Ah, the internet! It is as vast, chaotic, and beautiful as standing in front of the ocean (almost). You may have just finished your internet master piece, or hired someone to help, only to find out you barely made it to page 5 of Google's search results. No one has ever even been to page 5. 

That is where SEO comes into play. At Blue Archer we have kept tabs on Google updates, optimized our own blog to practice what we preach, and we have even shared some of the insider scoop on the basics of SEO. Now it is time to get into some technical aspects that you may not have heard about when sorting through your white hats, keywords, and links (see what we did in that last sentence-- we are pretty slick). 

Redirects & Canonicals

When optimizing your website you will find that you may end up changing URLs. This may be to match the URL better with keywords or page titles. Changing your URL will lead you into the business of redirects. To fully understand redirecting a URL you need to know the status codes. 

• 200 OK: All good. Page loads just fine.
• 301 Moved Permanetly: Permanently relocated that information somewhere else.
• 302 Found (Moved Temporarily): This page is over here for the time being, but it won't stay like that forever.
• 404 Not Found: This page doesn't exist. 
• 410 Gone: We've requested a page and the web server knows what we're asking for, but the page is gone.
• 500 Internal Server Error: We've requested a page, and in return, we get a generic error message. No information is given.

301 redirects will be primarily used when you are matching up your new URLs. 

Canonicals also come into play with this. This will be used for duplicate or nearly duplicate content. So if multiple URLs lead to your homepage, but you prefer search engines to only crawl one, you would set up canonicaled page. This also means the URL must appear in your sitemap. 

Coding & SEO

Thought you get a free pass out of coding because you signed up for SEO instead? Well, you thought wrong! Don't worry, there won't be too much. 

Basic HTML

• Title Tag: Keep important keywords near the beginning and have each title unique. This should be no longer than 80 characters. 
• Meta Description Tag: Make sure the description is well written to influence a higher click-through rate. Use important keywords and keep it within 155 characters. 
• Hyperlink & Image Links: Include keywords in the alt text and limit links to 150 per page at max.

Social Media 

Open Graph can significantly assist with your link preview on social media platforms. This code will be inserted between

• Title
• Description
• URL
• Image
• Content Type
• Site Name 

Similar to Open Graph, Twitter has Twitter Cards. You will select the card you desire out of the choices below and be able to update some of the same meta information as Open Graph plus some. 

• Summary Card with Large Image: Similar to a Summary Card, but with a prominently featured image.
• Photo Card: A Card with a photo only.
• Gallery Card: A Card highlighting a collection of four photos.
• App Card: A Card to detail a mobile app with direct download.
• Player Card: A Card to provide video/audio/media.
• Product Card: A Card optimized for product information.

Dealing with HTTP Changes 

We have all heard the rumors that Google is playing favorites with HTTPS over HTTP. So what does that mean for SEO? Let's start with the basics. HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol and HTTPS is the same but with a SSL 2048-bit. An SSL allows the website to securely collect sensitive information. Websites that do not collect credit card or other sensitive information rarely even need an SSL. 

This will only be a miniscule SEO benefit when it comes to Google search. If you do make the switch here are a few things to keep in mind. 

• Use relative links on your website. If you have absolute links (containing http) they will break when the switch is made. 
• Track the information carefully in Google Analytics

SEO is often about blogging, increasing a social media presence, and using the appropriate keywords. However, there is a whole separate technical aspect to keep in mind when getting into SEO.