Notes from Tastemaker SEO
- Multiple approaches: some people are search engine first, some are social first
- Mobile first indexing since 2017, mobile optimization affects mobile ranking (80% of pageviews) while desktop affects desktop ranking (20%)
- Mobile indexing is about entity/objects, not keywords specifically
- "People also ask" is about the entity, not related keywords
- Initial helpful content update was in 2022
- Basics of SEO is still the same -
- crawl
- index
- render (process) the content
- Once processed, the content can be ranked and compared vs. others
- Over 5,000 algorithm changes in 2021 alone, most minor
- Some updates address specific issues, industries or intents
- Google constantly tests changes, sometimes they're reverted if the changes isn't productive
- All search results are custom - device, location, browser history, user preferences - all affect every individual's results page
- There's 200+ known ranking factors, and they're weighted different by industry, so the best practices from one industry won't necessarily translate to another
- Top ranking signals:
- quality content
- keyword optimization + relevance
- links + trust signals
- domain authority (not the same as Moz/SemRush/Ahrefs scores)
- mobile friendliness (optimization!)
- website structure
- Google does use click signals from search results (eg. return to SERPs as signal of intent not fulfilled)
- Rendering involves: javascript -> style -> layout -> paint -> composite
- note: Google doesn't interact with pages so anything loaded/hidden behind a click isn't counted
- There's 16,000 quality raters worldwide that feed information back to the algorithms (but don't directly impact the sites ranking)
- E-E-A-T is a set of guidelines on how quality raters should evaluate a site
- first hand experience
- demonstrated expertise and references around the web
- authority (links)
- trust and accuracy of information and sourcing
- YMYL (your money / your life) queries have a higher threshold - especially around health claims in the recipe industry
- Schema can help you rank for specific types of SERPs, such as the recipe carousel for recipes, and article markup for posts (star ratings)
- Yoast + recipe cards handles this for you if you used properly
- you need links, citations, references, engagement, as well as appropriate schema (organization, recipe, local(?)), high quality images with alt tags, annotated videos, good reviews and star ratings
- Individual keywords are no longer the end-all-be-all of content - Google is focused on the journey before, and the journey after, that specific keyword
Potential to reach more audiences with auto-translation of video using AI.
Entity understanding
- If impressions go up and clicks go down, it's typically due to "People also ask" and "Featured Snippets" that provide a good user experience in search but doesn't require users to visit the site
Intent
- Google tries to understand the intent behind all queries and categorizes them as:
- informational
- local
- how to
- commercial (purchase)
- Note that information (recipes) are totally separate from commercial which is why ecommerce doesn't work for food blogs
- MUM (multi-task unified models) try to map journeys to entities, creates entity-specific filters in search results
- for example, knowing calories (information) can lead to purchasing from store for later, a pizza shop for now, and can lead to further searches (having salad available with the pizza)
- tries to predict where the user is going to next
- multi-media (text + images + video) that satisfy the most possibilities may have an advantage
- this is why sometimes when you search for something, they present things not based on what's in the search query
Search Generative Experience (SGE)
- AI Summarization of top results with chat options, follow up questions
- Tries to further enhance the user journey by presenting answers before the user needs to think of them
Helpful content
- Does not simply want regurgiated information found elsewhere
- Content structure is important for user experience - good headings, not over the top ads
- If you lost ranking in September 2023, it's a site-wide signal that other sites broadly perform better than yours
- look at who is outranking you - images? content? writing style?
- focus on removing or updating low performing content that lost ranking (or doesn't rank)
- specialize in certain topics to provide broad coverage
- consolidate multiple pages that overlap in topic
- expect volatility in the future as they learn and adapt to new changes (AI, legal, etc) - there will be rollbacks and corrections - watch the news on the anti-trust cases
Daniel Eno
- Content quality = relevance, intent and coverage
- Use keyword variations in headings (h2s)
- avoid content unrelated to the topic (eg. personal) or keep it minimal, after the content
- Your document outline (headings) should match the query intent
- Pay special attention to nuance - "chicken dinner recipes" is for a list of recipes, whereas "oven roasted chicken breast recipe" is for a specific, single recipe
- If every ranking page has a certain format, consider matching that (eg. "Top 10 ___")
- When writing a post, immediately provide the main intent (recipe)
- Follow up the main intent with secondary questions (related, serve with, storing, etc)
- Word count is not a ranking factor for SEO (but can lead to higher RPMs due to long time on page)
- Edit the Yoast meta title on each post (further guidelines needed for this)
- Edit the Yoast meta description on each post to entice users to click through (further guidelines needed for this) - this is not a ranking factor
- Note: Google will choose to rewrite the meta tags however they want, so don't obsess over this
- Beware of including cooking methods unrelated to the main intent of the post (eg. should an oven roasted recipe have a totally separate recipe for grilling?)
- Some variation in h1, meta title and recipe card title can be beneficial, but make sure it's worthwhile (check the search results)
- Heading self-assessment: can you tell what the page is about just by looking at the headings?
- You can use the primary keyword in the main heading/h2, eg. "how to make baked salmon" instead of just "how to make" - keep it to 1 heading
- Use auto-complete in Google for content suggestions - start typing your query / keyword without searching and see what gets suggested
Internal linking
- The best links are in-content, relevant to the post, and have contextual text content around them
- Links should match the post title, but varied across the site
- A list of links with direct match anchor text is a low quality experience, but better than nothing
- Menu: link to your structure pages ("Recipe Index") and seasonal category
- Sidebar: link to trending recipes and seasonal recipes
- Footer: link to "administrative" pages
Anne Smarty
- Links are no longer a top 3 ranking factor
- Ranking is multi-faceted, and missing links may still prevent you from ranking even though it's not "top 3"
- Context around the link is important
- Topic clusters - interlink recipes and organize them, optimize site architecture around categories, establish authority around the topic
- Use topically.io to get graphs around recipe entities
- Google trends - check what terms and searches are getting popular
- Time your content updates - see what was popular 10 months ago so that you know what will get popular again in 2 months
Aleda
- To rank for competitive queries, you need to be the bet in class across all SEO areas
- E-E-A-T
- appropriately formatted
- maximize engagement
- crawlable and indexability
- Tools like screaming frog surface tons of potential issues, but requires guidance on how to actually solve them correctly
- As a website grows, technical issues become more important, and content and backlinks make less of a difference
- Start off with best practices from Feast, and start messing with technical changes once you get large enough for it to make a meaningful difference
- All sites can focus on:
- ensure crawlability
- surface top pages throughout site
- maximize SERP opportunity with schema
- ensure pagespeed and CWV are compliant
- Use the Admin > Feast Plugin > Setup page to properly configure WordPress and supported plugins
- Key categories should be linked from the navigation across your site
Arsen
- Avoid topic dilution brought on by appending ingredients
- Use keyword + recipe for the most accurate estimates
- Need to provide something unique and valuable without losing focus
- Google doesn't want to show the same recipe 10 times
- Answer your questions from the comments on competitor pages, directly in your content
- Use site:yoururl.com [topic] to find pages Google think is relevant to your topic
Helpful content
- Helpful content has a site-wide component: too much content that doesn't add enough value compared to other posts
- this means deleting, noindexing or updating low quality posts
- it might be best to focus on updating content instead of posting new content
- Prune old web stories that have dropped off
- For posts with an english and non english recipe name, don't put english and non english words in title, just english
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