slate blog, a rails cms | Search Engine Optimization Tips

24 Sep

Search Engine Optimization Tips

September 24th, 2007 — 6:56 pm — Dave

Sorry, an article that’s not related to slate. Had to put together some search engine optimization tips for a meeting I had earlier this month. Figured I could share them. I’ve culled these tips from several sources and I don’t guarantee you’ll be ranked #1 by Google… but these have to help some.

Text, Text, Text: Obviously the key to getting indexed is having content in a format that can be read by a search engine. Provide an introduction for anything that is graphic-heavy or relies on Flash. Avoid JavaScript-created links or, at least, provide an alternative way to get at the link. Avoid frames.
Keywords in body text: When you?re writing your copy make sure you include the words you expect people to search on. If possible and makes sense include them multiple times though don?t overdo it. Obviously keywords should also be put in the keyword and description metatags as well.
Fresh Content: The more often you update your content the more the search engines will search your site and the more likely you?ll pop up the listing. From personal experience this works really, really well.
Focused Content: The more content you produce on a particular topic the more of an ?expert? your site may become assuming you?re not just rehashing the same thing over and over.
Markup Accordingly: Use H1, H2, etc tags. Alt tags and title attributes also help a lot. If you?re not using XHTML look into it.
Be Light: Don?t bloat a page with a lot of text. Keep pages down in size. The larger a page the more likely search engines will skip over it as spam.
URL Paths Matter: Directory names are looked at as keywords by some search engines (e.g. Google). So make sure they make sense and use dashes or underscores to separate words.
Domains Matter: Similarly to URL paths your hostname/domain matter. By default .edu?s are trusted so that?s a bonus for search engine rankings. At the same time make sure your hostname is relevant to the topics you feel people will search for.
Inbound Links: The more trustworthy sites that link to you the higher you?ll appear in the rankings. This was Google?s original claim-to-fame. Tough in higher ed but don?t be afraid to advertise what you?re doing to relevant outside organizations. Also include addresses in press releases or similar material.
Statistics: Pay attention to your stats with a specific focus on the keywords being used to find your site. Adjust your material accordingly.
Be Patient: It will take a while for any material changes to happen. The more you update your content the faster it will happen though.

Sources:

I’ve also read that it’s important to put the more meaningful content at the top of the document. Things like title, meta-tags, posts, introductions, etc. With CSS, it’s easy to put anything anywhere you want in the actual document flow, and make it appear otherwise in the presentation. Supposedly search engines only read so far down the page. And I’ve also heard that the order of the meta-tags matter (put the more appropriate/accurate ones first).

The thing that kills me is it’s all hearsay. Search engine optimization legends or something.

I would like to add more things in this article. First is that don?t use java scripts or flash as the search engine crawlers can not read any of these, so the result will be having lost web presence in search engine results. Secondly try to optimize the images as well by having ‘alt’ tags with site related keywords. The significance of link building also could not be ruled out. All in all, take care of both on page and off page factors while optimize the site for search engines.

Well, point one was about avoiding JS and Flash ;) I wouldn’t say to not use all together but I would encourage anyone using it to provide either