So you want to be an SEO

What is the most important ranking factor?

Links

Content

Core Web Vitals

Hosting Location

ALT Image Attributes

Hundreds of factors are important in varying weights depending on niche or keyword

There are no ranking factors

What is the most important thing SEOs need to understand?

How to build links

How to write good content

How to make a website better

That SEO is entirely conditional and therefore the things that are important are discovered by testing at keyword level

Links and content

In SEO, how do you measure what works?

I measure total clicks

I measure total clicks and impressions

I measure how many links we get

I measure organic traffic in google analytics

I test and monitor average positions by implementing incremental changes, I then evaluate the impact this has on average positions, clicks and impressions

I use SEMRUSH

I use AHREFS

I am trying to rank a keyword, in search console for that keyword I notice a broken average position line and only 1 page being returned despite their being 12+ months of data, what does this mean?

The page doesn't have enough links

The page doesn't have enough content

The page doesn't have enough content or links

There are likely multiple issues at play resulting in a weak page that Google drops and returns to the index

Google is penalising my page

In search console for a target keyword, I can see a broken average position line over the last 16 months with multiple URLS being returned, what is the issue?

There is cannibalisation of URLS

There is cannibalisation of URLS but the degree of cannibalisation is based on impression coverage by URL

Google dislikes my page content and returns whatever it wants

Google hasn't had enough time to appreciate my page

In search console, I see that my impressions have been going up but my average positions have been going down - what is this?

This is down to your rankings falling

There are more searches for your target keywords but you get less of them

The increase in query coverage leads to more impressions but also dilutes average position causing the average position line to go down

There are less keywords and my average positions have declined

My site has had a penalty which is why the average position line went down

In search console, I have a page level filter applied, there is 12 months of data but very few query rows, what could this mean?

Google doesn't like my landing page content

I haven't built enough links to the page

The content is likely too thin & the page to be deemed of low value

The content is likely too thin & the page to be deemed of low value which could be misaligned content to query intent and/or weak internal linking

I haven't got enough keywords in the content

I am building links to my domain, what anchor text should I use?

I want to rank for a competitive keyword, I know the search volume, what should I check next?

How many monthly searches there are

How competitive it is

Whether or not it's feasible to rank for within budget

How easy it is to write content for

With high level target keywords (core keywords) what one thing is absolutely crucial for setting the strategy

Knowing how long it will take to rank

How many links I will need to build

SERP intent map to evaluate single/split intent and to ascertain main result coverage

How much content & links I will need to rank

I have a website with 1000 pages in, only 20 of them generate any real clicks, what should I do?

Get rid of all non performing pages

Add more keywords and content to non performing pages

Perform an index assessment to filter out dead pages for culling and pages for content revamps

I should build lots of new links to the non performing pages

How do you assess whether a page is weak and whether it should be culled?

It gets no clicks

It doesn't rank for anything

Search console shows low impressions 0 clicks

Search console shows low impressions 0 clicks & the page is more than 12 months old

Search console shows low impressions 0 clicks & the page is more than 12 months old & there is little to no query coverage

It doesn't have enough keywords in it

There is no organic clicks in Google analytics

What issue is MOST likely to cause result cannibalisation

Pages share very similar titles and keywords

Pages share very similar content

Pages share the same keywords and header tags

There are multiple causes for result cannibalisation mainly consisting of similar content, competing pages by intent

How important is putting the keyword at the front of your title

Very important

Not very important

You don't need your keyword in your title

It's conditional by intent / query

I'm in Google, I want to filter URLS by a keyword, what command would I use?

I'm in Google, I want to find all NON HTTPS results, what command would I use?

Site:mydomain.co.uk url:subdomain

Site:mydomain.co.uk showsubdomain:

Site:mydomain.co.uk inurl:www

Site:mydomain.co.uk -inurl:http

Site:mydomain.co.uk -inurl:www

Site:mydomain.co.uk -inurl:https

I have found that some URLS in my Google index have a trailing slash and some do not, does it matter?

It's not that important, I would ignore them

I have canonical tags so not worries

I should update all the URLS to become consistent

I should update all the URLS to become consistent & enforce re-direction from one to the other

A page on my website is 16+ months old, I've been trying to rank it and it's just not getting anywhere, what should I do?

Scrap the page

Give up and try something else

Change the target keywords and research new potential keywords

Assess search console click data

Assess search console data, evaluate query coverage and average positions

Assess search console data, evaluate query coverage and average positions, then evaluate content relevance to query, internal & external linking

Assess search console data, evaluate query coverage and average positions, then evaluate content relevance to query, internal & external linking & ensure content intent is aligned, content depth is sufficient

Put more keywords in the content and header tags making sure the density is higher

Build lots more links and add more keywords to the content

What are the most important aspects of content?

Content quality

Content depth

Content keywords

Content external links

Content intent coverage

Content is based on quality but the requirements are down to the focal search query

Content having lots of keywords, heading tags and lots of internal and external links

Content being similar to what ranks at the top of Google already

My website has a very high bounce rate, should I be concerned?

Yes, high bounce rates are bad

No, high bounce rates are meaningless

It depends, high bounce rates are dependent on page type, content and intent of search, a high bounce rate isn't always an indicator of bad quality / poor quality

It depends, high bounce rates are associated with poorer performing websites

Yes, high bounce rates shows Google that my landing page isn't good enough

My website was top 3 in Google but is now jumping about in SERPS what should I do?

Revert your most recent website changes and wait

Build more links or adjust your page to mimic sites that moved up

Do nothing

Add more keywords in to your landing pages

Why is SEO testing important?

Because you can find what Google likes

Because you can find out keyword density

Because you can find out if link building is working

Because you can micro-analyse changes to find if there is any weighting in rank factors against the changes you make

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