Help & Support Tutorials

Clicking that will open up a details pane with some basic info about the post’s current SEO-optimized title and description, including colored indicators showing their character counts. Those indicators will appear green if the count is within the recommended range, or yellow if the count is less than or greater than the recommended range.

You’ll also see a few new columns in the post/page list.

• SEO – If Page Analysis is enabled in SmartCrawl > Settings. Note that this column will only show data if the SEO Analysis has already been run for focus keywords at least once.
• Readability – If Readability Analysis is enabled in SmartCrawl > Settings. Note that this column will only show data if the Readability test has already been run at least once.
• Robots Meta – Shows the index settings you have enabled for crawler instructions.

Hovering your mouse over the number indicator in the SEO column will reveal a quick overview of the recommendations SmartCrawl has for that page or post.

If you find those columns take up too much space on your screen, or you don’t really need them there, they can be toggled on/off by opening up the Screen Options tab and checking/unchecking those columns.

You’ll also find a handy SEO Status column on categories, tags, and custom taxonomy pages to indicate whether the SEO description is set and has the recommended length.

You’ll see a green checkmark if the SEO description is set and contains the recommended 120 to 160 characters. If it is missing, you’ll see a red (x) and if it is too long or too short, you’ll see a yellow (!). Hover over any icon to reveal a tooltip with additional information.

• SEO – This is where you can customize the SEO title and description that appears in search engine results pages, and run a full SEO analysis of your post.
• Readability – This uses the Flesch-Kincaid Test to determine how easily readable your content is for the average reader.
• Social – Customize the post’s OpenGraph elements for sharing to social networks.
• Advanced – Includes indexing, sitemap and automatic linking options for the post.

SEO Tab

Under the SEO tab, you’ll see a preview of how Google sees your post meta, with the title at the top, followed by the post permalink, and your post description.

Edit Meta

Click the Edit Meta button to pop open an editor where you can customize the title and description. You’ll see the same color-coded character counts as previously described to help you get the perfect length.

Click the [+] icon in either field to add dynamic data using the built-in macros. Click any to automatically add to the corresponding field; you can add as many as you need to create the ideal structure for your title and description. You can also add plain text in each as well if you like.

The following macros are currently supported in the title and description fields:

• Post/page ID – %%id%%
• Title of the post/page – %%title%%
• Post/page excerpt (or auto-generated if it does not exist) – %%excerpt%%
• Post/page excerpt (without auto-generation) – %%excerpt_only%%
• Post/page modified time – %%modified%%
• Date of the post/page – %%date%%
• Post/page author’s ‘nicename’ – %%name%%
• Post/page author’s userid – %%userid%%
• Post/page author’s description – %%user_description%%
• Post categories (comma separated) – %%category%%
• Current tag/tags – %%tag%%
• Separator – %%sep%%
• Site’s name – %%sitename%%
• Site’s tagline / description – %%sitedesc%%
• Current page number (i.e. page 2 of 4) – %%page%%
• Current page total – %%pagetotal%%
• Current page number – %%pagenumber%%
• Current page number, spelled out as numeral in English – %%spell_pagenumber%%
• Current page total, spelled out as numeral in English – %%spell_pagetotal%%
• Current page number, spelled out as numeral in English – %%spell_page%%
• Current time – %%currenttime%%
• Current date – %%currentdate%%
• Current month – %%currentmonth%%
• Current year – %%currentyear%%

SEO Analysis

Scroll a little further down under the SEO tab and you’ll see the SEO Analysis section if you’ve enabled that option in SmartCrawl Settings.

You can analyze the post content for up to three focus keywords. Enter each keyword individually and click the Add Keyword button for each one, or enter all keywords separated by commas and click the Add Keyword button just once.

The first keyword you enter will be considered as your primary keyword, while the optional second and third ones will be analyzed as secondary keywords.

Analysis results for each keyword will appear under their own separate tabs so you can adjust your post content according to recommendations for each one as needed.

After each content adjustment, click the Refresh button to run the analysis again for the same keywords.

For each focus keyword, SmartCrawl will give you a list of recommendations to improve the SEO of your post. Recommendations will be highlighted in yellow, while passed audits will be highlighted in green.

Click any recommendation to reveal details about what you can do to improve things. If you decide any recommendation is not needed, you can click the Ignore button so it doesn’t keep popping up every time you run the analysis. Every ignored recommendation is accompanied by a Restore button. Click Restore to revert the ignored recommendation.

Note that the Focus Keyword feature does not add anything to the source code of your post. It simply enables you to analyze the post content in real-time based on a specified keyword, and get recommendations to improve the post SEO for that keyword.

Readability Tab

Under the Readability tab, simply click the Refresh button to run the Flesch-Kincaid Test and see how well your post reads for the average English reader. Any score above 70 is considered good here.

Note that your post must be in either Draft or Published status for the Readability analysis to work, as it scans the content output, not what is in the post editor.

Social Tab

If you would like your post’s title, description and/or featured image(s) to be different when shared to social networks, enable OpenGraph support for the post under the Social tab, and configure the specifics you need.

Advanced Tab

Under the Advanced tab, you can adjust the indexing options for the post if you want them to be other than what you have set for the post type’s defaults in SmartCrawl > Title & Meta.

• Index – Instruct search engines whether or not you want this post to appear in search results.
• Follow – Tells search engines whether or not to follow the links on your page and crawl them too.
• Archive – Instructs search engines whether to store a cached version of this page or not.
• Snippet – Allows search engines to show a snippet of this page in the search results and prevents them from caching the page.

Under this same tab, you can also set optional canonical or redirect URLs, and enable/disable automatic linking in the post if that feature is enabled in SmartCrawl > Advanced Tools.

SmartCrawl suggests In-Post SEO Recommendations for every focus keyword for which your post content has been analyzed.

Click on any recommendation to expand it and find additional information about how it can benefit your post SEO.

Below is a list of all the available SEO Recommendations included with SmartCrawl:

Your focus keyword(s) aren’t used in the SEO title

Try Including the focus keyword(s) in the SEO title of a post. Including focus keyword(s) in the SEO title increases the chances of your article ranking higher up in the search results for the targeted keyword(s).

Your SEO title is too short

Your SEO title should have a nice length, neither too short nor too long. Keeping the length of your title between 50 – 65 characters (including spaces) is recommended, 60 being the sweet spot.

Title is longer than 65 characters

SEO titles are cut off visually to a certain degree. Therefore, having long titles can affect the readability and SEO of your content.

The SEO description doesn’t contain your focus keywords

An SEO description without your focus keywords has less chance of matching what your visitors are searching for, compared to a description that includes them. It’s worth trying to get your focus keywords in there, just remember to keep it readable and natural.

Your meta description is less than 120 characters

Meta descriptions provide users a short summary of what a page is about. Keeping your meta descriptions between 120 – 160 characters (including spaces) is recommended. This helps in achieving a right balance between readability and keyword density.

You haven’t used your focus keywords in the page URL

Google does index your page URL. Using your focus keywords in the page slug can help your page rank higher as it has a greater chance of matching search terms. Try getting your focus keywords in there.

You haven’t added any images

Images are a great addition to any piece of content and it’s highly recommended to have images in your content. Consider adding a few images that relate to your content to enhance the readability. It’s also a great opportunity to include your focus keyword(s) in image ALT attributes to better associate your content with the target keyword(s).

You haven’t used any keywords yet

Your content should be populated with an optimal amount of focus keywords to give it a better chance of ranking higher in the search results. Use the focus keyword(s) as naturally possible in your content. The recommended keyword density is 1-3%.

You haven’t added any internal or external links in your content

Internal links help search engines crawl your website, effectively pointing them to more pages to crawl and index on your website. You should consider adding at least one internal link to another related article within your site.

You haven’t included the focus keywords in the first paragraph of your article

It’s good practice to include your focus keywords in the first paragraph of your content so that search engines and visitors can quickly figure out the topic of your post.

You don’t have any subheadings

Using subheadings in your content (such as H2’s or H3’s) will help both users and search engines quickly figure out what your content is about. Creating a visual hierarchy improves readability and user experience. We recommend you have at least one subheading.

None of your image alt texts contain the focus keyword(s)

Including your focus keyword(s) in image alt attributes helps search engines to better associate your content with the topic you’re writing about, and helps visually impaired visitors who use assistive technology. Add your focus keyword(s) to one or more of your images, but be careful not to overdo it.

Note that if you want SmartCrawl to analyze the SEO of featured images in your posts, you’ll want to select either the Wide or All option in the In-Post Analysis Engine.

The text contains ‘x’ words which is less than the recommended minimum of 300 words

The recommended minimum content length for the web is 300 words. Aim at least for the recommended length of 300-1600 words.

Your keyword density is greater than 3%

Including focus keywords in your content is recommended, but make sure that your content is not littered with too many of them. The recommended range of keyword density is 1-3%. Keyword stuffing can result in search engines penalizing your content and marking it as spam.

There are stop words in focus keywords

Stop words don’t convey much information, and are generally considered insignificant and are often filtered out from a search query. It is recommended not to include them as a part of your focus keyword(s).

Your URL contains underscores

Google recommends ‘-’(hyphens) over underscores in URL. It makes it easier for the search engines to crawl and interpret the URL better. However if you have already published your content we recommend not to remove the ‘_'(underscore) as it can cause short term ranking loss.

Your meta description is greater than 160 characters

Just like SEO titles, the SEO descriptions are also cut off to a certain degree. Therefore, keeping your meta description too long can affect the readability and makes it unclear what your content is about. Recommended length of meta description is 120 – 160 characters.

Your meta description is autogenerated

It is recommended to handcraft your meta description with the relevant information about the page content. Follow the meta description best practices to further increase the chances of your content ranking higher in search results.

Primary focus keyword is already used on another post/page

Focus keywords are intended to be unique. Optimizing more than one post for the same focus keyword confuses search engines on which content to rank for that specific focus keyword, affecting the SEO and page rankings.

Expand this recommendation to display a list of other posts/pages with the same primary focus keyword.

Note: The list will contain only a maximum of 10 pages/posts, there can still be other pages/posts with the same primary focus keyword.

Nofollow External Links

Linking to external web pages in your site redirects your site traffic to other sites. However, adding relevant outbound links improves your site credibility, authority, adds more value to users, and also helps search engines determine the relevance and quality of your content. Hence, it is recommended to have at least one external dofollow link in your site.