by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I’ve recently become very interested in how my site, books, and bio show up in Google searches. This interest in search engine optimization, or SEO, has led me to make some changes on my site.
I read about a free tool called the SEO Site Checkup tool in Jane Friedman’s Electric Speed newsletter (click here for the archives to see if her newsletter might work for you). I typed in my website name, clicked ‘checkup,’ and it delivered a list of issues that I should resolve to improve my SEO.
The way it was set up was very informative. It provides passed checks (what I’m doing right and why it’s right, failed checks, and warnings. Each area that my site performed poorly on had a red, clickable box with ‘how to fix’ on it. I learned both from what I was (accidentally, I’m sure) doing right and what I was doing wrong from the fix it offered.
I read a lot of articles on the importance of search engines being able to find our books, our sites, and our bios. But frequently, the articles don’t outline ways to improve what we’re doing. Even increasing the image size to optimize it for Google (and so that the post will stand out when being shared on social media) helped the SEO…and that was a minor, easy tweak. Other tips involved creating a favicon for the site (icon representing the site in a bookmark or browser tab). Others might get tips to make their site easier to read on mobile devices, etc.
It only takes about a minute for the site to check your SEO (and it’s free to check a single site): SEO Site Checkup tool . How does yours fare?
Evaluating our website's SEO: Share on X
Hi Elizabeth – what a great tool tip – thanks for highlighting for us – but also re the idea that SEO can be ‘easy’ yet we don’t know why … but this tool can set you on the path a better set up for SEO and explain some of the ins and outs. That’s great – thank you … cheers Hilary
Hilary–It’s nice to get tips that are geared for our own site! And to know what we’re doing well and what we need to work on. :)
I’m going to check mine right now! Thanks.
Alex–Hope it goes well!
Thank you so much for this. I had a basic understanding of SEO and things that are simple that are important like Meta tags and keywords but this tool pointed out some other things that were easy to fix. My initial score was 77% so, not too bad but a easy fixes will push me close to 90%.
Thanks also for the tip about Electric Speed. I found some past issues with helpful articles already and so I signed up for the monthly newsletter. Every little bit helps.
Anne–I feel like I know enough to be dangerous with SEO. :) Anytime I’m messing around in my site’s codex, I keep my web guy’s info close by in case of disaster, ha!
77% isn’t bad at all!
I’ve enjoyed the newsletter…some really good tips in there on helpful tools that are easy and frequently free.
Sounds like a great tool to check out. I’ve read a good bit about SEO but never really understood how to make it work for me.
Mason–Me either! And frequently the posts I read on SEO are either written with programmers or marketers in mind, or are either really vague.
Oh, that’s a really interesting little checkup tool, Elizabeth – thanks. One of the things I like about it is that it sounds really easy to use, and not too time-consuming. Site maintenance does matter if you want your site to attract attention and keep it. And so does SEO. This sounds like a fairly easy and straightforward way to do it.
Margot–It was educational, as well. I have a hard time understanding the specifics of SEO and having examples from my own site made it a lot easier to grasp it.
It helps it tells you what to fix. I wonder if there is a CDO checker yet? I’ll have to run my sites through that checker.
Diane–It was nice to have things pointed out to me. When I hand something over to a web guy, they just fix things and I never learn from the experience. This is helping to teach me a few things.
Just pick a single site to check per email address you register…it’s free for one site only.
Wow! Thank you for this tool! I have a bit of work to do now. :-)
Deb–Good luck! :)
Thanks so much for passing along the cool stuff you’re learning! Unfortunately, the report on my site is making my eyes cross, LOL…metadata? Canonicalization? Huh? Oy.
Kathy–Ha! I know what you mean. Some of my results I had to look up on Google. But then, when I looked them up, I understood most of what was being said.
For metadata, on my site, it’s mostly a process of labeling everything so that Google can understand and catalog it. So the images on the blog get a description, the posts are described in tags and keywords, the books and series are very specifically described. When there’s a picture of myself on my site, I carefully label it with my name and “title”: Cozy author Elizabeth Spann Craig. That way I show up in Google searches. Although I have a lot of Elizabeth Craigs (and a lot of sort of seamy images!) to combat since some Elizabeth Craig somewhere owns a lingerie business. :(
Since I am cyber-challenged, it looks like my site will remain flawed. I read the fixes but have no idea how to implement them. I guess folks will continue not to find my blog. Thanks for looking out for us. :-)
Roland, I wouldn’t feel bad about that at all. It’s a language unto itself and takes time to learn it (I barely know my ABCs in it, for sure). What you could consider doing is, if something is critical on your site, having someone who knows websites really well to help you out with the issue. Should take very little time for a lot of this stuff, and many of us know a high school or college kid who is proficient…or our regular web person. The nice thing is that it makes it easier to describe to someone what we need to have done. :)