SEO Guides

>>298323
bump

SEO is achieved by having a site with
1 Good original content that helps people
2 Many links to the site from other sites which are reputable, as in, actual relationships with those sites

SEO done improperly will murder your ratings. SEO has been dead for a while now; it is now just good site content and having solid relationships with partner sites.

Someone will come along and tell you they can SEO your site; they are selling snake oil. This wasn't always the case but it is now.

>>298323
>>299244

Good point here. SEO was a rule set that could be used to get articles and sites to rank organically. Outside of content going viral for some reason, now, focusing efforts on content that your audience would want to share will increase your searchablity.

As a web designer, you should focus on site structure, UX/UI, site performance, and perfecting your CTA's. Content such as; social media and blog posts should be used as a funnel to your site.

If you want sources let me know, but big names like MOZ give you just enough info to get started, then want you to subscribe or use their tools.

Don't worry about what Google's doing. They don't publish exactly how their search algorithm works and they frequently change the rules to prevent people from gaming the system.

The part of SEO that you can easily control boils down to good content and legible design. On the design side of things that means make everything (machine) legible. Images get proper alt texts. Headers properly describe the page and content. Put vital information in text, not images and so on.

On the content side of things that means making proper use of headers, bullet point lists, synonyms and other methods of making content clear and concise with a minimum of hot air and bloat.

One fairly new criteria that Google's been introducing is a focus on mobile webdesign. Websites should have a version that works well on mobile. But mobile websites should also have identical content to desktop versions. If you are dressing down your content because it's easier to show less on mobile, you are effectively punishing your user for using mobile in Google's eyes and that will kill your ranking. The obvious answer is to keep your desktop site so concise and to the point that the content works just as well on mobile without being pruned.

Regardless of the exact rules Google uses, Google aims to judge webpage like a person would judge them. If this is the subject I'm interested in, does this page help me in a clear way or not?

If you're interested, sign up for the Nielsen Norman Group newsletters. They do a lot of research into user experience and they're very big on function over form. Which usually plays very well with SEO.