Understanding SEO or How to Help Users Find Your Stuffs on the Intertronz
Understanding SEO
orHow to Help Users Find
Your Stuffs on the Intertronz
MY NAME IS TIM HUEGDONFirst, an introduction…
Qualification
• Web developer for 15 years
Qualification
• Web developer for 15 years
• Client-side specialist for 6 years
Qualification
• Web developer for 15 years
• Client-side specialist for 6 years
• Information architect
Qualification
• Web developer for 15 years
• Client-side specialist for 6 years
• Information architect• Massive Nerd– Quite literally– SEO as a hobby
Results
• Google “Web Development Lead”– Top result
Results
• Google “Web Development Lead”– Top result
• Google “Web Development Manager”– First page
Results
• Google “Web Development Lead”– Top result
• Google “Web Development Manager”– First page
• Google “Object oriented JavaScript”– Top result
Results
• Google “Web Development Lead”– Top result
• Google “Web Development Manager”– First page
• Google “Object oriented JavaScript”– Top result
• Google “Tim”– Third result (above the inventor of the web)
FAIL
</smug>(I cheated; I was logged in)
KNOW THINE ENEMYSun Tzu (paraphrased)
Search Engines
• Google• Microsoft Bing– Now own Yahoo! Search
• Many, many more…
How search engines work
• Army of robots
How search engines work
• Army of robots– Automated spiders
Tree
Home
Products
Wotsits
Oojamaflips
Dinguses
About Us Contact FAQ
Graph
England Team
Football
Internationals World Cup Euro 2012
How search engines work
• Army of robots– Automated spiders
• Work page by page
How search engines work
• Army of robots– Automated spiders
• Work page by page• Cache and analyse content
How search engines work
• Army of robots– Automated spiders
• Work page by page• Cache and analyse content• Index keywords
How search engines work
• Army of robots– Automated spiders
• Work page by page• Cache and analyse content• Index keywords• Assign an arbitrary rank
KEYWORDSBehold! The OARSUM POWAH of…
What is a keyword?
• A word or phrase• Contains high relevance to subject
Keyword == Search Term
Examples
• Sports• Sport• Betting• Gambling• Bet• Gamble• Sports Betting• Sport Betting• Sport Bet• Sports Exchange Betting
But wait…
• World Cup 2014• Wimbledon• British Grand Prix• Cheltenham• Spring racing
Why so important?
• Search engines store references to URIs in keyword specific indices
Why so important?
• Search engines store references to URIs in keyword specific indices
• Vast array of smaller databases
Why so important?
• Search engines store references to URIs in keyword specific indices
• Vast array of smaller databases• Data denormalisation
Why so important?
• Search engines store references to URIs in keyword specific indices
• Vast array of smaller databases• Data denormalisation• Makes searching a whole bunch faster
Choose wisely
• Keyword competition– Low competition can mean low relevancy– “Long tail”
Choose wisely
• Keyword competition– Low competition can mean low relevancy– “Long tail”
• Level of use– More commonly used search terms have higher
competition
Choose wisely
• Keyword competition– Low competition can mean low relevancy– “Long tail”
• Level of use– More commonly used search terms have higher
competition• Keyword tools
Where you’ll want to use them
• URIs
Where you’ll want to use them
• URIs• Link text
Where you’ll want to use them
• URIs• Link text• Page titles
Where you’ll want to use them
• URIs• Link text• Page titles• Headings
Where you’ll want to use them
• URIs• Link text• Page titles• Headings• Emphasised text
Where you’ll want to use them
• URIs• Link text• Page titles• Headings• Emphasised text• Within your content
Keyword Targeting
• Never mind keyword density…
Keyword Targeting
• Never mind keyword density…• Think about keyword relevancy
Keyword Targeting
• Never mind keyword density…• Think about keyword relevancy• Density no relation to– Quality– Semantics– Content relevancy
The web CHANGES?!I know; it’s terrifying, right?
LINKSThe internet is “a series of tubes…” (c. Ted Stevens, Alaskan Senator 1968-2009)
Links win
• Links trump everything
Links win
• Links trump everything• Link quantity
Links win
• Links trump everything• Link quantity• Link quality
Links win
• Links trump everything• Link quantity• Link quality• Largest single effect on rankings
Link Juice
• PageRank• Based on links into and out of the page• Used to determine page quality• Really is a series of tubes (and sluice gates)
PageRank
The juice will flow!
England Team
Football
Internationals World Cup Euro 2012
rel=“nofollow”
• Tell robots to alter the flow of link juice
rel=“nofollow”
• Tell robots to alter the flow of link juice• Useful for user-generated content
rel=“nofollow”
• Tell robots to alter the flow of link juice• Useful for user-generated content• Designed to prevent link spam
rel=“nofollow”
• Tell robots to alter the flow of link juice• Useful for user-generated content• Designed to prevent link spam• Use for “sculpting” is futile
Improving “crawlability”
• Flat site architecture
Improving “crawlability”
• Flat site architecture• Short link depth to pages
Improving “crawlability”
• Flat site architecture• Short link depth to pages• Recommend max 100 links per page– Misleading value
Improving “crawlability”
• Flat site architecture• Short link depth to pages• Recommend max 100 links per page– Misleading value
• Easily maintain 250-300 links per page– Next level approx. 200 links and so on
Link building
• The art of obtaining links back to content– High quality from high relevance
Link building
• The art of obtaining links back to content– High quality from high relevance
• Fine line between link building and link spam
Link building
• The art of obtaining links back to content– High quality from high relevance
• Fine line between link building and link spam• Full time job
Link building
• The art of obtaining links back to content– High quality from high relevance
• Fine line between link building and link spam• Full time job• Link sharing
Link building
• The art of obtaining links back to content– High quality from high relevance
• Fine line between link building and link spam• Full time job• Link sharing• Social networks
Third-party links
• No direct value
Third-party links
• No direct value• Promotes link sharing
Third-party links
• No direct value• Promotes link sharing• New wave of Social Media Experts
Third-party links
• No direct value• Promotes link sharing• New wave of Social Media Experts• Exercise in marketing
Link bait
• High likelihood of reposts
Link bait
• High likelihood of reposts• Viral
Link bait
• High likelihood of reposts• Viral• Usually created with intent
Link bait
• High likelihood of reposts• Viral• Usually created with intent• One man’s link bait is another man’s quality
content
U.R.I.Addressing the
Anatomy of a URI
http://www.betfair.com/football/barclays-premier-league/arsenal.html?page=4#line-up
Domain
PathProtocol
Query
Fragment
URI Design
• Highly important
URI Design
• Highly important• Embed keywords in domain
URI Design
• Highly important• Embed keywords in domain• Embed keywords in path
URI Design
• Highly important• Embed keywords in domain• Embed keywords in path• TLDs are important
URI Design
• Highly important• Embed keywords in domain• Embed keywords in path• TLDs are important• Order is important
URI Design
• Think about archiving
URI Design
• Think about archiving• Try and avoid “magic numbers”
URI Design
• Think about archiving• Try and avoid “magic numbers”• Use hyphen as space separator– Google doesn’t recognise underscores
URI Depth
• Try to keep URIs shallow
URI Depth
• Try to keep URIs shallow• Subdomains similar to first level– http://soccer.betfair.com/– http://betfair.com/soccer/
Branches and leaves
• Branch URIs end with a slash– http://betfair.com/football/
Branches and leaves
• Branch URIs end with a slash– http://betfair.com/football/
• Leaf URIs don’t– http://betfair.com/football/spurs.html– http://betfair.com/football/the-yid
Branches and leaves
• Branch URIs end with a slash– http://betfair.com/football/
• Leaf URIs don’t– http://betfair.com/football/spurs.html– http://betfair.com/football/the-yid
• Users read URIs in search listings
Branches and leaves
• Branch URIs end with a slash– http://betfair.com/football/
• Leaf URIs don’t– http://betfair.com/football/spurs.html– http://betfair.com/football/the-yid
• Users read URIs in search listings• Sets up an expectation
PAGE CONSTRUCTIONEmpowering your content through
Page vs. Site
• Bots have a vague understanding of site
Page vs. Site
• Bots have a vague understanding of site• Based on URIs and link map
Page vs. Site
• Bots have a vague understanding of site• Based on URIs and link map• Domain-level ranking factors
Page vs. Site
• Bots have a vague understanding of site• Based on URIs and link map• Domain-level ranking factors• Page-level ranking factors
Page vs. Site
• Bots have a vague understanding of site• Based on URIs and link map• Domain-level ranking factors• Page-level ranking factors• Construct as pages, link as site
Duplication
• Duplicating content on two URIs is bad
Duplication
• Duplicating content on two URIs is bad• Serving the same page on different URIs is
duplication
Duplication
• Duplicating content on two URIs is bad• Serving the same page on different URIs is
duplication• Try and avoid syndicated content
Dynamic and static content
• Dynamic content– Blog posts– News stories– Markets
• Static content– About us– Help– Betting rules
• Good to have a balanced mix
Titles
• Page title– <title>Football – Betfair</title>
• H1– <h1>Football</h1>
• Titles should repeat in:– URI– Page title– H1– Throughout content– Links to the page
• This one is important!
Meta elements
• Keywords– Not used by Google– Occasionally used by older search engines
• Description– Not used for rankings– Important for users
• noindex, nofollow
Pertinent mark-up
• Links!– <a href=“…”>Football</a>– <link rel=“index” href=“…”>
• Emphasis– <strong>, <em>– <b>
• Headings
Link element
• Canonical:– http://sportsnews.com/football/– http://sportsnews.com/football/?ads=false
• More subtle:– …/teams/tottenham-hotspur/peter-crouch– …/teams/england/peter-crouch
• Others– next, prev, first, last, index…
Google is Skynet
• Knowledge-based system
Google is Skynet
• Knowledge-based system• Algorithms update regularly
Google is Skynet
• Knowledge-based system• Algorithms update regularly• Features added
Google is Skynet
• Knowledge-based system• Algorithms update regularly• Features added• Try to understand trends in content
Breadcrumbs
• Google looks for them• Tries to understand navigation system• Improves crawlability• Helps the user
Rich snippets
• Microformats, microdata, RDFa– Reviews– People– Products– Businesses and organisations– Recipes– Events
UI Paradigms
• Still learning• Common patterns– Tab widgets– Accordion widgets– Carousel widgets
• Widgets– Common– jQueryUI– YUI
JavaScript
• Headless browser
JavaScript
• Headless browser• Support for JavaScript is limited
JavaScript
• Headless browser• Support for JavaScript is limited• Evaluates some JavaScript– Results vary
JavaScript
• Headless browser• Support for JavaScript is limited• Evaluates some JavaScript– Results vary
• Trawls embedded JavaScript for links
ROBOTSUnleash your army of
Using HTTP
• Correct status codes– 200 OK– 301 Moved Permanently– 302 Moved Temporarily– 404 Not Found– 410 Gone– 500 Errors
robots.txt
• http://www.robotstxt.org/• Automatically looked for• Stored at the root• No robots.txt is a free pass• Use to guide bots, not control
Sitemap Protocol
• http://www.sitemaps.org/• Aids discovery of content• Increases regularity of spidering• Doesn’t have to include every page• Useful for dynamic content
Sitemap Page
• Improves crawlability• Helps users• Can help flatten site architecture
TOOLSA brief overview of
AdWords Keyword Tool
• Analyse potential keywords• Shows competition• Shows search traffic• Useful as a research tool
Webmaster Tools
• Track search queries• Discover crawl errors• Manage sitemaps• Shows Google’s keyword assessment
Analytics
• Track search terms• Adapt user paths• Some tools allow tracking of bot traffic
Log files
• Track bot traffic• Spot errors• Use gnuplot to visualise
BUILDING SEO TEST SITESSearch bot interrogation
TO THE BROWSER!
NEVERENDING STORYSEO is a
Rinse and repeat
• Ongoing analysis
Rinse and repeat
• Ongoing analysis• Keyword evaluation
Rinse and repeat
• Ongoing analysis• Keyword evaluation• Link farming
Rinse and repeat
• Ongoing analysis• Keyword evaluation• Link farming• Keep up with algorithm updates
Questions?