Some easy SEO fixes to make your site more visible

We’ve been optimizing websites for search engines far longer than is probably healthy. And one thing we’ve learned over the years is that, despite what SEMRush dashboards and Neil Patel ebooks would have you believe, SEO (search engine optimization) isn’t rocket science. Or brain surgery. Really, any of the professions that require a lab coat. 

In fact, improving your website’s SEO is often simpler than you might imagine. That’s because it has more in common with a library catalogue than the esoteric sorcery to which it’s often compared.

Two low-hanging SEO fruits in particular go unplucked by many organizations. Doing so won’t necessarily vault you to the top of the search results in an instant, but they’ll provide a considerable boost relative to the amount of effort they require.

And before you ask: yes, this applies to AIO, GEO, or whatever -O is your organization’s current priority. 

Update each page’s title tag and meta description

Title tags and meta descriptions are how search crawlers know how to categorize a web page. That makes them important for obvious reasons—you could have the world’s best cherry pie recipe on your page, but if the title tag doesn’t say “world’s best cherry pie,” search crawlers won’t consider it as such.

These two (very short) bits of text also determine how your site appears in a SERP, or search engine results page. If the title tag or meta description doesn’t seem relevant—or just looks weird—people are unlikely to click. After all, they could just scroll down and find a better option.

Both title tags and meta descriptions should contain the keyword that’s most relevant to your page (e.g. “cherry pie”), and they should be short enough to display the full text. Tools like Spotibo are helpful for ensuring you’re within the character limits.

Add alt text (with relevant search terms) to images

You’ve probably heard about alt text’s utility for making websites more accessible to people with vision impairments. Humans aren’t the only ones who can encounter that snippet, though. Search crawlers also look at alt text to determine how relevant your page is for a specific query.

That’s because the goal of search crawlers is to provide people with the results people find useful—and people are famously fond of pictures. For example, if you’re searching for a recipe for cherry pie, chances are you want to see a picture of cherry pie, too. 

Pages with images rank better on a SERP, but they have to be relevant images. A picture of cute kittens means nothing to someone hungry for pie. And since search crawlers have no eyes, alt text is how they know if your page’s images are likely to meet the expectations of potential viewers. That’s why putting “cherry pie” in your alt text helps with search visibility.

We hope these (relatively) fast and easy suggestions are helpful for dipping your toe into the exciting world of SEO. And if you’re interested in a deeper immersion, we also hope you’ll get in touch.

Oh, and one more thing…

Because the last word is rarely the end of the conversation.

• A picture is worth a thousand words, but a great headline is worth at least a half-dozen pictures—and “Scientists Gave Cocaine to Salmon and You Will Absolutely Believe What Happened Next” might be the genre’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.

• Writers: if you ever get caught publishing an AI-generated essay in the New York Times, this is a masterclass on how to (somehow) make yourself look even worse.

• If getting confidently wrong answers from chatbots has you yearning for a more interactive online experience, why not head over to Your AI Slop Bores Me and get a response from a human pretending to be a chatbot?

Pebbles of the month

Much like penguins, we enjoy bringing you little gifts to show we care:

This list of easy stretches to relieve tech neck (at your desk!) is the Platonic ideal of a pebble.

If you’re worried about being secretly recorded by a person wearing Meta Ray-Bans, the Nearby Glasses app warns you when you’re in the presence of someone with them.

Heifer International, a nonprofit working to end global food insecurity, is hiring a Senior Manager for Strategic Transformation Communications. Fully remote, $96k-$125k a year with benefits.

Books are still good

Here’s what one of us is currently reading:

Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke

“I turn the corner and step into the warm light of the kitchen and stop short.

This is my home.

This is not my home.

I’m looking at my kitchen, which is also somehow not my kitchen. The size and layout and decorations are near-exactly the same–the same dinner table, the same wooden countertops– but the floorboards are wider and uneven and there are no overhead lights. No light whatsoever, I realize slowly, except for the fireplace. In my house, the kitchen fireplace is nonfunctional. In this house, the flames pop and crackle in the cold, providing the only light in the room. Illuminating the others.

Sitting by the fire are my children, who are also not my children.”

You wake up in your bed, and surprise, it’s 1855! What? You sort of, but barely, recognize the house and family around you. Luckily, you’re a tradwife influencer who’s been extolling raw milk, soapmaking, and “traditional” gender roles for years—you’ve got this! Right?

If that premise—and imagining what (fictional) public, notorious figures might do in such a situation—intrigues you, then this is your spring read. Our “heroine” must get through the daily grind that she’s been romanticizing, while also trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Once she realizes that Yesteryear Farm is no Stardew Valley, is it possible to escape?

This is a book for people who can enjoy, or at least tolerate, unreliable, unlikeable narrators, shifting plots, and thriller-esque twists. Suffice to say, it’s going to be controversial on Goodreads. But I found it fun and gripping, and was very relieved that Burke ultimately sticks the convoluted landing.

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