
## SEO & analytics help grow site traffic

Whether you're working on your own blog, a news site, or abuilding a product, you _absolutely must_ care about your site's SEO. If your site is not optimized for search engines, it is harder to find, leading to fewer visitors and potential customers. SEO tools can help you improve the usability of your site, making it easier for users to find the information they are looking for.

These are the tools that I use to monitor and enhance my sites' performance. The can help you build a site that is easier to find and use, too.

## ahrefs webmaster tools

You only need to spend a few moments researching SEO online before ahrefs pops up _somewhere_ in your results. In addition to their incredible [blog](https://ahrefs.com/blog/) and [studies](https://ahrefs.com/blog/category/data-studies/) on how search works on the web, they provide a fantastic suite of free tools for monitoring and improviing the SEO on your sites.

<Image
  publicId="posts/seo-tools-for-new-projects/ahrefs-audit"
  alt="Screenshot of a weekly audit email from ahrefs - showing a 100 SEO score for mikebifulco.com, with a few warnings."
  caption="There's always room to improve SEO, and ahrefs webmaster tools makes it easy to digest"
/>

I have found [ahrefs webmaster tools](https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools) to be absolutely invaluable in keeping an eye on my sites' content. Once you register a free account and verify that you have control of the sites you want to monitor, ahrefs will kick off a weekly audit of all the pages on your domain. It will check for common pitfalls, and give your site a health score from 0-100. If you're a dev, it may be helpful to think of it as a linter for SEO.

I've used it to find and fix countless problems with my sites, from broken links to missing Canonical URLs, removing unnecessary redirects and finding opportunities to link existing articles to one another.

You will get weekly audit reports in email, which let you know when things change - this can be helpful in situations where things out of your control end up affecting your site. Ever had someone take down an article that you link to? Ahrefs will find it.

## Google Search Console

My adoption of [Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console/about) come from what I learned taking Monica Lent's [Blogging for Devs](https://bloggingfordevs.com) course.

Google Search Console gives you reports on how and when people see your site pop up in Google Search results. Note that it won't track people _on your site_ like Google Analytics and Fathom do - just your performance in search. This is a useful litmus for your site's organic growth and authority. If you're investing in sharing your expertise and building a searchable site, your performance on Google Search Console should grow over time. In other words, you can see whether you're gaining traction via SEO or not.

To get started, you'll need to register your site with the Google Search Console. Verifying your ownership takes a few quick steps, and doesn't require you to add Google Analytics (which is helpful if, like me, you've chosen [Fathom](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/why-fathom-analytics) for its privacy-first features).

Best of all, it's free! Just register and follow instructions to add a DNS record, or upload a file to a specific place to verify that you own the site you're interested in monitoring. You should make sure to have a sitemap on your site - they're easy to generate, and worth the time to get right. This is what Google's crawlers primarily use to index your articles for search results.

I use the Search Console to make decisions about things to write about next, and track the progress of my site over time. At the moment, Google will keeps 16 months of your site's traffic history around for you to analyze, but that history starts once you've registered you site with the Search Console. So, the sooner you get set up, the better!

## Fathom Analytics

[Fathom](https://usefathom.com) is privacy first analytics for the web. According to their site, _Fathom is a Google Analytics alternative that doesn’t compromise visitor privacy for data. We revolutionized website analytics by making them easy to use and respectful of privacy laws (like GDPR and more)._

If you've never paid attention analytics for your web properties, Fathom will be a revelation - it's super useful to have an understanding of which pages on your site are getting traffic, where that traffic is coming from, and what times of day are most busy.

If you've used Google Analytics in the past, you may be surprised just how freeing it is to use an analytics tool that prioritizes analytics. You _really_ don't need to know _who_ is on a given page - instead, focusing on the content on your site which is being visited, and the journey readers take to get there is a super useful tool to have when you're researching and writing new articles.

It's great, and puts your readers' privacy first. Google's advantage is quickly vanishing due to new regulations, and privacy tools that are being built into browsers and operating systems. Fathom does a great job of providing value without fishing for every minute detail about your readers.

Fathom is lightweight and ridiculously easy to use. The Fathom team provides docs for a variety of platforms and JAMstack site builders, including [Gatsby](https://usefathom.com/docs/integrations/gatsby), [ConvertKit](https://usefathom.com/docs/integrations/convertkit), [Next.js](https://usefathom.com/docs/integrations/next), [Vue](https://usefathom.com/docs/integrations/vue), [Webflow](https://usefathom.com/docs/integrations/webflow), [Wordpress](https://usefathom.com/docs/integrations/wordpress), and quite a few more.

I've written a bit about my experiences with Fathom before. You may want to check out my other articles, including: [Why I switched to Fathom for Analytics](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/why-fathom-analytics) and [How to add Fathom Analytics to your Remix.run app](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/add-fathom-analytics-to-remix)

### Self-host Fathom for free - Fathom Lite

If you're hesitant to pay for Fathom, they do also provide an open source version called [Fathom Lite](https://github.com/usefathom/fathom) - you'll need to configure and host it yourself, but it should give you an idea of what Fathom's premiums service is like.

If you're interested in trying out Fathom's paid service, use my [**referral link**](https://usefathom.com/ref/DPSSYB) for a discount to get you started.

## Cloudflare

I use [Cloudflare](https://cloudflare.com) to manage the DNS records for all of my sites. In addition to having a _really_ straightforward UI for DNS management, they offer a host of other features to keep your sites running well. This includes automated protection for DDoS attacks, maintenance mode, and performance enhancements such as origin server optimization and caching.

Cloudflare provides a [Free Tier](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/) that will work for most personal sites. You'll need to set up an account, look for the instructions to add your domain to your Cloudflare account, and then update your DNS settings as needed.

Because I own domains from a variety of registrars, it's really nice to be able to manage DNS for all of them in one place. They also provide a ton of other great dev tools, like [Cloudflare Workers](https://workers.cloudflare.com/), which you can use to add interactivity to your site.

## F5Bot

<Image
  publicId="posts/seo-tools-for-new-projects/f5bot"
  alt="Screenshot of f5bot.com - get an email for when you're mentioned online!"
  caption="F5bot is free, and dead simple to set up. "
/>

The pitch for [f5bot](https://f5bot.com) is simple - as they say, it is a service that will help you to "Get an email when you're mentioned online!".

It's completely free, and takes just moments to set up - you just need to create an account, and set up keywords for the service to track. When your keywords are mentioned on [Reddit](https://reddit.com), [Hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com), or [Lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs), you'll get a tidy little email in your inbox.

<Image
  publicId="posts/seo-tools-for-new-projects/f5bot-notification "
  alt="screenshot of a notification from f5bot in my gmail inbox. It's a simple plaintext email with a link to an article on mikebifulco.com that was mentioned on Reddit."
  caption="This is what typical notification from f5bot looks like."
/>

Notifications come _very_ quickly - in my experience, I see them within minutes of my sites being mentioned online. This is hugely helpful because it allows you to respond quickly, strike up a conversation, and make a connection with the people who are sharing your work. Those connections are the backbone of building a great personal brand online.

You can set up any search keyword you want, so if there's a competitor or topic that you're hoping to keep an eye on, it's great for that, too.

Overall, I highly recommend [f5bot](https://f5bot.com) - it's an incredibly useful tool, it's free, and it couldn't be easier to set up.

## Related reading

If you're going on the SEO-improvement journey for your sites, you might find these helpful:

- [Why I switched to Fathom for Analytics](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/why-fathom-analytics)
- [How to add Fathom Analytics to your Remix.run app](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/add-fathom-analytics-to-remix)
- [Don't center-align paragraph text](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/dont-center-paragraph-text) - this is utterly unrelated to SEO, but c'mon, do better.
- [SEO for Devs](https://seofordevs.com) - I absolutely cannot recommend this **free course** enough. Monica Lent has a masterful understanding of SEO, and I've learned a ton from her over the years.


5 Tools I add to every new web project for SEO and analytics


## Semantic HTML makes your sites better

Semantic HTML is important because it helps improve the accessibility of a web page and makes the code more readable. Semantic elements are those that clearly describe their meaning in a way that is easy for both humans and machines to understand.

Search engines can more easily parse and understand semantic HTML, [which can help improve your website's SEO](https://developers.google.com/style/semantic-tagging). Semantic HTML uses tags to describe the meaning of content on a page, rather than just its presentation. This can help search engines better understand the content of a page and index it appropriately.

### Using h2 as a subtitle for an h1 is incorrect

According to the [html spec](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/dom.html#heading-content-2), `h1` through `h6` tags are meant to indicate the structure of a document. In other words, each page should have at most 1 `<h1>` tag, and `<h2>` elements should be _sub-sections_ of that `h1` - not additional descriptions for it.

This [warning from the HTML spec](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/dom.html#sectioning-content) does a great job of explaining it:

> For example, the following snippet, intended to represent the heading of a corporate site, is non-conforming because the second line is not intended to be a heading of a subsection, but merely a subheading or subtitle (a subordinate heading for the same section).
>
> ```html
> <body>
>   <h1>ACME Corporation</h1>
>   <h2>The leaders in arbitrary fast delivery since 1920</h2>
>   ...
> </body>
> ```

(07/05/2022) As of the time of this writing, whatwg goes on to recommend use of `hgroup` in its solution. [According to MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/hgroup#usage_notes), hgroup should not be used, as it is not supported by assistive technologies needed for accesible reading of HTML sites.

## Use this code to add subtitles to headings

The correct semantic structure of HTML for a heading with a subtitle is straightforward - nest your `<h1>`, etc with in a `<header>` tag, and include a `<p>` tag with an appropriate class name as a sibling to that `h1`:

```html
<header>
  <h1>How to bootstrap a product as a solo founder</h1>
  <p class="tagline">
    Important lessongs learned from building 10 products on my own in 2 years
  </p>
</header>
```

For more details on this, check out [MDN docs on the header tag](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/header), and their [semantics section](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Semantics).

### 🚨 UPDATE: I was wrong! 🚨

The first version of this article was wrong! I previously recommended using the `<hgroup>` tag as per the whatwg spec, but I was corrected by [@AnalyticsEqv](https://twitter.com/AnalyticsEqv) on twitter:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
  <p lang="en" dir="ltr">
    MDN specifically recommends against &lt;hgroup&gt; because assistive
    technologies don&#39;t support it.
  </p>
  &mdash; EQV Analytics 🇺🇦 (@AnalyticsEqv) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnalyticsEqv/status/1544328749272993792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2022</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" />

Thanks for the correction! I definitely get things wrong sometimes, and I'm always happy to correct myself when appropriate.

## Did you find this helpful?

You might also like these other articles I've written:

- [How to run dependabot locally on your projects](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/run-dependabot-locally)
- [No Floating Promises: an eslint rule to prevent async code errors](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/eslint-no-floating-promises)
- [JavaScript tips: nullish coalescing](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/nullish-coalescing-javascript)

If you want to hear more from me, consider subscribing to my newsletter 👇🏼


The correct semantic HTML for adding subtitles to h1 tags


Building a website using the Remix.run web app framework? This tutorial will teach you how to add privacy-first analytics to your Remix site with Fathom.

## How to set up Fathom on your Remix site

1. Sign into your account with [Fathom](https://usefathom.com/login), and create a new site.
2. Open the settings for that site, and look for _Script settings_. Hit the clipboard icon to copy the Script tag for your site.

   <Image
     publicId="posts/add-fathom-analytics-to-remix/script-settings"
     alt="Script settings for one of my sites on Fathom's dashboard"
     caption="You site's embed code will be on the script settings page. Hit the clipboard button to copy the code"
   />

3. Open up your Remix site in your IDE of choice. open `root.tsx` (or `root.jsx` if you're using JavaScript instead of TypeScript), and paste your embed code right before the `<Script />` tag:

```jsx
return (
  <html lang="en">
    <head>
      <Meta />
      <Links />
    </head>
    <body>
      <Layout>
        <Outlet />
      </Layout>
      <ScrollRestoration />

      <script
        src="https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js"
        data-site="TRSSCIOR"
        defer
      />
      <Scripts />
      <LiveReload />
    </body>
  </html>
);
```

<small>
  
  _Note: ☝🏽 I've edited the `<script>` tag here to be self closing, rather than having `<script></script>`. It should work either way._

</small>

4. Start your site with `npm run dev` or `yarn dev` and visit any page (you may have to hit reload if you had the page open already). You should see this reflected in your fathom dashboard in real time!
   <Image
     publicId="posts/add-fathom-analytics-to-remix/tracking-results"
     alt="You'll know it's working when you see a live visitor on your fathom dashboard"
     caption="You'll know it's working when you see a live visitor on your fathom dashboard"
   />

## Try out Fathom - it's great!

I've been using Fathom for years, and am a happy paying customer. If you'd like to give it a shot, you can get $10 off of Fathom when you **use my referral link [https://usefathom.com/ref/DPSSYB](https://usefathom.com/ref/DPSSYB)** to get started.

## If you enjoyed this video

- I wrote a post when I initially adopted fathom, called [Why I switched to Fathom for analytics](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/why-fathom-analytics)
- Make sure to [subscribe to my YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/mikebifulco)


.css-1fb0br2{color:#A0AEC0;}#tutorial: 3 posts tagged

#tutorial: 3 posts tagged