Unlocking advanced SEO techniques: Part 1

Transcript

Introduction

Welcome to Unlocking advanced SEO techniques In this first part, we’ll dive into the modern challenges of SEO and how you can tackle them effectively using a plugin.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is constantly evolving. As search engines update their algorithms and new technologies emerge, staying on top can be tough. In this video, we’ll show you how to use an SEO plugin that could help you optimize your website.

Let’s start by looking at some of the biggest challenges in SEO today.

Search engines are increasingly using AI, like Google’s RankBrain, to understand search intent rather than just keywords. This shift prioritizes content quality and relevance.

Google’s algorithms are constantly changing, making it challenging to maintain top rankings. Updates like Core Web Vitals emphasize page speed, interactivity, and visual stability, affecting sites that don’t meet these standards. Mobile-first indexing is now the norm, meaning non-mobile-optimized sites risk lower visibility. Google’s helpful content update prioritizes genuinely useful content over clickbait, highlighting the need for user-focused, high-quality content.

Lastly, platforms like X, Facebook, and LinkedIn are becoming more integrated with search engines, with social posts often appearing directly in search results. This means that your social media presence can directly influence your search visibility.
So, how do you tackle these challenges? Here are a few strategies.

Tackling SEO challenges

1. Adapt your content for AI by focusing on creating meaningful, valuable content that truly addresses the needs and questions of your audience.

2. Optimize your content for social media by tailoring it to each platform’s strengths and user behavior. Instead of just sharing links, create engaging content that encourages interaction, such as eye-catching images, videos, or short snippets that highlight the key points of your article. 

Now, let’s get hands-on! One of the ways to implement these strategies is by using SEO plugins such as Yoast or Rank Math.

Robots.txt

We’ll start by installing the Yoast SEO plugin. To do this, navigate to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins > Add New. In the search bar, type ‘Yoast SEO,’ then click Install Now next to the plugin. After the installation is complete, click Activate to enable it.

Once the plugin is activated, you can begin optimizing your site. One of the first tasks is setting up a robots.txt file. This file tells search engines which pages of your site they should crawl and which ones to ignore. With the Yoast SEO plugin, you can easily create and edit the robots.txt file directly from your WordPress dashboard.Open the Yoast plugin, 

1. Click on ‘Yoast SEO’ in the admin menu.
2. Click on ‘Tools’.
3. Click on ‘File Editor’.
4. Click the Create robots.txt file button.
5. View (or edit) the file generated by Yoast SEO.

You might want to block access to the login page or dashboard. Then you can add

Disallow: /login/
Disallow: /wp-admin/

Disallowing these, for example, prevents search engines from indexing irrelevant pages, allowing them to focus on valuable content that attracts organic traffic.

Canonical URLs

Next, let’s talk about canonical URLs. A canonical URL lets you tell search engines that certain similar URLs are actually the same. Because sometimes you have products or content that you can find on multiple URLs — or even multiple websites. Using canonical URLs (HTML link tags with the attribute rel=canonical), you can have these on your site without harming your rankings.

By setting canonical URLs in your plugin settings, you help maintain the integrity of your content and improve your site’s overall SEO performance.

1. Go to the post, page, or taxonomy for which you want to change the canonical URL. 
2. Once you are in the editing screen, go to the ‘Advanced’ section in the Yoast SEO sidebar or meta box.
3. Enter the full canonical URL
4. Update the post, page, or taxonomy.

Sitemap

While WordPress automatically generates a basic sitemap for you, using a plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math allows you to create a more advanced sitemap that offers better control and customization. For example, these plugins let you include or exclude specific pages, posts, or categories from the sitemap, which isn’t possible with the default WordPress sitemap.

To generate a sitemap with Yoast SEO, go to SEO > General in your WordPress dashboard, then click on the Features tab. Make sure the ‘XML Sitemaps’ option is enabled. The plugin will automatically generate your sitemap, which you can view by clicking on the See the XML Sitemap link.

Once your sitemap is ready, it’s important to submit it to Google Search Console to ensure your site is properly indexed. To do this:

1. Log in to your Google Search Console.
2. Select your website property from the dashboard.
3. In the left-hand menu, go to Index > Sitemaps.
4. In the Add a new sitemap field, enter the URL of your sitemap (e.g., yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml).
5. Click Submit.

Meta tags

Lastly, let’s add some meta tags. Meta tags are snippets of text embedded in your website’s code that describe a page’s content. While they aren’t visible on the page itself, they play a crucial role in how your content appears in search engine results.

Using an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math, you can easily add and optimize meta tags for each page of your site. Properly crafted meta tags can improve your click-through rate by making your pages more appealing in search results.

Meta tags are not just important for search engines—they’re also vital for social media. When your content is shared on platforms like Facebook or X, meta tags determine what information is displayed, such as the title, description, and image. This can significantly impact how your content is perceived and shared across social networks, making meta tags a key factor in both SEO and social media strategies.

1. Click Pages in the menu on the left
2. Select the page you want to edit/update the meta tags
3. To edit the Title Tag and Meta Description, scroll to the bottom of the edit page until you see the Yoast SEO settings.
4. Edit snippet.
5. To edit the Title Tag, replace the existing SEO title with an optimized Title Tag of 60 to 70 characters.
6. To edit the Meta Description, add a 150 to 160 character description of the page
7. Once edited, click Close snippet.
8. Lastly, click Update in the top right corner.

Conclusion

So, that was a quick look at SEO techniques you can implement right away. In Part 2, we’ll dive even deeper into technical SEO and explore structured data and Schema markup.