SEO is important. Very important.

September 1st, 2010   Posted by tyler in Code, Search Engine Marketing, Uncategorized, Usability

There is a popular notion that all of information ever produced by humans from the beginning of time up until around 2003 could be stored in a 5 Exabyte hard drive (An Exabyte is 1 million Terabytes). Or if you prefer, it is also claimed that all the words ever spoken could also fit onto a disk of that size. In contrast, today’s tidal wave of information is so prolific that we generate that much ‘new’ information every 2 days! Thanks mostly to the Internet.

We need tools like search engines to help organize and make sense of all the data we’re producing. In order for us to make sense of all this data it means making the right stuff ‘findable’ at any given time. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in. The search engines are doing their best to index your site’s relevant content, but there are things you can (and should) do to make sure they are successful. Search engines get better all the time, but they’re still just robots and can not reason the same as you and I. They scan your content and your markup and collect what they ‘think’ is valuable. Until some significant computing breakthrough’s occur, It’s your job to provide them with hard data that matches your concept of what the site actual is meant to embody. This will, in turn, make you more easily findable to human searchers.

SEO can be tricky. It is not comprised of a singular practice, but rather a collection of several practices that can vary from project to project. These practices carry different weight in effecting the search rankings and due to ever-changing search engine algorithms different practices can become more or less important over time.

Confused yet? What’s worse is the search engine companies don’t really even come out and tell everyone what the secret sauce is. Periodically they leak out bits of information on their algorithms, but they are closely guarded secrets for the most part.

So, what should you be doing to implement SEO into your site? Here’s a basic run down of essential techniques for Content, Markup, & Server-side SEO:

  • Write copy that is naturally keyword rich (not stuffed). This means being honest. Don’t try to trick the search engines.
  • Make content visible to the search engines. Currently, technologies such as Flash, Javascript, and Ajax can make content harder to index.
  • Create an XML sitemap so the search engines can easily crawl and index your site. You can learn how to create one here.
  • Name your files and folders in a descriptive manner. Use keywords whenever possible.
  • Keep keyword density around 7-9%. Anymore than that is not going to have a natural tone and you could get penalized by the search engined for going too much over that. Several free online tools exist.
  • Abundance of inbound/outbound links affect your page ranking. Search engines like sites that promote linking.
  • Follow all best practices and web standards when marking up your pages. This will help ensure that the search engines don’t have trouble indexing your site and give your content hierarchy. Search engines take this into account when they run their algorithms. Head tags (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>…) are a good example of this.
  • Make the most of your <title> tag. It weighs heavily in determining ranking. Keep it under 12 words (70 characters) and remember to keep the language natural. Don’t just stuff keywords in.
  • Keep URLs clean and meaningful with keywords in them if possible
  • META description tag – Like the Page title tag, it also weight heavily on the search results rankings. Utilize this tag for every page in your site if possible. Try to keep it to around 150 characters. It can be longer, but most search engine result pages will truncate your copy if it is.
  • Anchor tags – The text labels for links are perceived as one of the most critical places to position relevant keywords.
  • Alt tags. These help make content such as images visible to the robots. Using them is a standard accessibility practice as well.

Of course there are many more techniques you may want to consider depending on your goals and the site you are trying to optimize. As mentioned above, search algorithms change and sites like Google frequently experiment with ways to improve and keep up with the landscape of the web. Various content types such as images,video, and real-time data are starting to play a larger roll in how search results pages are populated and new ways of indexing this data are always emerging. At a certain point you may want to consider seeking the services of a professional if your site is complex or has some cutting edge features. At the very least, try and be pro-active in learning about the basics of SEO and keeping an ear to the ground concerning changes within the field.

Further reading:

Ambient Findability: by Peter Morville

Building Findable Websites: by Aaron Walter

Last 5 posts by tyler

2 Responses to “SEO is important. Very important.”

  1. Shannon Ennis  September 9th, 2010

    Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliot, wrote that video is up to 50 times more likely to appear in organic search results than graphics or text. It’s fascinating to me, then, that the first piece of advice in this article is all about text, keyword rich copy, etc. Isn’t this information a bit dated? Shouldn’t the core advice hinge on engagement objects on websites which provide the opportunity for a longer, richer user experience? Isn’t that what the search engines really want? And thus, reward with increased rankings?

  2. tyler  September 14th, 2010

    Great point Shannon. The subject of SEO is a deep one and I certainly did not cover everything. You are right that some types of content like Multimedia (video) and real time results (News, Tweets, etc.) are highly important to findability in the search engine’s algorythims. But not all sites have this kind of content. I hope to write more on ‘Advanced’ SEO techniques in later blogs, but this piece is meant as more of an initial point of entry for those who are starting to learn. It may seem dated to focus on keyword and image optimization, however it is a safe bet that virtually every site out there has this type of content. That’s why I recommend it as a place to start and call those particular SEO practices ‘essential.’ – Thanks!

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