Covering the latest product updates and SEO news.
I had a fun interview with Cristian from Tekpon some time ago.We talked about getting started in SEO, what it takes to build an SEO tool, and my plans for the future. Also, we talked about what it takes for an SEO professional to succeed, and how everyone with the right mindset can achieve success in this business.See the full interviewRead about SiteGuru on Tekpon
Read more20% of the people using the internet live with a disability. To make sure people with disabilities can use your website, you'll need to make sure it is accessible.Governments have also realized the importance of good accessibility: the EU has launched the The European Accessibility Act (EAA) which needs to result in more accessible online services.About 80% of all websites use one of the top 12 content management systems, like Wordpress,...
Read moreWhile working on a new website, developers or content managers often add some dummy text to the page. It's an easy way to find out what the page will look like when the real content is added.But all too often, this content is never removed and ends up on the live website. Oops. That looks bad!You'll find these lorem ipsum texts all over the internet. Our new Lorem Ipsum checker finds all the pages that have dummy content on them, so...
Read moreLooking for quick SEO wins? Of course you are! The newest report in SiteGuru Insights helps you do just that. What is the low-hanging fruit report?The new Low-hanging fruit report shows you pages ranking on page 1 or 2 in Google, but not in the top 3. With some SEO magic, you might be able to boost the rankings for those pages and get a lot of extra traffic for relevant keywords.How can I improve the rankings?That's where our on-page...
Read moreSiteGuru’s broken link checker is one of our most loved features. Today we’re announcing a change to the broken link checker.Up until now, SiteGuru checks both your internal links (pointing to other pages on the same website) and external links (pointing to pages on other websites). Going forward, we’ll only check internal links. In this post, we’ll explain why, and what this means for you.What does this mean for me?SiteGuru can no longer...
Read moreWe've launched an existing new feature today: the Internal Competing Pages report. This report helps you quickly find pages ranking for the same keyword, within the same site. This type of internal competition often leads to lower rankings for your site as a whole. What is internal competition?Internal competition happens when two or more pages of the same site rank for the same keyword in search engines. This can happen when...
Read moreWhat’s happening with Google Analytics?Big news from Google Analytics today: the original version (Universal Analytics, or UA) will stop working on July 1, 2023. The newer version is GA 4, which works quite differently. If you’re using Google Analytics UA and don’t have a GA4 property yet, now is the time for action.Why does this matter?Google Analytics is the most used analytics tool and provides valuable data for every SEO. And because...
Read moreYesterday, Google released its Page Inspection API. Today, we're showing their data in your reports.If you've connected your SiteGuru account to Google Search Console, your reports have more meaningful data:The indexability report now includes the Google Coverage Status, like 'Submitted and Indexed' or 'Crawled - currently not indexed' The indexability report also has the last crawl date (when Google last visited this page) The...
Read moreSEO Chatter is a great SEO resource, keeping you up to date on all the latest SEO news. Stephen Hockman from SEO Chatter asked me to write a bit about SEO audits, and why they are important. I've done a whole lot of SEO audits in my career, so I happily wrote down why I think audits are a crucial element of every SEO project. I also explained why SEO audits are never a one-off thing: continuously monitoring sites for SEO issues...
Read moreG2 is a software review website that collects thousands of software reviews for all types of software products. Every quarter, the software with the highest reviews are awarded with various badges. We're pleased to announce that SiteGuru has been awarded with the High Performer badge in the SEO software category.Next to that, we received specific awards for High Performer for small businesses and High performer in Europe. What got us...
Read moreGoogle has introduced Continuous Scrolling on the mobile search results page. Instead of clicking to page 2 once you get to the bottom of the first pages, Google now automatically loads in the next results. It's now easier to keep scrolling for more results, without having to click on a More Results button first. I personally think this is great news for SEOs. We used to say: "the best place to hide a dead body is on page 2 of...
Read moreGoogle is getting more creative with SERPs, and now sometimes picks the H1 instead of the page title to show as the link.In the SEO pre-historic days, a Google SERP would consist of the page title (the <title> tag in the head) in blue, with a meta description below that. Those days are long gone. The meta description is only shown in roughly 30% of searches. That's because often, Google finds a different text snippet on the page that...
Read moreAre you using the newest version of Google Analytics? Good news: you can now connect your Analytics account to SiteGuru Insights, and get all your online marketing data in one place.Google released GA4 (previously known as App + Web) about 2 years ago and it has matured in recent months. Google even opened up their API, which means we can connect to it and load your data in SiteGuru.To connect your site to GA4, go to Settings and...
Read morePosition Digital just published a list of ultimate SEO software and tools, and we're happy to see SiteGuru is in it!As a bootstrapped start-up, we're honored to be mentioned alongside big names like Ahrefs, Semrush and Majestics.Position Digital is an agency specializing in SEO, content marketing, link buildign and outreach.
Read moreWe're excited to introduce SiteGuru Insights. A new feature that brings all SEO data into one report and saves you a lot of time. SiteGuru Insights is Google Analytics, Search Console, and your SEO audit combined into one powerful report. It connects the dots between on-page SEO issues and performance metrics. Just connect your Google account, and link your Analytics and Search Console properties to the SEO report. We'll gather...
Read moreIf you're doing an SEO audit for a big site, it's sometimes hard to quickly get a good overview of the site structure. The new Site Tree report helps you do just that: a nice big tree showing all your pages based on your URL Structure. Here's a sample of ours: The tree is based on your URL structure. It helps you quickly see where most of your content sits. Great to quickly get a good overview of a new client's site. or to see how a...
Read moreG2, a leading software review site, has listed SiteGuru as a High Performer in its Fall 2020 SEO report. We're super excited to be recognized for the quality of our product. The placement in the report is based on customer reviews. Here's a quick glimpse into some of the reviews, that put a big smile on our faces:"Another Great SEO Audit Tool"- Hapreet, Business Analyst"A very good On Page SEO Tool. One Of The Best I've used"-...
Read moreHreflang tags are an important tool for international SEO. Hreflangs help you target the right audience internationally. If you have different pages for different countries or languages, hreflangs let you specify which audience you are targeting with that page. If you do this correctly, you avoid sending searchers to a page in a wrong country or language.Setting up the right hreflangs can be pretty complex. It's easy to make a small mistake...
Read moreAs an SEO, you never work alone. You manage the website of clients and you work together with developers and copywriters. That's what makes SEO fun. But it can also be complex: how do you make sure you're all on the same page? Good news: it's now possible to invite clients and colleagues to SiteGuru. They get access to the same report you're using, and if they want, get the same email updates.How does it work? SiteGuru customers can add...
Read morePage speed is important for SEO. That's why we use Google Pagespeed to check how fast your pages are loading. This helps you quickly identify slow pages. What has changed? Google has changed how they measure the speed of your page. This gives a better estimation of how visitors will experience your page. There's one downside: these checks may show up as sessions in Google Analytics. This pollutes your Google Analytics reports. ...
Read moreWe analyzed 242.000 pages across 1200 websites for Structured Data. Here's what we found. Structured Data is a superpower for SEOs: it increases your visibility in the SERPs and Featured Snippets, and it makes it easier for Google to understand what your page is about.At SiteGuru, we analyze over 242.000 web pages across 1200 sites every week. We recently introduced the Structured Data Analysis in the checks we run on a page. We got...
Read moreIt’s not a secret that Google PageSpeed is an important ranking factor for SEO. Google’s Addy Osmani and Ilya Grigorik said it themselves: "users want to find answers to their questions quickly and data shows that people really care about how quickly their pages load." This is one of the reasons why SiteGuru uses (mobile) PageSpeed to measure the speed at which your website loads. In this article, I’ll summarize 7 quick wins to help you...
Read moreToday I'm introducing a new feature that I'm super excited about: the structured data report. Structured Data is a great way to increase your visibility in Google, and helps Google better understand the content on your website. Google is showing more and more featured snippets on top of the search results, and that's a perfect place to be if you want to succeed in SEO. Structured data helps you do that: by labeling your products, blogs,...
Read moreLast week Google made some changes to how featured snippets are shown on the search results page. This has caused quite a stir in the SEO world. In this post, I'll explain what's happening and how you should handle this. What is a featured snippet?A featured snippet is a special kind of search result that appears on top of the list. It's also called position zero. You'll often see them for question-based searches (what / when / how / who)....
Read moreCanonical URLs: an SEO's best friend if used correctly. But also a source of major SEO fails if used incorrectly. It can be hard to keep track of all the canonical cross-references. That's why I've added the Canonical Report to SiteGuru. It shows you which canonical URLs are used where. To make crawling as efficient as possible, it also highlights which canonicals are indirect (i.e., a canonical which has a canonical itself). The...
Read moreSitemaps are an essential part of your SEO toolkit. Submit them to Google Search Console to speed up indexing, and you the coverage report to find out how well your site is indexed. But how do you know if your sitemap is complete? And how do you know it doesn't use URLs that are redirected, wasting crawl budget? Or worse, your sitemap could have pages that no longer exist. That's why I've added the Sitemap Report to SiteGuru. The...
Read moreYou've heard how important page titles and meta descriptions are. By crafting the perfect title and description, you'll make more searchers click on your site in Google.Our new SERP preview feature shows you exactly how your page will look in the SERP (Search Engine result page), both on desktop and mobile. A great way to find out which pages need some tweaking to look perfect in Google. The SERP previews are available for all...
Read moreStarter Story is a great place to read about the success stories and challenges of successful entrepreneurs. Pat Walls of Starter Story interviewed me about how I came up with the idea for SiteGuru.We talked about my background, how I went from coming up with the idea for SiteGuru, and how SiteGuru launched. We also discussed what tactics I used to gain more traction and my plans for the future. I shared some of the lessons I learned as an...
Read moreGoogle announced today that it introduces two new rel-attributes for links. For years, the rel="nofollow" attribute on links has been used to indicate that a link should not be followed by Google. The main use was to avoid link-scheme penalties from Google. Today, Google announced that this attribute will only be considered a hint, instead of a clear directive. Additionally, two new attributes have been introduced:rel="ugc", for user...
Read moreGoogle has just released a new Analytics product, the App + Web property. It combines data from apps (previously Firebase) and the web (Google Analytics) into one. But it's more than combining data. It seems to be a brand new way of measuring. What is Google Analytics App + Web? First of all, it combines App and Web data. But despite its name, that's not the most interesting thing about it. More importantly, Google is moving away from...
Read moreCourtland Allen from IndieHackers interviewed me about building and growing SiteGuru to 5.000 users. It's about what motivated me to get started, attracting new users and finding the right business model.Interested in the story behind SiteGuru? Read the full interview.
Read moreG2 Crowd is a leading product review site. Just last week, they released their Summer Report.SiteGuru was named High Performer in the Small Business Search Marketing category, as well as in the SEO category. That's great, but what's even better: this is based on customer reviews. It means our clients are happy with SiteGuru.Want to know what our clients wrote about us? See the reviews in SiteGuru's G2 Crowd profile.Thanks all for the positive...
Read morePDF reports have been a much requested feature. I'm happy to announce that you can now export your website reports to PDF. This lets you easily share your website report with your clients, colleagues or development team.The report includes the most important checks we run on your site: page titles, meta descriptions, broken links, pagespeed, redirects and the technical set up of your website. Working together to fix your website was never...
Read moreBroken links always suck, but internal broken links are even worse. Therefore, we now show the broken link report in 2 sections: one for internal broken links, and one for external broken links. This helps you focus on internal broken links first, and fix those nasty external links later.The other change is related to the internal redirects report. Ideally, you should always point links to the right location directly. Sometimes, that isn't...
Read moreI've recently changed SiteGuru's pricing. It's now fairer and simpler and puts you in control.Like most online businesses, SiteGuru used to have 3 different plans. Each plan would let you add a fixed number of websites, and for each of those websites, it would crawl a fixed number of pages.That seemed simple, but it didn't feel right. What if you have just one website, but that website has a large number of pages? Or what if you have 10...
Read moreAbout a year ago, I launched Siteguru, my SEO tool. Right now, the tool has over a thousand users. This is how I did it. Some background info: SiteGuru is a free SEO tool. Initially, you could check just one page and would have to sign up to analyze your entire site. Signing up is free, and I offer paid plans for analyzing more pages. Starting off: Adwords Right after I launched the first MVP of my product, I ran a few Adwords...
Read moreMost sites get more mobile traffic than desktop. And as you may know, Google is starting to use it's Mobile First Index for searches. Bottom line: mobile is more important than ever, and that's not going to change anytime soon. We're using Google Pagespeed to calculate the speed of your pages. This tool reports a score for your pagespeed on mobile, and one for desktop.Up until now, we were using the desktop score in our reporting. Given the...
Read moreFrom the start, I knew email notifications would be an essential part of a great SEO tool. For you as a site owner, it’s nice to get regular updates on how your site is doing. For me, it’s a great way to keep in touch and remind you to regularly check out SiteGuru.co. Win-win, right?Initially, you would get an update every week after we crawled your site. It’s just a simple list of things that you can improve on your website - the same as in...
Read moreYour local SEO results have the power to exponentially grow your customer base online. Think of your local search practices as the new super highway billboard, directing traffic to your online products and services. Improved results mean more customers, and more business income. Your goal is to become the local business that everyone in your area finds, likes and chooses above all of your competitors in search. It’s not as easy as it...
Read moreUpdate: Google has since reverted the length of the meta descriptions back to the original 120 - 170 characters.For years, SEO specialists have been telling that the perfect length for a meta description is around 150 characters. That is based on the space Google allows in the SERP: using a maximum of 170 makes your meta description fit perfectly in the little text snippet.Recently Google has given the snippet a bit more space. As a...
Read moreDon't you just hate it when you click on a link, and get an ugly 404 error page? Broken links are hard to prevent and super frustrating. As your website grows, you'll have hundreds of links, and there's no way to check them all by hand. Inevitably, at some point, your website will have broken links, annoying your visitors and hurting your search rankings. That's why SiteGuru will now check all your pages for broken...
Read moreProduct Hunt is a great website for finding awesome new products and apps. When launching a new product, posting it on Product Hunt is a great way to reach a large, tech-savvy audience and get their feedback. Visitors can upvote products they like, and the more upvotes you get, the more visibility you'll get.SiteGuru has launched a couple of months ago and after lots of testing, I felt it was ready to be launched on ProductHunt. In this blog...
Read moreI recently built a website testing tool, www.siteguru.co. After 2 months of developing, I was ready to show it to the world.Normally, I would launch a big Adwords campaign and email all the blogs I could find to promote my awesome new website. This time, I tried a different approach. I wanted to draw a small number of visitors to my website. Watch what they are doing, and learn from that. The results:I validated that people actually want to...
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