Category: SEO

When delivering Search Engine Optimization (SEO) recommendations, you, the SEO specialist, often face an uphill struggle to get those recommendations implemented client-side.

At first this seemed strange to me: clients hire a company and pay good money for SEO consulting work, and then don’t implement the SEO recommendations.

But I quickly realized that this is for “good reasons”: often your clients don’t have dedicated employees who have nothing else to do and are standing by waiting for SEO recommendations to execute – it’s more likely those who will execute already have a full to-do list.

Your recommendations may be “just more stuff on their plate” to get done, and therefore not warmly welcomed.
And there are myriad other reasons your recommendations may not get implemented and lead to long-term or even quick SEO wins.

Just a few examples include:

• A full queue client-side (as I just mentioned)
• Internal bureaucracy
• Resistance to change
• Lack of internal team agreement regarding the nature of certain SEO recommendations
• Conflicting or shifting priorities

I’m sure you could easily add five or 10 more examples from your own experience.

While it’s true that in most SEO consulting relationships, your client’s team will be responsible for implementing your SEO recommendations, I’d like to suggest that how you communicate your recommendations plays a huge part in whether those recommendations get completed.

In other words, very often it’s not what you say but how you say it that matters.

So sure – your client is probably responsible for actual recommendation execution, but you are responsible for communicating the need and importance of those recommendations in such a way as to make execution more likely.

I’d like to share with you seven key communication skills to help you get your recommendations implemented – and, as a bonus, create a strong rapport with your clients that results in more likely long-term retention.

But Wait – Isn’t All of This Just Blatant Manipulation?

That’s a fair question, so before we get to the seven key skills, let’s talk about that.

If you use communication skills, aren’t you just “being manipulative” – that is, just trying to get your way?

First, I would ask you to consider the fact that all communication is influence and/or “manipulation.”

You cannot not influence when communicating.

Think about if you visited another country where you don’t speak the local language – how will you communicate?

Should you insist that everyone speak your language?

That’s arrogant and short-sighted.

Instead, if you alter your communication – for example, learn some of their language – then you’re more likely to have positive outcomes (like finding your way around, or just locating a bathroom).

Because communication by its very nature influences others (“manipulation”), you are demonstrating behavioral flexibility and a willingness to get outside of your comfort zone, just like the foreign language example I just mentioned.

So, forget about “manipulation” and be more flexible in your communication, and the result will be better outcomes both for your client and your agency.

The 7 Key Communication Skills

1. And vs. But

Gauge your internal response to these 2 statements:

“That hat looks good on you, but…”
“That hat looks good on you, and…”

Didn’t the first one make you feel like maybe some kind of criticism is coming next?

“That hat looks good on you but…” – after hearing that ,you’re waiting to hear what’s after the “but”, aren’t you? But what??

You can feel yourself bracing for what comes after the but, because “but” is an eraser – it erases everything before it.

Here’s another example:
“I love this new recipe you made, but…”

Don’t you feel yourself tightening up waiting for what comes after the “but” part?
“I love this new recipe you made, and…”

You don’t tighten up after the “and.”

“And” is a linker, “but” is an eraser.

“And” links the first part with the second part.

“I love this new recipe, but I wonder if you’ll try to improve it next time.”

“I love this new recipe, and I wonder if you’ll try to improve it next time.”

You can see the second example is softer, creates less resistance.

How about with SEO recommendations?

“I realize you don’t have the internal resources to execute on these SEO recommendations right now, but they’re very important so if we can get these completed soon, I forecast the following positive results…”

Versus:
“I realize you don’t have the internal resources to execute on these SEO recommendations right now, and they’re very important and so if we can get these completed soon, I forecast the following positive results…”
That’s just one example – try using “and” instead of “but” to soften your communication and reduce resistance.

2. Redefine the Issue

When making SEO recommendations, the real question is not whether your clients execute them, it’s whether you are communicating well enough to get your clients to execute them.

When you look more closely at the above sentence, you’ll realize that I just taught you the “Redefine the Issue” pattern!

The pattern is: “the question isn’t this, it’s that.”

Here’s an example working with your client:

“I agree that resources are tight right now, and the important question is whether we can really afford to not execute these very soon, because if we don’t, here’s how our organic performance will suffer.”

Notice the “and” after the “I agree that resources are tight right now” (instead of using “but,” which increases resistance).

I also packed into that example the next key communication skill for you, which we’ll get to in a minute.

But first, go back and re-read that sentence.

Notice how it shifts the focus from “no resources” to “if we don’t, we’ll have XYZ problem.”

That helps to communicate the importance – if not outright urgency if applicable – of completing the SEO recommendations.

3. Agreement Frame

Disagreement is, well, disagreeable.

Some people do relish a debate or argument, but it’s agreement that gets work done.

If we don’t agree on something, forward movement is halted.

Notice your internal response to these two statements:

I don’t agree that resources are tight right now.
I agree that resources are tight right now.

Like “but vs. and,” agreement reduces resistance.

Here’s the example I used in the previous key skill; notice how it starts with agreement:

“I agree that resources are tight right now, and the important question is whether we can really afford to not execute these very soon, because if we don’t, here’s how our organic performance will suffer.”

Another way the agreement frame can be used is when conflicting priorities come into play.

Let’s say you’ve identified a critical set of SEO recommendations that are very high priority, but your client suddenly announces they want to focus on something that’s not really a high priority SEO-wise.

You could say something like this:

“I agree that that is an important priority and we need to get to work on that, and I’d like to suggest that we get to that immediately after we fix this other burning priority because this problem is negatively affecting organic performance right now….”

Once again, notice the use of “but vs. and.”

Agreement means you’re aligning with your client, not opposing them.

Opposition creates resistance.

Resistance means it’s less likely your recommendations will be completed.

Agreement also builds rapport and helps with long-term client retention.

4. If > Then

If you don’t use improved communication skills in your work, then you’ll never see better results with your clients.

The simple pattern here is “if this, then that.”

The variations here are:

• If this, then that
• If not this, then that
• If this, then not that
• If not this, then not that

Examples:

• If we complete XYZ, then we’ll get ABC
• If we don’t complete XYZ, then we won’t get ABC

You get the idea.

Another good use of If > Then is gaining commitment; here’s an example.

“We’re projecting completion of this optimization project in 10 days. If we can meet that deadline, then can the team there commit to implementing the recommendations within 10 business days after we deliver?”

If you can start working If > Then into your natural communication style, then you and your client are going to reap the benefits of the increased likelihood that SEO recommendations get completed.

5. We vs. You

Working with clients is truly a collaborative effort.

If you ever find yourself feeling like you’re struggling against your client, I invite you to change your thinking from “me and them” to “us.”

That puts you on the same side of the rope as your client, and you’re pulling with them, not against them.

A good way to use We vs. You is when talking about past and future performance. Here are some examples:

• “Last month our numbers were down year over year, but that was because of XYZ. Now our performance is up because we got ABC recommendations implemented so quickly.”
• “Right now, our low-hanging fruit opportunities are….”
• “If we can get XYZ SEO recommendations implemented ASAP, then that’s going to fix the problem causing our ABC performance issues.”
• “We’ve seen decent organic performance increases in XYZ section of our site after the recommendations for that section were completed, and if we can quickly get to optimizing ABC section of our site, then we should see as good or better performance increases there.”

Collaborative words to use are “we, our, us, the team,” and so on.

I’m sure you can easily see how we can improve our communication skills by using “We vs. You” in our client communications, can’t you?

6. Meaning Reframe

In a perfect world, every SEO recommendation implemented causes immediate and measurable benefit.

If only we lived in a perfect world!

The reality is that SEO is a marathon and not a sprint.

SEO is not like paid search or paid social, where you can turn on traffic or conversions just by spending money.

But it’s not infrequent that the people client-side who are not particularly familiar with SEO think that results will be immediate.

Managing expectations is part of our job.

And that’s where Meaning Reframe can be a key communication skill to master.

It’s also helpful to realize that the meaning that’s attached to some circumstance or situation influences how you and others feel about that situation.

Changing meaning changes your perceptions, and how you feel.

For example, let’s say you’re stuck in an unexpected traffic jam. What does that mean?

If it means your precious time is wasting away stuck on the road, you might feel frustrated or angry.

But what if instead it means you have time to listen to that podcast you’ve been eager to get to, but haven’t found the time until now? Then you might feel at ease with, or even grateful for, the traffic delay.

Changing meaning changes perspective, and feelings.

So, what if organic performance is suffering? What does that mean?

Or what if a set of SEO recommendations have been executed, but there’s no performance increase yet? What does that mean?

What if a client says, “It’s been a week since we implemented XYZ SEO recommendations and nothing has happened. What’s going on?”

From their perspective, it means SEO is not working. Or that you’re wasting their time. Or other not-positive things.
It’s up to you to manage the meaning of this situation, you might say something like this:

“I agree that it’s been a week since implementation and nothing has happened, and that means we need more time for Google to fully detect and process the changes we’ve made. In the past we’ve usually seen it take XYZ amount of time for this, and so I suggest that while we give Google more time, I’ll keep a close eye on the situation and report back to you how things are progressing.”

You can see that we’re using the Agreement Frame and “And vs. But” here as well.

7. What’s Important?

I’ve got a question for you: what’s important to you when it comes to SEO?

• Higher rankings?
• More traffic?
• Increased conversions?
• Better organic click-thru rate?
• Outpacing the competition?
• Fixing a giant technical mess preventing better organic performance?

If you’re an SEO, you probably said all of the above.

But, have you asked your client what’s important to them when it comes to SEO?

If not, you may be focusing on something they don’t see as important.

If you’re focusing on things they see as unimportant, whatever results you do get are likely not going to be met with the uncorking of champagne bottles by your client.

And, your client is also not likely to want to stick with you or your agency since you can’t seem to focus on what’s important to them.

So how do you find out?

Ask them.

Here are some examples for you:

• “What’s important to you when it comes to SEO?”
• “What constitutes SEO success to you?”
• “What are the most important results you want to see from our SEO efforts?”

This is especially useful at the start of an SEO engagement for several reasons.

• You immediately uncover how success will be measured by your client
• If expectations are unreasonable, you’ll know this right up front
• You’ll be able to refer back to what’s important to them as the engagement progresses and tie efforts and results to what they said is important

Knowing how success will be measured if unreasonable expectations exist, and being able to tie efforts and results to what’s important to the client, are both extremely valuable for you during the SEO engagement.

But what if you’re in the middle of an engagement. Is it too late to ask?

Of course not.

Simply put a friendly spin on things.

“Hey, you know, I just realized that I should have asked you this when we first kicked off our SEO engagement together, but…” and then ask the questions.

And if you take over an engagement for another SEO, asking those questions is quite appropriate, and your client will appreciate that you cared enough to ask.

Note: your client might not be able to answer the question. They may have only thought about SEO success in vague, undefined terms, or maybe never really thought about it at all but just know they “need that SEO stuff.”

That’s okay. Give them some suggestions for what you and other clients have seen as important.

Conclusion & Bonus Tip

There you have it: seven key communication skills to help you get SEO recommendations implemented and help with long-term client retention. Imagine all the ways that these skills will help you and your clients get better results – how soon will you begin to start using these skills?

You have likely already realized that these communications skills are not limited to SEO engagements and in fact can be used in any aspect of a digital marketing engagement.

Before we go, I have one more tip in which to frame all of this that I hope you find helpful, and it’s this:

Pretend it’s your business and your website.

Nothing gets you pulling on the same side of the rope with your client as seeing the business and website as your own.

Taking that attitude brings you to a deep level of involvement – it’s personal to you.

Your client will notice. They’ll feel it.

People can tell if you’re “just phoning it in” or if you’re in it to win it.

Do you have some key communication tips to share or feedback about these 7 key communication skills? Let me know in the comments.

People outside of the digital marketing and web technology industry don’t usually realize that the web as we know it today is a patchwork of numerous & varied platforms and technologies.

One of those technologies is called a “Content Management System” or CMS for short. I wrote this guide to help shed some light on what Content Management Systems are and how they work.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is a Content Management System?

Commonly referred to by the acronym CMS, Content Managements Systems are technology frameworks that allow people & businesses to manage their website’s content, images, and other resources from a single Admin Panel and user interface.

Content – text – is managed from a user interface that is often similar in nature to a Microsoft Word user interface with options to type or copy & paste into a text box area, and use various formatting tools such as bold, italics, the ability to add a hyperlink, and so forth. Often there is an option to switch to a view of the raw HTML code for those who may want to make changes directly to the code.

Images can also be added into the text with formatting options for how text appears next to or around those images.

Separate logins can be created for different users, and some CMS’ allow for different user levels (administrator, author, editor, etc.)

What Does a Content Management System do? Why Use a CMS?

Using a CMS offers some advantages over creating a website from scratch.

The process of coding websites from scratch as typified by a web design business involves a team or teams of designers and developers to make the website vision become a reality.

Designers will create rough layouts called wireframes which are devoid of design elements but serve as blueprints for the home page and interior pages such as a category and product page for an ecommerce site, or article pages for a news site, and so on.

After wireframing, designers will create mockups, often using software such as Photoshop, and after a number of iterations a final design (look, feel, layout) will be selected. Often the hardest part of this step is not so much mocking up the designs, but getting the website stakeholders to agree on a final design – “death by committee” is a real thing, and sometimes it’s better to have less cooks in the kitchen, so to speak.

Developers will then take over and “slice up” these designs and will write from scratch the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code to make the website come to life. HTML is for content delivery, CSS for formatting and positioning elements such as text and images, and JavaScript for interactive elements such as being able to use checkboxes or other selector elements to change the contents of the page (such as choosing apparel by size and color).

While some of the development phase may enjoy some time savings by using code libraries of various types, developers nevertheless have their work cut out for them to not only create all the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but also sync to a database like a MySQL database.

As you can see, this is a lot of time and work. And unless the development process includes creating an at least somewhat user-friendly interface for people to add new web pages and other web content, every time you need a new page, you need a developer to work.

Content Management Systems can shortcut much of this process, and provide a relatively easy to use user interface that makes it easy for non-developers to create and publish new web pages or modify existing pages whenever they desire, without having to bother developers, so publishing to the web is faster and that’s a great advantage that CMS’ offer.

Which brings us to…

How Does a CMS Work?

Setting aside how any particular CMS software itself is created (via programming language), in short summary a CMS works by using web page layout templates which communicate with and pull data from a database to populate a web page with text, images, header and footer navigation, maybe a sidebar element, and so forth.

These various web page layout templates are often comprised of the necessary code such as HTML, CSS, PHP, & JavaScript to complete each templates design and layout. There can be various templates such as on an eCommerce CMS, a template for the home page, a category page, sub-category page(s), and product level pages.

These page templates “call” various elements from the database, such as a MySQL database, dynamically populating the various resources and elements that comprise that type of page whether it’s the home page or some type of interior page such as a product page or article page, along with all the navigation and other “boilerplate” elements that comprise that page type.

Again, this makes it easier for non-developers such as content authors to be able to directly publish new pages and update existing pages, without involving developers, which can save time and money, making using a CMS for a website very attractive since they often work right out of the box, albeit often with some customization being necessary. And depending on your skill set, you may still need heavy developer involvement to design and configure your CMS, or you may be able to do much or all of that yourself.

Also, CMS’ will typically have a “theme” or “skin” which is easily changed, and so unless you require specialized customization, having a new look and feel for your website is as easy as changing your clothes – with a few mouse clicks you can have a totally refreshed design.

Another super-handy aspect of many CMS’ are plugins and extensions which extend the core functionalities of the CMS. A good example here is WordPress which has a thriving community of plugin developers – if the core WordPress install does not have a specific function you desire, chances are there’s already a plugin for that.

All of that adds up to a great deal of flexibility you won’t get if you have your website coded from scratch.

What are examples of Content Management Systems

There are many CMS’ on the market, some are free, others not.

Some CMS’ specialize such as Magento which is an eCommerce CMS, others are general CMS platforms such as WordPress.

Here’s some CMS examples – but there are many more:

• WordPress
• Drupal
• Joomla!
• Expression Engine
• Adobe Experience Manager
• Sitefinity
• TextPattern
• Radiant CMS.
• Cushy CMS.
• SliverStripe
• Magento
• Shopify

Go to your favorite search engine and type “example of content management systems” and you’ll be inundated with choices.

What are the Downsides to Using a CMS?

CMS’ provide a lot of benefits, but like everything in life and web technology, there are tradeoffs. Each CMS has its own set of limitations and quirks that you will either have to live with, or hire someone to modify for you, or modify on your own if you’re able.

CMS’ will also require a learning curve if you’re not already familiar with that particular CMS’ user interface, setup requirements, and functionality. You and/or your staff will need to set aside time to figure out how to use the CMS for your particular job.

You may also require technical help if you run into issues, if your CMS gets hacked, or if you desire customizations or functionalities you’re not able to handle yourself. For example, if you’re moving your current website to a CMS and you want your site’s look and feel to remain the same, that’s going to require some developer resources to make that happen.

Due to the dynamic nature of how CMS’ works (see the “How Does a CMS Work” section above) by storing elements separately then assembling them on the fly, page load time may not be as fast as you might desire, or your users might desire. You may be able to mitigate this through caching and use of a CDN (content delivery network).

You may find the downsides outweigh the benefits and decide against using a CMS, but many of the downsides have workarounds or existing proven solutions.

Summary & How to Choose a CMS

A content management system can be a great choice for managing a website because it provides a relatively fast and easy way to publish web pages and websites, especially compared with designing and developing a website from scratch.

There are different types of CMS’ out there such as Magento for eCommerce, and WordPress for general purpose sites, so if you’re considering moving your site to a CMS or from one CMS platform to another, I suggest doing some research and talking to several site owners / webmasters and ask them about the pros and cons of the CMS you’re considering.

Ask them what they like about their current CMS, and what they absolutely hate. A good question would be “if you had it to do all over again, would you choose your current CMS or something else?”. Another good question would be about the learning curve they experienced because unless you’re already familiar with a particular CMS, you will need to take time to learn how to use it.

If my article was valuable to you please click the image below to say “thanks!”

As an SEO professional, your role will invariably lead you to interactions with people in a wide variety of roles including business owners, marketing managers, content creators, link builders, PR agencies, and developers.

That last one – developers – is a catch-all term that can encompass software engineers, coders, programmers, front and back end developers, and IT professionals of various types. These are the folks that write the code and/or generally manage the underlying various web technologies that comprise & power websites.

In your role as an SEO, it may or may not be practicable for you to completely master programming languages such as C++ and Java, or scripting languages such as PHP and JavaScript, or markup languages such as HTML, XML, or the stylesheet language CSS.

And, there are many more programming, scripting and markup languages out there – it would be a herculean task to be a master of every kind of language, even if your role is full-time programmer and not SEO.

But, it is essential for you the SEO professional to understand the various languages and technologies and technology stacks out there that comprise the web because when you’re making SEO recommendations, which developers will most-likely be executing, you need to understand their mindset, their pain points, what their job is like – and you need to be able to speak their language.

You don’t have to know everything developers know, but you should have a good grasp of what developers do so that you can ask better questions and provide SEO recommendations in a way that resonates with them, and those recommendations are more likely to be executed as a result.

When you speak their language, and understand what their world is like, you’re contributing to a collaborative environment where everyone’s pulling on the same side of the rope for the same positive outcomes.

And of course, aside from building collaborative relationships is the fact that being a professional SEO involves a lot of technical detective work and problem detection & prevention, so understanding various aspects of web technology is not optional, it’s mandatory.

Web tech can be complex and intimidating, but hopefully this guide will help make things a little easier for you and fill in some blanks in your understanding.

Let’s jump right in!

The Internet vs. the World Wide Web

Most people use these terms interchangeably, but technically the two terms do not mean the same thing, although they are related.

The Internet began as a decentralized network of independent interconnected computers.

The US Department of Defense was involved over time and awarded contracts, including for the development of the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) project which was an early packet switching network and first to use TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol). The ARPANET project led to “internetworking” where various networks of computers could be joined into a larger “network of networks”.

The development of the World Wide Web is credited to British computer scientist Sir Tim Beners-Lee in the 1980s who developed linking hypertext documents, which resulted in an information-sharing model built “on top” of the Internet.

Documents (web pages) were specified to be formatted in a markup language called “HTML” (Hypertext Markup Language), and could be linked to each other using “hyperlinks” which users could click to navigate to other web pages.

Further reading:

• History of the Internet
• History of the World Wide Web
• ARPANET

Web Hosting

Web hosting, or hosting for short, are services that allow people & businesses to put a web page or a website on the internet. Hosting companies have banks of computers called “servers” which are not entirely dissimilar in nature to computers you’re already familiar with, but of course there are differences. There are various types of web hosting companies that offer a range of services in addition to web hosting; such services may include domain name registration, website builders, email addresses, website security services, and more.

In short, a host is where websites are published.

Further reading:

• Web Hosting Service

Web Servers

A web server is a computer that stores web documents and resources. Web servers receive requests from clients (browsers) for web pages, images, etc. When you visit a web page, your browser requests all the resources/files needed to render that web page in your browser. It goes something like this:

Client (browser) to server: “hey, I want this web page, please provide all the text, images and other stuff you have for that page.”

Server to client: “Okay, here it is.”

Various factors impact how quickly the web page will display (render) including the speed of the server and the size(s) of the various files being requested.

There are 3 server types you’ll most-often encounter:

1. Apache is open-source, free software compatible with many operating systems such as Linux. An often-used acronym is “LAMP stack” referring to a bundling of Linux, Apache, MySQL (relational database) and PHP (a server-side scripting language).
2. IIS stands for “Internet Information Services” and is proprietary software made by Microsoft. An IIS server is often referred to as a “Windows Server” because it runs on Windows NT operating systems.
3. NGINX – pronounced “Engine X”, is billed as a high-performance server able to also handle load balancing, used as a reverse proxy, and more. Their stated goals and reason for being include outperforming other types of servers.

Further reading:

• Apache
• IIS
• NGINX

Server Log Files

Often shortened to “log files”, these are records of sever activity in response to requests made for web pages and associated resources such as images. Some servers may already be configured to record this activity, others will need to be configured to do so. Log files are the “reality” of what’s happening with a website and will include information such as the page or file requested, date and time stamp of the request, the user agent making the request, the response type (found, error, redirected, etc.), the referrer, and a few other items such as bytes served and client IP address. SEOs should get familiar with parsing log files. More info here.

FTP

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and it’s how you upload resource files such as webpages, images, XML Sitemaps, robots.txt files, and PDF files to your web hosting account to make these resource files available and viewable on the Web via browsers. There are free FTP software programs you can use for this purpose.

The interface is a familiar file-folder tree structure where you’ll see your local machine’s files on the left, and the remote server’s files on the right. You can drag and drop local files to the server to upload. Voila, you’ve put files onto the internet! More info here.

Domain Name

A domain name is a string of (usually) text and is used in a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Keeping this simple, for the URL https://www.website.com, “website” is the domain name. More info here.

Root Domain & Subdomain

A root domain is what we commonly think of as a domain name such as “website” in the URL https://www.website.com. A subdomain is the www. part of the URL. Other examples of subdomains would be news.website.com, products.website.com, support.website.com and so on. More info here.

URL vs. URI

URL stands for “Universal Resource Locator” (such as https://www.website.com/this-is-a-page) and URI stands for “Uniform Resource Identifier” and is a subset of a full URL (such as /this-is-a-page.html). More info here.

HTML, CSS, & JavaScript

I’ve grouped together HTML, CSS, & JavaScript here not because each don’t deserve their own section here, but because it’s good for SEOs to understand that those 3 languages are what comprise much of how modern web pages are coded (with many exceptions of course, & some of those will be noted elsewhere here).

HTML stands for “Hypertext Markup Language” and it’s the original & foundational language of web pages on the World Wide Web.

CSS stands for “Cascading Style Sheets” and is a style sheet language used to style and position HTML elements on a web page, enabling separation of presentation and content.

JavaScript (not to be confused with the programming language “Java”) is a client-side scripting language to create interactive features on web pages.

Further reading:

• HTML intro
• CSS intro
• JavaScript intro

AJAX & XML

AJAX stands for “Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. Asynchronous means the client/browser and the server can work & communicate independently allowing the user to continue interaction with the web page independent of what’s happening on the server. JavaScript is used to make the asynchronous server requests and when the server responds JavaScript modifies the page content displayed to the user. Data sent asynchronously from the server to the client is packaged in an XML format, so it can be easily processed by JavaScript. This reduces the traffic between the client and the server which increases response time and speed.

XML stands for “Extensible Markup Language” and is similar to HMTL using tags, elements, and attributes and was designed to both store and transport data, whereas HTML is used to display data. For the purposes of SEO, the most common usage of XML is in XML Sitemap files.

Structured Data (AKA, Schema.org)

Structured data is markup you can add to the HTML of a page to help search engines better-understand the content of the page, or at least certain elements of that page. By using the approved standard formats, you provide additional information that makes it easier for search engines to parse the pertinent data on the page.

Common uses of structured data are to markup certain aspects of recipes, literary works, products, places, events of various types, and much more.

Schema.org was launched on June 2, 2011, as a collaborative effort by Google, Bing and Yahoo (soon after joined by Yandex) to create a common set of agreed-upon and standardized set of schemas for structured data markup on web pages. Since then, the term “Schema.org” has become synonymous with the term “structured data”, and Schema.org structured data types are continually evolving with new types being added with relative frequency.

One of the main takeaways about structured data is that it helps disambiguate data for search engines so they can more easily understand information and data, and that certain marked-up elements may result in additional information being displayed in Search Engines Results Pages (SERPs), such as review stars, recipe cooking times, and so on. Note that adding structured data is not a guarantee of such SERP features.

There are a number of structured data vocabularies that exist, but JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) has emerged as Google’s preferred and recommended method of doing structured data markup per the Schema.org guidelines, but other formats are also supported such as microdata and RDFa. JSON-LD is easier to add to pages, easier to maintain and change, and less prone to errors than microdata which must be wrapped around existing HML elements, whereas JSON-LD can be added as a single block in the HTML head section of a web page.

Here is the Schema.org FAQ page for further investigation.

Front-End vs. Back-End, Client-side vs. Server-Side

You may have talked to a developer who said, “I’m a front-end developer” and wondered what that meant. Of you may have heard someone say “oh, that’s a back-end functionality”. It can seem confusing what all this means, but it’s easily clarified.

“Front-end” and “client-side” both mean the same thing: it happens (executes) in the browser. For example, JavaScript was originally developed as something that executed on a web page in the browser, and that means without having to make a call to the server.

“Back-end” and “server-side” both mean the same thing: it happens (executes) on a server. For example, PHP is a server-side scripting language that executes on the server, not in the browser. Some Content Management Systems (CMS for short) like WordPress use PHP-based templates for web pages, and the content is called from the server to display in the browser.

Programming vs. Scripting Languages

Engineers and developers do have differing explanations and definitions of terms and some will say ultimately there’s no differences or that the lines are blurry, but the generally accepted difference between a programming language (like C or Pascal) vs. a scripting language (like JavaScript or PHP) is that a programming language requires an explicit compiling step where human-created, human-readable code is turned into a specific set of machine-language instructions understandable by a computer.

Content Management System (CMS)

A CMS is a software application or a set of related programs used to create & manage websites (or we can use the fancy term “digital content”). At the core, you can use a CMS to create, edit, publish, and archive web pages, blog posts & articles and will typically have various built-in features.

Using a CMS to create a website means that there is no need to create any code from scratch, which is one of the main reasons CMS’ have broad appeal.

Another common aspect of CMS’ are plugins, which can be integrated with the core CMS to extend functionalities which are not part of the core CMS feature list.

Common CMS’ include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, ExpressionEngine, Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, and there are many, many others.

Read more here about Content Management Systems

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Sometimes called a “Content Distribution Network”, CDNs are large networks of servers which are geographically dispersed with the goal of serving web content from a server location closer to the client making the request in order to reduce latency (transfer delay). CDNs cache copies of your web content across these servers, and then servers nearest to the website visitor serve the requested web content. CDNs are used to provide high availability along with high performance. More info here.

HTTPS, SSL, & TLS

Web data is passed between computers via data packets of code. Clients (web browsers) serve as the user interface when we request a web page from a server. HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) is the communication method a browser uses to “talk to” a server and make requests. HTTPS is the secure version of this (hypertext transfer protocol secure). Website owners can switch their website to HTTPS to make the connection with users more secure and less prone to “man in the middle attacks” where a 3^rd party intercepts or possibly alters the communication.

SSL refers to “secure sockets layer” and is a standard security protocol to establish communication encryption between the server and the browser. TLS, Transport Layer Security, is a more-recent version of SSL

• More info on HTTPS, SSL, & TLS

HTTP/1.1 & HTTP/2

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the HTTP protocol in 1989, the computer he used did not have the processing power and memory of today’s computers. A client (browser) connecting to a server using HTTP/1.1 receives information in a sequence of network request-response transactions, which are often referred to as “round trips” to the server, sometimes called “handshakes”. Each round trip takes time, and HTTPS is an HTTP connection with SSL/TSL layered in which requires yet-another handshake with the server. All of this takes time, causing latency. What was fast enough then is not necessarily fast enough now.

HTTP/2 is the first new version of HTTP since 1.1. Simply put, HTTP/2 allows the server to deliver more resources to the client/browser faster than HTTP/1.1 by utilizing multiplexing, compression, request prioritization, and server push which allows the server to send resources to the client that have not yet been requested.

• Read this HTTP/2 FAQ here.

Application Programming Interface (API)

Application is a general term that, simply put, refers to a type of software that can perform specific tasks. Applications include software, web browsers, and databases. An API is an interface with an application, typically a database. The API is like a messenger that takes requests, tells the system what you want, and returns the response back to you.  If you’re in a restaurant and want the kitchen to make you a certain dish, the waiter who takes your order is the messenger that communicates between you and the kitchen, which is analogous to using an API to request and retrieve information from a database. More info here.

AMP, PWA, & SPA

If you want to build a website today, you have many choices.

You can build it from scratch using HTML for content delivery along with CSS for look and feel and JavaScript for interactive elements.

Or you could use a CMS (content management system) like WordPress, Magento, or Drupal.

Or you could build it with AMP, PWA, or SPA.

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages and is an open source Google initiative which is a specified set of HTML tags and various functionality components which are ever-evolving. The upside to AMP is lightning-fast loading web pages when coded according to AMP specifications, the downside is some desired features may not be currently supported, and issues with proper analytics tracking. More info here.

PWA stands for Progressive Web App and it blends a lot of the best worlds between traditional websites and mobile phone apps using “service workers” to communicate between the client and server making for fast loading web pages and with the ability to act like a native mobile phone app at the same time, but because PWAs are JavaScript frameworks you may encounter a number of technical challenges. PWAs deliver a native app-like experience to users such as push notifications, the ability to work offline, and create a start icon on your mobile phone. Read more about PWAs here and here.

SPAs – Single Page Applications – are different from traditional web pages which load each page a user requests in a session via repeated communications with the server. SPAs, by contrast, run inside the browser and new pages viewed in a user session don’t require page reloading via server requests. Examples of SPAs are Angular, React, Ember, and others. Primary advantages of SPAs include streamlined and simplified development, and a very fast user experience. Primary disadvantages include potential problems with SEO due to Search Engine’s inconsistent ability to parse content served by JavaScript, and debugging issues can be more difficult & take more developer time.

Read more about SPAs here,

It’s worth noting that future success of each of these web technologies ultimately depends on developer adoption.

Conclusion

Obviously, it would require a very long book to cover each and every bit of web technology, and in sufficient detail, but this guide should provide you the professional SEO with helpful info to fill in some of the blanks in your understanding of various key aspects of web technology.

I’ve provided many links in this article that serve as jumping off points for any topics you would like to explore further. There’s no doubt that there are many more topics SEOs need to be conversant with such as robots.txt files, meta robots tags, rel canonical tags, XML Sitemaps, server response codes, and much more.

In closing here’s a nice article on the Stanford website titled “How Does The Internet Work” which you might find interesting reading; you can find that here.

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