Is your website's SEO very expertly done? If it is, then good job! Still, that doesn't mean you have to stop working on your site's SEO. We have covered the beginner's guide to SEO and conversion copywriting: use of the PAS formula.
It is wise to regularly check whether everything is still working properly and see how they can improve. In this article, I am going to discuss some monthly SEO tasks and actions that every digital marketer should be able to perform on their websites. These are crucial tasks to improve and manage your website's SEO performance.
We assume that you have already spent a lot of time on the Google Keyword Tool and your website has been optimized in terms of content and mobile-friendliness. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. It is a process that requires constant tweaking and patience.
With a monthly SEO checklist, you will be able to significantly improve your search rankings and your website will eventually get more organic traffic.
Monthly SEO Check
The thing about websites is that they change with time. the danger of this situation is that in the long run, mistakes or errors may arise, or a digital marketer may stop paying attention to the site's SEO. As time goes on, your website's ranking on search engines will start to drop. This can be devastating for your website and its purpose, which is to help you sell your products and generate revenue. That is why it is important to detect these errors in time and correct them immediately.
Yes, with time, websites may change and errors may occur but in addition to errors, opportunities to improve your website's SEO may arise. You cannot take these opportunities for granted, and your website will fail if you don't have a good SEO analysis.
Here on this blog, you'll find the most important SEO analysis and actions that you can perform every month.
Error Pages in Google Analytics
Every healthy website sometimes has to deal with error pages. The most common is the so-called 404 error. If a visitor arrives on such a page, it may be because the URL of the page has changed or a partner (external) website simply posted the wrong URL on theirs. Such 404 errors can be found in Google Search Console.
The disadvantage of using this tool to view 404 errors is that it only looks for links from the sitemap of your website. You will not find incorrect links on external websites there.
More Insight into 404 Errors
To gain more insight into actual 404 errors you can do the following with Google Analytics:
Go to a non-existent URL on your website.
Look in the tab of that particular webpage (or at the <title> tag) to see which text is there. Often that is something like "Page not found" or "404". Then, in Google Analytics, go to "Behavior"> "Site Content"> "All Pages" and under "Primary dimension", select the "Page title" option.
Now enter the text you found in step 2 in the search field.
Overview of Error Pages
Now that you have an overview of all error pages on your website, it is important to dig even deeper. To gain more insight, you can add a secondary dimension. For example, add "Page" as a secondary dimension. Then you can see the URL with which the error occurred.
Do you want to know which external website has placed the wrong link to your website? Then use "Full referring URL" as a secondary dimension.
Solutions to the Error Pages
After this analysis, there are two possible solutions. Firstly, you can create a 301 redirect where the wrong URL refers to a good URL.
Secondly, you can ensure that the wrong URL at the source (external website) is adjusted. This is usually done by sending the right link to the external website so they can adjust it on their website.
Keyword Rankings Relative to Your Niche
It is good to get a lot of organic traffic to your website, but it is extremely important that this traffic is also relevant and valuable. That is why it is good to regularly check the rankings of keywords that are important to you. This way, you know which words to use when writing your blogs or the content on your website.
Advanced Web Ranking
I use the Advanced Web Ranking tool myself. This tool tracks the rankings of your most important keywords on a weekly basis. It also shows you what keywords your competitors are using and how you can use the same to boost your ranking.
For example, if you notice that your sales have dropped in a particular location and a competitor has taken over from you, then it is smart to use the Advanced Web Ranking tool to see the kind of keywords that competitor is using. This helps you immerse yourself in the competition, their keywords and their digital marketing methods.
Did they change anything about their web content or are they actively creating backlinks? This is an analysis you have to do if you want to catch up to them and also overtake them. The goal is to always be one step ahead of the competition.
More Attention to Certain Keywords
In addition to benchmarking the rankings with your competitors, you can also use the ranking tool to determine which keywords deserve more attention in the coming period. For example, due to the use of certain keywords, your ranking has improved and you are now in the top 10. That's good! But it's always possible that with a little more attention to other keywords, you can rise even more and enter the top 3!
Discover the Potential of Backlinks
Good organic rankings are not only determined by your website's technical abilities and content, but also by the number of qualitative websites that refer to your site. This is why it is good to regularly work with other relevant websites in your field and make sure they refer their visitors to your website. Check out my link building post for more information on this.
Majestic: Link Intelligence Tool for SEO
With a tool such as Majestic, you can see which backlinks you have. It is even more fun to see which backlinks your competitors have. Have they received a number of links from websites with which you should also make contact with? If those websites are going to be useful to you, then you should definitely approach them. Majestic can be a very useful tool to have.
Google Query
Another way to easily build backlinks is to perform a so-called query in Google. Via Google Query, you discover websites that have mentioned you but have not yet included a link to your website. This way you can contact them and ask if they can include a link to an article of yours or your whole website.
Crawl Your Own Website
Due to the fact that a website can consist of hundreds and sometimes even thousands of pages, it is impossible to check every page manually. That's why you can crawl your website with a tool like Screaming Frog. You can easily gain insight into the following factors after crawling your website:
Length of the meta descriptions -> Too short or too long? Reason to adjust them.
Title tag length -> Too short or too long? Reason to adjust them.
Content H1 title -> For example, have I used the correct keyword in the H1 title?
Source of error pages -> Discover broken links on your own website.
301 redirects -> Which pages are currently being redirected and are there more to redirect?
Google Search Console
The tool that should not be missing from this checklist is a tool from Google itself: Google Search Console. By installing this, you will immediately get more insight into your website from Google. For example, you can see which keywords people use to find you and how many people click through to your website.
The data you get from Google Search Console may not tell you everything about your website, but they do give you more insight into how Google (and other web users) view your website and the content on its pages.
Google Search Console also shows what's wrong on your website so you know what has to be improved upon and what has to be fixed. By entering an XML sitemap, you can also show Google which pages to index. They will then check those pages and if, for example, a 404 page is found, this will be reflected in the Google Search Console report.
In addition, the tool indicates which page the 404 error comes from. It helps to know this so you can solve the problems and make your website easily accessible for your visitors.
SEO is not a sprint, but a Marathon
Hopefully, it is clear with this post that SEO is something you will never stop doing as long as you want to sell your products or services online. Your website always has to keep improving. I hope you put the above analysis and actions into practice, take the time to perform monthly checks so that errors are quickly resolved and your rankings keep improving.
Even when you are number one in search rankings, you still have to keep working and keep improving. The job of an SEO expert is never done.
If you have more questions on your SEO strategy or tips, please feel free to send an email or just leave a comment below. Good luck.
