Better SEO for 10 Minutes to Dask

[scharlottej13]

Edited
Though the initial reason for updating this page was to make SEO-related changes, these were tricky to make (see comments/discussion below). Instead, these changes reflect more general improvements.

---

This page was tricky because "10 minutes to Dask" isn't a phrase people search for. I worked with Lily to come up with other keywords that might be a good fit and we came up with "Dask Basics" since it seems to fit the purpose of the page and doesn't "cannibalize" (ie take traffic away from) other Dask docs pages.

Given all that, we're also wondering if it makes sense to experiment a bit with a URL redirect for this page. This is risky, and will likely have a negative SEO effect first, but the hope would be that the page bounces back and ultimately does even better.

Also noting this change would require changing https://www.dask.org/get-started.

Happy to engage on discussion around this, especially since I may be missing context for this page in the first place.

SEO recs

Change title: Dask Basics
Change line 1 to: This is a short overview of Dask basics.
Add 3-5 instances of the following keyword throughout the content, including 1-2 H2’s: Dask Basics
Add an image with this Alt Text: “Dask Basics”
Add the meta description: This is a short overview of Dask basics geared towards new users. Additional Dask information can be found in the rest of the Dask documentation.

Bonus
Add a video
(Experiment with our first redirect?) Change the hyperlink to https://docs.dask.org/en/stable/dask-basics.html

cc @jsignell @jrbourbeau @jacobtomlinson

[jsignell]

I am totally fine changing the name of this page, but dask basics doesn't really jump out to me as a natural name. I would think "Get Started" or "User Guide" or "Quickstart" would be a more natural name.

[jacobtomlinson]

I'm also up for changing things. However, I do want to point out that "10 minutes to ..." is a trope that Pandas started and projects inspired by Pandas seem to follow.

https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/user_guide/10min.html
https://docs.rapids.ai/api/cudf/nightly/user_guide/10min.html
https://vaex.readthedocs.io/en/docs/tutorial.html
https://tutorial.xarray.dev/oceanhackweek-2020/xarray-oceanhackweek20.html
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2019/01/practical-apache-spark-10-minutes.html

I also note that other projects go for things like "quickstart" or "absolute basics for beginners".

https://numpy.org/doc/stable/user/absolute_beginners.html

[scharlottej13]

Thanks @jacobtomlinson and @jsignell for weighing in. Given all this, perhaps it makes the most sense to limit this page to content updates (ie, adding images/videos, linking to other Dask docs pages, making sure content is up-to-date). More details below.

---

I would think "Get Started" or "User Guide" or "Quickstart" would be a more natural name.

I agree! Unfortunately those titles direct to other pages, which I think are a better fit. The Dask tutorial shows up first for "dask get started" and "dask user guide" and the distributed quickstart for "quickstart".

I'm also up for changing things. However, I do want to point out that "10 minutes to ..." is a trope that Pandas started and projects inspired by Pandas seem to follow.

That's helpful context! And it certainly seems like people are finding and engaging with this page, a large portion come from other Dask sites (as opposed to organic search):

For reference, these are the keywords this page ranks for; there aren't many, and best case it pops up on the second page.

[scharlottej13]

I really like the widget that pops up for Dask arrays, so that's why I changed this only for the Dask array sections.

[jsignell]

Oh I'm happy for you to change it for all of them if you like! I don't think I knew about jupyter-execute

[scharlottej13]

ok cool! I think it really only makes a difference for array, unless you're saying they should use jupyter-execute for consistency?

[jsignell]

oh I assumed that the dataframe would also have their jupyter repr?

[scharlottej13]

it does! to me it didn't look all that different, but I can add it in.

[scharlottej13]

ok just pushed new changes w/ jupyter-execute added for dask bag and dask dataframe. visually, not sure which way I prefer (there's a bit more whitespace around some blocks, e.g.)

[jsignell]

hmm yeah I see what you mean. I am fine with either. I'll just merge whatever is here before releasing tomorrow :)

[scharlottej13]

ok, changed it back! thx for your help :)