Meredith's husband: 0:24

Part two of the IQ Builder how to turn SEO into common sense and if you haven't heard part one of this, I recommend listening to that first.

Meredith: 0:33

I do too.

Meredith's husband: 0:34

Yeah, okay.

Meredith: 0:35

So make more sense.

Meredith's husband: 0:36

Yes, in this episode I'm just going to go through some things that are in my IQ Builder. Okay, got five examples. If you want more, you can go to Merit's Husband. Yes, check it out. Number one and no real particular order, but I think number one. I made number one because I think it's pretty common People are confused Meta tags. You've heard a lot about meta tags, right, and how important they are for SEO. They seem like the secret thing you got to do your meta tags, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so meta tags are just. There's really only one meta tag. There's your meta description tag. Your title tag is your title tag. That's technically not a meta tag. And there's your meta keywords tag, which used to be popular years ago. Google doesn't even look at it anymore. Nobody looks. No search engines look at it. So it's your meta description tag that we're talking about now. So what people say is this is really important for SEO, right?

Meredith: 1:26

Right. Do you want to define what it is? I?

Meredith's husband: 1:29

will. Yes, okay, but the rumor that you've probably heard is, oh, super important for SEO. You got to put your keywords in your meta description tag, right, okay? So your meta description tag is the little bit of text that shows up right on Google. Yes, when you do a search beneath the title tag, so it's the little text, the black paragraph text. There's usually like a sentence worth of text there. Okay, now, as a user, when you go to Google and you do a search, how often do you read the meta description tag?

Meredith: 2:00

I would think always.

Meredith's husband: 2:03

Well, probably not always I don't know.

Meredith: 2:05

I don't have it in front of me so I can't. I don't know, so what?

Meredith's husband: 2:08

you would probably do like first, you're going to look at the title tags Title yeah. And if the title looks good, then you're going to read the meta description tag. So you're going to probably glance at a lot of at least several of the title tags and maybe one or two of the meta description tags, or maybe you just click through. So my point is fewer people are going to read the meta description tag than the title tag.

Meredith: 2:30

It's less important than the title tag. Yes, that absolutely. It's in descending order. Yes, exactly.

Meredith's husband: 2:37

And so if you read the meta description, as a user and you decide you want to check out that page and you go to that page. All that needs to happen is that your meta description needs to coincide with what is actually on the page. You can't stuff all your keywords into your meta description about one thing and then have your page be about like kind of something a little different, right, okay, that's the importance. If you were Google, that's what you want to have happen. Okay.

Meredith: 3:02

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 3:03

So, as a website owner, you just need to make sure that every page has its own meta description tag. It needs to be different? Okay, it needs to describe. It literally needs to describe what is on that page. That's all you need to do. You don't need to worry about stuffing your keywords in there Doesn't matter. Google has said you don't need to stuff keywords in your meta description tags. It makes no difference. Okay, here's a. That's one. That was number one, Number two JavaScript. Have you heard about JavaScript?

Meredith: 3:31

I've heard about it.

Meredith's husband: 3:32

Yeah, javascript is really bad for SEO. You want to avoid JavaScript whenever you can.

Meredith: 3:36

Okay.

Meredith's husband: 3:37

Okay, and so what JavaScript does is it controls the action on a website. So, for example, when things move, basically that's JavaScript is making that happen.

Meredith: 3:50

When things move. What do you mean when things move?

Meredith's husband: 3:53

basically, that's JavaScript is making that happen when things move. What do you mean by when things move, like a drop-down menu? Oh, drop-down menus are going to be controlled by JavaScript. Videos, videos no, okay, unless if you have like something that opens up a video, like, say, there's a FAQ section, sometimes you click a question and the information drops down, that is JavaScript. If you have something like that that says display video and then it opens it up, that's JavaScript.

Meredith: 4:19

Okay, okay.

Meredith's husband: 4:20

Okay. So again, as a user, when you go to a webpage, what is, what are some of the first things you do? So you probably do things like you look at the headline, you look at the subheadings, you probably look at the navigation.

Meredith: 4:34

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 4:34

What you don't do. I'm assuming, or tell me if I'm wrong. You probably don't open up all the dropdowns and check to see what's inside all of them.

Meredith: 4:42

Correct. Especially, you do whatever you came there to do.

Meredith's husband: 4:47

Right, and so Google knows this, right. So when something is inside a dropdown, ie uses JavaScript. Yes, okay, so it uses JavaScript. Whatever is in that dropdown is going to be given less importance by Google, right, right, it's inside. You need JavaScript. So Google technically can read JavaScript. Yeah, they really kind of don't. If you put something behind JavaScript, there's a decent chance Google is not even going to read it. It's not even going to see it, and a lot of other search engines do not. Ai bots do not. They don't even bother trying to read JavaScript right now.

Meredith: 5:24

Right now, by the time this podcast airs in four days.

Meredith's husband: 5:28

So yeah, the concept or the term JavaScript, you know, and JavaScript being bad for SEO, that's what it is.

Meredith: 5:35

Okay.

Meredith's husband: 5:36

If somebody comes to your website and they need to take an action in order to see some of your content. Yes, there's JavaScript, right, that's not as important, okay, right. Okay, that was number two. Number three XML sitemap. Okay, does that sound confusing?

Meredith: 5:53

Yes.

Meredith's husband: 5:58

Okay, everything sounds confusing. Xml sitemap okay, does that sound confusing? Yes, okay, everything sounds. It's a sitemap. It's exact. It's a map of your website. Now it's xml because it used to be. They used to have html sitemaps. Remember, like, like years ago, you would go to a website and there'd be a sitemap on the bottom and you click on it and it would just list all the pages on a website.

Meredith: 6:14

No.

Meredith's husband: 6:14

Okay, well, that used to happen. They don't do that anymore. It's what we call. They changed it and they do it with XML now, and Google and all other search engines recognize this format called XML and it's literally just a map of your website. You are literally saying to Google hey, google, here are all my pages and where to find them.

Meredith: 6:37

Got it Okay, like the little brochure when you go to a zoo, which you shouldn't, yes, like a little map.

Meredith's husband: 6:42

I think of it like the directory in a mall.

Meredith: 6:45

Oh, that's better If you remember malls like you go into the mall, Do I?

Meredith's husband: 6:48

remember malls, there's a little directory Orange Julius. Yeah, you are here. You look at all the stars. That's like what a sitemap is doing. Got it Okay, pretty simple concept.

Meredith: 6:59

Yeah, but. Xml sitemap people are yeah, why yeah?

Meredith's husband: 7:03

Again, it's because coders created these things.

Meredith: 7:07

Blame the coders.

Meredith's husband: 7:07

Yes, okay.

Meredith: 7:09

It's all the coders.

Meredith's husband: 7:09

A similar, now a similar one. That was number three, a similar one. Number four is the robotstxt file. What, yeah, sounds confusing, right?

Meredith: 7:19

All these, yeah, yeah, I can tell it's making your head hurt. Yes.

Meredith's husband: 7:23

A robotstxt file is like the security guard at the door of the mall.

Meredith: 7:29

Of the mall.

Meredith's husband: 7:29

It doesn't. He or she doesn't let everyone into the mall, Right? Okay, your robotstxt file does the same thing. It lets it. Presumably you're always going to let people into your website, but maybe you have a private area, that where you don't want people to go, and you're going to say, hey, browsers can go here, but they don't go over here. Or, what a lot of people don't realize is that there's a lot of, there's thousands and thousands of bots out there crawling the web all the time. Your robotstxt file is going to say, hey, bots from Google, yeah, you guys are allowed to go over here. Bots from Spandex you guys are not allowed. Ok, bots from destroy all websites?

Meredith: 8:11

Yeah, exactly Not allowed. Yeah, ok, that's what a robottxt, okay, bots from Destroy all websites? Yeah, exactly Not allowed.

Meredith's husband: 8:14

Yeah, okay, that's what a robotstxt file is doing.

Meredith: 8:19

Pretty simple. What does a txt mean? Is it text?

Meredith's husband: 8:21

It's a text file. That's just a text file. Yeah right, your robotstxt file is a file and there's not even two full sentences of text there. Usually Are those the things that you have on your computer and you have thousands of them, and you don't want to delete them. No, those are you mean, like the files that?

Meredith: 8:42

begin with a dot. Yeah, no, those are that's something different.

Meredith's husband: 8:44

Okay, okay, that was number four. Number five this is a pretty common one 3xx errors what?

Meredith: 8:50

Again sounds confusing right. It sounds like XXX.

Meredith's husband: 8:55

Well, it's 3XX, 3xx errors. So an error like a 301, a 302, a 304. 401? Nope, those would be 4XX. Similar but different. 3xx errors are redirects. Okay, okay, a redirect. You try to go to one page and you probably don't realize it as a user, but you might be redirected to another page. It happens behind the scenes.

Meredith: 9:22

Indeed.

Meredith's husband: 9:23

These are interesting because they're both good and bad. Sometimes you need them and sometimes you don't, so let me give you an example.

Meredith: 9:30

Please.

Meredith's husband: 9:31

Let's say you are a shop owner. Yes, let's say a hardware store, you've got a hardware store. I'm just making this up, somebody comes in and somebody comes in and they say I need a hammer. Where are your hammers? Yes, and you as the web, the web shop, the shop owner says hammers are on aisle seven.

Meredith's husband: 9:52

Super customer goes over to aisle seven. There's a little note in aisle seven that says hammers are on aisle two. Oh, okay, well, go over to, because they used to be on aisle seven. Right, right, okay. So the user, or the user, the customer, goes to aisle two. In aisle two there's a little note that says hammers are on aisle four.

Meredith: 10:10

That's when you leave the store.

Meredith's husband: 10:11

Yeah, well, let's say, you really really need a hammer.

Meredith: 10:14

Okay, you go to aisle four.

Meredith's husband: 10:17

Aisle four says there's a note that says hammers are on aisle 10. And that's where the hammers are. Okay, so great. Oh my gosh. So let's say you knew exactly where the hammers were as the owner of the shop.

Meredith: 10:29

Right.

Meredith's husband: 10:30

So why did you tell the customer to go through all those? Okay, you wouldn't do that. That's when redirects are bad. Yeah, internally, if somebody is in your site, you don't want to do that.

Meredith: 10:42

No, you do not.

Meredith's husband: 10:44

So let's say you hire an employee Okay, you're the owner you hire a new, a new person to help you.

Meredith: 10:50

Yes.

Meredith's husband: 10:51

And that person doesn't know where the hammers are, but they did know that they were on aisle four at one point. So if they tell people they were or at least they might not be now, but check aisle four, that the customer can go to aisle four and then see, oh, they moved to aisle 10. So similarly, if other websites link to a page on your website that has moved, you want those people to be redirected.

Meredith: 11:19

Yes, okay, there we go.

Meredith's husband: 11:22

So those are redirects. Hopefully that makes sense. That's what 3XX errors are and 3XX 90% of the time it's going to be a 301. It's a redirect.

Meredith: 11:31

Okay.

Meredith's husband: 11:32

The others are much more rare.

Meredith: 11:34

Okay, so does that help make these things? Yeah, that makes more sense. I feel like there need to be little bobbleheads or figurines of like a security guard wearing the TXT.

Meredith's husband: 11:50

That's great. I should do that, I should animate. So these are all examples from my IQ builder. I should create little characters for each entry. Yeah, little icons.

Meredith: 11:59

Because then you'd be able to visualize oh the 3XX.

Meredith's husband: 12:03

Yeah, you know what I'm saying Makes it more friendly and approachable, just at least visual. Yeah, so if this has helped, if you know somebody who is frustrated by things like this and thinks SEO is confusing, send them this or send them.

Meredith: 12:19

The previous episode yes, previous episode one right before.

Meredith's husband: 12:22

This is a good intro to this one, yeah, and next week we will talk about how AI is sort of making some of these things more important than others.

Meredith: 12:31

Interesting.

Meredith's husband: 12:34

I hope this helps. I hope it helps too.

Meredith: 12:37

And we're telling that there are no secrets because it's all common sense.

Meredith's husband: 12:42

The secret is there are no secrets. Shh, don't tell anyone, there's no secret.