Each website InHouse builds comes with a powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool built right in. This coaching tool provides great insight as to how to best optimize a page or post for search engines. InHouse pre-fills the tool prior to launch, then you can modify the content as desired.
Snippet Editor Section
The snippet editor shows what this particular page/post will look like in a Google search result. The editor allows us to improve this preview so that Google and other search engines know exactly what the important content is. To edit the title, simply click on it. To edit the meta description (excerpt), click and begin editing.
Focus Keyword Field
Choose a focus keyword or very short phrase which the page/post is written about. This post’s focus keyword is “SEO” because that is the main topic. The focus keyword should be included in the page title, main content, in headings (h3, h4, etc), in image alt text and the meta description.
SEO Score Indicator
After saving the SEO content by clicking the page/post “Publish/Update” button, the SEO score icon will appear just above the Update button. The tool scores the content based mainly on the focus keyword that was chosen. Generally, a yellow dot is good but even an orange dot is acceptable in some circumstances. Green means the page is pretty well optimized. There are some situations where the SEO tool is not aware of great content that the page/post contains. The SEO tool is only capable of seeing the page/post title, main content (including embedded images) and SEO settings. If there is a slideshow, embedded gallery or custom fields for instance, the SEO tool does not see this and therefore, does rate the page/post as high as a search engine would. Rest assured that search bots will see all content and grade your content accordingly!
Content Analysis
There are almost always ways to improve the score of a page/post and the SEO tool will list those ways under the content analysis section. Generally the tool will give tips such as “Add more useful content, consider adding some images, add links etc. Sometimes it just isn’t practical to add more content if the subject matter doesn’t warrant it. The coaching tool is just that, a tool. It can be used within reason but isn’t the only thing to consider when adding/editing content.
Advanced Tab
There are many useful features under the advanced tab which can control how search bots interact with the page/post. Under this tab, the settings include ways to block search bots, prioritize in the sitemap and any redirection/forwarding that may be desired.
Social Tab
The social tab provides ways to specify the way the page/post appears when shared to various social media networks. The page/post title can be modified and the thumbnail image may be chosen in this section.
As always, if you have any questions on using this tool or if you’d like help in optimizing your site, please contact us.