May 21, 2025 • 28 mins
The digital landscape is shaped by an almost incomprehensible statistic: billions of searches happen on Google every single day. This vast ocean of queries represents incredible opportunity for those who understand how to navigate the complex world of search engine optimization.
We dive deep into the mechanics of SEO, breaking down how search engines actually work—from the crawling "spiders" that discover web content to the sophisticated algorithms that determine which pages deserve top rankings. You'll gain clarity on what truly matters among Google's 200+ ranking factors and how to prioritize your optimization efforts effectively.
The stakes are high in this competition for visibility. The top organic result on Google receives approximately ten times more clicks than the result in position ten, while the top three results collectively capture over half of all clicks. These numbers translate directly into traffic, leads, and potential revenue for businesses that successfully climb the search rankings.
Beyond the technical aspects, we explore the fundamental importance of understanding search intent—the why behind every query. Whether users are seeking information, looking to make a purchase, researching products, or trying to navigate to a specific site, aligning your content with their true goals is essential for both ranking success and user satisfaction.
We also tackle persistent myths about SEO, clarify the distinct roles of on-page and off-page optimization, and provide practical guidance for both DIY optimizers and those considering professional help. For local businesses, we highlight the critical importance of Google Business Profile optimization, while also explaining valuable tools like schema markup that can enhance your search visibility.
What emerges is a clear picture: effective SEO requires patience, persistence, and a commitment to providing genuine value to users. It's not about quick tricks or gaming the system—it's about creating excellent content, ensuring technical excellence, building authority through quality backlinks, and ultimately helping people find exactly what they're searching for.
Thanks for tuning in to Local SEO Unlocked! If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with others who want to master Local SEO. Stay connected with us weekly for more insights on SEO! Until next time, keep optimizing and stay ahead in local search!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know it's pretty hard to wrap your head around
the sheer scale, but did yourealize that billions, literally
billions of searches happen onGoogle every single day?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Billions with a B.
It's mind-boggling when youstop to think about it.
All those people looking foranswers for products for well,
everything.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Exactly, and that incredible volume is precisely
why we're taking a deep divetoday into search engine
optimization, or SEO.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Basically, SEO is all about making sure websites and
their content are set up sosearch engines like Google don't
just find them, but actuallysee them as valuable and show
them prominently, drivingtraffic.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
And our source for this exploration is a pretty
detailed presentation focusedentirely on SEO and for you,
listening the learner, think ofthis as your shortcut through
the, let's be honest, sometimesconfusing world of SEO.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Definitely can be confusing.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
We're not just going to throw definitions at you.
We're aiming to pull out thereally key ideas, explain why
they matter and show how theyactually work, keeping it
understandable.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
So whether you're prepping for a meeting trying to
get up to speed on this wholearea, or maybe you're just
curious about how websitesactually pop up in those search
results, this is for you.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Our mission today.
It's really folks.
We're breaking down thispresentation to give you the
core actionable stuff about SEO.
We'll tackle some key concepts,maybe bust a few common myths.
Oh there, few common myths.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh, there were definitely myths.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
And hopefully give you some genuinely useful
insights.
Okay, so let's kick things off.
The big question what exactlyis SEO?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, according to our source material, seo, search
Engine Optimization it's thepractice of strategically
improving websites and content,the goal to boost their organic
visibility meaning, you know,non-paid visibility, yeah,
natural results, exactly and getmore relevant traffic from
search engines, google, Bing,the usual suspects.
In practice, this means doingthings like keyword research,
(01:59):
finding out what people aresearching for, creating and
optimizing good content, makingsure the site works well
technically.
That's technical optimization,and the big one.
People talk about link building, getting links from other sites
right.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So it's definitely more involved than just like
sprinkling some keywords on apage and hoping for the best.
There's a real strategy behindit?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
oh, absolutely, there's a whole process so
what's the end game?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
what's the ultimate goal of all this effort?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
well, the main goal is to get your website higher up
in the search engine resultspages, or SRS.
Srp is right higher you rank,the more likely people searching
for relevant stuff are going tofind you and click through.
But fundamentally it reallyboils down to meeting the users
needs how.
So it's about creatinggenuinely useful, high quality
(02:45):
content and making sure thewhole experience on your website
is smooth and positive.
You want to give the searcherthe best possible answer or
solution.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
That makes a lot of sense.
It's user focused and thepresentation mentions these two
buckets on page and off page SEO.
Can you break that down?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, it's a useful distinction.
So on-page SEO is basicallyeverything you do on your own
website Think content, quality,keywords in your titles and
headings, how you optimize yourimages, the site structure.
It's all the stuff you directlycontrol.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Okay, your own digital house.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Exactly, Then.
Off-page SEO is about actionstaken outside your website to
build its reputation andauthority.
The classic example here islink building earning those
valuable links from otherwebsites pointing back to yours.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Got it.
So make your own site great andalso build its reputation out
there on the web kind of likegetting endorsements.
Now let's shift to the why.
Why is SEO so so importanttoday?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well, you mentioned the billions of searches earlier
.
That sheer volume is a hugepart of the answer.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Search engines are, for many people, the default
starting point for findingalmost anything online
Information products, services,you name it.
So if you want people to findyou, you need to be visible
where they're looking.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
It's like having a shop on the main street versus
being hidden down some backalley right.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
If you don't rank, people might just never find you
.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
That's a great analogy and the presentation had
some pretty eye-opening statsabout those top positions.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, tell us about those.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Get this, the number one organic result on Google.
It's apparently about 10 timesmore likely to get clicked than
the result down at number 10.
10 times 10 times the potentialtraffic and, what's more, the
top three organic results.
Together they grab over half ofall the clicks for a typical
search.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Over half, just the top three.
That really highlights thevalue of being up there.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It absolutely does.
It shows how fierce thecompetition is for those top
spots and why ranking welltranslates directly into well
visibility and visitors.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So a higher rank isn't just for bragging rights.
It means significantly morepotential customers or readers
finding you.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
But it's not just about traffic volume, is it?
The presentation mentionedother benefits too.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Definitely not just traffic.
Good SEO practices often leadto a much better user experience
.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
How so.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
When you optimize your site for search engines,
you're often making it clearer,faster, easier to navigate,
which is great for actual humanvisitors too.
Plus, there's a trust factor.
Trust, yeah.
Websites that consistently showup high in search results are
often seen as more credible,more trustworthy by users.
Think about your own behavior.
You probably trust the topresults more, right?
(05:23):
I?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
definitely do.
Yeah, yeah, I implicitly assumethey're more authoritative or
relevant.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Exactly, and that perceived credibility can boost
conversions, sales, brand imageall sorts of good things.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And what about cost?
The presentation hinted thatSEO can be cost effective.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
That's a big one Compared to, say, paid search
ads, where you pay for everyclick.
Seo aims to earn you organictraffic over the long haul.
Now it takes time and effort,sometimes money too, but you're
not paying per visitor in thesame way.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So it's an investment that can pay off continuously.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Right.
And finally, in a crowdedonline world, good SEO gives you
a competitive edge.
It helps you stand out fromyour competitors and attract a
steady stream of peopleinterested in what you offer.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Okay, so the case for SEO is pretty clear.
It's fundamental.
But let's get into the nuts andbolts.
Yeah, how do these searchengines actually do it?
How do they find, analyze andrank all this information?
It feels complex.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It is incredibly complex under the hood and the
algorithms are always changing,but we can break down the basic
process.
It starts with crawling.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Crawling like spiders .
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Exactly.
Search engines use automatedprograms called spiders or bots
that constantly browse the web.
They follow links from page topage to discover new websites
and updates to pages theyalready know about.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Like little digital explorers mapping the internet.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
That's a good way to put it.
Once they discover a page, thenext step is indexing.
The search engine analyzes thepage's content the text, images,
videos, everything and addsrelevant information about it to
this massive database called anindex.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
So the index is like a giant library catalog of the
web.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
An unimaginably huge one.
Yes, then comes processingqueries.
When you type something intothe search bar, the engine's
algorithms kick in.
They analyze your query tounderstand what you're really
looking for, your intent.
Then they search their massiveindex for pages that seem
relevant to your query.
After finding potential matches, we get to retrieval and
ranking.
The engine pulls these pagesfrom the index and then ranks
(07:24):
them, ordering them based onhundreds of factors to decide
which ones are the best fit foryour search.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
The secret sauce bit.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Kind of yeah.
Finally, there's displayingresults.
It shows you that list of links, usually with little
descriptions, the search engineresults page, or SRP.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Okay, that framework helps Crawl index process rank
display, but you mentionedhundreds of factors for ranking
and the exact algorithms aresecret.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
That's right.
Google, bing they keep thespecifics of their algorithms
very close to their chests,partly to prevent people from
gaming.
The system unfairly Makes sense, but, based on patents,
statements and a lot of industryresearch, we know they look at
things like the quality andrelevance of your content, the
number and quality of linkspointing to your site, backlinks
, technical aspects like sitespeed, mobile friendliness and
(08:11):
even things like your locationand past search history can
influence the results you see.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And website owners.
We have a role to play inhelping this process.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Absolutely.
It's really our job to make itas easy as possible for search
engines to crawl and understandour sites.
That means using technical SEObest practices to ensure they
can find and index the pages wewant them to find.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So rolling out the digital welcome mat, making sure
everything's clearly labeledessentially OK, so we know what
SEO is, why it's vital androughly how search engines work.
Let's get practical.
Why it's vital and roughly howsearch engines work.
Let's get practical.
How does SEO actually workday-to-day for someone trying to
improve their site's ranking?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Right.
So SEO basically involvesfine-tuning different parts of
your website and content to makethem more attractive to those
search engine algorithms.
It starts really with keywordresearch.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Finding the right words.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Exactly.
You need to figure out whatterms and phrases your target
audience is actually typing intosearch engines when they're
looking for something you offeror information you provide.
Understanding that isfoundational.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Because you need to speak their language.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Precisely.
Once you have those keywords,you move into on-page
optimization.
This is where you tweakelements on your actual web
pages, Things like crafting goodtitle tags, those blue
clickable links in the searchresults, and writing compelling
meta descriptions the littlesummaries underneath Okay.
You also use header tags H1, h2, h3, to structure your content
(09:36):
logically, making it easier forboth users and search engines to
understand the hierarchy ofinformation.
Even optimizing your imageswith good file names and alt
text fits in here.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
MARK MIRCHANDANI.
So ensuring everything on thepage signals what it's about.
What's next?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
MELANIE WARRICK.
Content creation this is huge.
You need to develop highquality original content blogs,
articles, product info, whateverfits your site that provides
real value to users and isoptimized around those keywords
you research.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
MARK M filler text, but genuinely useful stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Exactly.
Then there's link building wementioned it before, earning
links from other crediblewebsites.
Search engines see these linksas votes of confidence, boosting
your site's authority.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Getting those endorsements?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
And finally, technical optimization.
This is about the website'sfoundation.
Is it fast?
Does it work well on mobilephones?
Is the code clean?
Can search engines easily crawlit?
All that technical stuff iscrucial.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Wow, Okay.
So it's a mix of understandingyour audience, creating great
content, making technicaladjustments and building
authority.
And the presentation mentionedthe SEO landscape is always
changing.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Oh, constantly.
Google and other search enginesupdate their algorithms
frequently.
What worked last year might notwork now or might even be
harmful, so staying updated onbest practices and keeping an
eye on SEO statistics and trendsis really important for making
good decisions.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Right, it's not a set it and forget it kind of thing.
It needs ongoing attention.
Okay, let's dig into thosesearch engine ranking factors
you mentioned.
These are the signals Googleuses.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Essentially yes, the criteria search engines evaluate
to decide ranking order, andour source mentioned that Google
supposedly uses over 200different factors.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Whoa over 200.
That sounds intimidating.
Can we group them somehow?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, the presentation does a good job
categorizing them.
There are domain factors aboutthe domain name itself, page
level factors specific toindividual pages, site level
factors about the whole website,backlink factors, those
incoming links, user interaction, how people engage with your
site, special Google algorithmrules like RankBrain, which
we'll get to brand signals, andeven factors to detect web spam,
(11:39):
both on your site and off-site.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Okay, that helps break it down.
Can you give some exampleswithin those categories?
What are some key things Googlelooks at?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Sure.
So keywords are stillfundamental.
Their presence in your content,title tags, descriptions,
Content quality is massive.
It's depth, originality,usefulness.
Interestingly, the source notestop ranking pages often average
like 1,890 words.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
That's quite long, so comprehensive content often
wins.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It often does.
Yeah, then link building thenumber, quality and relevance of
sites linking to you.
User engagement signals likehow long people stay on your
site, time on site, how manypages they visit pages per
session and if they leaveimmediately bounce rate.
Mobile optimization isnon-negotiable now your site has
to work well on phones and sitespeed how fast your pages load.
(12:26):
Nobody likes a slow website.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Definitely not.
Patience, online is pretty thinthese days.
Okay, let's dive a bit deeperinto some specifics from the
presentation, starting withdomain factors.
Keywords in the URL and domainregistration links were
mentioned.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Right.
Having a keyword in your domainname isn't the magic bullet it
maybe once was, but it can stilloffer a small relevant signal.
And it's interesting.
Google apparently holds apatent related to domain
registration length.
The thinking is maybe domainsregistered for many years ahead
seem more legitimate, less flyby night.
It's not confirmed as a directranking factor, but it's
something they've looked at.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Fascinating little detail.
Okay, moving to page levelfactors, the title tag and meta
description seem reallyimportant.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Absolutely critical.
They're often your firstimpression in the search results
.
The title tag needs to beaccurate, concise, include
keywords, ideally, and it's whatshows up in the browser tab too
.
The meta description is yoursales pitch that short summary
under the title that needs toconvince people to click your
link instead of someone else's.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Your ad copy in the search results?
Essentially, yeah.
What about header tags H1s, h2swithin the page?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Super important for structure Header tags H1 for the
main title, h2s for subheadings, etc.
Break up your content, make itscannable for readers and,
crucially, help search enginesunderstand the main topics and
hierarchy of your information.
Using them logically is key forreadability in SEO.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And the URL structure itself does that matter?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yes, a clean, readable URL helps users know
what the page is about beforeclicking.
Including relevant keywords,naturally, can also help
slightly.
Plus, a logical structure helpssearch engines understand how
your site is organized,something like your sitecom
services.
Widget repair is much betterthan your sitecompageid123.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Right, much clearer.
What about image optimization?
Easy to forget.
About the pictures?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Crucial.
Big images slow down your site,bad for speed, bad for SEO.
So compress them and usedescriptive alt tags.
Alt tags tell search engineswhat an image is about, since
they can't see it like we do.
Plus, it's vital foraccessibility for visually
impaired users.
Good file names and captionshelp too.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Makes sense.
And lastly, for page levelinternal linking, Linking
between your own pages.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Hugely valuable and often overlooked.
Internal links help usersnavigate your site, keep them
engaged longer and spread thatlink equity or authority around
your own pages.
It also shows search engineshow your content is related and
which pages are most importantfor certain topics.
Creates a strong internal web.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Okay, got it so that covers individual pages.
Let's zoom out to site levelfactors.
What makes Google see an entirewebsite as trustworthy and high
quality?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well, number one is still having valuable and unique
content across the site.
Google wants to reward sitesthat offer something genuinely
useful and original, not justthin or copied stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Content is king again .
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Pretty much.
Also, surprisingly, perhapsyour Contact Us page matters.
The presentation says Googlelikes sites with appropriate
amount of contact informationthat matches your NAP name,
address, phone number,consistently across the web.
Especially for local businesses, it signals legitimacy.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Being transparent and reachable builds trust.
What else?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Site architecture, how your site is structured.
A logical structure, maybeusing silos, where you group
related content togetherthematically, helps Google
understand your site's topicsand crawl it efficiently.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Silos like organizing things into clear categories.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Exactly.
Then there's domain trust ortrust rank.
It's a bit fuzzy, but the ideais Google assesses the overall
trustworthiness of your domainbased on various signals.
A Google patent supports thisconcept.
And finally, site uptime Ifyour site is down a lot, that's
a bad signal.
It hurts user experience andcan definitely hurt your
rankings, potentially even getyou temporarily de-indexed if
(16:15):
it's bad enough.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Right, can't rank if you're not even there.
Okay, let's tackle backlinkfactors.
What makes a good backlink?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Ugh the million-dollar question.
In SEO sometimes Several thingsmatter.
Relevance is huge.
A link from a site in yourindustry is way more valuable
than one from a totallyunrelated site.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
The authority of the linking site matters too.
A link from a big, respectedsite passes more juice than one
from a small, unknown blog.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Makes sense.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
The anchor text, the clickable words in the link
should ideally be relevant tothe page it's linking to.
Link placement is also a factor.
A link within the main articletext is generally better than
one buried in a footer.
And then there's the followversus no follow attribute.
A follow link passes authority,A no follow link tells Google
not to pass authority throughthat link.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So it's really about quality and relevance, not just
getting heaps of links fromanywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Absolutely.
A few really good, relevantlinks beat thousands of spammy
ones any day and, as the sourcenotes, the best way to get good
links create amazing contentthat people want to link to,
naturally.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Content again.
Okay, moving on to userinteraction, the presentation
mentions RankBrain.
What on earth is that?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Okay, RankBrain, it's basically Google's AI, their
machine learning system.
It helps Google understand themeaning behind search queries,
especially the weird, ambiguousor conversational ones, the ones
they haven't seen before.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So it helps Google understand us better.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Exactly.
It uses natural languageprocessing to figure out the
user's intent, even if thekeywords aren't a perfect match
for the content on a page.
It then looks at how usersinteract with the search results
to see which pages seem tosatisfy that intent best.
It's considered a veryimportant ranking signal.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Wow, AI playing a direct role in rankings.
What about organicclick-through rate, CTR?
How does that fit in?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
CTR is simply the percentage of people who see
your listing in the searchresults and actually click on it
.
So if 100 people see your linkand five click, your CTR is 5%.
Right and does?
A higher CTR for a particularposition can signal to Google
that your result is highlyrelevant and compelling for that
(18:25):
query.
It might give you a rankingboost.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Because lots of people clicking suggests it's a
good match.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Precisely.
It validates the relevance andappeal of your title tag and
meta description.
A consistently low CTR, on theother hand, might suggest your
result isn't hitting the mark,so optimizing for clicks is
important too.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Okay, Now this seems crucial.
The presentation stressed thedifference between correlation
versus causation.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Why is that so important here?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Super important.
Just because two things happentogether, they correlate,
doesn't mean one causes theother.
In SEO you might see that sitesranking highly often have, say,
lots of social media shares.
That's a correlation.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
But it's a mistake to jump to the conclusion that
getting more social sharescauses higher rankings.
It's more likely that both highrankings and lots of shares are
the result of something else,like having really great content
that people naturally want toshare and that Google also sees
as high quality.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So don't chase metrics just because they
correlate with rankings, unlessyou understand the underlying
reason.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Exactly.
Correlation can give you clues,but don't assume causality.
Focusing on things directlyknown to influence rankings,
like content, quality, technicalSEO and good backlinks, is
usually a safer bet than chasingcorrelations that might be
misleading.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Got it.
Be careful not to confusesymptoms with causes.
Another key concept was searchintent.
What's that all about?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Search intent is basically understanding why
someone is searching.
What's their goal?
The presentation breaks it intofour main types Informational
they want to learn something howto bake bread.
Navigational they want to go toa specific site.
Youtube.
Transactional they want to dosomething, usually by running
shoes size 10.
And commercial investigationthey're researching before a
potential purchase.
(20:08):
Best coffee makers 2024.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Okay, so different goals behind the search.
Why does understanding thismatter so much for SEO?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Because you need to match your content to the user's
intent.
If someone searches for bestcoffee makers, they probably
want reviews or comparisons,commercial investigation, not
the history of coffee,informational.
If your page doesn't match thelikely intent for that keyword,
Google probably won't rank ithighly and even if people click,
they'll leave disappointed MARK.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
MIRCHANDANI Right, you have to give people what
they're actually looking forwhen they type that query.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Aligning content type with intent.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Exactly Nail the intent and you're much more
likely to rank well and satisfythe user, which reinforces your
ranking.
It's fundamental.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Okay, so pulling this together, the presentation
outlines steps to developing agood SEO strategy.
Can you walk us through the keyparts?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Sure, it starts with that keyword research.
Know your audience.
Then make sure your site istechnically sound, fast, mobile
friendly, crawlable.
Then publish high qualitycontent regularly aligned with
intent.
Actively build high qualitybacklinks, use social media and
other channels to promote yourcontent and build awareness.
Critically monitor and analyzeyour performance track rankings,
(21:20):
traffic, conversions, seewhat's working and, finally,
stay updated because, as we said, seo is always changing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
It really sounds like a continuous cycle of research,
action and analysis.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It absolutely is.
It's an ongoing process, not aone-off project.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Now something specific for local businesses
Local SEO and the GoogleBusiness Profile GBP.
How important is this?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Hugely important if you have a physical location or
service-specific geographic area.
Your Google Business Profileused to be a Google my Business.
It's that panel that shows upin search and maps with your
hours, address, phone number,reviews, photos.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I see those all the time.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's a free tool from Google and optimizing it is
probably the most importantthing you can do for local SEO.
It lets you control your info,respond to reviews, post updates
and see how people are findingyou locally A complete accurate,
active GBP is essential forattracting nearby customers.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
So if you're that local bakery or plumber,
claiming and optimizing your GBPis job number one for local
visibility.
Okay, let's tackle some commonmisconceptions.
The presentation listed sevenmyths about SEO.
First up SEO is dead.
We hear this every few years,it seems.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, it's the zombie myth of digital marketing.
It's absolutely not dead.
It's evolved massively, butit's arguably more crucial than
ever, given how people findinformation online.
The tactics change, but theneed to be visible in search
hasn't gone away.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Glad to hear it.
Myth two Keyword stuffing iseffective, just cramming
keywords in everywhere.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Definitely a myth and a harmful one.
Search engines are smart.
Now they see that as spammy andmanipulative.
It hurts user experience and itcan get you penalized.
You need to use keywordsnaturally within high-quality,
readable content.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Right, how about meta-keywords are important
those hidden tags.
High quality readable contentRight, how about meta keywords
are important, those hidden tags.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Mostly a myth now.
Google has said for years theydon't use the meta keywords tag
for ranking.
Bing might look at it slightly,but it's generally not worth
spending time on forGoogle-focused SEO.
Focus on title tags anddescriptions instead.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Good to know and the myth more backlinks are better.
Quantity over quality.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Big myth.
We touched on this.
Quality and relevance are farmore important.
A few strong, relevant linksare much better than tons of
weak or spammy ones.
Bad links can even activelyharm your site.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Okay, myths busted, let's flip it.
What about the seven truthsabout SEO?
The reliable principles First.
Seo is a crucial aspect ofonline marketing.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Absolute true.
Organic search is a massivechannel for traffic, leads and
sales for most businesses.
Ignoring SEO means ignoring ahuge potential audience.
It's foundational to digitalmarketing.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Truth two content is king.
We keep coming back to this.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Because it's true, high quality, relevant, valuable
content is the bedrock.
Without it, all the technicaltricks and backlinks in the
world won't help you long term.
You need to give users andsearch engines something worth
ranking.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Truth three technical SEO is important.
The behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yes, your site needs to be crawlable, indexable fast,
mobile friendly.
If search engines can't accessor understand your site properly
or if users have a badtechnical experience, your
content won't get the visibilityit deserves.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
MARK MIRCHANDANI, and finally, a truth that requires
patience.
Results take time.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
MELANIE WARRICK.
So true, SEO is a marathon, nota sprint.
You usually won't see majorresults overnight.
It takes consistent effort overmonths, sometimes longer, to
build authority and rankings,especially in competitive spaces
.
Patience and persistence arekey.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
A really important expectation to send Now the
presentation wrapped up withsome FAQs.
A common one is what is therole of SEO in digital marketing
?
How does it fit into the biggerpicture?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Well, it's a core pillar.
Its main job is driving organictraffic, visitors who find you
through unpaid search results.
This traffic is often highlyqualified because people are
actively searching for solutionsyou might offer.
So SEO boosts visibility,builds brand awareness,
generates leads, supportscontent marketing, improves user
experience.
It works together with otherchannels like social media, paid
(25:20):
ads, email marketing to createa stronger overall strategy.
It provides that sustainablefoundation of traffic.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Makes sense.
Another big question listenersmight have can I do SEO myself,
or do I need to hire someone?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Good question.
It's definitely possible to doSEO yourself, especially for
smaller sites or if you have thetime and willingness to learn.
There are tons of resourcesonline.
You can learn keyword research,basic on-page optimization,
maybe some content creation.
But SEO is complex and alwayschanging.
It takes significant time andeffort to do well.
For larger sites, highlycompetitive markets or if you
(25:54):
want faster results, hiring anexperienced SEO professional or
agency often makes sense.
They have the expertise, thetools and can implement more
advanced strategies.
It really depends on yourresources, goals and the
complexity of your situation.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Okay, good perspective.
Lastly, the presentationmentioned schema markup.
What is that, simply put, andwhy is it helpful?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Okay, schema markup.
Think of it as adding extrabehind-the-scenes labels to your
website's code.
These labels help searchengines understand the context
of your content much better.
So, instead of just seeing textabout an event, Schema tells
Google this is an event, here'sthe date, here's the location,
here's the performer.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Giving Google more explicit clues.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Exactly, and the big benefit is that it can help you
get rich snippets in the searchresults.
Those are the enhanced listingsyou sometimes see with star
ratings prices, event details,recipe times right there on the
results page.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
MARK MIRCHANDANI.
Oh, like the review stars orcooking times.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
MELANIE WARRICK, yep.
The presentation used theexample of a party rental site
using schema to show serviceareas or equipment types
directly in the results.
These rich snippets make yourlisting stand out, provide more
info up front and can seriouslyboost your click-through rate.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
So it makes your result more attractive and
informative.
Is it hard to implement?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It can be a bit technical, yes, as it involves
adding code, but there are toolsand plugins, especially for
platforms like WordPress, thatcan help generate the markup for
you.
It's definitely something worthlooking into as part of a
broader SEO strategy for thatextra visibility boost.
So if we were to boil thiswhole deep dive down, seo is
really about making your websiteeasy for search engines to
(27:32):
understand and valuable forusers to find.
It's vital because that's howso many people find things
online.
We've covered how searchengines crawl and rank, the many
, many factors involved, fromcontent and links to technical
bits and user signals, and thesteps in building a strategy.
But at the end of the day, it'sabout understanding the tech,
yes, but maybe more importantly,understanding what people are
(27:52):
actually looking for.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
And for you, the learner.
Hopefully this gives you a muchclearer map of the SEO
landscape.
Whether you were just curiousor needed this for work, you
should have a better feel forwhy some sites float to the top
of search results.
Knowing these principles helpsyou navigate the web more
effectively and maybe evenappreciate the work that goes
into making informationdiscoverable.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Absolutely so.
Maybe next time you search forsomething, pause for a second.
Think about the results.
You see what signals are thosetop sites sending?
And now that you know a bitmore about SEO, what other
hidden mechanics shaping youronline world might be worth
exploring?
You know it's pretty hard to wrap your head around
the sheer scale, but did yourealize that billions, literally
billions of searches happen onGoogle every single day?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Billions with a B.
It's mind-boggling when youstop to think about it.
All those people looking foranswers for products for well,
everything.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Exactly, and that incredible volume is precisely
why we're taking a deep divetoday into search engine
optimization, or SEO.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Basically, SEO is all about making sure websites and
their content are set up sosearch engines like Google don't
just find them, but actuallysee them as valuable and show
them prominently, drivingtraffic.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
And our source for this exploration is a pretty
detailed presentation focusedentirely on SEO and for you,
listening the learner, think ofthis as your shortcut through
the, let's be honest, sometimesconfusing world of SEO.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Definitely can be confusing.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
We're not just going to throw definitions at you.
We're aiming to pull out thereally key ideas, explain why
they matter and show how theyactually work, keeping it
understandable.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
So whether you're prepping for a meeting trying to
get up to speed on this wholearea, or maybe you're just
curious about how websitesactually pop up in those search
results, this is for you.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Our mission today.
It's really folks.
We're breaking down thispresentation to give you the
core actionable stuff about SEO.
We'll tackle some key concepts,maybe bust a few common myths.
Oh there, few common myths.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh, there were definitely myths.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
And hopefully give you some genuinely useful
insights.
Okay, so let's kick things off.
The big question what exactlyis SEO?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, according to our source material, seo, search
Engine Optimization it's thepractice of strategically
improving websites and content,the goal to boost their organic
visibility meaning, you know,non-paid visibility, yeah,
natural results, exactly and getmore relevant traffic from
search engines, google, Bing,the usual suspects.
In practice, this means doingthings like keyword research,
(01:59):
finding out what people aresearching for, creating and
optimizing good content, makingsure the site works well
technically.
That's technical optimization,and the big one.
People talk about link building, getting links from other sites
right.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So it's definitely more involved than just like
sprinkling some keywords on apage and hoping for the best.
There's a real strategy behindit?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
oh, absolutely, there's a whole process so
what's the end game?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
what's the ultimate goal of all this effort?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
well, the main goal is to get your website higher up
in the search engine resultspages, or SRS.
Srp is right higher you rank,the more likely people searching
for relevant stuff are going tofind you and click through.
But fundamentally it reallyboils down to meeting the users
needs how.
So it's about creatinggenuinely useful, high quality
(02:45):
content and making sure thewhole experience on your website
is smooth and positive.
You want to give the searcherthe best possible answer or
solution.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
That makes a lot of sense.
It's user focused and thepresentation mentions these two
buckets on page and off page SEO.
Can you break that down?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, it's a useful distinction.
So on-page SEO is basicallyeverything you do on your own
website Think content, quality,keywords in your titles and
headings, how you optimize yourimages, the site structure.
It's all the stuff you directlycontrol.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Okay, your own digital house.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Exactly, Then.
Off-page SEO is about actionstaken outside your website to
build its reputation andauthority.
The classic example here islink building earning those
valuable links from otherwebsites pointing back to yours.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Got it.
So make your own site great andalso build its reputation out
there on the web kind of likegetting endorsements.
Now let's shift to the why.
Why is SEO so so importanttoday?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well, you mentioned the billions of searches earlier
.
That sheer volume is a hugepart of the answer.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Search engines are, for many people, the default
starting point for findingalmost anything online
Information products, services,you name it.
So if you want people to findyou, you need to be visible
where they're looking.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
It's like having a shop on the main street versus
being hidden down some backalley right.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
If you don't rank, people might just never find you
.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
That's a great analogy and the presentation had
some pretty eye-opening statsabout those top positions.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, tell us about those.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Get this, the number one organic result on Google.
It's apparently about 10 timesmore likely to get clicked than
the result down at number 10.
10 times 10 times the potentialtraffic and, what's more, the
top three organic results.
Together they grab over half ofall the clicks for a typical
search.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Over half, just the top three.
That really highlights thevalue of being up there.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It absolutely does.
It shows how fierce thecompetition is for those top
spots and why ranking welltranslates directly into well
visibility and visitors.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So a higher rank isn't just for bragging rights.
It means significantly morepotential customers or readers
finding you.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
But it's not just about traffic volume, is it?
The presentation mentionedother benefits too.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Definitely not just traffic.
Good SEO practices often leadto a much better user experience
.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
How so.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
When you optimize your site for search engines,
you're often making it clearer,faster, easier to navigate,
which is great for actual humanvisitors too.
Plus, there's a trust factor.
Trust, yeah.
Websites that consistently showup high in search results are
often seen as more credible,more trustworthy by users.
Think about your own behavior.
You probably trust the topresults more, right?
(05:23):
I?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
definitely do.
Yeah, yeah, I implicitly assumethey're more authoritative or
relevant.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Exactly, and that perceived credibility can boost
conversions, sales, brand imageall sorts of good things.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And what about cost?
The presentation hinted thatSEO can be cost effective.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
That's a big one Compared to, say, paid search
ads, where you pay for everyclick.
Seo aims to earn you organictraffic over the long haul.
Now it takes time and effort,sometimes money too, but you're
not paying per visitor in thesame way.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So it's an investment that can pay off continuously.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Right.
And finally, in a crowdedonline world, good SEO gives you
a competitive edge.
It helps you stand out fromyour competitors and attract a
steady stream of peopleinterested in what you offer.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Okay, so the case for SEO is pretty clear.
It's fundamental.
But let's get into the nuts andbolts.
Yeah, how do these searchengines actually do it?
How do they find, analyze andrank all this information?
It feels complex.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It is incredibly complex under the hood and the
algorithms are always changing,but we can break down the basic
process.
It starts with crawling.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Crawling like spiders .
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Exactly.
Search engines use automatedprograms called spiders or bots
that constantly browse the web.
They follow links from page topage to discover new websites
and updates to pages theyalready know about.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Like little digital explorers mapping the internet.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
That's a good way to put it.
Once they discover a page, thenext step is indexing.
The search engine analyzes thepage's content the text, images,
videos, everything and addsrelevant information about it to
this massive database called anindex.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
So the index is like a giant library catalog of the
web.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
An unimaginably huge one.
Yes, then comes processingqueries.
When you type something intothe search bar, the engine's
algorithms kick in.
They analyze your query tounderstand what you're really
looking for, your intent.
Then they search their massiveindex for pages that seem
relevant to your query.
After finding potential matches, we get to retrieval and
ranking.
The engine pulls these pagesfrom the index and then ranks
(07:24):
them, ordering them based onhundreds of factors to decide
which ones are the best fit foryour search.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
The secret sauce bit.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Kind of yeah.
Finally, there's displayingresults.
It shows you that list of links, usually with little
descriptions, the search engineresults page, or SRP.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Okay, that framework helps Crawl index process rank
display, but you mentionedhundreds of factors for ranking
and the exact algorithms aresecret.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
That's right.
Google, bing they keep thespecifics of their algorithms
very close to their chests,partly to prevent people from
gaming.
The system unfairly Makes sense, but, based on patents,
statements and a lot of industryresearch, we know they look at
things like the quality andrelevance of your content, the
number and quality of linkspointing to your site, backlinks
, technical aspects like sitespeed, mobile friendliness and
(08:11):
even things like your locationand past search history can
influence the results you see.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And website owners.
We have a role to play inhelping this process.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Absolutely.
It's really our job to make itas easy as possible for search
engines to crawl and understandour sites.
That means using technical SEObest practices to ensure they
can find and index the pages wewant them to find.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So rolling out the digital welcome mat, making sure
everything's clearly labeledessentially OK, so we know what
SEO is, why it's vital androughly how search engines work.
Let's get practical.
Why it's vital and roughly howsearch engines work.
Let's get practical.
How does SEO actually workday-to-day for someone trying to
improve their site's ranking?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Right.
So SEO basically involvesfine-tuning different parts of
your website and content to makethem more attractive to those
search engine algorithms.
It starts really with keywordresearch.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Finding the right words.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Exactly.
You need to figure out whatterms and phrases your target
audience is actually typing intosearch engines when they're
looking for something you offeror information you provide.
Understanding that isfoundational.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Because you need to speak their language.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Precisely.
Once you have those keywords,you move into on-page
optimization.
This is where you tweakelements on your actual web
pages, Things like crafting goodtitle tags, those blue
clickable links in the searchresults, and writing compelling
meta descriptions the littlesummaries underneath Okay.
You also use header tags H1, h2, h3, to structure your content
(09:36):
logically, making it easier forboth users and search engines to
understand the hierarchy ofinformation.
Even optimizing your imageswith good file names and alt
text fits in here.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
MARK MIRCHANDANI.
So ensuring everything on thepage signals what it's about.
What's next?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
MELANIE WARRICK.
Content creation this is huge.
You need to develop highquality original content blogs,
articles, product info, whateverfits your site that provides
real value to users and isoptimized around those keywords
you research.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
MARK M filler text, but genuinely useful stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Exactly.
Then there's link building wementioned it before, earning
links from other crediblewebsites.
Search engines see these linksas votes of confidence, boosting
your site's authority.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Getting those endorsements?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
And finally, technical optimization.
This is about the website'sfoundation.
Is it fast?
Does it work well on mobilephones?
Is the code clean?
Can search engines easily crawlit?
All that technical stuff iscrucial.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Wow, Okay.
So it's a mix of understandingyour audience, creating great
content, making technicaladjustments and building
authority.
And the presentation mentionedthe SEO landscape is always
changing.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Oh, constantly.
Google and other search enginesupdate their algorithms
frequently.
What worked last year might notwork now or might even be
harmful, so staying updated onbest practices and keeping an
eye on SEO statistics and trendsis really important for making
good decisions.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Right, it's not a set it and forget it kind of thing.
It needs ongoing attention.
Okay, let's dig into thosesearch engine ranking factors
you mentioned.
These are the signals Googleuses.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Essentially yes, the criteria search engines evaluate
to decide ranking order, andour source mentioned that Google
supposedly uses over 200different factors.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Whoa over 200.
That sounds intimidating.
Can we group them somehow?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, the presentation does a good job
categorizing them.
There are domain factors aboutthe domain name itself, page
level factors specific toindividual pages, site level
factors about the whole website,backlink factors, those
incoming links, user interaction, how people engage with your
site, special Google algorithmrules like RankBrain, which
we'll get to brand signals, andeven factors to detect web spam,
(11:39):
both on your site and off-site.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Okay, that helps break it down.
Can you give some exampleswithin those categories?
What are some key things Googlelooks at?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Sure.
So keywords are stillfundamental.
Their presence in your content,title tags, descriptions,
Content quality is massive.
It's depth, originality,usefulness.
Interestingly, the source notestop ranking pages often average
like 1,890 words.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
That's quite long, so comprehensive content often
wins.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It often does.
Yeah, then link building thenumber, quality and relevance of
sites linking to you.
User engagement signals likehow long people stay on your
site, time on site, how manypages they visit pages per
session and if they leaveimmediately bounce rate.
Mobile optimization isnon-negotiable now your site has
to work well on phones and sitespeed how fast your pages load.
(12:26):
Nobody likes a slow website.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Definitely not.
Patience, online is pretty thinthese days.
Okay, let's dive a bit deeperinto some specifics from the
presentation, starting withdomain factors.
Keywords in the URL and domainregistration links were
mentioned.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Right.
Having a keyword in your domainname isn't the magic bullet it
maybe once was, but it can stilloffer a small relevant signal.
And it's interesting.
Google apparently holds apatent related to domain
registration length.
The thinking is maybe domainsregistered for many years ahead
seem more legitimate, less flyby night.
It's not confirmed as a directranking factor, but it's
something they've looked at.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Fascinating little detail.
Okay, moving to page levelfactors, the title tag and meta
description seem reallyimportant.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Absolutely critical.
They're often your firstimpression in the search results
.
The title tag needs to beaccurate, concise, include
keywords, ideally, and it's whatshows up in the browser tab too
.
The meta description is yoursales pitch that short summary
under the title that needs toconvince people to click your
link instead of someone else's.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Your ad copy in the search results?
Essentially, yeah.
What about header tags H1s, h2swithin the page?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Super important for structure Header tags H1 for the
main title, h2s for subheadings, etc.
Break up your content, make itscannable for readers and,
crucially, help search enginesunderstand the main topics and
hierarchy of your information.
Using them logically is key forreadability in SEO.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And the URL structure itself does that matter?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yes, a clean, readable URL helps users know
what the page is about beforeclicking.
Including relevant keywords,naturally, can also help
slightly.
Plus, a logical structure helpssearch engines understand how
your site is organized,something like your sitecom
services.
Widget repair is much betterthan your sitecompageid123.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Right, much clearer.
What about image optimization?
Easy to forget.
About the pictures?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Crucial.
Big images slow down your site,bad for speed, bad for SEO.
So compress them and usedescriptive alt tags.
Alt tags tell search engineswhat an image is about, since
they can't see it like we do.
Plus, it's vital foraccessibility for visually
impaired users.
Good file names and captionshelp too.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Makes sense.
And lastly, for page levelinternal linking, Linking
between your own pages.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Hugely valuable and often overlooked.
Internal links help usersnavigate your site, keep them
engaged longer and spread thatlink equity or authority around
your own pages.
It also shows search engineshow your content is related and
which pages are most importantfor certain topics.
Creates a strong internal web.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Okay, got it so that covers individual pages.
Let's zoom out to site levelfactors.
What makes Google see an entirewebsite as trustworthy and high
quality?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well, number one is still having valuable and unique
content across the site.
Google wants to reward sitesthat offer something genuinely
useful and original, not justthin or copied stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Content is king again .
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Pretty much.
Also, surprisingly, perhapsyour Contact Us page matters.
The presentation says Googlelikes sites with appropriate
amount of contact informationthat matches your NAP name,
address, phone number,consistently across the web.
Especially for local businesses, it signals legitimacy.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Being transparent and reachable builds trust.
What else?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Site architecture, how your site is structured.
A logical structure, maybeusing silos, where you group
related content togetherthematically, helps Google
understand your site's topicsand crawl it efficiently.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Silos like organizing things into clear categories.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Exactly.
Then there's domain trust ortrust rank.
It's a bit fuzzy, but the ideais Google assesses the overall
trustworthiness of your domainbased on various signals.
A Google patent supports thisconcept.
And finally, site uptime Ifyour site is down a lot, that's
a bad signal.
It hurts user experience andcan definitely hurt your
rankings, potentially even getyou temporarily de-indexed if
(16:15):
it's bad enough.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Right, can't rank if you're not even there.
Okay, let's tackle backlinkfactors.
What makes a good backlink?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Ugh the million-dollar question.
In SEO sometimes Several thingsmatter.
Relevance is huge.
A link from a site in yourindustry is way more valuable
than one from a totallyunrelated site.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
The authority of the linking site matters too.
A link from a big, respectedsite passes more juice than one
from a small, unknown blog.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Makes sense.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
The anchor text, the clickable words in the link
should ideally be relevant tothe page it's linking to.
Link placement is also a factor.
A link within the main articletext is generally better than
one buried in a footer.
And then there's the followversus no follow attribute.
A follow link passes authority,A no follow link tells Google
not to pass authority throughthat link.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So it's really about quality and relevance, not just
getting heaps of links fromanywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Absolutely.
A few really good, relevantlinks beat thousands of spammy
ones any day and, as the sourcenotes, the best way to get good
links create amazing contentthat people want to link to,
naturally.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Content again.
Okay, moving on to userinteraction, the presentation
mentions RankBrain.
What on earth is that?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Okay, RankBrain, it's basically Google's AI, their
machine learning system.
It helps Google understand themeaning behind search queries,
especially the weird, ambiguousor conversational ones, the ones
they haven't seen before.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So it helps Google understand us better.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Exactly.
It uses natural languageprocessing to figure out the
user's intent, even if thekeywords aren't a perfect match
for the content on a page.
It then looks at how usersinteract with the search results
to see which pages seem tosatisfy that intent best.
It's considered a veryimportant ranking signal.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Wow, AI playing a direct role in rankings.
What about organicclick-through rate, CTR?
How does that fit in?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
CTR is simply the percentage of people who see
your listing in the searchresults and actually click on it
.
So if 100 people see your linkand five click, your CTR is 5%.
Right and does?
A higher CTR for a particularposition can signal to Google
that your result is highlyrelevant and compelling for that
(18:25):
query.
It might give you a rankingboost.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Because lots of people clicking suggests it's a
good match.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Precisely.
It validates the relevance andappeal of your title tag and
meta description.
A consistently low CTR, on theother hand, might suggest your
result isn't hitting the mark,so optimizing for clicks is
important too.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Okay, Now this seems crucial.
The presentation stressed thedifference between correlation
versus causation.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Why is that so important here?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Super important.
Just because two things happentogether, they correlate,
doesn't mean one causes theother.
In SEO you might see that sitesranking highly often have, say,
lots of social media shares.
That's a correlation.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
But it's a mistake to jump to the conclusion that
getting more social sharescauses higher rankings.
It's more likely that both highrankings and lots of shares are
the result of something else,like having really great content
that people naturally want toshare and that Google also sees
as high quality.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So don't chase metrics just because they
correlate with rankings, unlessyou understand the underlying
reason.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Exactly.
Correlation can give you clues,but don't assume causality.
Focusing on things directlyknown to influence rankings,
like content, quality, technicalSEO and good backlinks, is
usually a safer bet than chasingcorrelations that might be
misleading.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Got it.
Be careful not to confusesymptoms with causes.
Another key concept was searchintent.
What's that all about?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Search intent is basically understanding why
someone is searching.
What's their goal?
The presentation breaks it intofour main types Informational
they want to learn something howto bake bread.
Navigational they want to go toa specific site.
Youtube.
Transactional they want to dosomething, usually by running
shoes size 10.
And commercial investigationthey're researching before a
potential purchase.
(20:08):
Best coffee makers 2024.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Okay, so different goals behind the search.
Why does understanding thismatter so much for SEO?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Because you need to match your content to the user's
intent.
If someone searches for bestcoffee makers, they probably
want reviews or comparisons,commercial investigation, not
the history of coffee,informational.
If your page doesn't match thelikely intent for that keyword,
Google probably won't rank ithighly and even if people click,
they'll leave disappointed MARK.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
MIRCHANDANI Right, you have to give people what
they're actually looking forwhen they type that query.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Aligning content type with intent.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Exactly Nail the intent and you're much more
likely to rank well and satisfythe user, which reinforces your
ranking.
It's fundamental.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Okay, so pulling this together, the presentation
outlines steps to developing agood SEO strategy.
Can you walk us through the keyparts?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Sure, it starts with that keyword research.
Know your audience.
Then make sure your site istechnically sound, fast, mobile
friendly, crawlable.
Then publish high qualitycontent regularly aligned with
intent.
Actively build high qualitybacklinks, use social media and
other channels to promote yourcontent and build awareness.
Critically monitor and analyzeyour performance track rankings,
(21:20):
traffic, conversions, seewhat's working and, finally,
stay updated because, as we said, seo is always changing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
It really sounds like a continuous cycle of research,
action and analysis.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It absolutely is.
It's an ongoing process, not aone-off project.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Now something specific for local businesses
Local SEO and the GoogleBusiness Profile GBP.
How important is this?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Hugely important if you have a physical location or
service-specific geographic area.
Your Google Business Profileused to be a Google my Business.
It's that panel that shows upin search and maps with your
hours, address, phone number,reviews, photos.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I see those all the time.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's a free tool from Google and optimizing it is
probably the most importantthing you can do for local SEO.
It lets you control your info,respond to reviews, post updates
and see how people are findingyou locally A complete accurate,
active GBP is essential forattracting nearby customers.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
So if you're that local bakery or plumber,
claiming and optimizing your GBPis job number one for local
visibility.
Okay, let's tackle some commonmisconceptions.
The presentation listed sevenmyths about SEO.
First up SEO is dead.
We hear this every few years,it seems.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, it's the zombie myth of digital marketing.
It's absolutely not dead.
It's evolved massively, butit's arguably more crucial than
ever, given how people findinformation online.
The tactics change, but theneed to be visible in search
hasn't gone away.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Glad to hear it.
Myth two Keyword stuffing iseffective, just cramming
keywords in everywhere.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Definitely a myth and a harmful one.
Search engines are smart.
Now they see that as spammy andmanipulative.
It hurts user experience and itcan get you penalized.
You need to use keywordsnaturally within high-quality,
readable content.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Right, how about meta-keywords are important
those hidden tags.
High quality readable contentRight, how about meta keywords
are important, those hidden tags.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Mostly a myth now.
Google has said for years theydon't use the meta keywords tag
for ranking.
Bing might look at it slightly,but it's generally not worth
spending time on forGoogle-focused SEO.
Focus on title tags anddescriptions instead.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Good to know and the myth more backlinks are better.
Quantity over quality.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Big myth.
We touched on this.
Quality and relevance are farmore important.
A few strong, relevant linksare much better than tons of
weak or spammy ones.
Bad links can even activelyharm your site.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Okay, myths busted, let's flip it.
What about the seven truthsabout SEO?
The reliable principles First.
Seo is a crucial aspect ofonline marketing.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Absolute true.
Organic search is a massivechannel for traffic, leads and
sales for most businesses.
Ignoring SEO means ignoring ahuge potential audience.
It's foundational to digitalmarketing.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Truth two content is king.
We keep coming back to this.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Because it's true, high quality, relevant, valuable
content is the bedrock.
Without it, all the technicaltricks and backlinks in the
world won't help you long term.
You need to give users andsearch engines something worth
ranking.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Truth three technical SEO is important.
The behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yes, your site needs to be crawlable, indexable fast,
mobile friendly.
If search engines can't accessor understand your site properly
or if users have a badtechnical experience, your
content won't get the visibilityit deserves.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
MARK MIRCHANDANI, and finally, a truth that requires
patience.
Results take time.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
MELANIE WARRICK.
So true, SEO is a marathon, nota sprint.
You usually won't see majorresults overnight.
It takes consistent effort overmonths, sometimes longer, to
build authority and rankings,especially in competitive spaces
.
Patience and persistence arekey.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
A really important expectation to send Now the
presentation wrapped up withsome FAQs.
A common one is what is therole of SEO in digital marketing
?
How does it fit into the biggerpicture?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Well, it's a core pillar.
Its main job is driving organictraffic, visitors who find you
through unpaid search results.
This traffic is often highlyqualified because people are
actively searching for solutionsyou might offer.
So SEO boosts visibility,builds brand awareness,
generates leads, supportscontent marketing, improves user
experience.
It works together with otherchannels like social media, paid
(25:20):
ads, email marketing to createa stronger overall strategy.
It provides that sustainablefoundation of traffic.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Makes sense.
Another big question listenersmight have can I do SEO myself,
or do I need to hire someone?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Good question.
It's definitely possible to doSEO yourself, especially for
smaller sites or if you have thetime and willingness to learn.
There are tons of resourcesonline.
You can learn keyword research,basic on-page optimization,
maybe some content creation.
But SEO is complex and alwayschanging.
It takes significant time andeffort to do well.
For larger sites, highlycompetitive markets or if you
(25:54):
want faster results, hiring anexperienced SEO professional or
agency often makes sense.
They have the expertise, thetools and can implement more
advanced strategies.
It really depends on yourresources, goals and the
complexity of your situation.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Okay, good perspective.
Lastly, the presentationmentioned schema markup.
What is that, simply put, andwhy is it helpful?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Okay, schema markup.
Think of it as adding extrabehind-the-scenes labels to your
website's code.
These labels help searchengines understand the context
of your content much better.
So, instead of just seeing textabout an event, Schema tells
Google this is an event, here'sthe date, here's the location,
here's the performer.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Giving Google more explicit clues.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Exactly, and the big benefit is that it can help you
get rich snippets in the searchresults.
Those are the enhanced listingsyou sometimes see with star
ratings prices, event details,recipe times right there on the
results page.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
MARK MIRCHANDANI.
Oh, like the review stars orcooking times.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
MELANIE WARRICK, yep.
The presentation used theexample of a party rental site
using schema to show serviceareas or equipment types
directly in the results.
These rich snippets make yourlisting stand out, provide more
info up front and can seriouslyboost your click-through rate.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
So it makes your result more attractive and
informative.
Is it hard to implement?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It can be a bit technical, yes, as it involves
adding code, but there are toolsand plugins, especially for
platforms like WordPress, thatcan help generate the markup for
you.
It's definitely something worthlooking into as part of a
broader SEO strategy for thatextra visibility boost.
So if we were to boil thiswhole deep dive down, seo is
really about making your websiteeasy for search engines to
(27:32):
understand and valuable forusers to find.
It's vital because that's howso many people find things
online.
We've covered how searchengines crawl and rank, the many
, many factors involved, fromcontent and links to technical
bits and user signals, and thesteps in building a strategy.
But at the end of the day, it'sabout understanding the tech,
yes, but maybe more importantly,understanding what people are
(27:52):
actually looking for.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
And for you, the learner.
Hopefully this gives you a muchclearer map of the SEO
landscape.
Whether you were just curiousor needed this for work, you
should have a better feel forwhy some sites float to the top
of search results.
Knowing these principles helpsyou navigate the web more
effectively and maybe evenappreciate the work that goes
into making informationdiscoverable.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Absolutely so.
Maybe next time you search forsomething, pause for a second.
Think about the results.
You see what signals are thosetop sites sending?
And now that you know a bitmore about SEO, what other
hidden mechanics shaping youronline world might be worth
exploring?
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