Are you in search of increasing traffic from search engines? Are you still struggling to stumble on the SEO best practices that you can use in 2023 and beyond? We all know the ways search engine traffic has an effect on the overall bottom line from sales to conversions. If you are not practicing the right best SEO practices in 2023, your competitors will crush you in Google searches.
This detailed guide will demonstrate to you some of the best SEO practices you can implement on your website to get more traffic and sales. Let us get started without much ado.
Performing a technical SEO audit is a must
There are thousands of SEO service providers and specialists whose job is to carry out technical SEO audits of websites. The key reason behind performing website audits is to come across and fix if a website has any issues associated with SEO to make it work better in terms of SEO. Technical SEO is hands down one of the best SEO practices that any person can follow. One can make it a habit of implementing regularly on their website to boost their SEO rankings.
What is a technical SEO audit?
A technical SEO audit entails dealing with the technical aspects of a website. It is a process for assessing the search engine friendliness of a website ranging from URL analysis to crawlability issues. The following are some of the vital things that are basically involved in the technical audit:
The following are a few quick tips:
- Findability and crawling issues and more
- Link issues
- URL Analysis
- On-page SEO factors such as lengthy titles, missing meta descriptions, duplicate title tags,
etc.
What makes technical SEO audits crucial for better SEO?
The following are some of the advantages of technical SEO audits in case you are still wondering
about their significance. Plus, you must know that it is definitely one of the most significant SEO
practices for 2023 which can help you with.
- Increasing the website SEO structure
- Increasing the search traffic
- Finding and fixing the website issues
Ways o perform a technical SEO audit of a website
Now that you know the significance of website audits. Let us now talk about the ways to carry out
technical SEO audits of a website easily.
1. Carefully review the sitemap of a website
There are a lot of instances of traffic drops for a website because of sitemap errors. There are diverse kinds of sitemap errors that can take place based on the plugin or sitemap function that you use – sitemap missing, plugin not generating the sitemap, etc.
So, ensure that the sitemap is working well or not. Ensure that the sitemap is getting indexed by Google search crawlers. You can make use of Validate XML sitemap tool to validate if the sitemap is working fine or not.
The tool will check if the XML sitemap is formatted correctly and optionally pink Google to inform them of the sitemap location. All you need to do is to enter the sitemap location and paste it on the tool to validate the sitemap and come across all the issues you have with the website sitemap.
2. Take the help of website technical website audit tools
If you are a novice at website audits, you might find it really intricate to carry out technical audits for the website. So, there are just 2 choices to carry out technical website audits – either you need to get access to the right tools or you need an SEO specialist like Dwarika Web Solutions who can do it for you.
The following are some of the tools that you can use for technical website audits:
- No follow browser plugin – To get rid of all the basic external links from the website
- XML sitemap generator – In case you do not have a sitemap yet
- Google search console – To fetch and crawl as Google for faster indexing
- Screaming frog SEO spider – Helps you with broken links and other on-page aspects
- Google page insights – To analyze the speed and performance of the website
In addition to the above, you can even replace all those tools with SEMrush to carry out website audits. Or you can also use Seoptimer to audit the website quickly and easily.
3. Find and fix the on-page SEO elements
The final thing is to come across and fix all the on-page SEO elements such as:
- Duplicate content
- Blog posts without meta description
- Lengthy titles
- Missing alt tags
There will be a lot of cases that are having an effect on the current search rankings such as an image with no alt tags, duplicate content, etc. So, you have to come across and fix them as soon as possible, if you would like to stay away from Google penalties.
4. Recrawl the website once you are done
Last but not the least – once you are done with the technical SEO audit of the website, it is your task to ask Google to recrawl the website. How can you do that?
Simply go to the Google search console and click on “Fetch as Google” that you can find under the “Crawl section”. Either you can recrawl the entire website URL or just the ones that you have worked on. Depending on the pages and complexity, Google will take some time to recrawl the pages.
You should even keep in mind that you can use this recrawl aka Fetch as a Google option to crawl URLs only up to 500 URLs per week. So, ensure that you make use of them sensibly if you have a lot of pages to work on.
It is impossible to keep up with every single Google algorithm update. Keeping track of these latest trends is helpful, but still difficult for a busy marketer. So, the biggest SEO technique to take into account at all times is to optimize for the audience.
Increase the organic Click Through Rate (CTR)
Did you know that you can increase the overall search traffic by increasing the organic CTR (click-
through rate)?
Yes, that is true!
The most promising way to increase the organic clicks in SERP results is to write a great meta description. There is no other way around it.
Write an incredible meta description
One of the simplest techniques to increase the search click-through rates is to write compelling meta descriptions.
What is a meta description?
A meta description is a meta tag that provides a description of what the page is all about. It is displayed in the SERPs below the title of the page. The better the meta description text is, the more clicks you will generate. The more clicks you generate in Google organic search, Google moves the content up. It is as simple as that.
Note – Google automatically creates many of the meta descriptions on their own, regardless of the ones they wrote and regardless of whether or not the page appeared in the segmented groups. But you should be creating unique descriptions anyway – if you would like to increase the click-through rates.
That being said, how to write amazing meta descriptions that attract more clicks from organic searches? The following are some of the quick yet most powerful tips for you:
1. Research top-ranking pages
Firstly, find out the top ten ranking pages for the keywords you would like to rank for and read their meta descriptions. Find out the way they are crafting. Are they using a call to action? Is it user- generating? Or their meta description is generated randomly?
By analyzing the meta descriptions of your competitors on Google SERP results, you will get an idea
regarding what to write and what not to include in your own meta descriptions.
2. Use powerful words
Keep away from using generic terms within the meta description. Use powerful words and use a strong call to action to increase the organic click-through rates. Ensure that you use the words that provide with a solid reason for people to click on the links rather than your competitors.
3. Use questions
One of the easiest yet most powerful tips to write meta descriptions that get more clicks is to use questions. We often use this tactic where we provide questions such as “are you looking for more information regarding a product, here is what you need” and something along similar lines. It pulls the attention of the audience and works wonders. Give it a try!
Pro Tip – If you are already using WordPress, there is an awesome optimization plugin called Rank Math SEO for WordPress that helps you easily optimize the content including posts and pages for search engines.
Simply enter a primary keyword within their “focus keyword” option. The plugin provides you with suggestions on where to insert the keyword to optimize it better.
Increase the organic traffic without creating new content
So, how can you increase your search engine without creating a new blog post? The idea is simple: update your old blog posts.
Here is what the majority of people ask when it comes to updating their old blog posts “should I remove the old blog posts which are not generating any traffic?”
The answer is not simple.
The following are the three things you can do with old blog posts:
- Merge – You can merge into similar topics or relevant blog posts within your blog
- Redirect – Using 301 redirects
- Update – With the latest information, images, and so on
That being said, stumble on underperforming blog posts from the Google search console and revamp them to start attracting more traffic from search.
One of the most common SEO practices we follow here at Dwarika Web Solutions is we always rework our old blog posts and reoptimize them to generate additional search traffic. If you are wondering the ways to revamp and reoptimize the old content, here is an effective approach for you that works like a charm in 2023.
Start researching about that topic (of the old contents)
Enter the keyword on tools such as SEMrush to come across the top ten ranking pages on Google for the desired topics. Find out what is covered by other websites and find out what the existing keyword rankings are.
That way, you will be familiar with where the content stands amongst the competitors. Find out their strengths and weaknesses. Find out the way they crafted the blog posts. You can use the learnings to work on optimizing the old posts.
If you can create an infographic or a video on this topic and add it to the content as it makes the content more appealing. To put it simply, you need to make use of a content marketing strategy for the old content to make them rank well. Here is how it works with a twist.
- Stumble on underperforming old blog posts.
- Make them ten times better than the competitors. Do keyword research to find and use
relevant keywords within the old posts. - Promote the old content. You can link from the latest posts, promote on social media, build
backlinks, and so on.
It is impossible to keep up with every single Google algorithm update. Keeping track of these latest trends is helpful, but still difficult for a busy marketer. So, the biggest SEO technique to take into account at all times is to optimize for the audience.
This is the base of any good SEO strategy.
Dwarika Web Solutions is a leading SEO company that can help you outshine your competition. Feel free to contact us at +1 (855) 561-4557 to speak with a professional!