Wednesday, April 5, 2017

SEO Basics (Technically)


Myths

  • Meta Keywords in header - they don't help and are dead.
  • Meta description in header is important though. Shows 155 characters in Google, 165 characters for Bing.
  • Make the title tags unique. Google allows 62 character and bing allows 57 characters. Longer ones get trunked. Shorter titles have higher click through rates.
  • Adding keywords to title tags can be penalized (see Google Penguin). Don't use the same keywords in title and keyword description, but can use variations of your keyword. Write titles for people, not a list of keyword
  • <strong> is the same as <b> and does not give advantage
  • keywords in h1 tag doesn't work. Don't worry about h1 tags for SEO
  • There is no perfect Keyword density
  • Article Spinning creates worthless content
  • Minimal content is ok
  • Linking to other sites is ok and even good.


Meta Data

  • robots - index,follow
  • facebook (open graph): og:*... use them

Canonical

  • Don't use syndicated content as it will only strengthen the provider of it, not your site.

Rich Snippets / Structured Data

  • Highlight the keywords in description google shows.
  • See Google's Data Highlighter in it's webmaster tools.
  • See schema.org for non-google data highlighting. See also Micro data.

Headlines

  • make interesting
  • short sentences with only one idea (12 - 14 words)
  • Keeping short paragraphs, they encourage the users to continue reading
  • 8th grade level of reading is best in many cases.

Internal Linking

  • Use them in natural ways and when adds value.
  • Follow how wikipedia does it.