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Software Engineering – October 5, 2011
Frank Takes ([email protected]) LIACS, Leiden University
Search Engine Optimization
Overview
Search Engines
Search Engine Optimization
Google PageRank
Social Media
Search Engine Marketing
Tools
Take-Aways
Search Engines
Content (text, images, video, locations, ...)
Biggest referrer on the internet
Organic and paid results
Browser integration
Desktop & Mobile
Spiders
Google, Yahoo, Bing
Search Engines
July 2011 - http://www.clickymedia.co.uk/2011/07/search-engine-market-share/
Ranking
Higher is better
Ranking is roughly based on:
A. Content
B. Incoming links
C. User/Local preferences
D. Rewards
E. Punishments
Exact formula unknown seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
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Online Marketing
E-mail marketing
Paid advertisement
Social media marketing
Viral marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization
"Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results." – Wikipedia
White hat vs. Black hat
On-page vs. Off-page
SEO is an investment
Search Engine Optimization
SEO Cycle:
1. Measure (access logs, error logs, Analytics, keywords, queries, indexes, competitors, ...)
2. Analyze & Evaluate
3. Set goals (higher ranking, be found on certain keywords, increase Google PageRank, ...)
4. Improve & Maintain
5. Submission & Recrawl
6. Goto 1.
Search Engine Optimization
Technical Optimization HTTP/File level
HTML
Content Optimization HTML
Textual
Link Optimization Google PageRank
Internal & External links
Technical Optimization
Catchy domain name: www.cheap-productX.com
Simple URL: www.domain.com/simple-page-name
HTTP (error) codes 200 = OK, 301 = moved permanently, 404 = not found
Separate content (HTML, XML, RSS, ...) from layout/code (CSS, Javascript, ...)
Remove stylesheet and see how the page looks Write valid (X)HTML
HTML <head> tags
Meta-information about your page for browsers and crawlers
<html lang="en"> ... </html>
<title>Contact – MyCompany</title>
Should be unique, short and with the site name last
Provide alternate versions of your document: <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en"
href="/english" />
Various <meta> tags: <meta name="tag-name" content="tag-content" />
HTML <meta> tags
charset: ä or ä or ä UTF-8, ISO-8891, Unicode, etc.
keywords: generic or niche? relevant to business relevant to searchers
description: ~160 characters for exact display in search engines
robots: page crawling and link following (also: robots.txt file)
HTML <head> tags
HTML <head> tags
<title>Leiden University</title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=utf-8"/>
<meta name="Keywords" content= "leiden, masters,
university, study, studeren, studie, student,
studenten, ......" />
<meta name="Description" content="Leiden University
offers outstanding international students an
intellectually exciting learning environment with
high academic standards. Rather than concentrating
on knowledge transfer, the focus is on debate and
critical thinking whereby students' abilities to
think independently is greatly stimulated." />
Keywords
Top 10 keywords in 2010 in the Netherlands
HTML <body> optimizations
No inline style-tags or style-attributes! Use id and class attributes & CSS
Make use of <h1>, <h2>, ... <h6> and <p>
Use <strong> and <em> (preferably over <b> and <i>, and avoid <u> completely)
Use alternate texts for images <img src="us.jpg" alt="Group photo" />
Rich links <a href="/edu" hreflang="nl">...</a>
<a href="page2" rel="next">...</a>
rel attribute
alternate: designates substitute With lang attribute: a translated version
stylesheet: external style sheet
start: refers to the first document in a collection
next: refers to the next document in an ordered sequence of documents
prev: refers to the previous document in an ordered sequence of documents
contents/toc: refers to a document serving as a table of contents.
HTML 5
SEO-friendly tags <nav>
<header>
<footer>
<section>
<article>
<figcaption>
Better semantics
<audio> and <video> instead of <object>
Content
Good content is...
Relevant
Original
Fresh
Structured
Keyword-rich
Correct
Sharable
Local
Endorsed
Don'ts
Hidden text or tiny text
Keyword stacking or stuffing
Overuse non-related keywords
Duplicate pages
Duplicate content
"Click here" links
Content in Flash
Website with Frames
Search Engine Optimization
Technical Optimization HTTP/File level
HTML
Content Optimization HTML
Textual
Link Optimization Internal / External
Inbound / Outbound
Link Optimization
More incoming links = higher ranking
Internal & External links
Ignoring certain links: <a href="http://www.fb.com" rel="nofollow">
Ranking algorithms:
Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search – HITS (Kleinberg, 1999)
PageRank (Page, 1999)
Google PageRank
Google PageRank
4 webpages A, B, C and D (N = 4)
Initially: PR(A) = PR(B) = PR(C) = PR(D) = 1/N
L(A) is the outdegree of page A
Now if B, C and D each link to A, the simple PageRank PR(A) of a page A is equal to:
Google PageRank
A A B B
C C D D
0.25 0.25
0.25 0.25
B B
C C D D
0.458 0.083
0.208 0
A A
Google PageRank
PageRank as suggested by Larry Page in 1999
N = number of pages, pi and pj are pages
M(pi) is the set of pages linking to pi
L(pj) is the outdegree of pj
d = 0.85, 85% chance to follow a link, 15% chance to jump to a random page (random surfer)
t = 0
t = t + 1
External Link Optimization
Gain incoming links from high-ranked and relevant websites:
Regular websites
Portals, indexes
Social media
Have relevant text in and around the links to your website
Track your backlinks: www.backlinkwatch.com
PageRank Hunters
I received the following e-mail regarding one of my PageRank 4 websites:
PageRank Hunters
Internal Link Optimization
Main navigation on landing page
Keep old pages alive (age counts!)
Use redirects with proper HTML response codes
Use ref="nofollow" where needed
Cross-linking within your website
No splash page(s)
(XML) Sitemap
seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
Hier gebleven
Social Media
"Social Media is use of web-based (and mobile) technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue." – Wikipedia
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, blogs, …
Relevant for SEO: Gain links from social media platforms
Make it easy to share content
Make it easy to have users contribute content
Manage and measure your online reputation
Viral Marketing
Social Media
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Paid results
Target specific devices, languages, countries, regions, or even cities.
Google Adwords
Extensive measurement options
Advertise on search engine and on websites
"Bidding" to get your ad shown
SEO vs. SEM
Search Engine Optimization
More permanent
Long-term investment that with long-term benefits
Initial setup investment is higher.
Requires more patience
Requires more “know-how”
Creates an online presence
Makes you the authority on a topic
Search Engine Marketing
No permanence
A cost rather than an investment
Lower initial cost threshold
Fast Results
Requires very little background knowledge
Does nothing to brand you as the authority
Highly Targeted Traffic
Billy Howard - DeepSci.com/RENPrez
Google Tools
Analytics: extensive website statistics
Trends: what are people searching for?
Insights for Search: helps find keywords
Webmaster Tools: track your website's keywords, sitemap, links, errors, crawling statistics, etc.
Page Speed: how quickly does your page load?
Places: add your business to Google Maps etc.
Adwords: search engine marketing
Conclusions
SEO = Technique + Content + Links.
Technical optimization is more than defining keywords in a meta-tag.
Content has to be relevant, fresh, original, structured and keyword-rich.
SEO is a sustainable way of doing online marketing.
Keep Google happy.
The End
References
A. Langville and C. Meyer, PageRank and Beyond, Princeton University Press, 2006.
L. Page, S. Brin, R. Motwani, and T. Winograd, The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web, Technical Report, Stanford Digital Library Technologies Project, 1999.
J.M. Kleinberg, Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment, Journal of the ACM 46(5):604–632, 1999.
http://www.liacs.nl/~ftakes/pdf/seo.pdf (this file)
