LECTURE 1
Google Search engines have one objective, to provide you with the most relevant results
possible in relation to your search query.
- Crawling – Scanning all the webpages in the network of internet
- Indexing – adding the webpages to a database, similar to creating a dictionary
- Ranking – Google uses its own algorithm to determine the order of the page results
based on about 200 factors
Main ranking factors used by Google: PageRank was one of the first algorithms used by
Google. It works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough
estimate of how important the website is. Other updates, Hummingbird (low quality content),
RankBrain (User experience), Featured Snippets(most relevant content). Over the years
Google has constantly updated its algorithm for user experience. Some of the factors are:
- Website Factors
1. Domain Factors - Age, Keywords, Title Tags, Description Tags
2. Technical Mechanics – Page Speed, Mobile Friendliness
3. Content – Google released an update called Caffeine few years ago, Keywords in
the website
- Reputation – Authority status of the website, Visitors, Historical performance of listing
(clicks, bounce rates, etc.)
- Trustworthiness – Back Links/ Outbound links/ Internal links, Social Signaling
- User Profile – Geographic Location, Web History, Language.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization is essentially the science of
designing your web site to maximize your search engine rankings. This means that all of the
elements of your web site are created with the goal of obtaining high search engine rankings.
Steps of SEO:
1. SEO: Goals
Goals will help you create plans, direct your day-to-day tasks, and, ofcourse, motivate you to
rise above your competitors. Analyzing the underlying needs of your business. Converting
these needs into well-defined goals. Assigning key performance indicators (KPIs) to these
goals—to assess if you're on the right track to achieving them. Types of goals include
engagement, visibility, and the most common goal, conversions. Every business is different
in regards to what it classifies as a conversion.
2. SEO: On page optimization
On page optimization can be done in two ways: 1) Content Optimization 2) Optimizing the
Technical Mechanics of Your Page.
Content Optimization:
a. Understanding consumer’s Intent to Search
Figure out the types of words and phrases, called keywords, your consumers use when
looking for your product or service on a search engine. Save the terms you come up with in a
list – this will be a great place to start when beginning your keyword research. It’ll be super
helpful to go ahead and put your keywords into an excel document or google sheet
, b. Keyword Research
There are a few thinks to look for when researching keywords:
o Monthly searches – Monthly search volume of a particular keyword in a given
location
o Keyword difficulty – The higher the number, the more difficult it will be to rank
on that keyword. An ideal keyword has high monthly searches and a relatively
low keyword difficulty.
o Competition – What keywords are your competitors using and what are their
organic ranks for those keywords?
c. Content: Integrating keywords in the site content
Now it’s time to figure out which pages of your website you want to optimize for higher search
engine results. A good rule of thumb is to have each keyword you’re trying to rank for used in
your website copy at least 5-7 times per page. Idea is to integrate the keywords in different
parts of the webpage Maintain up-to-date content while catering to what your website visitors
want is most important
d. Up-to-Date Content
Optimizing the Technical Mechanics of Your Page:
a. Site Navigation
b. URL Structure
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/african-elephants. Single domain – Shallow folder
strucure with relevant words – Keywords in page name, sperated by hyphen. Your URLs need
to be descriptive in order to inform your users what they’re linking to. The link destination is
clearly described, the hierarchy is visible, and the keywords are prominent and separated by
dashes.
c. Titles, heading & description (Titles, Descriptions, Sub-headings)
d. Meta tags
A web page is made up of hypertext markup language (HTML). Within the HTML are special
tags, known as meta tags. Meta tags don’t affect the web page layout, but rather provide
, important information about the page’s content, which is used by search engines to index your
site.
e. Site speed, combability
Google’s algorithm has shifted to include greater ranking emphasis on mobile friendliness.
Responsive sites contract and expand to the screen dimensions of the devices searchers are
using – whether they are smartphones, tablets, or computer screens. An alternative to a
responsive website would be a mobile-specific website, wherein you choose to build an entirely
separate mobile website with its own unique URLs. Site loading speed is another dimension
Site combability with different browsers is important for a seamless user experience.
3. SEO: Off Page Optimization
a. Setting up a Google My Business Page
Setting up a Google My Business page is also a tool that will help your business pop up in
localized searches. It’s free to set up and requires a physical address for your business.
b. Link Building
Links are important part of organic search engine optimization. Popularity of a website or page
can be increased by upping the number of links to your page, called backlinks. Links to your
pages from authoritative sites indicates popularity and trustworthiness. Inbound links are links
that keep viewers on your website. You can link to your blog posts and other information pages
or service pages, for example. Search engines use links to discover new pages, as well as to
determine how a page should rank, so don’t skip over this process.
4. SEO: Advanced Optimization
a. Blogging
Improve Ranking & traffic. Writing blogs for your website helps with organic search engine
optimization, also provides valuable information for your potential customers. Smart use of
keywords. Writing blogs about the industry you service will provide a place for you to insert you
keywords plenty of times, while keeping the information relevant and helpful. Authority Status of
your website. A well-written blog makes you look more credible because of your level of
expertise. Blogs that optimize for keywords will ideally be anywhere from 500 to 2,000 words,
Improving inbound links. Blogs are typically a great place to include links to your other blogs,
your service pages, and more.
b. Structured Data Markups
It enables you to better explain the content of your website to search engines. If, for example,
you’re writing a blog about bass, how it is the search engine to know if you’re referring to the
guitar or the fish? Have you ever seen a company’s upcoming event or reviews displayed in
SERPs? That's because the company has marked up their content, so that search engines will
acknowledge these are listings of events and reviews and include them in search results and
in the Knowledge Graph.
c. Tracking your Rankings
Tracking your keyword rankings is the best way to tell if your work is being rewarded.
Additionally, knowing how your SEO is performing can help you make the necessary changes
over time to keep your rankings high. Look around for a keyword tracking tool to help you track
Google Search engines have one objective, to provide you with the most relevant results
possible in relation to your search query.
- Crawling – Scanning all the webpages in the network of internet
- Indexing – adding the webpages to a database, similar to creating a dictionary
- Ranking – Google uses its own algorithm to determine the order of the page results
based on about 200 factors
Main ranking factors used by Google: PageRank was one of the first algorithms used by
Google. It works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough
estimate of how important the website is. Other updates, Hummingbird (low quality content),
RankBrain (User experience), Featured Snippets(most relevant content). Over the years
Google has constantly updated its algorithm for user experience. Some of the factors are:
- Website Factors
1. Domain Factors - Age, Keywords, Title Tags, Description Tags
2. Technical Mechanics – Page Speed, Mobile Friendliness
3. Content – Google released an update called Caffeine few years ago, Keywords in
the website
- Reputation – Authority status of the website, Visitors, Historical performance of listing
(clicks, bounce rates, etc.)
- Trustworthiness – Back Links/ Outbound links/ Internal links, Social Signaling
- User Profile – Geographic Location, Web History, Language.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization is essentially the science of
designing your web site to maximize your search engine rankings. This means that all of the
elements of your web site are created with the goal of obtaining high search engine rankings.
Steps of SEO:
1. SEO: Goals
Goals will help you create plans, direct your day-to-day tasks, and, ofcourse, motivate you to
rise above your competitors. Analyzing the underlying needs of your business. Converting
these needs into well-defined goals. Assigning key performance indicators (KPIs) to these
goals—to assess if you're on the right track to achieving them. Types of goals include
engagement, visibility, and the most common goal, conversions. Every business is different
in regards to what it classifies as a conversion.
2. SEO: On page optimization
On page optimization can be done in two ways: 1) Content Optimization 2) Optimizing the
Technical Mechanics of Your Page.
Content Optimization:
a. Understanding consumer’s Intent to Search
Figure out the types of words and phrases, called keywords, your consumers use when
looking for your product or service on a search engine. Save the terms you come up with in a
list – this will be a great place to start when beginning your keyword research. It’ll be super
helpful to go ahead and put your keywords into an excel document or google sheet
, b. Keyword Research
There are a few thinks to look for when researching keywords:
o Monthly searches – Monthly search volume of a particular keyword in a given
location
o Keyword difficulty – The higher the number, the more difficult it will be to rank
on that keyword. An ideal keyword has high monthly searches and a relatively
low keyword difficulty.
o Competition – What keywords are your competitors using and what are their
organic ranks for those keywords?
c. Content: Integrating keywords in the site content
Now it’s time to figure out which pages of your website you want to optimize for higher search
engine results. A good rule of thumb is to have each keyword you’re trying to rank for used in
your website copy at least 5-7 times per page. Idea is to integrate the keywords in different
parts of the webpage Maintain up-to-date content while catering to what your website visitors
want is most important
d. Up-to-Date Content
Optimizing the Technical Mechanics of Your Page:
a. Site Navigation
b. URL Structure
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/african-elephants. Single domain – Shallow folder
strucure with relevant words – Keywords in page name, sperated by hyphen. Your URLs need
to be descriptive in order to inform your users what they’re linking to. The link destination is
clearly described, the hierarchy is visible, and the keywords are prominent and separated by
dashes.
c. Titles, heading & description (Titles, Descriptions, Sub-headings)
d. Meta tags
A web page is made up of hypertext markup language (HTML). Within the HTML are special
tags, known as meta tags. Meta tags don’t affect the web page layout, but rather provide
, important information about the page’s content, which is used by search engines to index your
site.
e. Site speed, combability
Google’s algorithm has shifted to include greater ranking emphasis on mobile friendliness.
Responsive sites contract and expand to the screen dimensions of the devices searchers are
using – whether they are smartphones, tablets, or computer screens. An alternative to a
responsive website would be a mobile-specific website, wherein you choose to build an entirely
separate mobile website with its own unique URLs. Site loading speed is another dimension
Site combability with different browsers is important for a seamless user experience.
3. SEO: Off Page Optimization
a. Setting up a Google My Business Page
Setting up a Google My Business page is also a tool that will help your business pop up in
localized searches. It’s free to set up and requires a physical address for your business.
b. Link Building
Links are important part of organic search engine optimization. Popularity of a website or page
can be increased by upping the number of links to your page, called backlinks. Links to your
pages from authoritative sites indicates popularity and trustworthiness. Inbound links are links
that keep viewers on your website. You can link to your blog posts and other information pages
or service pages, for example. Search engines use links to discover new pages, as well as to
determine how a page should rank, so don’t skip over this process.
4. SEO: Advanced Optimization
a. Blogging
Improve Ranking & traffic. Writing blogs for your website helps with organic search engine
optimization, also provides valuable information for your potential customers. Smart use of
keywords. Writing blogs about the industry you service will provide a place for you to insert you
keywords plenty of times, while keeping the information relevant and helpful. Authority Status of
your website. A well-written blog makes you look more credible because of your level of
expertise. Blogs that optimize for keywords will ideally be anywhere from 500 to 2,000 words,
Improving inbound links. Blogs are typically a great place to include links to your other blogs,
your service pages, and more.
b. Structured Data Markups
It enables you to better explain the content of your website to search engines. If, for example,
you’re writing a blog about bass, how it is the search engine to know if you’re referring to the
guitar or the fish? Have you ever seen a company’s upcoming event or reviews displayed in
SERPs? That's because the company has marked up their content, so that search engines will
acknowledge these are listings of events and reviews and include them in search results and
in the Knowledge Graph.
c. Tracking your Rankings
Tracking your keyword rankings is the best way to tell if your work is being rewarded.
Additionally, knowing how your SEO is performing can help you make the necessary changes
over time to keep your rankings high. Look around for a keyword tracking tool to help you track
