If you run your own website, then chances are you have work to do. When I first started The Book Wheel, I had no idea what I was doing and, therefore, did not optimize posts, use the right keywords, update all descriptions, or understand that meta tags on photos were important. I do, of course, know these things now but going back and updating old content is tedious and time away from writing new content, so it always ends up on the back burner.
Luckily, I have a fantastic sister who lives nearby and consistently asks me if I need help with anything. The answer has always been yes, I do need help, but I was hesitant to let my non-Wordpress using sister touch anything on the backend for fear of dismantling everything (unlikely, yes, but a real fear). In the beginning, I gave her some of these tips from Ashley over at AshleyLamar.com, but after Tumbling a few of my posts, she wanted to do something more substantial. Over time (and through trial and error), we found a few things she can help with that are immensely important for SEO, easy to do, but tedious enough that I always put it off myself. If you have a friend or family member who wants to help you with the backend of things but don’t know where to start, then this list is for you. Then again, you can hire my sister.
Update Image Alt Tags
Three years ago, I had no idea that Alt tags mattered. I thought they were “alternative” tags, meaning optional. It wasn’t until much later (later than I’d care to admit) that I learned how important they were to SEO and realized I had a ton of photos that weren’t optimized. Luckily, most of my photos are of books or quotes, so it was easy to hand this off to my sister, who could update them appropriately. This required a bit of trust on my part because she had to make some executive decisions, but the time it saved me was well worth it. Plus, my SEO score went up!
Check and Fix Broken Links
Broken links are annoying, unprofessional, and bad for the user experience. If you have WordPress, there’s a handy plugin that checks for the links automatically, but what I’ve learned is that not all “broken” links are broken. There have been multiple instances where links are reported as broken due to an inability to reach the server, but rechecking a minute later shows them as active. This is where my sister came in handy – she could run the automated link checker and actually check the links to see if they were broken and, if they were, find a suitable replacement.
Optimize your SEO twice as fast by putting your non-techie friends to work. Click To TweetEdit Old Posts
Let’s face it – we all make mistakes and chances are we don’t have our own editors. I know for a fact there are posts on this site with errors not because I know where they are but because I don’t always edit as carefully as I should. Having an outsider check your posts (starting with the most popular) for spelling and grammatical errors is a huge help and is something only an outsider can do.
Check Your Backlinks
I recently wrote an article about why and how to check your backlinks, and while finding your backlinks is easy, combing through them to see who is who is time consuming. In this case, have your friend (or sister) browse the sites that are linking to you, starting with the ones with the most links. This is a great way to find out if anyone is reposting your content without attribution and find new sites that love you, even if you don’t know it.
Find Ways to Make Content Evergreen
I’m sure everyone has content that isn’t evergreen, which means that it’s either irrelevant most of the year or irrelevant forever. These may include old giveaways, events, or posts related to a given holiday. Have your friend (or sister) browse your site for these types of posts and make a list. Then, you can take that list and do one of two things – update it or delete it. I recently did this and ended up trashing and updating a lot of content because my Revive Old Posts plugin was promoting expired content that I didn’t even realize I had (old book club signups, giveaways, etc.).