What is SEO|| how to rank any website|| part 3

 What is SEO|| how to rank any website|| part 3

GOOGLE SEO - BEST PRACTICES: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website

But there are additional layers to understand how Google works.

what is seo part 1

what is seo part 2

This leads us nicely into how Google identifies relevance through content on a web page.

In the most basic form, search engines will look at the content of the page

to see if the words on that page are relevant to your query.

But they're sophisticated enough to go beyond "exact match keywords."

Google understands related keywords too.

A page increases in relevance with other semantically similar keywords.

For example, if you have an article on how to get a driver's license, you may have subsections

on licensing for cars, motorcycles, and buses.

These are all automobiles and should have keyword overlaps that help connect the topic as a whole.

For example, "road," "driving," "seatbelt," "safety," "exam," and "test,"

these would all be semantically relevant keywords that can help search engines

better understand what your post is about.

Another example would be if you were creating a post on "the best luxury watches."

Now, I want you to think of a 5-letter word that pops to mind when it comes to luxury watches.

Let me help you out a bit.

What is SEO|| how to rank any website|| part 3

Rolex.

And if you look at the content of the top 10 ranking pages,

you'll see that they all include that brand,

other popular luxury brands, and likely have watch related jargon like "bezel," "bridge," or "chronograph."

Rather than returning results that have "best luxury watches" written 100 times on the page,

Google can see which pages are the most relevant to the searcher's request.

What is SEO|| how to rank any website|| part 3

And Google confirms this by saying:

"These relevance signals help search algorithms assess whether a webpage contains an answer

to your search query, rather than just repeating the same question."

Another factor Google looks at is the "quality of content."

Google tries to prioritize and rank the most reliable sources.

While "quality content," is impossible to objectively nail 100%,

they use 3 broad categories to help identify quality pages.

These are, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness on a given topic; Also known as EAT.

One signal that Google mentions are getting websites to link to your content,

which SEOs call backlinks.

Links build up a page's "authoritativeness," which is outlined in Google's famous patent on PageRank.

From a general view, think of backlinks as votes.

When people link to your pages, they're essentially vouching for your content

and telling their readers that they should check out your page for more information.

Now, to prevent people from "gaming" the system, Google uses spam algorithms to try and identify

deceptive or manipulative behavior.

One example would be "link exchanges," meaning you contact other webmasters

and ask them to link to you.

And in return, you'll link to them.

We won't dig too deep into these factors, but if you're interested in learning more,

I'll link up Google's search quality rating guidelines in the description, which has nearly

50,000 words on how they assess "quality content."

Another factor Google considers is usability of webpages.

Google wants to show results that keep their searchers happy.

And this goes beyond providing the "right" content for the query

There are a couple of confirmed ranking factors that relate to usability.

The first is page speed.

Google found that as page load time increases, the probability of bounce, or the chance of

someone leaving your website without visiting another page, goes up dramatically.

And it makes sense.

If Google were to show slow-loading pages that result in bounces,

then that dissatisfaction would increase amongst their users.

As a result, Google announced in 2018 that page speed will become a part of their mobile

search ranking algorithm

The second usability factor is "mobile friendliness."

Today, websites should appear correctly no matter what device you're on

and no matter what browser you're using.

This is often referred to as "responsive design."

Google has shifted to "mobile first indexing."

This means that they'll predominantly use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.

And as of July 1, 2019, all new websites will be "mobile first" by default.

All of these things and many more factors can be summarized into user experience.

Google wants to return results that are both relevant and provide a solid user eperience.

A very cool and somewhat controversial way that Google works is through personalized data.

Google keeps track of your location, past search history, and search settings

to "tailor your results to what is most useful and relevant for you in that moment."

But as many people are becoming aware of privacy issues on the internet, this may leave you

extremely satisfied or perhaps, on edge.

Let's look at a few examples of how personalization affects your Google searches

I'm in Toronto, Canada, so when I type in the letter "b,"

Google provides relevant search suggestions to my location like "blue jays,"

which is our baseball team, and "BMO," which is a major bank in Canada.

Now, if I change my IP address to one in Chicago, then you'll see very different results like

"bank of america," and "barnes and noble," which is a popular bank and bookstore respectively.

Now, let's look at how they tailor search suggestions based on previous searches.

Let's say I want to find "hotels in barcelona."

I'll start typing in "hotels," and let's say that I actually changed my mind halfway through the search.

Take a second and look through the results.You'll see that they're all tailored to my current location.

So let's delete this.

Instead, I want to search for things to do in Barcelona, so I can choose a hotel around that location.

Now, I'll search for "What to do in Barcelona."

Lots of fun stuff!

Now, it's time to find a hotel.

So if I start typing in "hotels,"

you'll see that Google's first autosuggestion is, "hotels in barcelona,"

which as you saw before was not the case.

These are just a few basic ways Google works.

And it's absolutely critical that you understand this when you're learning SEO.

By understanding how search works, you can begin optimizing your pages with some level of direction.

So how do you start optimizing your website for search?

If you're new to SEO, then I highly recommend watching our video on doing SEO for beginners,

where you'll get a top-level view of how you can optimize your website for higher Google rankings.

Or if you're past that "beginner stage," I recommend digging through our channel where

we have a ton of actionable tutorials to help grow your search traffic.

I'll link up both of those for you in the description.

Now, if you enjoyed this video, then make sure to like, share, and subscribe for actionable

SEO and marketing tutorials.

And if you have any questions, leave one in the comments below.

I'll see you in the next tutoria

What is SEO|| how to rank any website|| part 3

What is SEO and how it works?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your online content so that a search engine likes to show it as a top result for searches of a certain keyword.

How do you do SEO?

To achieve this, remember to follow the five steps of good basic SEO:

• Find relevant keywords with good search traffic potential.
• Create and optimize pages for search engines and users alike.
• Make sure your website is accessible to both bots and humans.
• Build relevant links from other high-quality websites.