SEO Is Not That Hard

Best of : Why I love a good Glossary

Edd Dawson Season 1 Episode 296

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Discover the hidden power of glossaries for supercharging both your website's user experience and SEO performance. Drawing from over two decades of website building and monetisation experience, Edd Dawson reveals how adding a comprehensive glossary to Keywords People Use transformed into an unexpected SEO powerhouse.

What began as a solution for explaining complex SEO terminology without repetition has evolved into a robust resource containing over 300 definitions and 20,000 words. Edd walks through the surprising benefits this seemingly simple content addition delivered, from keeping users engaged on-site to establishing strong topical authority with search engines.

The glossary strategy works on multiple levels: it provides seamless user experiences by preventing visitors from navigating away to search for definitions, creates powerful internal linking opportunities, helps establish your site as an authoritative resource, and even attracts natural backlinks from other websites. For content creators, building a glossary also serves as excellent writing practice and a springboard for developing more comprehensive content ideas.

Whether you're running an e-commerce store, business website, or content-driven platform, Edd's practical insights will help you implement this underutilized strategy for your own site. He shares real examples from his SEO glossary (available at keywordspeopleuse.com/seo/glossary) and offers specific tips for structuring and expanding your own terminology resource. Ready to boost your site's authority while delivering more value to your audience? Book a free demo with Edd at keywordspeopleuse.com/demo to discuss how Keywords People Use can help you discover exactly what your audience is searching for.

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"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Speaker 1:

Hi Ed Dawson here, and, as I'm a bit busy at the moment and need a break, welcome to another one of my best of SEO is not that hard podcasts. These are the episodes from the back catalog that I think have the greatest hits and ones that are still relevant and provide great value for you. So, without further ado, let's get into the episode. Hello and welcome to. Seo is not that hard. I'm your host, ed Dawson, the founder of KeywordsPeopleUsecom, the place to find and organise the questions people ask online. I'm an SEO developer, affiliate marketer and entrepreneur. I've been building and monetising websites for over 20 years and I've bought and sold a few along the way. I'm here to share with you the SEO knowledge, hints and tips I've built up over the years. Hello Ed here, welcome to this.

Speaker 1:

The latest episode of SEO is not that hard. Today I'm going to be talking about glossaries and why I love a good glossary. Now, this is something that I've come to later in my SEO career. I never implemented a glossary on broadbandcouk and I kind of wish I have now given how it's turned out using one on keywords people use. So essentially, I mean, if you're not aware what a glossary is, it's just a big list of terms and, you know, kind of a basic description. They're not a full-on guide in a glossary, so if you want to see one, you can go to keywordspeopleusecom slash seo slash glossary. I'll put that link in the show notes as well and you can see the one that I created for keywords people use and this is an seo glossary of terms. So it's like all kind of terms that you'll come across as an seo and you know there's some crossover into online marketing and development in a few different places. But it's all the kind of terms that I built up over a period of time when I was writing this and I've been adding to it since for anything SEO related. If there's any in there that you think I've missed, do let me know and I'll add them in because, yeah, literally they come up all the time.

Speaker 1:

Now I created this because when we started we made the decision to add more content to keywords people use. That was more around SEO in general rather than just it being a straight-out tool, because obviously we're trying to practice what we preach. We're trying to get more people to discover our tool by creating content around SEO. You know, kind of sensible is what we do and when I first started writing obviously within SEO, especially if people who might be new to SEO were going to come across any of our content, then there's going to be lots of terminology in there that rather than having to explain in detail every bit of terminology on a guide we do or end up repeating that terminology and what it is over and over again, I thought let's write a we can link to say we start talking about no follow links in any guide that we wrote, talking about no follow links in any guide that we wrote. Rather than having someone come across it and go I wonder what a no follow link is and then go to Google search for no follow link and then potentially ending up on a different site and getting lost in a different rabbit hole, we can link to that no follow description in the glossary so that people can click see what the terminology is in the glossary and go quickly understand. It'll help them understand the guide they're reading. It'll keep them on site and provide them with that value that wouldn't be there otherwise.

Speaker 1:

Um, it was also and this is a tip anybody who's starting writing um any new site or any new content. It was really good practice for me, getting back into just writing guides, a just going through and trying to make a huge list of terms, gives lots of ideas for other content that needs writing and it helps sort of exercise that writing brain because, yeah, especially if you've not written any, any, any guides for a while, um, if you are coming into it fresh, you just want to get your fingers going, which can just help with writing. You know, once you just, the more you write, the easier it is to write. Um, so for me it was very much a case of all right, let's get just some stuff out of my head. Um small, um little pieces of content you say like a glossary item. Sometimes they're a paragraph, sometimes just a sentence, and yeah, it was really good practice to get back into writing. So I mean, depending on the topic you're writing about and the amount of terminology that is specific within it, your glossary might just be a one-page glossary. You might be able to do it all on one page.

Speaker 1:

Just list the items alphabetically With this one that I created for SEO, because there's so much terminology in SEO. This is a much, much bigger glossary. I mean at the moment it's up to around about 20,000 words split across all the different definitions in there. So with this one I actually split it into a page alphabetically, so A to Z, and then numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5, because I covered 200 codes, 404 codes, 301 redirects, so they're in numbered pages. And then there's a miscellaneous page. For the moment there's just one item in there, which is the pound symbol or hash symbol, depending on whether you're US or British English which is obviously used in some URLs. And yeah, so it's split across that the main glossary page has a link to every alphabetic page and also has a link to every item within those. But if you see it, you'll make sense, if you go and have a look at it and I think at the moment I've not actually counted it up recently, but I think there's well over 300 different definitions.

Speaker 1:

Now, obviously, I've just talked about how it's useful for users so we can link to it so that people don't have to go off site to find new information, the information about what a term is, and we also. It means that our other guides don't have to be quite so verbose in repeating ourselves and explaining every bit of terminology. So it's good from a user point of view, also good from an seo point of view because obviously a is adding lots of content on the site which is very topic heavy, very topic dense. So it helps with our topical authority. It also helps because it's fantastic opportunity for internal linking. So we obviously link between definitions because sometimes definitions reference themselves. It also allows us to link out to new pages. So, for example, we created a what is PageRank guide to PageRank recently, which is a proper full index guide about what PageRank is, where it originated from and how it's evolved over time. Now we've linked to that from the PageRank definition, which is just a little paragraph in the glossary of terms which gives us a nice anchor specifics. We use a good anchor text from content that has got the right context around it on that internal link. So it's a really powerful source of internal linking within your own site. So it helps you with that sort of context that you can give Google, which you have under your control. So it's really incredibly useful from that point of view and also they can actually be really good for link building. Incredibly useful from that point of view and also they can actually be really good for link building.

Speaker 1:

Um, lots of people um will link to glossaries if they're, if they're, if they're wanting to help their users understand things, um. So, yeah, lots of people use it actually as a link building tools, not what I specifically used it for. On keywords, people use um but over time, you never know, it might actually develop into that, but for me it was very much the case if I wanted to a um, get my writing brain back in gear and sort of grease the cogs there. Um, and also, yeah, for the ability to provide especially beginner coming to the um guides from a beginner perspective to be able to have them easily be able to find what definitions were without going elsewhere, and then for the internal income benefits. So I would really strongly recommend you consider doing one of these, especially if you've got any kind of jargon or industry-specific terms in whatever you're writing about, because, yeah, it's useful on so many different levels. So strongly recommend. Now also, just to end, I'd be really keen to have any feedback on the glossary that we have produced for keywords people use, on the SEO glossary.

Speaker 1:

I'm actually considering releasing it as an e-book because it's got so large that it's got enough pages now, enough content in there that it could actually be an e-book. It is a work in progress. There's bound to be things in there that I've missed, so if you'd want to take a look and if you think of anything that I've missed, do let me know. All the ways of contacting us are in the show notes or on the message at the end of this episode. And yeah, I'm particularly looking for.

Speaker 1:

I did manage to get something over the alphabet, but I only got one for J, which is JavaScript. One for Q Currity serves freshness. One for Y your money, your life. One for Z zero volume keywords. So if you know any particularly Js, qs, ys or Zs that you think I'm missing, then do let me know. I any particularly J's, q's, y's or Z's that you think I'm missing, and do let me know. I'd love to hear. And yeah, till next time, take care.

Speaker 1:

Before I go, I just wanted to let you know that if you'd like a personal demo of our tools at Keywords People Use that you can book a free, no obligation, one-on-one video call with me where I'll show you how we can help you level up your content by finding and answering the questions your audience actually have. You can also ask me any SEO questions you have. You just need to go to keywordspeopleusecom slash demo where you can pick a time and date that suits you for us to catch up Once again. That's keywordspeopleusecom slash demo and you can also find that link in the show notes of today's episode. Hope to chat with you soon.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for being a listener. I really appreciate it. Please subscribe and share. It really helps. Seo is not that hard. It's brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUsecom, the place to find and organize the questions people ask online. See why thousands of people use us every day. Try it today for free at KeywordsPeopleUsecom To get an instant hit of more SEO tips. Then find the link to download a free copy of my 101 quick SEO tips in the show notes of today's episode. If you want to get in touch, have any questions, I'd love to hear from you. I'm at Channel 5 on Twitter. You can email me at podcast at keywordspeopleusecom. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO is not that hard.

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