SEO tips I used to make this website the first result
This summer, I changed my name, from James Howell-Jones to James Spry. I did so for a couple of reasons, but mainly because Spry is a family name that has been married out of existence. Along with all the other challenges that brings, I needed to get my site to the top of Google.
Changing your name is quite a lot of hassle. You have to change your ID, banks, pension account, (in my case) university, car ownership form, insurance, email address… It’s a long process that I’m still working through.
But as a journalist who needs a certain amount of visibility online, the thing I was dreading was changing my domain.
My old website, jameshowelljones.co.uk, sprung to the top of Google fairly quickly — it’s a three word, unique name, so as soon as I’d put up a few posts and shown Google that the website was active, it was easy to get to the top spot. With James Spry, it was not so easy.
After transferring my site to jamesspry.co.uk, I was dismayed to see I was on page 5 of Google. The wasteland, as it’s otherwise known. Oh the irony: I change my name to save the Spry name from extinction, and it turns out there are hundreds of people called James Spry! I was determined to get to the top of that search, so something needed to change.
How I got to the top of Google in five steps
Step one was to improve the links on every post. Firstly, I went through each of my posts and removed any dead links (of which there were many, now the GCN website has been wiped). Then I created a linking structure between all of my posts, inserting a handful of relevant ‘read more’ links in each post. And I added outbound links wherever possible, linking to wikipedia pages, brand websites and social media profiles. Finally, I added a link back to the homepage at the bottom of every post — essential if I wanted my homepage to climb to the top of Google.
Step two was to add a target keyword and meta description to every page. I did this using Yoast SEO, a fantastic service that allows you to edit things like the meta description, as well as giving feedback on the SEO credentials of every page. I did some rejigging on most pages, based on Yoast’s recommendations, to promote the keyword more regularly.
Step three was more of a fix than an enhancement. For some reason, my WordPress was set so that the slug for each page was a numeric code, terrible for SEO. I switched the URLs to default to the page title… then went back and redid my internal links completely. Annoying!
Step four was to sort out my homepage. Initially, I had wanted a slimmed down homepage with very limited text, but that wasn’t going to work. So I set about bolstering my homepage. I applied all the steps above, adding more text, more links, and my own name thrown in way more regularly than it was before. Every image had ‘James Spry’ somewhere in the alt text, caption AND file name.
Step five should have been obvious. Whilst messing around with my homepage, I realised that I had set the publish date for some time in 2022 — no doubt when I first set up this website! I resolved that, setting the homepage publish date to a more recent date. Then I realised it was the same story with my posts. Most were from 2022/23! I needed fresh material. I wrote a quick update about how I’m preparing for my masters, and now I’m writing this.
SEO changes take time, so with my updates complete, I went away for a long weekend in Wales. I came back yesterday, gave myself a quick google on incognito, and voila! Top spot. I was pleased enough that I thought it was worth writing about.
SEO targets for the future
But the SEO arms race is not over. I still have a few sticking points:
- I am having trouble getting the alt text on my homepage images to show correctly, probably because of the block plugin I’m using.
- I need people to link to this site! One of the best ways to gain authority is to get people to link to your site. Currently no one links to this one, as you might expect. The solution is to get some guest posts up on other people’s sites. Time to fire off some emails methinks!
- Although I am the top text result, I am not the top image result. Presumably I can improve this?? So that will be another thing to consider.
- I would like my Linkedin and X to be below my name in the search too. More posts/followers needed maybe?
Hopefully, dear reader, you have learnt a little about basic SEO practice. And if you knew this stuff already, then nice! Maybe you can help me with my four bullet points I am yet to solve? If so let me know.
For the time being, I am planning to keep pushing my SEO credential over the coming weeks. Hopefully I can cement my place at the top then I can redesign my homepage to be nicer to navigate and less SEO-focussed!
