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.

1. SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY DESIGN
A story about People, Sites and Robots
SMX Stockholm 2011
by Stavros Bilis
Contact: stavros@produktion203.se - @stavr0s

2. Who am I?

3. Who are we?
We Design. We Create. We Optimize. We Monetize.

4. Why SEO Friendly Design?
This is SPAM. This is a lot of SPAM.

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.

9. Content – Video/Audio
No description/ no text at all

10. A 1999 site with Flash
Flash?

11. Robot, wondering…
Seriously now, Flash?

12. Yes, the same 1999 Flash site
Seriously now, Flash?
Source: http://superior-web-solutions.com/Broadband/Home/Home.html

13. 1999 Flash site source code
Source code:
Source: view-source:http://superior-web-solutions.com/Broadband/Home/Home.html

14. Does only content matter?

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

26. Page Speed - Less is more

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

29. Extra: Mobile SEO Friendly Design

30. Extra: Mobile SEO Friendly Design

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

33. Who is afraid of Pandas?

34. What is the…

35. Future of SEO friendly design
• Less is more?
• Content is king?
• Back to Flash?
• New Panda/algorithm will change everything?

36. Thank you ! – Tack!
Stavros Bilis
: @stavr0s
: bilis.gr & linkedin.com/in/bilis
: stavros@produktion203.se