Search Engine Optimization SEO Has Changed

Search Engine Optimization SEO Has Changed

Search engine optimization SEO has changed. Google is constantly refining their search results to try to be the best at what they do. This may be frustrating to some of us that were using the keyword planner and analytics to help us with a better rank in the search engine. Search engine optimization has changed and it will not be long until the other search engines follow a similar path so as my colleagues would say its time to get on the clue bus. In the past I instructed people to look through the google keyword planner and try to get phrases that were low competition. This is still a great practice because it helps you come up with ideas and variations of keyword phrases. One thing that I want to make very clear when it comes to Search Engine  Optimization SEO is that websites are not index but web pages are. So if you are constructing a website and think that using the keyword over and over again is going to get you indexed well then think again.  You must concentrate on each webpage and make sure that you have deep content.

What is deep content for Search Engine optimization SEO?

Search Engine Optimization SEO

When you write about something you should think of it from every aspect and practice a question and answer scenarios. The questions or headings can be in the heading tags on a page also called subtitles kind of like the one you are seeing on this page. Rich content is what the algorithm’s are searching for. They want to see who is talking about the subject the most and who is answer the most questions about the particular subject. you have to think about what questions people might have a about the subject and look at it from different points of view. The goal is to educate on the subjects that you speak of. A good practice to get into if you want to create rich content is involve other people in your writing. If you were to write an article on SEO you would want to answer the questions from several different angles.

Examples of good Optimization Search Engine Techniques

One thing you will notice is that no matter what keyword phrase that you put into a search engine it seems like Wikipedia shows up at least 80% of the time. Why do they show up so often? Well you will see that each and every one of their pages  address the subject they are speaking of and they address it from almost every angle. Notice too that it is their web pages not their home page that is indexed in the search engines. You would do well to notice how content rich each web page is and all the questions that they answer when addressing the various subjects.

Only cool people share!

Methods for Search Engine Optimization – Good and bad

There are companies out there that will promise you the world when it comes to organic SEO. When these companies email or contact you throw them right into your spam folder and block them. NO one and I mean no one can guarantee you a position on google, bing or yahoo except the search engines themselves. There have been a lot of bad practices that some black hat companies tried to pull over on their clients just to get them indexed for a short time and then bomb! They are nowhere to be found organically. I am going to lay out a guideline below that you should practice when it comes to writing content for your web pages.

Good Methods for SEO

  • Answer as many questions as you can think of in your content.
  • Use your keyword phrase where appropriate and as often as make sense.
  • Use variations of your keyword phrase throughout your articles .
  • Use punctuation accordingly.
  • Make good use of file names, alt tags and title tags to include your keyword phrases
  • Link to other sites that are speaking of similar content as what you’re addressing in your articles. DON’T LINK TO ANYONE THAT YOU DON’T TRUST!
  • When Linking to other sites use a good keyword phrase to link to them Like I have done in this article.
  • Research other web pages that are addressing a similar subject but DO NOT COPY their content, this will hurt your rank!
  • Try to get good quality links from other sites linking back to yours using your keyword phrase.
  • Use google webmaster tools to manage your site

Bad Methods for SEO

  • Do not buy a domain or url and forward it to your site
  • Do not buy a website just to make a bunch of links to your site
  • Do not hire a fly by night company promising you #1 position in the search engines
  • Do not join a link farm
  • Do not get links from fast and easy websites
  • Do not write content that is short or irrelevant to the subject

Forums are good for Search Engine Optimization

The other thing that you will notice in the search engines is that forums are popping up all over the place on page #1 of Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. The reason for this is not that they are forums but that the content on that particular webpage is rich because everyone is discussing the subject from several different angles. One person will have this question and another person will have that question and several different people will have several different answers. This leads to deep quality content to answer people’s questions and that is what the goal is for any search engine.

Pictures and Videos for Search Engine Optimization or SEO

You may ask how you can optimize your pictures and videos for the search engines and the answer is probably a lot simpler that you may have thought. When a spider crawls your web pages it will read 3 things on images. #1. It will read the file name, so make sure that your file name for that image or video has something to do with the content. I use my keyword phrase to name the file before I upload it to my website.  #2. Use the title tag attribute it will look like this [ title=”SEO Search Engine Optimization” ] in the image tag. Make sure again that you are using a phrase that has to do with your article. #3 the alt tag attribute is another great way to be indexed properly and you can use a variation of your key word phrase. Here is what the alt tag looks like [alt=”a variation of your keyword phrase”].  Image search is growing and growing and now Google has made it so that you can search images just by uploading another image to their image search engine. You can try it, just drag and drop an image to the image search and you will see similar images appear, cool huh?

How does this affect the Yoast SEO plug in for WordPress?

If you are using the Yoast plugin in for SEO for your wordpress website make sure you keep doing so. It provides great guidelines and the author is constantly updating the plugin to make it a great resource for testing your SEO on individual web pages and your posts. A word of caution though, just because you get the green light in the plug in does not necessarily mean that you are good to go. A constant refining of the content on your webpage before publishing is a great practice. go over the web page again and again and try to come up with new questions to answer about a certain subject. Do not be afraid to recruit people for this process, you will be glad you did.

What changes have I made in regards to SEO

I have always been the type of person to get to the point and answer the question as quickly and efficiently as possible. In my descriptions in the past I have tried to keep them shorter or the minimum of the 300 words. I have been forced to look deeper into the subjects that I am talking about and answer them from different angles. Yes my job has gotten 10 times harder when it comes to the search engines and getting my clients indexed well. If it is a product, service I have to look at it in ways that I never imaged before.

No Question is too dumb for Search Engines

I am sure we have all heard the phrase the no question is a dumb question but I have to say that I disagree. I have been asked several dumb questions throughout my career as web developer but now I am going to make it a practice to answer each and every one of them to the best of my ability. So my advice to you is do the same thing, answer all the dumb questions you just might appear in places that you did not know exist on the internet, lol.

Recommendations for SEO

I have written this article in a way that I explained to you for search engines and Google’s new Algorithm change Hummingbird. I always wanted the best short answer but now the landscape has changed to the best long answer. Ugh I am growing weary, lol. One of the examples that I source is on my own website here you can find the article and its tutorial on SEO Tutorial here. You can benefit much from that the only thing that I would add is make it a lot longer than 300 or 500 words and ask relevant questions and answer them.

Comply or Die with SEO

SEP Yosemite-SamI have to admit all the hours of hard work that I have put in trying to get my clients in the #1 position and have things change was a little disheartening. I can see the value in the new ways that Search Engine Optimization SEO is evolving. We could take the nostalgic stand and say we liked it better before but if you don’t play by the rules you lose, right? Since we are dealing with our livelihoods I don’t think Ill gamble with this. It like my favorite cartoon character Yosemite Sam says “If you can’t beat em, join em!”

References

I really do appreciate all the good articles on the internet when it comes to SEO here are some really good ones that I have read.

  • SEOs Adapt To Google’s Hummingbird Algorithm – Barry Schwartz
  • SEO: Google’s Hummingbird Changes the Ecommerce Game – JILL KOCHER
  • What Google Hummingbird Means for Content Marketing –  Paul Sanders
  • What Google Hummingbird means for online marketing – Cole Rautenbach

Search Engine Optimization SEO Has Changed was last modified: November 18th, 2020 by Maximus Mccullough
SEO search engine optimization
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8 Comments

  • Jax says:

    How important are Subheadings in my article. Why can’t I just type paragraphs like a report?

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    • Maximus Mccullough says:

      You should use subheadings to separate your content. You will see this done in popular magazines and books. You should strive to imitate such a layout when it come to your writing. In Googles new hummingbird algorithm I have seen sub headings come up as titles in the search so this is a good practice to follow.

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  • Mike says:

    I notice you mention Alt Tags. Are multiple pictures better than just having a featured image in my WordPress post?

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    • Maximus Mccullough says:

      I know that when you do the check in the Yoast SEO section of the wordpress dashboard that the featured image is not counted. Hopefully this will be updated in the plug in. If your featured image has your keyword phrase in it you should be good to go. It is a good idea to use a few images in a post anyway these days on your website. Thanks for the comment!

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  • Sara says:

    If I make edits to my post over time will that hurt my SEO for indexing?

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    • Maximus Mccullough says:

      No feel free to edit your content as you wish. The only other thing that I would suggest is use the google webmaster tools and bing webmaster tools and submit the url so that it gets indexed properly again.

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  • BTM says:

    There is something in the Yoast SEO about outbound links. How does linking to outside sources help my website? Is there some sort of track back feature that works with this?

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    • Maximus Mccullough says:

      Outbound links only help your site if they are good quality links and land on a page that has something to do with the keyword that you are using for your visitors to get them there. Thanks for the comment!

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