Search Engine Optimization of a Forest Fragmentation Content Management System: Example of the Fragfornet Website Aurélie Gandour, Amanda Regolini Cemagref Grenoble Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011

2 Summary FragForNet: A Forest Fragmentation Network Search Engine Optimization:  What Search Engine to take into account?  Definition of a keywords’ pool  How to do an In Page Optimization? Unwinding of FragForNet’s SEO Results of FragForNet’s SEO  Google positionning  Keywords used by visitors  Website’s traffic Conclusion

3Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Fragmentation Forest Network Researchers Information Professional Portal + Mailing List Decision-makers Socio-economical actors FragForNet : A Forest Fragmentation Network

4Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 FragForNet : A Forest Fragmentation Network

5Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 FragForNet : A Forest Fragmentation Network Goal: touching a larger audience What to do?  Gaining a better position for selected keywords on search engines pages of results How to do it?  Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

6Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 SEO: What search engine to take into account? ( )

7Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 SEO: definition of a keywords’ pool Establish a wide list of potential keywords and expressions Analyze those keywords potential by grading them: Keep the keywords with the highest marks and build the website’s indexing strategy on this pool InterestFeasibility Average number of monthly requestsMarkNumber of found resultsMark and above and above0

8Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 SEO: In Page Optimization Goal: optimizing pages of the site on keywords of the pool by placing them on strategical spots Where to place keywords for a maximum impact:  tags As high as possible within the HTML code Structure : [Content] – [Rubric] – [Site’s name] Containing 5 to 10 descriptive words The page’s title shall match the editorial title

9Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 SEO: In Page Optimization  Visible text « Content is King » Each page must contain at least 100 words Important keywords at the beginning Underlining keywords for more weight (in title tags, tags, or links ) A keyword density between 2 and 5%

10Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 SEO: In Page Optimization  URL Possess your own domain name The older, the better Important keywords in the URL No accentuated character Lower cases only

11Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 SEO: In Page Optimization  Meta tags Meta description tag: can be used by Google as an abstract of the page but no optimization utility Meta keywords tag: not taken into account anymore by search engines « Lang » option: useful only if metatags are filled in  Attributes of the IMG tag ALT: taken into account by Google only

12Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Unwinding of Fragfornet’s SEO (year 2010) January – February: preliminary study and creation of the keywords’ pool May – June: in page optimization of the website June: first results; intense following of the SEO’s immediate consequences Follow up: - at the beginning of each month, data recollection and production of a short report - to maintain a good positioning, the updates of the website have increased from 1 each month to 2 or 3 each week.

13Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Results of FFN’s SEO: Google positioning Observation: FragForNet’s position within Google’s results pages for simple searches based on the keywords’ pool Results:  Fragfornet stayed invisibled for many keywords (not in the first 100 results)  Fragfornet’s position varies greatly under the impulse of news updates  It is essential to update the site very regularly to maintain its Google ranking

14Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011

15Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Results of FFN’s SEO: Keywords used by visitors Observation: lists of the keywords used in search engines by FFN visitors to access our website Results:  Top keywords = generic words for which FFN stayed invisble on Google (« biodiversity », « fragmentation », « ecology », etc.)  Those keywords are used in more complex request (like « Brazil biodiversity loss » or « koala landscape fragmentation »)  The pool’s keywords use in such requests has doubled after the site’s optimization and is now stable around 6% of the keywords used to reach our website

16Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Results of FFN’s SEO: Keywords used by visitors

17Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Results of FFN’s SEO: Site’s traffic Observation: Number of different visitors by month Results:  The website’s traffic has always varied a lot, according to the period of the year or the events to which FFN’s members participate

18Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Results of FFN’s SEO: Google positioning  Nevertheless, if we compare the traffic for a same month over the years, we observe that the optimization of the website benefited the network with an increase in its traffic

19Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Conclusion SEO shall be incorporated at the very beginning of website’s project planning SEO is meant to be an uninterrupted, long-term work, lasting the whole life of the website Optimization follow-up, what to do?  Continue to gather data like presented above to better evaluate and anticipate FFN’s needs in optimization  Update very regularly the site to maintain its attractiveness  Consider an optimization on « off-page » criterions (quantity and quality of the external links leading to our site)

20Euraslic 14 – Lyon, France – 05/18/2011 Thank you for your attention…