This is one of our first developer updates videos. Usually we only have developer update videos when we launch a new version of the Squirrly SEO Software, like when we launched the 2015 and then the 2016 versions.
I have an exciting announcement to make in this video. It’s an announcement that took even us, the ones making Squirrly SEO happen, by surprise.
This is our first ever Developer Updates video and I’m giving spoilers about Squirrly 2017 and Squirrly 2018 (which will be launched at the same time this spring).
See the video.
There are 17 massive updates that we’ve already made to the Squirrly SEO Plugin since the Squirrly 2016 version.
You can see a quick pdf with 17 slides. Link here.
However, I suggest you watch this video and hear me describe each update.
I talk about each of the 17 updates in this video.
Also: every Thursday at 4 PM (London time) you can Live Chat with us on youtube and ask us marketing questions. Subscribe to our channel and you’ll be notified when we’re live.
Glad to see you back in Coaching Session class. From now on, we’ll send you two lessons per email.
We initially created this coaching session as a series of lessons at the end of which you’ll be super close to becoming an SEO Superstar.
It’s not only about what we teach you; it’s also about what you do with your WordPress site after learning everything.
The idea is to go through one lesson/day. That way, you’ll keep moving forward.
Practical Things You’ll Learn in this Lesson:
How to choose the keyword you want your page to focus on
How to optimize a page in your site for Google
Why is SEO important for your strategy
Part 1 – Keyword Research from Squirrly SEO
Squirrly is simply a complete SEO powerhouse for WordPress, and we have Neil Patel (a recognized expert) agreeing with us on this one.
Neil Patel mentions in his article that only a handful of bloggers have access to the right queries that Squirrly provides.
There are many benefits you can get by using Squirrly SEO, but right now I want to show you the Keyword Research Feature.
You’ll be able to find amazing long-tail keywords to rank for on the first page of Google directly from our Keyword Research.
This is what will change the game for you online, whether you’re a blogger, a side-hustler, or a full-time online shop owner.
After installing and activating the plugin, you can do a keyword research right from your WordPress site.
You just need to go to Posts > Add new> Click on the blue arrow to open the keyword research tool.
After you do that, it will look something like this.
By entering a keyword, the plugin will start searching the main Internet databanks that have been built for SEO and return long-tail keywords that you can easily rank for.
When I say YOU, I really mean you and your site. The algorithm is super-advanced, and it takes into account the authority you have for those keywords on Google vs. the authority of competing websites for the same keywords.
The data we use is created for SEO purposes, unlike Google’s Keyword Planner which has been designed to help only with Google AdWords campaigns.
Other than what I’ve mentioned above, the algorithm also takes other significant factors into account, such as:
How many people discuss that topic on Quora, Forums, social media;
The trend of the subject. If it was trending years ago, then it’s no longer relevant, and we’ll give it a lower score. That way, we make sure the content you create stays relevant.
Creating long-form content using the keywords you find is always an excellent way to get your articles indexed.
Here are 4 main aspects to look at when choosing a keyword for your page:
The number of words. Ideally, you want to go for keywords that have 3 or more terms because big media sites or news outlets already rank for terms formed of 2 words. Also, using more words will help you respond to your audience’s needs and help them find your content much easier.
Competition. Choosing a keyword with high competition won’t help you bring too much organic traffic to your site. If you want to rank on the first pages of Google, then you need to pick a keyword that doesn’t have a lot of competition.
Search volume. Let’s say you’ve found a long-tail keyword that’s easy to rank for. That’s great! Or is it? If the search volume for that term is very low, then it’s not that great of a keyword. Why? Because it means that very few people are searching for that term, so you’ll be getting little to zero organic traffic.
Trend. Trending keywords can bring you a lot of organic traffic, so we recommend using them if you find some good ones during your research. When a term is trending, it means that a lot of people search for the topic on search engines during that particular moment in time. It surfaces the things that are popular now, or are on their way to becoming super popular soon.
There is also the advanced mode, where you can even search for keywords based on different countries. Learn more about it from the step-by-step presentation below.
Part 2 – Why Does Neil Patel Use Squirrly SEO?
Now that you’ve chosen your keyword, you’ll want to start optimizing a post/page using it. You can do that with the Squirrly SEO Live Assistant, which is our most popular feature.
This feature is the reason he uses Squirrly each time he creates a new post. The Live Assistant is the part that helps you most in optimizing your content for humans, as well as for Google.
The purpose is to turn every white element from the Live Assistant to Green, and not have any red sections.
Here are the main benefits of using the Squirrly Live SEO Assistant:
It lets you know whether you’re stuffing your pages with the same keyword
It helps you write content that won’t push away human readers
Your optimized pages will rank higher on Google
You will lower your bounce rate
The over-optimization check is necessary, and it’s not always obvious. That’s why we built a feature to help you avoid any potential threats to your rankings.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on optimizing an article with the Live Assistant:
The reason why even experts like Neil Patel use this plugin is that it saves a lot of time for content creation and it helps with quality assurance as well.
If you see all those lights turning green in the interface, it means that you can hit Publish.
You no longer have to rely on guesswork to make sure you have 100% SEO on your blog posts, product pages or landing pages.
Part 3 – Why Use the Squirrly SEO Live Assistant for Your WordPress Pages?
Websites which are not optimized tend to under-perform. Optimizing is done by turning all the lights green inside of the Squirrly SEO Live Assistant.
1) In a study published by Forbes.com, it was shown that content that was not optimized for being found on search engines by the desired audience had very weak performance over time. Only 1 in 10 articles had a chance of making it big.
Here’s a quote from the Forbes article by Skip Besthoff:
“If I told you that only 20% of your content is doing anything for you regarding traffic generation, you’d either fire all of your writers, or you just wouldn’t publish anything that they’ve generated for you.”
2) In a study made by Squirrly, it was shown that the optimized content managed to bring an increase in readership of over +285%, and in some cases, it was even as much as +500%. We told you more about the study in our first lesson.
This study was made on 49,000 sites, and the increase happened only for the articles that were optimized more than 50% with the Live Assistant.
The rest of the articles under-performed and the only traction they managed to get was from social media sites where they’d been promoted, but close-to-nothing came organically from search engines.
Go Forward
Now you know why it’s important to write articles that make sense for search engines and you’re better prepared for starting your SEO journey.
Go ahead and accomplish your tasks for this Lesson. They will help you level up your SEO Star. You’ll get closer to reaching the top positions on Google with your pages.
Your goals for this Lesson:
Choose a keyword you want to target in a page
Publish an article you’ve optimized using the Live Assistant (over 50%)
Come up with 2 reasons why SEO is important for your strategy
It’s almost time to say goodbye to these nine days of coaching. But until then, I encourage you to resume working on your WordPress site.
Reports to make, content to write and optimize, success (or failure) to analyze.
The rest of this year can now be a huge success for you because you’ll be able to track (with just one click) the rank for each article that you optimized with Squirrly.
Practical Things You’ll Learn in This Lesson:
How to identify which pages perform best on your site
How to know which keywords your site actually ranks for
How to compare pages in your site based on their performance
If I were to tell you that you can see your top performing pages and keywords with just one click, right in your WordPress admin bar, what would your reaction be?
Fingers crossed that you’re going to be just as thrilled as I am.
Thanks to this feature provided by Squirrly, you will have access to a tool that will help you figure out which SEO strategies have worked for you, and which didn’t.
The best part about it is that you will never get outdated information.
The Performance Analytics feature by Squirrly checks the data every single week (according to a significance algorithm that can identify which pages can bring more value to your site).
You can even set the Performance Analytics so it checks the rank every day.
Let’s see how you can start using this feature now.
How to Check Out the Google Performance of Pages You Optimized with Squirrly
Step 1:
Login to your WordPress dashboard
Step 2:
Go to Squirrly > Performance Analytics
Another way of accessing the Performance Analytics section would be to click on any page you’ve optimized with Squirrly, and, while in the edit mode, go to the top of the screen and click on “See your rank on Google”.
Just Like That, You Can Now Get an Overview of Your Pages’ Performance
The pages you optimized with Squirrly will be ordered from the one with the highest rank to the page that has the lowest rank on Google.
Here’s the data you will see in this section for each individual page:
The Google position based on the country you selected (we scrape the first 10 pages of Google based on the keyword you optimized for)
The optimization percentage
The social shares you received
The top-performing social media channel
Based on all of this information, you will be able to gain a better understanding of what’s working for your site and what doesn’t. You’ll know which are the pages that you need to work on more.
I recently started doing even more workshops to help entrepreneurs from all over the world grow their businesses and building a customer base.
The problem was that people wanted to see my personal website and they couldn’t find it on search engines because I have quite a common name. On the site, I have a media kit, contact information – everything.
So one of the things I had to do in order to get my website to rank for “Florin Muresan” was to tackle a long-tail keyword.
My blog is this: FlorinMuresan.com
> The only keyword that I wanted to rank with this website is “Florin Muresan bio.”
And look – Squirrly tells me that I’ve done a good job. I’m in the 2nd place on Google!
Now, I’ll be able to check all of my articles and see which ones get to rank better on this leaderboard inside of my WordPress. And the best part is, so can you!
With Squirrly, you can now easily implement your SEO strategy and measure the results. That means you are no longer working in the dark.
Use this one well throughout the rest of this year, and you’ll soon start improving your rankings.
Your Goals for this Lesson:
Go to Squirrly > Performance Analytics and check how your pages are doing
Identify which ones are ranking higher than others and which ones are performing poorly
Write down the aspects that define the pages with higher rankings
