61 ways to improve your site's SEO

Recently, we completed a course on SEO in Netology and compiled a check-list of what must be done on the site “ I love IP ” for search engine optimization. But these tips are universal for any project. In the article you will find a list of practical recommendations from the entire course of 13 lectures from 8 different specialists, as well as useful links and services that will help you improve your site's SEO.

Who this article is for:

• for web designers and developers who want to create websites that are optimized for SEO,
• for owners of Internet resources who want to independently understand SEO to increase search traffic.

Disclaimer: these tips are unlikely to help you get to the top by high-frequency queries, but you can correct all the technical and textual errors on the site in order to improve your position.

SEO work mainly consists of 5 steps:

1. Technical site audit.
2. Audit of commercial factors.
3. Semantic core selection.
4. Internal and external site optimization.
5. Building up the reference mass.

Technical audit site

1) Check whether all pages of the site are in search:

• by the number of search results (on Google - with the help of site: site.ru, in Yandex - with the help of host: site.ru),
• in Yandex.Webmaster (Indexing → Pages in search) or in Google Search Console (Google Index → ​​Indexing status).

2) Check for duplicates on the site. Doubles are pages with the same content, but with different URLs. Doubles can be full (if the content matches 100%) or partial (with a high% match). Duplicate pages must be removed.

3) Check for blank pages (which contain no content). Blank pages can be:

• remove
• close from indexing ( in the robots.txt file, see below ),
• fill with content.

4) Check for junk pages (which do not contain useful content). Trash pages can:

• close from indexing,
• make useful.

5) Check for robots.txt file. This is a text file in the root directory of the site that contains special instructions for search engines. For details, see the Yandex Help and Google Help. File size should not exceed 32 KB.

6) In the robots.txt file, you can specify general rules for all search engines and separately for Yandex. The rules for Yandex should additionally include the Host directive (the main mirror of your website with or without www) and the Sitemap directive with a link to the map of your website. You can check the robots.txt file in Yandex.Webmaster .

Sample robots.txt file from our site

7) Check for the presence of the sitemap.xml file. This is an analogue of the site map, designed specifically for search engines. For details, see the Yandex Help and Google Help. You can create a site map by reference . You can check the sitemap.xml file in Yandex.Webmaster .

8) Check for broken links (links to non-existent or inaccessible pages). It is necessary to delete all broken links, both external and internal. You can check for broken links in the Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool (downloaded to your computer, there is a free version) or online using the Technical Analysis tool from SeoWizard (the service is paid). Also, broken links can be checked in Yandex.Webmaster: Indexing → Crawl statistics (see HTTP code 404).

9) Check for redirects on the site. Types of redirects:

• 301 - the requested document is finally transferred to the new URL,
• 302 - requested documents are temporarily available at another URL.

It is better not to abuse redirects, since the presence of links on the pages of the site leading to the redirect pages contributes to the “loss” of the reference weight.

You can check it in Yandex.Webmaster: Indexing → Crawl statistics (see HTTP page code).

10) Check the download speed of the site (must be less than 3 seconds). This is one of the important factors that affect the ranking of the site by search engines. You can check it using Google PageSpeed or in the Google Search Console (Scanning → Scanning Statistics → Time It took to load the page).

11) Configure error 404 for remote or non-existent pages. This can be done in the .htaccess file. For details, see the Yandex Help.

12) Check the server responses and the .htaccess file. The most common errors that occur:

• Both versions of the site are available with and without www (for example, site.ru and www.site.ru ). This has a bad effect on indexing, as the search engine tries to eliminate duplicates and may choose not the page you are promoting as the original.
• There are no redirects for pages with “/” at the end and without it. If the pages of the site without a slash at the end and with a slash give the answer to server 200 (the page is available), then they fall into the index of search engines as complete duplicates.

13) Verify that the URL is correct. Non-final pages (sections, subsections) should contain “/” at the end of the URL, and the final pages (product pages, articles) should not contain “/”. But it is recommended to apply this format only to new pages, since for old ones this will lead to a loss of document age.

14) Try to use "HumanCompresentatives" (abbreviated as "CNC") or nice and friendly URLs. An example of the absence of CNC: yoursite.net/viewpage.php?page_id=23. Key recommendations:

• you can use foreign words (/ contacts /) or translit (/ kontakty /),
• use a hyphen "-" as a separator between words,
• between the delimiters "/" in the URL should be no more than 2-3 words,
• URL length must not exceed the average for competitors.

15) Observe the folder hierarchy in the URL. For example:

site.ru/name-section/name-subsection/elend-page

This will help Yandex to make up the navigation chains and reflect them in the snippet of your site when it comes out in the search. For details, see the Yandex Help.

16) Check the site display on mobile devices. This can be done in Yandex.Webmaster (Tools → Check mobile pages) or in Google Search Console .

17) Specify the page encoding meta charset = "utf-8" in the head.

18) Check the presence and uniqueness of the title, description and h1 tags on each page.

19) The title tag should be as close to the head as possible.

20) Try to add all keywords to the title tag, with the most popular keyword being closer to the beginning of the tag.

21) The maximum length of the title tag is 150 characters, optimally 60 characters.

22) In the title tag should not repeat the same words (maximum no more than 2 times), you can use synonyms, related words or other words from the queries. For example: Loan in the bank against the security of a room. Get a loan secured by a room in Moscow.

23) To separate different phrases in the title tag (for example, the name of the page and site), use the “|” symbol.

24) The description tag does not affect the ranking of the site directly, but search engines can use its content to snippet the site upon issue.

25) The description length can be from 100 to 250 characters, optimally 155 characters. This is usually one or two meaningful sentences to describe the page, including search queries.

26) Enter the Open Graph Protocol metadata in head to correctly represent the site on social networks.

27) Add a favicon of the site to the root directory.

28) Styles and scripts should be loaded into the head as separate files.

29) There can be only one h1 header per page.

30) The h1 title should not copy the title.

31) The h1 heading may contain from 1 to 7 words and must include the exact entry of the main search query. For example: Loan on the security of the room.

32) Try not to use nested tags in the h1 tag (for example, span, em, a href, etc.).

33) Observe the sequence of h2-h6 headings and include other keywords in them. H2-h6 tags should be used only for the layout of SEO texts.

34) Use semantic layout (for paragraphs - p, not div), try to include keywords in lists, tables, pictures (alt, title tags), selections (em, strong).

35) Attributes alt and title for pictures should be different. Alt is an alternative text for the image if it has not been loaded. Title is the title of the image that pops up when you hover over the image, and also goes in the search.

36) Add a Shema.org microdata to the site. Microdata validator in Yandex.Webmaster .

37) If you are planning to move the site to https, read this article .

Audit of commercial factors

38) Commercial factors are important for commercial sites.

39) The site must contain contacts:

• phones,
• online consultant,
• back call,
• address, location map,
• schedule.

40) Post on the site legal information:

• contract offer, terms of service,
• Company details,
• terms of exchange / return,
• terms of delivery.

41) Place on the site assortment:

• price list,
• quantity of goods in stock
• discounts, promotions.

42) Add information that inspires confidence:

• reviews
• portfolio (examples of works),
• video,
• jobs.

43) Place the email on your domain (for example, info@site.ru).

44) If the site publishes news, stay tuned.

45) In copyright (c) indicate the current year.

46) Strive to design the site was modern and adapted for mobile devices.

Semantic core selection

Semantic core selection is a big topic that deserves a separate article. Here we will focus on the basic principles.

47) Before proceeding to the selection of the semantic core, it is necessary to understand what types of user requests are and for which requests you will promote the site:

• Navigation (branded) queries - search for a specific site or place on the Internet. Typically, on such requests sites are in the first place, and the promotion is not necessary.
• Information requests - search for information, no matter on which site (for example, how to treat colds).
• Transactional requests - the user wants to perform some kind of action (“download”, “buy”, etc.). Commercial requests are always transactional. But not all transactional requests are commercial (for example, “free download”).

Commercial pages (online stores, websites of companies) need to be promoted by commercial requests, information (forums, blogs, articles) - on information.

48) It is possible to determine what the request is, informational or transactional, using a search. Enter a phrase and look at the result of search results. If there are mostly informational articles, then the request is informational, if the commercial pages are commercial.

49) On the same page should not be simultaneously informational and transactional requests. If the request is informational, then we promote the article. If commercial, then add commercial information (price, delivery terms, etc.).

50) On one page should lead one request. You can combine groups of requests into clusters. Clustering helps to unite inquiries by meaning and check the compatibility of promoted words (for example, car rental, car rental). Tools for automatic query clustering (services are paid, but there are free limits):

• Rush Analytics
• SEMParser ,
• JustMagic ,
• Free up to 500 requests.

51) The site structure (menu, navigation) should be determined only on the basis of search demand.

52) To access any page from the main page there should be no more than three clicks.

53) If you use breadcrumbs, instead of “Home”, specify the main keyword. For example, the name of an online store.

Internal and external website optimization

54) The text should be unique (not less than 70% depending on the subject). You can check the uniqueness of the text by quoting (quotation request) or by using the services:

• Content Watch ,
• Text.ru ,
• Advego Plagiatus (for Windows).

55) Take the length of the text, as well as the density of keywords from the TOP-10. You can check with the Text Analysis tool from SeoWizard or JustMagic .

56) Place text with keywords closer to the beginning of the text.

57) Use additional terms and synonyms in the text. These can be highlighted words on request in Yandex search results, “Similar requests” from Yandex Wordstat .

58) Write more concisely, avoid stop words. You can check the text when Glavred .

59) Write without errors and carefully consider the design of the text. You can check spelling errors using Yandex.Speller .

60) To increase the CTR of transitions to the site from the search, it is necessary to improve its snippet in the search results. Snippet consists of:

• title (title tag)
• descriptions (in Google - the description tag, in Yandex - a part of the text with a keyword),
• URL structures (breadcrumbs, navigation chains, quick links).

61) To improve the snippet in Yandex, take a paragraph that shows Yandex by keyword in the search results, and change its text.

miscellanea

Yandex reindex occurs on average once every 2.14 months (more than 60 days). SEO is a long time, you need to be able to wait. SEO results can usually be obtained in 1-6 months, depending on the age of the project.

To speed up the process of indexing the site, you can use:

• external links,
• links in social networks (especially Twitter),
• links from the main page,
• Via Yandeks.Webmaster (Indexing → Skip Pages).

The frequency of entry of the bot depends on the frequency of updating the site.

When promoting in Yandex, the query index matters - the more articles on the subject, the better.

It is very difficult to fit the entire course in one article. If the article turns out to be useful to you, next time we will write about the selection of the semantic core and increasing the reference mass.

If you want to independently understand SEO, we recommend taking a course in Netology . For Habr's readers, they have a discount of 2500 rubles. on the habr promo code for all online programs (valid until the end of 2017).