7 7 7
Here’s 7 hot takes on SEO because it’s July and it’s the 7th month of the year.
Yeah, I’m fancy like that.?
1.
404 pages are severely underrated.
Just spotted this one today from the FT – https://www.ft.com/404 and it’s S-M-R-T (Simpsons reference, Google it).
It’s clever, relatable and getting them more attention for free. WIN.
Invest a bit of time in your 404 page. It’s worth it.
2.
Fix title tags if that’s all you can do.
I’ve turned traffic around doing just that. It works in just about all cases and sometimes it’s not a huge impact – but it does work.
It’s quick and easy. What more do you need?
3.
Ridiculous listicles are not the best way to get links.
People think these big numbered lists will get them links, traffic and heaps of clout.
It doesn’t.
You know what it gets? Skimmed over.
No one is going to care about your article on “187 SEO tools you didn’t know about”.
There are worthy exceptions though.
Brian Dean has a list of SEO tools (https://backlinko.com/seo-tools) and it’s not just long, it’s deep. It gives you a filter so you can jump through easily. Now this is the right way to do things.
4.
Speaking of developers, YOU as an SEO person (or someone involved with SEO) needs to stay on top of things.
I recommend setting up a website monitor for all those important SEO things that developers seem to forget about.
These tools will send alerts when things change on the site so you can take appropriate action.
I had a dev removed canonical tags from the entire site because he didn’t know what it was or what it did – and we had 10x as many URLs in the index (unnecessarily!)
A client went from www to non-www (unsanctioned change) without redirects…so we had 2 versions of the same site competing in Google.
It’s worth it, even if you think you’ve got tight quality control. Trust me.
5.
Crawl your site regularly.
Don’t rely on the devs for a backup
Another one I learnt the hard way.
This isn’t just for when sites go down. It’s for when you get to prove to the devs that they did something wrong or when they didn’t do something they say they did.
Happens more often than it should.
Arm yourself. Crawl regularly.
6.
Track everything with GTM.
I can track scroll depth, outbound clicks, YouTube video embeds and so much more.
It’s making me a better SEO professional.
It also gives you so much more data to work with.
It also means you can run a lot of things (test everything!) on the site without waiting for developers to action it. And we all know how well developers play with SEO folks.
And lastly, while I’m reminding you to track everything…
7.
Keep a record of all redirects and SEO changes.
Make a spreadsheet and document it all – big or small.
From redirects to actual implementations.
Everything.
I worked on a project which involved a site migration with no concern for previous existing redirects.
It was like putting out a fire with jet fuel.
I’m working on a huge migration right now and I’ve got THREE previous site versions with redirects to contend with.
I’ve got my work cut out for me. But what makes it easier is that they’ve kept records of everything.
AMAZING. And also, a unicorn.
So there’s some 7 tips you can take to the bank. And to your devs and boss and anyone else who cares about SEO.
You know it makes sense.
>> I am a Dubai SEO Expert who knows how to get you better rankings, traffic and money. Get a free Website Audit now and let’s make it rain.
