4 ms·

The Basics of SEO

49 points by craigcannon 10y ago

shardinator 10y ago
I understand this is just the basics, but the URL is also crucial. Keywords in the URL (that match the page content) will give you order of magnitude better results.
- ommunist 10y ago
  Agreed. Keyword in URL is the kingpin of SEO.
  - marvy 10y ago
    This is something the HN urls do poorly, whereas stackoverflow does well.
  - bishvili 10y ago
    Helpful but not kingpin http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-keywords-in-the-url-16976 http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-keywords-i...
CM30 10y ago
Well, basics is certainly right here. It's the very lowest level stuff relating to title tags, content and meta descriptions. It's still useful to know (the amount of people who have a useless title or don't set the meta description for the search listings is ridiculous), but I'd say the off site SEO factors matter a ton more than these on site ones. Because at the end of the day, SEO (like any other marketing) is all about who you know rather than what you know. Not literally in the sense that knowing someone at Google will give you better results, but in the sense that knowing the right influencers to boost your content's 'signal' is more important than how well written or 'good' it is.
paulpauper 10y ago
How did this get up-voted to the front page? Maybe this would have been good advice in 1997 but nowadays it certainly does not work. I have a site with perfectly optimized titles and urls and rankings still terrible... You need lots of links and domain authority to rank well...that's what it boils down to. That's why the NYT, Wikipedia, Forbes, and Fortune rank well for everything.
- heimatau 10y ago
  This is not true. Except in situations where you are going after highly competitive keywords. Basic SEO with a targeted strategy is an easy win with the basic SEO you mentioned. Keyword research is where a lot of time should be spent, to ensure your SEO campaign is effective.
- taprun 10y ago
  The answer is in the "about" section [1]. The site seems to be run by the folks at YC. They probably have a leg up on making it to the front page at HN. [1] http://themacro.com/about/ http://themacro.com/about/
hbcondo714 10y ago
I'm surprised this article didn't reference Google using HTTPS as a ranking signal [1]. Seems like basic SEO to me at least. [1] https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-s...
- ommunist 10y ago
  That signal is weak. Yet.
j_s 10y ago
Here is a recent free chapter from a book (Secret Sauce) coming out soon; it is a bit more hands-on, explaining how to figure what what keyword to go after: https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-step-seo-tutorial-for-beginners-that-will-get-you-ranked-every-single-1b903b3ab6bb https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-s...
tucaz 10y ago
Four points taken out of external resources included in the page. Don't mean to be ironic, but I thought it was way harder to get to the front page of HN.
matsim 10y ago
Digital advertiser/marketer here. As others have rightly pointed out in some the comments--and as seen appropriately in the title of this blog post!--these really are just the pure basics. Elements to understand extend far beyond this to items such as semantic markup & rich snippets, the crucial role of "outreach" and "viral marketing" (that is, essentially digital PR), "domain authority" as defined by the volume and quality of incoming links to a site, and so much more. As the topic of SEO is fairly rare on HN, some words I want to share while I got some of your attention: if something gives you pause, don't think to trust a single thing that an SEO consultant or agency out there says to you until you read up on it yourself and/or consult another party. In the end, SEO-pitching digital marketers are pretty much selling snake oil 90% of the time and what you really need is someone on your team with a marketing background who can responsibly manage vendors and force performance working to prove ACTUAL traffic/"brand awareness"/sales growth over an extended period of time (and if they can't show growth, they can intelligently explain to you why.) I can't count the number of times I've been on calls with "SEOs" just rambling off their traffic reports without any real insight nor any technical knowledge, despite the fact that their agency is charging $100-150/hour for such material. I've seen reports from even large, recognizable digital advertising agencies with many locations worldwide that provided flawed or irrelevant data, a lack of focus on client goals, etc. I could go on and on.
josephjrobison 10y ago
The intro is interesting enough, and there is a good point he makes about needing to satisfy the ultimate user intent rather than just focusing on keywords and queries. Ultimately pretty basic, but good for beginners to dip their toes.
rezashirazian 10y ago
I think a lot gets lost in SEO and developers and marketeers miss the forest for the trees. They spend so much time trying to understand how they can game search engines they forget the number one ingredient for making it to the top : Good Content. It doesn't matter how optimized your website is, if the content is useless, you will not rank. If you want to rank you should probably spend 90% of your time and effort on content optimization, 10% on SEO. Check out what we are doing at YourMechanic (YC W12). We introduced an advice section earlier this year and now it drives 50%+ of all our organic traffic. https://www.yourmechanic.com/advice/ https://www.yourmechanic.com/advice/

49 points by craigcannon 10y ago

I understand this is just the basics, but the URL is also crucial. Keywords in the URL (that match the page content) will give you order of magnitude better results.

ommunist 10y ago
Agreed. Keyword in URL is the kingpin of SEO.
- marvy 10y ago
  This is something the HN urls do poorly, whereas stackoverflow does well.
- bishvili 10y ago
  Helpful but not kingpin http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-keywords-in-the-url-16976 http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-keywords-i...

CM30 10y ago

Well, basics is certainly right here. It's the very lowest level stuff relating to title tags, content and meta descriptions. It's still useful to know (the amount of people who have a useless title or don't set the meta description for the search listings is ridiculous), but I'd say the off site SEO factors matter a ton more than these on site ones. Because at the end of the day, SEO (like any other marketing) is all about who you know rather than what you know. Not literally in the sense that knowing someone at Google will give you better results, but in the sense that knowing the right influencers to boost your content's 'signal' is more important than how well written or 'good' it is.

paulpauper 10y ago

How did this get up-voted to the front page? Maybe this would have been good advice in 1997 but nowadays it certainly does not work. I have a site with perfectly optimized titles and urls and rankings still terrible... You need lots of links and domain authority to rank well...that's what it boils down to. That's why the NYT, Wikipedia, Forbes, and Fortune rank well for everything.

heimatau 10y ago
This is not true. Except in situations where you are going after highly competitive keywords. Basic SEO with a targeted strategy is an easy win with the basic SEO you mentioned. Keyword research is where a lot of time should be spent, to ensure your SEO campaign is effective.
taprun 10y ago
The answer is in the "about" section [1]. The site seems to be run by the folks at YC. They probably have a leg up on making it to the front page at HN. [1] http://themacro.com/about/ http://themacro.com/about/

hbcondo714 10y ago

I'm surprised this article didn't reference Google using HTTPS as a ranking signal [1]. Seems like basic SEO to me at least. [1] https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-s...

ommunist 10y ago
That signal is weak. Yet.

j_s 10y ago

Here is a recent free chapter from a book (Secret Sauce) coming out soon; it is a bit more hands-on, explaining how to figure what what keyword to go after: https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-step-seo-tutorial-for-beginners-that-will-get-you-ranked-every-single-1b903b3ab6bb https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-s...

tucaz 10y ago

Four points taken out of external resources included in the page. Don't mean to be ironic, but I thought it was way harder to get to the front page of HN.

matsim 10y ago

Digital advertiser/marketer here. As others have rightly pointed out in some the comments--and as seen appropriately in the title of this blog post!--these really are just the pure basics. Elements to understand extend far beyond this to items such as semantic markup & rich snippets, the crucial role of "outreach" and "viral marketing" (that is, essentially digital PR), "domain authority" as defined by the volume and quality of incoming links to a site, and so much more. As the topic of SEO is fairly rare on HN, some words I want to share while I got some of your attention: if something gives you pause, don't think to trust a single thing that an SEO consultant or agency out there says to you until you read up on it yourself and/or consult another party. In the end, SEO-pitching digital marketers are pretty much selling snake oil 90% of the time and what you really need is someone on your team with a marketing background who can responsibly manage vendors and force performance working to prove ACTUAL traffic/"brand awareness"/sales growth over an extended period of time (and if they can't show growth, they can intelligently explain to you why.) I can't count the number of times I've been on calls with "SEOs" just rambling off their traffic reports without any real insight nor any technical knowledge, despite the fact that their agency is charging $100-150/hour for such material. I've seen reports from even large, recognizable digital advertising agencies with many locations worldwide that provided flawed or irrelevant data, a lack of focus on client goals, etc. I could go on and on.

josephjrobison 10y ago

The intro is interesting enough, and there is a good point he makes about needing to satisfy the ultimate user intent rather than just focusing on keywords and queries. Ultimately pretty basic, but good for beginners to dip their toes.

rezashirazian 10y ago

I think a lot gets lost in SEO and developers and marketeers miss the forest for the trees. They spend so much time trying to understand how they can game search engines they forget the number one ingredient for making it to the top : Good Content. It doesn't matter how optimized your website is, if the content is useless, you will not rank. If you want to rank you should probably spend 90% of your time and effort on content optimization, 10% on SEO. Check out what we are doing at YourMechanic (YC W12). We introduced an advice section earlier this year and now it drives 50%+ of all our organic traffic. https://www.yourmechanic.com/advice/ https://www.yourmechanic.com/advice/