Search

SEO: Optimizing Sites for People (and search engines)

Loading...

Flash Player 9 (or above) is needed to view presentations.
We have detected that you do not have it on your computer. To install it, go here.

0 comments

Post a comment

    Post a comment
    Embed Video
    Edit your comment Cancel

    Notes on slide 1

    The average number of words people type into the search field is 3.1

    SEO does not put lipstick on a pig. If your site was made with MS FrontPage in 1998 and is a steaming pile behind the scenes, you can't buy your way to the top of SERPs with an SEO consultant. You need to re-build your site.

    Duct tape analogy. There are people out there doing good work in the SEO field and thats' what they're teaching. Unfortunately they get lumped in with the bad guys.

    Google's own documentation: Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. People who “employ botnets, third-world labor, and zombie computers to blanket the web with link spam

    The problem with SEO is that the good advice is obvious, the rest doesn’t work, and it’s poisoning the web. Best practices. Powazek: Blogger, HotWired, Technorati

    Don't even think about trying to get onto the first page unless your content rocks.

    When you search on something, you want those first few links to be the most useful, not things that are there because some webmaster wants more traffic. What you want is what everyone wants - good, organically useful content. The exact formula for displaying search results is Google's "Secret Sauce" and is not published

    Demo KDMC titles

    Google is the internet’s largest blind user. When we build accessible sites we’re adamant about this kind of thing. “What should we call it when I counsel someone to use an h2 tag instead of bold text?” I call that making good websites. That’s why pro web devs are worth their price tag.

    Headline totally lacking informational content for a search engine

    each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your site's PageRank.

    Sitemaps do not directly impact your place in search results. Sitemaps put information about how to search your site and what has changed on your site in one place.

    Google has a 404 widget you can drop into place.

    2 Favorites

    SEO: Optimizing Sites for People (and search engines) - Presentation Transcript

    1. SEO: Optimizing for People Scot Hacker, (and search engines) KDMC
    2. 80% of users click on one of the first three results.
    3. SEO is the process of getting your content to appear at or near the top of search results.
    4. SEO = good content + good structure SEO != black magic, secrets, rocket science
    5. With good writers and good web skills, SEO techniques are “obvious.” powazek.com/posts/2101
    6. SEO is only useful if you have good content... Useless if you don’t.
    7. Organic methods are rewarded. Attempts to game the system are punished.
    8. “Organic” techniques HIGH-QUALITY incoming links Content written for readers, not for search engines Well-structured, semantic HTML with good metadata Clear, specific page titles Keywords appear in body, heads, and sub-heads (but NOT stuffed) Use meta descriptions Clean URLs
    9. Gaming the system Break search engine rules Present content differently to search engine than to user Link farms, link exchanges Keyword stuffing False doorways Submission ‘bots User experience suffers
    10. Write content for readers... ...not search engines Cover what no one else is covering Shorter paragraphs, clearly marked sections Get to the point quickly The web rewards specifics and related information Don’t stuff keywords Don’t hide content
    11. <title>Kick-Ass Title Tags</title> An HTML tag that appears in the <head> container Most important piece of metadata in your document Name by which page appears in user bookmarks and SERPs Unique on every page of site No more than 70 characters Include site name, section name (?), content title Put site name LAST in title, keyworded phrase up front
    12. Untitled Document Syndrome
    13. Well-structured HTML “Semantic” HTML: Use markup as intended At least try to get your pages to pass an XHTML validator
    14. Doing META right Metadata includes good title and description. No more than 155 characters.
    15. What’s wrong with this picture?
    16. What’s wrong with this picture?
    17. Much better
    18. Much better Headline Includes Keywords
    19. Much better Headline Includes Keywords
    20. Clean URLs URLs should be human-readable Won’t break when forwarded in email Can be read over the phone Provide a form of “breadcrumbs” for some readers Search engines can derive something meaningful Use dashes instead of underscores If you change URL structures, deploy redirects
    21. Clean URLs Compare: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10381325-1.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/arts/music/19arts-PUERTORICOCA_BRF.html?ref=music http://www.berkeleyside.com/2009/10/22/too-good-to-be-true-berkeley-houses-for-1/ http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/2009/oct/14/blogging-experts/ Parameterized URLs: No more than 2 http://www.mysite.com/brands.php?object=1&type=2&kind=3&node=5&arg=6 http://www.mysite.com/brands.php?nike
    22. Clean URLs Compare: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10381325-1.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/arts/music/19arts-PUERTORICOCA_BRF.html?ref=music http://www.berkeleyside.com/2009/10/22/too-good-to-be-true-berkeley-houses-for-1/ http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/2009/oct/14/blogging-experts/ Limit URL depth to 4 levels Parameterized URLs: No more than 2 http://www.mysite.com/brands.php?object=1&type=2&kind=3&node=5&arg=6 http://www.mysite.com/brands.php?nike
    23. Clean URLs Compare: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10381325-1.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/arts/music/19arts-PUERTORICOCA_BRF.html?ref=music http://www.berkeleyside.com/2009/10/22/too-good-to-be-true-berkeley-houses-for-1/ http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/2009/oct/14/blogging-experts/ Limit URL depth to 4 levels Parameterized URLs: No more than 2 http://www.mysite.com/brands.php?object=1&type=2&kind=3&node=5&arg=6 http://www.mysite.com/brands.php?nike
    24. Clean URLs in WordPress Editing Slugs in WordPress: comparing-widescreen-tvs-our-testers-tried-samsung-sony-pioneer See also: wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-slugs
    25. Canonical Homepage URL Bad http://www.mysite.com http://mysite.com http://www.mysite.com/index.html http://mysite.com/index.html Good http://mysite.com/
    26. Incoming links 200+ ingredients in Google’s “secret sauce,” but links are Whuffie ... votes of confidence. It’s all about reputation. Use Facebook, Twitter to gain incoming links OK to ask for links, but be real about it Links from comment sections of blogs are ignored Build reputation with good content Be liberal with outbound links but don’t overdo it.
    27. Build a sitemap! Eliminates the guesswork Provides hints Machine-readable Human-readable A good CMS or framework can generate one for you
    28. Sitemaps make life easy for search engines wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator
    29. SEO tips Keep your site focused on a topic More pages on a topic = more cred Min. 200 words to a page Keep it fresh! Google rewards new content Spend extra effort sharpening homepage SEO Use text links for nav, not images Use keywords for links
    30. More SEO tips If you MUST use JavaScript menus, also provide text links Don’t link to index.html (don’t split links) Frames, Flash, Ajax: Can’t deep link to content When link building, quality over quantity Keyword links + descriptive adjancent text Beware links from “bad neighborhood” shared servers: See bad-neighborhood.com Registering domain? Don’t take privacy option
    31. Still more SEO tips Don’t use graphics for navigation Make sure images have alt=”foo” tags (Google is the net’s largest blind user!) Create an HTML sitemap as well as XML Make sure you have a good “About” page Don’t use “click here” links Clean up 404s & add search to your 404 pages Don’t obsess over “What is the googlebot hungry for now?”
    32. Yet more SEO tips Give link love, get link love Links from .edu domains have more weight Optimize RSS feeds too! (description, title) Use captions with images and videos Make a separate video sitemap Broaden your range (podcasts, social, etc.) Avoid duplicate content (See Google Webmaster Tools)
    33. Don’t pay for SEO "Look under the hood of any SEO plan and you’ll find advice like this: make sure to use keywords in the headline, use proper formatting, provide summaries of the content, include links to relevant information. All of this is a good idea, and none of it is a secret. It’s so obvious, anyone who pays for it is a fool." -Powazek
    34. The One True Way Which brings us, finally, to the One True Way to get a lot of traffic on the web. It’s pretty simple, and I’m going to give it to you here, for free: Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again. It’ll take time. A lot of time. But it works. And it’s the only thing that does.
    35. kdmc.berkeley.edu

    + Knight Digital Media Center (Berkeley)Knight Digital Media Center (Berkeley), 4 weeks ago

    custom

    184 views, 2 favs, 1 embeds more stats

    SEO has an ugly side and a useful side. The useful more

    More info about this document

    © All Rights Reserved

    Go to text version

    • Total Views 184
      • 183 on SlideShare
      • 1 from embeds
    • Comments 0
    • Favorites 2
    • Downloads 0
    Most viewed embeds
    • 1 views on http://apprentieweb.blogspot.com

    more

    All embeds
    • 1 views on http://apprentieweb.blogspot.com

    less

    Flagged as inappropriate Flag as inappropriate
    Flag as inappropriate

    Select your reason for flagging this presentation as inappropriate. If needed, use the feedback form to let us know more details.

    Cancel
    File a copyright complaint
    Having problems? Go to our helpdesk?

    Categories

    Tags

    -->
    Search
    RSS Feed
    What's new?

    © 2009 SlideShare Inc. All Rights Reserved