​Back before 2010, you could drop a location and talk about your business's services and rank. Now the internet is global and highly competitive. Instead of reinventing the wheel, you can scrape valuable data to target your audience and snipe your competition.

Our go-to tools for PPC & SEO Analysis is SpyFu. If you're on a budget and need in-depth details on backlink portfolios, trending keywords and PPC, try these guys first.

How often have you hopped onto an obvious affiliate site that is just plastered with empty paragraphs and call-to-actions? It's inefficient for conversions, and Google will notice the high bounce rate then penalize your rankings.

You should put information at the forefront, not just any data. It needs to fulfill the request of the search.

Listen, I love SpyFu. I previously worked with software that cost over 100 USD/Month to do the same research level but with less versatility. When I wanted to find valuable questions related to my niche, I used to produce manual queries on Google combined with a few other 3rd party tools. When your time is money, you appreciate being able to stick with one tool for all the necessary keyword research.

Focus on questions that fit the intent of your primary keyword. Some questions may be so in-dept that you can expand on them in new posts. We suggest adding a brief explanation followed by "learn more here."

Don't become obsessed with keyword research. If you can't handle it, professionals like ourselves & large agencies can do the heavy lifting for you.

​Try to keep the substantial information upfront. General information, legal information, or in-depth origin stories are better left at the bottom of the page.

I know 'boring fluff' may seem like a harsh characterization but look from the customer's perspective. A new client probably isn't too interested in your origin story. They want a service or information that helps them move on with their day. If they love your work, then they'll read the fluff.

After doing some initial keyword searches, you may have a meaty list of potential keywords if you're thinking about using 5 or 6 of them for your thinly worded homepage, DON'T. Thin or stuffed content is the easiest way for Google to penalize your rankings.

Fifteen years ago, marketers would build 300-word homepages and stuff them with every keyword imaginable. Now it's best to focus on three major keywords that are relative and expand further in other pages/posts.

The goal is to make the homepage a proper sale copy, but leave the major selling to the 'sales funnel.'

If you're providing any SaaS, paid content, or any other service, it's best left for its expanded page.

You should give a brief, compelling description of your services and link to the main page to discuss in more detail.

The same goes for a strong about page. Google unofficially loves 'About' pages. I've noticed considerable rank improvements and increase authority on websites that I manage when I include a good personable story on my sites.​

At SEOexpert.Ninja, we have an extensive workflow and analysis process to determine the structure, content, and size of a homepage to maximize CTR and ranking. We hope this introduction will help some of you get your feet wet.

As you begin to do keyword research, you should first consider who your customer is. Your objective is to inform, and you can't inform if you don't know what type of customer you aim to acquire.

So let's say you're in the Finance Niche, what is your place of expertise?

Brainstorm and try to focus on the businesses solution you want to provide to customers. Do you want to help people with low or bad credit get credit cards? Great, so let's drill into that sub-focus and find three primary keywords to focus on your campaign.

The first thing you'll notice is SST gives you an interest projection to help you know if you are in a seasonal niche and if it's growing in interest. Keep the Google Trend data in mind when you're focusing on content production.

So we have eight keywords that are quite general. Let's aim for:

'Low cred cards best'
'Low credit card APR'
'Low credit card processing fees'

At this level, with a new website, you virtually have no chance to rank for a broad keyword. We're going to plant a keyword tree with these topics on top, sub-topics below, and finally, long-tail keywords at the end of the root. You can start the long-tail research with all three seeds once you have at least 30-100 entries. Stop the search and export the CSV.

It would be best to sort out what is an "easy" win and what you should consider a sub-topic.


At SEOexpert.Ninja, we use a particular method to find easy keyword wins called KGR. Doug Cunnington coined the Keyword Golden Ratio, and he goes in-dept on the technique on his site. Check it out here.


Suppose you're in a rush and don't have time for a manual research method. You can use AllInTitle to do a free search. You can search eight keywords at a time with the free version.

So pick three keywords that are above 1k monthly searches as your sub-topics. Any remaining keywords that fall below 1 KGR can be considered long-tail posts. It would be best if you focused on sub .25 posts first for easy wins. So you've found what keywords you need to focus on for your initial content research. Now you should focus on crafting posts that are no less than 800 words that are compelling and well researched. You should focus on fulfilling the search intent.

Someone looking for the "best low interest credit cards in Canada" doesn't need a winded 3 paragraph introduction to what credit cards are. Instead, write a brief intro into the types of people who may qualify for low-interest cards and descriptions of the cards that meet their criteria. Maybe even other finance guides towards the conclusion.

​So you've decided to make some changes to your website to increase speed. By now you've shot in a few directions to trickle up that Google PageSpeed from the teen to the 50s but you're still falling short of a "good" score.

If you're reading this, you're stuck on LCP. It's not psychoactive, but it just may drive you psycho. As people tamper with a website's structure to improve page speed, many people get stuck with a low LCP score. It's probably the hardest score to adjust for a more extensive website. Let's dig into why LCP is challenging and how to improve on it.

The "First Contentful Paint," aka FCP, is a metric that estimates how much time it takes to load an initial page. This could mean that not all contents are loaded, but some aspects can be seen like main text content, advertisements, and small images.

This is all based on the first render, the metric that determines the complete load is the LCP.

If you're scoring low on FCP, it's because it has determined that, on average, your page takes longer than 3 seconds first to render. In that past, this was a primary ranking factor in speed; now it's secondary.

​Google has noticed that albeit users can visit pages and read some content at first render, it does not provide the best user experience consistently. To avoid partially loaded pages from interrupting the user, Google decided to prioritize pages that score high on LCP instead.

​Essentially, LCP is the end of the road of content rendering. 'Largest Contentful Paint' is a speed metric that observes the amount of time to render the largest element. 

Essentially, if you have a massive infographic or embedded video on a post, you're going to be penalized by Google for a low LCP. Does that mean you should toss all media from your posts? No way!

If you approach your website with speed in mind from the initial build, you should manage this metric with ease. If you're inheriting large content and bulky images, you will have to take a different approach to reduce this metric.

It would be best if you start by reducing image sizes. You don't need a 4k 50MB photo on your homepage. Most users are mobile users for many sites; they can't even see you're pixel-perfect image on their smartphone.

Compressing images, videos, and audio content is probably the easiest actionable step for improving PageSpeed metrics.

As I mentioned in my PageSpeed Guide, I use Autoptimize to compressive my images, JS code & HTML code. The plugin is very straightforward and will inform you if you're making risky changes that may affect your site's UI.

I've noticed even Autoptimize doesn't push the sore too high because it lacks more robust controls over JavaScript. When you have a JS heavy website, you will need to use either a CDN like Cloudflare, Ezoic Site Speed Accelerator +, or a handy additional plugin.

What are the key differences between the three options?

Cloudflare: it offers a robust set of firewalls and CDN optimization free options for users and plenty of paid extras. It also allows you to defer JS to increase page speed.

Ezoic's Site Speed Accelerator +: If you're qualified for Ezoics advertising platform, you can use this feature for free. If you aren't an advertiser, the service will cost 30 USD a month. They claim to guarantee a PageSpeed score of 80+, that's a bold and busted claim. It is nevertheless an excellent service.

Autoptimize's Async JavaScript: A free addon to the Autoptimize suite that adds more versatility and control to your JS. When you add this feature, you can mostly replicate the gains from Cloudflare & Ezoic.

Taking this approach can save you hundreds of dollars. Most developers who focus on speed improvements will charge between 60-150 USD an hour to make these changes. Give your budget a break and spend that money on our outreach instead ;)

With the advent of Mobile-First indexing, Google announced it has has solidified what most SEO's have already known about page speed:

As a website progresses and becomes more profitable, an owner should be able to lean on developers and specialists to fine-tune the website. Nevertheless, know the topics in enough detail to manage operations appropriately.

Managers researching how to improve their website's speed are accustomed to being swamped with technical terminology & paid solutions, at SEOninja.Expert, we decided to simplify the process to speed up the average WordPress website by using three simple methods.
​

​By following these three methods, we increased one of our blog's speed performance from 8 to 92!

WordPress, just like a computer or phone, has a large community of app developers that provide mostly free solutions to websites. If a site owner is not careful, they may find their site bloated with apps that provide redundant functions.

For instance, 'Yoast SEO' also has a redirect function, so there's no need for an additional app. Most themes and WordPress offer content management. An additional 'block builder' will bloat your website and decrease site speed. We also like to follow a standard of having no more than 15 but preferably less than 10 WordPress plugins on our websites. Our 'less than 15' policy forces us to consider the speed and focus on the website's purpose.

A start-up or website should focus on selling the brand. Addons like forums, pop-ups, redirects & extra widgets are seductive distractions. However, they will more than likely reduce the site's functionality. Focus on centering the audience on blog posts that educate and sell the product to the customer.

Most web hosting platforms offer much of the functionality that WordPress apps offer. Look into what hosting services can offer instead of additional apps. We use SiteGround to host our blogs. They offer URL redirection, CDN integration, SG Optimizer, back-ups, security monitoring & caching solutions.

AMP:

The Amp Project is an open-source initiative driven by lead developers & Google to help make the web Mobile-First. Accelerated Mobile Pages essentially strip down desktop centered objects and aim to provide more speed for mobile users. Additionally, the Amp Project's goal is to provide more compatibility to the vast array of mobile operating systems and hardware.

Google heavily focuses its search engine on mobile-first websites because most users access pages by mobile. Using this app will automate AMPifying a site & give a list of errors that need to be solved to stay AMP qualified and improve speed.

This plugin is compatible with all core themes, debugs errors, removed unused CSS & opts for server-side rendering. Rendering on the server helps improve the LCP (Last Contentful Paint) metric, which is incredibly stubborn to make improvements without development expertise.

Autoptimize:

This plugin is one of the most popular optimization aggregation solutions on WordPress. Minifying and caching scripts, injecting CSS, and optimizing images and JavaScript are all essential for improving speed.

Google offers an inhouse solution for scoring & improving efficiency. More importantly, it shows managers what code may block users from a fast & UI friendly experience.

At the core, PageSpeed insights provide a score evaluating how fast the page loads and how many blockades it has.

​Make an active effort and follow best practices. Between Google SpeedTest & Lighthouse, aim for scoring +80% consistently. After the 80% threshold, a site does not need to be concerned with rankings being affected or a high bounce rate due to site speed.

A key tip to take away from this is: keep it light, on apps, themes, CSS, JS and optimize.

Think of Amazon.com, a website that looks crowded and outdated. Amazon focuses almost entirely on content upfront & aesthetics come after. A fast website with a simple layout can dominate the competition.

Focus effort on on-site and off-site SEO practices. Make compelling content for readers and reap the rewards. Be sure to stay tuned for more advice and deeper dives!