The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization PDF
Preview The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization
The Art of SEO FOURTH EDITION Mastering Search Engine Optimization With Early Release ebooks, you get books in their earliest form—the author’s raw and unedited content as they write—so you can take advantage of these technologies long before the official release of these titles. Stephan Spencer, Eric Enge, and Jessie Stricchiola The Art of SEO by Stephan Spencer , Eric Enge , and Jessie Stricchiola Copyright © 2022 Pilot Holding, Inc., Stephan Spencer, and Alchemist Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (http://oreilly.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or [email protected]. Editors: Melissa Duffield and Shira Evans Production Editor: Katherine Tozer Interior Designer: David Futato Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery Illustrator: Kate Dullea October 2022: Fourth Edition Revision History for the Early Release 2021-11-19: First Release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781098102616 for release details. The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The Art of SEO, the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The views expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not represent the publisher’s views. While the publisher and the authors have used good faith efforts to ensure that the information and instructions contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and the authors disclaim all responsibility for errors or omissions, including without limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of or reliance on this work. Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights. 978-1-098-10254-8 CHAPTER ONE Search: Reflecting Consciousness and Connecting Commerce A NOTE FOR EARLY RELEASE READERS With Early Release ebooks, you get books in their earliest form—the author’s raw and unedited content as they write—so you can take advantage of these technologies long before the official release of these titles. This will be the 1st chapter of the final book. Please note that the GitHub repo will be made active later on. If you have comments about how we might improve the content and/or examples in this book, or if you notice missing material within this chapter, please reach out to the editor at [email protected]. Search has become integrated into the fabric of our society. More than 7.5 billion Google searches are performed per day, which equates to more than 85,000 queries per second.1 In addition, users have grown to expect that the responses to their search queries will be returned in less than one second. Further, 53% of all website traffic across the web comes from organic (non- paid) search, which means that for many businesses, SEO is the most important digital marketing investment 2. Through the power of search we’re often able to find what we want in a minute or two, or even just a few seconds. People can use search to conduct many of their research, shopping, banking, and social transactions online— something that has changed the way our global population lives and interacts. As a result, it’s critical for owners of web sites to increase their visibility in search engines as much as they can. However, obtaining such prime search result real estate is not a simple matter, but it is one that this book aims to deconstruct and demystify as we examine, explain, and explore the ever-changing art of search engine optimization (SEO). The Mission of Search Engines While those on the internet are free to use any of the many available search engines to find what they are seeking, Google remains the dominant player worldwide with more than ninety percent market share. 3 Nonetheless, the burden is on Google (and other search engines) to provide a relevant, fast, and fresh search experience. For the most part, search engines accomplish this by having the most relevant results and delivering them the fastest, as users will return to the search engine they believe will return the results they want in the least amount of time. To meet this demand, search engines invest a tremendous amount of time, energy, and capital in improving their speed and relevance. This includes performing extensive studies of user responses to their search results, continuous testing and experimentation, analysis of user behavior within the search results (discussed later in this chapter), and application of advanced machine learning algorithms to tune their search algorithms. Search engines, such as Google, generate revenue primarily through paid advertising. The great majority of this revenue comes from a pay-per-click (or cost-per-click) model, in which the advertisers pay only for users who click on their ads. Because the search engines’ success depends so greatly on the relevance of their search results, manipulations of search engine rankings that result in nonrelevant results (generally referred to as spam) are dealt with very seriously. Each major search engine employs teams of people who focus solely on finding and eliminating spam from their search results (generally referred to as “web spam” teams). In addition, larger search engines such as Google also apply dynamic algorithms that detect and deal with poor quality content and/or spam automatically. These efforts to fight spam matter to SEO professionals because they need to be careful that the tactics they employ will not be considered spam by the search engines. The Market Share of Search Engines Figure 1-1 shows the U.S. market share for search engines throughout 2020, according to Statcounter. As you can see, Google is the dominant search engine on the Web worldwide. Figure 1-1. Search engine market share (January 2021) However, in some markets, Google is not dominant. In China, for instance, Baidu is the leading search engine. The fact remains, however, that in most world markets, a heavy focus on Google is a smart strategy for SEO. Goals of Searching: The User’s Perspective The basic goal of a search engine user is to obtain information relevant to a specific set of search terms entered into a search box, also known as a query. A searcher may formulate the query as a question, but the vast majority of searches are performed by users simply entering word combinations—leaving the search engines to do the work of determining a query’s “intent.” One of the most important elements of building an SEO strategy for a website is developing a thorough understanding of the psychology of your target audience, and how they use words and concepts to obtain information about the services and/or products you provide. Once you understand how the average search engine user—and, more specifically, your target audience—utilizes query-based search engines, you can more effectively reach and keep those users. Search engine usage has evolved over the years, but the primary principles of conducting a search remain largely unchanged. Most search engine use includes the following steps: 1. Users experience the need for information. They may be looking for information on a specific website, and they will search for that website (a navigational query); they might want to learn something (an informational query); or they might want to buy something (a transactional query). We will discuss this in more detail in the following section, Determing Searcher Intent. 2. Users formulate that need using a string of words and phrases (i.e. search terms), comprising the query. As shown in Figure 1.2, 58.8% of user search queries are one to three words long, though as users are becoming more web savvy, they may use longer queries to generate more specific results more quickly. 3. Users execute the query, check the results, and if they seek additional information, will try a refined query.
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