Introduction To Google SEO

1.
Introduction to Google SEO

Week 1
SEO as a Career
Why a Career in SEO?
Evolution of SEO
How Search Engines Work
Evolution of SEO
Week 2
Current SEO Best Practices
Introduction to Search Engine Algorithms
Algorithm Updates: History, Part 1
Algorithm Updates: Important Algorithms, Part 2
Algorithm Updates
SEO Best Practices and Ranking Factors
Panda: The Game Changer for Content
Cleaning Up Links with Penguin
Review Week 2
Week 3
SEO of Today, Tomorrow and Beyond
Core Web Vitals
EAT & YMYL
Featured Snippets and Rich Snippets
BERT
Evolution of Keyword Optimization
Correct
Strengthening Your Keyword Strategy
Correct
How Does Branding Influence Website Rank?
Week 4
Your Audience and Building Personas
Persona Development
Marketing to Your Persona
Getting to Know Your Audience
Creating Your Ideal Buyers Persona
Week 1
1. Introduction to Google SEO 1

You will even discover many different schools of thought and specializations within the SEO industry
itself. For example, some people like to choose a specialization such as local SEO, Technical SEO, or
SEO Copywriting. While others like to have a broader specialization and work in all areas. There's
even contention among SEOs about white hat versus black hat versus gray hat. White hat SEO as
follows searching and best practices laid out by Google and other search engines. While black hat
SEOs tend to go against the grain and participate in what some might consider manipulative
practices. Gray hats tend to be somewhere in the middle. Black hat SEOs tend to get hit by penalties
more frequently, and are known for more churn and burn approach to SEO. In this course, we are
focusing on white hat tactics, that will not result in you getting penalized or banned from search
engines.

During this course, we will refer to search engines quite frequently. The major search engines are
Google, Yahoo, and Bing, though there are lesser known search engines. These include international
search engines such as Baidu, which is China's major search engine. Yandex, which is Russia's major
search engine, and Naver, which is South Korea's major search engine.

Studies have shown that a little over 71% of all traffic to a website is visits from the first page of results
In fact, these first five results in the organic listings bring the highest percentage of traffic, accounting
for approximately 68% of clicks to a website.
SEO as a Career

Why a Career in SEO?
To learn more about why SEO might be great for you, please read the following links:
SEO a Core Skill for Marketers, According to Microsoft, Rebekah May
https://rebekahm.com/uncategorized/seo-a-core-skill-for-marketers-according-to-microsoft/
Some Good Reasons to Choose SEO as Your Career- Webconfs.com
http://www.webconfs.com/seo-career-article-23.php
A SEO of Opportunity - 7 Career Paths for Today's SEO Specialist
https://www.simplilearn.com/seo-specialist-career-paths-article
U.S. Digital Marketing Salary & Job Trends Guide, Conductor.com, 2021
(You will need to register with a work email to view the full data; therefore, this reading is optional.)
https://www.conductor.com/learning-center/us-marketing-salary-guide-2021/

Evolution of SEO
How Search Engines Work
These robots, are also called crawlers or spiders, and each section engine uses a robot unique to
them. These robots crawl the Web in an effort to discover new Web pages and documents. One way
robots discover new sites is through links. If another website links to your website, this creates an
easy path for robots to follow. Robots can use this map to explore the Web and continually discover
new pages. In the early days of the Internet, Webmasters had to submit their site to search engines so
it could be discovered by the robots. Now robots will find your site on their own, adding your site to
free services such as Google Webmaster Tools will aid in this discovery process.

They then returned the results in a fraction of a second, in that fraction of a second, a search engine
has to first determine which results are the most relevant to users query and also rank those results,
according to the authority of a website.
Robots go to work discovering webpages and analyzing them before entering them into an index.
Then they receive a search query, determine which page in the index is most relevant, and return
those results to the user in a fraction of a second.
Evolution of SEO

Backlink là liên kết được trả về từ các website, diễn đàn, blog và các mạng xã hội tới trang web của
bạn.

Many improvements were made from Personalized search to giving webmasters more insight and
control into their domains. They did things like launch Google Analytics and Search Console, which
was formally called Google Webmaster Tools, to give website owners more insight into how Google
views their website.
Drew Madore on How “Black Hat SEO” Has Changed Over the Years, Barry Schwartz, Search
Engine Land, 2020
https://searchengineland.com/video-drew-madore-on-how-black-hat-seo-has-changed-over-the-years-
341223?
utm_source=SearchHerald&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=SearchHerald&utm_content=Timeline
The Rise of Reputation Experience Management, Adam Dorfman, Search Engine Land, 2020

https://searchengineland.com/the-rise-of-reputation-experience-management-341026?
utm_source=SearchHerald&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=SearchHerald&utm_content=Timeline
Week 2
Current SEO Best Practices
This means that if Google, for example, only showed ads instead of organic results, users would soon
get tired of the results provided and go elsewhere. To keep users returning, they have to have a good
mix of organic results and advertisements to attract users and keep them coming back.

One way a search engine can ensure it is providing useful, relevant results for a particular query is
through algorithms. Search engines use algorithms to determine the quality of a website, the theme of
a website, and what types of queries the website should show up for in search results.
Through years of studying search engines and performing tests, the SEO community has agreed on
many different factors that affect your website and how it ranks. Some of these factors are still subject
to debate and speculation.

Algorithms rate the overall quality of a page in addition to its relevance (which search terms should
lead to it) and where it will be displayed in the search results.
We know that there are over 200 different ranking factors or signals used by Google to understand
and rank a website. In addition to that, there are algorithm updates every single day. These updates
may not always be huge or impact your website directly, but it's important to know that Google's
algorithms are constantly shifting in order to provide users with the best results. In a single year, over
500 updates will have been made to the algorithms. Because there are so many updates, we have to
rely on ourselves to notice these changes and how they impact search results. Google will only
announce a small percentage of the updates they make. In general, they're very vague about what
exactly is being updated and when.

I recommend reading through MozCast to learn more about the sample data they choose and what
metrics they use to develop this report.

7 Search Ranking Factors Analyzed: A Follow-Up Study, Jeff Baker, Moz.com, 2018
https://moz.com/blog/7-search-ranking-factors-analyzed-follow-up-study
Moz, a well-regarded website for the analysis of SEO trends and search ranking factors.
Mozcast, Mozcast.com
http://mozcast.com/
Provided by Moz.com, this “weather report” shows activity and changes in the Google search
algorithm, represented as daily “temperature” readings.
Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List (2021), Brian Dean, Backlinko.com, 2020
https://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors
Backlinko provides over 200 ranking factors that Google uses in their algorithm.
How Google Makes Improvements to Its Search Algorithm, Google
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5RZOU6vK4Q
This official Google video outlines some of the work that goes into the changes and improvements
that Google makes to their search algorithm.
Algorithm Updates: History, Part 1

Now, not all of these updates will be game changers. Some are barely recognizable, others are
considered core updates and drastically change search. Sometimes updates and changes are so big,
there are even updates to updates.
Other times Google will announce the name themselves ahead of time, especially when the update is
particularly important.
At an agency, one of the biggest mistakes I frequently saw, were businesses that were reactive in
there s E O needs. Rather than being proactive, This means that they waited for an update to hit and
often started seeing a negative downward trend and traffic, in order to jump on it and start doing
things to mitigate that effect. So this particular client happened to have a ton of pages, and these
pages often had just a few sentences of content, and oftentimes the content was repetitive or
duplicated from page to page.

Unfortunately, a few months later, an algorithm update hit, and as I predicted, the site was
harmed. Now they had two different sites. One of their sites suffering from similar issues is this, saw a
30% drop in traffic overnight. Now their main site, which luckily had some decent authority and quality
pages to it, saw a more slow but sure negative impact.
I have some advice for those of you dealing with issues like this, where you know best practices aren't
being followed and you know it's only a matter of time, before they see a negative impact.
So in situations like this, the next best step is to find a case study of similar instances, where
companies were hit post algorithm update.
You can then translate that into what it means for this business. So quickly back to this example to
show you how it worked out. Once we were able to go in and make the improvements that we
originally recommended, we not only saw a correction to the algorithm update, but an improvement to
overall S E O. After all, had they fixed the changes here when we recommended, the upper trend
would have looked more like this.
Algorithm Updates: Important Algorithms, Part 2

1. Panda

The update dubbed Panda hit in 2011 and impacted about 12 percent of search results. Panda was
dedicated to improving user experience by eliminating sites that were considered poor quality or had
poor quality content. This consisted of a lot of duplicate content, which was either duplicated from
other sites or even content duplicated within your own site. Google would also look at content they
deemed low-quality, this would be content that was clearly machine generated, such as lots of weird
sentences that made no sense, the content had ton of grammar and spelling issues, or it was just
viewed as unnatural and something human probably didn't write.

Another factor of poor content was just poor quality pages or pages that had a ton of ads or just
lacked a substantial amount of content that would be considered relevant to what the site was about.
For example, if you had a site about camera equipment and had pages about dog training, this would
be considered really weird and irrelevant and you would get hit.
2. Penguin
This was an effort to combat spammy and Black Hat link building tactics. The intent of this update was
to crack down on what Google considered to be poor link building tactics, such as, getting a lot of
directory links (Liên kết không tự nhiên), giving a lot of links from spammy and unrelated sites, having
a high percentage of anchor text that links with targeted specific keywords. For example, if you had
anchor text for blue widgets in your site, so blue widgets in like 80 percent of the texts linking to your
site had this keyword, that was looked at as really unnatural.
Directory được hiểu đơn giản thì đây là những trang danh bạ web, Directory sinh ra để lưu trữ
các website theo từng nội dung, giúp người đọc dễ dàng tra cứu các website theo nhu cầu của

họ. Directory thường được các seoer tận dụng để tạo ra backlink chất lượng bằng cách submit
website của mình lên các danh bạ web. Nhưng không phải là backlink nào cũng chất lượng.
Anchor Text là một đoạn văn bản có thể nhìn thấy được mà khi bạn nhấp vào siêu liên kết
(hyperlink) sẽ chuyển hướng đến một trang web/URL mới.

This basically means that the algorithm looks at usage of synonyms and other relevant words and
phrases when understanding the topical relevance to a query. For example, if your site was about
baseball, they would look for related words like, homerun, and bats, and catch, and baseball, to
determine that yes, the site was probably about baseball because it had a high amount of words that
were relevant to the subject.

Algorithm Updates
Rolling Out Mobile-first Indexing, Google Search Central, 2018
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing
Repercussion nhắc đến hậu quả có thể xảy ra một lúc nào đó trong tương lai. Ngược
lại, consequence là hậu quả đã xảy ra

Part of why algorithms evolve so frequently is due to webmasters manipulating the algorithm to obtain
a high rank for a page which isn't relevant. This is part of what gives SEOs a bad name. As SEOs
uncover more about the algorithm, some people over-optimize for these factors. This causes search
engines to have to adjust their algorithms to account for these spammy tactics.
Một phần lý do tại sao các thuật toán phát triển thường xuyên là do quản trị viên web thao túng thuật
toán để có được thứ hạng cao cho một trang không liên quan. Đây là một phần của những gì mang
lại cho người làm SEO một cái tên xấu. Khi SEO khám phá thêm về thuật toán, một số người đã tối
ưu hóa quá mức cho các yếu tố này. Điều này khiến các công cụ tìm kiếm phải điều chỉnh các thuật
toán của họ để giải quyết các chiến thuật spam này.

The payday loan field is an excellent example, as Google had to create a specific update just to
counter the notoriously spammy results within the payday loan space. This is why it is a good idea not
to over-optimize your site it may work for a little while, but it is not viable for the long term.
Lĩnh vực cho vay ngắn hạn là một ví dụ tuyệt vời, vì Google đã phải tạo một bản cập nhật cụ thể chỉ
để chống lại các kết quả nổi tiếng là spam trong không gian cho vay ngắn hạn. Đây là lý do tại sao
bạn không nên tối ưu hóa quá mức trang web của mình, nó có thể hoạt động trong một thời gian
ngắn nhưng không khả thi về lâu dài.

The first best practice is to make sure you provide high-quality content, especially on your homepage.
From a user experience point of view, this helps users immediately understand what your website is
about and how it can meet their needs. From an SEO point of view, your homepage is the page which
earns the most authority on your website. This is one of the main pages that will end up bringing in
search, it's important to provide information to users, but it's equally important that search engines
understand what your site is about and rank it appropriately. The content on your homepage can help
do this. Obtaining links from other sites is another important best practice. We will discuss think
building in more detail, but basically, each link to your site earns you authority. The more high-quality
links you have, the more authority your site earns. This can help your site rank better in search
results. Next, it's important to ensure your site is accessible to both users and search engines. Some
websites are coded in a fashion where users can see the content, but search engines cannot. This is
known as cloaking and can result in penalties your website needs to be valuable from both the user's

perspective and the search engine perspective. But the user experience comes first. Last but not
least, it's important to have a clear hierarchy. If your website is structured in a way that makes finding
inner pages difficult, or it's difficult to understand the theme in various sections of your website, this
will result in a poor user experience. In addition to providing a poor user experience, it will also make it
more difficult for robots to crawl in and analyze the site.

Analyzing patents Google has filed also provides us with insights into how the algorithms work, as
well as what changes we may see over the next few years. Patents are often filled with legal language
and they can be difficult to understand. There's one SEO in the industry in particular named Bill
Slawski that is great at reviewing patents and presenting his interpretation of how the information
discussed in that patent has affected or may affect SEO. I would urge you to read his blog, which is
called SEO by the Sea, and look at his post on patents in particular.
https://www.seobythesea.com/

True or False: improving the quality of content on the homepage is primarily done to improve
search engine rank.
⇒ False
As we discussed in the lesson, the main importance of the home page is that it provides quality,
relevant information to users. These users then link to the site, visit it often, and THAT traffic works
with the algorithm to improve rank.
True or False: links to and from your website can have different impacts depending on when
and how they were generated.
⇒ True
Even links to the same site may impact your ranking differently if they are created before or after an
algorithm update, or otherwise don’t adhere to the current best practices.

What are the main categories SEOs have decided affect page rank?
On-Page factors, which affect a specific page of your site
Server-side factors, which affect your site and all other sites hosted on the same server
Off-Site factors, such as links to and from your site and your social media profile
Hierarchy factors, which affect pages at the top level of your site and trickle down to “sub”
pages
Domain-level factors, which modify and affect your site as a whole, regardless of the
specific page
All of the above

Steps to a Google-friendly Site, Google Support
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en
This article provides tips for website creators (in addition to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines) on how
to create and manage a site that will be Google-friendly as well as user-friendly.
Steps to a Google-friendly site
Check out our SEO Starter Guide!
Things to do
Our Webmaster Guidelines provide general design, technical, and quality guidelines. Below are more
detailed tips for creating a Google-friendly site.
Give visitors the information they're looking for
Provide high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This is the single most
important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors

and entice webmasters to link to your site. In creating a helpful, information-rich site, write pages that
clearly and accurately describe your topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages
and include those words on your site.
Make sure that other sites link to yours
Links help our crawlers find your site and can give your site greater visibility in our search results.
When returning results for a search, Google uses sophisticated text-matching techniques to display
pages that are both important and relevant to each search. Google interprets a link from page A to
page B as a vote by page A for page B. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh
more heavily and help to make other pages "important."
Keep in mind that our algorithms can distinguish natural links from unnatural links. Natural links to
your site develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable
and think it would be helpful for their visitors. Unnatural links to your site are placed there specifically
to make your site look more popular to search engines. Some of these types of links (such as link
schemes and doorway pages) are covered in our Webmaster Guidelines.
Only natural links are useful for the indexing and ranking of your site.
Make your site easily accessible

Build your site with a logical link structure. Every page should be reachable from at least one static
text link.
Use a text browser, such as Lynx, to examine your site. Most spiders see your site much as Lynx
would. If features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, DHTML, or Macromedia Flash keep you
from seeing your entire site in a text browser, then spiders may have trouble crawling it.
Things to avoid
Don't fill your page with lists of keywords, attempt to "cloak" pages, or put up "crawler only" pages. If
your site contains pages, links, or text that you don't intend visitors to see, Google considers those
links and pages deceptive and may ignore your site.
Don't feel obligated to purchase a search engine optimization service. Some companies claim to
"guarantee" high ranking for your site in Google's search results. While legitimate consulting firms can
improve your site's flow and content, others employ deceptive tactics in an attempt to fool search
engines. Be careful; if your domain is affiliated with one of these deceptive services, it could be
banned from our index.
Don't use images to display important names, content, or links. Our crawler doesn't recognize text
contained in graphics. Use ALT attributes if the main content and keywords on your page can't be
formatted in regular HTML.
Don't create multiple copies of a page under different URLs. Many sites offer text-only or printer-
friendly versions of pages that contain the same content as the corresponding graphic-rich pages. If
your site has identical content that can be reached via different URLs, there are several ways of
indicating the canonical (preferred) version of a page. More information about canonicalization.
SEO by the Sea, Bill Slawski, 2021

http://www.seobythesea.com/
Bill Slawski’s blog about SEO contains a variety of topics such as Google patents, technological
advancements in SEO, and how SEO fits into a broader marketing strategy. This blog will be

referenced often and would be a helpful site to bookmark.
I recommend you watch the provided Google Hangout video where Google's John Mueller addresses
questions related to the Panda rollout.
1. Thin/Low Quality Sites

2. Duplicate Content
Generally, when it comes to content duplicated or scraped from another website, the website that first
published that information will receive credit and will rank for that content. The site copying of the
content will not rank well, and in some cases, if you have massive amounts of scrap content, your site
will be penalized.
3. Excessive Ads

Additional things that we trigger a Panda penalty are excessive amounts of ads on the site. If you
have a page with very little content that is surrounded in advertisements, that isn't providing a lot of
value to a user, then the page will not rank well. This would be considered a thin page.
4. Poor Navigation
Google will also look at things like your site navigation. Whether or not the navigation is intuitive, and
if it links to all of your content. You really want to make sure you're providing a good user experience
for your users. Google has published a post on their official blog, that provide some guidance on what
you can do to build high-quality sites.
💡 Which of the following items is/are true about the Panda update?
It is a continually updated filter as opposed to a one-time update
Correct
Correct! Like many of the major updates, Google will continue to update and refine the Panda update.
If you were penalized by Panda, you have a chance to repair the damage
Correct
Correct! As long as you are able to identify and fix the underlying problem, you can improve your
ranking over time.
If you were not penalized during the Panda rollout, you will not be penalized going forward
(grandfather clause)

Panda has scheduled, publicized updates to give webmasters time to repair penalties on a
set timeline
All of the above
The website Pandalized.com, was created to keep track of how Panda effected large sites. Several
well-known sites were severely impacted when this algorithm rolled out, and some never returned to
normal. Here are some charts from the site
5. Auto-Generated Content

Some examples of the type of content Panda targets, includes things like automatically generated
content. Automatically generated content, is also referred to as spun content and it's content that is
created by a program and inserts applicable keywords. But most often the articles gibberish are very
poorly written and it's difficult for users to understand.
6. Squeeze Pages
💡 Squeeze: Sự ép, sự vắt, sự bóp, sự nén, sự nặn (trái cây..), Sự ôm chặt, sự siết chặt tay
thân mến, Một chút gì do ép, vắt ra, Đám đông; sự chen chúc
7. Doorway Page

Đặc điểm của Doorway Page
Một doorway page có thể rất đơn giản với nội dung chung chung, có thể có 1 hoặc 2 hình ảnh hoặc
chỉ một yêu cầu “CLICK HERE FOR MORE” đặt trên trang đó. Tạo ra trang này không mất nhiều thời
gian. Sau đó quản trị web này sẽ nhắm mục tiêu cho từ khóa hoặc cụm từ cụ thể. Thậm chí, một số
người có thể tạo ra một door way page cho mỗi từ khóa mục tiêu.
Điều này gây khó chịu cho người tìm kiếm. Khi bạn tìm kiếm với một truy vấn nào đó và click vào một
liên kết trong kết quả tìm kiếm nhưng liên kết này không cho bạn thấy bất cứ điều gì mà chỉ yêu cầu
bạn click vào để chuyển đến trang khác. Nhiều người trong chúng ta sẽ nhấn ngay nút Back và sẽ
không bao giờ click vào liên kết đó một lần nào nữa.
8. Meta Refresh
Làm mới meta là một phương pháp được sử dụng trong HTML để chuyển hướng người dùng Web
đến một trang mới từ một địa chỉ cũ

9. Bad Guest Posts
Bài viết của khách là gì? Đây được coi là một bài viết mà khách đã đồng ý đăng trên trang web hoặc
phần blog của ai đó để trỏ liên kết đến trang web của chính họ. Đây được coi là hình thức trao đổi
sức mạnh của website trên Google hay còn gọi là SEO backlink.

English Google Webmaster Central Office-hours Hangout, Google Webmasters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN72HFWdoBY
This video recording of a live Google Hangout features discussion from Google’s John Mueller
regarding the Panda algorithm update.
Thin Content with Little or No Added Value, Google Support

In this official page (and video) from Google, head of webspam Matt Cutts outlines Google’s definition
of “thin content” as well as which actions can be taken if your site is flagged.
How to Create High-Quality Content, Vikas Agrawal, Search Engine Journal, July 2018
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-create-high-quality-content/254511/#close
More Guidance on Building High-quality Sites, Google Search Central Blog

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality
Pandalized.com
http://www.pandalized.com/
Pandalized.com offers graphical depictions of websites that were hit hard by the Panda update.
Webmaster Guidelines, Google Search Central, 2021

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/webmaster-guidelines

Penguin Targets

While new sites may get caught in the web. Penguin really focuses on sites that have a high amount
of manipulative linkbuilding practices in place.
1. Link networks
Manipulative link practices are considered to be practices like link networks. Link networks involve
creating a set of sites that link to one another. Sometimes these sites were hosted on different servers
and registered by different individuals.
2. Link trading

Another manipulative tactic was trading links. Trading links involved your normal reciprocal link. Like,
hey, if you link to my site, I'll link to yours. But also more difficult to find links such as between people
who own multiple sites and only use a set of their sites link to the other. They did this to avoid what
could easily be seen as reciprocal linking
3. Comment spam

Unfortunately, newer blog owners often publish these believing they are real comments. Other times,
the comment is more to the point, but still attracts readers to click the link. Like the comment might
say, hey, learn how I made a 100k working from home, and then have a link to their site.
4. Bad achor text

The next spammy tactic is aggressive exact match anchor text, which we discussed briefly. For
example, building a large number of links with the exact keyword you want to rank it for. Google
began penalizing this because it is obviously not a natural occurrence of anchor text that would
happen if people were naturally linking to your site because they found it useful.
However, if your domain name contains the keywords used in the anchor text, let's say you have the
domain name San Francisco Attorney.com. Then a lot of links with the anchor text, San Francisco
Attorney, are actually likely to be considered valid. This, of course, depends on the rest of your
backlink profile and the types of sites you are earning links from.
5. Paid links

For example, at the link isn't a sidebar surrounded by ads, it is likely a paid link. This also holds true
for words surrounding the link. If they see words like sponsors or sponsored anywhere that is next to
the link, it's likely considered a paid link. This also considers posts that contain reviews for an item or
businesses as user likely receive some form of compensation for that review, whether or not it was
monetary.
6. Irrelevant links

Some specific methods SEOs used to gain a large amount of backlinks in the past were also
discounted, and some of the sites were even penalized. Due to this, we advise not using specific
types of link building that you hear may have worked in the past. These include spammy linkbuilding
tactics like acquiring links and various directories, creating free widgets users can download that will
contain an anchor text link back to your site.

Another popular method of earning a large amount of backlinks was creating free templates or themes
for Blogger or WordPress. The authors of these templates would put a link back to their site in the
footer, or sometimes just hidden within the code. People would often create user accounts and a large
number of forms and add a link to their site in their signature or profile. They would post once and
then leave. Linkedin profiles and signatures have been devalued since then, it's not really worthwhile
to go and do that. I suggest reading more about Google's quality guidelines regarding links at Google
Support Center in the link provided. In addition, I've also provided a link to an article on Search Engine
Land with a video at the bottom, which discusses ways in which Google evaluates whether or not a
link is a paid link. This is a very useful page treat and video to watch take some time to check that out.
Once Penguin rolled out, many sites were hit with a penalty and lost a lot of traffic. The rush to
remove spammy links began insights which were previously making money by charging for links,
reverse their practices, and began charging owners to remove the links.

Google created a Link Disavow tool, which is now part of Google Webmaster Tools. The Link Disavow
tool allows owners to disavow spammy links pointing to their site.

The Link Disavow tool allows owners to disavow spammy links pointing to their site. However, before
using this tool, it is recommended that you check the following. First, make sure your site is actually
penalized by Penguin before you disavow links. Unless you know that you have some very spammy
links and you want to be proactive so you don't get penalized don't just go and remove all links
because some might actually be beneficial to your site. Next, make sure the links you disavow are
actually poor-quality links. Where possible try to remove the link yourself first. Also, make sure you
remove the www version of the link and any non-www versions of the link that may be playing to your
website.

💡 What is one scenario where links containing exact-match anchor text might be considered
valid?
You have used the Link Disavow tool to tell Google which links are valid
Your site was built and optimized before the Penguin update (grandfather clause)
The link(s) come from sites that have paid for legitimate, reciprocal link sharing
Your site has a domain name that corresponds to the keywords in the anchor text
All of the above
Correct
Correct! As we saw in the San Francisco Attorney example, the only item on this list that would be
considered a relevant use of exact-match anchor text would be when the site’s domain corresponds to
the anchor text keywords.

Link Schemes, Google Search Central, February 2021
This official page lists some common linking tactics used to manipulate a site’s search ranking, and
how Google will penalize those found to be engaging in these practices.
How to Evaluate the Quality of a Link, Tony Wright, Search Engine Journal, February 2018
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/evaluate-link-quality/237471/
This blog post from Search Engine Journal breaks down evaluating link quality through a link
evaluating process.
Review Week 2
1.Question 1
In the context of this course and of SEO, what is an algorithm?
All of these describe an algorithm
A loose collection of rules applied manually to discourage certain SEO practices
A purpose-built program used to “crawl” and index websites
A piece of software designed to analyze content and determine where it displays in search
A set of standards put in place to penalize fraudulent or inappropriate websites
A physical server system that stores and executes search commands based on specific
criteria
Correct
When we refer to an algorithm in this course we're talking about the piece of software used by search
engines to analyze content and determine where it displays in search.
2.Question 2
SEOs have determined that Google uses over _____ ranking factors that go into ranking a website,
and over _____ updates a year to their ranking and listing algorithms.
200, 500
500, 1000
75, 60

50, 100
100, 200
Correct
SEOs currently estimate there to be over 200 ranking factors used by Google, and in a single year
over 500 updates will have been made to their algorithms.
3.Question 3
Why do search engines need to adjust their algorithms frequently?
1 / 1 point
Some webmasters over-optimize a site for a particular algorithm to increase the site's rank
despite whether or not it is relevant.
All webmasters follow best practices when optimizing their websites for search engine
ranking, and search engines need to make frequent updates to keep up with the latest best
practices.
Search engines face penalties if they do not frequently update their algorithms.
They want to ensure the authority of sites created without a clear SEO strategy.
Correct
Search engines do need to make frequent updates to algorithms to counteract this "spammy"
behavior of certain SEOs. Over-optimizing a site is not a good long-term strategy for an organization
to take due to these frequent search engine updates.
4.Question 4
What does Google's list of SEO best practices offer SEO professionals?
1 / 1 point
It provides guidelines for how to trick search engines into ranking a website first for a
particular topic
It offers guidelines on how to ensure websites are optimized for search
It provides guidelines for deceptive SEO strategies
It offers guidelines on how to ensure websites are over-optimized for search
Correct

Google provides SEOs with a list of best practices to help them ensure that their websites are
optimized for search.
5.Question 5
Which of the following statements is NOT true concerning the Panda update?
1 / 1 point
It was designed to prevent sites with low quality content from ranking well in search results
Panda updates roll out gradually over several months
It is not a one-time update. Panda updates continue to roll out from time to time.
It was a one-time update that eliminated low quality websites from ranking well in search
results
Correct
Panda is not a one-time update. It continues to roll out from time to time and now does so gradually
over several months. It was designed to prevent low-quality sites from ranking well in search results.
6.Question 6
Which of the following are considered manipulative link practices? (Select all that apply.)
1 / 1 point
Comment spam
Correct
Link networks, comment spam, aggressive exact match anchor text, and paid links are all considered
manipulative link practices.
Link networks
Correct
Aggressive exact match anchor text
Correct
Paid links
Correct
7.Question 7

What does Google's Link Disavow tool do?
1 / 1 point
Allows websites to remove links to high quality sites that boost a site's authority
Rolls out the latest Penguin update to a site
Allows website owners to remove their links to other sites
Allows website owners to remove spammy links
Correct
Google created Link Disavow in response to the concern over the potential for "negative SEO",
whereby an unethical SEO could create many spammy backlinks to a site to get that site penalized.
8.Question 8
Panda is an update that looks at:
1 / 1 point
Site Speed
Content Quality
Backlink Quality
All of the above
Correct
9.Question 9
Which algorithm is the precursor to BERT?
0 / 1 point
Rank Brain
Caffeine
Mobilegeddon
Penguin
10.Question 10

Google updates its algorithms:
1 / 1 point
Only when necessary
About once or twice a year
Thousands of times a year

Correct
Week 3
SEO of Today, Tomorrow and Beyond
Core Web Vitals

This takes things into consideration like page load time, the stability of your site, the security of your
site, and things like lots of pop-ups that can impact your user's experience. What does this impact?
This will impact both rankings on mobile and desktop, but also your site's ability to rank in Google's
top stories. Previously, Google require your site to use AMP or A-M-P in order to appear there. AMP is
no longer a requirement, and instead, your site will have to meet a minimum score on Core Web
Vitals. In addition to rankings and appearing in top stories, Google's own studies indicate that this can
decrease site abandonment by up to 24 percent. That's a lot. I included a link to Google's blog
discussing this topic and I recommend you check it out for more details.
You can currently see how your site is meeting Core Web Vitals requirements in Google Search
Console, Lighthouse and other tools.

Once you click on this, Core by vitals are broken out by desktop and mobile so you can see how
many URLs you have in the following categories. These categories are labeled poor, needs
improvement, or good. It's expected that sites will have a mix of poor quality, good quality, and
mediocre URLs. The important thing is to ensure that you have a higher ratio of good URLs to those
that are considered poor quality.

The Science Behind Web Vitals, Chromium Blog, 2020
https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vitals.html
Lighthouse Tool, Google Developers, 2021
https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse
EAT & YMYL

Y-M-Y-L which stands for your money, your life

1. YMYK

This pie chart shows an example of the verticals affected by this update. When you look at the health
sector, you can see why this was named the medic update. What can you do to make sure your
YMYL website, or even a page is judged favorably in the eyes of Google? This is where EAT comes
in. To determine how trustworthy your site is in the YMYL category, Google will evaluate your site on
its E.A.T score. E.A.T stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trust.

Let's start with expertise. Authors and websites need to establish themselves as experts in the field.
You can position yourself as a subject matter expert in various ways. Some examples are consistently
publishing high-quality content, putting up an about page that clearly addresses who you are or who
your brand is, what your experience in the space is, and any awards or recognition you've received.
For sites that have blogs or multiple authors, make sure you have author bio pages that includes
certifications, degrees received, and any other sites they've written for on this subject. Your site should
also have links to media mentions about you. It's also great to include and showcase what other
people are saying about your brand as this helps position you as an expert in this space.
For authority, look at how you can show yourself as an authority and expert on the subject. An expert
is someone who is very knowledgeable about a subject, but having authority means you've been

recognized by others as an expert on a specific subject. This means that Google is looking at
evidence that other websites also cite you as a reference, as an expert on a topic. Things that will
help prove your authority include links and citations from press and media mentions. Any speaking
gigs you've had. How often your content is shared and discussed on social channels. Branded search
volume, Wikipedia pages and mentions, and other relevant factors. Basically, look at what you would
use to determine if somebody was an authority on a specific subject.
Trustworthiness is also an important factor. It's not only important to be recognized as an expert, but
your site and content needs to be trustworthy as well. Google determines trustworthiness through a
combination of on-site and external factors.
For on-site factors, you should be sure to have clear and accurate contact information about your
business. If you operate an e-commerce store or any transaction-based business, be sure to have a
clear return policy. Make sure you clearly mention forms of payment accepted, shipping times,
delivery times, and more. Have clear and accessible terms and conditions, and be sure to have
HTTPS for extra security.

For external factors, Google looks at the general sentiment of your brand around the web. This means
it will analyze conversations happening around the web to determine if people are talking positively or
negatively about their experience. In addition, it will backup these learnings with reviews it discovers.
Make sure your site has good reviews on external sites like Trustpilot or site specific to your vertical,
like TripAdvisor, Yelp or others. If you operate in the US, make sure you also register with the Better
Business Bureau and link your seal to your official BBB listing.
Google's algorithm is incredibly advanced and can look at many things in relation to one another.
However, as advanced as the algorithm is, Google still relies on human quality raters, to check sites
when algorithm has flagged it as needing EAT review. These quality raters will manually look through
your site to determine its EAT score based on many factors. Quality raters use guidelines that are
provided to them in the Google quality rater guideline handbook, which you yourself can review at
anytime to make sure you're meeting all required factors. I've also created a handy checklist of what
you can do on your own sites and pages to improve your EAT score. I'll include the link.
Ultimate E-A-T Factor Checklist, Rebekah May, 2020

https://rebekahm.com/seo/ultimate-e-a-t-factor-checklist/

If you’re operating a YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) site, or simply need to evaluate whether your
website is meeting quality guidelines around E-A-T. I have put together a comprehensive list of E-A-T
factors Google and quality raters will look at when evaluating your website or webpage. I will keep
this E-A-T factors checklist updated regularly with new information. I included the letter E, A, or T next
to which specific signal the item relates to. In some cases, it may relate to multiple signals.
E-A-T FACTORS FOR ALL WEBSITES:

About Pages
Have an about page that is easily accessible and discoverable. Make sure your “About” page contains
the following information:
Who you and/or your brand is. It’s a good idea to include information about the company as well as
the founder.
Mention any certifications, degrees, or other relevant information that will help people establish your
expertise on the topic.
Link to any important press or media mentions of your brand.

Include the year you started operating
List any relevant partnerships
Include your contact information
Author Pages:
If your website includes a blog or article section, make sure that you also have author bio pages.
Ideally, the author’s name will link to a page about that author, but if you are unable to do this, include
a short snippet about the author on each post.

Author pages should include:
Relevant experience, degrees, etc.
Other sites they have written on as a subject matter expert

Links to places they have been mentioned or seen in, such as conferences, podcasts, news articles,
wikipedia pages, etc.
Links to their relevant social media profiles
HTTPS:
Regardless of whether or not you accept transactions, make sure that you have HTTPS certification.
Also consider other types of trust-seals and certifications that show your website is deemed
trustworthy and secure, for example, McAfee’s Trusted Site seal or other relevant seals
Non-obtrusive advertising:
If you run website ads or banners, make sure these are non-obtrusive and do not obstruct important
information on the article. Your website should contain limited ads, as too many may take attention
away from the content and make your website seem untrustworthy. Avoid pop-ups and interstitials
that negatively affect a users experience on your site.
Social Proof:
Showcase social proof to highlight positive experiences with your brand
Testimonials, ideally including a photo, or better yet get someone to upload a video testimonial to their
youtube and embed this on your site.
If you can get celebrity endorsements or endorsements from highly recognized people in your industry
Links to reviews on external sites like Trustpilot or relevant sites to your industry (Tripadvisor, Yelp,
etc)
BBB certification and rating, and a link to your official BBB page
Links to “as seen in” articles
Positive Sentiment
Google will look at discussions around the web to see if people discuss your brand positively or
negatively.
Set up alerts for brand mentions and try to actively participate in discussions
Respond to reviews whenever possible
Encourage people to share your content on social media and start discussions around it. When
sharing something yourself, ask a question that may provoke a discussion.
Use Schema Markup
Schema markup should be used wherever possible to help Google identify information. Examples of
important Schema markup include:
Person for any authors
Review for reviews of products or services
Recipe for any recipes including nutrition information

Product for any product listings
Organization for your business information

Disclosures:
Include disclosures and information related to:
Ads, advertising policies, etc

Editorial guidelines and policies
Affiliate links, partnerships, or other compensation received
If giving medical advice, financial advice, etc and you are not a doctor, make sure to state that people
should always consult a qualified individual for their circumstance,
E-A-T factors for Retail, E-Commerce and other sites accepting payment
In addition to the checklist above, which are important factors for every site to have, if you have an
eCommerce site or accept any form of payment in return for a product or service, it’s important to also
have the following factors in place:
Products:
Individual products should include ratings and reviews so customers can make an informed decision
on their purchase
Include many images of the product and relevant data such as weight, dimensions, etc.
Allow customers to upload their own images of the product, sites like Modcloth are a great example.
Amazon allows consumers to upload images alongside their reviews.
Include any relevant safety information
Include clear pricing

Return Policies:
All products accepting money in exchange for a good or service should have clear return policies
Return window (for example 30 days, does it require a receipt)

Clear instructions on what you need to do to return the item
If the customer is liable for any return shipping fees
What makes a product eligible for a return
Will the product be returned for cashback or store credit, and how long it will take to receive funds or
credit
E-A-T factors for Nutrition, Fitness, Diet & Recipe sites
Accuracy:
Always be as factual as possible and cite any studies or research done regarding why a certain diet,
recipe, exercise plan, etc is shown to be beneficial. Link to relevant studies and data whenever
possible.
Recipes:
Try to include as much data as possible in regards to nutritional values, ingredients, substitutes, and
more. Include any relevant statements on allergen info.

Allow people to review recipes as this is not only a great way to get star ratings in search results,
which can help your click-through-rate, but it can also help establish expertise when a recipe has
positive comments and reviews.
Links:
When linking to ingredients try not to always use affiliate links as this may look disingenuous, and only
recommend products you would personally use outside of any compensation
Disclosures:
Always disclose any compensation you earn for recommending products
Photo originality:
Stock photos are okay in some cases, but if you will be showing before/after photos of a customer’s
(or your own) success with a diet or nutrition plan, make sure these are legitimate photos and not
stock ones. Remember, Google does have the capability to recognize images, and the text around
them.
Featured Snippets and Rich Snippets

Let's start out with featured snippets. Featured snippets are a video or article that Google displays at
the very top of organic search results. This is often called position zero and it aims to answer a user's
query right away. These snippets are often also the answer for related voice search questions on
voice-assisted devices like Google Home. If you have a Google Voice device, go ahead and test it out
and see which results match both featured snippets and voice results.
Rich snippets are results that changes the way a normal organic result appears in search and better
differentiates this result from others. Examples include results that have review stars, data, and more.
Previously featured snippets were highly prized in the SEO community. One could have a featured
snippet and also be listed on the first page of Google, taking up a lot of shelf space with your brand.
With Google's latest update, which was around May of 2020, featured snippets became less of an
advantage to obtain in some cases. With this latest update, Google has now prevented a website from
appearing in both a featured snippet and a normal page, one organic result. This presents some pros
and cons to ranking here. Now please keep in mind that Google is constantly adjusting their algorithm,
so this may change again in the future.

Studies have shown an increase in what's called zero-click searches, this means a search result took
place and a users question was answered without them having to actually click over to a particular
result. This behavior is great for Google as it gets impressions on ad revenue and satisfies the
consumer. But it can be terrible for content creators and website owners as Google has basically
scraped their content and provided an answer within their own search results, preventing a visit to
your site. An article by Rand Fishkin at SparkToro shows that about 50 percent of search results
receive no clicks because the featured snippet already answered the question. You can read more
about the trend over time and how this breaks down by mobile and desktop traffic on the blog post,
which I'm including a link to.
For reference, you can see how often people click on a search result and visit your website using
Google Search Console, which is a free tool provided by Google. The amount of times people click
over to your site is known as CTR, or click-through rate, which takes the number of clicks a search

result receives and then divides it by the number of times it's viewed on the search engine result
page, which is also known as an impression
Your CTR can be impacted by many things such as the query type, your target audience, and their
behavior, your specific industry, whether or not you have a featured snippet, rich snippet, or a normal
organic result and many more things.
Studies show that when there's a featured snippet in the number one position, it gets about 8.6
percent of clicks on average while the page that ranks right below it, will get about 19.6 percent of
clicks on average. How does this compare to a regular number one ranking page position with no
featured snippet above it? That page got 26 percent of all clicks, basically, the featured snippet steals
results from the number one result but having the featured snippet versus no featured snippet, all will
net you with less clicks. I'm including a link to a blog that has a lot of study data on this.

The question that remains is, should you optimize for the featured snippet? Previously when you
could appear in both results, this was a no brainer with the new change ranking for featured snippets
may at times be detrimental to your overall traffic. Approximately 13 percent of all search queries have
a featured snippet, and this is growing all the time. First, it's a good idea to determine if the queries
you're trying to rank for have a featured snippet result.
But keep in mind this isn't foolproof, remember, just because there isn't a feature snippet today,
doesn't mean there won't be one tomorrow. Second, if branding and thought leadership are important
to your goals, then a featured snippet would be ideal as this gets your brand up front and center and
helps you position yourself as a thought-leader. If your article relies more on getting a user to your site
to take a certain action, then you'd be better off driving traffic to that post instead.

While the reasons of obtaining a featured snippet may not be so clear cut, rich snippets are always
beneficial and you should always optimize for rich snippets. Rich snippets will help you improve your
clickthrough rate by drawing attention to your search result, which will help it better compete and
stand out against other nearby results. There are a ton of different rich snippets you can obtain.
Earlier you saw a recipe example, in here two more examples featuring more review stars, data
around the subject, stock levels, dates, and more.
In order to optimize for rich snippets, you should apply the right schema data to your website, schema
is basically a markup to your existing content that helps search engines better understand the data
and content.
Để tối ưu hóa cho rich snippets, bạn nên áp dụng đúng dữ liệu giản đồ cho trang web của mình, về
cơ bản, lược đồ là một đánh dấu cho nội dung hiện có của bạn, giúp công cụ tìm kiếm hiểu rõ hơn về
dữ liệu và nội dung.

It can then take this data to present it in a more visually appealing way in search results, there is
schema for almost everything and you can play around with searching at schema.org for the
appropriate markup language to apply. Feel free to use multiple schema types to mark up a page, this
will help you obtain rich results for various query types. I suggest you spend some time browsing the
site and the different schema types available to you. When you find a schema you like, you can scroll
to the bottom and see an example of how to integrate this into your website's code. The most
common way is using JSON, but there are other options available, you can work with your developers
to discover what markup is best to use with your site's needs.

Once you have implemented the markup, you can use Google structured data testing tool to validate it
and make sure it was implemented correctly. Google will let you know where your structured data or
markup may have problems or show you how it will appear in search results.
Ahrefs’ Study Of 2 Million Featured Snippets: 10 Important Takeaways, Tim Soulo, 2020
https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/
Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click, Rand Fishkin, 2019
https://sparktoro.com/blog/less-than-half-of-google-searches-now-result-in-a-click/
BERT

Some of the things you need to know about BERT is that BERT stands for bidirectional encoder
representation from transformers, that's a mouthful. Basically, what that means is it's a neural network
technique for natural language processing, also a mouthful. But think of it this way, Google will
analyze the sentence both forward and backwards to really understand how the words fit together and
the full context of that. So, in short, BERT helps computers understand human language and speech
patterns better.
In the past, Google had a set of stop words that it didn't pay much attention to when determining the
overall query. These phrases included words like to or with, by, at, on, stuff like that. So it would just
ignore these. Now, Google includes these to understand the subject of a sentence better.
When Google was ignoring these, overtime engineers realized that this didn't always return the most
relevant queries. So they designed this system as a way of helping Google understand the full
context.

So before, if a user typed parking on a hill with no curb, a query like this would confuse Google. So
Google would have placed too much importance on the word curb, and they would have ignored the
word no entirely. And it did not understand how critical that word was to appropriately responding to
this query.

Open Sourcing BERT: State-of-the-Art Pre-training for Natural Language Processing, Google AI
Blog, 2018
https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/11/open-sourcing-bert-state-of-art-pre.html
A Visual Guide to Using BERT for the First Time, Jay Alammar, 2019
http://jalammar.github.io/a-visual-guide-to-using-bert-for-the-first-time/
Evolution of Keyword Optimization

💡 In the past, content writing was about finding a balance between __________ and
_____________.
Page concept, semantic analysis
Keyword density, relevant content
HTML, CSS
Content, Advertisements
Spammy content, Valid content
Correct
Correct! As we discussed in the lesson, content writing used to be about finding a balance between
keyword density and relevant content. Modern SEO is now more focused on the theme of a page
and how the content relates to the rest of the site and the rest of the World Wide Web.
Strengthening Your Keyword Strategy
This lesson we'll introduce you to the concept of topic association and how Google uses topic
association to determine relevancy and trustworthiness of content throughout the web. By developing
a better understanding of how topic association is used, you can create better-optimized content for
your site or for client sites. Google will now look more at contextual meaning of a web page and the
content served throughout the site to determine relevancy for a theme or set of topics that your site
should rank for.

This means that a page should contain keywords relevant to your focus keyword rather than choosing
a single focus keyword and repeating it throughout the content several times.
For example, let's say the main focus keyword for UCDavis Extension's winemaking course is the
keyword winemaking certificate. In this case, using words related to and sometimes synonymous with
our focus keyword will help the page be seen as more relevant for the focus keyword or the topic is
trying to rank for, in this case, winemaking certification.

In this case, using words related to and sometimes synonymous with our focus keyword will help the
page be seen as more relevant for the focus keyword or the topic is trying to rank for, in this case,
winemaking certification. You can see how your focus keyword can be broken up into various
elements. When doing so, ask yourself, what other ways can I describe winemaking or certification,
and what other words might be considered relevant to this? What other words support the chosen
keyword or topic of the page? If a page is going to be considered useful for readers, it should contain
words and phrases that support the overall topic. In this case, you would expect to see words like
learn and students within the page as these support the overall theme of a certification program.

For example, a long-tail keyword for this page might be, where can I learn how to make wine? This
long-tail keyword would naturally be incorporated into the content by including supporting keywords
and keywords that are synonymous with winemaking and certification

Google's synonym system understood that a dog was similar to a puppy and that boiling water was
hot but this means that also concluded that a hot dog was the same as a boiling puppy.

In the past, if I were to search for hiking spots in the Bay Area, I was likely to get search results like
the example provided. Google would first look through its index for sites that contain the phrase I was
searching for and if any were found, these would be presented first. Notice how my exact keywords
are bolded in the meta-description and the exact keyword is found within the title.

As Google's algorithm progressed, less focus was placed on the exact term in the order of the words
used. You would start to see results that included words relevant to my query, like hiking in Bay Area,
as well as related words like throughout instead of the word in. These words are all bolded as well as
words like trails because it is related.
💡 True or False: with the evolution of Google’s search index, it is now less likely that your
exact search query will show up in your search results.

True
False
Correct
As we saw in the lesson, even though semantic indexing means Google is smart enough to recognize
synonyms and alternate phrases, it does not diminish the possibility that your exact query will be
returned, it only adds the possibility of similar results being returned.
Winemaking Certificate Program, UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education
https://extension.ucdavis.edu/areas-study/winemaking/winemaking-certificate-program
This site is used in the course as an example for many discussion areas, including keyword density,
long-tailed keywords, and more.
Keyword Basics Part 6: The Buying Cycle and Keyword Anatomy, Wordtracker
http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/keyword-research/technical-guides/three-good-reasons-to-
target-long-tail-keywords
This blog post provides a great deal of useful information regarding long tail keywords and how to
incorporate them into your SEO strategy.
Never Stop Searching, Amit Singhal, Google SVP of Search
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz7IWTpAq3I
This video shows an energetic talk from Google’s Amit Singhal regarding the past, present, and future
of search.
Meaning is use: Wittgenstein on the limits of language, Tim Rayner
https://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/meaning-is-use-wittgenstein-on-the-limits-of-
language/
This article provides a look at how the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein approached language,
semantic relationships, and the meaning of words. It is recommended reading to understand some of
the linguistic concepts that have since been incorporated into search engines.
How Does Branding Influence Website Rank?

For example, we suspect from the patent analysis that Google has developed entity association.
Entity association doesn't necessarily look for the presence of a brand but is trying to understand
whether or not it can match a query to a specific individual or thing. Any identification of an entity
might influence search results. For example, if I search for tomato soup, even though I didn't specify, I
was looking for a recipe in my search result, Google-provided brands that are known for focusing on
food and providing recipes within the top search results. If you look at these results, you see the top
two results are from the same website, food Network, which is a well-known brand.

Entity association is:
The process by which a search engine tries to connect a query to a specific individual or thing
A search engine feature which leads to big brands ranking higher than lesser-known pages
A potentially biased system by which users are led to pages that do not
necessarily match their intent
An unannounced feature of the Google search engine that was discovered by investigating,
not announcement
All of the above

entity association is the process that ties a query to a specific individual or thing. Its development was
discovered by analyzing patents, and it can sometimes lead to big brands ranking more highly than
smaller sites, which some SEOs feel is biased and can lead to less relevant results.
In fact, a lot of SEO is helping to raise brand awareness by increasing the visibility of your brand
online. It's imperative to have clear goals focused around how you can provide value to your
customers, both online and offline. Offline efforts will translate to online mentions, links and more, and
help your overall strategy. From an SEO standpoint, you can help your brand message spread
through creating great content, developing and engaging social presence, and acquiring links from
authoritative sites. This will also help to cultivate branded search and develop other important brand
signals to improve online positioning
Why Your SEO Focus Should Be Brand Building, Brad Smith, Search Engine Journal, 2018

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/brand-building-strategy/#close
This article discusses brand building in SEO and Google's brand recognition through SERP, featured
snippets, and knowledge panels.
New Report Highlights the Importance of Brand Awareness in SEO, Andrew Hutchinson, Social
Media Today, 2018
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/new-report-highlights-the-importance-of-brand-awareness-in-
seo/541099/
This article discusses the connection between social media marketing and SEO key elements that
boosts content sharing and drives traffic to webpages.
Google Loves Brands: The Rise of Brands in Google’s Relevancy Algorithms, SEO Book
http://www.seobook.com/learn-seo/infographics/brand-branding-brands.php
Compiled from many sources, this infographic provides a timeline as well as examples of how
Google’s algorithm has handled brands throughout the years.
Is Brand a Google Ranking Factor? Rand Fishkin, Moz.com, 2015
https://moz.com/blog/is-brand-a-google-ranking-factor-whiteboard-friday
In this edition of Moz’s “Whiteboard Friday,” Rand Fishkin explains whether or not branding plays a
part in Google’s ranking algorithm (with illustrations!)
Search Engine Marketing Statistics 2020, Carolanne Mangles, Smart Insights, 2020
https://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-marketing/search-engine-statistics/
Week 4
Your Audience and Building Personas
Persona Development

Getting an idea of an existing users behavior through tools like Google Analytics, for example, will
help you determine what current users find useful or maybe what information they're missing in your
existing product or service. Using Google Analytics, you can tune into things like the demographics of
your audience, what interests they have, what other websites they tend to visit the most, what devices
they're likely to use. For example, do they normally search by desktop or by phone, in which phone,
that can provide a lot of insight into who your target user is. You can also see things like what pages
which have content, or basically which content on your site is the most popular. That'll give you insight
into what users find the most compelling on your website and may want more of. You can look at click
maps of where they click the most within a page. You can see what pages they tend to exit your site
on and much more.

Google Search Console, which was formally renamed from Google Webmaster Tools, you may hear it
called by both is another free tool that Google gives you to provide insight into your users and your
website. Keep in mind, Google Search Console mainly gives you insights about your website
performance. While Google Analytics let you drill more into user behavior. However, there is an area
of Google Search Console that lets you see p search terms which your website has both appeared in
and users have clicked on

One of the best ways to build a persona is to survey your existing users. There are many ways you
can do this depending on the type of business you have. If you own a mobile app, you can send in-
app messages and ask users to take a survey. I found that people who love the product are often
more than willing to share their insights with you.
If you don't have the capability of doing a survey or reaching out to existing users, another method is
emailing past customers.
Or maybe including a request in a newsletter or regular correspondence you send to your users. You
can also try gathering some information through out the onboarding process if you have one. Other
good resources within the company, include asking your support team and sales team. These
individuals regularly deal directly with the customer and potential buyers. I suggest that you meet with
these teams to see what kind of questions they are frequently asked and what information may be
helpful to a potential customer.
Google Trends: Explore What the World is Searching
https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US
Marketing to Your Persona

You can use keywords and the tools of SEO to get more insight into your target audience in order to
build a persona. For example, let's build a persona for a Fishbrain, an app that helps people to fish.
One of the tools that we can use to get insights into this audience would be Google Trends. For this
example, I started really broad and I just typed in the word fishing. As you can see, this doesn't
provide a lot of insight and returns results on video games and other topics that aren't related to actual
users who want to go fishing.

For this example, I went to Google and searched for ned rig bass fishing. Since I started with bass
fishing and ended with ned rig, I wanted to combine the two to see really what specific search result
types I was going to be looking at. The next thing I did is I see that there's a lot of videos that are
really closely related to that keyword. I'm going to go click on the first video here. So I'm on the video
page. One of the things that you can do that will aid in your keyword research, persona development,
generating content ideas, and more is checking out the comment section of videos, forums, and more
that pertain to your topic. This gives you additional keyword ideas to drill down into and discover more
about your target user. Another thing we can do is if we find a company that is really popular and
makes a lot of videos that get a lot of engagement. We can check out other social profiles they own
and get a bigger and better idea of their audience and how they engage and the type of content that
they engage with.

I'm going to go to this account's, Instagram. I did a little sleuthing and found the Instagram account for
the YouTube page we were looking at earlier. I can look around and get more information about what
content they post and what posts their users tag them in and like the most. Just looking at their
description here, we can see that it's all bass-related. Bass is very popular among our target
audience. But again, we did search specifically for that. They do have over 72,000 followers. That's
quite a bit, that are interested in this specific species. They talk about fishing tips and tricks, tackle
gear, tournaments and more. If we just scroll through their feed, we can see that it's a lot of photos
that their users have tagged them in or used keywords like bass fishing.
They are re-posting a lot of this from their user base. If we just scroll through, we can see that quite a
lot of their users are male. They look to be probably starting around age 30 and older. There are a
couple of females. Maybe basically younger. I haven't seen enough to make a different judgment on
that. But we are making just very broad generalizations here by just taking a look at a feed. Though it
does give us some ideas into who the users are and who the users that are engaging with this is. It
does provide some good information. But remember, this is still broad generalizations. We're trying to
just find out a little bit more about our potential users.
But in general, I would say they either go solo fishing or fishing with another person. Some of them
have family and looks like they fish in all types of weather. There's a lot of people who look a little
bundled up and chilly here. Both colder days and warmer ones. Another family picture. This gives us
some good insights into what we're looking for. Probably lives in the Midwest, for this particular profile.
One example of the many we'll be creating a male, probably starting around age 30, owns a boat or a
kayak, fishes alone or with a friend. Fishes all year round.

Getting to Know Your Audience

Alexa and Quantcast

SimilarWeb also shows traffic sources, which can give you a good idea of where and how to promote
content.

Followerwonk is a tool that allows you to analyze Twitter profiles, followers, and bios, among other
features. They have a great deal of information available for free and is also a part of a Moz
subscription
You should now be familiar with some tools you can use to gain more information about your audience
and potential topics that may be of interest to them. In addition, this might provide you with some
ideas for content that your users are likely to share with their followers, increasing your incoming links.
Creating Your Ideal Buyers Persona

For example, here in California, we call a neck cap a beanie, while in Oklahoma, many people call it a
toboggan, which is what most of us here on the West Coast referred to as a type of slide. Another

more well-known example is pop versus soda. There will also be a large difference in British
vocabulary versus American.
For example, we have been working with a company who sells men's wedding tuxedos. From various
studies and research, we have found that women tend to perform the majority of wedding related
research and planning.

1.Question 1
Suppose you know your audience is active on Twitter, which of the following would be a good tool to
use to gather data?
1 / 1 point
SimilarWeb
Alexa
Followerwonk
AARP Analytics
Correct
Followerwonk is a tool that allows you to analyze Twitter profiles, followers and bios among other
features.
2.Question 2
What does a persona represent?
1 / 1 point
A cross-section of the demographic data
Optimized keyword content and phrases
Your ideal buyer
Localized phrases used to describe an item like cookie vs. biscuit or soda vs. pop.

Correct
This persona represents who you ultimately want to attract to your site.
3.Question 3
It's really helpful to have a buyer persona in place so you can better understand the user's needs and
how they searched the web.
1 / 1 point
True
False
Correct
This will allow you to develop content around topics that match their intent.
4.Question 4
Personas play a major part in:
(Select all that apply.)
1 / 1 point
Strengthening your strategy
Key performance indicators
Initial keyword research
Correct
Without knowing more about your user, you have no idea what they are
searching for, how they are searching, and what words and phrases they are likely to use.
Content strategy
Correct
Without knowing more about your user, you have no idea what they are
searching for, how they are searching, and what words and phrases they are likely to use.
5.Question 5
When you're starting out the initial process of building your marketing persona, the best place to start
is:
1 / 1 point
through surveys of new customers
through various social media sites
from your existing customers or users

from new customers or users
Correct
These are people who have bought your product or

service already, so you ideally want more people like them.
6.Question 6
There are many ways to acquire information about your current users' needs
and behaviors that will help when you build out an ideal persona for targeting
more users like them. These involve existing tools you have as well as reaching
out to users directly. Those tools are:
1 / 1 point
Survey your existing users
Correct
Regardless of whether or not you can reach out to existing users, it's also a good idea to do research
outside of what your current customers can tell you.
Survey new customers or users
Google Analytics
Correct
Using Google Analytics you can tune into things like the demographics of
your audience, what interests they have, what other websites they tend to visit the most, what devices
they're likely to use.
Facebook Search
Google Search Console
Correct
Google Search Console mainly gives you insights about your website performance, while Google
Analytics lets you drill more into user behavior.
7.Question 7
In marketing, you're going to see personas split into two major groups. The
first will be potential buyers, and the second will be existing customers.
1 / 1 point
True
False
Correct
8.Question 8

The potential buyer is made up of:

1 / 1 point
People that have been exposed to it briefly in the past but haven't become customers.
Correct
People that have a problem they're searching for and need to figure out a solution.
Correct
Your job here is to figure out what that problem is, so you can create content that provides the
solutions they're looking for.
People who are probably not aware of your product.
Correct
People who aren’t aware that your service exists.
Correct
9.Question 9
When you start developing a marketing persona, what are the two ways you can use keyword
research?
1 / 1 point
Use keywords that will identify what your product or service does.
Use keywords that will help you discover potential search queries that you can then match
to content service offerings and more.
Correct
Use keywords that market directly to your existing and future customers.
Use keywords that'll help you define your user and build your persona.
Correct
10.Question 10
What are some things to understand about your existing customers?
1 / 1 point
These consumers are already your customers, and they already enjoy what you offer.
Correct
So you can not only create content that better engages and retains them, but also potentially create
more products or services that they'll use.
They are people who currently shop with you or use your service.
Correct

What they like best about your product or service.
Correct
What areas they think you can improve upon.
Correct

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1.

Introduction to Google SEO

1. Introduction to Google SEO 1

1. Introduction to Google SEO 2

1. Introduction to Google SEO 3

1. Introduction to Google SEO 5

SEO a Core Skill for Marketers, According to Microsoft, Rebekah May

A SEO of Opportunity - 7 Career Paths for Today's SEO Specialist

1. Introduction to Google SEO 8

1. Introduction to Google SEO 9

1. Introduction to Google SEO 10

1. Introduction to Google SEO 11

1. Introduction to Google SEO 14

1. Introduction to Google SEO 15

1. Introduction to Google SEO 16

1. Introduction to Google SEO 17

1. Introduction to Google SEO 18

How Google Makes Improvements to Its Search Algorithm, Google

Algorithm Updates: History, Part 1

1. Introduction to Google SEO 19

1. Introduction to Google SEO 20

Algorithm Updates: Important Algorithms, Part 2

1. Introduction to Google SEO 22

1. Introduction to Google SEO 23

1. Introduction to Google SEO 24

1. Introduction to Google SEO 25

1. Introduction to Google SEO 26

SEO Best Practices and Ranking Factors

1. Introduction to Google SEO 28

1. Introduction to Google SEO 29

1. Introduction to Google SEO 30

1. Introduction to Google SEO 31

1. Introduction to Google SEO 32

1. Introduction to Google SEO 33

1. Introduction to Google SEO 34

On-Page factors, which affect a specific page of your site

All of the above

SEO Best Practices and Ranking Factors

1. Introduction to Google SEO 35

Make your site easily accessible

SEO by the Sea, Bill Slawski, 2021

1. Introduction to Google SEO 36

Panda: The Game Changer for Content

1. Thin/Low Quality Sites

1. Introduction to Google SEO 37

1. Introduction to Google SEO 38

It is a continually updated filter as opposed to a one-time update

1. Introduction to Google SEO 39

All of the above

1. Introduction to Google SEO 40

1. Introduction to Google SEO 41

1. Introduction to Google SEO 42

1. Introduction to Google SEO 43

Thin Content with Little or No Added Value, Google Support

More Guidance on Building High-quality Sites, Google Search Central Blog

Webmaster Guidelines, Google Search Central, 2021

Cleaning Up Links with Penguin

1. Introduction to Google SEO 44

1. Introduction to Google SEO 45

1. Introduction to Google SEO 46

1. Introduction to Google SEO 47

4. Bad achor text