Cornerstone analysis to help you create your best articles
Cornerstone articles should be the best and most complete articles on your website. That means that you should make an effort to make this article as awesome as possible. Raise your normal standards and write extraordinary cornerstones. To help you create excellent cornerstone articles, we developed a special cornerstone analysis. Why do you need a separate analysis? […]
How to start a blog
If you’re thinking about starting a blog, the most important thing I have to say to you is: go for it! Start your blog! Just do it! Blogging is a great SEO strategy, it’s a wonderful marketing tool and blogging is lots of fun! A new blog will allow you to make smart and strategic choices. […]
Meta keywords: why we don’t use them
You would think this post would be redundant by now: people know that the meta keyword tag is useless nowadays, right? The truth is that we still see site owners using meta keywords on their website. In addition to that, people are still searching for meta keywords according to Google Trends, although there seem to be less queries […]
Ask Yoast: Word order of your focus keyword
If you’re using Yoast SEO to optimize your posts and pages, it’ll ask you to fill out a focus keyword. This is the search term you want your content to rank for. Deciding on a focus keyword can be challenging. For example, if you want to optimize your content for a long tail keyword – existing of […]
How do I determine what my cornerstone articles are?
Cornerstone articles are those articles that are most important to your website. These are the articles you would like to rank high in the search engines. Cornerstone articles are usually explainers; relatively long articles combining insights from different blog posts. Perhaps you never thought about cornerstone articles before, even if you have your website for […]
Internal linking for SEO: why and how
Your content needs links to be able to rank. Google can only find your posts and pages when they’re linked to from somewhere on the web. In addition to that, internal links connect your content and give Google an idea of the structure of your website. They can establish hierarchy on your site, which enables you to give […]
What is Google’s Knowledge Graph?
Google’s Knowledge Graph is hard to find, but its results are not. Take for instance that big block of information that appears on the right-hand side of your desktop screen after entering a search term. This block – also known as the Knowledge Graph Card – contains relevant, context-specific information regarding your search, powered by […]
SEO for B2B and B2C – what are the differences?
Business to Business (B2B) marketing is often different from Business to Consumer (B2C) marketing thanks to the elaborate buying processes, a narrow market and more complex products and services of a B2B website. In this article about B2B SEO, I’ll compare the distinctions between the two and explain what that means for your B2B website and SEO. When reading the above, you […]
Ask Yoast case study: SEO of an online shop
SEO can be really complicated! How do you start with improving the structure of a site? How do you write amazing and SEO-friendly articles? To help all of you with your SEO strategy, I’m writing a series of Ask Yoast case studies. In these case studies, I’ll take a look at a specific site (the owner knows […]
Transition words and SEO
If you’ve been using the readability analysis of Yoast SEO, you’ve probably noticed our check on the use of transition words. You might have been wondering: What are transition words exactly? Why did we include that check in our analysis? Or, to what extent are those words important for SEO? Here, I’ll explain everything about the relationship between […]
How to get local reviews and ratings
If you’re a well-known local business owner, one of your online goals should be getting more local reviews from your (satisfied) customers. These reviews or ratings help Google in determining the value of your company for their users. If you have a nice amount of four-star and five-star ratings, Google considers you a more valuable result on their search […]
What is cornerstone content?
Cornerstone content pieces are those articles on your website you’re most proud of. They reflect your business, communicate your mission and are extremely well written. These are the articles you would like to rank high in the search engines. Cornerstone articles are usually explainers; these articles combine insights from different blog posts. Here, I’ll explain all […]
Ask Yoast case study: SEO of a mom blog
SEO can be a rather complicated and abstract thing. What exactly do we mean by increasing keyword density? How do you start with improving the structure of a site? That’s why I’m going to write a series of Ask Yoast case studies. In these case studies, I’ll take a look at a specific site (the owner […]
Ask Yoast: Too many links in navigation menu?
Doing your internal linking well has quite a few SEO benefits. Connecting related posts with each other lets Google know that you’ve created content on various aspects of a certain topic. This can make you a stronger candidate to rank for that topic. But, can internal links also be detrimental to your site? Is it possible to create too many internal links, […]
Analyzing your audience: a how-to
To write appealing text for your audience, you need to know them. Who are those people that read your stories? Who are the people that search for the terms you want to be found for? Where do they come from? How old are they? What are they interested in? And how will you be able […]
Contact page examples: What makes a great contact page?
In this post, we’ll go over a number of contact page examples, so you’ll be able to review your own contact page and improve it. For a lot of companies, that contact page is the main reason they have a website in the first place. For others, the contact page filters or manages all incoming […]
SEO basics: How to optimize a blog post?
Content writing should be a key element of every SEO strategy. How do you make sure your blog posts have the highest chance to rank well in Google? What are the successive steps you’ll need to take? In this post, I’ll take you back to the very basics of SEO. How do you optimize a blog post? […]
Ask Yoast: noindex posts that need an update?
If you own a blog for a long time, it could be that some of your old blog posts need to be updated or optimized. Every once in a while, you should go through your archive to check that. When you go through your archive pages, you might see posts with low quality content that you […]
Does readability rank?
Two weeks ago Google’s Gary Illyes tweeted that you should read your text out loud. If it doesn’t read nicely or sounds strange, it probably won’t rank either. Of course, a discussion followed. Some SEOs are reluctant to believe him, because in some cases keyword stuffing still seems to pay off. For relatively small languages […]
Local ranking factors that help your local business’ SEO
If you have a local business, selling products or services, you have to think about the local ranking of your website. Local optimization will help you surface for related search queries in your area. As Google shows local results first in a lot of cases, you need to make sure Google understands where you are […]