Search Engine Optimization an introduction April 2021, Corina Burri

Agenda - What is SEO? - How does Google search engine work ? - Which ranking factors are important? - Where can you nerd out? (a.k.a iterature and blog recommendation) - Free tools

What is SEO? «The art of being found organically through a search engine»

Paid Organic* *Exception: Google My Business also allows paid entries. It is labeled as «Ad».

How does Google* find you? - Googlebot (also known as spider) crawls the web. Follows a link from a known page to a new page. - Mobile first since 2020: Googlebot crawls new websites in smartphone view - You can speed up the crawling process if you submit crawl request to Google Search Console and add Sitemap. *Focusing on Google here. As per March 2021 its search market share is 86%.

How does Google know what is on your website? - Google analyses the content of the page, catalogues, images and video files embedded on the page. To help the bot: - Create short, meaningful page titles - Use page headings that convey the subject of the page - Use alternative text for images and subtitle for videos

How does Google know what is on your website? Search Engine Bot Best page for query “What is SEO Strategy” Just what I was looking for! What is a SEO Strategy? I want to know more about SEO Strategy

How to affect ranking positively? - Google is not publishing the ranking factors. However, on their Google Search Central Blog, on Twitter and in SEO hangouts they are giving a handful of recommendations. - SEO Experts pulled together extensive lists of ranking factors. For instance: Google’s 200 Ranking Factors by Backlinko or a weighted approach by First Page Sage.

What are important ranking factors? Onpage Offpage - Mobile friendliness - Niche expertise (aka EAT: expert, authoritative, and trustworthy) - Keywords in Meta Title Tag / Meta Description / URL / H1, H2, H3 - Image optimization - Consistency of publication / engaging content (UX and Time on page) - Internal Links - Page speed (even more important from June/July 2021) - Match the search intent - Backlinks - Offsite mentions - Contribute actively with meaningful insights on blogs and forums - Guest posting - Site Security (SSL certificate)

It is important to match the search intent of the user. - Content matches the search intent of the user. - Types of search intent: Informational Commercial investigation Transactional Navigational Queries typically include How, What, Who, Where, Why, etc. Queries typically include best, A vs B, review, comparision Queries typically include buy, coupon, order, purchas, price Name of a product e.g. How to set up Facebook Business profile? e.g. Hootsuite vs. Buffer e.g. Pricing Hootsuite Profesional Facebook

Want to know more? - Must read: Beginners Guide to SEO from Moz - Want to nerd out? Newsletter from Brian Dean (Founder of Backlinko), Ahrefs Blog, Seokratie Class (in German), SEO Starter Guide from Google, Hola Seo Podcast (in Spanish)

Free tools worth knowing - To find keywords and much more: Google Search Console - To measure success: Google Analytics - To measure page speed: Developers Page Speed Insight - To see Domain Authority, Title Tag, Meta Description at a glance: Moz bar - To discover backlinks: Moz Explorer (Freemium)

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