Search Engine Optimization
Communicator’s Brownbag
January 16, 2014
Neil Erdwien, Web Services Director
Division of Communications and Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
• SEO, SERP
• Goal: make your site’s search engine results
“better”
Higher Goals
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Get more traffic from organic search
More students
Higher reputation
2025
Why is SEO Important?
• Searching is the default for many people
– Searchers vs. clickers
• Internet niches: Facebook, Pinterest, K-State
Search Engine Background
• How search engines work
• Competition drives everything
Search Engine Spiders
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•
•
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Start with a database of URLs
Retrieve each URL
Add content to the index
Add all linked pages to the database
Consequences
• No human evaluates pages
• Changes may take some time to have
effect
• Unlinking a page does not remove it
from the index
Competition
• Between you and your competitors
• Between search engines
Consequences
• Some advice is bad and may actually
backfire
• Exact rules are unknown – Voodoo
rules
Periodic Table
• Courtesy of Search Engine Land
Cq
• Content is king
• Aligns your interest with the search
engine’s interest
Cr
• Analyze keywords
• Add/delete content to serve keyword
needs
• Detour: Google Analytics
Ht
• Most metadata is ignored, but title is
still used
• Not SEO, but the title shown in mobile
devices is very short
Metadata
• “Data about data”
• Title, URL
• HTML’s META element: keywords,
description, author
• Detour: CMS
Au
• Voodoo: the most highly-weighted
keywords
• Words are broken at periods, slashes,
and hyphens – not underlines
Words in URLs
• High matches for “cat” and “dog”:
– www.k-state.edu/dept/cat/dog.html
– www.k-state.edu/dept/cat-dog.html
• No match for “cat” and “dog”:
– www.k-state.edu/dept/cat_dog.html
Lq, Lt, Ln
• Number of incoming links is a major
factor in Google’s “pagerank”.
• Not all links are weighted the same:
.edu links are more valuable.
Link Text
• To read the report, click here.
• Read the Report on Student Retention.
Sr, Ss
• Social network likes, shares, and pins
are the new links.
• Google is pushing Google+.
Pc, Pl, Ph
• Search results are customized to each
searcher
• Concept of “we’re #3 on Google” is
obsolete.
Questions