Foreword

Dear readers, it is an honor for me to be able to recommend you this magnificent book on technical SEO that comes from the hands of experienced and relevant professionals and friends.

The book comes at a particularly necessary time. The digital world is advancing without brakes, companies are struggling to adapt to times that hardly allow them to keep up with the times and, definitely, digitization and search engine optimization are more necessary and -at the same time- more complex than ever. Among so many gurus and artificial intelligence that will change the world and make you rich, it is always great to receive something as valuable as real, able to bring light and knowledge in the market in which we are immersed.

I met Fernando almost a decade ago on the internet, through social networks. I read his books and he was my main motivation to do a master’s degree that he led and that changed my life. Since then, in one way or another, I have been linked to Fernando and his company in my professional life. I was, as I say, first a follower and then a student, to become a colleague and have him as my boss at Human Level. Subsequently we have continued working together, as Human Level is a provider of technical SEO services for the media where I work, Diario AS.

At every moment, he has been a wise and didactic person and has contributed knowledge and value to all those who have worked around him. I am grateful to have learned so much from him and that this has given me the opportunity to meet and work with his phenomenal team.

An illustrious sportsman, Don Alfredo di Stefano, once said: “no player is as good as all of them put together”. And that happens in Human Level and, in particular, in the book you have in your hands. José, Ramón and Rocío, besides being incredible colleagues, are the perfect team that, together with Fernando, can offer the best global vision of the SEO world.

José’s strategic experience, his knowledge in indexability issues, data management, together with his analytical and reflective capacity, are fundamental in many of the headings that are solved here.

Ramón and his endless technical capacity, whether in programming, systems, applications or WPO, manages to solve the most complex and technical parts of this volume in an understandable way.

Finally, Rocío’s drive, creative and technical capacity applied to the contents, adds the icing to this cake of knowledge baked together with Fernando’s talent and science.

There are hundreds of experiences of all of them throughout the different digital projects they have tackled for decades. And best of all, in many different sectors, from the largest, such as media, banking or tourism, to various e-commerce, services or small SMEs. For this reason, you will find in these texts a wide variety of situations of the most technical, curious or bizarre in which they always end up providing a solution. Because the real value of this issue is just that: it offers solutions to everyday problems that you, as SEOs, freelancers, entrepreneurs or simple learners, will encounter along the way with your digital products around the giant Californian search engine.

Why I recommend this book:

• Because it will be a step forward in your knowledge about SEO, from a practical point of view, because it is full of real examples, explanatory graphs, data, tools and procedures that will make you grow as a professional in the sector.
• Because you have a company that wants and must take the leap to the next level and be visible in search engines.
• Because at the same time you want to understand more than just concepts about the work your website needs or the reason for the actions that are recommended and need to be implemented.
• Because you have your own business, few resources and you have to take care of everything. You need to understand this part of optimizing your website, your business. It will let you know what you need, how to prioritize, why it is necessary and the time, steps, resources or help that will be essential to be competitive on Google.
• Because you are increasing your training in digital and you always lacked the technical part of SEO.
• Because you don’t want those gurus and those AIs to make you feel that there is no future; there is and it is exciting as long as you train and advance.

What you will learn in it:

• The whole process of technical SEO work in a digital business.
• To understand how to do a good keyword research, a study of the competition and thus draw a strategic SEO plan.
• How to create an optimal information architecture for your website, organizing well your content, products, taxonomies and with relevant navigation and linking.
• To improve the user experience of the people who visit your website.
• Optimize the more technical part of indexing, control it, understand how search engines interpret your site and prepare them in terms of structured data, performance, WPO, JS, CSS, etc.
• You will be updated on the latest algorithms, changes and updates, databases, new relevant metrics, caches, PWA, monitoring tools, measurement, analysis and data visualization.
• What you need for your international SEO when your business crosses borders.
• That SEO is not just a couple of books, but that this is the beginning to understand a complex but very interesting universe, vital in any business that needs to be online. And that it is in your hand to continue learning about something so alive and mutable as long as you continue training or consulting with the best professionals.

In short, I feel honored to contribute a grain of sand to this work that will be useful and that, in addition to adding value, may help change your life.

Manuel Barrios Carrasco
Deputy Director of Strategy, Digital Distribution and International Expansion at Diario AS