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Beginner’s Guide to SEO

You’ve got a website – now what? Get optimising! A beginner’s SEO guide

Learn how to improve your website’s organic traffic. Your website is online for people to find you – so make sure the search engines can crawl and index your website! Discover the plugins, themes, tricks and tips you need for SEO success. In this talk attendees will learn how to optimise their WordPress website for search engines. Leave with a checklist of how you can move your website from page 21 to page 1. All the tools I recommend in this talk are free.

Here are my slides from WordCamp Glasgow 2020:

View the slides

Keep in touch:

Email Linkedin Twitter

from Jessica Thomas https://jessica-thomas.com/seo/beginners-guide-to-seo

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Affiliate Site Case Study: Month 1 [Jan 2020]

In 2020 I want to put my SEO skills to the test, by starting an affiliate website. My 2020 SEO goal is to visit the Chaing Mai SEO conference in November 2020, with a growing affiliate website under my belt.

Let’s see if I can do it.

So to keep myself motivated i’ve decided I want to keep this blog updated monthly with my progress (or lack of!) There are a lot of guys out there that talk the affiliate talk and according to their own websites walk the walk. I want to find out if it really can be done. 

This case study might turn out to be an absolute failure – but it will be an interesting test. If it fails then I can only learn from those mistakes. 

How I’ve Started the Affiliate Site

After spending a few nights searching through Spamzilla, I purchased an expired domain through GoDaddy.  I set myself a max £50 budget for an expiring domain in a niche I was interested in. I purchased the domain for £35.

Why I Chose The Expiring Domain I Did

It was a 15 year old domain.

It had a decent amount of content on the site when it was hosted, which led to a couple of backlinks from high authority sites including www.matthewwoodward.co.uk and neilpatel.com

The site focused on a niche I am interested in (website building, SEO, WordPress & online monetisation).

The stats on AHREFS were OK and looked like this:

What Did I Do Once The Domain Name Was Mine?

I went to the Wayback Machine to gather all the sites previous content.

Using my 20i reseller hosting account I created a blank WordPress install and pointed the domain name to my hosting provider. I wanted to get the site back up and running as quickly as possible.

Images were not displaying on the Wayback Machine so I copied and pasted all the posts which had backlinks pointing towards them. This was around 20 posts in total. I made sure the site had the exact same URL structure as the old website.

I installed the Astra Pro theme. It’s very easy to customise. At this point I’m still not sure how exactly I want the site to look, so put Astra on there so I can potentially change the sites look later. This month it was just about getting the content on there and making sure Google could easily crawl the website again.

Installed the Rank Math SEO plugin.

Installed Google Analytics & Google Search Console.

Submitted the sitemap to Google Search Console.

30 Day Results

This is what’s happened since the site went live a month ago.

The URL and domain ratings of the site has increased in AHREFS.

The number of backlinks has significantly dropped and I have lost a couple of high authority backlinks.

This is how much content is currently on the website:

Now What?

I plan to just leave the site for a couple of weeks and see what ranking position (if any) the current content gets. This will have an impact on what content I decide to add or optimise next month.

Next month I intend to:

Complete in depth keyword research.

Create a content strategy.

Add 10,000 words of content.

Improve the website and bring it into 2020 – at the moment it’s just text.

Monitor internal links.

Optimise existing content.

Add my affiliate links across the site. (Currently they are still pointing towards the previous owner.)

from Jessica Thomas https://jessica-thomas.com/seo/affiliate-site-case-study-month-1

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How to make your WordPress website load faster for free

Improving your websites page speed is one of the best things to improve user experience on your website. Google loves fast websites. There are premium caching and image optimising plugins you can use on your website. There are also freemium plugins you can use. I wanted to see what the results were of using these 3 free plugins as opposed to their premium counterparts. Check out the results!

How Can You Make a Website Faster For Free?

This was a question I wanted answering. Luckily I found this video by Gal Baras on WordPress.tv. If you have some time I would highly recommend watching this video.

Gal suggested installing 3 plugins and configuring them so that they work together to improve your site speed.

He recommended installing the following plugins:

WP Fastest Cache Plugin

EWWW Image Optimiser

Autoptimse

You can watch the video to see how exactly the plugins should be configured and what each bits should do.

What Were The Results of Installing These 3 Plugins?

Running a free page speed report on GTMetrix showed the following results.

Before

After

The PageSpeed score increased by 16%.

The YSlow Score improved by 3%.

The fully loaded time was reduced by nearly 3 seconds (2.9).

Want to Increase Your Page Speed With Just 1 Plugin?

There are some paid for premium plugins that you can use such as WP Rocket.

from Jessica Thomas https://jessica-thomas.com/seo/how-to-make-your-wordpress-website-load-faster-for-free

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Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Should You Get It?

If you’re a part of Amazon FBA, you know that the competition is fierce, the marketplace is pretty saturated, and getting your business to the top is a tough job. The Helium 10 Chrome Extension brings in a range of user-friendly features designed to make it a valuable part of your Amazon browsing experience. It does this by displaying competitor data when you search through seller ratings and pages.

Features of the Helium 10 Chrome Extension

Here are some of the many fantastic features this software offers:

X-Ray

It provides data almost instantly on a product you may be interested in selling or on your competitors. This includes product revenue estimates, sales trends in a particular sector, and just how viable the product you have in mind is.

Profitability Calculator

By combing the aspects of a product already in the market and the specifications of your actual product, you can use the profitability calculator to find out if it’s actually worth selling or not.

ASIN Grabber

The ASIN is basically your Amazon Standard Identification Number. The ASIN grabber will allow you to conduct a competitor analysis on ASINs similar to yours to find out who the top sellers are. This will show you who your main competitors are/should be, and how you need to up your game to become the top player in the sector.

Inventory Level

Again, like all of Helium 10’s features, this one is also designed to help you get ahead of the competition. It enables you to keep track of the number of units other sellers have collectively without having to check each seller’s inventory individually.

You can then develop your strategy accordingly to sell a higher number of units.

50% OFF? You Bet!

Click the link to get 50% off your first month of Helium 10.

GET DISCOUNT

Listing Health Score

This is a checklist that you can follow to optimize the product you are selling/trying to sell. Apart from gauging what your competitors are up to, it also allows you to discover which areas you need to improve on.

Review Downloader

With this, you can collectively download your competitors’ customer reviews to find out what your customers’ demands are and how you can fine-tune your product/selling strategy to fulfill them.

Analytics Data

Overall, you’ll find some valuable analytics data to become the best in the business. This includes:

Sales data

High-demand keywords

Product/seller rankings

Listing

Download the Helium 10 Chrome Extension

This extension works best when paired with the Helium 10 software suite. Once you incorporate Helium 10 into your research, competitor analysis, and selling strategy, you can improve your overall Amazon selling experience. Some valuable tools this extension will provide over the seller’s journey include:

Magnet – Keyword aggregator

Black Box – Product analyzer

Trendster – Sales trend analyzer

Refund genie – Amazon Refund Generator

Compete with 1000s of Amazon sellers who are already using Helium 10, develop the most effective seller strategy, and become the top seller on the platform.

Helium 10 Discount

Use the discount code JESSICA50 to get 50% your first month.

from Jessica Thomas https://jessica-thomas.com/seo/helium-10-chrome-extension-should-you-get-it

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Helium 10: How to do effective Amazon keyword research

Go Incognito on Google.

Enter your initial search term into Amazon.co.uk.

See initially what comes up.

Open up excel and start a spreadsheet.

Make a note of any initial keywords which come up which are relevant.

Then search for the top keyword and select the top product. This will be our competitor product.

Use the CEREBO tool in Helium 10. Enter the ASIN number and look at the top keywords. Export the list of keywords into Excel. Filter by the organic keywords. Rank in order of there CEREBO score. The higher the score the more likely we are to rank for those keywords.

Highlight the most relevant keywords from the top of the list. Use common sense!

You can also use the MAGNET tool. Make sure you filter by organic keywords.

 Once you have 10-20 keywords add them to the initial keyword tab. This tab will feature all the keywords we want to rank for that product.

Save the spreadsheet.

Use the Helium 10 Scribbles Listing optimiser. Enter your keywords or phrases in the left hand side. Then start to write your listing. (Remember to regularly save it.)

Make sure that you optimise the keywords for the listing.

Amazon Checklist: Helium 10

Title

Load up your best keywords towards the front of the title.

Keep your title under 60 characters, practical and easy-to-read. Only include information that will capture customer interest and rank your product higher with Amazon’s algorithm.

Use caps if necessary to highlight particular keywords.

Use – to make the title more user friendly and help particular words stand out.

Title should be between 150-200 characters.

Example:

VODAFONE 30GB Preloaded Data SIM. NO CONTRACT. Easy activation. UNLIMITED Calls + Texts. Europe ROAMING.

Bullet points

Description bullets are your chance help your product’s features and benefits shine. They contain the most important information about your product that address your customers’ needs and emotions. In other words, it’s prime real estate for your better keywords.

Use the Review Downloader tool in Helium 10’s Chrome Extensions tool to gather insights from competitor reviews. You can address their shortcomings in your own listing to increase your product’s appeal to your target audience or target the positive mentions and make your product sound better than the competition. In other words, speak your buyers’ language. Make that emotional connection.

Look at competitors reviews to make your product stand out. I.e if a competitor’s product takes 3 days to be activated let’s highlight the fact ours is updated in 24hours. Use Helium 10 Chrome extension download tool.

Make sure there are 5 bullet points.

Use emojis to make the bullets more user friendly.

Use CAPS to highlight certain features and benefits.

Use the Scribbles Listing optimiser tool in Helium 10.

Example:

Description

Create engaging description of product.

Use HTML to format product description.

How your product works • Your product’s uses • When your product should be used • Where your product should be used.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when describing the “why” behind your product to establish an emotional connection with customers: • Are you selling the product to help a cause? • Are you solving a problem in society, or fulfilling a need? • Are you improving what has come before your product?

HTML

<br> This will ensure there is a link break in the description. </br>

<b>this will make text bold.</b>

You can test your html/ how your product description will look here: https://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_intro

Example

Images

7 clear images

Images need to be at least 1000x1000px.

Use images saved here:

https://freeclixltd.sharepoint.com/:f:/s/247techstore/Enx41inm1CFEuD_RhPsXzP4BdOpjPMh96i_CwEFqkTkO1Q?e=GFxVWa

Reviews

Ideally you need 10 reviews on each product. Send a product link for people to review(utilise friends and family!)

Resources:

https://justonedime.com/blog/how-to-create-headers-breaks-and-bullet-points-for-your-amazon-product-listing

ULTIMATE GUIDE to Perfect Amazon Product Listing Optimization

https://helium10.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033679094-How-to-Use-Magnet-to-Find-High-Volume-Keywords-for-Your-Product-Listings-The-Basics

file:///C:/Users/JessicaThomas/OneDrive%20-%20FREECLIX%20LIMITED/Desktop/247%20TechStore/Helium%2010/Helium%2010%20-%20Ultimate%20Guide%20to%20Amazon%20Listing%20Optimization.pdf

from Jessica Thomas https://jessica-thomas.com/seo/helium-10-how-to-do-effective-amazon-keyword-research

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How Content is Organised on WordPress

WordPress allows you to create web pages using pages or posts. A WordPress page or post is a single web page. So what’s the difference?

How content is organised on WordPress

Pages

Think of pages as permanent content which rarely changes. The site pages are the foundation of your WordPress website. This would be things like your homepage, about page or contact page. This is information which rarely changes. 

Posts

Posts are always organised into groups or categories on a website. For example, a website on running might have several articles with tips on how to run 5K all grouped around the category “5K.” Posts are for pieces of content that need to be grouped or organised. Posts are organised in a number of ways. What can be confusing, is that WordPress automatically creates web pages by itself to help organise your content. These are known as archive pages.

Categories & Tags

Categories and Tags are used to help you organise your websites posts.

A great analogy taken from a book called ‘Learn WordPress Visually‘ is that it’s best to think of categories and tags as the way a book is organised. Categories are the chapters and Tags are the index terms. So a category for a post called “Sites to See in Edinburgh” would be “Edinburgh Things to Do” and the tags would be “National Gallery of Scotland” and “Edinburgh Castle.” 

Every single post you create must feature a category. Tags are optional. I recommend using tags as search engines love being able to index your web pages, tags help with this. 

You can have subcategories which create a hierarchical structure for your posts. This is beneficial for SEO purposes.

WordPress will automatically categorise posts by the date they are published and who wrote them. These are known as author and date archives. 

Exercise: 

By default, when you create a WordPress website, a standard category called “uncategorised” is automatically created. Rename this category to something useful and relevant to your website. 

from Jessica Thomas https://jessica-thomas.com/wordpress/how-content-is-organised-on-wordpress