Thursday, June 16, 2022

Internal linking for SEO: Best Practices in 2022

 Internal linking for SEO: Best Practices in 2022

Internal links is one of the best on-page SEO factors in 2022. Website owners ignore this internal linking SEO while considering content optimization.


Internal Linking SEO 2022: Internal links are content king. Internal linking is one of the best on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) factors in 2022. But most of SEO manager and website owner ignore this while considering content optimization.

Google i.e. Search engine finds relevant contents from the link sources. Without links search engine does not work. If your webpage gets more links from somewhere on the web, it ranks better than those web pages that has comparatively less backlinks.

Did you know? Both your site visitors as well as search engines use links to find content on your website. The links are of three types internal links, external links and inbound links. Internal links helps Google to understand the structure of your website. It creates hierarchy on your site to increase authority (PageRank) of a post.

Every day user search millions of webpages with helpful information. Google uses software known as web crawlers to find and index webpages.

A search engine crawls websites by following links on web pages to discover new pages that have been made available on the web. Google bot collect information from across hundreds of billions of webpages and organize it in the Search index.

SEO internal links WordPress: Over 60 million people have created WordPress website for their online identity. I am sure that you are also using WordPress for your website. Am I right? Actually, most of newbies are not aware of best practice for Internal links SEO WordPress. I will discuss here the SEO internal links best practice for your WordPress.

Table of Contents

What is an internal linking with example? Types of Internal links

What are internal links and its benefits? Internal linking means linking from one page to another page on your website. That means the source domain and target domain are same. Internal links can help users and Google navigate your site better.

In my opinion, there are two types of internal linking viz. 1) Internal Links for Website and 2) Internal Links for Webpage. What? Yah! I think so.

Website Internal Links:

Internal links that creates trustworthiness and helps users to know more about your website is called website internal links. These links generally linked from every webpage on your website.

For example: Links to your Home page, About Us page, Contact Us page, Privacy policy page, advertise with us, career and Help pages, post feed, categories and tags etc.

You might notice drop-down menus of menu bar and navbar of any site. Menu bar provides site visitors a standard place to find main topics on your website that they might be interested in.

Webpage Internal Links:

Internal links that provides depth knowledge about specific term or topic used in your contents of a particular webpage is known as webpage internal links. Webpage internal links are commonly known as contextual links.

For Example: A link to my tutorial about “Post Title and SEO” from this article is an internal link, and a link to Search Console Help “Links Report” is an external link.

These links are useful to provide related content users want to find. Google also use these links to identify signals that can help determine which pages demonstrate expertise and authoritativeness on a given topic.

That means the more links a particular webpage receives, the more important it will seem to search engines. Therefore, you must internally link webpages of your site to boost page rank on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

What is internal linking and external linking?

Linking to another site from your site is called external linking (outbound links) and it also known as backlinks for that another site. Whereas, linking to one page to another on your website itself is called internal linking.

In other words, internal links connect pages and posts on your own site and external links connect your pages with other websites.

How important is internal linking? Why Internal Links?

Internal links for SEO: Internal linking is an important on-page SEO factor in the eye of search engines including Google. But the question is why internal linking is so important? And where do we start?

As we know that the search engine follows links to discover content on the web and index them. Webpage getting more links creates signals that it’s an important and high-quality content. Google consider both internal and external links for ranking purpose.

As a site owner, you have full control over internal links. With the right internal links, you’ll guide your users and Google to your most relevant and quality content pages. Thus, you should follow best practices for internal linking and increase your ranking position on SERPs.

Content Relationships and Content SEO

Internal links build relationship between contents of your website. Content SEO includes a good relationship between webpages to derives more traffics. You can see this tutorial has been posted under organic traffic category and tagged with PageRank and SEO.

That means, I want to tell Google that this tutorial is related to that category and tags. In a similar way search engine recognize that all posts under that category and tags are related to each other.

Simply, you can say that Googlebot comes at the webpage of your site and starts finding other webpages with the first link you provided in that webpage. By following links search engine can understand the relationship between the various pages and posts with similar subject matter.

Link Value and Valuable Links

The more links a webpage gets, the higher the link value of that webpage. Google divides link value between all links on a webpage. Actually, the link value of any webpage will be shared between all the links (Internal and External) found on that particular webpage. The link value passed to the following web page will further be divided between the links on that webpage, and so on.

The homepage of any website has the highest link value compare to other web page because it has the most backlinks. Thus, Google will find your new blog posts faster if they’re linked to from the homepage of your site.

Therefore, your newest articles, tutorial or blog posts will get more link value if you link to them from the homepage, instead of linking only on category and tag pages.

Note that your internal links must be relevant for the webpage that links to another webpage. Only relevant links provides values to the linked webpages. Because Google believes a page that gets lots of valuable links as more important and that way you increase the chance of appearance on the top of PageRank.

How do I find internal links?

It is very interesting question. The answer is link of each and every webpage on your site is internal link. But more relevant query would be if you ask me that how to find related SEO internal link for current post.

Smart Way to find Relevant Internal Link for SEO

Suppose you are publishing a new blog post on your website. Now, you want to add internal links to that page. You have to use keyword (anchor text) of web pages that are performing well on SERPs. But, how do you find that webpage?

Step-1: Copy any relevant keyword or phrase (to be used as anchor text) from your current post. Suppose you are writing about Apple iPhone.

Step-2: Just go to google.com

Step-3: Use this Showeblogin SEO tricks to search for your keywords

site:YourDomain.com “Paste that keyword or phrase (Apple iPhone)”

Now, search engine shows you the top performing webpage of your site related to that keyword (Apple iPhone). Suppose Google returns 40 pages with that keyword. Pick up the top 5 pages from search results.

Step-4: Go to those pages and look for that keyword (Apple iPhone) and link to the new post from those webpages using the same anchor text.

This is how you will find best and high authoritative internal links for your current post. Similarly, you may link back to those pages from your recent post.

Just go to the list of published posts and search the keyword to be used as anchor text for internal linking. If you are using WordPress, you have to select your anchor text while writing your current post and click on link button on post editor and paste the URL of your recent post.

How many internal links is too many?

Too many internal links SEO: When you get the concept that links pass their link value on, you’ll understand that more links to a post mean more value. Internal links must be useful for your user and related to your content. On the other hand, if you link more web pages from current post, you are sharing less link value to those webpages.

Additionally, too many internal links might distract your users from the main topic that you want to explain in a post. It is also possible that the information for which user came to your website may stray from the content because he will click on the internal link and go to another page for which he did not come.

Back in 2009, Google says that up to 100 linked pages from your post might be considered as good links. Does it still relevant in 2023? Does Google automatically consider my site spam if my webpage has over 100 links? The answer is no, not at all. It is just 100 links guidelines.

Depending on various factors, a web page might have 100+ links. Those factors include the following:

  1. Your content is long.
  2. Each link is relevant for the webpage.
  3. Every links creates value for your site users.
  4. Good balance between internal and external links.
  5. Real stuff on the page that may be defined on another page in detail.

Too many internal links are not good for both users and search engines. Tons of links make your site seem spammy and provides bad user experience and both factors affects content SEO rankings. That is why you link to another webpage only if it provides best user experience.

Note that you link a page two or more times from your post then it only counts as one link. That means you should count number of pages rather number of links on your web page.

Internal Linking Strategy in 2022 – SEO best Practice

An Actionable Guide for internal Links: Internal linking is ongoing process on a regular basis to evaluate and improve quality of your contents. Setting up an internal linking strategy in 2022 is very important. Contextual as well as product web page should have internal link to boost your ranking on SERPs.

Most of SEO newbies thinks that linking to pages internally on a site is very simple and they make mistake. Some other things it is very difficult and more complex to link one page to another of a website. Internal linking is both advanced and simple. The real fact is that you must have strategy and plan to execute and make more relevant contextual links.

I will provide you the guidance for best internal linking for SEO in 2022. To set up best internal linking strategy, there are several things to take into account. However, the following are the most recommended steps to be followed by a site owner or SEO manager to improve content marketing SEO through internal linking:

  1. Publish more Contents
  2. Perfect Site Structure
  3. Use Canonical URL
  4. Add contextual links
  5. Use anchor text
  6. Cornerstone Content
  7. Related Post Section
  8. Table of Contents
  9. Show Breadcrumbs
  10. Additional Tips on Internal Linking

Internal linking SEO best practices for your blog posts are as follows:

Publish More Contents:

The first step is to create lots of contents for your site. Publish more and more contents for your website.

Perfect Site Structure

SEO internal links to homepage: Ideal site structure is just like a pyramid. Homepage of your website is on the top and then categories, sub-categories and tags are there. At last there are posts/ blog (Articles/ Tutorials) and pages.

You should avoid internal links to the top-level page (Homepage) of your website. Don’t link to the pages that has already been linked from main navigation menu.

Use Canonical URL

While linking one page to another you should use canonical URL. Ignore short URL or redirect URLs. If your user accessing same content through multiple URLs then it hurt content SEO. However, you may use 301 redirect from non-preferred URLs to the dominant URL.

Add contextual links

Make internal links to related contents only. I recommend to use internal link directly in a sentence where keyword is related to the destination URL.

A user more likely to click on internal link that provides useful information. Accordingly, your site visitors spent more time on your website and improves user engagement.

Use anchor text and Alt text

Anchor text is the visible portion of a link to the user. In other words, it is the clickable text that that points to the destination URL. Use anchor text very precisely and naturally. Descriptive keywords and long-tail keywords should be used in anchor text.

However, you should avoid using lengthy anchor text just for search engines. Because, excessively keyword-filled will rank down your post on SERPs.

Using same anchor text for different URLs is bad for SEO. Google will be confused because it would thing that both URLs are on the exact same topic.

Alt text is used to specify alternative text to tell Google the nature or contents of an image. It makes image searchable. If you link a webpage of your site through image, your alt text will become clickable. Actually, alt text appears if image fails to load. So, if you are using an image for your post, please don’t forget to use alt text.

Cornerstone Content

Cornerstone contents are most important contents on your site. You should link internally to your cornerstone contents from maximum posts related to it. The more internal links to cornerstone contents, it gets more link value. I recommend to link it from navigation (Main Menu) of your site.

Remember one thing that your cornerstone (Most essential content) post must be complete and covering all aspect of the topic you are writing in the post. Your post may be minimum 1500-2000 words long.

Related Post Section

This is the best practice to show 2-4 related articles at the bottom of your current post manually.  However, there are many WordPress plugins available that add related posts from the same category or tags used in your current post. Some WordPress themes also supports related contents to be inserted between contents of a post or have option to show before/after specific paragraph.

Table of Contents

While internally connecting posts on the same domain, you should also provide your user a table of contents within your posts. Table of contents (Index) will help both users as well as search engine to understand the hierarchy of your web page. Many WordPress plugins are freely available for this feature. It simply provides a table to show all sections or headings (H2, H3, H4) in a post on the top of your post.

Show Breadcrumbs

A breadcrumb is a row of internal links that allows live visitors to quickly navigate back to a previous section or the root webpage. You may show breadcrumbs at the top or bottom of content.

I recommend you to show breadcrumbs just above the post title. Breadcrumbs includes taxonomies like categories and tags. If you are a blogger then it is essential to add internal links to the taxonomies the post belongs to. It helps Google to understand the structure of your blog.

Additional Tips on Internal Linking SEO

  • Top Page Internal Links: Try to add 1-2 internal link within first or second paragraph of your article. If you add internal link at the top of your content then users may click on that link and spent more time on your site and reduce bounce rate.
  • Internal Links Audit: Audit your site for internal links using Google Search Console. The Google Search Console has a unique feature to see all internal and external links of your site. If you have not submitted xml sitemap to search console then, I strongly recommend you to submit it today. Otherwise, you may provide a link of yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml to footer of your website.
  • Broken Internal Links: Your website may have broken internal links. So, find those broken links and fix them. You either remove that broken links or update with new webpage URL or redirect them to a new page of your site. There are many online tools available free to check your site broken links.
  • Unimportant Internal Links: Some webpages are internally linked but not so important. You may remove that insignificant internal links to save link juice. And now link to important page to pass link value to that page so that it performs better in SEO ranking.
  • Link from Old Articles: The secret tips for content SEO is linking your new post from old posts. These internal links pass link juice from old authoritative webpage to your new article and make your new content fly on the top of search results page. Additionally, it also asks Google to re-crawl your old contents.

Bad Internal Linking – Don’t do

Multiple Links for Same URL

Don’t add same page links twice or more on the same page. If it necessary to link the same URL more than once on your page then first link should be taken into account for URL Rating (UR) or link value. Google looks the first link and ignore the other multiple links to the same URL.

rel=”nofollow” for Internal Link

You should not use rel value “nofollow” to prevent Google from following a link to a webpage on your own website. If you want search engine not to follow an internal link then use the robots.txt Disallow rule. Note that Blogger or Wix user might not need to create or edit a robots.txt file.

You may use noindex tag which prevent search engine to index your post. Google will not show your noindex articles on search results.

Avoid Automation

SEO internal links plugin: Please don’t use plugins or tools for internal link automation. Auto internal links may not be relevant for users and they might not click on that auto generated internal link.

Plugin shall create lots of internal links with the same targeted keywords as anchor text that looks like spam for search engine. Therefore, you should avoid automation of internal linking contents.

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Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Google AdSense Approval Process 2022: New Blog or WordPress Site

AdSense Account Approval Process 2022: Sign-up, connect site to AdSense, enter payment address details, verify phone number and get fully activated Google AdSense account within a day for your new blog.

Each and every people in the world wants to monetize their precious time with the help of various resources either offline or online.

If we talk about making money online then not a single person deny the fact that Google AdSense program is one of the best resource for earning handsome money from your blogs, responsive websites or AMP implemented sites, Mobile friendly sites, Games, YouTube Videos and even on site search result pages etc.

Did you know? It was June 18, 2003 when Google launched advertising monetization program named Google AdSense which has now grown to include over 38 million websites in the year 2022.

Google AdSense revenue share is 68% of contextual ads displayed on website of publishers. For example, if Google’s auction of ad inventory on your site generates monthly average of $10000 then you will receive $6800 through Google AdSense 68% revenue share.

Here is the screenshot of AdSense earning proof for automatic payment made by Google through wire transfer to my bank account on February 21, 2022.

AdSense Payment Proof

On 21st day of each Month: After reaching threshold limit ($100), you will get an email from Google Payment (payments-noreply@google.com) with title Google AdSense: Check your recent payment.

Now, come to the point that how to get Google AdSense Approval for your newly created free blogger blog or WordPress website. Well! This is one of the frequently asked questions by our readers that why their application get rejected for Google AdSense.

Here is the extract of Email received from adsense-noreply@google.com by applicant for the subject – “Your AdSense application status”:-

“Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after reviewing your application, we’re unable to accept you into AdSense at this time.”

OR

If someone is already earning from YouTube videos, they may get email like this:-

“Thank you for your interest in expanding your Google AdSense account to implement ad code on your own website. Unfortunately, after reviewing your application, we’re unable to approve this application for the time being. Your existing AdSense account that allows you to show ads on partner sites is not affected by this disapproval.”

OR

The team has reviewed it but unfortunately your site isn’t ready to show ads at this time. There are some issues which need fixing before your site is ready to show ads.

Site not ready for AdSense
Site not ready for AdSense

Are you searching for how to get AdSense approval for WordPress blog? Are you applying for the first time in 2022 for AdSense programme? Are worried before making first application for Google AdSense?

Is your site ready for creating an AdSense account? Here under, I am explaining in detail the frequently asked questions.

Table of Contents

Most of the common reasons/issues for disapproval are:

Your site has to be completely original. Following are the top three reasons, your Google AdSense account might not be fully activated in the year 2022:

  1. Insufficient content (as explained in later para);
  2. Site does not comply with the Google AdSense program policies; and
  3. Site does not adhere to the Webmaster Quality guidelines.

If you are one of those applicants whose AdSense application has been rejected again and again then please ask from yourself only one question:-

Why Should Someone visit your Site First?

Your website should provide a significant value to the users and it must give them a reason to find it first when searching for topics covered by your website.

After answering the above question from yourself, I am sure you would get your approved AdSense account. The good news is that now you will be able to immediate access to your AdSense account once you sign up.

Is new website AdSense approval always says no content?

Not at all! in fact your new website will get approval in first attempt if you have written engaging content with great user experience. AdSense always welcome new site with fresh contents and therefore, you should ignore copyright contents or links to such contents i.e. never links to other sites that are hosting copyrighted materials without authorization.

Insufficient content or no content is one of the main reason for disapproval of AdSense account in 2022. If you own a new site, please make sure you have high quality new contents (discussed below in detail) before applying for Google AdSense monetization programme.

Get Google AdSense Approval in 1 Minute

AdSense Approval within Minute: If someone assure you that they got AdSense approved account within a minute then you should know the fact behind that activation.

Google allows you to connect your site to AdSense immediately after sign up. That does not mean that your account has been approved. Actually, you need to activate your AdSense account so you can show ads on your site and earn money.

Before final activation, your AdSense account homepage has a list of tasks to complete:

  1. Connect your website to AdSense Account;
  2. Enter your payment address details; and
  3. Verify your phone number (Not required in all countries).

After you complete each task, click Done or Submit.

Now, Google AdSense Team review your entire site to check it complies with the AdSense Program policies and email you within 24 hours for the status of your account.

When your account is fully activated, you can set up ads on your site and start earning money by displaying contextual ads. The entire process usually takes a single day, but in some cases can take up to 2 weeks.

Google AdSense Account Approval Process in 2022

Google has now made signing up process more faster and easier for AdSense with effect from Thursday, October 08, 2015. First check whether your website is compliant with the AdSense program policies and then Sign up for AdSense Account.

Google AdSense approval trick 2022: If you ask me for AdSense account approval in 2022, the following quick steps will help you to understand the whole process:

  1. Setup your website or blog;
  2. Get organic traffic from original high quality contents;
  3. Comply with the AdSense Program policies;
  4. Sign up for an Google AdSense account;
  5. Add the AdSense code to your site; and
  6. Wait for maximum 7 working days for final review & approval status.

Is it hard to get AdSense approval?

Google AdSense account approval is very easy in 2022. You can get AdSense approval within 24 hours. Set up your AdSense account if you own websites/ blogs or forums. If you are a new blogger or have a new site then please go through detail recommended personal guidelines, I have discussed below.

Note that news websites or forums gets quick AdSense approval as they publish more contents in compare to personal blogs or websites. If you are new blogger or have own brand new site, please read the complete detail about how to apply for AdSense Program in 2022.

How can I get AdSense approval fast?

Professional Experience to get AdSense approval very fast in 2022: Your website shall be eligible for getting fast AdSense account approval only if it fulfill these three conditions:

  1. Best user experience: Loading, interactivity, and visual stability represented by Core Web Vitals.
  2. High quality content: It doesn’t mean lengthy post but your webpage should provide to users what they are looking for.
  3. Micro niche site: Apply your expertise and experiences for publishing unique information using Long-tail keywords.

How to Apply for Google AdSense Program: Complete Detail

Eligibility Requirement for AdSense in 2022: For Google AdSense approval, you need to satisfy specific official requirement and some unofficial tricks (Personal experience).

Actually, there are some basic requirement for being eligible to participate in AdSense online program which has been briefly discussed hereunder:

A) Google Account:

I know that most of you have already Gmail account and if you haven’t then please create a free Google account needed to sign in to AdSense. All information regarding acceptance, rejection, payments etc. in relation to AdSense will be mailed to your Gmail account by Google AdSense Team.

You should always be careful while providing your personal details at the time of creating a new Google Account. This is because if you will provide wrong information like Full Name, Age and Address etc. then your application might be rejected by AdSense team.

B) Age Requirement:

In accordance with the AdSense Terms and Conditions, applicants must be at least 18 years of age. Thus, if you are not 18 years old then you will not be able to participate in Google AdSense irrespective of satisfying all other conditions.

In that case there is a simple trick that you may provide your parents or guardian name instead of yours at the time of making application (see the procedure below) while signing up for AdSense Program.

C) Blog or Website:

Yes! AdSense will make your online contents profitable. If you are running your own website then it’s OK. Otherwise you may either make a free Blog with Blogger.com or create a website to monetize the contents on your Blogger Blogs or Websites.

However, if you have multiple websites then please provide the address (URL) of your best site which comply all conditions mentioned as under.

Website/Blog Ownership:

It is compulsory to have your own site or blog so that you can access the HTML source code to place the AdSense Ad Units code which displays Ads on your site. Otherwise your AdSense account shall not be approved on final review made by AdSense team.

It is not mandatory that you must have a custom domain for your blogger blog but I strongly recommend you to purchase a domain preferably top level domain like aubsp.com, and example.net etc. for your BlogSpot.com blogs.

Website/Blog Contents:

Think as an advertiser’s point of view that why you will go for a site which has not quality contents. Remind one thing that AdSense works by crawling the contents of each and every single webpages on your blog/site.

1. Post Quality

I mean every webpage contain enough textual contents to complete the whole story and topic you are willing to spread online. This will make happy to your blog readers because they gets complete information and answer for which they have visited your site.

Note that you may not fix the length of any post which results quality contents for Google AdSense. However, I personally opines that an article written within 800-1000 words (Standard Quality) is more than enough instead of writing too short post (Low Quality) with just 250-300 words.

If your post have more than 1000 words (High Quality), it might be preferred by users to get complete information about the topic of your webpage.

2. Post Quantity

If you want to get one short approval for AdSense program then please make sure you post at least 3-5 posts on weekly basis unless and until your blog/site get approved by AdSense Team.

If possible, you should publish a high quality content on daily basis to generate good amount of traffics to your site from organic keyword search results.

Google has not specified any magic number of posts to be required for AdSense approval. But, in my opinion if your blog have more than 50 good quality and user engaging articles then your blog is ready for applying for AdSense.

It is the quality and not the quantity of your blog posts which AdSense team consider at the time of reviewing your blog/site for AdSense approval.

3. Insufficient content

Your webpages should have sufficient text, I mean to say maximum text with complete sentences and paragraphs, not only headlines. This is because if your site contain mostly images and videos then your application will not be approved.

4. Original Contents

Your site contents must be original and not a copy paste from other website/blog or anywhere else. Therefore, you should not use copyrighted material in any manner on your site. If you are using any copyrighted textual contents, images, videos etc. then it violate AdSense content policy.

Some webmasters uses images for their posts either from Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS) or other sites without permission from original owner or showing credit to them. You may use royalty free stock for your site.

5. Regularly Updated Contents

Suppose someone has posted 50 posts in a single day or week to get approved for AdSense and thereafter not posted a single post within week or even a month.

Thus, please keep updating/posting on your blog on regular basis so that your approved AdSense Account will not disapprove or disable within a short span of time. Many of AdSense publishers get their fully activated account disabled after few months.

6. Create About Us Page

Most of new bloggers not create about us page. They don’t actually want to show their visitors about himself and the man working behind the website. This is one of the reason their AdSense account not approved by Google AdSense team.

Hence, you must create a page which should includes the information about your website niche and the team working for your site. If you manage your site, tell about yourself and what your visitors will get on your site.

When Google AdSense team reviewing your blog, they want to know the people behind the website. Creating “about us” page will validate the fact that you are a legitimate business.

7. Create Contact Page

Never forget to create “Contact Us” page on your site. It not only helps your site users to reach out to you but also ensure Google AdSense team that you are genuine person and your site is not a spamming one.

8. Privacy Policy Page

Either you have not created privacy policy page or you might not have included the required information.

Did you know? Google uses cookies to help serving personalized Ads for users of AdSense approved sites. Therefore, Google have provided specific information to be included in AdSense publisher’s privacy page.

Accordingly, your privacy policy should include the following information:

  • Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to your website or other websites.
  • Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and/or other sites on the Internet.
  • Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Ads Settings.

Website/Blog Age:

Domain Age Requirement: To ensure the quality contents and keeping in mind the interest of Google Advertisers, Google AdSense has specified that the Indian and Chinese AdSense Publishers required to have owned their sites for at least 6 months. Accordingly, except India and China, there is no any minimum age obligation for either blogger blog or website to participate in Google AdSense Program.

However, you have to ensure that your website is live and not in a beta mode or under construction phase before you apply for AdSense Program. Thus, placing ad code on a website which is not fully launched or only consist a website template/them will not get final approval.

Irrespective of your country, I strongly recommend you to wait at least for 180 days after buying a domain or setup your self hosted site.

Website/Blog Language:

You may write your site or BlogSpot.com blog in so many languages. However, AdSense Program is not available for all languages including Afrikaans, Irish, Latin, Bengali, Gujarati, Panjabi, Telugu etc. and therefore the primary language of your site must be in the AdSense supported languages.

Traffic sources:

Your blog/site traffics must come from the genuine sources. In other words, if you got the visitors through Search Engines, Social media and feed subscribers then it is good for the AdSense approval.

But, if you send bulk SMS, Email with your site links or asked your friends/relatives/students at large to daily visit your blog without any interest then it will impact badly on your site.

I strongly recommend you to sign in to Google Analytics and Webmaster tools which help you to understand your blog/site contents, live visitors, unique page views, and traffic sources in dynamic ways.

SEO Traffic
SEO Traffic – Organic

How much traffic required for AdSense approval?

Let me clear that AdSense has not specifically mentioned about requirement of traffic for approval.

But, if your website is not receiving at least 125-200 unique visitors per day (i.e. 250-400 pageviews per day) then please wait for some time to get more organic traffics on your site and then apply.

Note that you have to earn at least $100 to receive AdSense income into your bank account. Suppose your website receive zero AdSense Ad click within a month. So, I am calculating AdSense earnings depending on Active View cost-per-thousand impressions (Active View CPM) bidding.

On an average, I receive lowest active view CPM of $1 from 5000 page views.

Here is the calculation for getting your first $100 AdSense revenue payout:

$105 = At least $3.5 Daily AdSense Earning X 30
= 5000×3.5×30
= 525000 Pageviews per month.

D) Non-Google Ads:

You are free to use any third party advertisements on the same blog or webpage for which you are going to apply AdSense Program. In other words, there is no restriction to display Google Ads on your blog having Ads from Media.net, Adversal, BuySellAds, Clicksor, Chitika, Amazon Associates etc.

However, you should make sure that your site does not contain many third party advertisements. This is because your site will looks like advertisement based rather contents based and that type of website does not qualify for AdSense.

E) Apply for AdSense Program:

Now, you are ready to Sign up for AdSense Program. There are two-step application approval process under AdSense program.

Sign-up and Connect to AdSense:

Create an AdSense Account: You may sign up for AdSense account and get instant access to your AdSense account.

AdSense Sign Up

After log in to your AdSense account, you have to connect your site to AdSense by placing code into HTML of your site between the <head> and </head> tags.

<script data-ad-client="ca-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxx8042" async 
src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>

The above code contains your Publisher ID (ca-pub-xxxx) to verify your site ownership and displaying ads automatically immediately after activation of your account (If you select the option to show the same).

See the screenshot for more.

Connect Site to AdSense
Connect Site to AdSense

If you are not able to paste the code into your site, please feel free to ask me for help without paying consultancy fee.

Thereafter, you need to provide your full postal address along with valid phone number. Note that Google AdSense team send Personal Identification Number (PIN) to that address before sending your first AdSense payment.

After, completing all steps, you will see the following pop-up message (Code was found):

“The account activation process can now begin. This usually takes less than a day, but in some cases can take a bit longer. We’ll email you when everything’s ready.”

The code was found – Connect site to AdSense
AdSense Account Activation

Note that this will not display any Ads on your live webpage until you get fully approved AdSense accountEarlier, you would have to wait for some days or weeks for the preliminary checks to verify the information provided at the time of submitting your AdSense application. And after verification of your information (Your Name, Address and Blog/site URL etc.) , you were able to create your first AdSense Ad Unit.

Final Activation/ Approval:

Finally, you will get response within 24 hours from specialists of Google AdSense Team regarding the final status of your application after you add the code to your site.

However, this process may takes 1-2 days. Did you know? Previously, the same process was completed after  7-10 days. Finally, you will receive an email letting you know that your AdSense account has been approved.

Otherwise, you’ll receive an email on your registered Email ID explaining the disapproval reason and the possible next steps that you can take to get approved account.

Once you got fully activated AdSense account, the Google Ads appears on your approved website/blog and the red bar across the top of AdSense Account will disappear. You may create your first Ad Unit to display AdSense Ads at the place you decide on your site viz. Header, Sidebar, above/below the contents and footer.

Is it necessary to give my bank detail during creating Google AdSense account may I add my payment method later? No, there is no need to provide your bank account detail while sign up for AdSense account. You may add bank detail after approval of AdSense account.

Google AdSense pays you if your total monthly earning is at least $100.00 (check your payout threshold). Once your earning reach the threshold limit, you may provide your payment detail by managing payment method like wire transfer, Intermediary bank (ask your bank) or FFC or FBO (ask your bank) etc.

How long does it take for AdSense to approve?

Waiting time for a fully activated AdSense account: AdSense Account will be approved within 24 hours. Sometimes it takes upto two weeks for approval. Actually, the time it takes to get approved depends on factors like number of applications Google received and you have not connected your your site to AdSense as we have discussed in the sign-up process above.

Never forget to place the AdSense code on a page that gets regular views. Note that some parts of the process require actions on your end, and Google can only activate your account after you complete them.

Add AdSense code into Self-hosted WordPress

The most easy way to add AdSense code into WordPress (WP) is using WP Plugins. If you have technical knowledge, you may also use Theme Editor option from the left navigation sidebar under Appearance after login to your self-hosted WordPress blog.

Further, you may check that whether your installed WP theme supports AdSense code widgets. Most of theme comes with lots of option to insert AdSense code into different parts of your site including Header, Sidebar, Single page and Footer area.

Add AdSense code into Blogger.com

To add AdSense code into your blogger blog, just go to your blogger dashboard and from sidebar click on Theme, Thereafter, select Edit HTML from drop down menu of CUSTOMIZE button.

Now, paste your AdSense code just above closing head tag.

Add AdSense code into Shopify Store

If your store is on Shopify, you may insert the AdSense code there also. Open the Embed Options modal on your published app page. Many options are available to insert your ad code such as:

  • Embed in the Header;
  • Embed on the Homepage;
  • Embed on a Product or Collection Page;
  • Embed on a Single Page or Post;
  • Embed in Every Page; and
  • Embed in the Footer.

Today I will show you the option for adding the code in Header section.

Log on to the Shopify Dashboard section. Click on Themes from left sidebar and then select Edit code from the drop-down option of Action button.

Thereafter, navigate directly or find the header.liquid file and paste your AdSense code there and finally click Save button from the top right corner.

Recently, one of our client got an approved AdSense account for his first blog.

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How to apply for an AdSense account

 How to apply for an AdSense account

Whether you’ve only recently started a business online or have been going for a while, Google AdSense is the most popular ad network around and the best way to start monetizing your traffic with display ads. This ad network offers a wide range of ad units for multiple platforms and devices and includes optimization tools.

You don’t want to apply for an AdSense account only to be rejected because you did not follow the instructions correctly or adhere to their policies. In this guide, we’ll show you how to apply for an account in 2019 and beyond, step by step, and get accepted.

Requirements

Google is very serious about the quality of their ad network. They are very strict about the requirements, rules, and regulations you need to follow. Below are the requirements you need to adhere to before signing up to AdSense.

  • You need to be at least 18 years old.
  • You need to have an active Gmail account that isn’t linked to an AdSense account.
  • You need to have a website, and that website needs to meet all of Google’s terms of service.

Read more about Google policies here: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/48182

Pro tips from MonetizeMore

Although the following tips aren’t written in stone, we believe that they will improve your chances of getting accepted by AdSense.

  • Your website should be at least 3 months old.
  • You should have at least 30 articles published that are unique and valuable to readers.
  • There is no minimum traffic amount that you should have, however the more, the better.

How does payment work

There is a minimum threshold of $100 that you need to earn in ad revenue before you can get paid. Also, keep in mind that Google follows a net 30 payment term. As an example, when you earn ad revenue during September, your revenue will be sent out to you in the first week of November – 30 days after the billable month is over.

Step by step: How to apply for your AdSense account

Start by visiting the AdSense website here: https://www.google.com/adsense/start

adSense 1

On the same page, click on “Sign in,” and you’ll get directed to a page where you need to sign in to your Gmail account. After entering your email address and password, click on the “Next” button.

account sign in

Next, you’ll be directed to a page that gives you the following message as shown in the screenshot below. Click on “sign up” to sign up for your AdSense account.

sign up for an account

Now you’ll need to enter all your details, which includes your website and email address. You can also opt-in for customized help and performance suggestions from AdSense. Your screen will look something like this:

website details

On the next page, you will receive instructions that will enable you to connect your website to AdSense. AdSense will provide you with a snippet of code that you need to add to your site within the <head> </head> section. They will also give you specific instructions on how to do so when you have a WordPress site. Once you’ve inserted the code on your site, click the submit button.

Connect code to website

Now your website is ready for the Google AdSense team to review. Be sure to keep the snippet of code live on your site until AdSense responds. Sometimes it takes a few days or up to two weeks for the AdSense team to get back to you. Once you start generating some traffic, be sure to check our Google AdSense course and find out how to optimize your ads like the pros!

How to log into Google AdSense

Once your account is approved and you can start generating money with ads, it’s a great feeling! However, more often than not, people struggle to find or the Google AdSense login page. It’s real simple, just go to the same URL you visited to register an account: https://www.google.com/adsense/start/. Now, instead of clicking the “Get Started” button, click “Sign In”.

login

Frequently asked questions

Is Google AdSense free?

Yes, Google AdSense is free to join.

How do I get my AdSense account fully approved?

1. Make sure your site adheres to the AdSense program policies. You need to be over 18 years old, and you need to have an active Gmail account that isn’t linked to an AdSense account. 2. Having a site that is 3 months or older, with 30+ articles and traffic will also increase your chances. 3. Sign up for an Adsense account here https://www.google.com/adsense/start. 4. Add the AdSense code to your website. 5. Wait a few days, or sometimes up to two weeks, to get approved.

How long does it take for an AdSense account to be approved?

The time it takes to get approved varies. It can be as quick as 24-48 hours but generally, it takes up to two weeks for approval.

How do you know if my Adsense is approved?

You can see if your AdSense account is approved by logging into your Adsense dashboard. You will then see stats for ads running on your site.

Why would you need an AdSense account?

AdSense is one of the top ad networks in the world which enables publishers to monetize their website traffic with display ads or ads from the AdSense ad network.

Conclusion

There you have it! Applying for an AdSense account isn’t rocket science! Follow the instructions we presented you with, and you’ll be up and running with AdSense in no time. 

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Highest CPC Keywords and Best Adsense Niches 2022

Highest CPC Keywords and Best Adsense Niches 2022

Best Adsense Niches 2022

Making money online can be quite hard, especially if you are looking to monetize your blog solely via ads.

To be a successful Adsense publisher you need a lot of traffic but you also need that traffic to engage with the ads that are being displayed on your site. 

The adsense CPC that you get paid will depend on the topics that you write about. 

In the world of blogging, you can either write articles that will compete for clicks that will pay a few cents or be strategic and write content that will pay the big bucks.

If you are serious about making money online with Adsense and building a successful business, I suggest you target these top paying keywords and industries.

Also, I suggest you try Ezoic to automatically automize your ads.

I broke down this post by:

  • Top paying Adsense keyword industries
  • Types of ads that pay the most
  • Exact long-tail keywords that have insane CPCs


Here are the top 10 highest paid Adsense keywords for 2021 (by industry/niche):

  • Insurance $61 CPC
  • Gas/Electricity $58 CPC
  • Loans $50 CPC
  • Mortgage $46 CPC
  • Attorney $48 CPC
  • Lawyer $42 CPC
  • Donate $42 CPC
  • Conference Call $42 CPC
  • Degree $40 CPC
  • Credit $38 CPC

Why do these Adsense keywords pay so much?

Because the companies behind the ads have a high customer value and can afford to spend a few hundred bucks to acquire a customer. It all boils down to their business economics.


So, how can you profit from this data and rake in thousands of dollars each month?

Let’s run through a hypothetical example.

  • You notice that insurance related blogs will carry a high CPC.
  • You then research a few keywords and find that “car  insurance companies” pays decently well.
  • You get to writing the best article you can on car insurance companies
  • With an amazing on-page SEO, you are able to get your blog post high on google rankings,
  • You get a good amount of high quality organic traffic to your site, and then monetize into more Adsense revenue.


Which Adsense ads pay the most?

In addition to picking the best niche for adsense, you also have options as to which ad type to show. The options are: 1) text & display 2) matched content 3) in-feed and 4) in-article.

In my own experiments, I’ve found higher click through rates with native in-article ads. Those ads perform the best on any of my sites.

In-Article Ads


The in-article ads will naturally blend with your content and display midway through your blog post. I like these types of ads because they are contextual and usually receive a good amount of clicks.

Sidebar ads are not as good since we are already trained to tune them out.  

You can also try Matched Content if you have another content you’d like to promote.


Pro tip: Use Auto Ads by Google

Adsense Auto Ads take advantage of machine learning and place themselves automatically on your site where Google thinks they will perform well.

Google has been testing the Auto Ads feature as a beta since September of 2017 and recently (early March) released this feature to everyone.

Since Google has millions (if not billions) of sites to test, they will most likely be better than you or me when figuring out the right type and placement of the ads.

The only downside of this is that you won’t have much control of how many ads are shown or where they are placed, which if you are picky, might annoy you.


To set up Auto ads on your site, follow these steps:

  • Sign in to your AdSense account.
  • In the left navigation panel, click My ads.
  • Click Auto ads.
  • On the “Choose your global settings” page, use the controls to select the ad formats that you’d like to show.
  • Leave Automatically get new formats selected if you want AdSense to automatically add new ad formats to your global settings as they become available.
  • Click Save.
  • On the “Place code on your page” page, click Copy code.
  • Paste the ad code between the <head> and </head> tags of each page where you want to show Auto ads. If you’re not sure how to do this, see Google’s Code implementation guide.


Bonus Keyword Industries/Niches

Here are other high paying keywords that you can target in your blog posts

  • Treatment $41 CPC
  • Software $39 CPC
  • Classes $36 CPC
  • Recovery $34 CPC
  • Trading $33 CPC
  • Rehab $33 CPC
  • Hosting $31 CPC
  • Transfer $29 CPC
  • Cord Blood $27 CPC
  • Claim $25 CPC


Which exact keywords pay the most CPC on Adsense?

SEMrush did a nice study on some of the best keywords by country here.

If you are looking for exact top paying keywords such as mesothelioma which pays $1000+ per click, you can check out the list compiled of 1M+ adsense keywords by GrepWords. For instance, they reported the ultimate top paying keyword “mesothelioma survival rates” at $1006.56 per click. 

Here are a few of my favorite top paid keywords per industry found through SEMRush (data for 2017, 2018 and 2019, 2020):


Mesothelioma Keywords sorted by CPC

Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that lines the lungs, stomach, heart, and other organs, and unfortunately can’t be cured. Nevertheless, treatment can help reduce the pain. People that contracted mesothelioma did so at their jobs so that is why you see searches like “mesothelioma attorneys”, “mesothelioma law firms” and “mesothelioma compensation”.

This is a very competitive keyword set so unless you can outrank WebMD and MayoClinic, I suggest you look for other industries.


Bitcoin CPC Adsense KWs

I threw this one in because the crypto space is just so hot right now. These keywords are not the highest paying on my article roundup but I expect their cost per click to rise in the coming years.

Aside: I personally just love blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Actually, I love it so much that with my company Flux Ventures we launched an entire division just to buy and sell bitcoin and alt-coins.


Bitcoin CPC Adsense KWs


Find more high paying keywords using Search Console

Did you know that Google already provides you with the keywords that you rank for?

What if you could optimize your existing blog posts to target even better keywords?

Instead of spending tons of hours writing a thorough post, you could use update an old one and pick juicier keywords.

Here’s how.

  • Install the Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension
  • Head to the Search Analytics under the Google Webmasters Tools
  • Choose your website
  • Be sure to check the Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Position boxes at the top
  • google webmaster adsense keywords
  • Filter by any specific page that you want keywords to show for: i.e. https://alejandrorioja.com/high-cpc-adsense-keywords/
  • Since you installed the Keywords Everywhere tool you will see an additional 3 columns on your list, namely: Monthly Volume, CPC and Competition
  • how to find high cpc keywords
  • Unfortunately you can’t sort by CPC so you will have to copy all the data into a spreadsheet and sort it there. I suggest you hit the Show 500 rows at the bottom of Webmaster tools.
  • I made a Google sheet for you that you can copy (File > Make a Copy..) to sort all your keywords.
  • Copy and paste all your keywords, and then hit the arrow on the column of CPC and sort from Z->A
  • top paying keywords adsense
  • Voila, you will see all the keywords that your blog post ranks for, all ranked from highest CPC to lowest CPC.


As you can see this last trick will yield keywords that might not be applicable to your blog post. In my case, “mesothelioma lawyer directory” does not apply to this specific post so I will just ignore it.

However, it will also find keywords that I am already getting impressions like “top paying keywords” but for which I am still ranked on page #2. The secret here is now to extend my existing blog post to include that new keyword so that my page gets bumped to page #1.

Pro tip: You can also sort by Volume or competition to find other hidden gems.

(Remember that now with the new RankBrain algorithm you shouldn’t target each specific long tail keyword but rather target medium-tail keywords that cover a broader topic.)


So, how can you make $100 a day with Adsense?

I don’t know about you, but 100 bucks a day on ads sounds like a good passive income to me ($3k/mo).

Let’s run some calculations to see what it would take to make $100/day on Adsense.

First, some assumptions.

  • You are targeting US readers (as we saw earlier, US ads pay the most on average)
  • Your CTR (click-through rate) is 1% (i.e. 1% of visitors click on ads)
  • Your CPC is $0.50 (your niche is strong but your site is just getting started)
  • Your RPM (revenue per 1000 impressions) is $2

? Btw, you can increase your earnings using Ezoic. (an ad tester platform)

With these numbers we can now calculate how many visitors we need to earn our target amount.

The formula is = Visitors * CTR * CPC + Visitors/1000 * RPM 

So with 15,000 visitors per day we obtain around $100/day on Adsense.

(15,000 * 1% * $0.5 + 15,000/1000*$2 = $105/day)


But how do you obtain 15,000 page views per day? Is that reasonable?

Yes, it is reasonable. To do that, you can either

  • Produce 15 articles that get 1000 page views (hard)
  • Produce 150 articles that get 100 page views (much easier)

Learn how to write articles that will attract a lot of visitors.

Want learn how to get more organic visitors? Check this out!


Tips for Youtube CPC

In case you were wondering the same steps apply if you are looking to grow your earnings on Youtube. The same industries, languages and countries discussed above will also do well on YT.

To further optimize your Youtube earnings, you should also include a thorough description of your video that includes the high paying keywords you are targeting


Conclusion

  • I hope you found this list of high cost-per-click keywords useful.
  • I also hope you liked the strategy to find keywords that your competitors are getting money from. If you want additional tools to find keywords, head to my SEO tools list. 
  • Building a high grossing blog is a combination of picking a solid niche, doing SEO on your articles and having fun while at it.
  • If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment and share this article with a friend.
source:alejandrorioja


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Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Running High Traffic Websites - 8 Things to Consider

Running High Traffic Websites - 8 Things to Consider

When your website receives thousands of visitors every day, the underlying infrastructure must be able to support the traffic. High traffic means a large number of simultaneous requests from users expecting fast load times. Delays can cost your visitors, reduce revenue and undermine your reputation.

Taking a smart approach to high traffic website maintenance cuts down on the load from a large number of visitors and ensures peak performance from your site. As you're designing and updating your web presence, consider these important factors in creating the best possible user experience.

1. Understand visitor expectations

Everyone on the Internet is in a hurry. Whether they're browsing on a computer or mobile device, visitors to your site expect content to appear at lightning speeds. Failing to meet expectations can mean big losses. According to Conversionxl, a few facts regarding slow loading websites include:

  • 57 percent of users will leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load.
  • 47 percent of users want pages to load in two seconds or less.
  • A delay of just one second can result in a 7 percent loss in conversions and a 16 percent decrease in customer satisfaction.
  • Sites experiencing slow loading during high traffic times can lose up to three-quarters of their visitors.

For ecommerce websites, losses are reflected in decreased revenue and less trust between consumers and brands. If you're selling products and services but slow load times are driving potential customers away before they make purchases, you could be missing out on thousands of dollars in profits.

The same consequences hold true for any form of revenue you bring in from your high traffic site. Slow speeds and the resulting drop in visitor engagement means fewer people clicking on ads and making purchases through affiliate links. Credibility suffers when user experience is poor, and the potential negative effect on social engagement could diminish the reach and impact of your content.

2. Overhaul hosting

If you're still using the shared hosting plan you started with when your site was small, it's time to upgrade to something more reliable. Shared plans lack the bandwidth to handle high traffic, and the host may penalize your site if it routinely uses more than its allotted share of server capacity. The traffic load of other sites on the server also impacts how well your site performs, so if other users experience high visitor volume, the reliability of your site can suffer.

A virtual private server (VPS) or dedicated server hosting plan is better suited for sites with large numbers of daily visitors. In VPS hosting, a single server is divided into multiple virtual environments. Each runs as though it were an independent server, and the number of sites sharing resources is much smaller than on a shared hosting plan. With a dedicated server, your high traffic site has an entire physical server to itself.

Both VPS and dedicated hosting give you the freedom to customize the hosting environment, but setup and maintenance can be time-consuming. Managed hosting, especially for sites running a CMS such as WordPress, provides support for installations, updates, and general server management.

The best host for your site is one with the ability to handle the highest number of visitors you expect to receive and still deliver superior uptime. Look for plans with adequate RAM and bandwidth, and check the average page load speed to determine if it's fast enough.

3. Streamline site design

To display properly, every element on a page requires an HTTP request between a visitor's browser and the hosting server. Therefore, pages with a great deal of scripts or media are more likely to be slow to load.

The easiest way to deal with this problem is to make your page designs simpler. However, for sites requiring images, scripts, videos and other dynamic content, you'll have to take additional steps to ensure good performance:

  • Clean up scripts to remove unnecessary characters (minification).
  • Use an image optimizer when uploading media.
  • Set specific image dimensions for display (srcset).
  • Combine all CSS into one file (although not as important now with HTTP/2).
  • Upload images at their intended display size rather than resizing large images.
  • Use lazy loading to load media on demand rather than all at once.
  • Minimize plugin use or choose lightweight plugins on CMS platforms.
  • Avoid using redirects whenever possible.
  • Find and fix broken or dead links (404 Not Found errors).

Keep mobile users in mind as you implement these design improvements. Page speed matters even more for mobile visitors, and they're not going to wait for a media-heavy site to load when they could go elsewhere to find what they need.

4. Optimize content delivery

Using a content delivery network (CDN) is another strategic move for high traffic websites. A CDN is a collection of servers that are spread around the world and used to optimize content delivery for local visitors.

Traditionally, site content is hosted on a main server in a single location, with some hosts offering different locations depending on where you are (learn more about CDN hosting vs traditional web hosting). This restricts the speed at which content can reach distant areas. The further away a user is from the server, longer it takes the site to load due to increased latency. A CDN caches static files across multiple servers and delivers them from the location closest to each visitor to eliminate as much lag time as possible.

Choosing the right CDN is a good idea if your site hosts content or media with a frequent number of viewings. Since this content doesn't change, it can be successfully cached without becoming outdated. The reduced latency decreases page load times to give users the content they want as quickly as possible.

Choose a CDN with servers in the areas where the majority of your visitors come from. You can determine your site's reach by checking analytics reports and assessing the origin of your traffic. If your site has a fairly large audience, a global CDN solution is your best bet. Read more about how exactly a CDN works.

5. Zip it up

File compression is another way to cut down on content delivery times. Many high traffic websites enable Gzip compression to reduce file sizes during retrieval and delivery. Gzip works by searching for duplicate strings within a file and then replacing the second string with a pointer to the previous string. The user's browser then unzips the file and displays the page. Using this method can reduce file sizes by 70 percent, resulting in a significant increase in load speeds. Some hosting providers enable Gzip as part of their hosting packages for high traffic users, however, can also be done manually.

Other tools are available to decrease the size of JavaScript and CSS files, including:

These tools remove redundant characters and unnecessary spaces from code and compress the script files to speed up delivery. If your site includes a lot of custom scripting, minifying the code can greatly improve load times.

6. Caching for better performance

Every time visitors come to your site, their browsers store components of the pages, including content and scripting. A lot of this content remains static or is uniform across the site and doesn't need to be requested repeatedly in order to display. Caching these types of content eliminates a large number of requests between browsers and servers.

Using a CDN is one way to improve the caching of your static assets, however, there are also other caching methods which can be used. If you use WordPress, plugins such as Cache Enabler or Cachify combine different techniques to optimize content loading.

You can also leverage browser caching by updating the expires header for files. Depending upon the current time interval that is defined for each static file type, this can potentially be increased in order to improve caching efficiency. For content updated occasionally but with less frequency than dynamic elements, the expires header can be set for a longer interval so that the page only refreshes when necessary.

An example of setting the expires headers in your .htaccess file would resemble the following.

## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
    ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
    ExpiresByType text/html "access 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
    ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
    ExpiresDefault "access 1 month"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##

Similarly, for Nginx users, the following example shows a quick configuration you can use to define the expires headers for certain file types.

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;

    location / {
        root /var/www/example;
        index index.html index.htm;
    }

    location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png)$ {
        expires 365d;
    }

    location ~* \.(pdf|css|html|js|swf)$ {
        expires 30d;
    }
}

7. Improve security

Malicious attacks can put your website out of commission without warning. Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks are particularly vicious and take advantage of the effects of high amounts of page requests to reduce site speeds. These attacks slam your site with requests from multiple IP addresses with the intent of overloading it.

An attacker's reason isn't always clear, but the results can be devastating, especially for online businesses.

Additionally, cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks insert malicious scripts into your site to allow attackers access to information stored in the browsers of visitors. Scripts may be placed on a server, bounced back in data such as search results or housed in browsers to change the way requests are handled. All XSS attacks are insidious and have the potential to destroy your site's credibility.

Preventing a security breach requires diligence in site setup and maintenance. Keep your site safe by:

  • Installing reliable security software, such as a web application firewall.
  • Updating software and plugins regularly to obtain the latest security features.
  • Changing default CMS settings to reduce the risk of automated attacks.
  • Choosing extensions and plugins with recent installations and frequent updates.
  • Using unique, complex passwords for every service or gateway.
  • Changing passwords regularly.
  • Storing backups containing old files in an area separate from the main server.
  • Optimizing configuration files.
  • Protecting areas where sensitive site data is stored.
  • Choosing secure payment gateway options.
  • Keeping security certificates current.
  • Using HTTP security headers (scan your website's security headers with securityheaders.io).

Managed hosting providers usually take care of application and security updates, but check with your host to make sure. Routine backups should also be part of your security plan to preserve content should an attack occur despite your best efforts.

8. Analyze your changes

Optimizing high traffic websites isn't a one-time task. It's an ongoing process requiring testing and tweaking to monitor traffic and preserve consistent site performance. Traffic levels change over time, especially if you continue to add content and draw more visitors. Your site has to evolve to handle these changes, and the only successful way to manage this is to be vigilant in monitoring analytics and site speed.

Speed is easy to keep track of with tools like:

These tools assess not only page load speeds but also the size of pages, page components with the potential to slow your site down, and which problems are of the highest priority. Google's speed test includes suggestions for changes to enhance the usability of your site.

Google Analytics provide insight into pages with high bounce rates or unusually high exit rates after short periods of time. Analyze the areas of your site where visitors seem to leave most often, and note any problems with speed or security. Make changes to facilitate better performance, and check back frequently to see if your adjustments are working.

If you use a CMS, consider running a database optimization plugin from time to time. Databases can become overloaded with files relating to revisions, comments, filtered spam content and other plugins. Cleaning these out streamlines database function by removing bloated data.

Every small change you make to optimize your high traffic website improves user experience and decreases the likelihood of visitors abandoning pages due to slow load times. Greater satisfaction among visitors translates into more page views and improved performance for content, products, and services. Continue to monitor your site and make changes as necessary to maintain the reliability your visitors have come to expect.

Copy from: keycdn

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