add notes for Introduction to Google SEO

_posts/2022-08-31-current-seo-best-practices.md

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+---
+author: [abuturab, admin]
+title: 'Current SEO Best Practices'
+date: 2022-08-31 10:00:00 +0500
+tags: ['Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialization/Introduction to Google SEO']
+category: ['My Notes', 'Search Engine Optimization (SEO)']
+img_path: /assets/notes
+image:
+  path: introduction-to-google-seo.jpeg
+  alt: 'Credits: Image by vectorpouch on Freepik'
+published: true
+---
+
+## **Introduction to Search Engine Algorithms**
+
+All search engines share the goal of providing relevant, timely information.
+- As an SEO, our job is to look for the factors and optimize our website according to those, which affects an algorithm.
+- Some factors are verified, some are secretive.
+- Moz, an SEO tool, provides lists of possible factors, an algo looks for, every year.
+- Google algos, Panda, Florida, caffeine. There are constant updates and shift using modern technology by algos to provide better results.
+- Over 500 updates annually to Google algos. Only small percent of that updates are released, other info remain vague.
+
+### MOZcast
+
+An SEO algorithmic tool created by MOZ, which is based upon turbulence.
+
+“Turbulence means high ranking fluctuations, represented by temperature changes”
+
+## **Algorithms Updates: History, Part 1**
+
+- Thousands of updates every year.
+
+  So what you need to do is:
+- Spot patterns
+- Predict what Google may do next.
+- Forms your recommendations and strategies.
+- Look for case studies, how algorithm changes affected the different websites.
+
+## **Algorithms Updates: History, Part 2**
+
+  Major Algorithm updates
+- Panda (2011)
+  + Impacted 12% of search results.
+  + Improved user experience.
+- **Targeted:**
+  + Duplicate content
+  + Thin content
+  + Low quality
+  + Machine generated content
+  + Pages with lots of ads
+  + Substantial content
+  + Content relevancy
+- Penguin (2012)
+- **Changes related to links handling**
+  + Directory related links
+  + Links from spammy or unrelated sites
+  + High percentage of anchor text links Targeted to a specific keyword
+  + Purchases links
+
+### Semantic Indexing
+
+“Looks at usage of synonyms and relevant words or phrases for topical relevance.”
+- Hummingbird (2013)
+- RankBrain (2015)
+
+### Mobile Friendliness
+
+- Mobilegeddon (2015)
+- Mobile-first (2018)
+
+
+### Other Updates
+
+- Personalized Search
+- Caffeine – focused on speed and building a faster web
+- Voice search – impacts how users are discovering your content
+
+## **SEO Best Practices and Ranking Factors**
+
+- Don't over-optimize
+- Highly content
+- Outside links increase authority
+- Site must be visible in search
+- Cloaking (users can see the website content but search engine not) may result in penalties
+- User first
+- Clear hierarchy (clear webpage structure)
+- Only some info is public by Google itself, how algorithms work.
+
+### Three Major Types of Ranking Factors
+
+- **1) On Page**
+  + Title tags
+  + Keyword Usage
+  + Keyword Placement
+  + Heading tags
+  + Content quality
+  + Content length
+  + Content freshness
+- **2) Off-Site**
+  + Inbound links (relevancy/quality)
+  + Outbound Links (relevancy/quality)
+  + Brand Mentions
+  + Social Engagement
+- **3) Domain**
+  + TLD
+  + Domain History
+  + Domain registration
+  + EMD (Exact Match)
+  + Site Speed
+  + Site structure
+  + User Engagement
+
+
+## **Panda: The Game Changer for Content**
+
+- Not a one time change, continues to update.
+- Prevents low-quality sites from ranking highly.
+- Negative impact can be reversed by improving content.
+- Ongoing updates allow Panda to catch sites that have escaped past changes.
+- Updates roll out gradually over several months, as opposed to previous daily updates.
+
+### Targeted: Think/Low Quality Sites
+
+- Few pages with useful content
+- Largely similar material
+- Pages with no content, just links to forms
+- Content scraped from other sites
+
+### Targeted: Duplicate Content
+
+- Pages duplicated on site or replicated from another
+- Duplicate pages cannibalize each other and steal ranking
+- Site that publishes first receives credit/rank
+- Too much duplicate or scraped content can lead to penalization
+
+### Targeted: Excessive Ads
+
+- Low content, high amount of ads
+
+### Targeted: Poor Navigation
+
+- Un-intuitive, doesn't link to all content
+
+### Others
+
+  Panda also looks at;
+- Auto-Generated Content
+- Squeeze Pages: One main page contains all content, user must scroll for more information.
+- Doorway Pages: Pages built for search engines, not users.
+- Meta-Refresh: Once you “land” on the page, it will refresh to another site before you can exit.
+
+## **Cleaning Up Links with Penguin**
+
+- Penguin aims to stop spammy links, is re-run periodically.
+- Manipulative link Practices (unethical or spammy ways to generate links)
+
+### Penguin Targets: Link networks
+
+- Sites built for the sole purpose of linking to each other
+- Could be hosted on different servers, registered to different owners
+
+### Penguin Targets: Link Trading
+
+- Involved standard reciprocal linking as well as advanced, unethical techniques
+
+### Penguin Targets: Comment spam
+
+- Comments on blogs or articles that link back to site
+- Often flattering or innocent comments followed by link
+- Often made by bots, can also be more direct and overtly spammy
+
+### Penguin Targets: Bad anchor text
+
+- Building links containing exact keywords to boost rank
+
+### Penguin Targets: Paid Links
+
+- Paid links can be hard to detect, but there are clues
+  + Link surrounded by ads or certain words, or items/business reviews
+
+### **Penguin Targets: Irrelevant links**
+
+- Links on low quality sites
+- Unrelated links may be paid or obtained through manipulation
+- Algorithm update have made link building more complex and risky
+
+#### Poor Link building
+
+  Link building methods of the past are no longer valid and may incur penalty
+- Poor link building: Multiple directories
+  + Directories are like a phone book for links and not ranked highly
+- Poor link building: Spammy widgets
+  + Free widgets, forms, or apps that contain a link to your site
+- Poor link building: Free templates
+  + Free templates and themes for blogs and websites with link to site
+- Poor link building: Forum post links
+  + Create multiple accounts with link in signature

_posts/2022-08-31-introduction-to-google-seo.md

@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+---
+author: [abuturab, admin]
+title: 'Introduction to Google SEO'
+date: 2022-08-31 09:00:00 +0500
+tags: ['Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialization/Introduction to Google SEO']
+category: ['My Notes', 'Search Engine Optimization (SEO)']
+img_path: /assets/notes
+image:
+  path: introduction-to-google-seo.jpeg
+  alt: 'Credits: Image by vectorpouch on Freepik'
+published: true
+---
+
+## **Introduction to Google SEO**
+
+  Fits in the larger Digital marketing strategy, which also includes: The roles work closely with SEO.
+- Search Engine Marketing
+  - Bidding for paid advertisements
+- Social Media Marketing
+  - Free/paid ads and engagements
+- Content Marketing
+  - Writing for blogs, newsletters, etc.
+- Public Relations
+  - Build relationships, promote content etc.
+
+Types of SEOs:
+- White Hat
+  - Won’t be penalized or banned.
+- Grey Hat
+- Black Hat
+  - Face more penalties, and known for churn and burn approach.
+
+## **SEO as a Career**
+
+### Complementary roles:
+
+- SEO
+- UX
+- Content
+- Social
+- PR
+
+### Career Options
+
+- Consultant
+- Agency
+- In-House SEO
+  - You can work for Startup.
+  - Small and medium-sized businesses
+  - Corporate / Enterprise level clients
+  - Working with External SEO Teams
+
+### Skills Needed
+
+- Interpersonal Skills
+- Project management and planning
+- Strategic Thinking
+- Agile and pro-activeness
+- Stay updated on industry trends and news
+- Ability to analyze data
+
+### Interview Tips
+
+- Prepare a portfolio:
+  - Highlight past work
+  - Showcase practical experience
+  - Reference specific and relevant examples
+  - Listen to their issues
+  - Offer solutions based on past performance, or if you don’t have any experience related to that offer a solution based on your theoretical knowledge.
+- Ask Questions:
+  - What SEO challenges do you face?
+  - What future challenges do you foresee?
+  - Short and long term goals for SEO
+  - How does SEO fit within the organization?
+  - What is the general knowledge or SEO maturity of the company?
+
+## **How Search Engine Works**
+
+- Robots: crawlers or spiders
+- Crawlers discover new websites through links
+- Sites are then added to an index stored in Data Centers
+- User searches for a particular topic, websites are served based on their rating, determined by backlinks, relevancy, and authority etc
+
+## **Evolution of SEO**
+
+- Early Google
+  - Google became leader in the 2000s
+  - Search engines relied mainly on the site content
+  - Site needed to be submitted
+  - Backlinks revolutionized the web
+  - Anything goes without any check
+  - Domain penalties didn't exist
+  - All tactics used to rank websites
+- Old SEO Techniques
+  - Tons of keywords
+  - List of keywords as white text over white background
+  - Gaining hundreds of low quality spammy backlinks
+  - Creating hundreds of pages for each variation of keywords
+  - Relying heavily on keyword-rich domain names
+- Page Rank
+  + Old way: See website score based on backlinks
+  + New way: More in-depth and secretive metric
+- Improvements
+  - Rise of personalized searches and results
+  - Google Analytics to see how user interact with your website
+  - Google Search Console formerly known as webmaster
+- SEO
+  - Now, SEO has become a widely defined term.
+  - Social networks are search engines too.
+  - Learning individual algorithms
+  - Look at branding and social presence
+- Questions to Consider
+  - What is the future of voice and video?
+  - What other technologies may impact search in the future? e.g., AR, VR, web3 etc.
+  - How might gadgets impact how humans search and discover information?