In 2018, Google updated its regulations by including mobile loading speed as an SEO indicator. Therefore, website speed, both on desktop and mobile devices, will be evaluated by Google to determine rankings in search results.

These eight main factors can change at any time following Google’s algorithm updates. So you must always follow the developments released by Google to adjust your SEO components with the latest algorithm.

Here are 30 Advanced SEO Optimization Steps for 2020

Besides these eight main indicators, there are various indicators that determine SEO quality. Various optimization steps are needed to meet all SEO assessment indicators. This article will explain 30 SEO optimization steps, including optimizing the eight main factors above.

Install Yoast SEO Plugin

Installing the Yoast SEO plugin is a wise step to start a long series of SEO optimization. Yoast SEO provides various features to improve your website’s SEO quality.

Some of Yoast SEO’s main features include changing title tags and meta descriptions, submitting XML Sitemaps, changing permalinks, verifying Google Webmaster Tools, and analyzing your content. Content analysis is the most interesting feature of Yoast SEO. This feature will remind you if your content doesn’t comply with proper SEO principles.

Yoast SEO provides analysis for subheading usage, sentence length, and article length. You don’t need to check content completeness manually, so the content creation process can be completed faster.

Install Google Analytics

In addition to installing Google Search Console, you also need to install Google Analytics. Google Search Console and Google Analytics have different functions. The main function of Google Search Console is to check website performance in search results, while the main function of Google Analytics is to identify website visitor behavior. With Google Analytics, you can track visitor movement from the first page they visit until the page where they close your website. Additionally, Google Analytics will help you identify which pages generate the most conversions and which ones are underperforming.

Register Google My Business

Specifically for business owners, registering your business on Google My Business is a requirement. Google My Business is a feature for business owners that makes it easier for potential customers to find complete business information. From business name, company address, company phone number, office photos, to customer reviews. You might wonder, what’s the connection between Google My Business and SEO? With Google My Business, your business visibility will increase, especially in local search results because Google prioritizes businesses registered on Google My Business. According to Moz, Google My Business became the largest traffic contributor for local SEO in 2007.

Add Website to Google Search Console

Google Search Console (previously known as Google Webmaster Tools) is a free platform for website owners to monitor how their website performs in Google’s organic realm. Google Search Console allows you to know which domains link to your website (referring domains), website performance on mobile devices, and analysis of website pages with highest traffic.

Here’s how to add your website to Google Search Console:

  • Login to Google Account
  • Open Webmaster Tools
  • Click add Property
  • Select Website
  • Choose “Website” from the drop-down menu and enter your website URL. Make sure you write the exact same URL that appears in the browser.
  • Click Continue
  • Choose Verification Method, Google Search Console provides several ways to verify websites, from uploading HTML files, domain name providers, HTML tags, or Google Analytics tracking code. Choose one that you prefer.
  • Add Domains separately if your website already supports both http:// and https:// versions, add them separately.

Improve Website Speed

Tingkatkan Kecepatan Website

One thing most website visitors hate is slow loading. Slow website loading makes website visitors frustrated and eventually look for other websites that can provide information faster.

No matter how good your content is, website visitors have no tolerance for slow loading. According to Google research, 53 percent of Indonesian internet users leave websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. Additionally, based on KissMetrics survey, 79 percent of visitors won’t return to websites they consider slow loading.

The slower your website loads, the more visitors will leave your website. As a result, your bounce rate increases. A high bounce rate is a signal to Google that the page provides poor user experience to its visitors. So improving website speed is no longer an option but a necessity.

By using a customized website, loading speed performance becomes faster compared to websites using templates. Therefore, you need to have your website built by website development experts such as Mataram website services or website development services in Lombok.

Websites with good structure will be easier for Google to identify. During the search process, Google will identify the website structure through permalinks. A permalink is a URL link used to open a website page.

Mobile Optimization

In the article “8 SEO Indicators 2020”, we briefly mentioned mobile website loading speed as the newest SEO indicator. In 2018, Google officially released the Google Mobile First Index algorithm.

Previously, Google determined rankings based on website performance in desktop versions. However, with Google Mobile First Index, Google now assesses performance through crawling the mobile version of websites. This means poor website performance on mobile devices will negatively impact your SEO assessment.

Unfortunately, many website owners are still unaware of the importance of website performance on mobile devices. In 2017, only 21 percent of online business website owners had optimized their websites to be mobile-friendly. Yet, mobile devices are currently the largest source of traffic. In Indonesia alone, 94 percent of internet users access the internet through mobile devices.

To improve website performance on mobile devices, you need a mobile-friendly WordPress theme. Unfortunately, not all WordPress themes operate optimally on smartphones. You need to manually make them mobile-friendly. However, you don’t need to worry because there are many plugins available that can transform WordPress themes into mobile-friendly versions.

Create XML and HTML Sitemaps

A sitemap is a list containing all website pages that can be accessed by visitors and search engines. With a sitemap, your website will be more easily discovered by search engines and indexed faster. Sitemaps will also notify search engines when there are structural changes to the website.

There are two types of sitemaps: XML sitemap and HTML sitemap. XML sitemap is accessed by search engines, while HTML sitemap is accessed by visitors.

Install SSL

SSL certificate, or better known as SSL, stands for Secure Socket Layer. When you install SSL on your website, the website URL will change from HTTP to HTTPS. The main purpose of SSL installation is to secure data exchange that occurs through the internet network.

As I explained in the article “8 Main SEO Indicators 2018”, one of the main new SEO indicators is domain security. Google’s algorithm prioritizes HTTPS domains over HTTP domains. Additionally, Google Chrome considers HTTP domains unsafe for entering important information such as email, password, and account details.

To be considered secure by Google, you must install SSL on your website, either free or paid versions.

Keyword Research

Riset Keyword

Not conducting keyword research before creating content is a fatal mistake for website and blog owners. Keyword research will help you find keywords that are relevant to readers. There are various keyword research tools you can use from UberSuggest, Google Trends, KWFinder, MOZ, Ahrefs.

In keyword research, there are five keyword research indicators that you need to pay attention to: search volume, keyword difficulty, keyword suggestions, SERP, and search intent. First, search volume is the number of searches for a keyword within a certain period. Second, keyword difficulty shows how difficult it is for a keyword to appear on the first page of search results.

Third, keyword suggestions are collections of words related to the keyword you’re researching. Fourth, SERP or Search Engine Result Page shows the pages that occupy the top 10 rankings in search results for the keyword you’re researching. Lastly, search intent is the intended purpose of searchers for a keyword. One keyword can have more than one interpretation, and Google prioritizes interpretations that match what searchers want.

As an example in the article “8 SEO Indicators 2020”, the keyword “big bang theory” has two different meanings. However, because the majority of searchers intend to find the TV show The Big Bang Theory, Google prioritizes content that discusses the TV series rather than the scientific Big Bang Theory.

The above example is an example of search intent for informational keywords, which are keywords that lead readers to content that provides complete explanations about a topic. There are three other types of keywords based on their search intent: navigational keywords, commercial investigation keywords, and transactional keywords.

First, navigational keywords are keywords that usually lead directly to specific brands. For example, keywords like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram. When typing these keywords, users want to be directed to the official websites of these brands, not to explanations about the history of these brands.

Second, commercial investigation keywords are keywords used by searchers to get information about product comparisons from several brands. Examples include keywords like best shoes, best gaming smartphone, best gaming laptop, or best mouse. When searching for these keywords, users want to compare the advantages and disadvantages of each brand.

Fourth, transactional keywords are keywords used by searchers when they are in the purchasing or transaction phase. Searchers typically use keywords that indicate transactions such as buy or cheap. Examples include buy laptop, buy domain or buy smartphone.

Target Long Tail Keywords

There are two types of keywords based on the number of words they contain: short tail keywords and long tail keywords. Short tail keywords consist of one or two words, such as create a blog and create a website. On the other hand, long tail keywords consist of three or more words, such as how to create a blog with WordPress and how to create a blog with Blogger. The search volume for long tail keywords tends to be smaller compared to short tail keywords. However, long tail keywords are more effective at driving traffic. According to Neil Patel, long tail keywords generate 70 percent more traffic than short tail keywords.

Heading Optimization

After writing a 2,000-word article, try to put yourself in the reader’s shoes. Is it easy to read such a long article? How do you find the main points among thousands of words? Of course, it’s difficult, right? Like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Readers don’t have to face that difficulty if you make use of headings. WordPress provides a Heading feature to emphasize certain points in an article. Headings help readers find the outline or main discussion in the article they are reading.

Not only beneficial for readers, headings also help search engines understand the content you write. Headings make it easier for bots to crawl your content and see headings as the main topics of the article.

WordPress has long provided the heading feature in its editor. In the Gutenberg editor version, you can find the heading feature on the right side of the block.

Then select the type of heading you want, H2, H3, or H4. It is recommended to use H2 for the main points of your content. Make sure you include the focus keyword in the H2 heading. H3 and H4 headings can be used to explain subtopics derived from H2.

Image SEO Optimization

Optimasi SEO Gambar

In addition to optimizing images, there are several things you need to do to make the images you upload more SEO friendly.

  • Optimize Image Title Text

    The image title text will appear when visitors hover their cursor over the image. Although it is not very important for SEO, this trick can improve the quality of the visitor experience.

    To change the title, click on the image you have uploaded in the post, then a pencil icon will appear that will direct you to edit the image. After that, in the Advanced Option, you can change the image title text in the Image Title Attribute field.

  • Change the Alt Text

    The image alt text provides an indicator to Google about what the page is about. This way, the image will be easier to appear in Google image search results.

    If you upload several images in one post, the alt text of the first image must contain the targeted focus keyword. Other images can use alt text that still contains the focus keyword, but with relevant variations.

    To change the image alt text, again click the pencil icon on the uploaded image so that the Image Details appear. Then enter the focus keyword or other relevant keywords in the Alternative Text field.

  • Use Appropriate File Names

    You should not name image files carelessly. Create image file names that contain the focus keyword you are targeting. The image file name can help the image appear in Google Image Search, which can be a source of traffic.

    Therefore, before uploading it to WordPress, you should change your image file name according to the focus keyword.

    Also, don’t forget to use hyphens between words in the file name. This is so that Google reads them as spaces. If you don’t use hyphens, the image file name will not be read as separate words.

Create Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is a type of content that remains relevant and does not easily become outdated. Every niche definitely has its own evergreen content. This type of content usually has a stable search trend, and people are always looking for this kind of content. For example, in the technology niche, the topic “what is a website” is one of the topics whose search trend has remained stable for years.

You can use Google Trends to check the trend of a keyword. Google Trends allows you to see keyword trends for up to the last 5 years. Keywords for evergreen content are usually searched for every month. Although sometimes there is a decrease in search volume, keywords for evergreen content tend to show an upward or at least stagnant trend.

Platforms like WordPress automatically set readers to open links in the same tab as the current page. Unfortunately, this can ruin the reader’s experience because they have to press the back button to return to the first page. Imagine if a reader opens five links in an article, they would have to press the back button multiple times to return to the original page. This can be tiring for readers and disadvantageous for you because the exit rate increases, which means the bounce rate also goes up.

Therefore, you need to direct your blog/website readers to a new tab when they click a link in the article. That way, readers don’t have to press the back button repeatedly to return to the first page.

Use LSI Keywords

From your keyword research, you will get many keywords for your article ideas. However, keyword research tools often provide rigid keywords with limited variations. The system used by keyword research tools usually groups several similar keywords into one keyword. As a result, the keyword variations are limited.

In fact, not everyone uses the exact same keyword when searching for a topic. People use various keyword variations to search for certain topics. You need to know these keyword variations so that your article sounds more natural.

These keyword variations are called LSI Keywords. LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. LSI Keywords are a collection of keywords found in a particular topic and are semantically related to help discover those keywords.

Optimize Image Size

Optimasi Ukuran Gambar

Adding images to your website/blog content is a great step to prevent visitors from getting bored with just text. In addition, images can also help visitors better understand your content. However, you also need to optimize the images you upload so they don’t slow down your website or blog loading speed.

There are various image compressor services you can use to reduce image size without compromising quality. Some of them are TinyPNG, ILoveIMG, Trimage, Kraken, and OptiPNG.

WordPress also provides various plugins to help you solve image optimization issues. Some plugins you can use are Imagify Image Optimizer, ShortPixel Image Optimizer, WP Smush, and Optimus Image Optimizer.

Create Complete and Solution-Oriented Content

Google assesses the completeness of content based on its quantity and quality. The quantity of an article is seen from its length. Google considers the best articles to be those that are comprehensive and can answer searchers’ questions.

How long should your article be to be favored by Google? According to an analysis by Backlink.io, the average length of blog articles that appear on the first page of Google search results is 1,890 words. So, try to keep your blog article length around that number.

Besides quantity, which is measured by word count, your article must also be good in terms of quality. The quality of an article is judged by its ability to answer searchers’ questions. If you have written an article of more than 2,000 words and it’s still hard to reach the top ranking, the problem may lie in content that is not solution-oriented. Don’t write a 2,000-word article that is just filler and doesn’t provide the solutions searchers need.

Remember, 1,890 words is an average, not an absolute number. You can write articles with fewer or more words than that. Adjust the article length to the context of the topic you are discussing. If 1,000 words are enough to explain the topic completely and in detail, there’s no need to force it to 1,800 words. It’s better to use your time to create infographics or videos to support the article.

Title Tag and Meta Description Optimization

In addition to the URL, Google will display the content title (title tag) and content summary (meta description). These two components help readers quickly understand what they are about to read. You can edit these two components using Yoast SEO.

To ensure your title tag and meta description appear optimally, you must follow the standard rules set by Google. The ideal title tag length is 50 to 60 characters. If it exceeds 60 characters, the title tag will automatically be truncated by Google. As for the meta description, the ideal maximum is 130 characters. If it exceeds 130 characters, Google will automatically cut off your meta description.

Add Infographics

Reading long texts can be a tiring activity for most people. Images or photos alone are sometimes not enough to fulfill the reader’s visualization needs. Therefore, you need to enrich the types of visual content on your website/blog. One way is by using infographics.

Infographics make difficult content easier for readers to understand. In addition, infographics are three times more likely to be shared on social media compared to regular images. This way, your content will be shared voluntarily by readers and has a higher chance of going viral compared to content without infographics.

Add Video

To compete with competitors, you are required to write long articles of around 1900 words, but on the other hand, reading long articles is also a tough job for website visitors.

If adding infographics or interesting illustrations is not effective enough to help blog readers stay longer, you can add videos. Videos are the most effective way to make website visitors comfortable reading your long articles.

The longer visitors stay to read your article, the better your SEO quality in Google’s assessment. Articles equipped with videos are 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results compared to articles without videos.

Install Social Media Plugin

Google does not consider social media shares as a main SEO factor up to now. Google Webmaster analysts state that social media shares such as Facebook and Twitter do not directly affect SEO quality.

However, that does not mean you can ignore social media shares. Even though they do not directly affect SEO, social media can help you build a new audience considering the high number of social media users in Indonesia—87 percent of the total 147 million internet users.

On social media, you can reach new readers through likes, retweets, comments, and shares. For example, if one of your articles gets 50 likes on Facebook and each person who likes the article has at least 100 friends, in the best-case scenario you can reach 5,000 new people through Facebook alone.

To start promoting your content on social media, you must make it easy for readers to share on social media by providing social media share buttons on your website. There are various types of social media share buttons you can use. Each plugin offers different features; some provide a complete package from social media share buttons to social media icons.

Backlinks are still one of the main SEO indicators this year. One way Google assesses the credibility of a website is by looking at its backlinks. Many backlinks indicate that the website is used as a reference source by other websites. In addition, backlinks also make it easier for Google to find your website.

Just like how people use maps to find new locations, Google’s search engine uses backlinks to discover new pages, crawl those pages, and then add them to Google’s index.

Think about it this way. You will find it easier to discover new locations that are connected to other locations, right? Remote locations that are not connected to others will be harder to find. The same goes for website pages. Website pages that do not get backlinks from other websites will be difficult for Google to find.

However, you cannot carelessly seek backlinks. You also have to consider the quality of the backlinks because backlinks from low-quality websites can negatively affect your website’s reputation.

In addition, you also need to consider the relevance of the website that will be the source of the backlink to your website/blog. For example, a smartphone company is said to have relevant backlinks when they get backlinks from websites or blogs whose niche is technology or something similar, so that the smartphone company can be considered credible by Google.

Guest Post on Quality Websites

Ideally, people will read your content and then use it as a reference by placing a link to your website. Unfortunately, not many people are willing to voluntarily give backlinks. Like it or not, you have to be proactive. One way is by collaborating through guest posts.

A guest post is writing an article not to be published on your own blog, but on someone else’s blog/website. In that article, there is a link pointing to your blog/website. This method is quite effective for getting quality backlinks.

To produce quality backlinks, you need to carefully choose the website that will publish your guest post. Choose a website or blog that is much better than yours in terms of traffic and domain rating. You can collaborate with influencer bloggers or online media to do guest posts.

Posting on Medium

In addition to collaborating with bloggers and online media through guest posts, you can also take advantage of the Medium platform to get quality backlinks. Medium is a community journalism platform with 60 million readers every month.

Medium allows you to republish your website content on its platform and provide a canonical link. A canonical link serves to inform search engines that two identical contents are considered as one URL, so it will not damage your website’s SEO reputation.

Besides the import feature, you can also publish new content that is still related to your website on Medium and place a link to one of the contents on your blog. Even though it only provides a no-follow link, the second method is still worth trying to promote your blog or website.

Take Advantage of Email Marketing

Most people feel that sharing their content on social media is enough. In fact, social media is not the only platform for sharing content. One platform you might overlook is email marketing. Email marketing has proven to be effective in driving traffic. According to Conductor, email marketing is the most effective marketing channel for generating traffic after organic search.

One reason why email marketing is effective is that you can communicate with readers on a more personal level because you contact them directly via email. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to provide their email address to you.

Of course, you need to provide a reward to motivate blog visitors to give their email address by subscribing to your blog or newsletter. Some rewards you can offer are free ebooks, exclusive content, or special discounts.

Take a look at each article you have published. Almost all of those articles most likely contain links, both internal and external links. Your initial intention in placing those links is to make it easier for website visitors to move from one page to another or to access information sources from other websites.

Unfortunately, sometimes those links become outdated or encounter errors. Expired links will direct visitors to irrelevant pages or even to a 404 error page. This can reduce the quality of the visitor experience.

Therefore, you need to check links regularly so that visitors are always directed to the correct pages. To check links, you can use Google Search Console.

Update Old Content

Consistently creating new content for your website or blog is a good step. However, that doesn’t mean you can ignore the old content you have published. It could be that those old articles are still significant sources of traffic.

There may be many old articles whose performance can still be improved. Before optimizing old content, you need to evaluate which content has the potential to generate traffic.

You can do this evaluation with the help of Google Search Console. Through Google Search Console, you can find out the performance of each page of your website in search results.

Find content that gets high impressions but low CTR. This situation indicates that the content already appears in search results, but not many people are clicking on it. Usually, this is caused by a lack of keywords that match the searchers’ intent.

To check the performance of each website page in Google Search Console, follow these steps:

  • Open the Performance tab
  • Click Pages
  • Select the website page whose performance you want to see
  • Then click the Queries tab
  • After that, the keywords that generate impressions for that page will appear.

Based on the Queries report, you can enrich the article with keywords that generate impressions for that page. This way, the chances of that website page appearing for various keywords will be greater. Your article will become richer with information that matches what people are searching for on search engines.

Monitor Competitors

Keep your friend close and keep your enemy closer

The saying above also applies if you want to win the competition in Google search results; you need to monitor competitor websites to get the latest insights.

It could be new keywords that competitors are already using or new backlink sources you can acquire. In addition, you can also see the development of competitors so you can be alert if they have surpassed your achievements.

One competitor monitoring tool worth using is Ahrefs. Ahrefs provides a Site Explorer feature that allows you to check a site’s performance. Site Explorer will provide reports on backlink quality, domain quality, keywords used, and the quality of a site’s organic traffic. You can check the filtered keyword report on your competitor’s website and choose keywords you can use.