Dan Krueger Webmaster UW Stout

Transcription

1 Dan Krueger Webmaster UW Stout

2 Agenda Search engine basics Characteristics of SE Friendly Sites Page Layout Tips for Improved SEO Promoting your site Analyzing your site traffic Optimize for Stout s GSA Advanced searching techniques

3 Search Engine Basics Crawling Process by which web pages are discovered and added to an index Indexing Compile a massive index of all the words found on: The web page itself Key content tags (ex. title, alt) Process Queries & Rank Results Search the index for matching pages and return in relevant order the most relevant results to the user Serving Results

4 Characteristics of SE Friendly Sites They give visitors the info they are looking for They make sure that other sites link to them They make their site easily accessible

5 Characteristics of SE Friendly Sites They don t fill their pages with lists of keywords They don t cloak or put up crawler only pages They don t use images to display important names, content or links They don't create multiple copies of a page under different URLs Don t necessarily use a SEO service

6 Page Layout Tips for Improved SEO Create unique, accurate page titles Make use of description meta tag Improve the structure of your URLs Make your site easier to navigate Offer quality content and services Write better anchor/link text Use heading tags appropriately Optimize your use of images

7 Create unique, accurate page titles Accurately describe the page s content Create unique Title tags for each page Use brief, but descriptive titles Shows in search results

8 Make use of description meta tag Accurately summarize the page s content Use unique descriptions for each page May show in search results

9 Improve the structure of your URLs Use words in URLs Create a simple directory structure Provide one version of a URL to reach a document

10 Make your site easier to navigate Create a naturally flowing hierarchy Use mostly text for navigation Consider what happens when a user removes part of your URL

11 Offer quality content and services Write easy-to-read text Stay organized around the topic Use relevant language Create fresh, unique content Offer exclusive content or services Create content primarily for your users, not search engines

12 Write better anchor text Choose descriptive text Write concise text Think about anchor text for internal links too

13 Use heading tags appropriately Imagine you're writing an outline Use headings sparingly across the page

14 Optimize the use of Images Use brief, but descriptive filenames and alt text Supply alt text when using images as links Store images in a directory of their own Use commonly supported file types

15 Promoting your site Blog about new content/services Don t forget about offline promotion Know about social media sites Reach out to a related community

16 Analyzing your site traffic Get insight on how users reach and behave on our site Discover the most popular content on your site Measure the impact of optimizations you make to your site Discover additional keywords that searchers might use to find your site All CommonSpot site traffic is captured with Google Analytics. Contact webmaster group to get started:

17 Optimize for Stout s GSA GSA What is it? Google Search Appliance Keymatches Keymatches prioritize and establish a specific result in response to a particular search term. Synonyms Same principle as keymatches only it suggests alternate terms, which may bring better results. Go to the following site to submit GSA requests:

18 Advanced Search Techniques Basic Examples biking Italy recycle steel OR iron the words biking and Italy information on recycling steel or recycling iron "I have a dream the exact phrase I have a dream salsa dance Louis +I France castle ~glossary fortune-telling define:imbroglio the word salsa but NOT the word dance information about Louis the First (I), weeding out other kings of France glossaries about castles, as well as dictionaries, lists of terms, terminology, etc. all forms of the term, whether spelled as a single word, a phrase, or hyphenated definitions of the word imbroglio from the Web

19 Advanced Search Techniques Calculation Examples + * / basic arithmetic * 7 / 8 % of percentage of 45% of 39 ^ or ** raise to a power 2^5 or 2**5 old units in new units convert units 300 Euros in USD, 130 lbs in kg, 31 in hex

20 Advanced Search Techniques Restrict Search city1 city2 site: Book flights Search only one website or domain. [#]..[#] Search within a range of numbers. filetype: (or ext:) link: book (or books) phonebook: Disney CA rphonebook: movie: stocks: weather Find documents of the specified type. Find linked pages i.e., show pages that point to the URL. Search full-text of books. Search for Disney's phone numbers in CA Show residential phonebook listings. Find reviews and showtimes. Given ticker symbols, show stock info Show weather for a given a location (zip code or city)

21 Advanced Search Techniques Restrict Search info: (or id:) Find info about a page. related: List web pages that are similar/related to the URL inanchor: The terms must appear in anchor text of links to the page intext: The terms must appear in the text of the page intitle: The terms must appear in the title of the page inurl: The terms must appear in the URL of the page

22 Resources Webmaster Group: SEO Cheat Sheet: eveloper_cheat_sheet.pdf SEO Guide (more in depth): Google Searching Help:

23 Keyword Research