Jeremy Hutton

As mentioned previously there are simple Search Engine Optimization Updates you can make to your website that simply enable a search engine robot to more effectively index your site.  I mean really, why not?  Some times it’s as simple as using standard markup and at other times it’s as simple as taking a look at what you can communicate to search engines and leveraging that information (like unique page titles).

What I tell clients is that search engines are just really big, dynamic, automated librarians.  A search engine’s only goal is to catalog the web, then help you find the results you need based on your query.   That’s all.  The more you can help a search engine catalog your website effectively - the better.  And one of the primary ways is good markup.  Play by the rules, use good mark up, and search engines (librarians) will know who you are and where you belong in results pages.

Here’s a collection of some simple website optimizations that enable search engines to better catalog your site for the vast majority of internet users who start their website visit via a search engine.

Use <H1>, <H2>, & <H3> tags

Resist the urge to use spans for all of your formatting.  Basic html was built on the old heading tags.  Search engines use headings to effectively catalog what your page is about.

Also, search engines need to catalog each page based on one primary topic.  Your primary topic should be in your Heading 1 tag - and there should only be one.  Having more than one heading 1 tag essentially divides that value between two separate on-page titles.  To make sure you get the most bang for your buck, use one heading that encompasses one unique topic per page.  Use your secondary and tertiary headings for the rest.

Use your <title> tag

The next most important way to help search engines (and visitors) better catalog your website is to include unique title tags for every page.  Again, a search engine wants to index and catalog unique content.  Each web page should be about one specific topical item and your title should be a unique identifier for that page.

Imagine you search for “nalgene” and you get the following results:

You’ll notice that the titles of both of the links don’t tell us anything about the page content for to each link.  This is a bad user experience that doesn’t help you with 1) usability or 2) search.

Know what Bots Can & Can’t Do

Think like a search engine bot.  They can only do one thing (at this point in time) - click a link … then click another link.  Bots can’t write cookies to their machines.  Bots can’t click on a drop down list to select a specific piece of content.  Bots can’t crawl flash effectively.

Find your valuable content areas on your site and make sure they are accessible for a search engine bot.  In fact this sounds like a good post to put together in the future - trouble shooting your website for robots. 

Save your Link Equity & Redirect!

Making changes to your website content?  Changing urls?  Each page you have on your website has been gaining value since the day you published it.  Over time this “link equity” builds up.  Search engines like to give older websites more equity because they’ve been around longer.

Don’t loose that equity instead make sure to set up a proper 301 redirect.  Not sure how to do that?  Here’s a link that has the most popular ways to set up a proper 301 redirect.

Okay, so this was just a start.  Let me know if you’ve found this useful.  I’ll be putting together a few more optimization posts that cover more issues!

Stay Tuned.

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to a social networking class at the University of Washington. One of my co-workers at POP referred me to help teach a segment on search engine optimization. Through the course of the presentation, it occurred to me that it has been far too long since I’ve actively engaged in my own social marketing efforts so I thought I’d share some of the information I presented on basic website optimization (with a focus on organic search results).

Main Point: There are three different aspects that any web developer should consider when trying rank well for search engines.

1. The first aspect to consider is creating a website that is crawlable for search engine bots. Search engine spiders don’t behave the same was a regular human visitors so optimizing your website from a technical perspective is very important.
2. The second aspect is to create content and tools on your website that are relevant to your audience. The goal being to become an authority on a particular topic, subject or category. A search engines goal is to crawl the web, index information, catalog that information, then serve the most relevant piece of information to an individual based on their unique query. The more relevant and thorough you are around a specific niche topic - an expert, if you will - the more likely search engines will serve your content to your specific audience.
3. The third aspect is working on your popularity through effective online marketing mediums. Search engines aren’t going to just take you on your word that you are valuable - they are going to look at the community around your topic (category) and see how many other websites are linking to you and what they ares saying about you to their visitors.  So, you’ve got to monitor which sites are linking to you as well as how you are promoting yourself through all of your online marketing efforts.

By creating a specific strategy around these three aspects you can effectively increase your usability and your organic search rankings. In general, what’s good for the user is good for the search.  If you are novice web developer looking to ‘do the right thing’ for both search engines and your visitors, stay tuned as I will address each of these website strategies in separate posts shortly.