SEO Optimization Introduction

Search Engine
Optimization
An introduction to
optimizing your web
site for best possible
search engine
results.
1
Search Engine
Optimization
Presented by:
Chris Pfeiffer,
University of Utah
Office of Information
Technology
2
Presentation Overview
 Search Engine Basics
 Why Optimize?
 Key Concepts
 Optimization
 Content Management Systems
 Summary
 Resources
3
Search Engine Basics
 Crawling the web: Search engines run
automated programs, called “robots" or
"spiders", that use the hyperlink structure
of the web to "crawl" the pages and
documents that make up the World Wide
Web.
4
 Indexing documents: Once a page has
been crawled, its contents can be
"indexed" - stored in a giant database of
documents that makes up a search
engine's "index".
5
 Processing queries: When a request for
information comes into the search engine,
the engine retrieves from its index all the
document that match the query.
6
 Ranking results: Once the search
engine has determined which results are
a match for the query, the engine's
algorithm (a mathematical equation
commonly used for sorting) runs
calculations on each of the results to
determine which is most relevant to the
given query.
7
 Directories:
Human edited search indexes
o Yahoo Directory!
o DMOZ = The Open Directory Project

www.dmoz.org
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 Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
o Organic: Results based on content and
keyword relevancy (as per algorithm)
o Paid Placement (PPC):
 Google AdWords
 Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM)
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Search Engine Results
Pages
Paid Placement
Results
Organic
Results
10
Why Optimize?
 Web Search as a navigational tool
o On average, 45% of visitor traffic
through Utah.edu use the search
engine to navigate.
o 72% of searchers stop with the top ten
search results, and 90% stop with the
top 30.
11
How much is too much?
 Competition for keywords
 Evaluating page rank
o Baseline
o Ongoing
12
Evaluating page rank
 Page rank calculation tools
o Google Toolbar
o www.faganfinder.com/urlinfo/
o www.alexa.com
 Frequent queries
o Web traffic analysis
o U Web Resources
13
Key Concepts
 Target audience
o Keyword choices
o Directory submission
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Key Concepts
 Conversion
 Web site user doing what you intended them
to do
• Sales
• Course registration
• Forms & downloads
• Page views
 Conversion paths and funnels
15
Key Concepts
 Search-friendly Usability
o Home Page vs. Landing pages
o Top-down vs. Shallow-wide design
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Top-down design
HOME
17
Shallow-wide design
HOME
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Key Concepts
 Persistent Navigation
o Orients visitor to site
o Provides spiders pathway through site
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Key Concepts
 Accessibility
o Flash
o Javascript
o SSL – authentication
o Firewalls and closed ports
o Databases & query string URLs
o Forms
20
Key Concepts
 Site Maps
 Non-HTML Documents
o MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF
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Key Concepts
 Canonical URLs
o http://utah.edu
o http://www.utah.edu
 Redirects
o 301 server redirect
o Meta-refresh page redirect
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Key Concepts
 Robots.txt file
 Decides which robots to allow in and
which to exclude
• Site wide
• Directory-by-directory
• Page-by-page
 Robots meta-tag
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Optimization
 Get indexed
o Register URL with University
Webmaster
o Submit URL to directories
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Optimization
 Meta-data
<html>
<head>
<title>The University of Utah</title>
<meta name="description" content="Founded on
February 28, 1850, The University of Utah offers 75
undergraduate degree programs, more than 50 teaching
majors and minors, and 96 graduate majors.">
<meta name="keywords" content="University of Utah,
UU, Utes, Utah, Salt Lake City, university, universities,
colleges, higher education, academic, research,
admissions">
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Optimization
 Meta-data
o HTML Page Title
 Number one optimization factor
 Included in results display
 Unique title for each landing page
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Optimization HTML Title Utility in Dreamweaver
 Meta-data
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Optimization
 Meta-data
o Meta-description tag
o 50% weight of HTML Title in Ultraseek
o Included in Ultraseek results display
o Less weight given by Google
o Rarely used in Google results display
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Optimization
 Meta-data
o Meta-keywords tag
 Equal to meta-description tag in Ultraseek
 Ignored by Google
 Common misspellings
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Optimization
 Meta-data
o Image alt-tags
o H1 tags
o Body text
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Optimization
Relative weight given HTML tags

by U of U Ultraseek Search Engine
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Optimization
 Popularity
o Inbound links
o Remote anchor links & text
o Anchor link – http://www.url.com
o Anchor text – words used in link
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How/What to Optimize
 Popularity
 Inbound links
Anchor link text
 Example
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Anchor link
Optimization
 Popularity
o Inbound links
o Remote anchor links & text
o Googlebombing
When a web page places high in search
engine results due to frequent anchor
links using rude or insulting keywords.
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 Popularity
 Inbound links
 googlebombing
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 Popularity
 Inbound links
 googlebombing
36
Optimization
 Reliability
o .edu and .gov domains
o Domain age
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Black Hat SEO
 Black Hat SEO:
Unscrupulous or deceptive optimization
practices intended to spam users or
compete unfairly
o Invisible text
o Keyword stuffing
o Duplicate pages
o Domain cloaking: serving different content to
search engine robots than to human visitors
o Link farms
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Optimization
Spam Detection Threshold:

The number of repeating
keywords required for U of U
Ultraseek search engine to
penalize for spamming
39
Content Management
Systems
 Dynamic URLs
o Querystring enabled
o Consistent, crawl-able URLs
 Cookies and session IDs
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Summary
 Accessible pages
 Think landing pages
 Unique HTML page title for every
landing page
 Content relevant keywords
 Avoid Black Hat SEO
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Resources
 University Webmaster
o www.utah.edu/uwebresources
o webmaster@utah.edu
o 581-6113
 www.seamoz.org
 www.searchenginewatch.com
 “The ABC of SEO” David George
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Search Engine
Optimization
THANK YOU!
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o DMOZ = The Open Directory Project

Relative weight given HTML tags

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