Mike Bifulco: This is Tiny Improvements.

I'm Mike by ko

SEO is the growth engine for your work?

If you're building a brand, a
business or a personal website,

taking the time to invest in SEO or search
engine optimization will help your work

get discovered when people search for
related topics on Google being ducked up.

And other search engines.

In my experience, developers often
overlook SEO for one reason or

another, but it's a critical part
of building a successful website.

Side note, SEO is a massive topic.

I'm far from an expert, but I've found
it invaluable to learn a few basics., if

I got anything wrong here or, you know,
more than me, I'd love to hear from you.

Drop me a line at hello at Mike bi-fold.

go.com.

My position on SEO is this.

It's a growth engine for your
work and when done, right.

It can have a flywheel effect
that will put your work in

front of more people over time.

It's not as immediately satisfying as
racking up likes on a social media post.

But it persists longterm and
can help you build a sustainable

audience for your work.

It's a slow release dopamine, if you will.

I've been publishing articles under
my own name for a few years now, and a

steady investment in search now sends
thousands of readers a month to my work.

We've also been investing in SEO at
Kraftwerk, and it's been fun to learn

about how focusing on search for a local
business differs from a personal website.

But the principles are the same.

Think about what your work will
look like when it's shared.

When someone comes across your work
and they share it on their social

media feed, you want it to look good?

Right?

It should have a catchy, meaningful
title, a useful description, and

an image that draws people in.

This is also what will show up when
your work is shared on social media

or when it shows up in search results.

Functionally.

This means you need to make sure
your site has good metadata.

Metadata is the information about
your site that search engines use to

understand what your site is about?

It's also what social media
platforms you use to display

your content when it's shared.

Here are a few tips to get you started.

The title and H one tags on each page
are most likely to be used as the

title of the page in search results.

Make sure these are
descriptive and accurate.

The meta name equals description
tag is used as the description

of the page in search results.

Try to keep it less than 150
characters and make it a meaningful

summary of the pages content.

The Metta property OJI image tag is
used as the image that shows up when

your page is shared on social media.

Make sure it's a high quality image
thumbnail that represents the content

of the page and that it's at least 1200
by 630 pixels in size with an aspect

ratio of 1.91 to one that will help
it to look good on most platforms.

Use structured data with Jason
LD for enhanced search results.

Picture a list of Google
search results in your head.

You're probably seeing a list of blue
links with a short description below them.

, but have you ever seen a search result
with a video thumbnail or a recipe with

a picture and the list of ingredients?

That's no accident.

It's the result of Google's
crawlers finding something called

structured data on the results page.

When your site shows up like
this, it's called a rich result.

It can help your site stand out in
search results and give your work

a better chance of being seen.

There are many types of structured
data, which Google supports,

including articles, videos, events.

Products, software apps and many more.

Google publisher's list of these
called structured data markup.

And you can check it out on
Google site to see if there's

a type that fits your content.

, if there is, you can use a format
called Jason L D on pages on your

site to help Google understand what
the content on that page is about.

I recently did this for my website pages.

That feature video now include a
video object, structured data embed

it's as simple as including a bit of
Jason on the page inside a script tag.

Check out my recent poll request
to see how I made it happen.

There's a link in the show notes.

Keyword research is a great way
to understand your audience.

All right friends.

Here's where I need to call myself out.

I'm not great at this, but I know
it's important and I'm working on it.

Here's the idea when making something
new, it's really helpful to make sure

you're creating content about things
that people are actually searching for.

Use keyword research, to understand what
people are searching for, and then create

content that matches those searches.

It's as easy as that.

There are loads of tools out here
to help with keyword research.

But I found that the best free tools
for this are the Google search console.

And Refs webmaster tools.

Both of these tools will show
you what people are searching

for when they find your site and
what your site is ranking for.

This can help you understand
what people are looking for and

what you can do to make your site
more relevant to those searches.

If you're looking for free tools to
help you understand your site's SEO.

I really like the SEO extension
from detailed as a tool for

inspecting the metadata on each page.

It's a Chrome extension that shows
you the metadata for the page you're

on and it gives you a score for
how well it's set up for search.

It's a great way to quickly
check if your titles and

descriptions are set up correctly.

For inspecting structured data.

When you add structured data to your
site, you can use the Google search

central schema markup testing tool
and schema.org validator to make

sure your pages are set up correctly.

And if you're looking for more, you
may want to check out the fantastic

SEO newsletter from positional it's
well-researched highly informed

and a great way to learn about SEO.

I've also written a bit more about SEO.

I wrote a tutorial on setting up
self healing URLs in your next

JSA that you might find useful.

And if you've ever wondered how to
correctly add subtitles to your H one

tags, I've got you covered there too.

I've also created a list of the
SEO tools I use to grow my sites

to 20,000 visitors a month.

If you're interested in
reading these articles.

Open up your podcast player to the show
notes and you'll find links there.

Focusing on SEO.

Certainly isn't all there is
to being successful online.

But it's something that builds
over time and it's really safe.

But it's something that builds
over time and it's extremely

satisfying to get it right.

If like me, You're motivated by watching
tiny little charts grow over time.

This might be for you.

And honestly, even if that's
not your thing, SEO is

probably still worth your time.

I once heard that it's valuable
to share something with a friend

and it's more valuable to share
something with two friends.

The best thing about SEO is that
over time, you're sharing your

knowledge with people who you
could never imagine meeting.

It's such a cool thing to see.

And one of my favorite things about the
internet, I hope you give it a shot.