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Tag: wordpress seo

  • How to Create a Table of Contents in WordPress

    A Table of Contents in WordPress can be an effective addition to your website pages or posts. They are great for boosting user experience and for navigating long-form copy. Plus, they provide a slight advantage in SEO.

    In this article, we’ll show you step-by-step how to add a table of contents to your WordPress site easily with a plugin. And, we’ll show you the simple steps needed to create one from scratch. So, if you’re here for a table of contents for WordPress, this post has what you need.

    Here’s what we’ll cover:

    What is a Table of Contents in WordPress?

    A WordPress table of contents is basically a list of the main headings or topics covered throughout the content of a page or post. They are great for giving users an overview of what’s to come. Typically, they are placed at the top of a page, just after the title or introductory paragraph.

    Examples

    Usually, a table of contents consists of a list of anchor links (or jump links) to the corresponding headings on the page. When clicked, anchor links jump or scroll down to the corresponding heading where the content will be found. This makes it easy for visitors to navigate the page.

    The Benefits of Creating a Table of Contents in WordPress?

    If you’re a business owner or blogger using WordPress, user experience and search engine optimization(SEO) are always going to be important. Using a WordPress table of contents on your site can help with both.

    User Experience

    A table of contents can be extremely beneficial to user experience. It allows visitors to quickly and easily orient themselves to the information available in the content.

    Plus, because they contain anchor links, visitors can easily jump to the information they are looking for without so much scrolling. This can save a lot of time when there is a lot of content. We even use them on our Elegant Themes Blog for long guides such as ultimate guide to Divi Speed Optimization.

    SEO Value

    Having a table of contents can give your page a boost on SERPs by giving you an enriched search result. This can include additional links to your most popular page sections featured directly on your search result.

    Google Search Result

    Plus, they help search engines understand the crawling context of your page which can lead to improved indexing or featured snippets. By creating well-organized content with a table of contents, you give Google and other search engines a clear understanding of your content.

    How to Automatically Add a Table of Contents in WordPress Using a Plugin

    Creating a table of contents in WordPress using a plugin is by far the easiest way to go. And there are no shortage of plugins in the WordPress repository that help create an site-wide Table of Contents for your posts and pages and generate anchor links automatically.

    Automatic TOC WordPress Plugins

    For this post, we’ll be using Easy Table of Contents WordPress plugin to create a our table of contents.

    1. Install and Activate the Plugin

    To get started, go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugin > Add New. Search for the Easy Table of Contents plugin and click to install and activate it.

    install easy table of contents plugin

    2. Check a Post to See It Working

    Once you install and activate the plugin, Easy Table of Contents immediately creates a table of contents section on your posts. As soon as it is activated on your site, you can navigate to the front end and see the table it created on your posts.

    Live Post Example

    3. Customize Your Table of Contents Site-Wide Settings

    After seeing what the plugin does out of the box, you can visit the plugin’s settings and tailor them to your needs. To go to the settings, navigate to Settings > Table of Contents.

    Site-wide settings

    For most people, enabling the table of contents to show up on posts is probably all you’ll need. Pages are a different story. If you have landing pages that are specifically designed as top-level pages, you should uncheck showing a table of contents on your pages (keep posts checked).

    Easy Table of Contents Settings

    Further, you’ll see that Easy TOC recognizes all your custom post types and various templates which you can toggle on/off for.

    There are also a host of other options for you to try out, but that is all dependent on your website and needs. Most websites will only need to use H2, H3, or H4 headings in their table of contents. Too many items in a table of contents will clutter up your content and be less helpful than not having a table of contents at all.

    4. Override Site-Wide Settings for Individual Posts

    Aside from the site-wide settings, Easy Table of Contents gives you post-by-post control over the table of contents. However, to enable Easy Table of Contents individual post settings in the Block Editor, you have to enable Custom Fields in the block editor’s preferences section.

    To do this click on the Gear Icon in the top right to see Page Settings. Of those settings, click on “Preferences”.

    This will open up a modal in the center of your screen. Click on the “Panels” tab. Then, Toggle on the “Custom Fields” option. This will allow any plugin or theme setting that adds custom fields to your pages/posts to display those settings underneath the block editor.

    enable custom fields

    You can disable the table of contents from showing up on the posts page and adjust other settings that only affect that one page. This is perfect for special use cases that differ from your site-wide settings.

    To disable the Table of Contents section from a particular post/page, scroll down to the plugin settings (after you’ve enabled custom fields).

    Checkmark the box for “Disable the automatic insertion of the table of contents.”

    This removes the table of contents that would automatically be inserted via plugin settings.

    Disable TOC on Page or Post

    That’s it!

    Other Table of Contents Plugins for WordPress

    Aside from Easy Table of Contents, there are plenty of other Table of Contents plugins that could serve you well. There are some great free plugins like LuckyWP Table of Contents that work great with WordPress blocks and page builders like Divi. And there are premium plugins like Fixed TOC that have all the advanced features one would need. Do your research and test a few out to get the best features that fit your needs.

    In general, look for the ones that are easy to use out of the box, have built-in support for schema markup, and have decent styling options. Here are the best Table of Contents plugins for WordPress that we recommend.

    How to Create a Table of Contents in WordPress Manually

    Creating a table of contents from scratch using the WordPress Editor can be useful for users who only need one for a few posts or pages and don’t need the site-wide functionality of a plugin. And creating one is fairly simple (and kinda fun) once you understand the concept.

    A table of contents is basically a list of anchor links that jump to specified sections or headings of a page. So, if you’ve created an anchor link on a page or in a navigation menu before, you are already familiar with the basics of creating a table of contents. If your not familiar with anchor links (or jump links), we have a complete guide on how to create anchor links in WordPress.

    Here’s how to create a table of contents from scratch on a WordPress post:

    1. Create Your List of Headings for Your Table of Contents

    At the top of your page or post, create a list of all the headings for your table of contents using a paragraph block (or list block). To do this, create a new paragraph block (or list block) and add the heading text that corresponds to the headings on your page content below. Make sure there is a line break after each heading text.

    Create Table of Contents - Block Editor - Create Paragraph Block

    Once done, make sure to check that the heading text in the table of contents matches the heading text in the content for a better user experience.

    2. Add a Unique HTML Anchor ID to Each Heading on Your Page or Post

    Next, go through the content on your page (heading by heading) and assign each heading a unique HTML anchor ID.

    To do this, go to a heading block and click on its settings.

    Create Table of Contents - Block Editor - Steps 2-4

    After that, in the heading block settings (in the “Advanced” tab of the heading block), add an HTML Anchor ID to the field. For this example, the anchor HTML anchor is “heading-one”. This anchor ID will be used as the anchor link target.

    Create Table of Contents - Block Editor - Steps 5-6

    3. Convert Each Heading in Your Table of Contents Into an Anchor Link

    Once the ID for the heading element is set, we can go back up to our paragraph or list block that contains our table of contents. One by one, highlight each line and click the “Link” icon to add a link.

    Create Table of Contents - Block Editor - Steps 7-8

    Instead of a web address, add a pound sign or hashtag (#) plus our anchor ID. Press enter and the link will apply to that text.

    Create Table of Contents - Block Editor - Step 9

    For our example, we added “#heading-one” for our anchor link. Your anchor link text should be descriptive but concise. But it should also accurately summarize the content that is within that section so search engines can read it.

    Most importantly, your anchor link needs to be unique and not used elsewhere on the page. This is because using the same HTML Anchor ID will confuse the browser and not work as intended.

    Once you are done, save your changes and preview your page. Test your new Table of Contents by clicking the anchor links to make sure they are all jumping to the right places. If those links aren’t working, you may have left out or misplaced the “#” or your Anchor IDs and Anchor Link URLs aren’t an exact match.

    Creating a Table of Contents in Divi

    Divi Theme Builder is one of the most robust and easy-to-use tools for WordPress websites. It allows website creators, business owners, and marketers to create stunning websites that are feature rich.

    Using the default WordPress editor to create a table of contents is pretty limiting, especially when it comes to design. Divi makes it so much easier to create unique table of contents designs and add smooth scrolling anchor links to any element on the page or post without having to know HTML or CSS.

    Create a Table of Contents in Divi Theme Builder

    We have a full write-up for how to build out a Table of Contents section for your blog. Not only can you find the how-to steps, but there is also a free layout download for you. The layout is for you if you’re looking for a faster solution with the Divi Theme.

    The Best Divi Table of Contents Plugin

    If you are looking for a way to create a table of contents in Divi, check the Divi Table of Contents Maker plugin.

    divi table of contents maker plugin

    This plugin includes a unique Table of Contents Module for Divi that automatically generates your lists, anchor links, and all the functionality you need in a few clicks. You can use the module on a theme builder template to add table of contents automatically for all your blog posts! Plus the module has hundreds of customization settings and style options.

    Learn more about Divi Table of Contents Maker.

    Other Table of Contents Solutions to Consider

    If you are interested in other solutions for adding a table of contents in WordPress, here are some others that you may not be aware of that are worth considering.

    Wait for a Built-In Table of Contents Block in WordPress Core

    If you have time to wait for a table of Contents solution, it seems a Table of Contents WordPress block is in the works. And, there is a lot of recent traction on the project that you can view on the Github Pull and in an issues dialogue. It looks like a promising block that will bring table of contents natively into WordPress’ block editor.

    However, there are bumps in the roadmap so it is a toss-up whether or not it will make WordPress 6.1 or be in a later release.

    Check for a Table of Contents Feature in Plugins You May Already Use

    With all the robust plugins out there. Who knows? There is a decent chance that maybe you’re using a plugin currently that has a table of contents feature hidden in the details. Here are a couple of popular plugins you may already use that offer the ability to create a table of contents in WordPress.

    SEO Yoast Premium

    If you’re using the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress, you may be wondering what the Table of Contents block is and how it can help you. The Table of Contents block is a premium feature that allows you to dynamically create a table of contents for your post or page. The best part is that if you already use Yoast SEO Premium, you have an easy TOC solution.

    Spectra

    Another plugin many people use is Spectra. Spectra has been gaining popularity as an enhancement of the built-in block editor for WordPress.

    One of the blocks included in Spectra is an easy to use Table of Contents block. The block has full design customizability and is deployable with no additional coding. As you can see, add the block to your post and adjust the settings. You’ll have a table of contents in a few seconds. Spectra does come in a free and premium version.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, creating a table of contents in WordPress is easy and can be done in a few steps. By using a plugin, you can automatically generate a table of contents for your pages and post. Or, you can manually create a table of contents in the default WordPress editor or in a page builder like Divi for more design settings. Either way, you have the power to customize your website to afford your site visitors a better user experience and be seen better in search results.

    Do you use a table of contents on your WordPress site? Do you have a favorite plugin you use? Let us know in the comments!

    Featured Image via IconArt / shutterstock.com

    The post How to Create a Table of Contents in WordPress appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

  • WooCommerce SEO: A Complete Guide to Ranking #1

    When running a WooCommerce store, it’s crucial to prioritize Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A solid WooCommerce SEO strategy can boost your search visibility and make it easier for consumers to find and purchase from your store. In many ways, an SEO-optimized online store is your greatest marketing tool.

    In this post, we’ll start by explaining what WooCommerce SEO is and why it’s important. Then we’ll provide you with a list of 11 tips and techniques you can use to optimize your online store. Let’s jump in!

    What is WooCommerce?

    WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress that allows users to create and manage their online store in WordPress. WooCommerce is highly customizable and works well with popular plugins, themes, and page builders (like Divi) to make it easy to build an eCommerce site from the ground up.

    For more info on WooCommerce, check out our helpful guides on how to install and setup WooCommerce and our ultimate guide to using WooCommerce Blocks

    An Overview of WooCommerce SEO

    WooCommerce SEO is the process of optimizing your online WooCommerce store to get a higher ranking in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). A higher ranking means more organic traffic and more sales. Overall, WooCommerce SEO aims to improve your site’s visibility in the organic search results through various optimization techniques.

    The easier it is for consumers to find your site, the more opportunities you’ll have to convert them into paying customers. The better you can enhance your SEO, the less you’ll likely have to spend on other marketing strategies such as paid advertising on social media.

    WooCommerce is already a very SEO-friendly plugin. It comes with built-in features and options to optimize your online store for better search engine visibility:

    WooCommerce plugin

    For example, you can easily add title tags and meta descriptions to your products and create sitemaps and robots.txt files. In addition, WooCommerce is compatible with many popular SEO plugins and tools, such as Yoast SEO, that can further simplify optimization:

    The Yoast SEO WordPress plugin.

    Furthermore, if you use our Divi Builder, you’ll get access to 25 additional WooCommerce modules:

    The Divi WooCommerce modules.

    These modules let you power your online store with WooCommerce elements anywhere within your Divi layouts and edit them as necessary to boost SEO. For instance, you might customize your WooCommerce Product Title to include keywords and match your overall branding.

    We recommend running an SEO audit if you’re unsure where your WooCommerce SEO currently stands. The results will give you a solid baseline to start with.

    A Simple Guide to SEO for WooCommerce (11 Practical SEO Tips)

    Now that we understand more about the importance of SEO, let’s discuss how you can use it in your e-commerce shop. Here are ten techniques and tips you can use for WooCommerce SEO!

    1. Optimize Your Product and Category Page Titles

    Product and category titles are essential for WooCommerce SEO because they help shoppers understand your store better. Additionally, optimizing your SEO titles makes it more likely for your products and categories to appear in relevant search results, leading to more traffic and sales.

    Including relevant keywords in your titles will help search engines match your products and categories with the right searches. You’ll also want to keep your titles short and sweet. Otherwise, they may get cut off in search results if they’re too long.

    To optimize your titles for SEO, you can navigate to the product page in WooCommerce. For this step, you can use the standard editor. However, with Divi, you can utilize the WooCommerce Product Title module to insert and customize the title:

    The WooCommerce product title module from Divi.

    Moreover, if you have the Yoast SEO plugin installed, there is a panel below the editor where you can enter a keyword phrase as well as the page title:

    The SEO title section of the Yoast plugin.

    Expanding the SEO analysis section will show red, yellow, and green lights indicating SEO scores for different features. You can look through them for any advice on optimizing your title, then make the suggested changes.

    For example, our Yoast SEO ratings tell us our product title doesn’t contain our keyword, “hat”:

    A Yoast analysis indicating product title missing keyword.

    Once we tweak our product title to incorporate the keyword, the Yoast rating changes to a green light. Now the title is better optimized!

    2. Utilize Meta Descriptions

    Meta descriptions are also crucial for WooCommerce SEO. These brief snippets appear below page titles in the SERPs. The concise descriptions let users understand pages before clicking on them.

    Meta descriptions are essential for SEO because they can influence how many people click on a result. If you have a well-written meta description, it can increase the Click-Through Rate (CTR) on your website, which can improve your rankings in the SERPs.

    In Yoast SEO, beneath the editor, you’ll find a Google preview section. You can enter your text into the Meta description box:

    A meta description in the Yoast panel.

    Ideally, it’s best if your meta description is below 155 characters so that it displays fully. It’s also wise to incorporate your keyword within the snippet.

    3. Optimize Your Product Slugs

    Your product slugs, also known as permalinks, are other places where you can provide search engines with contextual information and boost WooCommerce SEO. The product slugs are the URLs assigned to each item in your store.

    It’s best to incorporate keywords into your slugs whenever possible. These are the terms you want your products to rank for with search engines (or the phrase you believe customers use to look for and find your product).

    You can enter and modify a product slug by navigating to the product page, then selecting Edit under the title:

    The option to edit a product slug in WooCommerce.

    When you’ve made your changes, you can select Ok. You can also view and change the slug in the Yoast panel below the editor.

    4. Use Categories and Tags

    WordPress categories and tags can help organize your store and improve your WooCommerce SEO. Sorting products by categories and tags can prevent your items from competing with each other and enhance your site’s usability.

    For instance, let’s say a customer wants to view your t-shirt offerings. When they search for “t-shirt”, you can configure your site to present a single page with all your shirts.

    Tags serve a similar function. They can be used as cross-references for customers while browsing and searching your inventory. By clicking on a tag, consumers can see similar products with the same tag, such as a color or size.

    You can access, create, and edit your product categories under WooCommerce > Categories:

    The Product categories page in WooCommerce.

    Here you can fill in the relevant information, such as the slug and description. You can also nest subcategories under parent categories to further distinguish your items. Under WooCommerce > Tags, you’ll find the same options.

    5. Create Unique Product Descriptions

    Product descriptions play a crucial role in WooCommerce stores. They provide potential customers with information about the products you offer:

    An example of a WooCommerce product description.

    Optimizing your product descriptions can improve your WooCommerce SEO, making your items more likely to appear in search results and drive traffic to your site. In addition, well-written product descriptions can convert visitors into customers by persuading them to purchase your goods.

    Similar to the product titles and meta descriptions, it’s important that these descriptions are concise, descriptive, and contain relevant keywords. You’ll also want to include any essential information, such as materials, washing instructions, or safety guidelines.

    To add or edit a product description in WooCommerce, just navigate to the product page and enter the description within the editor:

    The product description in WooCommerce.

    Our WooCommerce Product Description module also lets you add the description to any page in Divi:

    The Divi Product Description module.

    The module comes included with Divi for free. You can add it to your page by selecting WooCommerce Product Description from the Divi module list (1). Then you can fully customize it using various design settings (2).

    6. Enable Breadcrumbs for Easy Navigation

    Breadcrumbs are navigational tools that show a user’s path to a particular page. They can be beneficial for WooCommerce SEO because they help users and search engines understand the structure of your website.

    They usually appear at the top of a page, and you can use breadcrumbs to lead customers back to a parent category. For instance, in the following example, the parent category is Clothing, and the subcategory is Accessories:

    Breadcrumbs shown on a WooCommerce product page.

    It’s possible that your theme automatically adds breadcrumbs to your product pages. If not, you’ll have to implement WordPress SEO breadcrumbs before activating this feature with Yoast SEO.

    Alternatively, if you’re a Divi user, you can utilize the WooCommerce Breadcrumbs module:

    The WooCommerce Breadcrumbs module in Divi.

    You can insert the Breadcrumbs module from the Divi list. Then you can customize the links and text, as well as their appearance.

    7. Add Alt Text to Images

    Adding alternative(“alt”) text for images is another great opportunity to boost your online store search rankings. Alt text is important for image SEO because it is displayed on your site when your product images aren’t visible, providing another place to include keywords. For example, if the graphic cannot properly load, the browser will show the text instead as a placeholder.

    Alt text is important because it makes your site more accessible. Screen readers and assistive technology often use it to help vision-impaired users understand your content. Alt text can also help search engines understand and index your images. Therefore, including keywords in alt text can boost your WooCommerce SEO efforts.

    You can add alt text to your images when you upload them to WordPress:

    The place to add alternative text to a WordPress image.

    You can also modify the alt text at any point by navigating to your Media Library. If you have the Yoast plugin installed, under the SEO analysis, it will let you know if your images are missing alt text or whether you should include more or fewer keywords to optimize them.

    Image alt text isn’t the only way to make images SEO-friendly. But for best results, check out these best practices for image SEO.

    8. Add Structured Data for Rich Snippets

    Structured data, also known as schema markup, is code that can help search engines understand your content better. It’s vital for WooCommerce SEO because it can make your store content show up in rich results, attracting more clicks and traffic to your site:

    Google results showing rich snippets.

    Rich snippets are special search results that can include product reviews, pricing, and other information. They can help potential customers make informed decisions about whether or not to buy from your store.

    There are a handful of schema markup tools that you can use to add structured data to your site. For example, the Google Structured Data Markup Helper will generate code in various categories, including products and local businesses:

    The Google Structured Data Markup Helper tool.

    Once you select a data type and generate the code, you can add the schema markup to your pages and posts. For more detailed guidance, you can check out our guide on How to Use Schema Markup to Optimize Your Site’s SEO.

    9. Use a WooCommerce SEO Plugin

    WooCommerce already has so many add-ons and third party extensions, finding the best one for WooCommerce SEO can be overwhelming. Fortunately, the best SEO plugins for WordPress are often the best SEO plugins for WooCommerce as well.

    Here are a few of the best SEO Plugins for WooCommerce we would recommend:

    1. Rank Math SEO

    Rank Math WooCommerce SEO plugin

    Rank Math is a powerful SEO plugin for WordPress that offers amazing real-time insights about your site’s SEO. With Rank Math, you can optimize all of your WooCommerce SEO for product pages, category pages, and on-page SEO on the fly as needed. It works seamlessly with the Divi Builder which makes it a perfect choice for those who want complete control over WooCommerce and SEO using custom modules in a visual builder.

    2. Yoast WooCommerce SEO

    Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin

    Yoast continues to be one of the most popular SEO plugins for WordPress. In addition to SEO features of the free plugin, their WooCommerce SEO Plugin allows you to unlock a suite of tools and features for your WooCommerce store.

    3. All in One SEO

    All in One WooCommerce SEO plugin

    All in One SEO is a great SEO plugin for WordPress that also includes premium SEO features for WooCommerce, including the ability to optimize product and category pages with ease. You can definitely use this plugin to improve your store’s SEO ranking.

    10. Optimize Your Site’s Speed and Performance

    Page speed can have a significant effect on WooCommerce SEO. Here’s what you need to know about Page Speed SEO. Slow loading times can hurt your store’s User Experience (UX) and lead to higher bounce rates. Google also considers page speed in its ranking factors.

    This is why we recommend testing the performance of your WooCommerce site regularly. There are a handful of tools that you can use for this process, including Google PageSpeed Insights:

    The Google PageSpeed Insights website.

    The tool will assess your site and provide a performance report when you enter your URL. It includes an overall grade as well as key metrics, such as Core Web Vitals and your speed index:

    A Google PageSpeed report.

    You can also find a list of suggestions for improving your online store. The specific recommendations will depend on your site. However, there are a handful of common solutions you can utilize for performance optimization.

    Some WordPress themes like Divi have built-in speed optimization already. But even Divi sites will need good hosting since much of site speed is dependant on your server.

    For more, check out our WooCommerce Performance Optimization Guide for all the tips and best practices you need to speed up your store.

    11. Maximize Your Site’s Security

    SEO spam and hacks can lead to Google flagging your site, hurting your WooCommerce SEO. Therefore, ensuring that you adequately protect your website data is essential.

    There is a plethora of security best practices you can follow to safeguard your online store. Firstly, to determine the current status of your site, we recommend conducting a security audit.

    It’s also essential to use quality, actively maintained WordPress themes and plugins and update them whenever possible. This diligence can prevent bugs and other vulnerabilities within your store.

    We also suggest installing a WordPress security plugin. There are a handful of options available, such as Sucuri:

    The Sucuri Scanner plugin.

    This scanner can monitor your site for malware and other threats. It helps you actively and consistently audit the activity on your website and fix any vulnerabilities.

    Conclusion

    If you want consumers to find your online store, focusing on WooCommerce SEO is vital. While the plugin is already SEO-friendly, optimizing your site correctly requires following various best practices.

    As we discussed in this post, you can use several tactics to optimize your WooCommerce store. Some of the most important include incorporating keywords into your descriptions, titles, and metadata. It’s also essential to leverage categories, tags, and breadcrumbs to create an organized navigational setup. Plus, tools such as Rank Math and our Divi Builder can help you perfect WooCommerce SEO.

    Do you have any questions about WooCommerce SEO? Let us know in the comments section below!

    Featured Image via stokk / shutterstock.com

    The post WooCommerce SEO: A Complete Guide to Ranking #1 appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

  • What Is Qwant? How to SEO for the Privacy-Minded Search Engine

    Google is the most popular search engine worldwide, but it isn’t the only potential source of traffic. If you want to bring more people to your website, it’s worth focusing on alternative search engines such as Qwant. Just what is Qwant, and how can you create a SEO strategy for it?

    In today’s guide, we’ll explore the characteristics of Qwant. Then we’ll outline some tips to help you optimize your content for this search engine. Let’s get started!

    What Is Qwant?

    Qwant is a French search engine first launched in 2013. It’s now the default search engine for the French government, and it processed roughly 18 billion search requests in 2018:

    The Qwant search engine

    Qwant’s interface looks pretty similar to Google’s. When searching for a term, you can filter according to categories such as News, Images, Videos, and Music. Moreover, you can choose the country and language for your results and select the freshness of the content:

    Qwant search results

    Like DuckDuckGo, Qwant is a privacy-focused search engine. It doesn’t use any cookies to track your actions and searches, either for advertising purposes or to provide curated content. Additionally, it bills itself as an ethical search engine because it doesn’t sell your data to third-party companies.

    Qwant uses unique algorithms and indexing methods that don’t rely on private data. Furthermore, it has a commitment to supplying impartial and balanced information.

    Alongside its search engine, Qwant includes a Maps application similar to Google Maps:

    Qwant Maps

    Additionally, there is a Qwant Junior version available. This is a child-friendly search engine designed for educational and safe search results:

    Qwant Junior

    Additionally, although Qwant is designed primarily for the French market, it offers results tailored for various countries in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania. These include Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia.

    Who Should Use Qwant?

    Qwant is ideal for users worried about internet privacy and their personal data. These are valid concerns when you consider that many search engines (including Google) sell user data to third-party advertising companies and deliver targeted results.

    Moreover, Qwant doesn’t save your search history. Although this can be frustrating if you need to find something you looked for before, you might prefer to know that the search engine isn’t recording your online activity.

    Additionally, this search engine is perfect for finding French-based content. Whether you’re learning the language, are a native speaker, or looking for businesses in France, Qwant has it covered.

    Qwant is also an excellent search engine for parents with younger children. Similar to Google’s Safe Search, Qwant Junior filters pages to present age-appropriate results. It also has educational resources built-in, such as kid-friendly news, games, and leisure activities.

    5 Tips for Optimizing Your Content for Qwant

    There is very little information available about Qwant’s algorithms and ranking criteria. However, you can follow some general guidelines if you want your content to rank well in this search engine. Let’s take a look at five best practices.

    1. Ask Qwant to List Your Content

    Many search engines enable you to submit XML sitemaps to list your website’s content quickly. Unfortunately, Qwant doesn’t come with a Search Console like Google or similar feature.

    This search engine automatically scans the internet for new content, and typically lists new websites within a few weeks. However, if your site isn’t showing up, you can contact Qwant directly and report the issue:

    How to contact Qwant

    Then it’s just a matter of waiting for a response from the search engine. In the meantime, you might also want to focus your efforts on Yahoo, Yandex, and Ecosia.

    2. Translate Your Content into French

    As we discussed earlier, Qwant is a French search engine. Although it has translations and content in English-speaking, Asian, and European countries, it still focuses on the French market.

    Therefore, it could be worth translating your content into French to attract more visitors to your website. Fortunately, you don’t have to do this manually. Plugins such as WordPress Multilingual (WPML) can help you translate your posts and pages into more than 40 languages, including French:

    WPML

    WPML can translate all of the elements on your website, including posts, pages, taxonomies, and menus. Additionally, it’s compatible with most leading WordPress themes, including Divi.

    3. Optimize Your Content for Bing

    Although Qwant is a relatively new and smaller search engine, it claims to have more than 20 billion web pages indexed on its servers. However, in some cases, it uses Microsoft Bing to retrieve search results when Qwant doesn’t have enough relevance or capacity for heavy images:

    Microsoft Bing

    Therefore, it could be worth optimizing your content for Bing as well. You can do this by submitting your sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools and using that interface to analyze your rankings.

    It’s also worth registering your brick-and-mortar business on Bing Places, and growing your social media presence. Unlike many other search engines, Bing considers your search engine followers and engagement when ranking your content.

    4. Focus on High-Quality Content

    Most search engines value high-quality content. They use complex algorithms that can identify if posts are informative, well-written, and valuable to readers.

    As such, it’s worth following some best practices when creating new content for your website, such as:

    Remember that content isn’t just about words. Including high-quality images and videos in your posts can engage your readers, convey additional information, and break up walls of text.

    5. Follow SEO Best Practices

    Finally, we recommend following SEO best practices (also known as white hat SEO) to optimize your content for both search engines and readers. Although these tips aren’t Qwant-specific, they are generally applicable to most search engines:

    It might also be worth running an SEO audit on your website. This process can identify areas for improvement and provide actionable advice for enhancing your content.

    Here are some SEO techniques you can start using right now.

    Conclusion

    Qwant is a French search engine that focuses on privacy. It doesn’t collect or store user data, making it a great Google alternative for anyone worried about online privacy.

    To recap, you can optimize your content for Qwant by following these tips:

    1. Ask the search engine to list your content.
    2. Translate your content into French.
    3. Optimize your content for Bing.
    4. Create high-quality content.
    5. Follow SEO best practices.

    Do you have any questions about Qwant? Let us know in the comments section below!

    Featured image via eamesBot / shutterstock.com

    The post What Is Qwant? How to SEO for the Privacy-Minded Search Engine appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

  • A Beginner’s Guide to SEO Copywriting

    Helping your content rank in the SERPs is one of your primary objectives as a website or business owner. A major piece of this puzzle is making sure you incorporate SEO copywriting into your site, as well as any relevant content and marketing materials.

    If you’re new to SEO copywriting, then you’ll need to learn how to incorporate SEO keywords into your overall content strategy. In this post, we’ll walk you through the basics of SEO copywriting, show you what the process looks like, then share some best practices to get you started on the right foot.

    What is Copywriting?

    Copywriting is the process of writing sales-driven copy that prompts your audience to take an action that results in conversions, revenue, or both. You encounter copywriting every day, whether you’re browsing a website, opening an email, or scrolling past a Facebook Ad. Its primary aim is to drive conversions and sales, which means you’ll see a call-to-action (CTA) with a clear next step, such as clicking a button, signing up for a newsletter, or purchasing a product.

    You’ll see copywriting in places such as:

    • Sales and product pages
    • Ads (both online, in print, audio, and video)
    • Social media posts with a CTA
    • Email newsletters that drive sales or conversions
    • Direct mail materials

    Copywriting is commonly confused with content writing, which also factors heavily into the marketing materials we see both online and off. However, the goals of each writing style aren’t the same. Let’s take a look at the differences between copywriting and content writing.

    How is Copywriting Different from Content Writing?

    While copywriting is more sales-driven, content writing aims to educate the reader with high quality content. Furthermore, content writing is about warming leads rather than asking them to make a purchase immediately. Content writing is more likely to take its time leading you to an eventual sale or conversion of some kind.

    An article like this one is a good example of content writing. In this article, the primary goal is to educate you about SEO copywriting. The main call to action at the end of this article is to leave a comment, not make a purchase. There’s not a hard sales pitch at the end of the blog post. Instead, you’ve got a few different options depending on what you want to do next.

    If you’re familiar with Elegant Themes and your interest is piqued, you can go ahead and check out Divi when you’re done reading. If not, you can move on to another educational post and learn a bit more. Later, you might choose to make Divi part of your WordPress website because of the expertise you’ve gleaned from our content.

    In a nutshell, content writing seeks to add value (first) which can eventually lead to sales (second). Copywriting on the other hand, is sales-driven from the start.

    For a more in-depth explanation, read our post on copywriting vs. content writing.

    What is SEO Copywriting?

    SEO copywriting uses targeted keywords and phrases to help your content rank higher on search engines. Because it’s primarily sales-driven, SEO copywriting uses the power of SEO keyword optimization to create high-converting sales copy that also ranks higher in search results. All in all, it’s a powerful strategy for leveling up your sales copy.

    Both SEO copywriting and SEO content writing use the same basic SEO techniques, although the writing style and overall goals differ. While SEO-optimized copywriting drives conversions, such as on a sales page, it makes appearances in pieces of content writing, too.

    Blog posts, for instance, contain CTAs that drive readers directly to a product or service offer. Other places where your SEO copywriting and content writing might overlap include your email marketing, long-form sales pages (which often educate the reader before the sales pitch), social media content, and more.

    The Process of SEO Copywriting

    Wondering what the SEO copywriting process looks like? It can be subjective based on your business, the client, deliverables, and your objectives. Still, there are some basic parts of the process that should be pretty much the same no matter what. Let’s take a look at those.

    Ideation: Pitch or Assignment?

    When it comes to SEO copywriting, the ideation process may look different from one situation to the next. If you’re writing for yourself, you may come up with your own ideas using keyword research tools. If you’re working for a client, you might pitch your own topics. On the other hand, the client might provide assignments to you. Regardless, for SEO copywriting, you’ll want to make sure those topics topics have the necessary keywords to grow help grow rankings as well as sales.

    Pre-Writing

    Pre-writing involves taking your sales content ideas and prepping them for drafting. This process usually involves SEO keyword research (including search intent), topic research, and outlining

    Here are some of the different scenarios I’ve experienced over the years as a copywriter:

    • Writer pitches the topic, conducts SEO and topic research, and builds an outline.
    • Client pitches the topic, then assigns SEO research, topic research, and outlining to the writer.
    • Client pitches the topic, conducts SEO and topic research, and provides the writer with a content brief (or outline) including the focus and secondary keywords they want to target.

    After you have your topic and keywords in hand, you’ll need to do some additional research on your topic. You can take a look at competitors’ posts to get a feel for what’s already ranking in the SERPs. Additionally, you’ll want to search and compile source materials to help you build your post. Always cite your sources. Make sure to use SEO links including external and internal links. Linking to other websites with domain authority, as well as linking to content within your site, will also help to boost your SEO ranking.

    Once you’ve got your topic, SEO keywords, and research, you can build your title and your outline. If possible, make sure you put your main SEO key phrase into your title and the first paragraph of your post. Then, use an SEO plugin such as Yoast as you write to help you distribute the key phrase at the optimal level.

    Oftentimes, you’ll have more than one SEO keyword you want to target. You should have one primary key phrase, along with some related secondary phrases. Try to include some of those secondary phrases as long-tail keywords into the text, but only where they naturally flow. Avoid keyword-stuffing and strategically place your selected phrases here and there when appropriate.

    Writing

    Now, it’s time to start drafting your article. If you’re writing for your own website, you likely have a good idea of how long you want your content to be. However, if you’re not sure, we’ve created a guide on the best word count for SEO.

    SEO copywriting should tell a story that compels your readers to take action. Storytelling is one of the most important aspects of marketing, particularly if you want your audience to feel a profound connection with your brand. As a general rule, marketing content works well when it’s open, approachable, and conversational.

    Your SEO copywriting story should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Depending on the kind of content and its purpose, you might want to explore different sales copy frameworks to help you determine structure. Ray Edwards’ P.A.S.T.O.R. formula is one of my favorites for sales pages and email sequences. There are many examples out there, so test a few to find out what works best for you.

    Use Plugins and Apps to Aid in Clearer Writing

    One way to make sure your content is easy to read is by paying attention to the readability score in your Yoast SEO plugin. This tool will help you keep your writing clear and understandable. Additionally, you’ll get tips on how to improve it further. Sometimes, I’ll run my articles through Hemingway if I’m struggling to simplify complex sentences.

    As you write, you’ll want to make sure you break your content down into sections with H2 and H3 subheads. Breaking content down into bullet lists can also improve readability. Making your SEO copywriting as accessible and easily digestible as possible can help your overall SEO ranking. If you’d like, we have a more in-depth guide to using heading tags for SEO.

    While we’re talking about plugins, it’s important to note that you’ll need a strong meta description for each piece of content. If you’re using Yoast, there’s a plugin right inside your WordPress interface. We’ve written a more in-depth guide on how to write the perfect meta description.

    Don’t Forget the CTA

    Once you’ve drafted your content, broken it up into sections that flow well and make sense, and incorporated your internal and external links, it’s time to add a CTA. Where does your reader need to go next? What do you want them to do? Here are some possibilities:

    • Sign up for your newsletter
    • Sign up for a free download (lead magnet)
    • Enroll in a course
    • Purchase a product
    • Hire you for a service
    • Click through to a related post
    • Schedule a consultation
    • Buy tickets to an event (online or in-person)

    Revision and Publication

    Once you’ve drafted your content, make another pass to clean up any straggling issues (such as grammar or rambling sentences). You’ll also want to make sure to compress image sizes (Page speed does affect SEO). Then, submit it to your client, if applicable. They might come back to you with editorial requests, at which point you’ll need to make final edits and re-submit.

    Finally, it’s time to publish. That might mean publishing via a content management system (CMS) like WordPress or taking a sales page live on your website. Don’t forget to upload a featured image and include any other relevant images in your content. Then, schedule or publish your post.

    4 SEO Copywriting Approaches, Techniques, and Best Practices

    Now that you understand the basics of SEO copywriting, let’s jump into a few best practices.

    1. Consider search intent. Why are your readers searching for the specific topics you’re planning to write about? Tools such as SEMRush can help you analyze search intent, which ultimately helps you to conduct better keyword research–which ultimately leads to better SEO copywriting.
    2. Use the Inverted Pyramid to structure your writing. The Inverted Pyramid is a writing style that journalists use to structure breaking news stories. It places the main idea of a story in the first paragraph (sometimes the first sentence), ensuring that readers get a quick-hit overview of the topic ahead. This writing style translates very well into some forms of copywriting for marketing, such as blogging and social media copy. As a writer with journalism training and experience, I’ve found myself using the Inverted Pyramid often throughout my marketing career.
    3. Stay on-brand. Your SEO copywriting should be consistent with your brand voice. If the tone of your sales writing veers too far from your copy everywhere else, it’ll feel disjointed to your readers and will affect both SEO and conversions.
    4. Adapt style and tone for specific audiences. If you’re writing for multiple brands and audiences, keep your finger on the pulse of who you’re writing for at all times. You’ll need to be able to shift from one client to the next to maintain consistency for them.

    Conclusion

    If you want your content to rank well in the SERPs, then learning the basics of SEO copywriting is an absolute must. Your copy comes into play in a big way when people use search engines to look for the topics you write about. As a result, you want your content to be easy to find.

    Do you leverage SEO copywriting for your website or business? Thinking about getting started? Leave us a comment and let us know.

    Featured image via Julia Lazebnaya / shutterstock.com

    The post A Beginner’s Guide to SEO Copywriting appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

  • WWW vs non-WWW: Which is Better for SEO?

    Your website’s domain and overall URL structure are based on a few technical elements. In this article, we are going to explore using www vs. non-www on your website’s URL and which is better for SEO.

    Both www and non-www have their pros and cons, but ultimately you need to know the implications of what you are choosing. If you aren’t careful, you could create duplicate locations of your website which can hurt your site’s SEO and ranking in the SERPs. Here’s how you can keep the flow of visitors coming by having a properly configured website URL.

    Understanding the Structure of a URL

    It is important to understand that there are many seemingly insignificant details that go into building your website’s URL. Each of these details changes the location of your website and also how search engines, like Google, crawl and index your site.

    HTTP and HTTPS

    HTTP is the standard language protocol to help browsers communicate between clients and servers. Most URLs start with http://. If your site has an SSL Certificate or Transport Layer Security (TLS), the URL will start with https:// instead.

    http://domainname.com
    or…
    https://domainname.com

    Domain Name

    Domain names are a critical part of the internet, allowing users to navigate between websites. This is what you purchase and register at domain registers like Godaddy or Namecheap. Domain names act as human-readable (and rememberable!) addresses. If we didn’t have them, we’d be surfing the web memorizing IP numbers instead of company and brand names.

    In a URL, the domain is a substring that follows the initial http:// or

    https://domainname.com

    WWW Domain Prefix

    The WWW prefix is used to help identify a web address or location. Basically, it is a subdomain (similar to ftp.yourwebsite.com or blog.yourwebsite.com) to identify a more specific location. This is mostly used on larger websites. However, unlike traditional subdomains, it is not necessary these days to include the WWW prefix unless you have a specific reason to do so. In a URL, the www prefix precedes the domain name:

    https://www.domainname.com

    What are WWW and non-WWW?

    When we talk about www vs non-www, we are referring to websites that include the www prefix in the domain name or not.

    Here is a www domain:

    https://www.yourwebsite.com

    And here is a non-www domain:

    https://yourwebsite.com

    The WWW (“Word Wide Web”) prefix has traditionally designated websites that are accessible online. For most of the history of the internet, most websites used a “www” prefix followed by a domain name. Nowadays, it is treated more as a subdomain, making it optional for those looking to streamline their URL with a non-www version of their domain.

    Differences Between WWW vs non-WWW: Pros and Cons

    The internet is a very specific place. At least in terms of web standards. Adoption of new ways of doing things is slow since there are billions of internet users and breaking the internet is in nobody’s best interest. The differences in www and non-www domains may cease to exist someday but there are some user experience and technical differences to understand right now.

    First, it is important to understand that a website URL using WWW is technically an altogether different location than the same website URL using non-WWW.

    For example:
    https://www.yourwebsite.com will take you to a different location than https://yourwebsite.com.

    That is why it is important to be consistent with what you choose. And, use redirects and canonical URLs to make sure you are not getting duplicate content.

    WWW’s Cookie Handling

    Cookies, once a staple of the internet, perform more or less the same whether you use www or non-www on your website.

    That is, for one exception. Websites using www help restrict cookies from transferring across many sub-domains.

    So, if your website uses multiple sub-domains (app.example.com, login.example.com, or help.example.com) and you want cookies to be distinct per each sub-domain, it is better to use the www prefix for your website.

    Image by BadBrother / shutterstock.com

    WWW CDN Configuration

    CDNs are also easier to set up with www domains. There are some CDN providers that don’t handle non-www well at all. But this is a shrinking occurrence.

    Non-www Domains are Better for User Experience

    Using non-www domains is more intuitive on the end-user side of things. Non-www websites are often typed in by internet users by default (even for websites that use www). This means fewer redirects occur when using non-www URLs for sites with plenty of direct traffic. People more or less ignore “www.” prefixes when talking about or referencing URLs.

    How Browsers handle WWW

    Also, modern browsers are starting to hide the www part of websites in the search bar—creating a cleaner way of looking at the site URL. The browser doesn’t strip the URL of www. It simply doesn’t display it unless a user clicks into the URL bar to edit or change the URL.

    Is hiding that element a sign of things to come? Maybe—but for now, browsers are interested in making things as simple as possible for the average internet user. They aren’t concerned about displaying the www prefix since there is no technical difference between them choosing to show it or not.

    How to Check if You Are Using WWW vs non-WWW in WordPress

    Website building platforms, like WordPress, let you view and change the www or non-www version of your website URL. This choice is an awesome benefit of using WordPress but comes with the added responsibility of making informed decisions around its use.

    Important!: Before checking or changing anything. We do not recommend changing previously established websites’ use of www non-www. Whatever you choose while building your website (and when search engines started indexing it) is workable. Only change this on established websites if you are confident with what you are doing and understand how it affects how search engines index your site.

    To check if your site is using WWW or not, go to your Admin Dashboard in WordPress. Navigate from “Settings” to “General”. This will pull up a new page with the options “WordPress Address” and “Site Address”.

    WordPress Settings - General - Website URL - www vs. non-www

    Make sure both of those are the same (in almost all cases) and in accordance with the domain you purchased for the website.

    If you want to make changes and are unsure about what you are doing, it is best to contact your hosting company’s support team for answers.

    SEO Benefits of Using WWW vs non-WWW

    Search engines don’t prefer www or non-www nor take it into account as a ranking factor. So for SEO, choosing one ahead of the other isn’t important. What is important is the proper configuration of ONE of the options — never both. Misconfiguring www or non-www can result in SEO penalties.

    SEO Risk of Duplicate Content

    Having both www and non-www URL versions of a page or post can be considered duplicate content and hurt SEO.

    Duplicate content is content that is repeated on the same website (and in some cases other websites). Some content overlap is always going to happen on any website. However, using both www and non-www creates two full, exact versions of each page, post, and archive location. This essentially creates a duplicate of your whole website—one at www.example.com and one at example.com. This is further complicated if you are also allowing both HTTP and HTTPS protocols on your website.

    Duplicate Content Warning

    Image by hilderifi / shutterstock.com

    This might not seem like a big issue but it can have drastic consequences. Put simply, having two versions of your website will confuse search engines. Search engines will index some of your pages on the www domain and others on the non-www domain.

    You don’t want half of your domain authority building on one of two versions of your base URL. Not only will it get confused about which version to index and rank, but it can also penalize both versions and tank your rankings. This will lead to diminished search traffic and performance for your website.

    If you do have both or have a concern, you can set up 301 redirects. This can redirect the unwanted URL version to the wanted version. For non-WWW domains, many hosting providers will have a redirect to the WWW version of your domain set up by default to avoid any conflict. If not, you can always perform the necessary redirects with a plugin.

    For more, check out our ultimate guide to duplicate content and SEO

    The Importance of Setting a Canonical URL for SEO

    A canonical URL is a self-declared preference submitted to Search Engines of your preferred URL version for a page or domain location. When you have multiple versions of a web page, as we’ve learned is possible, it can cause problems with search engines. This is because they may not know which version of the page to index and show searchers. Indexing issues are made worse by the search engines seeing duplicate content, which can hurt your ranking in search results.

    Setting a canonical URL tells search engines which version of the page you want them to index. This helps them crawl your site more efficiently and prevents duplicate content issues.

    The canonical URL can be set up with Yoast SEO for WordPress. Yoast SEO is a plugin that helps you optimize your website for search engines. On each Page or Post of your website, scroll down to the Yoast SEO Section. Under “Advanced” you will see a field to add that page/post’s canonical URL. This will tell search engines which version you prefer.

    Yoast SEO Canonical URL Advanced Page Options

    Yoast isn’t the only plugin that this. Check out some other WordPress SEO plugins that can help with canonical URLs.

    It is worth noting that canonical tags are your last line of defense for telling search engines which version of your website to index. Canonical tags are also helpful for duplicate content that exists for reasons other than having both www and non-www versions of your website.

    For more, check out our ultimate guide to canonical URLs.

    Overview for Fixing Mixed WWW and Non-WWW URLs

    If you think you have an issue with multiple versions of your website:

    1. Contact your hosting service provider. They should be able to help identify any issues on the server side of things.
    2. Configure your WordPress site to use only one option. This can be done manually or with a plugin.
    3. From there, you can set up 301 redirects from the unwanted version to the desired version. There some great redirect plugins for WordPress to help. This tells Google (and other search engines) that if they’ve indexed the unwanted URL that those pages have moved elsewhere. This process is similar to how you would redirect your WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPs.
    4. Lastly, you can set up canonical URLs to make it explicit which ones are to be preferred by search engines.

    WWW vs non-WWW – Which One Should I Use?

    As we’ve discovered, it is a stalemate in terms of SEO. Using www or a non-www URL won’t affect your site’s SEO. Using a www URL may have some technical benefits in a few areas and maybe for that reason, it should be considered over non-www. The main thing is to be absolutely consistent with your use. Once you choose www or not www—stick with that choice.

    Conclusion

    SEO is an important consideration for any website owner. Choosing to use www vs. non-www in your URL isn’t a major consideration for your site’s search ranking. Just remember to follow the best practices above and you’ll be able to spend your time worrying about other areas of SEO.

    Featured Image via Yasir Design / shutterstock.com

    The post WWW vs non-WWW: Which is Better for SEO? appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.