Search Engine Optimization: SEO

How to configure and analyze SEO

Updated yesterday

This article gives instructions on how to set up and use the Monsido SEO module.

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Introduction

The Search Engine Optimization feature highlights the issues that exist across website pages and assigns a priority level. Click any issue for a summary of the recommendation.

Find SEO errors such as:

  • Missing header tags

  • META description improvement suggestions

  • Broken links.

Highlight errors with an icon for easy location and repair. Monsido provides guidelines on how to improve search engine ranking and other optimization opportunities.


Priority Rankings:

  • High Priority Alerts: These issues are rated as high priority:

    • Missing H1

      The H1 header tag is typically the first header tag visible on a page. In order to make it stand out, H1 tags are formatted differently from other page tags. When search engines crawl pages, H1 tags are used to help accurately identify their content. Also, visitors are better able to navigate web pages that feature H1 tags. Having no H1 tags on a page makes it difficult for search engines to crawl your content with accuracy and for your visitors to navigate your content, negatively affecting SEO.

    • Title found on more than one page

      Title tags allow both users and search engines to quickly understand what content they can expect to find on a page. More than one title tag on a page may confuse search engines and users as to the contents of a page, and therefore harm SEO.

    • Missing title

      Title tags allow both users and search engines to quickly identify what content they can expect to find on a page. Pages with no title tag can therefore adversely affect search engine rankings and the user click-through rate from search results. The recommendation is to always include a title tag that clearly communicates what the page is about.

  • Medium Priority Alerts: These issues are rated as medium priority:

    • Images missing ALT

      As search engines cannot ‘‘see’’ images on web pages the way we can, an image with a missing ALT tag can cause the site to be ranked lower due to unintended keywords, or not being ranked at all. ALT tags on images should describe the image as accurately as possible.

      Missing ALT tags for images can also have a negative impact on the level of ADA compliance on the website. Visitors who use assistive technologies such as screen readers rely on ALT tags to navigate and understand the website content.

      For more information, see the User Guide chapter:

    • Too short content on page

      A page may be perceived as being ‘’thin’’ by search engines if it does not contain a certain amount of content. While there is no clear rule as to the amount of content a page should have, it is advisable to have a minimum of 300 words.

    • Multiple H1 on page

      H1 tags allow both users and search engines to quickly understand what content they can expect to find on a page. A page with more than one title tag may confuse search engines and users as to the contents of a page, and can affect the SEO. Use only one Header 1 per page to increase SEO.

    • Missing subheadings

      Subheadings allow both users and search engines to quickly identify what content they can expect to find on a page. A site with no subheadings can receive a lower search engine ranking and a low click-through rate from search results. Always include subheadings to identify specific sections of content and increase SEO.

    • (Identical) H1 found on more than one page

      H1 tags allow both users and search engines to quickly identify what content they can expect to find on a page. A site with more than one page that has the same H1 tag may confuse search engines and negatively impact your rankings and your click-through rate from search results. Make all of the H1 tags across the domain unique and relevant to the on-page content to increase SEO.

  • Low Priority Alerts: These issues are rated as low priority:

    • Too short META description

      Meta descriptions are important as they help users and search engines identify what content they can expect to find on a page. A short meta description may not contain enough characters to effectively communicate the content of a page accurately, and this can negatively impact SEO.

    • Too many internal links

      Search engines use links to determine how relevant a page is to specific search criteria. It is therefore important to ensure that all of your internal links are useful for your visitors. While no absolute rule exists as to how many internal links a page should contain, it is advisable not to overload a page with internal links and to make sure all of your internal links are appropriate to the site content.

    • Too long URL

      URL length is listed as #46 in Google’s top 200 ranking factors. Although there is no exact rule as to how long URLs should be, shorter URLs tend to rank higher on web searches. Shorter URLs benefit users as they are clearer and more attractive when copied in full.

    • Too long META description

      In order to display fully in search engine results, it is generally considered best practice to keep meta descriptions between 150-160 characters. Meta descriptions that are longer than this can run the risk of containing text that provides no added value to users and search engines and negatively impact SEO. Monsido recommends that you keep your meta descriptions to below 160 characters where possible.

  • Technical SEO Issues: This section gives an overview of technical issues that could be harmful to your SEO. [Please note that the issues listed here may not in fact be issues and therefore require manual review.]

    • Pages with - No index

      Pages with a no-index tag are listed here for review. As we cannot determine through scanning whether pages have been given a no-index tag intentionally, these results must be manually reviewed to see if any remedial action is required.

    • Links with - No-follow

      Pages with a no-follow tag are listed here for review. As we cannot determine through scanning whether pages have been given a no-follow tag intentionally, these results must be manually reviewed to see if any remedial action is required.


Setup

The Search Engine Optimization feature is included in all Monsido packages. It requires no setup.


Checklist

Monsido provides a quick-start checklist to help users get started.

For more information, see the Monsido resource:


Instructions

This section gives information on how to navigate to the SEO module.

  1. Click SEO (the chart icon), on the Dashboard toolbar.

    Image that shows the location of the SEO button on the page toolbar.

  2. The Search Engine Optimization page opens to the Summary view. From the menu on the left, select:


Summary

This is the landing page for SEO. The page has the following sections:

  • Most common opportunities found:

    Image showing the Most Common Opportunities Found section of the SEO Summary page.

    This section lists the most common opportunities discovered on your site and the number of pages potentially affected by the issues. From this view, it is possible to ignore a particular issue or to view the affected pages. The opportunities can include:

    • Too many internal links

    • Header checks

    • Images that have no ALT text

    • META description text length

    • Title checks.

    • Click the arrow on the same row as an issue and select Ignore this Check or View Pages.

  • SEO diagnostics:

    Image that shows the location of the SEO Diagnostics section on the SEO dashboard.

    • This section gives an overview of the SEO diagnostics compliance rates.

      • A chart shows the percentage of pages that are compliant with all SEO checks, the number of SEO opportunities found, and the total number of pages with SEO opportunities.

      • The Industry Average shows the industry-wide average of compliance. The results appear in the SEO Diagnostics section.

        For more information, see the User Guide chapter:

    • A line graph details the number of opportunities found across the domain, when they were discovered, their priority level, and the pages where they are present.

    • Show History: Click the link for a view of SEO diagnostics over time.

  • Affected pages by priority:

    Image showing the Affected Pages by Priority section of the SEO summary page.

    • Affected pages by priority shows the distribution of SEO levels across the customers site. These results are broken up into high, medium, and low priority, and well as technical SEO issues.

      For more information, see the User Guide article:


Pages with Opportunities

This page shows the website pages with opportunities that can be edited to improve webpage performance.

Image that shows an example of how the Pages with Opportunities page can appear.

From the menu on the left, select Pages with Opportunities. The page has the following sections:

  • This page is a list of web pages that have possible SEO opportunities. The columns in the table are:

    • Title and URL for each page with an SEO opportunity.

    • Notifications: The number of notifications on the page.

    • Priority: The priority level of the issues.
      For more information, see the User Guide article:
      Priority, Severity, Difficulty, and Likelihood.

    • Views: The number of views the page has received.

    • Open page details (pages icon): View all issues for the page.

      Image of the Page Details for a page in SEO with opportunities.

      • Click Action and select:

        • Ignore on this page: Ignore the check for this page only.

        • Mark as Fixed: Mark the issue as fixed. Note: The issue cannot be opened in the browser extension after this option is applied.

        • Ignore this check for this domain: Ignore the check for the entire domain.

          Note: The difference between Mark as Fixed and Mark as Ignored is that issues marked as Fixed are still included in future scans and can be flagged again if the error persists. Issues that are set to Ignore are permanently omitted from future scans and compliance scores.

    • Redirect to the page: Click to navigate to the URL and view the page as a visitor.


SEO Checkpoints

This page shows the number of pages that are compliant with all SEO checks, as well as the overall number of SEO opportunities found across the entire domain and the number of pages with SEO opportunities.

From the menu on the left, select SEO Checkpoints. The page has the following sections:

  • High Priority: See Priority, Severity, Difficulty, and Likelihood for a description of the issues.

    • Issue: The name of the issue.

    • Ignore: Click to ignore the issue. The issue will not be flagged in future scans.

    • Compliance: Percentage of compliance for the issue.

    • Pages: Number of pages this error is found on. Click to open the page view.

  • Medium Priority: See Priority, Severity, Difficulty, and Likelihood for a description of the issues.

    • Issue: The name of the issue.

    • Ignore: Click to ignore the issue. The issue will not be flagged in future scans.

    • Compliance: Percentage of compliance for the issue.

    • Pages: Number of pages this error is found on.

  • Low Priority: See Priority, Severity, Difficulty, and Likelihood for a description of the issues.

    • Issue: The name of the issue.

    • Ignore: Click to ignore the issue. The issue will not be flagged in future scans.

    • Compliance: Percentage of compliance for the issue.

    • Pages: Number of pages this error is found on.

  • Technical SEO Issues: See Priority, Severity, Difficulty, and Likelihood for a description of the issues.

    • Issue: The name of the issue.

    • Ignore: Click to ignore the issue. The issue will not be flagged in future scans.

    • Compliance: Percentage of compliance for the issue.

    • Pages: Number of pages this error is found on.


History Center

The History Center stores all SEO issues and details from previous scans.

  1. From any page within Monsido, click History Center (bar graph icon), located on the top menu bar.

    The location of the History Center button located on the main Monsido Dashboard.

    The History Center landing page opens.

    The History Center landing page.

    The page contains the following layout:

  2. Domain: In the first field, click to expand the list of domains.

    An example of how the expanded list appears in the Select Module field.

  3. Click to select a domain from the list or switch to another domain.

  4. Module: In the second field, click to expand the list of available modules.

    The drop-down arrow in the second column, expanded.

  5. Click to select SEO from the drop-down list. The SEO page of the History Center opens.

    • The topmost section gives information on the profile that is being used for the results shown.

      • Viewing as Profile: This shows the performance profile that is being used.

        For more information, see the User Guide chapter:

        Performance in the section Add Profile.

      • Device: The type of device used.

      • Measure from: Distance from the server location.

      • Network speed: The speed of the network.

      • Check frequency: The frequency of the check.

        Important: The Dashboard always shows data with the default profile selected. To change this, select a new profile (click the drop-down arrow to see the available profiles). Please be aware that changing the profile causes the numbers on all 3 sections inside the Performance module to update accordingly.

    • Graph with performance speed and date as well as a donut chart showing the average performance score.

    • Scan history results: This table shows valuable scan data from previous scans.

      • Crawled at: Date and time of scan.

      • Pages crawled: Number of pages scanned.

      • Domain compliance: Percentage of compliance achieved.

      • Comparison to average: The score of the website as compared with the average score within the industry.

      • SEO Opportunities: The number of opportunities for improvement, broken down into category icons.

      • Changes since previous crawl: Percentage of changes made since the last scan.

    For more information, see the User Guide chapter:


SEO Score

This section is coming soon.


SEO Reports

On the Reports page in the Reports module, locate the SEO section to see the reports available for this module.

The SEO section on the Report Center landing page. The list of reports as shown here are in the text below this image.

The available reports for the SEO module are:

  • Search Engine Optimization Summary Report

  • Pages with SEO opportunities report

  • SEO opportunities report

  • SEO high priority opportunities report

  • SEO medium priority opportunities report

  • SEO low priority opportunities report

  • SEO technical opportunities report.

  1. Click Schedule This Report (calendar icon) on the same row as the report to receive the report as an email attachment. Multiple selection is allowed.

  2. Click Open Report (eye icon) to get the newest report.

  3. Click Report Administration (gear icon) to add other users to receive the report.

For more information, see the user guide article:


Additional Resources

For more information, see the User Guide articles:

For definitions and explanations of acronyms and abbreviations used in the Monsido User Guide, see:

For further assistance, contact the Monsido support team at support@monsido.com or use the Monsido chat and help features inside the application.

Image of the toolbar with the Help Center buttons highlighted.

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