by Stavros Bilis

Contact: stavros@produktion203.se - @stavr0s

SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY DESIGN

A story about People, Sites and Robots

SMX Stockholm 2011

Who am I?

Who are we?

We Design. We Create. We Optimize. We Monetize.

Why SEO Friendly Design?

This is SPAM. This is a lot of SPAM.

Humans and Robots

Sites designed for humans and loved by robots.

Message

• H: Information/Buy/Interact

• R: Relevant content

Path

• H: Logical Navigation/inlinks

• R: Text/ inlinks

Goal

• H: Inform/Convert

• R: Help rank in search engines

Content

Content is

KING

Is your content indexable?

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

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.

Content – Video/Audio

No description/ no text at all

A 1999 site with Flash

Flash?

Robot, wondering…

Seriously now, Flash?

Yes, the same 1999 Flash site

Seriously now, Flash?

Source: http://superior-web-solutions.com/Broadband/Home/Home.html

1999 Flash site source code

Source code:

Source: view-source:http://superior-web-solutions.com/Broadband/Home/Home.html

Does only content matter?

Links

Are you links crawlable?

Can search engine robots reach main content/pages and see your links?

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

Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se

Linking in

main

categories

and partner

sites in the

homepage:

Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se

Using “nofollow”:

Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se

Popular keywords linking to “deep content”:

Links – Case Study Allaannonser.se

Popular keywords after user search linking to relevant

“deep content”:

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

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.

On Page Optimization

Example keywords: “Hotel Santorini”

Page Title: Hotel in Santorini | Hotel Website

Meta description: Find your hotel in Santorini!

H1 Headline: Hotel in Santorini from Hotel Website

Image filename: “hotel-santorini.jpg”

Image alt tag: “Hotel Santorini”

Main text:

____Hotel____Santorini_________________

hotel____flight_____Santorini______luxuriou

s hotel with view____Santorini hotels.

_________________________hotels in

Santorini___________summer vacation_____

__________hotels in Greece_____________

__________hotel bookings. ______________

Page URL: hotelwebsite.com/hotel-santorini

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

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

Page Speed - Less is more

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

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

Extra: Mobile SEO Friendly Design

Extra: Mobile SEO Friendly Design

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

Users are different

•Respect users and their time

•Make their life easier

•Make awesome and user friendly websites

Who is afraid of Pandas?

What is the…

Future of SEO friendly design

• Less is more?

• Content is king?

• Back to Flash?

• New Panda/algorithm will change everything?

Thank you ! – Tack!

Stavros Bilis

: @stavr0s

: bilis.gr & linkedin.com/in/bilis

: stavros@produktion203.se