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