H1 tag it to should contain similar keywords used in your H1 tag.
If you need to use H3 then like before with the H2 being a subheading to H1 this time the H3 is a subheading of H2. As you can see there is a order of importance with H1 being the first from a SEO point.

Appropriate title tags
These are used to specify the title of each page and used appropriately to match the content of the page. When a search is used they will get displayed in the results as a clickable headline which when clicked will navigate to that page with that title.

Meta Descriptions
These are used to give a description of the page content it should also be unique to the page. Just as the the title tag it too will be displayed in the search result.

Website content
This is self explanatory. It should be readable and understandable to the reader be unique to that page in question and not to ramble on so not to (bore) the reader.

Alt tags. The use of Image Alt Text (this benefits screen readers for the visually impaired) also to help search crawlers index the images. It works in a similar way to a tool tip when the user places the mouse over a line of text will appear describing the image if used with a screen reader a verbal description will be read out great for those with a visual impairment.

This is just my thoughts on this and in noway am I a expert it is purely for information only and cannot guarantee that anything mentioned will increase your ranking in any of the search engines.

[roygore]

Thanks BaconFries,

As you say this is a vast topic with numerous options and variables.

I appreciate your thoughts and will do my best to action accordingly.


I wonder if your might know the answer to this:
Google has started to validate one of my sites and has sent the following message saying that there is an error


Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt: The page was indexed, despite being blocked by your website's robots.txt file. (Google always respects robots.txt, but this doesn't necessarily prevent indexing if someone else links to your page). We're not sure if you intended to block the page from search results:

If you do want to block this page, robots.txt is not the correct mechanism to avoid being indexed. To avoid being indexed you should either use 'noindex' or limit access to the page by requiring users to log in. You can use the robots.txt tester to determine which rule is blocking this page. Because of the robots.txt rule, any snippet shown in Google Search results for the page will probably be very limited.

If you do not want to block this page, update your robots.txt file to unblock your page.

Indexed without content: This page appears in the Google index, but for some reason Google could not read the content. Possible reasons are that the page might be cloaked to Google or the page might be in a format that Google can't index. This is not a case of robots.txt blocking.


This message sounds to me that Google could not read the pages of the website. I have a script on each page to block anyone from copying and using the text and photos - could this be the problem?

Thank you again for your help

Roy

[BaconFries]

From the message it looks like you are using a robot.txt file that contains text i.e. noindex, what this will do block search engine bots indexing your site / pages. If you wish the bots to search and index your site / pages it best to not use this. As for the scripts I doubt that they would affect this as there purpose is to simply stop user trying to copy your content.

You may have also set this in Page properties / Miscellaneous / Robot set to Noindex no follow if you have set to default. Another possibility is you have manually used the following
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

[roygore]

Thanks for the reply.

I've doubled checked the Page Properties > SEO settings - Robots is set to 'index, follow' ; Revisit after is '31 days' ; Canonical is 'https://tringconnections.org.uk/index.html'

For information: Although I have a background in IT, I'm basically a self taught website builder (not a trained programmer). I can edit some html code but not capable of writing html from scratch. I used to create websites using Serif WebPlus, but have now switched over to SYSIWYG WWB.

I'm afraid I have no idea what a robot.txt file is! How do I find a Robot.txt file, if there is one? How do I determine it's purpose? How do I remove it assuming it is not necessary?

I'm setting up SEO on 5 different websites and am being inundated with emails from Google saying that my websites are now being validated and that Google is now collection impressions . . . ! Would it, therefore, be safe to assume that SEO is set up and is starting to work?

Thank you again for all your time and help.

Roy

[BaconFries]

See the following from Google. By the way nice site and the subject matter especially in these times...
https://developers.google.com/search/do ... bots/intro

[roygore]

Thanks - the website was done for a local church who are running a befriending and loneliness campaign for people in the local area.

I'll have a read of the link.

Thanks again
Roy

[MAX_CDF]

Sorry for reviving this thread. Does anyone have any SEO tips that could help now? Any new developments recently?

Found this article, I think it should be helpful. It's by Gerrid Smith, the owner of the Fortress agency. It explains how to do local SEO, content, and other important stuff.

[wwonderfull]

It is still almost the same maybe Google takes more money for advertisement other than that the fundamentals of seo are still the same. search engine optimization is not a small topic.

In short any technique which would allow your website to be discovered by various methods is part of search engine optimization. It is all about the discovery. That is what we want that people find their search become relevant to what we offer.

[johnsmith0251]

This is like asking "how do i build a house" - you would need to know architecture, plumbing, electrical, construction, etc.

There are so many different digital assets that are needed depending on the goal.

SEO can include technical aspects of the website, specific ways to write content, social signals from social media popularity, business profiles, backlinks ...

The list can feel overwhelming and never-ending.

If it fits your budget consider Semrush or Ahrefs to start.

[Rob]

On page SEO - my best practices:

- Unique, Page specific, keyword rich (but not too long) page titles (<70), descriptions (<150), keyword tags (<15 phrases).
- Only 1 H1 tag per page, but add h2 and h3 tags also
- Canonical tags
- ensure pages are NOT set to noindex / nofollow (via page properties AND robots.txt file
- Add sitemap.xml file (this is what you submit to search engines via GWT / BWT
- OG Tags for FB and Twitter
- Schema tags via schema object

- Add site to Google Webmaster Tools / Bing Webmaster Tools for SEO monitoring and indexing (submit sitemap.xml file) and each page for indexing
- Add Google Analytics (traffic)
- Add Google My Business Maps Listing (can connect to Bing Maps listings) Local directory listing

I also like to redirect index.html to the root domain name. This can be done via htaccess. Page speed can also be tweeked via the htaccess. GTMetrix can provide tools once site is scanned.

Web based audit of websites:
http://nibbler.silktide.com/
http://seositecheckup.com/
https://www.seoptimer.com/
https://www.woorank.com/
https://website.grader.com/

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights - page speed
http://www.siteuptime.com/

https://diib.com/ - subscription based

https://www.thewebsiteguy.biz/onpageseo.html

https://www.thewebsiteguy.biz/whitelabe ... vices.html

Rob - The Website Guy (MN)

[gvr]

Website speed, mobile optimization, content. These are very important, in my opinion. These are explained here.