I started blogging on technology since 2018. But last week, after reading about SEO. I thought of taking up on the challenge of ensuring some of my blogs get into the 1st page of google search.
As all my blog is all about documenting and sharing my learnings. I thought of documenting my SEO experience. To ensure seriousness I bought a domain and moved my site away from wordpress.com (https://siddswork.wordpress.com) to https://siddswork.com.
3-Sep-2020: Day 1, Setting up the site
It took me a few hours to export and import the site from the old location to the new location. The level of customization available on wordpress.com and what is available in wordpress.org (i.e. when you do your own hosting) is different. May be wordpress.com sets everything up with the best options so you don’t have to worry much.
I ensured that the site is using https and not HTTP. I heard that google ranks HTTPS pages higher than HTTP pages. While setting this up I noticed that both HTTP and https version of the page are accessible. Finally found to force HTTPS in hosting platforms dashboard. That solved the problem.
The export/import feature worked without any problem. However in the new place URL of my blog post changed; They look something like https://siddswork.com/p?=292. As I have already spent a lot of time, I ignored the change.
I wanted to see how my page rank, so logged into Google Search Console. There I submitted my page, https://siddswork.com/ and https://siddswork.com/p?=292 for indexing. It said that the URLs have been queued and I should after a day’s time.
6-Sep-2020: Yoast SEO pluging
To this date, Google Search Console (GSC) did not show any results. It just said that the “URL is on Google” and under coverage, it said, “Indexed, not submitted in sitemap”. I did not understand what this really means. Googled it, but still not clear with its meaning.
While reading more one SEO, I came across the Yoast SEO plugin. Heard that it is very good and it’s free. So installed it. However, nothing changed. Ruther on the first go the setting options were not that clear to me. I guess that’s just a learning curve. Finally, after a day I figured out that the plugin actually work when you edit a post or page. I am loving what the free version can do.
7-Sep-2020: Google Search Console result
In the morning, I received a notification that “Google systems confirm that on Sep 04, 2020 we started collecting Google Search impressions for your website in Search Console. This means that pages from your website are now appearing in Google search results for some queries”. Awesome!!
My average page rank was around 80.6. That’s depressing!! where on Friday 4th Sep the rank was 84.8 and on Saturday the rank was 74. So this is where I start.
Also found that most of the queries for which my page was found are git related. It was good news, as I wanted to write two more posts on git, so most of the day I spent in creating a new post. Some of it was part of a different post, kind of sitting on an unrelated page.
I removed the content from the unrelated page and gave it a separate page of its own and more details. This page looks good and will be helpful to someone someday.
Changing post URLs using Permalink Settings
Finally, after some random search, I found out Permalink Settings was using Plain option. This was making my posts to have a strange URL. I selected the option called post name to fix it. This changed the URLs.
New URLs are like https://siddswork.com/scalability-and-performance/. But this change is destructive on a live website. Through GSC I requested another round of indexing and this wiped out all old data. 🙁
In one place I read that having nice names on the link (even with keywords) has no impact on the link. However, a link with text is easy to remember and has more impact than having an URL with numbers (like https://siddswork.com/p?=292). So was happy with this change.
Yoast SEO plugin at work
While writing the new page, I found a separate section from the Yoast SEO plugin. It was giving feedback about my writing style and gave me the option to create a meta description (the description that will be shown by Google in the search result). Also under the document setting of WordPress, I found Excerpt (It is an optional text associated with a Post; It is used as the Post summary). I populated both sections with the same text.
Again the wait begins. I want to add Google Analytics, maybe I will add it next.
15-Sep-2020: Google Analytics added
Google Search Console (GSC) is showing a total of 4 web search clicks and the numbers are not increasing. However, I am seeing comments being posted on my site. To solve this discrepancy, I added Google Analytics (GA) today.
Finally, I got the time for adding analytics to my site. To save time, I used MonsterInsights plugin on my wordpress site. But I had to login to their site with my google account. Meaning, they will have access to all my data with respect to GA. Little scary, but it’s just my blog’s usage data.
In the meantime, I am able to see all information in GSC. It took some time to show me all data. My site’s organic rank has increased. Today it is at 67.1; big jump from the initial 80s range. Even though I am not 100% certain, but some credit goes to Yoast SEO. It is helping me with my writing. I did some rework on one or two posts from the past, based on its recommendations.
I also have Grammarly installed as an extension on my browser. It too helps me with my writing.
Blogs on Git is becoming a regular theme on my site. I still have one more article to write on Git. Even GSC is mostly showing Git related queries. I need to diversify.
17-Sep-2020: MonsterInsights experience
The free version of MonsterInsights is nothing special. Instead I tend to look at Google Analytics (GA) page directly. It has every thing that I need. I guess I am only using it for the ease of registering it with GA.
As my site is receiving less traffic, maybe I need to advertise a bit. For my site, LinkedIn and Twitter are the best options, even though I have fewer followers.
Average position of my site in search result has improved to 65.6. I am optimistic, it will surely go down based on my content.
20-Sep-2020: Headline Analyzer
I started tinkering with the name of this page. A good heading helps in improving organic page rank. Below are some of the names it went through:
- SEO Story: siddswork.com [Score: 31]
- Improving search rank: SEO story [score: 40]
- How to Improve Organic Search Rank: Live Story [score: 75]
The scores above are generated by Headline Analyzer (HA). It came with MonsterInsights. I am loving this feature from the free version of MonsterInsights.
As per HA, a good score is between 40 and 60. This tool computes the score based on:
- Presence of common word: Goal, 20-30% [how to]
- Uncommon Words: Goal, 10-20% [I have none]
- Emotional Words: Goal, 10-15% [I have none]
- Power Words: Goal, at least one [how to]
- Character Count: [I scored Good with 38 characters]
- Words Count: [I scored Good with 8 words]
Lastly, for some unknown reason, my site’s average rank took a hit for 3 days and then bounced back. It went down to 87 and bounced back to 67.3; I don’t know why.
21-Sep-2020: Daily tinker
On my page for git workflow and branching strategy, I added the keywords “Git workflow best practices”, in the 1st paragraph. Now, these words are within the 1st 100 words on the page. I also added a new tag, “git best practices” & “git best branching strategy”. I came up with them based on suggestions provided by Google when you type your search query. I guess this is the simplest and the best way to find search keywords.
I changed the URL from https://siddswork.com/workflow-and-branching to https://siddswork.com/workflow-and-branching-strategy-for-git.
3-Oct-2020: After the dust settles
Got busy with other things and could not play around with my site. Exactly after a month, my current position is 33.67, which is double my previous average. Also in between, I have reached 5.50!!
Why the sudden jump from an average of 67 to under 10. It is because I mentioned my site while responding to someone’s tweet (someone highly influential and respected).
I still have problems with conflicting search results, mainly due to the migration I did from siddswork.wordpress.com to https://siddswork.com. Google still brings up my old site. WordPress.com says it should remove the site completely in a month’s time, let me wait and watch. Today it shows a page saying my site has been deleted by the owner. Once this conflict gets resolved, I am hoping my site will see improvement in search position.
I guess its time I should focus more on new contents.
20-Apr-2021: After 6 months
I was busy this past 6 months with no new posts. Now my average search position is ~58. Hopefully, I will get some time for new & interesting posts.