Introduction, or Why My Website Urgently Needs SEO Optimization
That is, yes. Why did I decide that it is so necessary? Well, for starters, optimization is constantly being done because search engines change. Well, Google came out with a new algorithm, like in November or like in December, or, for example, AI hype.
All sites need to embrace the reality that various AI models already answer many user requests. Whether they are built directly into the search:
- Google -> Gemini
- Bing -> Copilot
- Yandex -> Нейро
Or independent projects/sites:
- ChatGPT
- Deepseek
- PerplexityAI
But, we are not talking about AI now. In this article, I will solve the problem associated with low positions in the search results, and as a result, a low percentage of click-throughs.
I am going to conduct internal optimization of the site. And to be more specific, it will be:
- Optimization of content on the site. (I will simply correct the meta tags, plus slightly edit the content of some articles)
- Building up the link mass.
I will tell you about the methodology of optimizing meta tags and building up links a little lower. Well, this article will take a long time to write, because it will be necessary to check the result of my actions and analyze their effectiveness. And this result will be clearly visible only at least a month after the completion of all the optimization work. That's all with the introduction, let's get started.
Statistics before optimization
Before describing the optimization methodology, it is necessary to make a control cut. That is, to record how it was before the optimization began. Two search engines are important to me: Google and Yandex. At least because they bring the most traffic.
Site statistics in Google for the last 28 days, before optimization
And of course, in order not to be unfounded, I will show the statistics of my site for the last 28 days for Google, from 04/15/2025 to 05/12/2025:
Actually, I need to explain a couple of things about this graph. As you can see, the number of clicks is falling, despite the fact that there are more and more impressions. The position on average is also growing (not by much, but still). You can read about the reasons for such statistics in the next chapter ;)
I also filter out pagination pages in this chart, as their metrics aren't significant enough to factor into my current optimization strategy. But for context, here are the stats for those pages:
In short, we can say the following: all pagination pages, that is, the majority of indexed pages, give the least impressions and even fewer clicks.
But they can be useful in terms of internal linking and weight redistribution across the site. Although I'm not sure about that. And the current article is not about them, but about large displays of articles and tools for numerous secondary queries.
Site statistics in Yandex for the last 30 days, before the start of optimization
Here's how Yandex Webmaster differs from Google Console, it's the convenience of analyzing search traffic. In Google, you only need one universal page, where you can see both queries and pages that are ranked by these queries. In Yandex Webmaster, you will need 3 separate pages. But maybe this is just my personal opinion, which can be safely ignored)
So, the general statistics of requests and clicks from 04/15/2025 to 05/12/2025:
The exact same picture is observed in Yandex. There are more and more impressions, but there are no more clicks, quite the opposite. Let's figure out why this is so.
Why are there many impressions but few clicks?
I found the answer on the Internet (what a surprise). A sharp increase in impressions without a corresponding increase in clicks and, importantly, the CTR remained the same, or even increased as in my case, may indicate that Google has started showing your pages in extended results.
They, in extended results, initially have a very high position (in the top 10 and below). But, such results are not often clicked. My pages started showing in the Questions and Answers (FAQ) block.
This actually makes sense. Because recently, I decided to add the corresponding micro-markup - FAQPage. I implemented it in such a way that for each article I have several definitions and questions, which I put separately at the end of each article.
As you can see, the result was not long in coming. As an example, I would like to note this article on my website - https://timthewebmaster.com/ru/articles/c-programming-history/ and the corresponding query - "c programming language first appeared", which brings the most impressions.
A clear difference in impressions.
All of these pages appear in advanced search results.
This wonderful article can tell you more about why impressions suddenly fell on you, but there were no more clicks. There is also an analogue in Russian. This article will describe the situation in great detail and clarify individual points that I did not touch upon. I just wanted to analyze and show my individual case.
Optimization, planning, and execution
Subsequent optimization, as mentioned above, will consist of two parts:
- Increasing the number and quality of links to the site. Link building.
- Optimization of meta tags, for those offered by GSC or YW.
Link Building and Growth Strategy
I'll start with the first one. For link building, I have collected and studied (or am studying) various strategies for their construction. Also, this is important, I have divided them into two large categories.
There are post-link building strategies, that is, link building that you do after publishing an article or tool, and there are pre-link building strategies, that is, strategies that need to be implemented before or during writing an article or tool.
Here are all the strategies that I was able to find and collect:
- POST-link building
- internal linking — its essence is placing links on your site in such a way as to show search engines which pages on your site are the most valuable, plus distributing the weight of the pages.
- comment marketing — placing relevant, useful comments on other blogs, forums and social networks.
- replacing broken links — searching for broken links from competitor donors with subsequent negotiations with the webmasters of these donors. With the sole purpose of having them change the broken links to your resource.
- guest posting — we ask the webmaster of the site you need to write new content for it, with the sole purpose of placing a link to our resource. This is often paid.
- co-citation — we place links on the same sites as the competitor. I would rephrase this as peeping or mimicry.
- registration in relevant, narrowly focused directories
- work with mentions - we monitor (google alerts to help) what they say about you and whether they use links to you as a source of authority. If so, we gently ask them to put the necessary and appropriate link to the site, your site.
- pre-link building
- interesting articles are those that can cause a backlash, that is, articles with the emotions and experiences of the author himself.
- rule of the first - you need to follow trends and news in order to quickly and efficiently tell about innovations and events in your niche.
- detailed guides - these are guides that can lead you by the hand through the entire learning process. Plus, they close all the questions that arise during the reading.
- ego bait - you have an article topic, you collect opinions and quotes from bloggers and influencers on this article, publish it. Then, contact your sources of authority (bloggers, influencers) and ask to put a link to your article
- getting links from images - make or use ready-made images in your articles. Infographics can also be included here. You need to make them such that they want to be shared or copied, and for this you need to place such images on your site directly.
- Embedded elements are elements that you can simply copy and paste onto your site, or integrate very easily. The main thing is that these embedded elements have a link to your site.
- tool development - make a useful tool and place it on your site. It is desirable that it has an open API and several options for use.
Now a couple of points about this list. I have a special table that I use to track and control the growth of the link mass.
I understand that the description of the strategies here is very capacious and too short. Ideally, it would be possible to write separate articles for each of them, but I just want you to understand what strategies there are (normal and non-spam strategies) and what they are in general.
So what is my great link building strategy? It's simple, I take one strategy and learn to execute it. I can add others if necessary. For example, if I suddenly start developing a tool, I want to make it as useful as possible and share it via a link.
And I track my progress through my table.
Meta tag optimization strategy.
The next most important thing for my current optimization is editing and experimenting with meta tags. I don't think I'm going to tell you anything new, but this is SEO at its most basic and superficial level.
I just want to share the details and specifics of how I do it. And maybe some seasoned SEO specialist will drop by and point out my mistakes and at the same time scold and demote me on my own site.
I'll start with the fact that you need to keep track of what you change, what you change it to, and when you change it. Yes, I mean keeping a detailed table of the changes you've made to your meta tags.
The table contains a list of all pages whose meta tags you can change. Plus, there is a division into two search engines. Of course, there can be more, but I only need these.
How will this happen? I will describe the entire process in order:
- Go to GSC.
- In the efficiency tab, filter queries by target page and period (I usually take a weekly period)
3. Next, you need to choose queries that have a good ratio of position, impressions and CTR. What is this ratio? I have no idea. That is why you need to keep a table and test. In the next chapter, I will try different approaches (like with the highest impressions or the highest CTR, or with the highest position in the SERP)
4. After I have selected the necessary queries, it is time to rewrite the meta tags.
5. We wait. It will take about a week or two in my case. In yours it may be faster, or it may be longer.
Now, my dear reader, give me a month or two to test new meta tags and build a link profile. For you, of course, it will be as quick as moving on to the next chapter, but for me... Well, see you soon.
Statistics after optimization
Some time has passed, four months to be exact. I managed to redesign the site, upgrade some tools, and write new articles. I think it's time to sum up my SEO strategy for increasing link mass and improving meta tags.
About pagination pages, again
In the first part I said that I would not touch the pagination pages, but I could not resist and removed them all from the search, leaving only the important ones. How did I do it? Well, first of all, I wrote a special meta tag in <head>:
Here, I kind of tell the crawler, don't index these pages (noindex), but be sure to follow all the links on them (follow). This way, I wanted the interlinking to continue working and my articles and tools to continue to get link juice. At least, I believe so.
Then, all that's left is to ask Google to remove them from search via the corresponding tool in Google Search Console.
As you can see, there are very few indexed pages, but the impressions are growing. And the speed with which new content pages are indexed is almost instantaneous.
Give me the stats here
So, let's look at my site's statistics, what has changed, and whether it has changed. GSC:
Here, I immediately gave a comparison with the period of the beginning of optimization (May - June)
The increase was 150 clicks (was 850 became exactly 1000). This is approximately +17.6%. The impressions were 88 thousand, became 137 thousand. The increase was almost 50 thousand impressions or +55%. Now on the results in Yandex search:
As you remember, the situation there was worse, something around 800 clicks, now 950 (an increase of 150 clicks or +18.75%). In terms of impressions, there were 29 thousand, now there are 26 thousand. That is, the indicator fell by -10% or 3 thousand impressions.
About link building
The second important part of my strategy was link building. I wasn't able to build a lot of links, and in fact I was only able to implement three strategies for link building, which were comment marketing, creating tools that can be shared, and image links.
Conclusions and results
As you can see, I have optimized my content quite successfully. Of course, not super x2 or x3 traffic, but still. And honestly, at the beginning I even worsened some positions, but then I corrected them. That is why it is very important to keep a table of what and how you optimize.
And if you are even more diligent and responsible than me, because I only did this for the first 2 months, then you can expect much more serious results.
Here is a table of what I managed to achieve:
| Impressions (Google) | 88К | 137К (+55%) |
| Impressions (Yandex) | 29К | 26К (-10%) |
| Clicks (Google) | 850 | 1000 (+17.6%) |
| Clicks (Yandex) | 800 | 950 (+18.75%) |
| Metrics | Before optimization May-June | After optimization August-September |
|---|
Here I can come to only one logical conclusion - you need to constantly do this. And also, focus on building links and connections with other developers, content creators and just website owners.
I would also like to hear from you, my dear SEO friend, do you do something similar and if so, maybe you do it differently?
