(Don't) Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain

While the website is being set in motion, I want to touch on my research behind the scenes of web development: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I think it’s important to mention this subtopic in my project, since it is extremely significant for a business or organization’s (or really, anyone’s) online presence.

Since I am thoroughly lacking any substantial knowledge of SEO, I decided to look for information aimed towards fledglings like myself. Google searching “SEO for beginners” gave me plenty of options; the first result I came upon looked promising, so I dived into Moz.com’s “The Beginner’s Guide to SEO”.

I’m very glad and grateful that this chapter-based guide is concise and relatively easy to follow. Each section presents information accompanied by relatable examples, helpful diagrams, and amusing cartoons (including monkeys, robots, pandas—and there’s even a unicorn!). I’ve done my best to understand all ten chapters, and I definitely got used to taking classroom-like notes throughout my reading.

I have broken down the main sections of the guide and provided links to their respective chapters if you’re interested in checking them out:

1.  Crawling and indexing
2. Relevance vs. popularity
3.  Search queries and intent
4. Search engine marketing and problems to avoid
5. Navigational search engine friendly design
6. URL construction, title tags, and meta tags
7.  Usability/user experience and empathy
8. Content development
9. Keyword research
10. Link pattern building
11. Tools, misconceptions, and measurability

I would say if I had glanced at this list previous to my research, I wouldn’t have known anything. On the flip side, these may look familiar to anyone with web experience, especially those into coding—shout out to my classmates Alex and Kyle in their efforts to create a video game.

One of the most important reoccurring concepts throughout the guide was the advice to “build [your website] for users, not for search engines”. In all efforts to create a successful online presence, the user—or customer, in the case of my project—is the most significant. Anyone can essentially manipulate the search engine in his favor, but success won’t last without user satisfaction. Incorporating social media into one’s efforts is also associated with online triumph.

If you ever have the chance to research or study SEO, I do recommend at least briefing yourself on it. I had very little interest in it at first, but I learned to value its importance in our web-based world.

Hope this was interesting and “user-friendly”. :)

Mia Lu