Mid-Term Exam: Week 3: SEO lecture 1

Question 1

“Effortless search” leads to best customer experiences when using a search engine like Google. What
does Google do to make sure that they give their users “effortless search” experiences? Hint: What are
5 general factors Google tap into?

Answer 1

1. Meaning of your query – synonyms, categories, and whether you
   are searching for trending keywords (versus stale keywords,
   Google will show you_____)
2. Relevance of webpages – contents containing the same keywords?
3. Quality of content – do other users seem to value the website
   contents?
4. Usability of webpages – different devices, load speed
5. Context and settings – does your location matter? Past search
   history and search settings?

Question 2

Can you elaborate on this statement: “The goal of SEO is not to rank well for a search; the goal is to rank well for as many searches as possible” See also Week 4 SEO lecture part 2

Answer 2

Efforts to:
- Improve the website’s search ranking on the searches already ranks well for
- Improve ranking for searches it currently does not rank (e.g., might show up well by “cool masks” but do not show up on “best masks”)
 Don’t choose a single target search phrase we want to rank for but to
choose a LIST of search phrases (i.e., LTKs – see next slides)

Question 3

Be familiar with how Google search works (Crawling, indexing, and Serving)

Answer 3

Crawling - the process by
which Googlebot discovers new and
updated pages to be added to the Google
index. Googlebot and other web crawlers
crawl the web by following links from one
page to another. As a result, Google might
not discover your pages if no other sites
link to them.

Indexing - Googlebot processes each
page it crawls in order to compile a
massive index of all the words it
sees and their location on each
page; this process also includes
Title Tags, Image ALT attributes,
and Sitemaps

Serving – when someone does a Google search Google’s
machines search the index for matching pages and
return the results they believe are the most relevant to
the user - what is SERP? Search engine resulting page

Question 4

What is pogo-sticking in SEO?

Answer 4

Pogo sticking is when a search engine users visits several different search results in order to find a result that satisfies their search query.

Question 5

What are some ways you can help Google find your webpages?

Answer 5

Ensure that all pages on the site can be reached by a link
from another findable page (the referring page, or backlink) .
* We should have a good understanding of keywords that we
want to target
* On-page SEO tactics
 URL itself, both the home page and additional pages (e.g., a blogger
looking for guidance on SEO)
 Meta description
 Keywords and semantically related words
 Keywords should appear in Header tags (H1, H2, etc.), image alt tags,
title

Question 6

What are different ways you can help Google understand and read your pages? Hint: Sitemaps, HTML
tags such as title, header, image alt, etc.

Answer 6

Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and
accurately describe your content.
* Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words on their pages. Look up synonyms so that your content doesn’t seem “keyword stuffed”
* Tags for H1, H2, etc (</h1>) meta description and other tags <title> elements and image alt attributes are descriptive, specific, and accurate – e.g., images on your site! (<img alt=“……”> Design your site to have a clear conceptual page hierarchy (sitemap on next slide)</title>

A sitemap provides hints for web crawlers to do a
better job of crawling your site.

<Title>
 Exceptionally Important: it’s the first thing people see about your site. Search engines
place significant weight on it.
 Each page should have its own unique page title.
 Your primary keywords should be used in title
 Generic words such as "website home" or "welcome to" usually should not appear in your
page title.
 Ensure your page title differentiates your site from competing sites.

Image Alt Tags: Manually add as HTML tag, or on
sites.google.com, use the built-in tool
Add img alt tag for every image to
boost keywords
</Title>

Question 7

What are some examples of user satisfaction indicators?

Answer 7

Organic Click-Through-Rate
Dwell Time
Bounce Rate
Pogo-sticking

Question 8

What role do user satisfaction metrics play in
RankBrain?

Answer 8

Evaluating if the listed sites worked for the user

Question 9

What are backlinks and why are the important in SEO?

Answer 9

The page can be reached by a link from another findable page

Question 10

What are on-the-page and Off-the-page SEO? What are some examples of each?

Answer 10

On-page SEO (also called on-site SEO) is the process of optimizing webpages and their content for both search engines and users. It can help rank pages higher on Google and drive more organic traffic.

Common tasks associated with on-page SEO include optimizing for search intent, title tags, internal links, and URLs.

Off-page SEO covers anything you can optimize outside of your site (or externally) in an attempt to boost your rankings. Backlinks are arguably the biggest off-page SEO factor. Other examples include social media and PR.

Question 11

What is img alt tag?

Answer 11

image alt attributes are descriptive, specific, and accurate – e.g.,
images on your site! (<img alt=“……”>

Adding a tag for every image to boost keywords