How to Rank Your Website on Google – WordPress SEO For Beginners

0:00 Intro
1:27 Create content which can rank on Google
6:41 Make your site look good in Google search
11:48 Tell Google about your website’s content
17:23 Key aspects that affect ranking
17:58 To check if your content is ranking on Google

Transcript

00:00
– In this video I’m gonna show you
00:01
how to get higher Google rankings fast.
00:03
In fact, one of my readers recently used the checklist
00:06
from this video to increase his organic traffic by 88.3%.
00:11
I’m Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko.
00:13
The place where marketers turn
00:14
for higher rankings and more traffic.
00:17
In this video, you’re gonna see the checklist
00:18
that I use for all of my SEO clients.
00:20
You’ll also learn why you might want to delete,
00:23
yes delete, half the pages on your website.
00:26
And a simple trick you can use to improve
00:28
your Google rankings fast.
00:30
Keep watching.
00:31
(soft electronic music)
00:36
A few months ago, I sent out a newsletter
00:38
to my email subscribers.
00:39
This email listed out some of my all-time
00:41
favorite traffic hacks.
00:43
Out of the blue, the founder of Proven.com,
00:45
Sean Falconer, replied to that email.
00:48
He said, “Dude, I’ve tried all of these techniques before,
00:50
“and they helped us get more traffic.”
00:52
When I looked at Sean’s site, I saw that he was doing
00:54
a solid job with his content marketing and SEO.
00:58
But, I also noticed a few mistakes
00:59
that were holding him back from Google’s first page.
01:02
That’s when I sent him this message.
01:05
A few hours later, Sean got back to me.
01:07
After executing the checklist that I’m about to show you,
01:09
Sean’s organic traffic shot up by nearly 50% in 21 days.
01:14
And once the checklist had time to kick in,
01:16
Proven’s traffic increased by a whopping 88.3%
01:21
three weeks after that.
01:22
With that, let’s dive in to the checklist
01:24
that Sean used to get higher Google rankings.
01:26
Your first step is to find and eliminate
01:29
what I call zombie pages.
01:31
I used to think that Google rewarded sites
01:33
that publish lots and lots of unique content.
01:35
But I was wrong.
01:36
Today, I know the truth.
01:38
The truth is that Google doesn’t want you
01:40
to publish content just for the sake of publishing content.
01:43
In fact, a Google employee recently stated
01:46
that they prefer websites that publish fewer
01:49
high quality pages.
01:50
This quality over quantity approach
01:52
is one of the secrets behind my blog’s success.
01:55
In fact, Backlinko gets over 150,000
01:58
unique visitors per month.
02:00
Unlike most blogs, I only publish every four to six weeks.
02:04
But when I do, I make sure each and every post is awesome.
02:08
In fact, at the time of shooting this video,
02:10
Backlinko only has 37 total blog posts.
02:13
Fortunately, Sean only published high quality content
02:17
on his blog.
02:18
So, that wasn’t an issue.
02:19
The problem was his site had lots of zombie pages.
02:22
So, what are zombie pages?
02:24
Zombie pages are pages on your site
02:26
that don’t provide any value.
02:28
For example, zombie pages are pages like old
02:31
and outdated blog posts and press releases,
02:34
category and tag pages, search results pages,
02:37
eCommerce product pages that don’t get any sales,
02:40
thin content pages, and pages with duplicate content.
02:44
In theory, Proven.com shouldn’t have a ton of pages.
02:47
After all, Proven is an online job board
02:50
where job postings come and go.
02:52
Despite that, they had nearly 50,000 pages
02:56
indexed in Google.
02:57
That’s a lot.
02:58
As it turned out, Proven didn’t automatically delete
03:01
their old job postings.
03:03
So, these pages stuck around even though the job
03:05
had been filled years ago.
03:07
To make matters worse, Google was indexing
03:10
their search result pages which are classic zombie pages.
03:14
So, I recommended that they delete their old job postings
03:17
and add the no index tag to their search results.
03:20
Sean quickly took action.
03:23
Thanks to these changes, Proven now only has
03:25
around 4,000 pages indexed.
03:27
Which is 40,000 less than they had before.
03:31
Step number two is to fix any technical SEO issues
03:34
that your site has.
03:36
There are literally hundreds of technical problems
03:39
that can impact your SEO.
03:40
Fixing them is one of the fastest ways
03:43
to get higher Google rankings.
03:44
That said, here are some of the most common technical issues
03:47
that I see during SEO site audits.
03:51
How can you find these technical SEO issues on your site?
03:55
I recommend using the Raven tool Site Auditor
03:58
or SEMrush’s Site Audit tool.
04:01
They’ll crawl your site and let you know
04:02
about technical problems that might
04:04
be hurting your site’s SEO.
04:06
Fortunately, Proven didn’t have
04:08
too many technical SEO issues.
04:10
That’s mostly due to the fact that we deleted
04:13
so many zombie pages.
04:14
Fewer pages equals fewer problems.
04:17
The only problems I could find were some missing
04:20
ALT text on images and a handful of duplicate titles.
04:23
Not a big deal but worth fixing.
04:26
As expected Sean quickly took care of all
04:29
these technical SEO problems.
04:31
Now that we’ve fixed Proven.com’s technical problems,
04:34
it was time to optimize their content.
04:36
I probably don’t need to tell you that on-page SEO
04:39
can make or break your site’s rankings.
04:42
That’s why I dedicate an entire step
04:44
of my SEO checklist to on-page SEO.
04:47
Because Proven had thousands of pages,
04:49
I knew I couldn’t optimize every single one.
04:52
So, Sean sent me his top 10 most important pages.
04:56
Now, some of Sean’s most important pages
04:58
were blog posts and others were commercial pages
05:01
that sold his services.
05:03
So, let’s look at a quick example of a page
05:05
that I optimized for Sean.
05:06
A blog post called Best Questions to Ask References,
05:10
The Complete List.
05:11
Sean’s target keyword for this post
05:13
was questions to ask references.
05:16
So, I added that keyword to the top of the page.
05:19
Why?
05:20
Because Google puts more weight on words
05:21
that appear in the beginning of your content.
05:24
So, it’s important that your keyword shows up there.
05:26
I also sprinkled in a few LSI keywords like business tips.
05:30
LSI keywords are terms that are closely related
05:33
to your target keyword.
05:34
When you include these LSI keywords
05:36
in your content, you’ll get a rankings boost.
05:38
In fact, my recent analysis of one million Google
05:41
search results found that LSI keyword-rich content tended
05:45
to outrank content that didn’t contain LSI keywords.
05:49
So, how can you use LSI keywords to get higher rankings?
05:53
Well, let’s say you just wrote an article about coffee.
05:56
LSI keywords for coffee would be things like mug,
05:59
caffeine, and Starbucks.
06:00
So, you want to make sure that you include
06:02
those terms in your content.
06:04
Our fourth step is to optimize your title
06:06
and description tag for click-through rate.
06:09
You probably already know that CTR
06:10
is a huge ranking factor right now.
06:13
Think about it, if people searching for a keyword
06:15
click on your result more than others,
06:17
it tells Google that you’re the best result
06:20
for that keyword and you’ll rank higher in Google.
06:22
In fact, a recently published Google research paper
06:25
states that, “Click-through read data has proven
06:28
“to be a critical resource for improving
06:30
“search ranking quality.”
06:32
So, it’s clear that CTR is an important ranking signal.
06:35
The question is, how can you optimize for it?
06:38
Let me walk you through a real life example.
06:41
One of Sean’s best blog posts was a huge list of job boards.
06:45
Considering how epic this content was,
06:47
it should’ve been ranking in the top three.
06:49
But, Sean’s page was stuck in the fifth spot.
06:52
And I had a feeling that the page’s title and description
06:56
was hurting it’s CTR and rankings.
06:59
Here’s what I did to turn things around.
07:01
First, I looked at the ad words ad
07:03
that showed up when I searched for best job boards
07:06
and other related keywords.
07:07
I noticed that almost every ad used a specific number.
07:11
And none of the ads used the term niche talent.
07:15
So, I changed Sean’s title tag to this
07:17
and his description tag to this.
07:19
These changes boosted that pages organic
07:22
click-through rate by 64.1%.
07:25
And Sean currently ranks in the top three
07:27
for his target keyword.
07:28
Now that I improved Sean’s click-through rate,
07:30
it was time to optimize his site
07:32
around another important ranking factor, dwell time.
07:35
That’s what step number five is all about.
07:38
So, what is dwell time?
07:40
And how can you optimize for it?
07:41
When someone searches for a keyword
07:43
and clicks in a result, two things can happen.
07:46
They can stay in your site for a long time
07:48
or they quickly click away.
07:50
The amount of time someone spends on your site
07:52
is known as dwell time.
07:54
As you might expect, the longer your dwell time,
07:57
in general, the higher your page will rank in Google.
08:00
Here’s what I did to quickly improve Sean’s dwell time.
08:03
First, I moved Sean’s content up so it appeared
08:07
at the top of the page.
08:08
You see, Proven used to have huge gaps
08:10
that pushed their content below the fold like this.
08:14
So, I cut this gap down by about 50%.
08:17
Sean’s post also had giant images
08:19
that pushed their content down even more.
08:25
I made these images smaller so they took up less room.
08:28
Next, I made Sean’s introductions more sticky.
08:31
Here’s the deal.
08:32
When someone comes to your site from Google,
08:34
your intro makes them stick around or click away.
08:37
In fact, intros are so important
08:39
that I spend more time on my intros than my headlines.
08:43
In Sean’s case, I noticed that his introductions0:00
Hi Guys,
00:01
Today we’re going to see
00:02
how to rank your website on the Google search.
00:05
Now let’s say you have a website,
00:07
And you want to rank this website on the Google search results.
00:10
But now when you search for it on Google.
00:17
your site does not appear.
00:19
Now how do you bring your website into the Google search results?
00:23
So in this video, we’re going to see
00:26
How to do SEO for your website
00:29
and get your website to appear on the Google search results
00:33
And in this video we will also see how to rank your website, for the ‘search terms’ you want.
00:40
Once your site appears on the Google search results,
00:42
you will be able to get more visitors to your website, for free.
00:46
Okay,
00:47
so let’s get started.
00:48
First, let’s see how Google ranks a website on their search results.
00:54
Now let’s say you’re searching something on Google.
01:01
And you get results like this.
01:03
Now how did these results show up here?
01:06
What is Google looking for?
01:08
Google wants it’s users to find what they’re looking for.
01:12
It wants to show the best content to its users.
01:16
So these results are here,
01:18
because Google thinks they will solve the problem of the user.
01:22
So in order to rank your website on Google,
01:25
We’re going to do 3 parts
01:27
The 1st part is to Create Content Which Can Rank on Google
01:32
So to create the content
01:33
The 1st step, is to Find what people are searching for.
01:37
Now, How do you find what people are searching for?
01:40
So To do that
01:41
Just go to google.
01:43
Now think, What your business is about?
01:47
Let’s say you’re running a ‘coffee shop’.
01:49
Just Enter that into google
01:54
And as soon as you type it!
01:56
You can find what people are searching for, related to ‘coffee shops’
02:00
Now let’s say you want to reach these people.,
02:03
To find more terms, searched by them,
02:06
just press the down arrow
02:08
and select that keyword.
02:11
and now if you press ‘space’
02:14
you can find even more terms, searched by the people
02:18
Now Google is showing these results,
02:20
because it has been searched by a good number of people.
02:24
So once you find what people search for,
02:27
next
02:28
you need to Choose the people, who you want to reach..
02:33
So you can pick any set of users you want.
02:36
I am going to choose these users
02:38
The people, who have searched for,
02:39
the ‘best coffee shops in mumbai’.
02:43
So Once you have selected your audience,
02:45
Next you need to find out what this user might be looking for.
02:51
So to find out what the user is looking for
02:54
you need to think about,
02:56
If someone searches for ‘this’
02:58
What exactly, are they looking for?
03:01
So in this case,
03:02
the users are clearly trying to find,
03:05
the ‘best coffee shops, to visit, in the mumbai area’
03:11
So once you find what the user is looking for,
03:13
we can go to the next step, :
03:15
which is to ‘Create content, for this user’
03:19
Now as google wants it’s users to find what they’re looking for,.
03:23
In order to rank on google,
03:25
you need to create a content on your website
03:27
which answers the users question.
03:29
So next let’s see how you can create the content.
03:33
to create the content
03:35
Let’s go to our website.
03:37
Now this is a site, which I have built with wordpress.
03:41
If you don’t have a website,
03:43
you can easily create one by watching this video,
03:49
now to create our content
03:51
Let’s go to new
03:53
and click post
03:57
And Now it will take you to this page.
04:00
Now first, we need to enter the title for our content
04:07
Now as we’re creating the content for the people looking for ‘best coffee shops, in mumbai’
04:12
Let’s enter the title as ‘The best coffee shops in mumbai’
04:16
Once you’ve entered your title,
04:18
Next you need to add the content,
04:20
which answers our user’s question.
04:23
Now as the users are trying to find the ‘best coffee shops, in the mumbai area’
04:28
I’m going to list down, the best coffee shops in mumbai.
04:38
Now once you have added your content. to make this content easy to read,
04:43
Let’s add headings,
04:45
So to add the heading
04:46
Just select the text which you want as the heading.
04:51
And then click here,
04:55
and choose heading
04:59
in the same way, we will do it for all the headings
05:20
Now, once you have added the headings
05:22
to make your post look more attractive
05:25
let’s add images
05:27
So let’s say you want to add this image.,
05:29
just drag your image,
05:33
And then drop it where you want to add it.
05:36
And then
05:38
we’ll add another image here ,
05:41
and in the same way,
05:43
you can add images under other headings
06:01
we have completed creating the content for our user,.
06:04
and we’ve successfully solved the users’ question.
06:07
Which is “what are the best coffee shops in mumbai”
06:11
So once you have created your content,
06:14
To publish it on the web,
06:15
just click publish.
06:19
And the content will be published on your website.
06:22
So let’s see how it looks.
06:24
To see your content,
06:25
just click ‘view post’.
06:29
And as you can see, we have now got our blog post.
06:33
So this is how you can Create Content,
06:35
which can answers the user’s question & can rank on Google
06:39
Once you have created your content,
06:41
Next, let’s go to the 2nd part of this tutorial, which is to make your
06:44
which is to make your site look good, when it appears, on the Google search results.
06:50
So first let’s see, how our site will appear on Google search right now.
06:55
Here it is.
06:57
Our site is not yet ranked on Google,
07:00
but if it ranks,
07:02
this is how it will look.
07:04
Now here you can see that, we have got the title, which we kept here.
07:10
And here Google shows the link, of our page.
07:13
and as you can see, this link is not very clear,
07:17
Here you can see another site’s link, which is more clear.
07:21
So Next, let’s see how you can make the link of your post, look more attractive.
07:28
So to make the link attractive.
07:30
Let’s go here
07:32
And click dashboard.
07:35
Now go to settings,
07:38
and then click permalinks.
07:42
and now It will take you to this page,
07:45
so this is the page, where you can change ‘how your links look like’.
07:49
Right now you can see that ‘plain’ is selected
07:52
Which means our link will be shown in this way.
07:56
Now to make our link more attractive.
07:58
All we have to do is, just select ‘post name’.
08:03
And all your links will be changed to this format.
08:07
So now if we click ‘save changes’.
08:12
And then go to our post,
08:15
and click refresh,
08:19
you can see that, our link has been changed.
08:23
So now when our site appears on Google,
08:26
instead of appearing like this,
08:29
this is how it will look.
08:31
Now as we have the same search term used by the user here
08:35
it will help google identify what our content is about
08:39
and help it rank better on the search results
08:43
Okay!
08:43
So now you know how you can control, the title,
08:46
& the link.
08:48
But what about this part,
08:50
which is the description.
08:53
Now Here you can see that, it shows a random text.
08:55
Which is taken from our blog post.
08:59
Now instead of this text,
09:00
what if you want to put your own text, like this,
09:04
which looks more attractive.
09:07
So next let’s see how you can add the description,
09:11
Now WordPress, by default does not have this feature.
09:15
So in order to add our description,
09:17
we need to install a plugin, on our WordPress site.
09:21
So to install the plugin,
09:22
let’s go to WordPress.
09:26
Now go to plugins,
09:28
And click add new.
09:32
Now search for SEO
09:38
And you will get these plugins
09:40
now to add our description,
09:42
we’re going to use this plugin
09:44
So let’s click install,
09:49
and click activate.
09:52
And as you can see,
09:54
the plugin has been installed.
09:56
which means we can now add our description
10:00
Now if we go to our post,
10:04
and scroll down
10:07
You can see that there are no options here.
10:11
But now if we click refresh.
10:18
You can see that,
10:20
we have got these options
10:21
from the plugin
10:24
And here, You can see how this post will appear, on Google.
10:30
Now to add your description, just click ‘edit’.
10:36
And here you will be able to add your description
10:39
. So here you need to enter the text, which you want to show on google.
10:43
So I’m going to enter a short description about my content
10:54
As you can see, this is the description, which will appear on google.
10:59
Once you have entered your description,
11:01
Let’s click close
11:04
and Now to save your changes, just click update.
11:12
So now when this post appears on Google, this is how it will look.
11:18
So this will encourage more users to click on your link
11:21
& then read your content.
11:24
So this is how you can add the link,
11:26
The title,
11:27
And the description,
11:28
for your content.
11:30
Okay!
11:31
So now we have successfully made our site look good on the Google search results.
11:36
Now once you have published your content,
11:38
how will Google ‘Know’ about your content?
11:41
To help Google, find your site & it’s content,
11:44
We need to share our website details with Google.
11:48
So Next let’s go to the final part of this video,
11:51
where we see, how you can tell Google About your website’s content.
11:58
so to tell Google about our content, we’re going to do 3 steps.
12:02
The first step, is to install the Google plugin on our website.
12:07
So to install the plugin,
12:08
let’s go to our dashboard,
12:12
and then go to plugins
12:15
and click add new.
12:19
Now search for a plugin called ‘Google site kit’
12:28
And you will get this plugin.
12:30
So this is the plugin, which is going to help us tell Google about our website.
12:35
So to install this plugin,
12:36
Let’s click install,
12:42
and then click activate.
12:46
And as you can see, the Google plugin is now installed.
12:50
and you can see the message here
12:53
Once you have installed the plugin,
12:55
we can go to step 2 which is to setup the google plugin,
13:00
So to set it up,
13:02
let’s click ‘start setup’.
13:06
And it will take you to this page,
13:08
Now to setup the plugin,
13:10
let’s click sign in.
13:14
And then sign in to your Google Account,
13:24
Now click allow.
13:28
Now to complete the setup,
13:29
just click proceed.
13:33
Then again click allow,
13:38
and then finally click add site.
13:43
okay!
13:43
So now we have successfully Set up our plugin
13:46
So now if we click ‘go to my dashboard’,
13:51
you can see that,
13:52
Google is now connected with our website.
13:56
Once you have Setup the Google Plugin, you we can now go to the final step,
14:00
which is to tell Google About all the pages you we have on your website.
14:05
Now let’s say you have published 10 blog posts on your site.
14:09
Now how will Google, find these posts?
14:12
So to inform Google about your posts, we need to submit,
14:16
something called as a sitemap.
14:18
So sitemap is a page,
14:20
which has the links of all the pages & posts,
14:23
you have on your site
14:26
So to submit your sitemap to Google,
14:28
First we need to 2get the sitemap, from the seo plugin which we installed before.
14:34
So to get the sitemap,
14:36
let’s go to WordPress,
14:38
and click ‘SEO’.
14:44
Now go to features,
14:47
here you can see that, we have an option called ‘sitemaps’.
14:51
Now to get the sitemap,
14:53
just click this question mark,
14:57
and then click here
15:03
And as you can see,
15:04
we’ve now got our sitemap,
15:06
which has the links to all of the pages on our site.
15:09
Now if we click ‘posts site map’,
15:14
you can see the Links to all the posts, that we’ve published on our site,
15:18
including the one which we just published now.
15:21
So submitting this sitemap to Google, will help it find all the contents of your site easily.
15:27
So to submit your sitemap to Google,
15:30
First let’s go back to the main sitemap page.
15:35
And now we need to submit this sitemap link to google.
15:40
So to submit the link, let’s go to wordpress.
15:45
and then go to ‘Google Site kit’
15:48
And click search console
15:52
Now click here, to open the search console
15:58
and it will take you to this page
16:00
Now to submit your sitemap,
16:02
just click sitemaps.
16:06
And here you need to enter your sitemap link.
16:09
So to get the link, let’s go to our sitemap.
16:15
and then select this part
16:18
And then right click
16:20
& copy it.
16:23
Now to paste the link, let’s go back to this tab,
16:28
And then paste the link here.
16:33
Now to submit the sitemap, just click “submit”.
16:39
And as you can see, our sitemap has been successfully submitted
16:44
So now when you publish new content,
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it will be automatically added to your sitemap,
16:49
and will be recognized by Google.
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So this is how you can tell Google, about the pages you have on your website.
16:59
So now we’ve optimised our website, for ranking on google.
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So now if we go to google
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You can see that previously, our website was not found.
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now if we click ‘refresh’.
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You can see that, our website has now started to appear on google.
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So this is how you can get your website to appear on the google search results.
17:23
Now in order to rank for the keyword you want.
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There’ are a few things you need to remember:
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It takes time for google to find your content and then rank it,
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for the correct ‘search terms’.
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So be patient while google reviews your content.
17:37
Remember that Google Wants to show the best possible content to its visitors.
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So, Take a look at the competition
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& ensure your content has something new,
17:45
or better to offer to the visitors.
17:48
Try to create content which is better than what the competition has to offer
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Okay!
17:54
Now you know how to get your website to appear, on the google search results.
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But,
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How do you know if your site is ranking on google?
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How do you see the number of people, who are coming to your website, from google?
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So to see if your content is ranking on google,
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lets go to WordPress
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& click site kit,
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Now as soon as you click it,
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Here, you will find, a few important details.
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Now the 1st number here, which is called as ‘Impressions’
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is the number of times, your website has appeared, on the google search results.
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So here it says, our website has appeared on google search a 209 times,
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In the last ‘28 days’.
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So as you publish more & more New content
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your site will get more & more impressions from different search terms.
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And this number will rise.
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And as this rises, the number of times people click on your website,
18:48
from the search results will also rise.
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So this is the no of times, people have clicked on our website,
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from the google search results.
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Now if you want to see the search terms, which your content is ranking for,
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Just scroll down
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And here you can see the ‘search terms’ which people are using, to find your site.
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Now, if you want to see, how a particular blog post you wrote is doing on google,
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just click here.
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And then enter the title of your post
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And select it.
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Now if you click ‘view data’…
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You can see the impressions & clicks
19:31
this individual post has got,
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on the google search results.
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So this is how you can know,
19:37
Which content you’ve published, is ranking on google.
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And how many people are visiting your site, from that content.
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So that’s it guys!
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This is how you can optimize your website for google
19:47
And then make it appear on the google search results.
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Now, if you choose a search term for which the competitors content is already very good.
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Then you might find it difficult to rank your site, for those terms,
19:59
In that case, you need to find, keywords which are easy to rank for
20:04
If you want to find low competition keywords
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For which you can easily rank for,
20:08
you can watch this video.
20:11
And If you want to see full list of things
20:13
you can do to improve your seo ,
20:15
You can download our seo checklist guide by clicking here.
20:21
And also make sure you subscribe to Website Learners to get more videos like this one
20:25
Thanks for watching, I will see you in the next video.
20:27
Take care
20:28
Ba Bye

Optimized Webmedia Marketing is the best SEO Vancouver company. To learn how Optimized Webmedia Marketing can help optimize your website to attract more organic visitors, book a free consultation.