What does Google do?
- Google bots or crawlers follow links
- These bots save these links in the index
- Google’s algorithm ranks websites based on certain factors
- Google aims to provide the best result possible
Google’s Search Results Page
- Search results can easily be filtered- you can click on the options below the search bar for filtered results e.g. news, images, books
- The ‘All’ option below the search bar is very important- first few search results are taken by ads- companies pay to show up like this
- Every separate search result is known as a snippet- consists of the following:
- Title
- URL/slug
- Meta description- should tell what your page is about
- Featured result- when a snippet is at the top of the search result- answers the question user enters in Google
- Knowledge graph- appears on the right side of the search results page
- Answer box- appears somewhere between the organic search results- give suggestions to the question you searched
Google and Holistic SEO
- Google combats spam
- Rewards good user experience
- Holistic SEO- focus on all aspects of optimization to be able to rank better
- Stay away from black hats SEO- unnatural ways to improve site rank- e.g. keyword stuffing, use of white text such tactics can penalize your website
- Sustainable SEO- long term site ranking
Exploring Holistic SEO
- User experience should be focused upon
- Site structure- the simpler and well easy your site structure is, the easier it is for user to navigate through and consequently Google to rank
- Technical excellence- maintain your site; fix the 404s, errors links; the greater the site speed, the greater is the user satisfaction
- Good content- quality content, things should be newsworthy
What is a Keyword?
- A word that best describes the content on your page
- Search term you want your page to rank for
- Act as clues for Google- tells what the page is about
- Focus on your audience; the keywords they would use
- Use 1-2% of keyword in your article/content/post/page
- Use keywords at balanced locations throughout the post
- In page title, meta descriptions, title tag
- Use mid and long tail keywords as shorter ones have a huge competition- the former are to the point
Keyword Search
- Important to know what makes your company unique- what is its mission and purpose- your business’s services/products; USP
- Find out what words the user uses while searching
- Use Google trends to see how often certain terms are used
- Look at the keyword of the top 3 rankings
- Bigger sites- rank for head (popular) mid and long tail keywords
- Small sites- focus on their niche and start off with long tail keywords
Rich Results
- Results that offer more info than normal search results
- Rich snippet- picture; rating of your info; meta description; date of publication; (good for pages that publish about recipes); address; number; email- improves chances of higher ranking; appeals the user- have structured data for a richer snippet
- Structured data- gives search engines additional info about your page- google better understands your page through it- helps Google to create rich results
- It is structured by using JSON- LD ; schema.org; WordPress (go to Yoast structured data block option while choosing to add a block)
- Rich card- right side of search results
- Featured snippet- google shows up your webpage as an answer to user query
- Knowledge graph
- Standard- only used by large companies and celebs- info about you e.g. player ranking and achievements
- Local- address, contact number, google map embedded