SEO or Freestyle Writing - a difficult choice | post 21
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Optimisation is essentially the adjusting of the different properties, parameters or attributes of anything and everything for a specific purpose if we were to understand the Concept. In mathematics, we used to optimise such word problems, to satisfy some pre-determined Restriction, Limits or Required Expectations.
We used to call them as 'Constraints'. Our attempt was focused on arriving at a solution, which used to be some numerical values for the variable to meet these Constraints.
In the year 2020, you might recall how Work From Home (WFH) became an inevitable mode of working. Thus, starting a Blog, a YouTube Channel and an Instagram creator account became the obvious thing.
You have encountered some websites which load quickly, which have neat and friendly navigation, which use readable fonts and simple language.
In short, those websites were much better than this site. However, let me assure you that the web has no shortage of websites which take ages to load, the user interface (UI) is a nightmare for a good and memorable user experience (UX), or more than half of the bandwidth is being used for unnecessarily humongous photos!
Let me tell you, I am no fan of greyish narrow fonts or hyper-bright ultra-childish user interfaces.
Now, when was the last time you had found a slow-loading and irritating website after clicking on a link in some Search Engine's Results Pages (SERPs)?
What do the Users want? WHY do the Search Engines matter?
Do you like websites that irritate you in one or another? No. Do you think anyone would use a Search Engine for finding a slowly loading and hardly readable website?
Search Engines exist to serve the users with the most relevant, easy to read, easy to navigate and reputed websites. And that's why the less user-friendly and less knowledgeable websites are not ranked on the Results Page Number 1.
Now, let's try to remember when was the last time you and I had clicked on the 'More Results' button to check the next twenty or thirsty search results, shall we?
So far, you know the importance of ranking your website in the first 5 to 10 results for a Search Engine and this is your ultimate goal. Satisfying the user experience aspects such as Page-Speed, Image Size Reduction, Simple Language, Structured Article Writing, Link Building, Backlinks, Keywords and so on... These are your Constraints or Limits you need to adjust.
In a more normal communicative style, you make adjustments to all the technical and the non-technical aspects of your website, your blog or your Streaming Platform Channel in order to impress the Search Engines; and that won't happen unless you can actually help the visitors in some manner, adding value to their lives without hurting with an awful user experience.
Hence the Search Engine Optimisation, which has to go hands-in-hands with SMO, also known as (aka), Social Media Optimisation.
Technical and Non-Technical Aspects of SEO
Whether you are a person familiar with coding or not, you can always keep in mind the following aspects, even if you are blogging for the fun of creation and dissemination of knowledge. Although these words do sound some type of Technical Jargon or some Special Nouns needing a Medical or Engineering Handbook for understanding them; let's over-simplify them. While oversimplification often reduces the seriousness or the scope of the concepts, take this from me:
or to complete course, online or offline;
please note that only a few key concepts will
impact your work or actual practice
80 percent of the time.
All topics, techniques or concepts
don't have same level of importance.
Learn to over-simplify what
you don't particularly care about.
Then simplify what seems important,
but doesn't matter that much.
Never simplify the Most Crucial Concepts!
Even if you have less time,
don't take the Core Principles lightly.
~ AK Patil
@akp51v
Twitter | Instagram
Here goes nothing; the ideas you should not underestimate when going for SEO.
Quality of Content - Readability, Structure, Keywords, Related Terms
Imagine as if you have clicked on a link to land on a page with hardly 5 lines about the topic you had queried the Search Engine about. How would you judge the Content Provider? Assume you are a user who is scrolling through a really long article and who is not a fan of such Long-reads. Would you wish if there were some Bullet Points, Info-graphs, interesting graphics or at least more headings sub-headings? What if the entire article uses the word you entered in the search engine only once and then starts talking about something totally unrelated?
Good quality content, in which we put our heart as well as brain, will always be more valuable. But a slight neglect towards these factors can increase the Bounce Rate (user leaves your site and checks out other sites). They say, that users watch YouTube videos for 20 to 30 seconds. In other words, if you cannot 'show' the audience what's interesting and unique about the video in these initial 20 or 30 seconds; you won't get even a single view.
Fun Fact: You should watch YouTube video at least for 30 seconds to register your Views, Likes and Dislikes. [ Just learned from an incident.]
Anyway, although you can research above topics on your own and I am all in for Self-regulated Learning (or SRL); these aspects might be summarised as follows.
Readability
Try to read following three sentences.
"I am hungry. That apple! Bring it to me. I want to eat it."
"I am hungry, and an apple in within my sight, which I order thee, to bring to me, for this eagerness of my stomach, for those nutrients and the fibres, is no longer within my control... anymore."
"The inability of regulating my appetite has become a liability, and thus, I have an urgent necessity to acquire edible consumables. A Malus domestica is in front of our pupils. Kindly do me a favour and retrieve it, since the circulating gut hormones such as cholecystokinin and GLP-1 are failing against ghrelin."
Could you understand all three sentences easily? Without needing any extra pauses? Understanding the clause and sub-clauses without any confusion? How many unfamiliar profession-specific words were encountered in the third sentence? Can a normal user quickly make sense of it?
Simply to be stated: How easily would the average users (belonging to your target audience) quickly read the sentences in your content, without any excessive time requirement, external references, special pre-known vocabulary or technical jargon, unwanted slowing down and forming misunderstood conceptual interpretations? That's Readability.
And most of the posts like the above one, on SummaryMaster51v, would never be readable to a high-school student. The potential readers for this blog are not really the children. That being said, if you want to reach a wider audience, simpler language has to be your main strategy. You can learn about more technical approach (Flesch-Kincaid Readability Scale) from a thousand different sources, but the essence is quite straightforward.
If you want to reach a wider audience across all the age-groups; use short sentences, avoid too many conjunctions, clauses and sub-clauses, never refer to the Old English poetic words, simplify any Technical or Professional (scientific or trade-specific) Terms if you really have to use them.
And the fonts you are going to use have to keep in mind that the main text is going to be smaller, so the font should not be extremely thin and painfully light bright white-like grey. The headings are larger in size, so the same font that looks nice for the main body, will appear thicker for the headings. Thus, you will need to find a thinner font for the headings. If it takes too much difficulty to 'Read', you know that you need improvements, either with the sentences, or with the contrast related to the font colours, background colour, the font thickness, the spacing between the words, the lines and the paragraphs.
Structure
We can provide a summary, about what the article would explore, in the upcoming paragraphs in the opening; in an academically neutral manner, or as if telling an interesting story. Then, we can move towards an explanation, beginning with the simple concepts and necessary special words, eventually ending with a more complex and realistic logical conclusion, of the topic under the investigation.
You can start a piece with a question related to the title, or even turn the title into a question itself. We all have been there, in a tough spot, typing a longer doubt, into that text-field of the search engines. 'Why' and 'How' are not going anywhere, in fact they rank better than the titles or content ideas directly related to 'What'. Simply put, the user had a problem, and your content may help them.
Most of the content, on this blog, is using a <p> tag, or paragraph formatting; and not every article features the 'Headings' or <h1> <h2> HTML tags. This blog is essentially a self-defined anthology of some ideas from my diaries, and the thoughts gathered through the own experiences, or via the literature available offline or online, in my own words. So, the use of headings is not appropriate in every post. Some long articles are dedicated to a continuous reading experience, similar to that of a story or a book with chapters.
However, if any post is going to be very technical in nature, you should definitely incorporate the headings formatting as well as the bullet-lists. If I were to share a recipe for a delicious dish, I would have to create separate sections, dedicated to the ingredients, precautions, procedures and final serving arrangement. From food to food, and culture to culture, there would be some more headings, that you could add, such as who taught you these recipes or where you encountered this meal.
For a post discussing history, economics, journalism, mathematics or programming languages; each statement or equation has to be highlighted with a different formatting, so as to signal your reader, which is the main statement and what is its descriptive explanation.
You can start the post with a real-life story, although for some reason, I was told that I shouldn't start any blog post with a small quote or a verse from literature. It is really up to you, what would you want to appear under the Post Title, on the Search Engine Results Page. Your first few lines, in the blog post or the description of YouTube video, will affect the outcome; that is, if a user would be willing to click on your post.
One main thing is the visual elements other than the font itself. Your content structure might be great, but having no images might make your content boring. Personally, I don't see any difference between the text-only content or the article illustrated with images, unless I specifically search for some troubleshooting tips for the computers, or find some user interface a headache. Let me assure you, those info-graphs alone, can be misleading. One of the benefits of a College Degree, is that you stop trusting the graphs or the statistics, just because 'The sources show that' or 'The scientists say' type of sentences. Unless there is a clearly visible and accessible Resources Reference, which mentions the method of surveying and plotting the graph, as well as the set of assumptions and exactly how many people were surveyed; this author won't trust the graph or the statistics. Thus, the info-graphs may sound like a good idea, but please provide the reference from a recognised research journal or less mad news provider.
And keep in mind, having a few large images or too many images (even if compressed), can increase the loading time. This blog used to load even slower due to a background image in the default theme. Even at this moment, I am aware that the Google Translate gadget appears after some time of your arrival to the site. The more feature-rich your site, the poorer will be your rating on PageSpeed tool. You can use a vast array of HTML or CSS ideas to improve the overall user experience; but it's your own choice.
Keywords
First, let's be clear, that I do not make use of any keyword research directly. In other words, this blog, in front of you, contains posts about my opinions, experiences, observations, interests and knowledge-base, formed over a long time-span. I do not even know, how a blog post is going to evolve, by the time of me finishing it. If you want to grow quickly, this type of approach is not recommended.
However, when you follow a lot of great content creators, continuously, for many years of your life; be it on YouTube, Instagram or LinkedIn, you pick up some ideas. One of the main things, discovered like this, was getting ranked on the first Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) organically. The adverb 'organically' is crucial for a fast growth, just like choosing a highly specific subject sub-domain to write about. Since I am more inclined towards a multi-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary Systems Approach, this blog you are reading, has many different Labels, used to separate the posts into categories. That being highlighted, you are better off specialising in a unique and dedicated industry or sector. You should choose a Niche Topic. And many popular online platforms have shared quite varying techniques, which might help you with Niche. Just ask any search engine, to define Niche, to get the definition in Commerce or Ecology knowledge-pools.
Smartphones might be a Niche in Technology; but the Foldable Smartphones, Recyclable Phones or Modular Phones might be a Niche in Smartphones. This is still an over-simplification; but I hope, you already figured that out.
And choosing a Niche is not enough.
Keywords are the popular questions, which have a chance to be searched online. How to <some-verb> for <some-special-event/need> is one of the possible Long Tail Keywords, I guess. There are different levels of classification, and on SummaryMaster51v, the last thing we want, is the discussions of too many numbers, special words or a lot of heartless over-information.
Just remember this, observe your own interaction with the search engines. In last two to five years, what you were asking them.
In some newer blog posts, I have stressed the importance of personal touch; so, you get to know a little more about my habits here. During the college days, we would have something called a Formals Day or Tie Day, and I wasn't great, at tying my own tie. So, I had to rely on help, for that task. I typed in, 'How to tie a simple tie-knot' which was not really a technically accurate question. In this simple-appearing investigation, I encountered different types of tie, their suitability per occasion and people who were doing affiliated marketing or ecommerce site-based business.
Images resulting for the related search were obviously helpful as well. Only because of my college degree, I am risk-averse of online shopping. That was not the case always, but when you keep getting good experiences, sometimes you end up spending more. So, I didn't buy their offerings; but they got a view, a brand awareness (I remembered, bookmarked and watch-listed only and only that content provider, who would help me the most) and potentially, some ad revenue, or some free marketing, as I shared the sources with my college group. I did that, because I found the content helpful in solving my problem, and no other form of marketing is as pure as Word of Mouth.
Thus, every person is searching for something on the web. And the number of people, using the search terms, vary a lot. Although 4.5 billion people are estimated to have an internet connection, the reason we should be avoiding such numbers, is really simple. Not everyone who has access to the world wide web, knows how to use it for everything. Even if you target a specific keyword, there is no assurance that you will reach all the potential visitors. And that is okay. Each and every Niche, has at least some level of competition. Thus, access to the net, doesn't imply proper all-round use of it; and even if there are some digitally literate people, you won't be reaching them in just a few weeks.
You can install interesting Browser Plugins for Keywords Research, and then incorporate the keywords into your content. Thus, you could write for your favourite topic, without being less popular in the search results. There is an ethical question though, which becomes a highly personal and moral conflict; "Should you be creating the content to impress the search engines all the time?"
Related Terms
Major relief was brought to the well-disputed 'Quality' of the created content, in the form of the Related Terms. The idea of always targeting only the keywords trending all the time, resulted into a great number of people, creating too many different posts for the same topic, using its sub-topics. I don't know if you have experienced this or not, but there used be some websites, which would show only one small paragraph per page! Although some of the posts, even on this blog, are essentially short posts; they start and finish on the same page. But those multi-page posts were a huge disappointment, which is my 100 percent personal prejudices-equipped belief.
This beautiful aspirin of 'Related Terms' took away those headache-inducing intentionally over-divided types of content. At least in a Blog Series or a Vlog Playlist, you can consume something meaningful, per entry; but the websites which make you Navigate too much, for learning about a single topic... are not desirable that much. The search engines have started using Related Terms, due to which, the pages ranking on the first search results, are becoming more and more wholesome.
It is no longer about how many blogposts you could make; it is totally focused on making a few Blogposts as much helpful as possible, in one go.
The problem of 'writing for impressing the algorithms' was cured to a great extent, with Related Terms.
Think about this; if you make search about any topic, be it a need or want, the resulting top-ranking pages will be a collection of other topics as well, for which you would have needed to make more search requests. If you try to learn about tying your tie, you are greeted with a YouTube video first; because the skills you need, can be best learned with an actual demonstration. The next results are images; if you didn't want to watch the video, and if you are happy with the pictures-based quick instructions, you will benefit from the image search results, and you don't have to click on the images tab, you just scroll. The websites or blogs written about it, come after the questions section, which enlist direct answer-styled websites.
And even the websites coming after the Q and A section, are not at all short. On a single page, and I reiterate, 'ON a SINGLE PAGE... the creator had provided 18 different ways of tie-knot tying instructions'. Huge apologies for using a Bold Font formatting, but it is way more impactful and lovable, than say eighteen different pages dedicated to each tie-knot. And here is an even more engaging attribute of these results. Precisely due to its step-by-step instructional reasons, each tie-knot explained, is supported with a Picture of each step AND an embedded YouTube video about it.
You should go and try different search terms, and note down the features of the Result Page, as well as the first Top Ten resulting sites, per search category, with all aspects such as the language used, the ratio of single-line paragraphs to full multi-line paragraphs, the colour palette of website, the fonts chosen, when and how the images and the embedded contents are incorporated in the main articles body, etc. For instance, searching for particular programming language syntax will not give the same Structure of the Results Page. I made a search about 'syntax of canvas tag', which you don't need to know unless you want to be more creative with the HTML of your site. My point here is, the SERPs are full of direct textual websites. This may not be relevant in future, since just like any law, public policy or national international professional standards; each search engine algorithm matures over time. In that process, the priorities may change. As of 24, September, 2020, IST 02:04 AM, the results were the written content resources, about the canvas tag syntax.
Bonus Note - Domain Authority
Do you hire an electrician, for performing the brain surgery? Would you be comfortable if the driver is unlicensed? Why would you step into a Doctor's Clinic, an Engineer's Consultancy, a Lawyers Office or a Craftsman's Laboratory (yes, I believe that)? Is it safe to ask your child, to do your taxes? No, I respect Young Sheldon as well; but everything else aside, which is the website, that's trusted the most by the Users, and hence by the Search Engines?
Certain questions, made by us, can be safely and legally answered by the individual with a special set of skills, backed by globally recognised credentials.
Would you be willing to read, what this Civil Engineering graduate has to say about the Mood-swings? Are there no websites, dedicated to the psychology, the sociology, the human behaviour and the social causes of public awareness, operated by the registered practicing professionals?
This is actually a grey-zone of search results. Nobody is criticising anyone or any system, but this is the murky water, a blurry fog. Should the websites, which are NOT being maintained by a Legally Registered Practicing Professional, appear in the search results? And this is not a new question of radical rediscovery, either.
See, the domain authority is said to be affected by factors, such as the age of the domain, the popularity of the site and the user engagement, as well as the respectable external links, and the quality of content. These are completely understandable concerns, from the user and the search engine point of view.
Nevertheless, there is a catch. No Good Idea in the human history, can exist without its Bad Side-effects.
While easily readable language definitely improves the user experience, the Domain Authority might get a back-seat. Certain websites can shine brightly on all other SEO requirements, and yet, the content may not be a realistic description, simply because the piece might not be written by an experienced person.
And this is essentially a larger human-habit type of problem, for which we cannot hold only the websites and searching tools accountable. The content presented in the conventional academic format, needs a longer attention span, and it is written for the people, with a wider exposure to such type of literature. You could relate to my own doubt number one, during my final year project report writing. I am not sure, whether to laugh or cry, but my first doubt was, "What does et al. stand for?" This should be enough, to understand why the content written about some highly technical topic, is ranked at the top, irrespective of the credentials of the author. In fact, an Author is the one, who has Authority necessary to speak about a topic. You will find, that in some of the posts made in September 2020, I have stopped using the word Author, instead I reference myself with Writer. Cannot keep running away from the reality, you know.
Normal people, and even those, who have completed their secondary and tertiary education, prefer to communicate in the simpler language. Except for some select-few individuals, most fellow humans, that I have met in my utilised lifespan, the majority had told me, to keep it simple; which is a wise decision, as far as I am concerned. The adjective 'wise' is used, because there is not much point, if some form of knowledge is made inaccessible to the masses, just because a presumed difficulty in reading.
As much as we both love the improved accessibility to knowledge, of all the sorts, the golden cage of comfort, is a cage nevertheless.
A few professionals, with the command over the concepts, have been active on the numerous platforms, who are simplifying the academically 'language-locked' ideas, so as to increase the interest of the general public. While my own blog has a little bit unusually lengthy vocabulary, if you have a specific knowledge-bank, definitely simplify your content, to reach the wider audience.
Since we are on the topic, maybe I could discuss my interpretation of the Civil Engineering concepts or related news, on this blog, under a different dedicated label. Then again, you can forecast, my inevitable application of the lengthy words. And as I have not been focusing on any specific niche, SumM won't be doing great in the terms of Domain Authority, anyway.
Let's hope, that the number of people, confused between the Positive Thinking and the Positive Psychology (which finds positivity even in the negative emotions), goes on decreasing. Even if the simple language has made the knowledge user-friendly to many; I still recall some people in my childhood, neighbourhood and relatives-hood, who literally made me feel guilty, for not being Always-Positive. Simplification is a kind act of humanity; but over-simplification, if done incorrectly, can ruin the depth, the seriousness and especially the warning signs, of the concepts.
Over-simplified Review of All Above Topics
We started with the need of Search Engine Optimisation, and you have read about Readability, Structure of Content, Keywords, and Related Terms. Finally, you were introduced to the concept of Domain Authority, and how the over-simplification can result in too many shortcuts. I mentioned some ways, that you can use to learn the common virtues, of the Top Results. While you can continue to browse more, letting your eyes dry, and allowing your neck, back, elbow and wrist, to cry; let me try to sleep... without my greatest nightmare - a world full of people, forcing me to be always positive, because multiple Search Engine Results, taught them, that positive thinking and positive psychology, are exactly the same... even though the later, has started acknowledging, that the so called negative emotions, such as anger, occasional sadness, boredom, disagreement, criticism and fear, have Positive Effects on your decision-making and planning skills. I dare to go as far as saying, only the over-optimistic people can keep neglecting and rationalising their problems, or even fall an easy prey, to the obvious online scams or the unnecessary expenses. I have interests in Risk Management (All-round Risk Management; not just Insurance-focused Ri.M.), that's my Guild, pal; that's why no guilt, of my critical thinking skills.
Tip: PayPal
So, each of us needs some fresh breathing space, to express ourselves, without succumbing to the reasons resulting into premature abandoning of our dreams. While both the traditional as well as the modern platforms provide us such a free canvas, worrying about the Views or the Impressions too much, can significantly reduce our joy and satisfaction. Akp51v is not particularly interested in giving up too easily... Still, our tendency - of measuring everything in the numerical way - should never interfere with our original promises. Now, freely experimenting with the words and long sentences, on SummaryMaster51v.
