2.1. Search Engine Optimisation

• Fundamental knowledge and concepts in Search Engine Optimisation
  • Most search engines are ads supported for profit
  • Orangic results: SEOs strive for page one, organic ranking and the goal is to achieve highest organic result for relevant keyword(s)
  • Advertisers bid on queries and keywords
  • When small position changes is equivalent to increase in traffic
  • Optimized sites maintain traffic and rank
  • Proper keyword selection ensures engaged visitors

• How Search Engines Work:
  • Search engines have created programs known as robots which are also called crawlers or spiders. These robots crawl the web to discover new web pages and documents
  • One way robots discover new sites is through links
  • Once a robot discovers a new page or site, it will analyze all the content and data on the page to determine what the page is about and the topic it should rank for. The site is then added to a massive database, also known as an index
  • To enhance the speed of the process, there are many data centers around the wall. And when a user performs a search query, the search engines look through the index
  • And also rank the results based on the authority (determine relevance) of a website
  • A page is relevant when words, also known as keywords, were used most frequently
  • In short, robots will discover the webpages and analyse them before entering them into an index. Then they receive a search query, determine which page in the index is most relevant, and return results to the user

• Introduction to Search Engine Algorithms:
  • All search engines share the goal of providing relevant, timely information
  • Each search query return organic as well as paid results
  • The quality and theme of a website, the organic search results the site has displayed, and the types of query are the elements of a website that an algorithm used to determine the ranking

• SEO Best Practices:
  1. High quality content:
     • Good content helps usability as it reflects what the website is about and how it can meet the user needs
  2. Homepage = Authority
     • Homepage is the page earns the most authority on the website
     • Therefore, search engines understand what the site is about and rank it appropriately
  3. Outside links increase authority
     • Obtaining link from other sites is another important best practices
  4. Site must be visible in search
     • It is important to ensure the site is accesible to the user

• Three Major Types of Ranking Factors:
  1. On-Page
     • Title Tags
     • Keyword Usage & Keyword Placement
     • Heading Tags
     • Content Quality, Content Length and Content Freshness
  2. Off-Site
     • Inbound Links & Outbound Links (Relevancy / Quality)
     • Brand Mentions
     • Social Engagement
  3. Domain
     • Domain history and registration
     • Site Speed and Structure

• How to avoid penalities:
  • Ranking factors determine search visibility but also penalities
  • Penalities can come from multiple updates in the same period. As a result, there is a large loss of traffic
  • Clients may contact SEOs to help repair damage from penalties. Penalities can be in the form of manual, algorithmic, or both
  • To enhance the site, user can:
    1. Improve navigation and remove duplicate content
    2. Create original and unique content for key pages
  • Analyze the site and situation to determine if a penalty has been applied. For instances:
    1. User can check analytics to see if there have been any changes in traffic
    2. View ranking history to compare keyword standing to page traffic
    3. Check the search console to see if there is any contact about penalty

• Evolution of Keyword Optimization:
  • Algorithms are constantly updated to help remove website with no user value and algorithms analyze documents on the web to determine its usefulness
  • Topic modeling allows search engine to gauge relevance
    • Algorithms use topic association and semantic relationships between keywords
    • Knowledge of topic association will help in crafting engaging content
• User is requires a holistic approach with a knowledge of relevant signal such as keywords, engaging content, and backlinks
• Content writing must balance content and keywords.
  • If the site has too many keywords, the page could be considered spammy
  • However, if the site has too few keywords, the page might not be seen as relevant
• Optimized content now relates to overall page concept, not just keywords
  • Users can use techniques like topic association and semantic analysis for better content that better engages users and lets search engine know what is the theme of the page

Strengthening the Keyword Strategy

• Topic Association: Used by search engines to determine relevancy and trustworthiness
• Search engines analyze contenxtual meaning of a webpage and the content served throughout the site to determine relevancy for the theme. Therefore, page should contain keywords RELEVANT to focus keywords, rather than REPEATING the focus keyword
• Focus keyword can be broken up into synonyms and other elements
• Having content that has a cohesive theme results in "Long-tail keywords"
  • Long-tail keywords are longer words or phrases - difficult to predict but very targeted. For e.g., "Where can I learn this course?"
  • The long-tail keywords would naturally be incorporated into the content
• Semantic analysis looks at how words are related. For instance, individual words mean something specific when they are appearing near each other
  • Google added to semantic knowledge by analyzing indexed documents (tagging documents with different “search” terms)
  • Semantic analytics applies to search queries as well as the content
• More importantly, create or manage the creation of relevant content that is valuable to both users and search engines