1. Search Engine Optimization

2. Presentation Overview
Search Engine Basics
Why Optimize?
Key Concepts
Optimization
Content Management Systems
Summary
Resources

3. Search Engine Basics
Crawling the web: Search engines run automated programs, called “robots" or "spiders", that use the hyperlink structure of the web to "crawl" the pages and documents that make up the World Wide Web.
Indexing documents: Once a page has been crawled, its contents can be "indexed" - stored in a giant database of documents that makes up a search engine's "index".

4. Search Engine Basics
Processing queries: When a request for information comes into the search engine, the engine retrieves from its index all the document that match the query.
Ranking results: Once the search engine has determined which results are a match for the query, the engine's algorithm (a mathematical equation commonly used for sorting) runs calculations on each of the results to determine which is most relevant to the given query.

5. Search Engine Basics Directories: Human edited search indexes
Yahoo Directory!
DMOZ = The Open Directory Project

6. Search Engine Basics Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
Organic: Results based on content and keyword relevancy (as per algorithm)
Paid Placement (PPC):
Google AdWords
Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM)

8. Why Optimize? Web Search as a navigational tool
On average, 45% of visitor traffic through Utah.edu use the search engine to navigate.
72% of searchers stop with the top ten search results, and 90% stop with the top 30.

9. How much is too much? Competition for keywords Evaluating page rank
Baseline
Ongoing

10. Evaluating page rank Page rank calculation tools Google Toolbar
Frequent queries
Web traffic analysis
U Web Resources

11. Key Concepts
Target audience
Keyword choices
Directory submission

12. Key Concepts Conversion
Web site user doing what you intended them to do
Sales
Course registration
Forms & downloads
Page views
Conversion paths and funnels

13. Key Concepts Search-friendly Usability Home Page vs. Landing pages
Top-down vs. Shallow-wide design
Persistent Navigation
Orients visitor to site
Provides spiders pathway through site

14. Top-down design
HOME

15. Shallow-wide design
HOME

16. Key Concepts Accessibility Flash Javascript SSL – authentication
Firewalls and closed ports
Databases & query string URLs
Forms

17. Key Concepts Site Maps Non-HTML Documents
MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF

18. Optimization Get indexed Register URL with University Webmaster
Submit URL to directories
Meta-data
HTML Page Title
Number one optimization factor
Included in results display
Unique title for each landing page.

19. Optimization Meta-description tag
50% weight of HTML Title in Ultraseek
Included in Ultraseek results display
Less weight given by Google
Rarely used in Google results display
Meta-keywords tag
Equal to meta-description tag in Ultraseek
Ignored by Google
Common misspellings

20. Optimization Popularity Inbound links Remote anchor links & text
Anchor text – words used in link
Reliability
.edu and .gov domains
Domain age

21. Content Management Systems
Dynamic URLs
Querystring enabled
Consistent, crawl-able URLs
Cookies and session IDs

22. Summary Accessible pages Think landing pages
Unique HTML page title for every landing page
Content relevant keywords
Avoid Black Hat SEO

23. THANK YOU!