The 2021 Guide to SEO

SEO 101

How many blog posts do you think are published globally every day? 

100,000? 1 million? Well, it might surprise you that over 4.4 million blog posts are posted each and every day. That is equivalent to 51 blog posts every second. What does this staggering number mean for your company? It means that it is becoming harder to stand out from your competition and be found by your target audience. 

So, how do you get your content in front of the right users? Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 

SEO is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of website traffic through organic (non-paid) search engine results. It is the process of optimizing your online content so that it appears higher in search engine rankings when a user searches for a certain keyword or keyword phrase. Think about it this way: there is the search engine (Google, Bing, Baidu, etc.) and the searcher. If you write a blog about where to travel in Greece, you want the search engine to rank your post higher than other results to people searching “Greece travel guide.”

SEO is the backend work needed to make your article rank higher on search engines whenever someone searches for keywords. Three-fourths of all searches start via Google and two-thirds of all clicked links on Google are within the top five results. The combination of these two stats paints the picture of why SEO is so important. Let’s be honest, how often do you find yourself on the second page of Google? Never. 

How Search Engines Work:

Search engines scour the internet of content and evaluate hundreds of factors to determine which content best fits your search. Search engines do this evaluation by a process called “crawling and indexing,” where content is discovered, analyzed, and catalogued. This content can be in the form of webpages, images, videos, etc. Additionally, the content is ordered by how well it matches a query in a process known as “ranking.”

Crawl: scouring Internet content and checking code/content for each unique URL

Index: storing and organizing crawled content

Rank: ordering content from most relevant to least relevant

Check out this link to review Google’s top 200 ranking factors

Organic Search Results

Organic search results are earned through effective SEO, not paid advertising. They are the unpaid entries in a search engine’s results page that are presented based on the relevance of the content to the keyword query versus all other indexed web pages. In short, money is not influencing the ranking of these pages, but rather a search query “naturally” matching the relevance of a page. Paid results are essentially advertisements. A website will pay to have their pages rank higher than other pages with similar content/keywords. 

White Hat vs Black Hat SEO

“White hat SEO” refers to techniques that target human audiences instead of a search engine. White hat SEO techniques include keyword analysis, backlinking, link building, and content writing. Overwhelmingly, quality content creation is the best white hat technique. Creating quality content demonstrates to search engines that your web content is unique and appropriate for ranking. Accompanying the content should be researched keywords. Naturally use keywords that fit the content you are creating in the heading, image texts, page titles, etc. The more quality content with well-researched keywords your website has, the better it will appear to search engines, and in turn, people. 

“Black hat SEO” refers to techniques used to rank higher on search engines by breaking search engine rules. This strategy focuses only on search engines and not the human audience. This is a short-term investment strategy. Techniques of this strategy include keyword stuffing, hidden texts, blog spamming, and link farming. Black hat SEO can yield quick results, but the downfalls of this strategy include its short-term focus and possible consequence of being banned from search engines.

Bottom line: don’t try to trick search engines… they’re smarter than you. Instead, focus on your user’s experience and follow these simple Google Webmaster Guidelines:

1. Make pages for users, not search engines.
2. Don’t be deceptive.
3. Avoid “tricking” search engines to improve rankings. This will hurt you in the long-run.
4. Focus on making your site unique and valuable to users.

Practices to Avoid:

1. Cloaking - Showing users and crawlers different content
2. Doorway Pages - pages used to get users “in the door” to rank well for specific searches
3. Hiding keyword text
4. Copy/pasted content pages
5. Engaging in link schemes
6. Keyword stuffing

Keyword Research

The purpose of keyword research is to better understand how your target audience is searching for their desired product, service, or content. If you understand how your audience is searching, you can more appropriately strategize how to capture their value. 

Before a business begins utilizing search engine optimization, there are a few important details about their consumers they must understand. 

1. What exactly is their desired product/service/content?
2. Who are their consumers?
3. What are their goals?

What you want to rank for and what your audience actually wants can be two different things. Arbitrarily using keywords instead of focusing on audience desired keywords is going to result in low success rate campaigns.

Example: Chris Essey’s Espresso Shop (South Side of Pittsburgh-based, organic, gourmet coffee shop) is looking to utilize SEO to drive more foot traffic to the coffee shop. With the purpose of using focused keywords, the shop’s owner should ask questions such as:

• What kind of coffee and hot beverages are people searching for in my area?
• Who is searching for these terms?
• What time of day are people searching for these terms?
• Could these searches be influenced by seasons, holidays, weather, etc.?
• How are people searching for coffee and espresso?
• Mobile or desktop?
• What exact phrases are being used?
• Where are these people located when searching?

Asking questions such as these is critical in a company’s keyword research process and will help a business better curate content for consumers. 

On-Page SEO

You now understand that researching your audience’s keyword searches is important, but how do you use that knowledge to impact your bottom line? First step: on-page SEO. Simply put, on-page SEO is the practice of creating web pages that answer the questions your audience is asking. This concept is simple, but it is far deeper than just building web pages. Concepts like meta tags and website design begin to appear, but those technical concepts are for later. For now, it’s time to create content using the keywords you previously researched.

It’s no secret that Google ranks pages higher than others because their algorithm has determined a page’s content best answers the searcher’s question. Duplicated content, spam, and broken pages are all a fast track way to never be found. Your pages should provide value to searchers and provide better answers than any other web page for a particular query. Creating content can be boiled down to this:

1. Search for keywords that you want your page to rank highly for
2. Research current web pages that rank highly
3. Analyze the qualities of those web pages
4. Create your own content that answers questions better

If this sounds simple, it is. If you take what is performing well and improve on it, Google will reward you. Every successful company is looking at what their competitors are doing and improving upon it. The world of digital marketing and SEO is no different.

Optimization, not content, is king

“Content is King,” is a famously titled essay written by Bill Gates in 1996, but times have changed and the era of optimization is here. The content your company is creating is important, but it is not the only on-page concept that matters. Header tags, internal links, image optimization, alt text, title tags, meta descriptions, URL structure, and more are all important elements to well-optimized content.

Header tags: HTML element used to designate headings on a web page. The main header tag (H1) is used for the title of the page and sub-headings go from H2 to H6 tags in descending order. H1 describes the topic of the page and is the primary keyword. 

• Example code: 
• <h1>Heading level 1</h1>
• <h2>Heading level 2</h2>
• <h3>Heading level 3</h3>
• <h4>Heading level 4</h4>
• <h5>Heading level 5</h5>

Internal Links: Linking pages to other pages on your own website. 

Image Optimization: Images take up a lot of storage and require longer load times compared to text. For this reason, images should be compressed to save size and speed-up web page load times. Research has shown that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if a web page takes longer than three seconds to load. Aside from losing impatient users, slow web page load times will hurt your rankings.

• Pro tip: thumbnails need to be optimized too! E-commerce sites could have hundreds of thumbnails on a single page. Imagine what the load times would be like if these weren’t optimized. 

Alt Text (alternative text): HTML code used to describe the appearance and function of an image on a page. The alternative text of an image serves several purposes. First, it is an element of web accessibility. Visually impaired users can read alt text and have a better understanding of an image. Second, it provides context to an image which allows crawlers to correctly index it. Lastly, the alt text will be displayed if an image cannot properly load.

• Bad Alt Text: <img src="pizza.jpg" alt="pizza"/>
• Good Alt Text: <img src="pizza.jpg" alt="chicago deep dish pizza with pepperoni"/>

Title Tags: HTML element that identifies the title of a web page. Each page of a website should have a unique title tag that describes the page. This is often a person’s first impression of your website, so it is advantageous to create a compelling title tag to attract users. 

• Nested within the head tag: <head> <title>Example Title</title></head>
• Example:

Meta Descriptions: Similar to title tags, meta descriptions are HTML elements that describe content and are also nested in the head tag. Google claims that meta descriptions are not a ranking factor, but they are critical for click-through-rates. A good meta description will have highly relevant keywords that summarize the web page and ideally be between 150-300 characters in length.

• <head> <meta name=”description” content=”Description of page here.”/></head>
• Example:

URL Structure: URLs are addresses for content on the web. They are equally used by users to determine if a web page contains what they are searching for and by search engines for ranking. A good URL will have a concise, clear name that also describes what is housed on the page. Which URL below would you visit based on appearance?

1. activecities.com/pittsburgh/rugby/
2. activecities.com/asdf/789?=sports-32234-135323

Off-Page SEO

Off-Page Basics

Off-page SEO focuses on actions taken outside of your own website to impact page rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs). Unlike on-page and technical SEO, off-page cannot be directly applied by a website. It centers around inbound link building and attracting links from high-authority websites. The goal of off-page SEO is to show search engines that a website is reliable within a niche. 

Off-Page SEO Factors

Quality Backlinks: When an authoritative website creates content with links to your website, you appear more trustworthy and relevant. 

Quality Content: While this can also be considered on-page, it is an element of off-page as well. Quality content is more likely to be shared and naturally backlinked. A good tactic when creating quality content is to expand from just simply blogging. Videos, infographics, whitepapers, podcasts, and FAQs are all examples of great content creations for backlinking.

Relevance: Not all links are created equal and not all links are valuable for your website. Search engines analyze the relevancy of a backlink to your website and determine the link’s worth. For example, NBA.com backlinking to a professional basketball blogger’s website is more relevant than allrecipes.com linking to the same basketball blog. The first example has an authoritative figure within the same niche backlinking. The relevancy in the second example is low despite coming from an authoritative figure within a different niche. 

Link Profiles: This off-page SEO factor is where most websites get penalized by Google. Links from spam-filled websites can put your website’s reputation at risk. How do you avoid this? Proactively seek out good link building opportunities.

Co-Citation: Co-citation is when two different sources mention the same website. 

Link Building

Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. A hyperlink is a way for users to jump between web pages on the internet. Search engines use these links to crawl the web and navigate between individual pages. These engines discover new pages and determine how well a page should rank. Once a search engine has crawled a web page, they will extract the content and add it to their indexes. By doing this, they can determine how a page should be ranked by analyzing relevant keywords. The process of ranking does not stop there, however. They also analyze the number and quality of external websites linking to your website. The better the linking website, the better the ranking.

Google E-A-T

Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines put great weight in the concept of E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritative, Trustworthy. Sites that display these characteristics are viewed as higher-quality by search engines. It is worth noting that E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, and expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are not individual ranking factors. E-A-T is important for all queries, but some are more important than others. For example, searching for videos of cats playing keyboard will likely not require E-A-T. However, searching for the proper dosage of a medication will require results from E-A-T sites.  

Websites 101

Starting a website

Step 1: Purchasing a domain name. Domain names like activecities.com are purchased from domain registrars such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator, and DreamHost.

Step 2: Linking domain name to IP address. The Internet uses numbers called Internet protocol or IP addresses to identify specific computers and computer networks (ex: 192.0.2.1). However, these can be difficult to remember, so humans use memorable names like twitter.com and wikipedia.org. The help of a domain name system (DNS) is needed to link human-understandable names with machine numbers. 

Website Anatomy

So, what is a website made of? Simple but complicated answer - code (programming languages). The three most common are:

1. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) - Standardized sets of symbols and code used for display effects such as font, color, graphics, spacing and hyperlinks
2. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) - Assigns how HTML elements are displayed, used to maintain style consistency throughout the site
3. JavaScript - Used to create interactive effects within a website

I like to think of it this way - HTML is the structure, CSS is the style, and JavaScript is the behavior.

HTML: The Body

HTML serves as the framework of a website. This framework includes elements like headings, paragraphs, and content. This language is essential for SEO because it is the foundation for any page to be worked on. FYI, Google crawls HTML elements to evaluate content relevancy for a query. 

CSS: The Looks

Cascading style sheets gives a web page its looks by altering fonts, colors, and layouts. Without the use of CSS, websites would all look the same. It gives the ability to alter page layouts, change colors and fonts, add image effects, and more. Basically, it is the cosmetics of a website.

HTML built pages, CSS styled them, and along came JavaScript to make it all move. JavaScript moved web pages from static text to dynamic creations. 

SEO Terms:

1. Algorithms: a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations
2. Alt Text: text in HTML code that describes the images on web pages
3. Backlinks: links from other websites that point to your website
4. Black Hat: SEO practices that violate Google’s quality guidelines
5. Bots: “crawlers” - scourers of the Internet that find content
6. Browser: application used to access and view websites
7. Cache: a reserved storage location that collects temporary data to help websites, browsers, and apps load faster
8. Cloaking: the practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines
9. Crawling: the discovery process in which search engines send out a team of robots to find new and updated content
10. CSS: the language for describing the presentation of Web pages, including colors, layout, and fonts
11. Deindexed: when a URL, section of URLs, or an entire domain has been removed from a search engine index
12. DNS: Domain Name System - connects URLs with their IP address
13. Engagement: data that represents how searchers interact with your site from search results
14. Google Analytics: web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic
15. Header Tags: used to define the header for a document or a section
16. HTML: set of markup symbols or codes inserted into a file intended for display on the Internet
17. Image Carousels: image results in some SERPs that are scrollable from left to right
18. Image Compression: the act of speeding up web pages by making image file sizes smaller without degrading the image’s quality
19. Indexing: storing and organizing of content found during crawling
20. Internal Links: links on your own site that point to your other pages on the same site
21. IP Address: internet protocol address - a string of numbers that’s unique to each specific website
22. Keyword Stuffing: the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results
23. KPI: key performance indicator - a measurable value that indicates how well an activity is achieving a goal
24. Link Building: the process of getting other websites to link back to your website
25. Local Query: a query in which the searcher is looking for something in a specific location
26. Long-Tail Keywords: keyword phrase that aims to capture search traffic from a specific, often 3+ word search query
27. Meta Descriptions: an HTML element that describes and summarizes the contents of your page for the benefit of users and search engines
28. Organic: Earned, non-paid placement in search results
29. Programming Language: writing instructions in a way a computer can understand
30. Protocol: governs how data is relayed between the server and browser
31. Query: the words and phrases that people type into a search box in order to pull up a list of results
32. Rendering: the process where Googlebot retrieves your pages, runs your code, and assesses your content to understand the layout or structure of your site
33. Search Engine: software system that is designed to carry out web searches
34. SERP: Search Engine Results Pages - the pages displayed by search engines in response to a query by a user
35. Sitemap: a list of pages of a web site within a domain
36. SSL Certificate: Secure Sockets Layer certificate - a small data file installed on a Web server that allows for a secure connection between the server and a Web browser
37. Title Tag: an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page
38. Search Traffic: Visits sent to your websites from search engines like Google
39. URL: Uniform Resource Locator - the address of a specific webpage or file on the Internet
40. Webmaster Guidelines: guidelines published by search engines like Google and Bing for the purpose of helping site owners create content that will be found, indexed, and perform well in search results
41. White Hat: any practice that improves your search rankings on a search engine results page while maintaining the integrity of your website and staying within the search engines' terms of service