herb miller

“25 top tips for SEO for beginners” is a new poem written especially for the WordPress Portsmouth Online Meetup held on 20th October 2021.

It was first publicly aired just after relisting the top tips. I present it here with some additional notes. And, of course, the 25 top tips for SEO.

There's one or two things you need to know about the topic called SEO.

Number 1 in Google's where you want to be; for 33% will click. Just you wait and see.
Placed 2nd or 3rd, do not resent; you'll still get over 10 percent.
9 tenths of searchers, regardless of age, will only click on the first page.

“What's it that I'm ranking for?” is a question often heard.
Well my friend, you're looking for the focus key phrase or word
It may be mid or even long like "Will eating mussels make teeth strong?"

"When do two rights make a wrong?”
"How to drain a billabong."
"Can I Rank without a gong?"
	... is this a good time to carry on?

Use it in your title, use it in your URL, your first para, meta desc… give that keyword a twirl
But don't use it too many times. And use it only once!
You may not understand this now, but I know you're not a dunce.

One thing that makes an awesome site is when you get the structure right.
With inbound links to start the day and internal links to show the way
to content, written all by you, and prompts to your readers to share stuff too!

Your words will always be well writ; you won't write any pile of rubbish.
Your alt text will be worded right for those who read without use of sight.

Structured data's good at times for How-to steps and product lines.
And you and I are not alone to want to search by mobile phone.
So make your content bright and clear, to access from both far and near.

For techy SEO you'll need: no 404's, and breakneck speed,
https for a site secure, and keep things up to date, for sure.

Ranking won't rise overnight. It will eventually... if you do it right.
And when your keyword's #1 don't think for a minute that your job is done.
Switch on the neurons in your brain and start the process once again.

Some explanation

• SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization
• It’s all about ranking – getting your results in the SERPs – Search Engine Results Page
• For that you need to have a focus keyword or keyphrase that is unique for each bit of content on your website post, page, etc.
• The focus keyword may be quite long; a key phrase therefore.
• Once you’ve got your keyword, you structure your content nicely, making use of the keyword a couple of times in the title, first paragraph, sub-headings and meta description.
• Use a different focus keyword for each piece of content.
• You need a good site structure to which other sites link.
• The content should be good enough to encourage sharing in social media.
• There should be internal links to related content and links to relevant external content as well.
• Images should also be SEO’d, with alt text for those who need it.
• It should be easy and pleasant to use regardless of the device used to access it.
• Your site will benefit from a good technical SEO implementation: speedy, no broken links, and security; kept up to date.
• Once you’ve done all that, and improved your ranking in the SERPs, you have to up your game again.

25 top tips for SEO

Since it may not be immediately obvious from the poem what the 25 top tips for SEO are, I’ll list them here.

1. Keyword / keyphrase research
2. Technical SEO – Site speed
3. Technical SEO – no broken links
4. Site structure
5. Great user experience
6. Write high quality unique content
7. Social media strategy
8. Link building
9. Internal linking structure
10. Secure & updated
11. Write meta description
12. Get indexed
13. Cornerstone content
14. Write in the reader’s language
15. Know your competition
16. Canonical URLs
17. Redirects
18. Accessibility
19. Schema structured data
20. Mobile optimization
21. Optimize text for SEO
22. Make your content readable
23. Use your focus keyphrase only once
24. Use SEO plugin(s)
25. Keep up the good work

For more details, and the full presentation, see WordPress Portsmouth Online Meetup – 25 top tips from Yoast SEO for beginners

5 top tips – DON’Ts

1. DON’T use keyword stuffing
2. DON’T buy / trade links
3. DON’T try page swapping
4. DON’T duplicate content
5. DON’T allow orphaned content

25 SEO top tips for beginners – YouTube video

• 46:36 25 SEO top tips – can you remember the tips?
• 46:52 25 top SEO tips revisited – 25 DO’s and 5 DON’Ts
• 47:34 25 SEO top tips for beginners ( 1/2 )
• 48:40 25 SEO top tips for beginners ( 2/2 )