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What you will find in this post are some of the elements that we address at the beginning of any new Search Engine Optimization Campaign, as well as throughout the term of any ongoing campaign.
That is, after we have identified important keywords for the campaign.
Broken External Links
An external link is a link on your site that links to another website and is considered broken when the page being linked to cannot be accessed. Since the linking website is not under your control, your easiest option is to remove the link; however, if the linked to source is a valuable source of information, we may contact the website owner and revise our link to a more appropriate page.
Having broken external links diminish the reliability of your website according to a search engine or visitor.
Read more about broken links at: https://ahrefs.com/blog/fix-broken-links/
Broken Internal Links
An internal link is a link on your site that points to another page that exists on your server and is considered broken when the page cannot be accessed. This could be because it does not exist, there is an error trying to connect to the page, or the URL was input incorrectly. Broken links will not only impact your visitors experience, it may also cause search engines to diminish the importance of your website.
You can learn more about the impact of broken internal links here: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-major-effect-of-broken-links
Duplicate Meta descriptions
A meta description is a hidden meta tag that describes the purpose of a page. Search engines may use this description in the search engine results page listing for your site and in determining the topic of the page. If the same description is used on other pages, while it may be applicable for one page, it may become non-applicable for the content of the other pages.
Make sure meta descriptions are unique and use topical keywords to describe the content of the page.
Duplicate meta descriptions can also be a sign of duplicate content.
Missing Meta Description
As outlined above, the meta description is a hidden tag that describes the purposes of a page. Search engines may use this description in your search engine page results listing. Having missing meta descriptions is better than having duplicates as the search engines will create their own results snippet from content on your page according to the search query.
The meta description and page title is what a searcher sees when they are querying for relevant content. Give it your best shot!
Missing Page Titles
The <title> tag is one of the most important components of a page. It is used in your results snippet in a search engine results page and is meant to describe the purpose of the page in a few words.
You can learn more about the importance of title tags here at this link: https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag
Duplicate Page Titles
The page title is considered to be a duplicate if it matches the exact title of another page. Duplicate titles will diminish the quality of a page since it is unclear as to which page has more relevance to a given topic. Search engines may not be able to determine which of your site’s pages are more relevant to the page title if there are duplicate page titles.
It may also confuse the user when visiting your site as the content may not be applicable to the duplicated page title.
Page titles should be unique for each individual page.
Long Page Titles
Page titles have character count and pixel limits, too long and they may be truncated in your listing in the search engine results pages. Most search engines will automatically shorten a long page title. A long title could penalize your site in the search engine results pages.
Short Title
Much like long page titles, there are minimums for page titles. Short page titles usually do not provide enough information about what your web page, and limit your page’s potential to show up in search results for different keywords.
Searchers may also overlook short title search engine results page listings.
Missing H1
H1 tags are considered to be the main heading of a page’s content and are used to help define the topic of the page.
Search engines are known for using the use of the <h1> tag as a ranking factor. Create one descriptive, topical h1 that is different from your meta description for each page of your site.
Matching H1 and Title Content
Using the same title as your H1 content is an ineffective way of defining the page topic. Use this opportunity to create two distinct phrases that illustrate the purpose of the page.
Multiple H1 Tags
Generally, it is best to have only one H1 tag on a page to specifically define its topic. Multiple H1 tags can confuse a search engine or a user in determining the focus of the page.
Broken Internal Images
An internal image is one that links to another image within your website and is considered broken when it will not load. This could occur because the file does not exist or the image could be too large and is randomly timing out when trying to load it.
While this particular element is not a huge game changer for search engine ranking results, it could impact your visitors’ user experience. Unhappy visitors create poor performance metrics which could impact your site’s ranking results.
How many times have you visited a website and tried to follow an image link for a product that you were interested in purchasing, only to discover that the product image did not load? What was your reaction?
Mine is, “Wow! If they cannot operate a simple website, I will go shopping for what I was looking for elsewhere.”
Missing Alt Attributes
The alt attribute is used to describe an image in a textual context. Search engines may interpret an alt attribute to identify the purpose of the image. This is a great way to increase your page relevance as it relates to a topic. Adding a title tag (pop up text) at the time that you are adding your alt attributes may also improve your users’ experience as it describes the image so that a user can read it.
You can read more about the usage of alt attributes at this link: https://moz.com/learn/seo/alt-text
How Does This Information Help?
First, this post is not the definitive guide to all of the elements that need to be reviewed in order to run a successful search engine optimization campaign, but it will get you started in the right direction. It provides a starting point of what to consider and some basics for laying out your search engine optimization planning strategies.
These are not listed in order of importance. We will leave that to you to figure out.
The more that you work through these elements, you may find that you will improve your visitors’ user experience.
Your ranking results will most likely improve.
And, you can narrow down your site issues list as you work forward.
Don’t have the resources to work through the basics and complexities of managing a successful search engine optimization campaign? Call one of our knowledgeable search engine optimization campaign specialists or fill out our online form. Get started with improving your online presence with That Company today.
