Categories: BLOG2

18 Real-Life Analogies to Explain SEO to Anyone

If you’re on a desktop device, resize your browser window to see this in action. You can also emulate mobile devices using Chrome DevTools (press F12 to access).

If a site isn’t responsive, it might overflow its container, similar to when mobile content spills off the screen or gets cut off. This hurts usability and accessibility.

13. Rendering is like building your sandwich

A technical SEO needs to understand the difference between raw and rendered code, and server-side and client-side rendering.

Raw code is HTML and CSS as it’s sent from the server (view-source in your browser). Rendered code is what users and bots see once a page fully loads. How it’s built depends on where the “sandwich” is made.

  • Server-side rendering is like ordering a sandwich that’s made in the kitchen and handed to you, fully assembled. Everything’s ready when it arrives.
     
  • Client-side rendering is like watching your sandwich get made at the counter. Your browser builds the page piece by piece.

Most users don’t care how the sandwich is made as long as it arrives quickly and looks right. But for SEOs, the difference matters. Client-side rendering uses JavaScript and often causes delays or visibility issues for bots (see my third analogy about JavaScript in a house).

Below, the left window shows a client-side rendered product listing page (PLP) with JavaScript disabled (the server-side rendered content), and the right window shows the PLP with JavaScript enabled (the client-side-render i.e., the made sandwich):

If you liked 18 Real-Life Analogies to Explain SEO to Anyone by Jasmine Hall Then you'll love Miami SEO Expert

Jasmine Hall

Share
Published by
Jasmine Hall

Recent Posts

How to Diagnose and Fix Google Maps Ranking Drops

Filtered or suppressed listingYour listing disappears entirely from Maps for your top keywords, or appears…

3 weeks ago

SEOs Should Not Dismiss Geo for Being Low-Traffic

What even is SEO? Back (5+ years ago), when I was working as a consultant,…

3 weeks ago

A Guide to Web Guide: Our Hybrid Search Future

These 10 fan-out types are loosely organized as a journey. What is the searcher trying…

4 weeks ago

Level Up Your SEO Strategy with a Product Mindset — Whiteboard Friday

The second ceremony that I want to talk about is discovery. This I find just…

4 weeks ago

Did We Pass Peak AIO? — Whiteboard Friday

We should talk briefly about the elephants in the room. Obviously, a lot of people…

1 month ago

Why Does Google Parameter &num= Matter? — Whiteboard Friday

So why does it matter? What does this actually affect? So the most obvious thing…

2 months ago