SEO Fundamentals Room – Marketing Club CH
Last week in Marketing Club – SEO Fundamentals Room Dec 21, 2021, our topic was SEO Audits. We asked our audience to share their websites to enable us to audit and make suggestions to improve them.
1) 00:04:00 Nikki’s Website Audit
https://bayberryandmain.com
2) 00:30:00 Marjan’s Website Audit
https://bluewaveswim.co.uk
3) 00:46:15 Allen’s Website Audit
https://proche.io
00:05:00 Nikki has shared her website https://bayberryandmain.com/
00:05:14 Kyla Herbes
During the previous conversations with Joshua, I suggested Nikki get rid of outdated posts. So, she did. And she created 404 pages for those posts. Kyla advised her to use https://archive.org (Wayback Machine), which archives historical versions of any website and allows copying and pasting texts or pictures from the previous versions. Kyla has used archieve.org after Karin Tierney suggested it. She brought back some of her older posts and repurposed them practically and beneficially in the current version of her web website. Immediately after that, she realized that her domain authority had increased. She suggested the same thing for Nikki.
00:06:55 Karin Tierney and Tonya Burge asked Nikki
Karin explained her approach in auditing a website: Before she checks out her client’s website is technically correct or not, she would like to ask them: Who is your target audience?
These are what Karin and Tonya asked and the answers by Nikki:
- What does her client want to achieve with their website?
Nikki said Bayberynandmain.com is a lifestyle and fashion blog that has the vibes of preppy fashion, home décor, recipes, and being a single woman.
- What is her target audience?
Her target market is single women who love preppy fashion and looking for content and advice for twists and turns of being a single woman, recipes, fashion suggestions and home décor ideas.
- What’s your number one search term that you would like to be found on search engines?
Preppy fashion
- How are you monetizing your content? Are you directly selling products, having affiliate links, or running ads?
Affiliate links
00:09:45 Rob Bertholf is using a tool called Ahrefs. Rob’s priority is on starting from a high level which is content:
- What’s the traction for the site’s content?
- How many pages are currently on the site?
- Who is linking to her website?
- He discovered that there are around 100 pages has been on the website, but some of the tabs in the main menu, such as “Style”, “Lifestyle”, “Décor”, has no content.
- When there is no content developed for a page, either remove the tab from the menu Bar or put that page “Under Construction”. If your visitors could not find content under your tabs, this might cause your visitors to see your site as uncompleted. Another reason is that when search engines are crawling your website without content in a menu tab, they might not consider crawling your website for a while.
Here is Rob’s content strategy:
What’s you’re your offer?
- Does your brand is consistent in what it’s offering?
- Is there something specific about the way you engage with your customer base?
- What’s the problem that your audience is trying to solve? Why would they visit your website?
- How do you differentiate yourself from the other bloggers or solution providers?
- Is there a specific niche that you can specialize in?
00:13:20 Nikki:
Her Target Audience is middle-aged single women
00:14:00 Rob Bertholf
Understanding your Branding provides a deep context for SEO because Branding helps you develop your content strategy that will align with your target audience. When you align with your target audience, you can offer the relevant solutions. So, make sure to work on your positioning statement. Rob uses a template when he is working on the branding strategy for creating the brand positioning statement, and if she is interested, he’s going to send the link to Nikki.
Therefore, when a visitor lands on her website, communicating through her brand positioning statement makes more sense to reach out to her target audience and tell them how her solution is unique in solving their problems. In that sense, it’s better to replace the blog posts she featured on her home page with a positioning statement and show her target audience that “I help you navigate on finding the …….x in fashion.” or “I guide you in reaching out …….your aspirations” etc.
“Kotler has defined brand positioning as “the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market“. In other words, brand positioning describes how a brand is different from its competitors and where, or how, it sits in customers’ minds.”
As soon as you deliver:
- What problem that you are addressing.
- For which audience.
- In what ways you are different from the others in the market.
You should reinforce it by spreading your positioning at different parts of your website.
Now it’s time to select your content pillars to show your audience your distinct perspective in solving their problems. You can run your keyword research parallel to this framework.
00:16:40 Kyla Herbes has been dealing with the same problem. She has been thinking some of the questions underlined below:
How do I want to be found for my page? Should people find me from my About page? If so:
Do I want to be found and by which keywords?
“New England home decorator”
“Home décor content creator”
“New England Fashion Designer”
“New England blogger”
00:18:00 Tonya Burge asked the same question of How do you want to be found? Would you like people to discover you from your Branding page or your products or services?
If you want to get found for “preppy fashion”, then you need to optimize your home page for “preppy fashion.”
The homepage is the most optimized page in the search engines majority of the cases. Therefore, on your home page, show visitors:
- who you are,
- what you do and
- How can you solve their problem?
Then optimize your homepage for “preppy fashion.”
00:20:40 Firuze Gokce
Some of the main menu tabs have no content in them. So, tell your audience that they will be up and running soon. Another suggestion is to change the photos parallel to seasonality. When you have summer pictures during wintertime, it does not show cohesiveness. Especially fashion topic is a very time-sensitive concept. Nikki can use some of the images from her Instagram account and deliver consistency as a preppy fashion blogger
00:24:50 Karin Tierney will send the results from Screaming Frogg, and she will walk through her process in making the technical analysis:
- Check out the pages on the website:
Are they indexable?
Are they showing up at search results or not?
Should it show up in the search results?
If it should, and it’s indexable, that’s great. If it shouldn’t, but it’s indexable, then it’s a problem.
- Look at the Response codes:
Are you linking to anything that’s a redirect?
Do you have broken pages? When clicking on your category pages, are the links broken?
- Page Titles:
Did you manually enter them? Are they unique to all pages?
Are there duplicate page titles? Each title should be unique, and they shouldn’t be too long
- Headings
Do you have unique headings which include the main keyword for that page
- Images
Just make sure that they were all alt texted.
00:30:00 Marjan
Marjan is in the process of redesigning her website. She asks what she could do to improve her website with the redesign? Her website is:
00:33:55 Noah Learner
When it comes to auditing, Noah’s approach starts with “Content” and “Links.”
- His process is visiting the website and understanding how the conversion process looks like?
- What will be the user experience like when a visitor lands on the website? Is the website functionally and motivationally enough to convert the visitor into a customer?
- Whether the website provides the right messaging, information, direction, navigation, professionality and call to action for the user to continue to stay on the page
At first glance, he saw some areas which might make her website less professional:
- The way icons appear inside the form fields is broken on the home page.
- The big slider slows down her site and has no clarity in initiating the visitors to do business with her.
- JavaScript is probably slowing down her website.
- There isn’t any messaging above the fold that could convert.
- Both mobile and desktop have the same issues.
- There are venues and times on the home page instead of a positioning statement like “I’m the best swimming teacher for five years old children” or “I’m the best swimming teacher for seniors.”
- When he widens or narrows down the page in both mobile and desktop, he also finds issues within the messaging and JavaScript.
- He evaluates how it’s been set up in Google My Business Profile to ensure that it is registered in the correct category. He uses a chrome tool called GS Location Changer . With this tool, he’ll find out how the site can be reachable in the physical area that it operates. He also finds whether the website uses the correct category for its business. However, Noah also developed a tool like GS Location Changer. His tool can be reachable at https://twooctobers.com.
Another tool is “GMB Spy” which allows understanding what categories the competitors are using to find the best category for Marjan’s business.
- After the initial look, Noah uses tools like ScreamingFrog for Technical SEO
Noah’s evaluation for websites is simple: It’s leads and revenue.
Here is his formula to make money:
Revenue= Traffic*Conversion Rate*Average Order Value
Also, check out Rob’s documentation for a similar formula
Organic search orders= (Organic Search Traffic*Bounce Rate*Conversion Rate)*Average Order Value
We know that a 2% Average Conversion Rate is the best conversion rate, meanings that 98% of the visitors will never buy from our website.
00:42:20 Renee Bigelow
Make sure to use the right conversation path for each page. Homepages are usually at the top of the funnel, and they don’t directly convert for leads or sales. Still, the right call to action from the homepage to other pages will help you convert your visitors into customers.
00:43:45 Rob Bertholf
Rob started to get the results from his audit by using Ahrefs.com
There is an opportunity to get backlinks to her website. The existing backlinks are directed to her branded terms, which lays a good foundation. Still, she needs to add other types of backlink opportunities with PR through local news outlets, partnerships, being a part of an affiliation, organization, organizing events and competitions, supporting and sponsoring other causes and events.
00:44:35 Renee Bigelow
Her suggestion is also to reach out to local publications as contributing authors and write articles or short columns for them or interview them.
00:45:40 Karin Tierney
Also, use ScreamingFrog and check out how search engines see your website.
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00:46:15 Allen
Allen develops an app. He asks whether search engine optimization is more critical than App Store Optimization or vice versa.
What is his suggestion to find the best crash course on App and Web optimization?
00:48:30 Rob Bertholf
Even though App Store optimization is not his specialties, Rob has a general knowledge to help Allen.
- App Store optimization focuses on quality images, quality screenshots of the App, explanatory image gallery showing how to get into the app and learn the functionalities.
- Because production quality builds trust and credibility, replacing the pictures with more quality and optimized ones
- Working on the taglines since they were hard to read and kind of lost among the page visuals
- Speak to a targeted audience. If the app is for conference attendees or any other group of people, find ways to include them in your messaging at your website. Searching how your competitor’s page speed will help you understand the industry average. Because a SAAS company’s website speed might be higher, but if you are in the fashion industry, the volume, esthetic, and presentation of images are essential. And this makes fashion websites uploading time slower than the SAAS uploading time. As a result, if your competitor sites are also slowly uploading, don’t worry about the speed. Also, there are new image formats that make them more optimized. Try to be around the same page upload speed as your competitors.
- Another important aspect is getting real reviews.
- Using tools like keyword.io will allow him to run keyword research for the Google Play Store.
00:49:40 Renee Bigelow
Apple and Google are handling app optimization differently. Therefore, submitting separate information and documentation to both platforms is essential. Google Play Store has a traditional keyword-based approach to App SEO, whereas Apple relies on specific categorizations and character limitations for App optimization. So, treating them separately is crucial.
00:51:20 Allen How to find higher search volume on low competition keywords?
00:52:47 Karin Tierney
Karin uses Ahrefs to give many keyword ideas and find her competitors’ keywords. It also provides search volume, the difficulty level, and the average backlinks you need.
00:53:35 Rob Bertholf
00:54:28 Noah Learner
Google Search Console Performance section shows you all the keywords people are searching for that you are getting impressions from. It’s a kind of feedback loop.
“Then you can understand how you can expand the types of content that you have on each page. So, you’ll publish a page. You’ll then throw that page in the Google Search Console (GSC), and it’ll show you up to a thousand rows of data that search queries people are plugging in that page is getting impressions for. You can then look at the page to find meaningful opportunities and add those questions and answers to your content to make it a more performant page. After you seed meaningful opportunities, add those new keywords to your page, you can then resubmit the page in GSC that Google will reindex the content. It’s Free…. It’s one of the best free sources of information. And the tool that Noah’s built called Explorer can pull up to 50.000 search terms per day from any website instead of getting 1000 row limit GSC. “
00:57:00 Avi’s question
Regarding the discussion around “Topics.”
How do you determine how broad versus how narrow is ideal for your site regarding Parent Topic?
00:57:25 Rob Bertholf
- It’s very subjective, but the idea is not getting too broad to become a generic term. In the same way, you should not go too niche where there is no search demand anymore. There is a sweet balance in between.
- Remember what you’re offering and how much value you’re providing with your product and think about how other people use that exact term.
- Focus on keywords with enough demand and then expand and find edge keywords as much as possible.
- Rob’s approach is to concentrate on transactional content, which is very specific and then use informational content for answering broader questions. Finally, he moves on to aspirational content, all about communicating with the customer. Rob has seen a lot of success with the semantically holistic content.
00:59:34 Jon Muranko
He explains his approach as Using the Google Search Console effectively. He jumps into page 2 and sees all the hidden opportunities and keywords. His process is:
- Go to the “Performance” tab in GSC and look at the clicks, clickthrough rates, impressions, and position.
- Filter all the branding queries.
- Export the filtered file to Google Sheets.
- Take the column of the positions
- Realign them to look at all the keywords around page 2
- All the hidden opportunities are right at the cusp of page 1
00:01:20 Renee’s quick GSC tip
If you are getting too many impressions but no conversion (CTR), you can change your page’s meta description or title and make your site more attractive.
01:06:20 Tara https://foodsandfeels.com
Her website receives a lot of impressions but low CTR (Click Through Rate). If somebody lands on her website, she could only see minor conversions.
Her question is, how can she improve her site CTR and Conversions?
01:07:15 Rob Bertholf
- She needs an escalated “Call to Action,” but there are a lot of “Calls to Action” at the homepage, which makes it hard to navigate, and they are confusing
- First, she needs to write down all the “Call to Action” buttons and then applies the principles of the B Fogg behaviour model for behavioural design at her website/. The B Fogg model helps us organise our “Calls to Action” from the easiest and lowest needs up to the greatest.
- Go to the Google search box and type Site:yourdomainname.com. It’ll bring up all your web pages indexed by Google. This allows you to see your Page (Meta) Titles and Meta Descriptions, select one of your primary search queries, and check out who is around you and what they are doing. This will help you to figure out who are your competitors, what are they using for Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions.
- Don’t bother to use your Branding on your informational pages. Provide helpful information for your visitors. Then, use branded “Calls to Action” buttons on your navigational and transactional pages.
- Ask these questions to yourself: Do your customers know that they need this? On her website, “customized meal plans” and “cookbooks” are offered out of the gate, but maybe the visitors have no idea they need them. As a result, there is no pain for that need. Therefore, explaining why they need customized meals or cookbooks will help people understand why it’s essential and beneficial. “The Call to Action” s are organized with all these factors in mind, and each “Call to Action” is tested to see which version is working better: starting from the lowest and then escalating to the greatest or, beginning with the highest and then de-escalating them.
- Position yourself as the guide and your customers as heroes. If you position yourself as a hero, there is no place for your customers to be heroes. Tara can position herself as the guide in helping people with uncomplicated solutions to complicated problems.
01:10:00 Renee Bigelow
- Understanding the page’s intent and at what stage of the customer journey they are in is crucial to creating your “Call to Action.”
- Sometimes you must educate your visitors and selling your services or products must be the goal.
- It might be confusing for people to see multiple categories of services you offer on the home page. Additionally, not everybody is looking for different solutions at the same time. People want more personalization during their journey
- Create categories for your “Call to Action” buttons (like highest to the lowest) and match them with the corresponding sales funnel opportunity (Top, Middle or Bottom of the funnel)
01:13:34 Karin Tierney
- Karin will send her Technical SEO Audit done by Screaming Frogg
- Another point about Tara’s website is when the home page opens, the page talks about only Tara and Tara’s services. However, from the visitors’ perspective, they want to see a site addressing their needs or problems. Therefore, it’ll be better for Tara to change the homepage’s wording and put the visitor first.
01:16:55 Firuze Gokce
- Concentrating on your customers is crucial. Anybody that comes to your site looks for what’s in it for me. Is there a solution to my problem? They don’t care about who we are. They want to see whether we can ease their pain with our solutions.
- For positioning, it’s also essential to see what your competitors are doing and find ways to differentiate your services from them.
- Try to engage with your visitors emotionally because an emotional connection starts the bond between your brand and the visitors.
- Another thing that Tara can do is to bring the testimonials to an area where they can be seen easily instead of scrolling down to the bottom of the page.
01:19:00 Renee Bigelow
- Find an expert Dietician and psychologist to contribute to some of your articles to show your credibility to your visitors. There is another benefit out of this practice; it also creates an opportunity for you to get backlinks from those experts’ websites.
Looking forward to seeing you at our next conversation on Tuesday, Dec 28th, 2021
Every Tuesday at 8 am Pacific Time
SEO Fundamentals Room
Marketing Club in ClubHouse
Every Tuesday at 8 am Pacific Time
https://www.clubhouse.com/event/PQ48lGnw
Date: Dec 21, 2021
Theme: Free Site Audits
Next Chat: Every Tuesday at 8 am PST
Moderators:
Rob Bertholf https://rob.bertholf.com/
Bob Clark: https://misspepper.ai
Karin Tierney: https://alzina.marketing/
Kyla Herbes: https://houseofhipsters.com/
Tonya Burge http://www.YourMarketingLady.com
