It’s possible to block search engine crawlers from part or all of your site, or instruct search engines to avoid storing certain pages in their index. While there can be reasons for doing this, if you want your content found by searchers, you have to first make sure it’s accessible to crawlers and is indexable. As we mentioned in Chapter 1, search engines are answer machines. They exist to discover, understand, and organize the internet’s content in order to offer the most relevant results to the questions searchers are asking. Ideally, it’s best to do your keyword research before you start writing content.

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By dividing content into digestible pieces and labeling each one with an appropriate heading, it can improve SEO marketing efforts. Alt text refers to the description of an image that was traditionally used to relay information to users with visual disabilities. When the landscape is this crowded, it can be a good idea to evaluate related keywords that have less competition. At the end of the day, content needs to be useful to rank highly in search results, whether that content appears in text, audio, or video format.

What is SEO Optimization or Search Engine Optimization?

Page elements like title tags, image alt text, or schema markup can help Google better understand your content. For example, most top-ranking pages for “avocado seed” are blog posts serving as how-to guides for planting the seed. The use of “easy” and “simple” angles indicates that searchers are beginners looking for straightforward advice.

AI & SEO: The Future of Search Optimization

• For example, this article in Entrepreneur mentions our Not Another State of Marketing Report page.
• Again, it makes sense, as the search engine needs a way to assess the company’s location.
• The meta description appears below the title tag in search results, providing a general breakdown of the page in question.
• In terms of ranking web pages, engagement metrics act like a fact-checker.

Add them to make sure your page doesn’t start appearing for irrelevant searches. That’s why SEO work starts with discovering what phrases potential buyers enter into search engines. Every time you use a search engine, you’re looking for content — information on a particular issue or problem, for example. “In theory, it‘s straightforward by definition, but in practice, it depends on context. Google does not penalize duplicate content but rather has difficulty in determining the best page to rank. For most people, failing to rank because of duplicate content seems like a penalty, but it’s not,” says Stoica.

So whether you’re new BHS Links to SEO, or a seasoned veteran, I hope you get a lot of value from the techniques in this post. Simultaneously, it’s essential to choose topics that have business relevance for you. Without this alignment, even with effective SEO, you may not draw in potential customers. SEO doesn’t necessarily require coding knowledge, but having a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can be helpful. They’re usually divided into easy-to-digest chapters and award you with an SEO certificate upon completion.