SEO 101 / Yoast Seo Plugin

Mick_Keyou

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Ok, website is pretty much done (always tinkering with it). I have the Yoast plugin, but I'm at an uber novice seo level.

Any recommendations on learning the basics such as keywords, metatags, etc.? Websites that are good for beginners?

I've read many of the past threads, but I'm unclear how many keywords to input in the fields, what kind of keywords to input, etc. etc. Very overwhelming.
 
It is a difficult area. What can help make it a bit less overwhelming is to decide which key words you want to really own (i.e. what are the two or three key words you want to start with). Start with these and optimise your site for them (i.e. use yoast to make sure are in url structures if possible and in meta tags etc.). This makes things a bit less overwhelming as you can then start to add others later. If you are not sure what key words to start with you can look at Adwords to see what people type into Google or various tools to look at other websites that are similar to yours and the keywords that have been used. I'm not sure if this helps, but it's where I start with things. I find that conentrating on just a handful of words rather than lots helps in the early days.
 
Hahaaa...e.e., you pretty much said "bwah bwah bwah wah wah" in my limited seo language :-)

You guys bring up a question that I need clarification on. My site is focused on medsupps. You state pick a few keywords. So I should input: (medigap, medicare, medicare supplement) on every page?

You mention start off with a few. What is the reason? Why not put everything that pops in my head (example: rate, rate reduction, every state I'm selling in, quote, etc.)? I think that's where I'm really confused. How many words to input, why only a few, why add later?
 
I would suggest you do a search for SEO 101. There are a lot of good articles that can help you get the basics down.

In terms of keywords, you have to consider not only what words are relevant, but also how much competition there is for that word or phrase. For example, you will probably never be on the first page of Google for the word "insurance" or "medicare", there are too many large companies competing for it.

My advice would be to think about how your customer might search for your services in terms of phrases. If you wanted a medsupp policy, what would you put into a Google search? You'll have better luck with long tail SEO (2-5 word phrases) rather than one specific word. Think of as many phrases as you can and use the keyword tool in Adwords. It will let you know how much competition there is for that phrase, if anyone is actually searching for it, and offer alternatives.

This is just someplace to start; there is a lot to know about SEO, it just takes time and lots of research.
 
First you need to figure out base keywords, long tail keywords, and geo-locational keywords.
Base keywords are like medicare, supplement, senior health insurance, plan F.
Long tail keywords have an action phrase or keyword which indicates a desire to find the product/service or learn more about, these people are further along in the sales funnel/process like "buy medicare supplements" or "cheap med supp quotes".
Finally Geo keywords are restricted to a physical location like a city, metro area, state etc. like "ohio medicare supplements".
Next you need to figure out what words you will target, has low competition. Competition is defined by sites who have the actual keyword within the domain, in their page url, in tgeir page title header, in the first sentence, mentioned 3 times per 600-1000 keywords somewhere in the body, has it in the conclusion, also in the author box if possible.
The next piece of competitiveness is figured out how many backlinks are linking to the total site and their keyword page. More backlinks (with high page rank) equals more competitiveness because more sites are linking to their "value adding content".
How do you check competiveness? You can use google footprints called "search operators" (google it) or you can have a software do it like longtailpro or market samurai.
After you find low competition keywords, base a page per keyword. Fill in over time with more base, longtail, and other geo keywords which helps the search engine spiders categorize the content as unique and relating. LSI is latent syntax indexing which means the spiders look at keywords that are surrounding like keywords i.e. Medicare and medicaid, or life insurance and term or whole life. Terms that relate help on page seo.
Then you need a medium to curate content like more pages or a blog on your site, or a social media 2.0 site like fb, article sites, social bookmarking sites.
Churn out a piece of content that has your keywords in it each day, more importantly is maintaining something they call Link Velocity, which means you add content and links at a steady rate instead of all at once typical of a spam site.
Thats it in a nut-shell!
 
Great info that has made things a little clearer.

Unclear on this: When I go into the seo tool and they have the boxes to input the keywords & phrases, do those keywords have to be in the content of the page or just input keywords I think are important regardless if I have them on that page?

Example, my About Me page may not state anything (or mention briefly) about those medigap type long tail keyword phrases, but of course I want them in the seo tool. Yes? Or do I only input keywords & phrases that are actually on the page I'm optimizing?
 
Do Both, input in the tool, another great tool is seopressor, and on page. At the end of the day, seo won't matter if your content is worthless and your bounce rate is 12 seconds. Spiders will note that and all the seo or scrapebox low pr blog comments and forum sig's won't matter a damn if you don't have GOOD UNIQUE QUALITY CONTENT.
Go to wordstream.com and sign up for the free tool that shows what questions are commonly asked around a keyword. Start there, find the most asked questions on there (or yahoo ask etc.) and write a blog post answering those questions, and using the keywords.

Also you need content tailored for each space on the sales funnel; unknown curiosity, known curiousity and search for more knowledge, price checking, weighing options, purchase, after sale blues/doubt.
 
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First you need to figure out base keywords, long tail keywords, and geo-locational keywords.
Base keywords are like medicare, supplement, senior health insurance, plan F.
Long tail keywords have an action phrase or keyword which indicates a desire to find the product/service or learn more about, these people are further along in the sales funnel/process like "buy medicare supplements" or "cheap med supp quotes".
Finally Geo keywords are restricted to a physical location like a city, metro area, state etc. like "ohio medicare supplements".
Next you need to figure out what words you will target, has low competition. Competition is defined by sites who have the actual keyword within the domain, in their page url, in tgeir page title header, in the first sentence, mentioned 3 times per 600-1000 keywords somewhere in the body, has it in the conclusion, also in the author box if possible.
The next piece of competitiveness is figured out how many backlinks are linking to the total site and their keyword page. More backlinks (with high page rank) equals more competitiveness because more sites are linking to their "value adding content".
How do you check competiveness? You can use google footprints called "search operators" (google it) or you can have a software do it like longtailpro or market samurai.
After you find low competition keywords, base a page per keyword. Fill in over time with more base, longtail, and other geo keywords which helps the search engine spiders categorize the content as unique and relating. LSI is latent syntax indexing which means the spiders look at keywords that are surrounding like keywords i.e. Medicare and medicaid, or life insurance and term or whole life. Terms that relate help on page seo.
Then you need a medium to curate content like more pages or a blog on your site, or a social media 2.0 site like fb, article sites, social bookmarking sites.
Churn out a piece of content that has your keywords in it each day, more importantly is maintaining something they call Link Velocity, which means you add content and links at a steady rate instead of all at once typical of a spam site.
Thats it in a nut-shell!


Great post! One of the best summaries on basic SEO I have seen on this site.
 
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