Category: Web Development

I have an Associate in Technical Arts in Web Application Development degree, and I’ve built websites with a variety of tools (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WordPress, and Wix amongst others).

My tech stack includes:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • jQuery
  • PHP
  • Visual Basic
  • Microsoft Office (Project, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, Word, and SharePoint)
  • Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, PremierPro, and Audition)
  • AutoCAD
  • Mailchimp
  • WordPress

 

Moz Chapter 3 KEYWORD RESEARCH

Carl Setzer
SEO Graphic

Another post based on this past quarter’s research on SEO via Moz

There are many key tools for determining a good keyword strategy. The first, and most important one, is the act of questioning. Starting with core questions is critical to developing the right focus on for the other research tools. Who are our customers? What are their goals? What do they want? How do they search? Once you have answers for these, you can explore several other tools like:

      • Google Keywords Planner
      • Google Trends
      • Moz Keyword Explorer
Google’s tools are perhaps the most important, as the vast majority of US based search is done via Google. Google Keywords gives you the ability to explore which keywords are relevant, which have high competition, and which have low competition. The “finding new keywords” tool looks particularly powerful. Google Trends is another tool that is worthy of adding to your toolbox. With it you can see what the world is searching for, both at the broadest levels as well as refined to the local or even hyper-local. Besides being able to search for specific keywords, you can also looking at macro trends across the internet. Moz, one of the leaders in digital marketing has their own Keyword Research tool. In many respects, it’s more powerful than Google’s. Especially for the Pro version. But even the free version has great details on their research dashboard, including keyword suggestions and SERP analysis.
With this type of work, you can determine the value of any keyword and build strategies around them.

How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, And Ranking

Carl Setzer
Winter quarter is finished! I just turned in my final project (JavaScript) and my brain is oozing onto the floor. Anyway, this quarter I took Intro To JavaScript, Systems Analysis and one I’m calling a catchall, “Joomla and Introduction To SEO”. Interestingly, this last class featured Amazon Web Services (AWS) heavily, and I’ll write about that, too. So, today I’ll explore more of my thoughts on SEO.
  • Crawling and Indexing:
    • Crawling sites is when a robot, for instance Googlebot, explores a webpage. One of the key problems with crawling and crawlers is simply whether they can find your page. There are some ways to push Google in this regard. One valuable way: you can tell Google how you want the page crawled via the Search Console. A related problem: keeping crawlers from indexing pages you don’t want indexed. Things like special landing pages, promo-code pages, pages for A-B testings and so forth. The tool for this is the robots.txt file which directs the bots on how you want the files analyzed.  Web developers also need to consider the crawl budget, which is the average number of pages the Googlebot will before moving onto another site. It is also important to utilize a clean information architecture and sitemaps.
    • Indexes are where search engines store and process the information found while crawling the internet. Just because a site can be crawled does not mean it will be indexed, or indexed the way you want. Robots can be instructed on this within the meta tags.
  • Matching Queries to Content
    • The goal of the search engine: provide the most relevant results to user queries. Their algorithm uses several things to determine that relevance. One of the main ways is backlinks. These links from other sites assert authority on the subject matter. PageRank is part of the Google core algorithm that analyzes link qualities. More natural backlinks are the most valuable. Other elements that Google considers: page clicks, time on the page, the bounce rate (percentage of user visits where they only viewed one page), and pogo-sticking (where the user goes right back to the Search Engine Results Page after visiting the target site. Additionally, for localized content, Google uses these elements to rank results: relevance, distance, and prominence. Things like Google Reviews and Citations are the biggest influencers of prominence.

What are the seven steps to successful SEO?

Carl Setzer
SEO Graphic
  • “What are the seven steps to successful SEO?”
    • Successful SEO has seven key steps, per MOZ’s “Beginner’s Guide To SEO“. These are valuable ways to help your website be discoverable by new users by ranking high in Search Engine Results Pages.
      • Crawl accessibility so engines can read your website
        • Enabling search engines to find and index my site
      • Compelling content that answers the searchers query
        • The site needs to answer questions in an interesting and engaging way.
      • Keyword optimized to attract searchers & engines
        • Be thoughtful with the composition of the website so that relevant keywords are featured in the articles
      • Great user experience including a fast load speed and compelling UX
        • The site needs to be streamlined so that it loads quickly, yet also has an interesting and engaging design
      • Share-worthy content that earns links, citations, and amplification
        • Content that engages your audience enough that they feel compelled to share it.
      • Title, URL, and description to draw high Click-Through Rates in the rankings
        • Thoughtfully considering article titles, the site’s URL, and description to make it compelling to someone, seeing it in a search, is very interested in clicking on the link and coming to the page.
      • Snippet/scheme markup to stand out in SERPs
        • Make the additional comments that show up on the Search Results Page engaging and encouraging the viewer to click over to the site.

Valuable Coding and IT Tools

Carl Setzer
Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels

As an Information System student, there are a handful of tools recommended to me by my instructors that have been critical. Every one of the tools below is free. Anyway, here’s my list:

  • Notepad ++: a richly powerful text editor. It’s what I’ve done most of my HTML and CSS in, and what I’ve done a lot of my JavaScript. I have shifted, though, back to Visual Studio, at least for now. I used Visual Studio for my Visual Basic class, so I’m pretty familiar with it.
  • 7 Zip is a great Zip file tool.
  • Agent Ransack, which boosts your PC’s search utility.
  • Winmerge: a great tool for comparing files. It has helped me a few times to find that one damn character I was missing.

Anyway, what tools do you use? That you find indispensable?

 

Featured Image by Josh Sorenson from Pexels

Exploring CSS and Failing

Carl Setzer2 Comments
Failed Phineas CSS Project

Last quarter I dove into HTML and CSS. I have several years of experience with HTML, albeit basic. However, I had the most superficial understanding of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). It was fun to dive deeper into this key element of website creation.

I only knew CSS as a way to centralize basic style elements (fonts, colors, etc). My mind was blown when I discovered all the other style pieces you could manage with CSS. I’ve now seen things you people can’t imagine (picture Roy from Bladed Runner).

Now I want to learn more! So, when a few days ago this tweet landed in my feed, I was stoked:

I followed Pratham’s guidance. Well, I tried, at least. After using all my free time, I created this:

Failed Phineas CSS Project
Failed Phineas CSS Project

I was a bit frustrated, but in the end, I’m still pretty pleased. A few months ago, I had no idea we can do this sort of thing. Now I’m diving in. And this is my first attempt. So, I have only upwards to go.

This link (to my github) takes you to the code I created. I’m sure many of you will easily spot errors. I’d love to hear them. I am trying to grow. That helps immensely.

Thanks for reading and commenting if you can.

Edit: I tried to embed the github info, but that didn’t work for some reason. Made it a direct link.