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July232009

Images and Flash and script, oh my! (SEM 101)

The old adage that was once attributed to a Chinese proverb tells us, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” But John McCarthy, a noted mathematician and computer science pioneer, stated conversely, “As the Chinese say, 1001 words is worth more than a picture.” Perhaps McCarthy was also a pioneer of search engine optimization (SEO)! The use of interesting and relevant images and animations on a website can certainly elevate...
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July182009

Heads up on tag optimization (SEM 101)

Much of what constitutes a well-architected webpage is never displayed in the page itself. The contents of the <body> tag are what you see in a browser. But a webpage consists of two major elements, the <body> tag only being one. The content of the <head> tag (and for that matter, the document type declaration (DTD), which precedes the <head> tag in the page’s code, is just as important for search engine optimization ...
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July102009

Architecting content for SEO (SEM 101)

It wasn’t that long ago that I discussed in this blog how to create good content that will get your site noticed, by both end users and search engines. But to be clear, just writing some slick text is not the whole story. The previous blog articles in the Site Architecture and SEO series (files/pages and link/URLs) made reference to doing what you can to help the search engine web crawler (also known as a robot or, more simply, a bot) crawl...
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July12009

Making links work for you (SEM 101)

Links can be the lifeblood of a good website, as we discussed in Part 1 and Part 2 of Links: the good, the bad, and the ugly. But how well you manage them on your site from a site architecture perspective can be the difference between your website being starved for oxygen (aka search engine referral traffic) versus healthy and thriving. That’s why we do search engine optimization (SEO). This article is part 2 of the recent Site Architecture...
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June262009

Site architecture and SEO – file/page issues (SEM 101)

Search engine optimization (SEO) has three fundamental pillars upon which successful optimization campaigns are run. Like a three-legged stool, take one away, and the whole thing fails to work. The SEO pillars include: content (which we initially discussed in Are you content with your content?), links (which we covered in Links: the good, the bad, and the ugly, Part 1 and Part 2), and last but not least, site architecture. You can have great...
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June192009

Links: the good, the bad, and the ugly—Part 2 (SEM 101)

In the previous blog post, Links: the good, the bad, and the ugly—Part 1, I discussed that links are de facto endorsements of the site linked to, that the relevance of the linked to page to the one linking to it is critical for determining the value of the link, and how the quantity vs. quality argument shapes up regarding links. I also defined what is good and bad about each. So let’s pick up where I left off last time in our...
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June162009

Links: the good, the bad, and the ugly—Part 1 (SEM 101)

Lord Alfred Douglas once said, “All good poetry is forged slowly and patiently, link by link, with sweat and blood and tears.” He could have just as easily been talking about high-ranking websites (had he known about them — his quote pre-dates the 1920s!). The way to search engine optimization (SEO) success is neither fast nor simple (not that it has to be hard, though). But the accumulation of valuable, relevant, inbound links...
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May272009

Are you content with your content? (SEM 101)

Let’s just say it. Content is king. There. It’s done. That’s everything you need to know about improving page rank, right? Well… Content may be king, but as in modern monarchies, the king may not be the sole authority. Parliaments now rule, and they are made up of many constituent parts of society. And while the quality of your site’s content can have a leading role in helping you optimize your site’s organic...
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May202009

Put your keywords where the emphasis is (SEM 101)

In my previous post on developing your keyword list, we discussed techniques and considerations for developing a list of relevant keywords and key phrases for the pages on your website that are highly specific and (hopefully) not overly competitive. All of this is effort is geared toward making your website stand out from the competition in search engine results pages (SERPs). But developing a list of great keywords is just the start. You now...
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May152009

The key to picking the right keywords (SEM 101)

Mark Twain once famously said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” Twain never saw a webpage or performed search engine optimization (SEO) in his life, but his assessment of the importance of using the right words is, shall we say, illuminated. So why are words important in terms of SEO? Because users type them into search engines to try to find you!...
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