Wouldn’t it be financially life-changing if you could dominate your industry’s product or service by your website being top of the SERPs? The main purpose of this book is to demystify the SEO process and get you to page 1 of Google search results, thereby attracting more visitors to buy your product or service. Introducing the SEO book “Demystifying the Google Algorithm” by Thomas Gordon Barker who has been a marketer and developer for over 35 years.
Search Background
When Yahoo and WebCrawler were the only search engines that mattered, the first Internet Webmasters were created out of Software Developers who were accomplished coders and thus understood search engine optimisation way back in the 1990s. Even today, the skills required to optimise a website are best performed by Software Developers who understand the algorithms as well as how to develop a home page front-end suitable for ranking on Google SERP’s.
Writing for search engines
If your website appeared on page three, four or worse of Google’s SERPs, you’d know how they felt about it. Google uses over 200 ranking factors, including technical factors as well as the content on your website.If it’s not good enough for Google, is it good enough for people?
Synopsis of the Book
In Chapter 1, the author shares their 25 years of experience in the tech industry and lists some of the big brands they have worked with. The book aims to provide readers with insights into what Google looks for in websites today and how to use that knowledge to rank higher in search results. The author covers critical HTML tags and expressions and teaches readers how to find keywords from their online competitors. By understanding Google’s objectives and keeping them in mind when creating content, readers can have a highly ranked, Google-friendly website. The book also discusses why readers should think of Google as a user of their website and how writing for search engines can help them outsmart competitors. It is a valuable resource for website owners who want to become their own SEO specialists and learn the secrets of the SEO trade. Finally, the book emphasizes the importance of making content useful or solving problems with it to align with Google’s mission of organizing the world’s information.
The author’s goal in writing this book is to provide readers with valuable insights into what Google looks for in websites today and how they can leverage that knowledge to improve their search rankings. The book covers critical HTML tags and expressions and teaches readers how to find keywords from their online competitors. By understanding Google’s objectives and creating content that is fresh, trustworthy, and useful to visitors, readers can achieve a highly-ranked, Google-friendly website.
Moreover, the book emphasizes the importance of thinking of Google as a user of the website and how writing for search engines can help readers outsmart their competitors. It is a great resource for website owners who want to become their own SEO specialists and learn the secrets of the trade, such as understanding the best web platforms and learning insider tips that SEO agencies often keep hidden.
Finally, the author underscores the significance of making content useful and solving problems to align with Google’s mission of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and helpful. Therefore, readers can learn how to make their content stand out and get noticed by Google by providing solutions to problems and creating useful content.
Chapter 2
This chapter discusses the importance of having a website that ranks highly on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) to attract more visitors and potential customers. The author emphasizes the need to follow Google’s search technology guidelines to optimize your website and improve its ranking. The basic steps to achieve this include building a website, implementing SEO, and regularly updating content with a focus on core keywords or key phrases. The author also discusses the importance of treating Google as a partner and competition and demonstrates how to make Google “think” positively about your product or service through effective web copywriting and marketing strategies.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 talks about the history of the web and the writer’s personal journey as a software developer transitioning to web development. The chapter highlights the inception of the World Wide Web (WWW), the introduction of web browsers, and the impact of the internet on our daily lives. The chapter covers the dot-com bubble, search engine optimization (SEO), and Google’s algorithms. The writer emphasizes the importance of understanding the history and evolution of the web for effective web development.
Chapter 4
Title: A Brief History of Search
Chapter 5
Title: Understanding Search Engine Algorithms and Optimizing Website Content
Chapter 6
Title: DIY vs Hiring an SEO Agency: Understanding the Benefits and Costs
Chapter 7
Title: The Evolution of Black Hat SEO Techniques from the Beginning of the World Wide Web.
Chapter 8
Title: The Importance of Relevant and Quality Content in SEO
This chapter discusses the importance of relevant and quality content in SEO. It explains how search engines read and interpret the content of web pages to determine their ranking in search results. The chapter emphasizes that content must be original, well-written, and provide value to readers in order to achieve a high ranking. It also highlights the negative impact of keyword stuffing and other Black Hat SEO techniques on website rankings. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the importance of maintaining a website with high-quality content that satisfies both search engines and users.
Chapter 9
Title: Understanding Google’s Algorithm and User Intent
This chapter emphasizes the importance of understanding Google’s algorithm and user intent to optimize a website. It is crucial to know what Google is looking for when constructing a website and to focus on the benefits for the users. The author stresses that a successful website needs to outperform the competition and that one must research the right keywords to attract visitors. The chapter highlights the two types of websites and focuses on the latter type, which aims to create revenue. The chapter also discusses how to personalize a user’s experience and provides tips for local searches. It describes Google’s algorithm as a complex system retrieves data from its search index and delivers the best results for a query. The chapter also stresses the importance of building a website to benefit users and any optimization should be geared toward improving the user experience. Finally, the chapter emphasizes that Google should be treated as the most important user of a website, and every effort should be made to please it.
Chapter 10
Title: Creating Effective Web Content for Your Business
This chapter advises against copying your company brochure word for word onto your website and instead suggests writing website content that resembles a two-hour presentation about your company, products or services, research, consumerism, energy-saving practices, employee care, and key people. The chapter recommends including optimized images and starting from the beginning to give readers an idea of the company’s history, production process, and future trends. For products or services that require a lot of explanation, it’s ideal to place them on the homepage. The chapter encourages doing your own SEO as only you have the passion for your company and brand. It also recommends seeking a copywriter’s help if needed.
Chapter 11
Title: Keyword Planning: A Guide to Improving Your Website’s Ranking on Google
This chapter emphasizes the significance of total keywords in each page of a website in ranking higher on Google. The author suggests selecting the most frequent and essential keywords for a website and utilizing them across different pages, including the home page, in order to rank better on Google. The chapter also offers a step-by-step process for choosing the most effective keywords based on competitors’ keywords, checking the source code of competitors’ websites, and taking notes of the primary keywords to use them later for testing. It also advises against selecting a Google Ad website and offers a website for a particular location.
Chapter 12
Title: Dominating Search Listings: The Importance of Titles headlines and other elements and tags
This chapter discusses the example of comparethemarket.com shows how a website can become synonymous with a word, in this case, insurance, by using the right content and SEO techniques. The chapter also emphasizes the importance of H tags, which are codes for headers on a page, and how search engines read them and give them weight for website ranking. Additionally, the chapter highlights the importance of creating unique and fresh meta titles and descriptions that contain unique selling points and convey a clear theme for the page. Finally, the chapter touches on the importance of keyword density in the text of the page.
Chapter 13
Title: Analyzing Competitors’ Keywords to Improve Search Engine Rankings.
The chapter talks about the importance of finding and analyzing the keywords used by competitors to improve search engine rankings. The first step is to make a list of important and relevant topics and figure out what words naturally come to mind. Then, Google can be used to search for competitors using keyword phrases, and their source code can be inspected to determine which keywords they are using. The Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that can be used to find search volume forecasts and discover new keywords. Other keyword research and analysis tools such as Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, and Semrush are also introduced. Finally, tools mainly for news/publishers such as Parse.ly and Siteliner are also mentioned. The chapter highlights that it is essential to create pages for each keyword and avoid overstuffing a single page with the same keywords.
Chapter 14
Title: “Measuring the Success of Your SEO Strategy: An Overview of SEO Reports”
This chapter discusses the importance of SEO reports and how they can help you track the performance of your website and your SEO efforts. It highlights that while SEO professionals can provide these reports, you can also produce them yourself to assess how well your SEO strategy is working. The chapter then goes on to list various performance metrics that you could include in your SEO reports, such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, channel performance, engagement, conversions, e-commerce transactions, link acquisition, site health, page speed, site impressions, and competitor performance. By regularly producing SEO reports, you can stay informed about your website’s performance and make data-driven decisions to optimize your SEO strategy.
Chapter 15
Title: The Importance of Good-Quality Content and Visitor Trust of a website.
Is it just about having good-quality content, or something more?
Chapter 16
Title: Understanding Webpage Source Code and Its Importance for SEO
This chapter explains that webpages are coded text files, and search engines like Google read them in their raw HTML or source code form. The source code contains elements or tags, and it is important to write the webpage in the correct manner or according to the algorithms to ensure that Google understands and translates the code correctly. The chapter also highlights the importance of using WordPress, which takes care of the source code, and provides guidance on writing headings with relevant H tags and other important tags for better SEO.
Chapter 17
Title: Researching and Writing Effective Web Content
Before writing content for your website, it’s important to research your competitors’ websites and understand the language and tone of the industry. This will help you identify gaps in your competitors’ content and provide valuable information to your target market. When writing, use simple language, focus on how your products or services can benefit your users, and include features such as an FAQ page and “How it’s made” page to add credibility and trust.
Chapter 18
Title: Managing Your Website: Essential Resources and Best Practices
This chapter provides an overview of key resources and best practices for managing a website. The author recommends using Google tools such as Google Search Console to monitor site health and track visitor behavior. The chapter also emphasizes the importance of mobile-first indexing and responsive design, as well as the benefits of using WordPress as a content management system. The author recommends using well-maintained and updated themes, and provides tips for ensuring mobile content is equivalent to desktop content.
Chapter 19
Title: Importance of Web Analytics and Naming WebPages
This chapter emphasizes the importance of web analytics and suggests using Google Analytics to generate detailed reports. It also recommends naming WebPages according to their content to improve SEO and make sense of analytics reports. The chapter also discusses the impact of security software on analytics figures and suggests comparing them with actual site activity by reading log files on the server.
Chapter 20
Title: Boosting Website Speed with a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Summary: The chapter explains how important it is to have a fast-loading website and introduces the concept of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to improve website speed. A CDN is a network of servers located around the world that store cached copies of a website. This allows users to access elements of the website from a server closer to their location, which improves loading times. The chapter also lists some popular CDN providers and suggests that installing a CDN plugin can be a simple task for WordPress users. Finally, a link to the Cloudflare WordPress plugin is provided as an example.
Chapter 21
Title: Optimizing Your Homepage with an Overarching Keyword
This chapter discusses the importance of selecting an overarching keyword or key phrase for your homepage, which represents your business as a whole. The author suggests avoiding repeating the keyword too much and placing them naturally throughout the body copy. The author provides an example of using the keywords “live streaming company,” “webcasting company,” and “live web streaming” on their website, Epnet Live Streaming, and the steps taken to optimize the website’s Google ranking. The chapter also emphasizes the significance of assigning importance to a whole website, rather than a single page, in search engine ranking.
Chapter 22
Title: “Optimizing Your Homepage for Search Engines”
The chapter discusses the key elements that need to be incorporated into a webpage’s source code, including the title, description, keywords, tags, and images with alt text. It also recommends using WordPress SEO plugins, such as Rank Math or Yoast SEO, to enhance a website’s search engine rankings. The chapter emphasizes the importance of structuring a homepage according to Google’s preferred layout format, which includes a title, description, main headline, first paragraph, list of products or services with links to secondary pages, and a page footer. Finally, the chapter recommends including a contact page in the main navigation and footer of a website to make it easy for users to interact with the business.
Chapter 23
Title: Analyzing Competitor Titles and Descriptions
Summary: The chapter discusses the importance of analyzing the titles and descriptions of top-ranking competitors in your industry on Google. It provides an example of analyzing the top 10 search results for the keyword “padlocks South Africa” and discusses the significance of large superstores, domain names, and proper descriptions. The chapter also suggests options for choosing a descriptive domain name and emphasizes the contribution of relevant domain names to a site’s overall score.
Chapter 24
Title: Stand Out with Creative Titles: Winning the SEO Game in a Competitive Industry
Summary: In a competitive industry, the power of your title, description, and page content can make or break your success. This chapter emphasizes the importance of being creative and unique in your page titles to stand out from competitors and get noticed by both users and search engines. The author shares a case study where they used the client’s existing copy to extract unique and compelling words to create a standout meta title and description, resulting in a page 1 ranking on Google. The takeaway is to make a list of your competitors’ titles, analyze them, and come up with something fresh and unique while also making sense in your industry. The chapter also suggests the reverse-engineering approach of writing your first paragraph first and then crafting the title and description around it.
Chapter 25
Optimizing Your On-Site Algorithm for Google: The Formula for a Google-Friendly Homepage”
This chapter provides a step-by-step guide for creating a Google-friendly homepage that sends the right signals to Google’s algorithm. The chapter emphasizes the importance of using researched keywords in headlines, meta titles, descriptions, and copy, as well as providing high-quality content that accurately describes your topic. The recommended homepage layout includes a first paragraph introducing your products or services, followed by a list of products or services with hyperlinks to their pages, additional paragraphs, and a footer with contact information, privacy policy, and terms. The chapter also discusses the technical requirements for a website to satisfy Google’s algorithm, with WordPress taking care of most of the technical aspects. Ultimately, the chapter stresses the importance of creating unique, fresh, and helpful content that provides value to your users.
Chapter 26
Title: Improving Google Rankings for Smaller Businesses
This chapter explains how small businesses can improve their website’s Google rankings by making themselves more interesting to Google. The chapter suggests that a business can make themselves more appealing to Google by using local search, providing detailed and informative content, and including suitable keywords and synonyms. It also highlights the importance of adding new, good-quality content to a website and suggests that businesses should research their competitors to ensure that they are keeping up with their online presence.
Chapter 27
Title: Additional SEO Factors to Consider
Summary: This chapter covers several other factors that can impact a website’s search engine ranking. Backlinks from other websites are a measure of a site’s usefulness and can influence its ranking. Website speed is also important, as slow-loading pages can negatively affect both users and Google. Mobile-friendliness is critical, as Google now prioritizes indexing mobile versions of websites. Submitting a sitemap to Google can also help the search engine find all of a site’s pages. Finally, having a Facebook page with a relevant page title can also impact a site’s ranking, particularly in local search.
Chapter 28
Title: Beyond Keywords: The Importance of Whole Sentences and Quality Content for SEO
In this chapter, the author emphasizes the importance of quality content and whole sentences in today’s SEO, as Google and other search engines focus on the meaning, intention, and purpose of content. The author suggests that in addition to researching industry keywords and studying competitors’ websites, website owners should answer questions with entire pages and provide a good user experience, speed, and trust driven by reviews. The author also points out that while it is becoming easier to get high rankings on Google as the search engine gets more sophisticated, competition for the first-page spot has massively increased.