1. Word Count<\/h2>\n
Believe it or not, <\/span>word count is more important than you\u2019d think<\/b>. Think of word count for a post the same way you\u2019d think about the length of a video on YouTube. If the video is longer than 8 minutes, you are less inclined to watch it to the end. Similarly, if the video is less than 45 seconds, it isn\u2019t long enough to be interesting. <\/span><\/p>\n For posts on your website, you want to hit the sweet spot with word count. Your <\/span>blog posts should be a minimum of 1200 words<\/b> (roughly 10 minutes of reading), and any given <\/span>page on your website should be a minimum of 1000 words<\/span><\/i> (roughly 8 minutes of reading)<\/span>.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n A research study of over 1 million searches, conducted by Backlinko.com, concluded that <\/span>longer content ranks better in Google searches<\/span><\/a><\/span>. That conclusion is hardly surprising. If someone is interested in what you\u2019re saying, they <\/span>will<\/span><\/i> want to read more<\/span><\/i> of your content.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why stop at 400 words when your target audience wants 1200<\/strong>? When a viewer comes to your website, they want their search query answered. Basically, they want to be able to leave your site feeling like they learned something. It\u2019s much easier to do that with more words.<\/span><\/p>\n As we talked about in part 1 of our online SEO guide, keywords are <\/span>the exact words that people type into Google for searches<\/b>. Keywords help Google determine the relevancy of your content, and how useful it will be for search queries.<\/span><\/p>\n With LeadPropeller’s built in SEO Tool, you will be able to determine what needs to be fixed in order to make your post fully optimized<\/strong>. In this tool, you can check how frequently a keyword is used, as well as where you need to add your keyword. For example, the circle will be green if you use your keyword in the title of your post (H1), but will be yellow if you don’t use it in the subtitles (H2).<\/p>\n Although this SEO checklist is a helpful resource, we understand that making your posts perfectly optimized can take time away from real estate investing. That’s why we’ve included an SEO Service<\/a> <\/span>to our business<\/strong>, that way you can focus on real estate investing and not worry about all of this search engine stuff.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For more on <\/span>determining the best keywords for your real estate investor website<\/span><\/a><\/span>, go to Part 1 of our online SEO guide!<\/span><\/p>\n Linking can be broken up into 3 different types, as we talked about in part 2 of our online SEO guide, so the SEO checklist is going to give you a crash course. There is <\/span>outbound linking, inbound linking, <\/b>and <\/span>internal linking.<\/b><\/p>\n To learn more about linking in your content, and how to <\/span>increase user interaction on your website<\/span><\/a><\/span>, go to Part 2 of our online SEO guide!<\/span><\/p>\n Google has openly said that they use site speed as a way to rank sites. If your site takes too long to load, not only will you lose out on Google\u2019s resources, but you\u2019ll lose traffic as well.<\/span><\/p>\n You can easily test your site speed by going to <\/span>Google\u2019s PageSpeed Insight Tool<\/b><\/a><\/span>. Using this will test your site\u2019s speed, but only its html. To get a better feel for how long your site takes to load Brian Dean, from <\/span>backlinko.com<\/span>, suggests using <\/span>GTMetrix.com<\/b><\/a><\/span> as well because it actually loads your website as opposed to only testing its html.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In addition to having your keyword appear in the H1 and H2 headers on your pages, you also want to <\/span>make sure that you are using buzz words<\/span><\/a><\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n Words like \u201c<\/span>best<\/b>\u201d, \u201c<\/span>top<\/b>\u201d, and \u201c<\/span>number 1<\/b>\u201d make your titles stronger because they come off as more knowledgeable to searchers. Think of the search results that you click on. <\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you\u2019re doing a search on cookie recipes and your top two results are titled \u201cHomemade Cookie Recipe\u201d or \u201cNumber 1 Homemade Cookies\u201d. You are more likely to pick the title that claims to be the best recipe, and all it took was the phrase \u201cnumber 1\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Making sure your site only has the best quality content for what you\u2019re offering is key for good SEO. Google has made it clear that a huge site with too much junk content is bad for Search Engine Optimization. <\/span><\/p>\n Google has found that a site with tons of pages just for the sake of having lots of content isn\u2019t worth their resources, and therefore won\u2019t index your site. From Google\u2019s point of view, <\/span>if your site is mostly low value content it will generate low value traffic<\/b>, which isn\u2019t worth Google\u2019s resources. <\/span><\/p>\n So, the lesson here is to clean out your junk. Do some spring cleaning on your website. Keep the quality content, and dump the rest!<\/span><\/p>\n Instead of just getting rid of all of the outdated content on your website, go through and update your existing posts<\/strong>. Take your top ranking posts that have information on it that is no longer up to date, and fix it. <\/span><\/p>\n For example, if you had a blog post on your website titled \u201cBest Ways To Sell a House in 2014\u201d, you can easily go in and update the title to read for the current year. Then, go through the content and take out information that is no longer good, and replace it with up to date content.<\/span><\/p>\n Getting a <\/span>good click-through-rate<\/b> (or CTR) for your site is an important part of SEO. For search engines like Google, their ranking is determined by CTR, and so is your site traffic. <\/span><\/p>\n A <\/span>research paper<\/span><\/a><\/span> published by Google is states, \u201c<\/span>Click-through data has proven to be a critical resource for improving search quality ranking<\/span><\/i>\u201d. To make sure a post is useful for a viewer, you want to make their search answer clear and direct on your page. If they are having trouble finding the answer to their query, you run the risk of them clicking away.<\/span><\/p>\n You want people to spend a good amount of time on your website. The more time people go to your site, and stay on your site for a significant amount of time, Google will be more likely to give you higher rankings – which is a <\/span>very<\/span><\/i> good thing. <\/span>If Google gives your site a high ranking, your site will appear better in searches, <\/span>increasing traffic to your page<\/b>.<\/b><\/p>\n First thing\u2019s first, to get people to stay on your page, your site needs to be easy to navigate, and look good. Minimize any wide open blank spaces, make your tabs and buttons easily accessible and usable, and make your posts easy to find and get to. <\/span><\/p>\n Technical issues that make your site hard to navigate, or not user friendly, can cause poor traffic. This will cause search engines to find your website incomplete, or just not worth the resources. <\/span><\/p>\n Technical issues can range from tags that don\u2019t work, to errors, to duplicates of things. Any bugs you find on your site need to be taken care of. <\/span>The more polished your website is, the better it will be for SEO<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once the errors on your page are fixed, you will have a better web presence and response to your site. After that, traffic should increase.<\/span><\/p>\n Adding media to your site will help to reduce your bounce rate. People are more likely to stay on pages with pictures or videos than they are on pages that just have blocks of text. <\/span>![\"seo](\"http:\/\/blog.leadpropeller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/02_Content-Total-Word-Count_line.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nData credit: Backlinko, 2016 research study. <\/span>This graph shows the correlation between\u00a0high wordcount content and Google rankings.<\/span><\/h6>\n
2. Keyword Density (Not Stuffing)<\/h2>\n
Ready for a crash course in keywords? Let\u2019s go!<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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![\"seo](\"http:\/\/blog.leadpropeller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/s.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n3. Linking<\/h2>\n
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4. Boost Site Speed<\/h2>\n
![\"seo-checklist-boost-site-speed\"](\"http:\/\/blog.leadpropeller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/seo-checklist-boost-site-speed.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nImage credit: GTMetrix.com.<\/h6>\n
5. Titles and Subtitles<\/h2>\n
![\"seo](\"http:\/\/blog.leadpropeller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/using.jpg\")
<\/p>\n6. Get Rid of the Junk!<\/h2>\n
Things your website can do without:<\/h4>\n
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7. Update Existing Content<\/h2>\n
![\"seo](\"http:\/\/blog.leadpropeller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Update-Existing-Content1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n8. CTR Optimization<\/h2>\n
A checklist of what to look for includes:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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9. Fix On-Site Problems<\/h2>\n
Things to look for:<\/h4>\n
![\"seo](\"http:\/\/blog.leadpropeller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Thinks-to-Fix-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n10. Add Media<\/h2>\n