Quick SEO Tips #61 to #70

I'm here to share with you the SEO knowledge , hints and tips I've built up over the years . Hello , welcome to the latest episode of SEO is not that hard , and today we're going to carry on with our quick SEO tip series , and today we're going to do number 61 to number 70 . So , without further ado , let's crack on .

So tip 61 , 404 pages that's the page not found pages that your web server should return . The page doesn't exist . They should return a 404 pages that's the page not found pages that your web server should return . The page doesn't exist . They should return a 404 header code .

If they return a 200 header code , this is known as a soft 404 and it's not advisable to do this now . This is because if a web server returns a 200 header code , then you're telling the search engine that this page is okay and exists .

It then risks google looking at the page and decided that you've got thin or non-valuable content on this page , and if this happens a lot , then it could cause google to decide that your site is full of thin content and it can have a detrimental .

Now if you don't know what um website header codes are and uh , web server header codes are that , this may sound like a whole load of gobbledygook . The way to find out if you've actually got this happening on your site is to go to Google Search Console and if Google has found soft 404s , it will report those in the errors .

So look out for those and then , if you Google around on how to fix this , you'll get a lot more information . So I know that it probably sounded nonsensical to many people , but it is something you can easily find by just going to google search console and then have a look about how to get that fixed .

Okay , tip 62 prioritize quality over quantity for backlinks . Now , not all backlinks are created equal , so a backlink from an established site that itself has a lot more backlinks will be worth a lot more than a link from a brand new website that has few or none of its own backlinks .

And , additionally , a link from a page or site that is topically relevant to your website has additional value and this is because google it doesn't count all links as equal from other sites to yours . Partly it'll be to do with the authority of the page . The amount of page rank the page is linking to you has got will provide .

The more page rank it has , the more page rank you will receive . But also Google also looks at where on the page links are placed . So some links can be more valuable just by the placement on the page .

So within the context and the content of an article is better than , say , say , a footer link , and also it looks at the words around links to decide the relevance .

So if a page is talking about the same topic as your web page that's being linked to , that'd be more powerful than one that is on a completely different topic , where it looks just like the link has been inserted for no particular reason . Tip 63 more links . Be very careful if you decide to try buying backlinks because it's against Google's terms of service .

Not that it can't work . Just ask anyone who remembers the Google Penguin update how bad the consequences can be . Now you'll find a lot of SEO influencers out there who are just telling you that buying backlinks works and often they'll also try to sell you backlinks as well .

So there's a conflict of interest there maybe , but they won't often tell you of the risks of doing this . Now , buying backlinks can work and for the short term it can often work . But in the long term , if you're lucky , then Google will just discount these links and you'll have only wasted some money .

But in the worst case , google will penalize or even de-index your site . Then you'll have wasted money and hurt your website and just set yourself back to square one . And I speak here from bitter experience , having been badly hit by the Google Penguin update many years ago . We used to buy backlinks prior to Penguin Since then .

That was when I had my epiphany , and it was a case of I'm not ever going to buy a single backlink again , because I just saw the value destroyed and all the work and money I'd put into getting there .

Buying those backlinks just wiped out my site and set us back to position zero again and we had to start again with a new , whole new strategy , and it would just it would have been better if we'd never done it in the first place . Um , now , I'm not moralizing . Some people moralize on backlinks . I never moralize whether people buy backlinks or not .

It's purely it's your choice . Just know the risks . And also I would say to this be careful on of conflating paying a link builder who uses white hat techniques to boost links for you with going to a service that just sells links and would pay people for the links . There's a big difference there .

People who build links for you using things like digital PR , that's fine . That's all within the guidelines . You've just got to avoid people who are just going out and basically bribing people to give you a link with no editorial control .

Okay , tip 64 buying an expired domain that has existing backlinks can give you an easy ranking boost to start a new site with , but just beware that the site wasn't previously penalized for something .

Now , this tip is one that I've considered taking out of my tips , because in March 2024 , google announced that they now consider using expired domains as manipulating search results , as expired domain abuse . So Google are trying to crack down on this one . Now , that's not to say that there isn't some grey areas here .

I think if you are buying a domain that's in a very similar niche to what you are wanting to start a site on , then you're probably going to get away with it .

I think if you're just buying expired domains and then 301 redirecting them into your existing other website of the domain , then that may cause you more problems , and it's yet to be clear how much effort google have put into penalizing this and detecting it .

It's one of those things that should be quite easy to detect , um , but I'm going to say that this one now needs to be treated with caution and is probably less of a big attack . It maybe used to be okay . Tip 65 some niches are seasonal , so traffic levels can vary a lot through the year . Have this in mind .

If you see traffic dropping , it could just be seasonal . So , for example , if a website that targets gardening , then you're going to see natural dips in traffic as you head into autumn and winter . At broadbandcouk we found that december was always an awful month for traffic and sales , as no one wants to switch their broadband in the run-up to christmas .

But january would always be our best month , as people never spent at christmas for looking for ways to save money on their bills by switching to a cheaper broadband supplier .

So always look out for seasonality , especially if it's the first time you've launched a site or you're new to a niche because you might think , oh my God , everything's terrible , my traffic's dropping , when actually it's just normal for the time of year and you've got to work out those seasonal patterns . Tip tip 66 the weather can affect your website traffic .

A sudden heat wave can drop traffic in many niches quite significantly as everyone rushes to be outside . I've seen this in e-commerce . Traffic sales drop dramatically for short periods when we have heat waves in the uk as people decide they'd rather be outside enjoying the sun rather than spending time online .

But on the opposite side , if we get significant snowfall , then it can boost sales and traffic as people stay indoors . We've had this just at the time of recording .

We've just had a really nice weekend in the uk and , you know , saw traffic drop 10 to 20 on sites that target in the uk because people were just like hey , the sun's come out for the first time in ages , let's get outside . And you see sales drop .

So just be aware , you know , if ever you see a sudden drop one day just look out the window , look at the weather forecast . If it's a glorious weather then you can probably say , actually let's not worry about today , we'll come back and check in a while these things .

If we have prolonged heat waves , I find that it normally takes three or four days and people start to resume their old habits and then you'll see the traffic come back up . Tip 67 . Downtime can kill your rankings . Use a service like Uptime Robot to monitor your site and alert you to problems .

Google doesn't want to recommend a site that's often not available I mean occasionally you can get away with it , you know , because Google appreciate that things happen to sites . Even big , massive sites occasionally have outages , but if it becomes frequent , then it will hurt your rankings . So be proactive .

Set up monitoring so they get alerted as soon as your site develops any issues so you can fix it ASAP . With Uptime Robot , they have free plans where it can check your website exists every five minutes . If it sees a problem , it will send you an email and then you can actually sort it out .

It's free to set up and it means you don't have to be constantly checking the site yourself and can minimize downtime . Tip 68 . Looking to find websites that might link to you ? Then look at your competitors backlink profiles to find websites that might link to you . Then look at your competitors backlink profiles to find sites that link to sites like yours .

This will show you sites that are already willing to link to sites like yours , and they're perfect candidates for you to reach out to them and see if they will also link to you .

If you want to see what kind of sites are linking to your competitors , then you can use ahrefs free backlink checker if you don't want to pay for a full Ahrefs account , and that will give you plenty of ideas and plenty of people to go and talk to . Tip 69 . Always use alt text with images .

It's good for Google and it's also good for people with visual impairments . I mean , this is just good practice , both for SEO and for accessibility .

For Google , it's another chance to reinforce what your content is about , and for the visually impaired , it could be the difference between your site working or not working for them , and so always , always use alt text with your images . Tip seven don't neglect internal links . They help google navigate and understand your site , and real people use them as well .

You should consider the internal links on your website , between pages , just like backlinks from external sites , but they're ones that you control . You can use the anchor text to send a signal to google what the web page you're linking to is about , and they also help google and your users find new and relevant content on your site .

So yeah , when it comes to anchor text , don't use click here . Always use something that's descriptive of the page that you're linking to . Always try and make sure that pages are not too many clicks from your homepage .

Try and think of your website structure logically , but always , if you're writing any new article or any new piece of content , if there is a relevant term you can link to another page to then do it . Look at how Wikipedia links between pages . Wikipedia has a huge number of links on its page . Users don't mind it , google doesn't mind it .

People could put more internal links , I think , than they do , and it's a really important tip . Okay , so I hope you found those tips useful . If you want to get all the 101 tips in one nice , handy document , just go to the show notes . There's a link in there on how to download the one-in-one guide and see you next time .

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You , the questions your audience actually have . You can also ask me any SEO questions you have . You just need to go to keywordspeopleusecom slash demo where you can pick a time and date that suits you for us to catch up Once again . That's keywordspeopleusecom slash demo and you can also find that link in the show notes of today's episode .

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Try it today for free at KeywordsPeopleUsecom To get an instant hit of more SEO tips . Then find the link to download a free copy of my 101 quick SEO tips in the show notes of today's episode . If you want to get in touch , have any questions , I'd love to hear from you . I'm at channel five on Twitter .

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