Mastering the Art of SEO: Technical Communicators Nirvana

Shikha Saxena Sep 17, 2020 · 6 min read

Have you ever wondered what goes behind the scene, to bring back the results of the query, about that favorite restaurant you wish to dine in or the chocolate cake recipe you wish to bake or answers to your health-related questions? How relevant and closely related answers to frequently asked questions are prioritized and displayed in the search results on Google, Bing or Yahoo? How you are intuitively inclined to click on certain search results that look more appealing to you? Answer to all these deep questions, are hidden in the depths of SEO, Structured Data and Schema Mark-up concepts. Explore the nuances of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Structured Data and Schema Mark-up and their effects and contributions to web pages. Know how mastering the art of SEO is Technical Communicator’s Nirvana!

Who are Technical Communicators?

Technical Communicators are a tribe of communicators , who explain a complex technical product or service in a simple way, to different groups of audiences, in the language they understand. The explanation and jargon used may vary in its technicality, according to the audience they are communicating with.

They have in depth knowledge about the product and services and have understanding from end user perspective , both these qualities make them, bridge the gap and improve quality of the product offered in any business platform.

Technical Communicators research and create information on assigned topics for a targeted audiences. They communicate through web pages, websites, blogs, vlogs (video blogs), social media sites. They craft the content copy technically and creatively to reach their audience and leave impact!

History and Evolution of SEO (1991–2020…)

First signs of SEO were seen soon after the birth of internet on Aug 6, 1991 when Tim Berners-Lee launched world’d first website, which is still live today.

It was difficult to understand the impact and effect of SEO back then on regular life. I am first hand witness of history and evolution of SEO in quarter century. Vastness of information on any subject and topic, in fraction of seconds, on the screen on my study table, amazed me. SEO used to be simple and primitive stage back then.

It takes the hardwork and determination of knowledge seeking individuals that SEO has taken such a giant form, which serve the targeted information to the audience with a personalized, customized , relevant and engaging content.

From floating sea of information you receive quick answers to your questions, at request of your finger tips, through your hand held device!

It’s magical!

Later Yahoo(1994) and Google(1997) emerged to gradually simplify and improve how to index information and deliver data in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

In earlier stages keyword stuffing, excessive tagging and use of faulty links contributed majorly, to generate high ranking in the SERPs.

Search engine giants like Google revolutionized the search by connecting users, providing relevant valuable content and worked to implement rules and regulations of internet to form the basis of SEO Strategies we have in place today!

Mastering the Art of SEO of Webpages

Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is the technical process of increasing the visibility of websites during the search and possibility of being found by search engines.

Search engines like Google identify what the site is all about and bring forth the right content to the right people. Through constant practice and intuition you can master the Art of SEO of web pages for personal or business website usage.

What prioritizes webpage in search results?

Webpage content is crafted in such a manner that they provide solution to the problems of readers. The answer to the questions of the searchers, they are looking forward for. To increase the visibility of your webpage, divert more organic traffic and liking towards your page, follow eightfold path of SEO Strategies:

Write unique content — Write original, unique high quality content to stand out. It can be in the form of new tips or strategies, list of resources, strong design and UX, may be a new case study and so on. Enrich your readers with something unique and useful.
Analyze Google’s first page — Analyze Google’s first page to notice current trends in posts and work out your content and title, accordingly.
Research and Create a list of Keywords — Everything revolves around keywords in SEO. Create a list of keywords for your practice and think from user’s perspective. Use long tail (long string of words) keywords in the content that user might think of , while searching a particular thing or service on the web.
Add anchor links — Anchor links, a URL with a pound (#) sign enhances user experience. This tells the browser to move and directly load the page and then move to pre-specified position to the relevant content, required by the user. Keyword used in anchor is noted by the web spider.
Optimize for On- page SEO — On-page SEO is the technique which enables content by enriching it with optimum amount of relevant keywords, at the right place, Title tags, Alt texts, schema, meta tags, internal links and URL. On -page SEO focus on optimizing website parts which are under your control.
Optimize for Off- page SEO — Take a plunge in technical, off- page SEO tools and techniques to increase the visibility of webpages. It refers to all activities done away from website to enhance its ranking in the search pages. It includes, link building, Social media power, comments and reviews, guest posting, trust building with users and service providers, use of videos and images and so on.
Build internal and external links — Develop link building techniques to offer more to your readers. Furnish internal links to your content pages also provide external links and back links to your social media and blog posts.
Update and reiterate content — Always go back and read your content and update with new information and data for freshness of content.

What enhance the visibility of your website?

Understand category of website pagesand bring back the results on priority basis on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Draft rich content to increase the Click Through Rates (CTRs) and conversions on webpages.

SEO strategies enable you to optimize your business web pages as the top-ranking, search results, when Google or other search engines crawl the web, to bring back the relevant results for your search query, about business similar to yours. Learn to optimize the pages, to be fetched by Google on priority basis.

Rich texts, meaningful content,

Title of content,

Keywords for the service/business,

Meta descriptions to describe your service,

Headings of the content,

Subheadings for ease of reading and to explain content,

Images relevant to the service and alt-texts to describe the image,

Tags to make the web pages visible to different networks/categories,

…are some techniques to increase visibility and make the web page search engine worthy.

Open your mind and soul. Learn true technical writing techniques of enriching and embellishing your content with text rich snippets at optimized level. Step into the light of Eightfold path of SEO strategies, gradually master the art of optimizing content and attain the state of Nirvana by honing the skill. Attaining mastery in this art of Search Engine Optimization needs efforts and serious dedication!

Once mastered the art of SEO, it offers rewards and sense of liberation of soul! A complete Nirvana!

Dive into the information data lake, to bring out the secrets of new age Technical Writing.Make yourself ready to learn the secrets to rank your personal or business websites on top of SERPs. Learning and imbibing knowledge of “What’s new” in SEO techniques, reading and diving into the sea of information and practicing SEO Strategies, will help to master the art of SEO in steps.

Similar to, as required to learn the Japanese martial art techniques through concept of Shu-Ha- Ri and concepts of Agile learning in software documentation development:

Creative Enrichment (Shu): Through learning the evolution of SEO and concepts of SEO, Structured Data, Schema Mark-Up and working mechanism of Search Engines on Google Search.
Awakening (Ha): You might have created tons of data so far, now master the art create the structured content with technical, On- page, Off-page SEO strategies in mind, for better search results of your websites.
Enlightenment(Ri): Deepening of connection with intricacies of structured data creation and its importance and tapping the power of Schema Mark-up.

By drafting the SEO content for webpages, Technical Communicators may enable search engines to crawl on web and efficiently find answers and results to the query, in webpages preferentially. The relevant results and the best answer, to search query on Google. SEO Strategies will equip technical communicators in creating structured web content, with search engine worthy, rich snippets, to move the business web pages and personal website pages on top of the search results.

This also has the added advantage of becoming listed as rich snippet, featured snippet or be introduced in Google knowledge graph placement and increase your page visibility!

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WRITTEN BY

Shikha Saxena

A Technical Writer, an artist and blogger by choice. Passionate about reading , writing and editing. http://www.shikhasaxena.com and https://www.dnabox.co/