Data Access Worldwide May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Search Engine Optimization with Electos Randall Rutherford

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? A subset of Search Engine Marketing Is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results; Can also target specialized searches such as image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide SEO as a Marketing Strategy Considers how search algorithms work and what people search for in order SEO efforts may involve: A site's coding, presentation, and structure; Fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Also may involve: ☼ adding unique content to a site; ☼ making sure that the content is easily indexed by search engines; ☼ Making sure content appeals to human visitors.

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Why do Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Because effective SEO depends upon the source code of a site, SEO tactics should be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" describes designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize. IT staff that are involved with any of these duties are by default involved with SEO

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Why SEO? Internet connectivity worldwide continues to expand at a rapid rate: “More than 90 percent of businesses used the Internet in 2006, up 15 percent from 2001” “Over three-quarters of businesses had a broadband Internet connection.” “Over a third of businesses used the Internet to receive orders for goods or services.” Almost one in 10 New Zealand businesses generated over 10 percent of their sales through Internet orders. Statistics New Zealand, April 2007

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Why SEO?

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Why SEO?

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Why SEO?

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Why SEO?

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Why SEO? Broadband connections enable a better user experience; Especially with Web 2.0 – AJAX based web applications. Efficiencies gained via web-based exchanges for both content providers and their users means…

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Why SEO? More and more, people expect to be able to find what they’re looking for on the Internet. Search Engines are the way things are found. For Search Engines to rank your website, it must be optimized for their crawlers.

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide SEO Considerations Google has admitted to as many as 200 different factors that are factored into their algorithms. Major factors include: Logical Website structure Unique HTML Page Titles & Meta Tags Friendly URLs & 301 Redirects Site Maps Relevant content Quality Inbound Links

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide SEO Considerations Optimize for Google first…

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Optimizing Electos Websites Review of major factors: Logical Website structure Unique HTML Page Titles & Meta Tags Friendly URLs & 301 Redirects Site Maps Relevant content Quality Inbound Links ☼ Google rank order: quality, relevance, title keyword, anchor keyword, quantity.

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Optimizing Electos Websites Electos Administrator Concerns: Logical Website structure Unique HTML Page Titles & Meta Tags Friendly URLs & 301 Redirects Site Maps Relevant content Quality Inbound Links

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Logical Website Structure Logical menus and navigation Relevant categories Keyword rich No duplicate content Relevant page names, image names, image Alt tags…

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Unique HTML Page Titles & Meta Tags Requires custom Electos.ASP templates Electos provides for the ability to add any number of custom.ASP template pages to your website. Each template page can contain customized Title, Meta Tags, Header/Footer content, etc. Create custom pages by: Create a new.ASP template in your website’s AppHTML directory Add the new.ASP template in Electos Studio Apply the new.ASP template to the Electos directory and/or pages(s) as required

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Creating Custom Electos.ASP Templates

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Creating Custom Electos.ASP Templates

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Creating Custom Electos.ASP Templates

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Creating Custom Electos.ASP Templates

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Creating Custom Electos.ASP Templates

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Creating Custom Electos.ASP Templates

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Unique HTML Page Titles & Meta Tags Default Title and Meta Tag attributes in the Electos normal.asp template: Electos Website …

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Unique HTML Page Titles & Meta Tags Search Engine Optimized Title & Meta Tags: AJAX Library for Visual DataFlex: Build rich, next generation AJAX-based Web Business Solutions fast & easy!

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Unique HTML Page Titles & Meta Tags

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Friendly URLs & 301 Redirects Which URL do you prefer? -vs.-

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Friendly URLs & 301 Redirects A 301 response code tells the requester that the web page he’s looking for has permanently moved to a new location or URL. A 404 response code tells the requester that the content for which he is looking can’t be found.

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Friendly URLs & 301 Redirects 301 ASP response code: <% Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently" Response.AddHeader "Location"," url.com/" %>

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Friendly URLs & 301 Redirects Do NOT use HTTP Refresh Redirect to VDF Web Page

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Robots.txt Used to EXCLUDE certain URLs from being crawled/indexed. Text file that resides in Electos’ AppHTML folder (or the root directory of your website). user-agent: * Disallow: /_test Disallow: /css/ Disallow: /images/ Disallow: /include/ Disallow: /scripts/ Disallow: /copy of ajax.asp

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Sitemaps Valuable tool for thoroughly index your website. Requires that robots.txt file be in place first. Two types: Search engine submitted sitemaps Hosted sitemaps

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Sitemaps A Search Engine Submitted sitemap is a special file submitted to a search engine in the hope that the engine will process it and index all of the pages in the map. Google, Yahoo, and MSN h ave joined forces in an open sitemap initiative: A Hosted Sitemap is an HTML page on your web site that links to all the content that you would like to have indexed by the search engines.

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide GSiteCrawler

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google Sitemap – sitemap.xml T19:00:00+00:00 monthly 0.50

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google Sitemap Tool Comprehensive info about how Google crawls and indexes websites. Site Status Wizard Webmaster Tools ☼ Sitemaps Blogs/Discussion Requires Google account

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google Webmaster Tools

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google Analytics Free service – requires Google account. Add custom code to all Electos.asp templates and HTML pages you want tracked: _uacct = "UA "; urchinTracker();

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google Analytics

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google Analytics

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google Analytics - Pageviews

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google Analytics – Map Overlay

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google AdWords Google’s sponsored advertisement program. Works in conjunction with Analytics.

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Google AdWords In combination with SEO, provides best Search Engine ROI.

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO Avoid the temptation to participate in link farms, or link exchanges with other sites that aren’t relevant to your site’s content. Black Hat = “Google Hell”

May 16 – 18, 2007 Copyright 2007, Data Access Worldwide Thank you! Links to: ☼ ☼ For more info: ☼ Q & A