Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

SEO > SEO 2019 > Flashcards

SEO 2019 Flashcards

1
Q

What is RankBrain?

A

About 15 percent of the queries Google processes every day are new – in other words, nobody has ever searched using these exact terms before.

RankBrain is a method of processing search queries in a way that infers a “best fit” for queries that are unknown to Google.

So, in the simplest terms, RankBrain is a processing algorithm that uses machine learning to bring back the best match to your query when it isn’t sure what that query “means.”

This allows Google to provide the most accurate results for brand new search terms.

They do this to keep users satisfied and to serve up results that searchers want no matter how long or different the search term is.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

How does RankBrain work?

A

RankBrain works by…

  1. Understanding search queries (keywords)
  2. Measuring how people interact with the results (user satisfaction)

Long answer:

The system helps to identify patterns behind search keywords that are generally difficult to understand by connecting them to other search queries.

RankBrain uses a series of databases based on people, places, and things (otherwise known as entities) to seed the algorithm and its machine learning processes.

These words (queries) are then broken down into word vectors using a mathematical formula to give those words an “address”. Similar words share similar “addresses.”

When Google processes an unknown query, it uses these mathematically mapped out relationships to assume a best fit to the query and returns multiple related results.

Over time Google refines the results based on user interaction and machine learning to improve the match between users search intent and the search results that Google returns.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

How does RankBrain understand search queries (keywords)?

A

Before, Google matched the words in your search query to words on a page.

But 15% of the keywords that people typed into Google were never seen before.

Today, RankBrain tries to actually figure out what you mean.

How? By matching never-before-seen keywords to keywords that Google HAS seen before.

In short: Google RankBrain goes beyond simple keyword-matching. It turns your search term into concepts… and tries to find pages that cover that concept.

Short Answer:

Words go in. Words get assigned a mathematical address. Words are retrieved based on your query and the words it locates in the “best fit” vector.

These word “interpretations” are used to return results.

Behind the scenes, data is continually fed into the machine learning process, so as to make those results more relevant the next time.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

How does RankBrain measure how people interact with the results (user satisfaction)?

A

RankBrain measures interaction by evaluating:

  • Organic Click-Through-Rate
  • Dwell Time
  • Bounce Rate
  • Pogo-sticking (John Mueller, Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, says this isn’t a ranking signal.)

These are known as user experience signals (UX signals)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What is Dwell Time?

A

Dwell Time = how long a Google searcher spends on your page.

As it turns out, RankBrain pays A LOT of attention to Dwell Time.

In fact, the head of Google Brain in Canada recently confirmed that Google uses Dwell Time as a ranking signal.

A recent industry study by SearchMetrics supports this statement. They found that the average Dwell Time for a top 10 Google result is 3 minutes and 10 seconds.

If you spend a long time on a page, you probably like the content on that page.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What is Organic CTR?

A

Organic CTR is simply the number of clicks a search result receives, divided by the number of times it’s viewed on the SERP (also known as “impressions”)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

How can you increase your Organic CTR?

A

Leverage…

  • Emotion
  • Numbers
  • Parentheses and Brackets
  • AdWords ads (include words and phrases from AdWords ads in your title and description)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

How do you reduce bounce rate and improve dwell time?

A
  • Remove anything that pushes content above the fold
  • Use short intros (5-10 sentences max)
  • Publish long, in-depth content (min. 1000 words on e-commerce product pages and 2000 words for informational content)
  • Break up content into bite sized chunks
  • Use visuals (images, infographics, videos)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

How can you improve brand awareness in the SERPs?

Why is brand awareness important when it comes the to SERPs?

A

Your Title Here | Brand Name

Use Facebook Ads to get your content in front of eyeballs.

Why important:

If someone knows your brand, they’re more likely to click on your site in the search resultsWordStream found that brand awareness can increase CTR by up to 342%!

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What are LSI keywords and why are they important?

A

LSI Keywords are words and phrases related to your content’s main topic.

Why are LSI Keywords important? Well, they give RankBrain the context they need to fully understand your page.

For example, let’s say that you’re writing a guide about link building.

LSI Keywords are things like:

  • Backlinks
  • Domain Authority
  • Email outreach
  • Anchor text
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What does it mean for Google to ‘Know a Query Set’?

A

Instead of determining your article about “red apples” was about red apples from optimization signals such as inbound link anchor text and H1 tags, it already knew that a red apple was a round edible fruit that came in the color known as red.

The database told Google that this string was actually a thing called “red apple”. Then Google can pull back all the best match results for the term “red apple.”

However, maybe you meant “red apple” as in a “red apple computer.” If Google isn’t sure you meant “apple the fruit” or “apple the computer”, it might throw a few alternate results into your query set.

So instead of 10 fruit related results, you might get 8 fruit related and 2 computer related, or vice versa.

This is how Google RankBrain works in the most basic of ways.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

What is “pogo-sticking”?

A

“Pogo-sticking” is a nickname given to the act of quickly navigating back and forth between pages in search results.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What is bounce rate?

A

Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors who visit a single page on a website.

A high bounce rate isn’t always bad, as it can mean that while the visitor didn’t travel deeper into a site, he did spend some time on the page and get an answer to his question. He may have bookmarked the page or shared it on Facebook, but since he didn’t read more, it constitutes a bounce.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What is Google’s Mobile-first Index?

A

Google’s Mobile-first Index ranks the search results based only on the mobile-version of the page. This occurs even if you’re searching from a desktop!

Before this update, Google’s index would use a mix of desktop and mobile results.

So if someone searched from an iPhone, Google would show them mobile results. And if someone searched for something on a desktop, they’d get “desktop results”.

Today, no matter what device you use, Google shows you results from their mobile index. (Every search is mobile-search by making their algorithm “mobile-first”.)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What percent of searches are done from a mobile device?

A

58%

Also, according to Google, there are 27.8 billion more queries performed on mobile than desktop.

Also, 95% of ALL mobile searches are done on Google.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

A website is optimize for mobile if…

A
  • Loads resources across all devices
  • Doesn’t hide content on mobile versions of your site
  • Loads quickly like mobile users expect
  • Has working internal links and redirects
  • Boasts a UX that’s optimized for any device that your visitors use
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

What does Google consider “mobile”?

A

Google puts tablets “in their own class” and states: “when we speak of mobile devices, we generally do not include tablets in the definition”.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

What are the 3 different ways to optimize a site for mobile?

A
  1. Separate URLS AKA “M.” Configuration
  2. Dynamic Serving
  3. Responsive Design (recommended by Google)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Why are separate URLs NOT recommended for mobile optimization?

A

First, they’re a huge pain to manage.

Also, “M.” sites have a host of SEO issues (like the fact that you need multiple URLs for every piece of content on your site AND that it requires complicated “rel=canonical” and “rel=alternate” tags).

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

How does Separate URLs / “M.” Configuration work?

A

With this setup, you have the “main” desktop version of your site. You also have a mobile version (“M.”) version of your site.

Your site figures out what device your visitor is using… and then directs them to a URL optimized for that device.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

What is “Dynamic Serving” in relation to mobile optimization?

A

When you serve content dynamically, all of your content is on the same URL.

But you show each user different HTML/CSS depending on the device they’re using.

22
Q

Why is Dynamic Serving NOT recommended for mobile optimization?

A

Dynamic serving sites are notorious for showing desktop versions to mobile users.

You also need to constantly create different versions of your content for new devices that come out.

If you don’t, your site may not recognize a new device… and show them a version that looks terrible on that device.

23
Q

What is structured data?

A

Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content; for example, on a recipe page, what are the ingredients, the cooking time and temperature, the calories, and so on.

24
Q

What is responsive design as it relates to mobile optimization?

A

Responsive design is a technique that allows the same website’s design and layout to adapt to the size of the screen used to view it.

25
Q

Why is responsive design recommended for mobile optimization?

A
  • All of your content is on a single URL (good for sharing and getting links)
  • Minimal SEO headaches (no “rel=canonical tags”, duplicate content issues etc.)
  • Insanely user friendly (UX is a big part of SEO thanks to RankBrain)
  • No redirects (which cause technical SEO issues and can slow down your site)
  • Google says so!

A mobile responsive web design is fundamental to a positive user experience, and Google is going to reward sites that meet users with such an experience.

26
Q

How do you mobile optimize a website?

A

• Use Google’s Mobile Usability Test (inside GSC)

• Let Google Crawl Everything
Do not block Googlebot from accessing Javascript, CSS or other important parts of your site’s code.

This used to be no big deal. But today, this is a VERY bad idea.

Unless Google can fully crawl your page, they can’t tell it’s mobile-friendly or not.

And if they’re not sure it’s mobile-friendly, good luck ranking in the Mobile-first index.

How do you know if this is an issue?

First, check out your robots.txt file. This tells Googlebot to not crawl or index certain parts of your site. This file is usually found at site.com/robots.txt. You can also see it inside of the Google Search Console.

  • Don’t use popups
  • Use the mobile version of “Fetch as Google”
  • Let mobile users see all (Do not hide content)
27
Q

How do you optimize your mobile site for UX signals?

A
  • Master Mobile Sitespeed (Google recommends your site to load in under 1 second, use Google PageSpeed Insights tool to check.)
  • Make your content very easy to read on phones (Users shouldn’t have to squint or pinch. Font should be big, bold and legible.)
  • Use HTML5 for embedded video and animated content (Flash won’t work anymore)
  • Don’t forget the “viewport content” tag. Do you use responsive design? (If so, don’t forget the viewport meta tag. This tag changes the size of your page based on the user’s device.)
  • Compare desktop vs. mobile bounce rate / dwell time. (If bounce is way higher on mobile, visit that page and fix it.)
28
Q

List 3 quick mobile UX hacks

A
  • Make header images small (don’t use big images that push content below the fold)
  • Use lots of “negative” space (Negative space is the space between text, buttons and design elements. Negative space is REALLY important for mobile sites.)
  • Put social share buttons as a tab bar (not distracting)
29
Q

How do you improve mobile dwell time and bounce rate?

A

How?

  • Open GA
  • Hit Site Content > Landing Pages
  • Click on a page you want to get more traffic to
  • Click “Secondary Dimension” > “Device Category”
  • If there’s a big difference between desktop / mobile bounce / session duration, address the issue.
30
Q

How do you improve mobile CTR?

A

How do you know your mobile CTR is performing?

  • Go to GSC Performance Report
  • Click “+ New”
  • Click “Device”
  • Hit “Compare” to compare desktop vs mobile

If you notice your desktop CTR crushing mobile CTR, go and improve it. It could be that your title tag is getting cut off, or SERP features are crowding it.

31
Q

How can you boost mobile page speed?

A
  • Do a mobile speed test at thinkwithgoogle.com
  • Compress images (SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the file size of your images, which can speed up load times dramatically)
  • Implement Browser Cache: Google themselves recommend caching your site to make your site load faster.
  • Fire Up a CDN: CDNs can make page elements (especially images) load 2-3x faster.
32
Q

What is AMP and should you implement it?

A

Accelerated Mobile Pages are stripped-down versions of webpages designed to load quickly on mobile devices. In fact, AMP pages load about 4x faster than their non-AMP counterparts.

AMP is NOT RECOMMENDED here’s why:

  1. AMP puts SERIOUS limits on your page’s functionality.

Want full control of your ads? Not happening.

How about a lightbox or popup? Nope.

Well, you can at least brand your site however you want, right? Not so fast. AMP puts significant restrictions on CSS. This helps your site load faster… but makes your content look generic.

  1. AMP can hurt your link building efforts.

When someone links to your content, those links point directly to your site. Obvious, I know.

But here’s the deal:

When someone links to your AMP pages, that link points to the Google.com domain (google.com/amp/s/mywebsite).

So at least for now, links to AMP pages boost Google’s domain authority… not yours.

  1. AMP may not last.
33
Q

Why is schema.org structured data recommended for mobile optimization?

A

Mobile SERPs display the search results as cards. Structured data can hook you up with review stars, recipe images and event dates in the SERPs… all of which can significantly increase your organic CTR.

34
Q

What is a featured snippet?

A

A search result in a special block that includes a summary of the answer, extracted from a webpage, plus a link to the page, the page title and URL.

According to SEMRush, 11.3% of all search results now have a Featured Snippet.

35
Q

How do you rank content in the Featured Snippet?

A

• Your first step is to find:

  1. Keywords that you already rank for (99.58% of all Featured Snippets are from pages that rank on the first page for that term.)
  2. Keywords that have a Featured Snippet
    Why is it important to focus on keywords that you rank for already?

• Create “Snippet Bait”.

“Snippet Bait” is a 40-60 word block of content specifically designed to rank in the Featured Snippet spot.

Why 40-60 words?

Well, SEMrush analyzed nearly 7 million Featured Snippets. And they found that the most Featured Snippets are 40-60 words long.

• Format your content for different types of featured snippets

  1. Paragraph Snippets (most common)
  2. List Snippets (Use H2/H3 on every item of your list)
  3. Table Snippets
36
Q

How do you write in-depth content?

A
  1. Publish content that’s at least 2000 words. Longer content outranks shorter content.
  2. Publish authoritative evergreen content. BuzzSumo founder:

“The majority of content gets zero backlinks but authoritative research and reference content continues to gain links. In particular, authoritative evergreen content consistently gains shares and links over time.”

  1. Add LSI Keywords to Your Content (LSI keywords are words and phrases that are strongly associated with your page’s topic.

For example, if topic is Paleo Diet, some LSI keywords would be nutrition, caveman, weight loss, grains, recipes.

37
Q

What are LSI keywords?

A

LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing) are keywords semantically related to your main keyword.

38
Q

Why should you consider going all-in with video?

A
  • According to CISCO, online video will make up 80% of all online traffic by 2021.
  • HubSpot states that 43% of people want to see more online video.
  • According to Moz, YouTube’s search engine is already 2x more popular than Bing.
  • Video increases dwell time
39
Q

Why should you optimize for Voice Search?

A
  • 41% of adults perform at least one voice search per day
  • Google voice searches are up 35x since 2008
  • 20% of all searches on mobile are voice searches
40
Q

How do you optimize for Voice Search?

A
  1. First, your content needs to rank high in search results
  2. Optimize for featured snippets (4 out of 10 voice search results come directly from featured snippets.)
  3. Include a question and answer in your content
41
Q

How important are content and links?

A

Google recently came out and said content and links were their #1 and #2 ranking factors.

42
Q

What is “E-A-T” and why is it important?

A

Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

So it stands to reasons that over time Google will begin to look for the signs of authoritative, responsible, reputable authorship on content pages.

Some of the factors that the guidelines now ask quality raters to look for certainly could be built into a search algorithm, if not now then in the future, including:

  • Clear identification of the content creator on the content page.
  • Bio for the author, either on the page or through a link.
  • Content creators who are recognized entities and can be linked to sources that substantiate their authority.
43
Q

What is significant about Google’s latest update to Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (SQRG)?

A

“Reputation of the creator of the content” is mentioned for the first time, and features prominently throughout the document.

Section 3.1 lists the site owner and creator of the main content (MC) on the page as one of the five most important factors for evaluating page quality.

The rater is to gauge how much the content creator enhances (or detracts from) the quality of the page according to Google’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness).

44
Q

What is Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (SQRG)?

A

The guiding principles used to train the human raters who help evaluate the effectiveness of Google’s search algorithms.

That is, they provide a sort of benchmark against which Google engineers can ascertain how close their search results are to what real humans think of as “quality content.”

It would be very wrong to think of anything in the SQRG as a search ranking factor.

Nevertheless, it gives us a good picture of what Google engineers are aiming for in the pages that will bubble to the top of Google.

45
Q

What does the Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (SQRG) document state about authorship?

A

The document states that a website page should clearly identify (section 2.5.2):

  1. Who is responsible for the site (of course, that can be in a linked page, such as an “About Us” page)
  2. Who created the content on the page

The guidelines go on to instruct the Search Quality Rater to check not only the online reputation of the brand, company, or person that owns the site, but also of the creator of the content on the page being evaluated. They suggest looking for biographical information about the creator that was not written by that individual.

46
Q

What are “YMYL” pages?

A

YMYL refers to content that could have a profound effect on a person’s well-being, topics such as medical issues, science advances, or financial advice. The closer a page’s topic is to being YMYL, the more the reputation and expertise of the author matters for a high-quality rating.

In fact, they state that YMYL pages that have no information about the content creator should be rated “Lowest” in terms of quality rating. Of course, the Lowest rating also applies to any page where the author has a negative reputation.

Google makes clear that the E-A-T of the creator is especially important for “your money or your life” (YMYL) pages.

47
Q

Best practices for publishers to implement E-A-T and rate highly on Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (SQRG)?

A
  • Make sure that you only accept content from creators with good reputations and demonstrated expertise in the topic of their content.
  • Seek out creators who have already been published on relevant, high-quality sites.
  • Give preference to creators who have a clear, positive presence online (bios on good sites, a Wikipedia page, listed in “top people in the industry” pages, active and positive social media accounts, etc.)
  • Give prominence to your authors’ bylines on your content page. Link each byline to a detailed author bio page that links not only to other content they’ve written for you, but to authoritative content they’ve published on other sites. Also link to their social media profiles and anything else online that would help establish their identity and authority. (This is especially important for YMYL pages.)
  • Make sure all of your important content pages have author information.
48
Q

Best practices for authors to implement E-A-T and rate highly on Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (SQRG)?

A
  • Work hard at establishing your E-A-T (expertise, authority, and trustworthiness).
  • Be active and responsive on social media.
  • Seek opportunities to be interviewed and quoted online.
  • Seek to publish content relative to your areas of expertise on well-regarded, topically-relevant publications.
  • Ask that your author bio on such publications link to your social media accounts and your personal site (if you have one), bio page on your company site, and/or your Wikipedia page.
  • Seek to get a Wikipedia page.
49
Q

Why is publishing unique data important for getting links?

A

Bloggers and journalists LOVE citing unique data.

And if you can hook them up with a stat, a survey, or an industry study, they’ll throw links at your feet like rose petals.

50
Q

Do blog comments help rankings?

A

YES. Google has stated that community (blog comments) can help “a lot” with rankings.

Last year Google said that “Comments are better on-site for engagement signals for SEO than moving to social.”

51
Q

What are “zombie pages” (give examples) and how can you fix them?

A

Pages that provide zero value.

Examples:

  • outdated / low quality blog posts
  • low-performing product pages
  • Wordpress category and tag pages
  • old press releases
  • archive pages
  • duplicate content
  • thin content
  • boilerplate content
  • old service pages

To fix…

You can combine/consolidate content from similar pages or rewrite pages.

SEO (2 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions