Stavros Bilis Presentation from SMX Stockholm 2011 event, September 2011.
Search Engine Friendly design, for any questions do not hesitate to contact me to @stavr0s.
SMX Stockholm 2011 Stavros Bilis Search Engine Friendly Design
1. SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY DESIGN
A story about People, Sites and Robots
SMX Stockholm 2011
by Stavros Bilis
Contact: stavros@produktion203.se - @stavr0s
5. Humans and Robots
Sites designed for humans and loved by robots.
• H: Information/Buy/Interact
Message • R: Relevant content
• H: Logical Navigation/inlinks
Path • R: Text/ inlinks
• H: Inform/Convert
Goal • R: Help rank in search engines
6. Content
Content is
KING
Is your content indexable?
7. Content - Images
Robots crawling a site can not see images.
They can read “alt tags”.
<img alt="Messi Copa America 2011 .jpg"
src=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Messi_Copa_
America_2011_.jpg/220px-Messi_Copa_America_2011_.jpg width="220"
height="312" />
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Messi
8. Content – Video/Audio
Use text / transcript to describe your video/ audio content.
The more relevant and natural language, the better chances to appear in search results.
15. Links
Are you links crawlable?
Can search engine robots reach main content/pages and see your links?
16. Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se
Site information
Allaannonser.se: Search Engine for online ads & classifieds
Indexed Pages in Google: 14.600.000+
Age: 7 years, since 2004
Backlinks: 177.000+
Referring domains: 660+
Visits: more than 2.100.000 per month
Main Ad Categories: 20 – 30
17. Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se
Linking in
main
categories
and partner
sites in the
homepage:
18. Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se
Using “nofollow”:
19. Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se
Popular keywords linking to “deep content”:
20. Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se
Popular keywords after user search linking to relevant
“deep content”:
21. Links – What to avoid
Links in:
• Submission forms
• Blocked pages by meta tags/robots.txt
• iFrames
• Javascript/Flash/Plug-ins
• Pages with more than 100 links
22. Keywords
• Decide what your niche is.
• Do your research and use wisely your keywords.
• Write relevant content and natural language.
• Do not stick on “keyword density” myths.
23. On Page Optimization
Example keywords: “Hotel Santorini”
Page Title: Hotel in Santorini | Hotel Website Main text:
Meta description: Find your hotel in Santorini!
H1 Headline: Hotel in Santorini from Hotel Website ____Hotel____Santorini_________________
hotel____flight_____Santorini______luxuriou
s hotel with view____Santorini hotels.
_________________________hotels in
Santorini___________summer vacation_____
__________hotels in Greece_____________
__________hotel bookings. ______________
Image filename: “hotel-santorini.jpg”
Image alt tag: “Hotel Santorini” Page URL: hotelwebsite.com/hotel-santorini
24. URLs - Structure
Correct URL structure can boost rankings, clicks and visibility.
Think as a user + Short URLs + Keywords Included + Static – use Hyphens “-”
Example: http://www.hittarecept.se/s/snabb-kladdkaka.html
Vs
http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/514277
Vs
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/caramel-apple-
cheesecake-recipe/index.html
25. Meta Tags
Meta Robots
Index/noindex, follow/nofollow/noarchive/nosnippet/noODP/noYDir
Meta description
<meta name="description" content="Sveriges största matcommunity med över 86
300 recept och över 635 800 medlemmar" />
Meta keywords do not matter anymore
27. What to avoid in your site
• iFrames
• Flash
• Heavy Images
• Scripts that slower the page
• Broken Links
• Massive amount of internal/external links per page
• Thin content
• Copied and duplicate content
28. Go the extra mile for your site
Test, measure, test, measure, test
Big players already do it.
http://fashion.ebay.com/
http://www.motors.ebay.com/
http://www.ebay.com/electronics
31. Extra: Mobile SEO Friendly Design
• Create lighter versions of the site (mobile.site.com)
• Localized content – people on the move
• Less media, more text
• Yes to mobile ads but do not overdo it
• Use “share with friends/others” functions
• Browser/mobile OS compatibility
32. Users are different
•Respect users and their time
•Make their life easier
•Make awesome and user friendly websites