{"id":3536,"date":"2020-01-20T00:43:37","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T00:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ata-divisions.org\/S_TD\/?p=3536"},"modified":"2021-12-12T20:37:18","modified_gmt":"2021-12-12T20:37:18","slug":"seo-decoded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ata-divisions.org\/S_TD\/2020\/01\/20\/seo-decoded\/","title":{"rendered":"SEO Decoded"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Implementation of strategies and techniques to improve a website\u2019s ranking is called SEO \u2014short for Search Engine Optimization<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us have our own website or a blog through which we wish to connect with our dream clients or fellow translators\/interpreters. Effective implementation of an SEO strategy can help our content reach the right audience. SEO is also at work when we are researching a topic\/terminology. We might also be implementing an SEO strategy when we are translating a website. At the heart of this is the search engine\u2014let\u2019s find out more about how search engines work; why they do what they do and what we can do to make search engines work for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do search engines do what they do?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Search engines want to give users the most relevant answer to their search query in the fewest possible clicks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do<\/strong> search engines work?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Search engines scan through billions of web pages\n(crawling), evaluate and sort the content (indexing), rank it based on how\nrelevant it is to your search query (ranking) and return search engine result\npages (SERPs) or SERP Features, which could either be a featured snippet (a\nshort selection of text above the search results), a Knowledge Panel\n(information boxes that appear on the right side of your search results) or an\nImage Pack (series of images that appear above the search results), among other\nthings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crawling<\/strong>: Web crawlers are software or automated scripts run by search engines that scan through web pages for keywords and prepare a copy of the webpage that is then processed in the indexing step.  If there are links on a webpage, the crawlers follow those links and repeat the process of scanning and storing. Popular and frequently visited web pages are the usual starting point for crawlers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Wide Web is a vast\nocean and fishing for relevant information from all the available web pages is impossible\neven for web crawlers. Large search engines, like Google, can scan through only\na portion of publicly available web pages; to do this task effectively, these\nweb crawlers follow certain rules for scanning web pages. Priority is given to good\nquality content; site popularity\u2014measured in terms of links and visits; and\neven the way the URLs are structured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indexing<\/strong>: Data collected by web crawlers is stored\nand organized in the indexing step. This makes subsequent searching faster. A\nsearch engine index is a database of useful words and links to the webpages on\nwhich they are found. It can be compared to the index at the end of a book. Present-day\nsearch engine indexes have more than just list of words and associated\nwebpages; there are country indexes that restrict the search within a country\n(e.g. the Google index for the UK is google.co.uk) or local indexes (e.g.\nsearch queries that contain the phrase \u201cnear me\u201d), or other indexing criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all pages returned by the web crawler get indexed. Broken\nlinks, duplicate content or taking a long time to load are some of the reasons a\nwebpage might not get indexed. Since web crawling is a continuous process,\nindexes are also updated frequently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranking<\/strong>: Once you enter a search query in the search\nbox, the search engine looks for the closest match in the index and lines up\nweb pages in decreasing order of relevance. Numerous algorithms are employed to\nrank web pages. Below I give you a brief description of two algorithms from our\nbeloved search engine\u2014Google. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PageRank, part of Google\u2019s search algorithm Hummingbird, gives a higher ranking to a web page if a number of trusted websites feature a link to it. RankBrain, another important aspect of Google\u2019s search algorithm, employs machine learning to deduce user intent based on the search text and provides relevant results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I type the German word \u201cAufnahme\u201d in the search bar I get the translation in English. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since my location settings are set to India and a majority of my queries are translation-related, Google\u2019s algorithm has figured out over time that I am most probably looking for the English translation and hence it is featured right on top. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I changed my location settings to Germany and the result is\nthe definition of \u201cAufnahme\u201d in German but notice the option of translate\ninto English<\/em> given right after the definition. This means that Google has\nretained the intent of my initial query, even though the location settings have\nchanged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The search engine is constantly learning and ensuring that the intent of my search is fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What does this mean for you? Provide good-quality, relevant\ncontent to the user who lands on your page and RankBrain will reward you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are numerous ranking conditions, but the crucial ones\nare: links to your website, content that you publish on your website and how RankBrain\nranks your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you wish to know more about RankBrain, check out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rankbrain<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What tips and\ntricks can you use to implement SEO for your website?<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t need to be an SEO expert to implement the following suggestions. If you manage your own website, as most of us do, then this is a great way to experiment with SEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Check if your site is being crawled and indexed by search engines<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Type site: <\/em><\/strong>in front of your website name and see if the search engine returns all<\/strong> the pages on your website. If it does, it means all your webpages have been crawled and indexed by the search engine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Check your site loading speed<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In this fast-paced world and lightning speed internet, no one has the time to wait for a site to load, even if it has top-notch content. The user will quickly move to the next available option. So, it pays to have a faster loading website. Usual culprits that slow down page loading are widgets, plugins and large images. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Responsive website design<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A website is said to have a\nresponsive design if the layout and contents automatically adapt to the screen\non which it is viewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Searching is no longer restricted to laptops and desktops. We search for terms, locations, places of interest on our phones and tablets as well. Search engines favor a responsive website design because the user can navigate your site with ease, page loading is faster and, what\u2019s more, it boosts social media sharing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on\nresponsive web design, take a look at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n