From the SMX East Conference in New York City, September 27-29, 2016. SESSION: Search Engine Friendly Web Design. PRESENTATION: How to Design Websites for People Who Use Search Engines - Given by Shari Thurow, @sharithurow - Omni Marketing Interactive, Founder & SEO Director. #SMX #14D

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How to Design Websites for People Who Use Search Engines
SEARCH ENGINE
FRIENDLY WEB
DESIGN

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§ Founder and SEO Director at Omni Marketing Interactive.
§ Author of Search Engine Visibility and co-author of When Search Meets
Web Usability.
§ Columnist for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land.
§ SEO professional since 1995, pioneering search-engine friendly website
design.
§ Web designer/developer since 1995.
§ Website usability and UX professional since 2002.
§ Information architect/scientist since 1989.
Introductions:

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• User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA)
Board Member
Formerly the Usability Professionals Association
• Information Architecture Institute (IAI)
Board Member and Advisory Board
• ASLIB Journal of Information Management
Editorial Advisory Board
• Bing Ads
Accredited Professional Advisory Board

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§ What is Search-Engine Friendly?
§ SEO & User Experience (UX)
§ Universal Rules of Search-Engine Friendly Design
§ SEO Principles
§ Home Pages
§ Questions & Answers
§ Lists of Tools & Resources
Session Goals:

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If you check out some of the sample web pages used in this presentation,
they are likely to look different.
The principles & guidelines that these screenshots illustrate are relevant
long after a site has changed.

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WHAT IS SEARCH-ENGINE FRIENDLY?

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Search engine friendly design is not about…
…optimizing or designing a website for search engines ONLY.
spam
technology-centered
design

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SEARCH-
ENGINE
FRIENDLY
DESIGN
Search engine friendly design is about …
…optimizing or designing for people who use search engines.
technology-centered
design
user-centered
design

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…a user-friendly website design that enables websites
and content to be easily found via the crawler-based
search engines, other types of search engines, and
industry-related websites.
In other words, it is a website that is made for users
(searchers) but also accommodates search engines.
Search engine friendly design is:
1
2

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Importance of website design:
§ Primary: End users/site visitors/searchers/target audience
§ Secondary: Crawler-based search engines/technologies
Niche and industry-related sites

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To remember about SEO:
§ SEO is optimizing for people who use search engines.
§ You communicate important content to search engines based on how
words (copy), graphic images, and multimedia files are:
– Labeled
– Formatted
– Placed

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SEO & USER EXPERIENCE (UX)

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UX Hierarchy of Needs
@UXHow on Twitter
Elements of User Experience
http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf

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The first law of e-commerce is that if users cannot find the
product, they cannot buy it either. ”
- Dr. Jakob Nielsen, Usability Guru and Author
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-101-introduction-to-usability/
“

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Findability precedes usability.
In the alphabet and on the Web.
You can’t use what you can't find.
- Peter Morville, Information Architect
Author of Search Patterns & Intertwingled
“
“

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Peter Morville’s
User Experience Honeycomb
findable
desirable
useful
valuable
accessible
credible
usable
http://semanticstudios.com/user_experience_design/
findable

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Browse:

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Search:
SearchKeyword(s)
Results
(SERP)

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Ask:
?

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STAGE DESIGN/BUSINESS GOAL ROLE OF DESIGNER
- Interested User - Sign Up
- Acquisition
- Selling
- Trial/Beta User - Positive First Experience
- Teaching
- Conversion
- Customer
- Passionate Customer
- Engagement Over Time
- Enable & Support
- Satisfaction
Adapted from Designing for Social Traction
http://bokardo.com/talks/designing-for-social-traction.pdf

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Inceptor’s Pyramid:
When searchers arrive on a website
from a commercial web search engine,
such as Google, they usually land on a
page in the middle of the site, not the
home page.
TIP: Treat most pages on your website as a point of entry.

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To remember about SEO & UX:
§ A great user experience includes findability.
– People can’t use what they can’t find.
– Make sure your teams do not overlook or dismiss this facet of UX.
§ When implementing user-centered SEO, treat most pages on your
website as a point of entry.

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Search-engine algorithms change all of the time.
Therefore, you should update your website to be search-engine friendly all of the
time.

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5 UNIVERSAL RULES OF SEARCH-ENGINE FRIENDLY
DESIGN

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5 Universal Rules of Search-Engine Friendly Design:
1. Easy to read
2. Easy to navigate
3. Easy to find
4. Consistency and clarity in layout, design, interaction, and labeling
5. Quick to download

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1. Easy to read
2. Easy to navigate
3. Easy to find
4. Consistency and clarity
5. Quick to download
5 Universal Rules of Search-Engine Friendly Design:
IMPORTANT:
All of these rules ARE ranking factors
or directly AFFECT ranking factors.

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§ Legible
§ Readable
§ Scannable
§ Understandable
§ Text makes sense in search listings
1. Easy to read:

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§ Techniques & Relevancy Factors
http://searchengineland.com/bing-mobile-ranking-techniques-relevancy-factors-209418
§ Google Quality Guidelines
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66353
Readability is a ranking factor!

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§ Legible
§ Readable
§ Scannable
§ Understandable
§ Text makes sense in search listings
1. Easy to read:
Legibility
refers to how easy it is to
distinguish one letter from
another in a typeface.
Readability
refers to how easy it is to
read /comprehend words,
phrases, and blocks of text.

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Google’s Mobile Friendly Test:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

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§ Readers with limited vision
§ Tiny screens
§ Glare and poor lighting
§ Low-quality monitors
Be aware of:

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Is this text easy to read? …to scan?
Search Engine Optimization is an important part of any search engine marketing initiative. Some people believe that
submitting the site to search engines alone is sufficient in getting top-10 rankings. This is not true. Search engine
submission only announces your site's existence to the search engines. To get a good search engine ranking, it is
important that you carry out title tag optimization, meta tags optimization, and anchor text optimization of your
website amongst other SEO techniques. You'll need to optimize the visible text of your site through SEO copywriting
after extensive keyword phrase search. It is also important to boost your Google PageRank in order to get a good
website ranking. You can increase PageRank of your site by building your site's link popularity through a link building
campaign. A link exchange campaign with good industry relevant sites is the simplest way to get several incoming links
to promotion. Remember, search engine positioning is a powerful media for your website promotion. While the above
example seems like overkill, this is just to illustrate how you can accommodate your important keyword phrases by
carefully rewording the text of your web pages. If you feel that the standard blue, underlined hyperlinks appear ugly on
your website, then you can reformat its HTML markup code to change color of the text and get rid of the underline
without losing the power of the anchor texts.
Search Engine Optimization is an important part of any search engine marketing initiative. Some people believe that
submitting the site to search engines alone is sufficient in getting top-10 rankings. This is not true. Search engine
submission only announces your site's existence to the search engines. To get a good search engine ranking, it is
important that you carry out title tag optimization, meta tags optimization, and anchor text optimization of your
website amongst other SEO techniques. You'll need to optimize the visible text of your site through SEO copywriting
after extensive keyword phrase search. It is also important to boost your Google PageRank in order to get a good
website ranking. You can increase PageRank of your site by building your site's link popularity through a link building
campaign. A link exchange campaign with good industry relevant sites is the simplest way to get several incoming links
to promotion. Remember, search engine positioning is a powerful media for your website promotion. While the above
example seems like overkill, this is just to illustrate how you can accommodate your important keyword phrases by
carefully rewording the text of your web pages. If you feel that the standard blue, underlined hyperlinks appear ugly on
your website, then you can reformat its HTML markup code to change color of the text and get rid of the underline
without losing the power of the anchor texts.
Search Engine Optimization is an important part of any search engine marketing initiative. Some people believe that
submitting the site to search engines alone is sufficient in getting top-10 rankings. This is not true. Search engine
submission only announces your site's existence to the search engines. To get a good search engine ranking, it is
important that you carry out title tag optimization, meta tags optimization, and anchor text optimization of your
website amongst other SEO techniques. You'll need to optimize the visible text of your site through SEO copywriting
after extensive keyword phrase search. It is also important to boost your Google PageRank in order to get a good
website ranking. You can increase PageRank of your site by building your site's link popularity through a link building
campaign. A link exchange campaign with good industry relevant sites is the simplest way to get several incoming links
to promotion. Remember, search engine positioning is a powerful media for your website promotion. While the above
example seems like overkill, this is just to illustrate how you can accommodate your important keyword phrases by
carefully rewording the text of your web pages. If you feel that the standard blue, underlined hyperlinks appear ugly on
your website, then you can reformat its HTML markup code to change color of the text and get rid of the underline
without losing the power of the anchor texts.

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How about this fat footer?

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§ Clickable/tappable
§ Distinguishable
§ Scannable
§ Predictable
§ Consistent
2. Easy to navigate:

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Navigation usage is higher on mobile devices:
Mobile first is NOT mobile only
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-first-not-
mobile-only/

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Google’s Mobile Friendly Test:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

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“Small children like minesweeping (passing the mouse around the screen to see what's
hidden)…

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“…but teenagers don’t like it…”

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“…and adults hate it.”
Jakob Nielsen, Principal
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-ia-mistakes/

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§ Before users arrive (information scent)
§ After they arrive (orientation/placemaking)
3. Easy to find:

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1
2

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1
2

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Content should be accessible within 3 clicks or less from the home page.

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If this rule were true:
___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___
Site Map Content Content
___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___
Home Site Map Content

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§ Go directly to the relevant page
§ Within 7-8 clicks, preferably less, as long as…
§ Please see:
– Testing the 3-Click Rule
http://www.uie.com/articles/three_click_rule/
– User Experience Myth Or Truth: The Three-Click (Or
Tap) Rule
http://marketingland.com/user-experience-myth-truth-
three-click-tap-rule-104760
Easy to find after arriving:

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Before: After:
Frequently Asked Questions:

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Accordions:

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…one thing holds true: well-designed, easy-to-use navigation
is important in establishing credibility, authority, and trust. ”
- James Kalbach
From Designing Web Navigation
“

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§ Design/formatting
§ Interaction
§ Layout/placement
§ Labels
4. Consistency & clarity:

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Peter Morville’s
User Experience Honeycomb
findable
desirable
useful
valuable
accessible
credible
usable
http://semanticstudios.com/user_experience_design/

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§ Actual download time – machine speed
§ Perceived download time – human speed
5. Quick to download:

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What Google measures:

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1. Easy to read
2. Easy to navigate
3. Easy to find
4. Consistency and clarity in layout, design, interaction, and labels
5. Quick to download
5 Universal Rules of Website Design
To remember:

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4 SEO PRINCIPLES

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All search engines:
} All crawlers
1. Index text
2. Follow links
3. Measure popularity
4. Accommodate searcher goals & behaviors

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All search engines:
} Ranking factors
1. Index text
2. Follow links
3. Measure popularity
4. Accommodate searcher goals & behaviors

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http://searchengineland.com/seotable
Periodic table of SEO factors:

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Let’s simplify this:
Keywords, Content,
& Labels
Accessibility
& Navigation
Searcher Goals
& Behaviors
Link Development
& Social Signals

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KEYWORDS, CONTENT, & LABELS
SEO Principles

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What kind of text?
§ The words your target audience is typing into search queries are called
keywords or query words.
§ Your website should have a consistent labeling system that clearly
communicates “aboutness” to both humans and technology.

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Types of labels:
§ Content
§ Navigation
§ Document

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Content heading:
§ People use the H1 heading to:
– Get a sense of the page’s main topic
– Validate information scent

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Mobile first is NOT mobile only. ”
- Raluca Budiu & Kara Pernice
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-first-not-mobile-only/
“

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An image’s file name is a label:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/~/media/kcms/gbs/patient%20consumer/images/
2013/11/15/17/37/ds00050_%20my00164_im01229_mcdc7_cataracts2_jpg.png

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Primary text Secondary text
§ Title tags
§ Visible <body> copy
§ Text at the top of a web page
§ In and around hypertext links
§ Domain and file names
(accessibility & searcher goals)
For text-based documents:
§ Meta-tag content
§ Alternative text
§ Domain and file names (descriptive)

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To remember about keywords, labels, & copywriting:
§ Make sure you place your keywords in titles, visible body text, anchor text, meta
tags, and alternative text.
§ Remember to focus most of your efforts on primary text, not secondary text.
§ Create a clear and consistent labeling system.
§ Place your keywords prominently on your pages.
§ Use keywords frequently enough on your pages so that content appears focused,
but don’t overdo it.
Hint: Use the 5-Second Usability Test
https://articles.uie.com/five_second_test/

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ACCESSIBILITY, ARCHITECTURE, & NAVIGATION
SEO Principles

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Peter Morville’s
User Experience Honeycomb
findable
desirable
useful
valuable
accessible
credible
usable
accessible
http://semanticstudios.com/user_experience_design/

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Accessibility:
§ Human users, as well as technology, should
have user-friendly access to your website’s
content.
– URL structure
– Website navigation
§ Websites should be accessible to people with
disabilities (more than 10% of the population).

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Web search engines follow links:
§ Search engine follow links from one web document to another.
§ How your web documents link to each other communicates (to both humans and
technology) how important you believe your content is.
§ In other words, site navigation matters!
§ Search engines and searchers look at:
– Information architecture
– Site navigation (universal, global, local, contextual, supplemental)
– Technical architecture
– URL structure

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SEO jargon:
Internal links = Site navigation

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The navigation elements of your website provide [both humans and
technology] an understanding of your organization and give them a
sense of where they are within the site structure.
- Luke Wroblewski
Product Director, Google
Adapted from Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability
“
“

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Global
Utilities
Contextual
Local
Supplemental
Where am I?
Need help?
What’s related to
this content?
What’snearby?
Site map
Types of website navigation:

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Purpose of site navigation:
§ The purpose of site navigation is to enable task completion (a) effectively and
(b) efficiently for both human users and technology.
§ Answers the questions:
– Where am I? (orientation/placemaking)
– Am I in the right place? (arrival)
– Where can I go? (information scent)
– How can I get there?

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Includes responsive & adaptive design menus:

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Menus as global & local navigation:

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§ Too many navigation options?
Users won’t read all of the options.
§ Too few?
Errors in selection because navigation labels are less informative and specific.
Be careful with complex menus:

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Adapted from Brown, D. (2011). Principles of Information Architecture. UIE Virtual Seminars presentation. Available at:
https://aycl.uie.com/virtual_seminars/5_simple_principles_to_improve_your_information_architecture
Schwartz, B. (2005). The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. New York: HarperCollins.
Principle of choices:

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Global navigation – fat footers:
§ If your website largely consists of pages with short content, then a fat footer is not
necessary.
§ If your website largely consists of pages with long content, then a fat footer is highly
recommended.

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Search Featured States
Alabama Real Estate
Alaska Real Estate
Arizona Real Estate
View More States
Search Popular Metros
Atlanta Homes for Sale
Chicago Homes for Sale
Dallas Homes for Sale
View More Popular Metros
Search Popular Cities
Atlanta Homes for Sale
Boston Homes for Sale
Charlotte Homes for Sale
View More Popular Cities
Reasons why this is a footer DON’T:

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Contextual navigation:
§ Complement the existing navigation systems by adding flexibility and increased time
on site.
§ When used excessively, contextual navigation can create clutter and confusion.
§ Let’s look at some examples….

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Sibling Sibling
Contextual links example #1:
Cousin Cousin

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Contextual links example #2:

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One point of contextual linking is to avoid orphans & silos:
X
Alignment
One of the principles of design, alignment refers to lining up the top, bottom, sides, or middle of text or
graphic elements on a page.
Horizontal alignment includes:
• flush-left (also called left-justified or ragged right),
• flush-right (also called right-justified or ragged left),
• centered, and
• fully justified.

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Supplemental navigation:
§ Site map
§ Site index
§ Guides
§ Site search
TIP: Well-written, formatted guides provide context and can be a link-
development asset.

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Types of website navigation formats:
§ Text links
§ Navigation buttons
§ Image maps
§ Menus
– Dropdown
– Flyout
– Expanding/collapsing
§ Flash
§ Sliders
§ Carousels
§ Parallax

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If a site navigation scheme is not search-engine friendly, you should avoid using it
in your site design.

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Types of text-based navigation:
§ Formal navigation (global + local)
§ Location-based breadcrumb links
§ “Inline” or embedded text links
§ Site map or site index (supplemental)

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For details, please read:
http://marketingland.com/breadcrumb-links-good-user-
experience-yes-97848
Parent
Child

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Spool, Jared. (2006). “Why Good Content Must Suck: Designing for the Scent of Information.”
Available at: https://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2006/09/26/webmaster-jam-presentation-online/
Inline or embedded text links provide context and scent:

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Before:

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After:

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Don’t do this:
Search Engine Optimization is an important part of any search engine marketing initiative. Some people believe that
submitting the site to search engines alone is sufficient in getting top-10 rankings. This is not true. Search engine
submission only announces your site's existence to the search engines. To get a good search engine ranking, it is
important that you carry out title tag optimization, meta tags optimization, and anchor text optimization of your
website amongst other SEO techniques. You'll need to optimize the visible text of your site through SEO copywriting
after extensive keyword phrase search. It is also important to boost your Google PageRank in order to get a good
website ranking. You can increase PageRank of your site by building your site's link popularity through a link building
campaign. A link exchange campaign with good industry relevant sites is the simplest way to get several incoming links
to promotion. Remember, search engine positioning is a powerful media for your website promotion. While the above
example seems like overkill, this is just to illustrate how you can accommodate your important keyword phrases by
carefully rewording the text of your web pages. If you feel that the standard blue, underlined hyperlinks appear ugly on
your website, then you can reformat its HTML markup code to change color of the text and get rid of the underline
without losing the power of the anchor texts.

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To remember about accessibility & navigation:
§ Always use at least two forms of navigation on your website: one for your site visitors
(humans) and one for search engines (technology).
§ Know when and how to use text links effectively:
– Type/format
– Placement
– Selection
§ Don’t assume…test.
§ Try to make the URLs to your most popular pages as human-friendly and technology-
friendly as possible.
§ Usability counts!

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LINK DEVELOPMENT & SOCIAL SIGNALS
SEO Principles

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Peter Morville’s
User Experience Honeycomb
findable
desirable
useful
valuable
accessible
credible
usable
http://semanticstudios.com/user_experience_design/
useful
valuable

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§ Number of links
§ Quality of links
§ Number of times people click on links to your site
§ How long end users visit your site
§ How often people return to your site
What is popularity?
} Link popularity

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§ Signal = maybe
§ Directive = absolutely
§ One goal is to get more followers / build an audience (qualitative)
§ In terms of SEO, links can be a by-product of great social campaigns
Social media optimization (SMO):

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§ Substantial and unique content (is content linkworthy?)
§ How other sites are linked to your site (anchor text)
§ Social signals
§ Website usability
– Organization & placement of content assets
– Clear labels
– Placement to support task completion
Factors that can affect link development:

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§ Reference
§ FAQs, Q&As
§ Coupons
§ Articles
§ Checklists
§ Fact sheets
§ Guides
Types of digital content assets:
§ Quizzes
§ Comparisons
§ White papers
§ Tools
§ Infographics
§ Slideshows
§ Videos
§ Audio files
§ Spreadsheets
§ Presentations
§ Links & resources
§ Humor

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To remember about link development & SMO:
§ Quality trumps quantity.
§ Link development = directive. Social media = signal.
§ Your website should contain user-friendly digital content assets that are not orphaned
or siloed.
§ Learn to optimize each digital asset!
– Labels
– Link prospecting and outreach
– Social sharing
§ Link development is ongoing (iterative).

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SEARCHER GOALS & BEHAVIORS
SEO Principles

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Remember – Go, Know, Do:
§ Go (Navigational)
Searchers want to go directly to a website, or go to a
specific page on a website.
§ Know (Informational)
Searchers want to know or learn more about a topic.
§ Do (Transactional)
Searchers want to do or perform some web-mediated
activity.

119. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
HOME PAGES

120. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
§ Keyword-focused text (when possible)
§ At least one spider-friendly navigation scheme
§ Links to the most important sections on your site
§ Visible link to a site map or site index
§ Recommended reading:
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/113-design-guidelines-homepage-usability/
Items that should appear on a home page:

121. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
5 Rules of Search-Friendly Design 4 SEO Principles
§ Easy to read
§ Easy to navigate
§ Easy to find
§ Consistent and clear in layout, design,
interaction, & labels
§ Quick to download
In summary:
§ Keywords & labels
§ Accessibility & navigation
§ High-quality link development
§ Accommodate searcher goals & behaviors

122. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
Content is King. Context is the Kingdom.

123. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
Questions?
Shari Thurow, Founder and SEO Director
Omni Marketing Interactive
sthurow@search-usability.com

124. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
LISTS OF TOOLS & RESOURCES

125. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
§ 113 Design Guidelines for Homepage Usability
Jakob Nielsen
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/113-design-guidelines-homepage-usability/
§ Multi-Device Layout Patterns
Luke Wroblewski
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1514
§ Search Patterns Library: Design for Discovery
Peter Morville
http://searchpatterns.org/library.php
§ Yahoo Design Pattern Library
https://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
Online pattern libraries:

126. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
Recommended design books:

127. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
(Web) design book citations:
Brinck, T., Gergle, D., & Wood, S. D. (2001). Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites That Work. San
Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.
Cooper, A., Reimann, R., & Cronin, D. (2007). About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. Indianapolis,
IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
Hinman, R. (2012). The Mobile Frontier: A Guide for Designing Mobile Experiences. Brooklyn, NY: Rosenfeld
Media.
Kalbach, J. (2007). Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media,
Inc.
Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2010). Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to
Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through
Design. Gloucester, MA: Macmillan.

128. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
(Web) design book citations:
Mullet, K., & Sano, D. (1994). Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques. Mountain
View, CA: Prentice Hall.
Nielsen, J., & Pernice, K. (2010). Eyetracking Web Usability. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.
Porter, J. (2010). Designing for the Social Web. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.

129. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
Recommended search books:

130. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
Search book citations:
Enge, E., et al. (2012). The Art of SEO. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Hearst, M. (2009). Search User Interfaces. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Morville, P., & Callender, J. (2010). Search Patterns: Design for Discovery. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing,
Inc.
Pirolli, P. (2007). Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction with Information. Oxford University Press.
Rosenfeld, L. (2011). Search Analytics for Your Site: Conversations With Your Customers. Brooklyn, NY:
Rosenfeld Media.
Thurow, S., & Musica, N. (2009). When Search Meets Web Usability. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.
White, R. , & Roth, R. (2009). Exploratory Search: Beyond the Query-Response Paradigm (Synthesis Lectures on
Information Concepts, Retrieval & Services). San Rafael, CA: Morgan and Claypool Publishers.

131. #SMX #14D @sharithurow
SEE YOU AT THE NEXT #SMX
THANK YOU!