Yoast SEO for Beginners

by | Dec 14, 2021

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

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