SEO Fundamentals (Week 10)

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 Week 10: SEO Fundamentals

10. • Break down the basics of Search Engine Optimization and its importance for websites.

    I'm gonna be honest here: I am not an SEO expert. I've only been learning by experience with this stuff for the past two years or so.  I'm constantly learning and relearning this and other things to try to stay up to date with technology and everything else.  But I can give you the basics from what I've seen and tried.

    1) Get listed in at least one search engine by submitting your site or business to Google, Bing, or anything else that you want. There is no limit to how many you can apply for except for your time and ability to follow through.  While this is not a priority, I put it first because it seems like something that will help in the long run.
    

    2) Get your website on an analytics app if your platform doesn't already have it integrated there. For instance many social media sites will have the analytics built into their platforms, and SquareSpace & Wordpress also has its own tools for analytics.  However it doesn't hurt to pull your site into another analytics app anyway, if only for comparison sake and to see what feels more accurate to you. I have heard that different analytics apps will treat the same data differently.  You can find youtube tutorials that will show you what they think are the best analytics tools for starters.  

    3) Make sure your website has all the appropriate meta-tags, titles, and headers to rank for those terms.  Each one can be researched to make sure you are using a phrase (Long Tail Keywords) that are easy to rank for yet relevant to what you are offering.  I like Keyword Magic tool for this, and often you can find more free tools when you do a search on "keyword magic alternatives"  If your business isn't making money yet, it's better not to break the bank with any costs.

    4) Schema JSON and rich code snippets- I read somewhere that a really low percentage like less than 10% of all websites use Schema, even though it's legitimate code that can support a site with visibility on search engines.  JSON is a form of Javascript, and if you are able to learn how to write it, it may be possible to have google or other search engines use your script as part of rich snippets that provide your listing more information about your business such as star ratings, a sense of how much your products or services may cost, and specific information about your business that may not already be in your meta description.
    

    5) HARO & any other more ways to publish without straight up paying for ads.
    Help a Reporter Out. I know you probably don't have time to read the news let alone help someone make the news. But did you know that if you are chosen to help with the article, you can boost your SEO ratings if they link you?  Many times reporters need sources that know a specific business, and if yours is related, it might help them as much it helps you to have you be part of their article in some way, particularly if it helps them answer a question they might have or help persuade their reader about something.
    

    6) Collaborating with other writers/ podcasts/ etc that are in your industry, esp if they are from an organization with higher domain authority. All social media is a collaboration of sorts. We post things that people can like, link to, and comment on.  Podcasts are a low impact way of providing original content directly from you in a more personable way.  It is a very intelligent way of initiating new clients to your beliefs, your ideas, and what they have to gain from you as a business. As with any new social media, it can become a way of life. You learn to create your own image, your voice, and your persona, a representation that you want as your best self. It can be inspiring and life changing for anyone to make this a goal in their career, especially when perhaps your voice is a new one, from a perspective that has not been heard before.  It helps anyone to get a link from other organizations especially ones that have high traffic, and it may boost your influence to get that backlink.
    

    7) Backlinks and the weird no follow thing: Okay, I'm gonna say it; the internet has some weird rules. This is exemplified by the fact that search engines will make assumptions about your links based on your tags and notes about them.  It makes sense if you look at it from their perspective because they're trying to make sure your links are legitimate and not just some way to get or give traffic to a random unrelated site online.  Everytime you create a link, you can add code that will disavow your connection to the organization you've linked to. Considering that it's possible but unethical to purchase backlinks, it makes sense that there are some formal rules about exactly how to do it, but I think that the lingo for it is very confusing. It is like saying, oh yeah, this guy is my brother, but no, I don't follow him. And then the search engine is asking, are you sure you don't follow him? And then you have to disavow that you have any connection and say that just because he's family you're not giving him money, and he's not paying you because we're both independent and we don't want to claim each other on our taxes, you know sticky entanglement stuff. But yeah, then your site might become a backlink for the other site if the search engine is like okay, you can pass through this TSA point. So yeah, confusing because it really feels awkward, like what did we just say to each other? I dunno, standard protocol, I guess. Coded messages- can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em.  So when do you link with follow? I would do it if you are connected with the organization and when you can prove it somehow with your membership or paperwork, subscription, or emails proving your relationship. If someone can tell me if that's what they do too, or if I'm doing it wrong, please tell me.  I'm still new to this.
    

    8) Ranking tools like plugins for your browser that show all the stats of the site automatically.
    I watch a lot of youtube videos for SEO because I can't keep up fast enough. So one of the tools I learned about what SEOquake which has a free browser add on that enables you to automatically see how any site you are looking at does with their analytics. Google Search Console is what I use when I finished using all 10 daily credits from my free Semrush account for magic keyword tools.
    

    9) Language integration, esp for visitors from countries that you are attracting for whatever reason. I usually start with a link to the translate.google.com page, but then my preference would be to ask someone who is fluent in the other language to comb through the translation and give me notes, possibly in a collaborative online document like google or similar. I'm lucky to have a lot of people in my family who speak Chinese. I may have to give Mom a call to see if I can have my website better translated somehow. I wonder if any of this lingo that I use in computers will translate well on google.  I'm guessing it might be best to find another web savvy person to go over the translation as well. I'm thinking of a few colleagues that might be able to support.  Maybe I can offer them a free website or similar, too for the help.
    

    10) Make a related event or two with either eventbrite or ticket leap to showcase your work/ find new clients. And support your event with a mailing, with the support of a newsletter like mailerlite, sendfox, or mailchimp. I'm still testing new platforms, but these are the three I've tried so far. Any time you get your word out there, you want to protect the privacy of your subscribers by using bcc or a newsletter which will hide people's emails automatically.  The other perk of newsletters is that you can save all your campaigns in one place, and usually you have access to that software's analytics for every campaign as well.  A campaign is each and every newsletter that you send out to each person, which often has a call to action button inside.  It might share information about your event, your website, and other related resources. It's usually best to share resources that are already published on your own website, unless you have permission/requests to share resources from elsewhere.  Too many of these other resources, or putting resources that are not directly related to your services might feel like spamming or scraping, which might give the impression you're selling something or that you don't have much of your own news to share.
    

    11) Wrangle all your analytics in one place.  That's every social media and your website and google maps.  possible tactics, start with bookmarks in a folder, see if you can add a webpage somewhere with live stats for each of your social media, this might be with an iframe, or at least a little place somewhere you can login to all your stats with links.  This would be esp helpful for clients that need support with finding all their stats. Look for apps, youtubes, or similar already existing analytics conglomerate tools that might support this.  Do these analytics include your own traffic to those sites? Admittedly, this is not something I've done for myself yet. But I'm working towards that goal for myself and all the other sites I manage.
    

    12) Help! I've been hacked. Well, not yet, but it has happened before.  I just found out about "StopBadware" a twitter profile which Google used to recommend when it was an organization with a website back in 2009- 2014? Now it seems non-functional, and their facebook page hasn't been updated since 2014. Here's an old link from web.dev related to what you might want to do if you have been hacked.  The video is from 2015, so I'm not sure what in there is still useful.

    13) What not to do with a website.  While this page could have been more useful yesterday, it's still a good read because it will give you a better perspective on what might be less valuable than you once thought regarding sharing relevant information and "spammy" kinds of ways to fill a page. Is any of your content "Scraped", meaning copied directly from another source with no new information of value to a reader?  It's tempting to cut and paste source material not just for reference, but as filler content, but who does that really help if that information is already out there and could be more easily provided as a link to the original content?  We can all share the same information but with nuances of meaning, but what is the motivating factor that you have for doing that? What would help you gain more insight on what information you might want to produce for your website viewers? Let's dig deeper together.

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