Today I am going to share with you 2 free SEO tools to help drive organic Google search traffic to your WordPress website. But first, I want to talk briefly about why organic Google search is so important so you understand why using these free SEO tools are a no brainer.
Why is Organic Google Search valuable?
Organic Google traffic is anyone that finds your website through a search on Google. Once they enter a query, the search results are organic in nature.
You know how important search engines are because you use them everyday. So, why not use the same method you use to find content, to help those searching find your content?
Seems basic enough. However, it took me really paying attention to how I was searching for something on Google, to apply this method to my writing.
Creating organic Google search content is great for many reasons, but here’s the most notable top 2:
#1: Organic Search Traffic is Sustainable
Unlike Pinterest, Facebook and now Instagram, forcing small businesses and blogs to have to “pay to play”, Google is more sustainable.
Yes, the landscape of SEO is ever-changing and it’s important to stay on top of keyword trends and changes to the algorithm. However, I would rather invest my time in making sure my blog post content is up to SEO standards versus investing my money to drive traffic to some posts temporarily.
#2: Organic Search Brings in Your Target Audience
Every time I write an article, whether here or on my food blog, CleanCuisine.com I am always identifying my target audience.
For this Anchored Design blog, I am targeting small business owners, bloggers, entrepreneurs and WordPress users with every single post. I want to help teach you something, share my knowledge and make your life as a small business owner easier.
At CleanCuisine.com, I am targeting women in search of anti-inflammatory recipes that are healthy and delicious.
The benefit to having a target audience, means that we can use target keywords and phrases that are popular on Google search so our audience can find us.
Every single time you write an article, it should have a goal.
The only goal of search engines are to connect those searching with relevant content. So, if your articles serve a purpose, then you don’t have to worry about algorithm changes.
Free SEO Tool #1: Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest, by Neil Patel is an incredible tool for many reasons. From domain overview, to analyses of the top google search pages, to keyword suggestions (my favorite part), to content ideas and backlinking. Ubersuggest has all the tools you need to be successful when writing articles on your WordPress website.
This tool can be a little tricky when you are using the free search option. Searches are limited to no more than 10 a day in a 24 hour period. So, use it wisely — or, check out pricing options for an upgrade if you need more searches. You can also look for a lifetime license that is available sometimes and pay 1 flat fee for a lifetime use of Ubersuggest. Trust me, it’s totally worth it.
Last month, we bought that lifetime license and have been able to make incredible headway using the Ubersuggest Website Audit tool and have more insight on what searches are being used to access our website.
How to Start Using Ubersuggest
Step #1: Go to the Ubersuggest homepage by clicking here.
Before I begin, I always ask myself, “If I was trying to find the content in my article I’m about to write, what would I use to search on Google?” Then, I come up with a short list of ideas and begin searching.
For this exercise, I am going to use “Healthy Chocolate Muffin” as my keyword phrase because I have a new recipe I want to add to Clean Cuisine.
NOTE: A few things about the recipe I’ll be making: it is gluten free, dairy free, healthy, contains chocolate chips and it’s a recipe. These are all keywords that can be used to describe my article.
Step #2: Select “Keyword Ideas” from the sidebar.
The first time I accessed ubersuggest, I’ll admit I was a little overwhelmed. Thankfully, my husband, the Gluten Free Dad was helping me while I learned the first few times.
Once you search, you’ll be taken to a screen like the image below. Select Keyword Ideas from the sidebar so you can see the comparison of several keyword phrases.
From here, you will use the following rules to identify which keyword phrase is the best for your article and for organic Google search.
4 Rules to Identifying the Best Keyword Phrase
There are a few general rules of thumb when you’re identifying keyword phrases.
#1: Identify a keyword phrase BEFORE you start writing your article.
This ensures that your content is being written for searchable terms and makes your article organic search ready.
By identifying the keyword phrase in advance, you now have direction for how you want your article to be read.
#2: Choose a keyword phrase that has more than 500 searches a month.
Although this is a common rule of thumb “500 searches and 2 green lights” (I’ll explain the green lights in a minute), 500 searches a month is just a great place to start as you learn how to use ubersuggest.
However, when I put a lot of time and effort into writing an article I want the highest probability of someone finding my article. So, I would suggest raising this up to 2500 or more. Then the probability of someone searching for this phrase and finding your article is even more likely.
You can find volume information under the “VOL” column which is the number of searches per month for this keyword phrase.
#3: Determine the keywords level of difficulty.
The level of difficulty is important. If it’s green, consider yourself lucky. Green means low-hanging fruit and easier for your article to populate on organic Google searches. You can find SEO difficulty in the last column under “SD” for SEO Difficulty.
#4: Modify the keyword phrase until you get the desired results.
If you have the free version, this can be a little annoying. I would know because for the past 10 months, I have used the free version which limited my searches to only a few per day. So, give yourself a few days to identify the right search.
As I mentioned earlier, the recipe I want to make will be gluten free, dairy free, healthy and it’s a recipe. These are all words that can modify my keyword phrase so I’m making the most of the article.
Search: Healthy Chocolate Muffins
2400 monthly searches and a difficulty score of 7 is pretty good. But, I also want check a few others to see what brings in the highest volume with a green SEO Difficulty score.
Search: Gluten Free Chocolate Muffins
1000 monthly searches and a difficulty score of 16 isn’t better than the last search. Let me search one more time.
Search: Chocolate Muffins
This time, I did a simplified search and the results are incredible. Ubersuggest search came back with a suggested keyword phrase of “Chocolate Chip Muffins” with 40,500 monthly searches and a difficulty rating of a 27.
Yes, this is the search term I will use.
Once you have identified your keyword phrase for your article, you now need to create a new article based on what you identified.
There are a few ways to use the keyword phrase to ensure that organic Google search is going to find your article.
Free SEO Tool #2: Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that can help you optimize your post so it’s SEO friendly and more susceptible to gaining organic Google search traffic. This plugin does not drive traffic to your website.
You can find this plugin in the plugin menu on your WordPress website. Once installed, you may have a little work to do catching up old blog post articles.
Getting traffic to your article from search engines depends on several minor items being completed. Let’s go over those now.
#1: Identify a Strong Keyword Phrase
As long as you follow the steps above, then you’re ready to dig into Yoast SEO to help traffic find your article.
#2: Get Two Green Lights
As mentioned above, if your search volume for your keyword is only 500, you definitely want to get both your Readbillity and your SEO analysis to show green.
The way you do this is by completing the sections at the bottom of the post under Yoast SEO:
- FOCUS KEYPHRASE: add your keyword phrase to this box. You will also use this as your post title and Yoast SEO will encourage you to add this keyword phrase up to 8 times throughout your article to include in headings and paragraph blocks.
- SEO TITLE: This is generally the title of the post, which most often is also the keyword phrase
- SLUG: This is the slug identified by the post title
- META DESCRIPTION: This is a 1 sentence description of the post to include the keyword phrase.
If your SEO Analysis is orange or red, just click on the down arrow to see what needs to be changed about your article to make this green.
In the example below, it shows that I need to add more keywords to my h2 and h3 subheadings. To fix this, I would add another heading title or update an existing heading by using my keyword phrase.
If your Yoast Readability score is orange or red, just click the tab in the Yoast SEO box to see what needs to be updated on your post to gain a green light.
The best part about this section is the little eyes next to the two red issues below. If you select one of those eyes, scroll back up to your post and Yoast will have highlighted the areas needing attention.
#3: Optimize Post Images
Every time I add an image to an article with an established keyword phrase, I also use that phase in the post image as well. In the media library, you can click on a single image and update the ALTERNATIVE TEXT with the keyword phrase and ensure the TITLE or SLUG of your image also is related to the keyword phase.
Keep in mind the TITLE/SLUG is unique and can only be used once on your website. The way I get around this is by adding a “-1, -2…” after my images.
For example, if my keyword phrase is “Gluten Free Pie Crust” then I would use the TITLE/SLUG on all of my images, “gluten-free-pie-crust-1”, “gluten-free-pie-crust-2”, “gluten-free-pie-crust-3” until all of my images were titled properly.
Ubersuggest and Yoast SEO
Updating old posts is always beneficial because you already have the content written. It can take up to 6 weeks or more to re-index on Google search, but think of this as a short term change for a long term result.
Unless there’s a tremendous amount of traffic on your article, I would suggest updating the following:
- Identify your keyword phrase
- Update the post URL using the keyword phrase
- Update the post title using the keyword phrase
- Follow the Yoast SEO rules until you have 2 green lights
I truly believe that following using these two free SEO tools will dramatically improve your content writing skills while also driving new organic Google traffic to your articles.
Because honestly, what is the value in writing an article that no one will get to read?
