Deadly Class – A Heavy Metal Music Blog
Deadly Class is a Heavy Metal Music Blog that covers the latest in metal news, reviews, interviews, and more.
SEO Basics
Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools
If you want to get your site ranking in Google and other search engines, you need to set up Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools. These free platforms give you information about your website’s traffic and how well it’s ranking for certain keywords.
GSC provides data about your website’s organic search traffic, as well as information about any manual actions that have been taken against your site. Bing Webmaster Tools gives you similar data about your site’s traffic and performance, but for the Bing search engine only.
To set up GSC, you need to verify that you own the website. This can be done through various methods, such as adding a meta tag to your site’s HTML or uploading a DNS record. Once you’ve verified ownership, you can start adding information about your website, such as the sitemap and target keywords.
Bing Webmaster Tools works in a similar way to GSC, but the verification process is slightly different. You’ll need to add a Bing XML sitemap to your site and then submit it through the Bing Webmaster Tools interface. Once your sitemap has been approved, you can start adding information about your website, such as target keywords and where you want Bing to crawl.
Set up Google Analytics
To get started with Google Analytics, you’ll need to create a Google account and then set up a new Analytics property for your website. Once you’ve done that, you can get your Tracking ID and insert the tracking code into your website’s code.
To set up a new property in Google Analytics:
1. Go to analytics.google.com and sign in with your Google account.
2. Click “+ Create Property” in the top right corner of the page.
3. Enter your website’s name and URL, then click “Continue.”
4. Select the “Website” option and click “Continue.”
5. Choose your industry category and reporting time zone, then click “Create.”
6. On the next page, you’ll see your Tracking ID and tracking code. Copy these to use on your website.
Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)
Yoast SEO
Installing a plugin like Yoast SEO is a great way to ensure that your website is properly optimized for search engines. Yoast SEO is a free plugin that helps you to optimize your website for both Google and Bing. It also allows you to control how your website appears in the search results, and provides tools to help you improve your website’s ranking.
Once you’ve installed and activated the Yoast SEO plugin, you’ll need to configure it. The plugin will walk you through the process of configuring it, but here are some of the most important settings:
-Enter your site’s name, description, and keywords. These are the terms that people will use to find your site in the search engines.
-Set your preferred social media profiles. This tells the search engines which social media profiles they should show when people search for your site.
-Set your preferred domain name. This is the domain name that you want people to use when they visit your site. For example, if you own both www.example.com and example.com , you can set www.example.com as your preferred domain so that people will be directed there when they type either URL into their browser.
After you’ve configured the plugin, take some time to familiarize yourself with its features and options. Yoast SEO provides a wealth of information and options, so it’s worth taking some time to explore everything it has to offer.
Keyword Research
Identify your competitors
In order to identify your competitors, you will need to first determine what keywords they are targeting. You can do this by conducting a keyword research analysis. Once you have a list of competitor keywords, you can then use a tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner to see how much traffic each keyword is receiving. From there, you can prioritize which keywords you want to target.
Conduct a keyword gap analysis
In order to determine which keywords to target, it’s important to first understand what your current website is ranking for, and where there are gaps in your keyword coverage. You can do this by conducting a keyword gap analysis.
A keyword gap analysis is a process of identifying the keywords that your competitors are ranking for that you are not. This can give you insights into which keywords you should be targeting in order to improve your search engine rankings.
To conduct a keyword gap analysis:
1. Identify your competitors. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll assume that your competitors are the other websites that rank on the first page of Google for the keywords that you want to rank for.
2. Make a list of the keywords that you want to rank for. Include both general terms and long-tail keywords.
3. Use a tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or SEMrush to research the monthly search volume for each of these keywords. This will give you an indication of how difficult it will be to rank for each keyword.
4. Check the SERPs (search engine results pages) to see which websites are ranking for each keyword. Make a note of all the websites that are ranking ahead of you for your target keywords. These are your competitors.
5. Using a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs, check the link profiles of your competitors to see which backlinks they have that you don’t. These links may be giving them an advantage in the SERPs (search engine results pages). Try to acquire some of these backlinks for yourself in order to improve your own rankings
Find your main ‘money’ keywords
Your main ‘money’ keywords are the ones that are most relevant to your business and have the highest search volume. To find them, you can use a keyword research tool like Google Keyword Planner or KWFinder.
Once you’ve found your main keywords, you can start incorporating them into your blog posts, titles, meta descriptions, and alt tags. Remember to use them sparingly, as too many keywords will result in keyword stuffing, which can actually hurt your SEO.
Technical SEO
If you want your heavy metal blog to rank higher in search engine results, you need to focus on technical SEO. This means optimizing your website for things like crawlability, site speed, and mobile friendliness. In this article, we’ll give you a crash course in technical SEO for Deadly Class – A Heavy Metal Music Blog.
Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC
If you want to quickly check the technical SEO of a page, the “Inspect URL” feature in Google Search Console is a great way to do it. This tool will analyze a given URL and report any errors that it finds.
Here’s how to use it:
1. Go to Google Search Console and select the site that you want to check.
2. In the left-hand sidebar, click on “Crawl.”
3. Then, click on “Inspect URL.”
4. Enter the URL of the page that you want to check and click “Inspect.”
5. GSC will now analyze the URL and report any errors that it finds. If there are no errors, you’ll see a message saying so. Otherwise, you’ll see a list of the errors that were found along with some tips on how to fix them.
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
Make sure your website is designed for mobile devices. Google’s “Mobilegeddon” update in 2015 shook up the digital world by giving preference in search results to websites that are mobile-friendly. Make sure your website will pass the Google Mobile Friendly test by ensuring your pages are adequately sized for mobile screens, that you’re using HTML5, and that your website loads quickly on 3G connections.
Check your site’s loading speed
One of the most important aspects of technical SEO is site speed. In today’s fast-paced, online world, users expect instant gratification, and if your site doesn’t deliver, they will simply click away. Not only will this cost you potential customers, but it will also negatively impact your search engine ranking.
There are a number of ways to improve your site’s loading speed, but one of the easiest is to simply check your hosting provider. If you’re using a shared host, it’s likely that your site is competing for resources with many other sites. This can lead to slower loading times. Instead, consider using a dedicated or virtual private server (VPS). These will give you much more control over the resources available to your site, and as a result, can dramatically improve loading times.
In addition to checking your hosting provider, there are a number of other technical SEO factors that can impact your site’s speed. These include things like optimizing your images and code, using a content delivery network (CDN), and minimizing redirects. By taking care of these technical details, you can ensure that your site loads quickly and efficiently for both users and search engines.
On-page and Content
Class is in session, and today we’re talking about on-page and content. In order for a website to be successful, it’s important to have well-written and keyword-rich content. However, on-page and content must work together in order for a website to rank well in the search engines. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the importance of on-page and content and how they work together to help a website rank.
It’s important to have unique title tags on every page of your website. Duplicate title tags can hurt your SEO because Google penalizes websites with duplicate content. Missing title tags can also hurt your SEO because it’s one of the first things Google looks for when crawling a website.
To make sure you have unique title tags, you can use a tool like Screaming Frog to crawl your website and check for duplicate or missing title tags. You can also use Google Search Console to check for truncated title tags. Truncated title tags happen when your title tag is cut off due to length. This can hurt your click-through rate because people won’t be able to see the full title of your page in the search results.
If you find any duplicate, missing, or truncated title tags, you should fix them as soon as possible.
Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions
If you want to improve your site’s SEO, one place to start is by making sure all your pages have unique meta descriptions. These are the short descriptions that appear under your page’s title in the search results.
Meta descriptions are important for two main reasons:
1. They tell searchers what your page is about, which can help them decide whether to click through to your site.
2. They help search engines understand what your page is about, which can affect how they rank your page in the search results.
Unfortunately, it’s all too common for sites to have either duplicate or missing meta descriptions. Duplicate meta descriptions can confusion and make it harder for searchers to decide which result to click on, while missing meta descriptions mean that searchers won’t see any information about your page at all in the search results.
Fortunately, there are a few simple steps you can take to find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions on your site:
1. Use a crawler like Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl to find pages with missing or duplicate meta descriptions.
2. For pages with missing meta descriptions, add unique descriptions that accurately reflect the content of the page.
3. For pages with duplicate meta descriptions, choose one description and make sure it accurately reflects the content of the page. Then, use a 301 redirect to send traffic from the other pages with duplicate descriptions to the page with the correct description.
One of the most common rookie mistakes when it comes to on-page optimization is having multiple H1 tags on a single page. While it’s tempting to want to use that fancy headline font for every title, resist the urge! Having more than one H1 tag confuses search engine crawlers and breaks the flow of your content. Not to mention, it just looks messy.
If you’re not sure how many H1 tags you should have on a page, the answer is simple: just one. The H1 tag is intended to be used for the title of your page, so using it multiple times doesn’t make sense. If you have multiple sections on your page that need titles, use H2 or H3 tags instead.
To fix this issue, go through your page and make sure that only one element has the H1 tag. If you have multiple H1 tags, remove all but one and change the others to an appropriate heading level.
Off-Page SEO
You’ve set up your website, you’ve chosen your theme and plugins, and you’ve written your first few blog posts. Now it’s time to start thinking about how to get people to your site. One of the most important things you can do is to focus on Off-Page SEO.
Analyze your competitor’s link profile
The first step in any off-page SEO campaign is to analyze your competitor’s link profile. You can do this using a variety of different tools, but my personal favorite is Ahrefs.
Once you’ve analyzed your competitor’s link profile, you’ll want to identify any potential link building opportunities that you can exploit. Here are a few things to look for:
-Competitors with a large number of links from low-quality websites
-Competitors with a small number of links from high-quality websites
-Competitors with links from websites in your industry
Conduct a link intersect analysis
A link intersect analysis is a process where you find the link between two web pages. For example, you can find the link between a music website and a heavy metal blog. This can be done by looking at the links on each website and finding the intersecting link.
For example, if the music website has a link to the heavy metal blog, then you can assume that there is an interest in heavy metal music on the part of the music website. This can be used to your advantage when trying to get your own website linked from the music website.
Likewise, if the heavy metal blog has a link to the music website, then you can assume that there is an interest in music on the part of the heavy metal blog. This can be used to your advantage when trying to get your own website linked from the heavy metal blog.
Target your competitors’ broken backlinks
One of the most effective ways to improve your site’s ranking is to target your competitor’s broken backlinks. This can be done using a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer.
What is a broken backlink?
A broken backlink is a link on another website that points to a page on your site that no longer exists. When Moz’s Open Site Explorer tool identifies these links, they are marked as “broken.”
Why are broken backlinks bad for your website?
There are several reasons why having broken backlinks on your site can hurt your ranking:
1. It sends a signal to Google that your site is not well-maintained.
2. It hurts your click-through rate (CTR) because people who click on the link are taken to a page that doesn’t exist.
3. It wastes the link equity that you could be using to improve your site’s ranking.
How can you use your competitor’s broken backlinks to your advantage?
There are two ways you can use your competitor’s broken backlinks to improve your own ranking:
1. You can contact the website owner and ask them to remove the link or update it to point to a working page on your site. This is known as “link reclamation.”
2. You can create a new page on your site and submit it to the search engines, hoping that they will index it and give it a high ranking. This is known as “Google Bombing.”
