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
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
Characteristics of SE Friendly Sites
They give visitors the info they are looking for
They make sure that other sites link to them
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
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
Create unique, accurate page titles
Accurately describe the page’s content Create unique Title tags for each page
Use brief, but descriptive titles
Make use of “description” meta tag
Accurately summarize the page’s content Use unique descriptions for each page
Improve the structure of your URLs
Use words in URLs
Create a simple directory structure
Provide one version of a URL to reach
Make your site easier to navigate
Create a naturally flowing hierarchy
Use mostly text for navigation
Consider what happens when a user
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
Write better anchor text
Choose descriptive text
Write concise text
Use heading tags appropriately
Imagine you're writing an outline
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
Promoting your site
Blog about new content/services
Don’t forget about offline promotion
Know about social media sites
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: [email protected]
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:
Advanced Search Techniques
biking Italy the words biking and Italy
recycle steel OR iron information on recycling steel or recycling iron
"I have a dream“ the exact phrase I have a dream
salsa –dance the word salsa but NOT the word dance
Louis +I France information about Louis the First (I), weeding out other kings of France
castle ~glossary glossaries about castles, as well as
dictionaries, lists of terms, terminology, etc.
fortune-telling all forms of the term, whether spelled as a single word, a phrase, or hyphenated
define:imbroglio definitions of the word imbroglio from the Web
Advanced Search Techniques
+ – * / basic arithmetic 12 + 34 - 56 * 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
Advanced Search Techniques
city1 city2 Book flights
site: Search only one website or domain.
[#]..[#] Search within a range of numbers.
filetype: (or ext:) Find documents of the specified type.
link: Find linked pages
i.e., show pages that point to the URL.
book (or books) Search full-text of books.
phonebook: Disney CA Search for Disney's phone numbers in CA
rphonebook: Show residential phonebook listings.
movie: Find reviews and showtimes.
stocks: Given ticker symbols, show stock info
weather Show weather for a given a location (zip code or city)
Advanced Search Techniques
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
Resources
Webmaster Group: [email protected] http://www3.uwstout.edu/webdev
SEO Cheat Sheet:
http://www.seomoz.org/user_files/SEO_Web_D eveloper_Cheat_Sheet.pdf
SEO Guide (more in depth):
http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-1-page
Google Searching Help:
http://search.uwstout.edu/user_help.html http://www.googleguide.com/
