Changes to search engine result pages mean big wins for SEO

Domain stacking, went live about two weeks ago, allows the same domain to appear in top 3 results. For this to happen Google must consider your site a brand. It’s a great way to filter out competition.

SEO for images, with recent changes to Google Images user interface, there is much less focus on the first two or three results. Positions in search are variable because of fluid page layout. Individual image SEO value is reduced, because of overlay method, but you can write a few lines of JavaScript to overcome this.

Additional metadata, you can now embed ratings for your content, number of reviews, price range. When a page is about a person, you can also embed companies, titles. The big one is thumbnail images. Having a thumbnail has a big impact on the number of click-throughs.

Winning Rankings in Local Search and Maps

This is one area where Google isn’t the dominant player, as they are on the rest of the web. The importance of local search is more important than ever before, especially if you’re targeting a specific region. Google is already doing some geo-location based on your IP address and returning local results, when available. Local does have the potential to push organic listings down.

One of the best research tools is Google Insights, which allows you to narrow down by location. The algorithm for local is vastly different. In tests, restaurants with Flash web sites are ranking in local results. Local Search Ranking Factors is a report which is updated yearly.

Claim your place: It’s very important to claim your places, to ensure the search engines and local directory services know they have the correct info for your business. There’s so much bad data in local data, verifying data goes a long way for ranking. Only 2 or 20 million have claimed their Google places page. The other 18-million were fed from Acxiom, InfoUSA and Universal Business Listing.

Use the name of the business in the title, along with one-two descriptive keywords.

Example: name of business, North 45; provide a keyword or two, such as North 45 Pub, but don’t overdo it, such as North 45 Pub – Drink beer, meet local area singles.

Fill out as much information in your listing as possible. Include links to your site, photos of your business, special incentives, etc. If you have multiple locations, fill out and verify each location individually. It’s also a good idea to add your business address and geo-coordinates to your Wikipedia page, if one exists.

Tracking successes: You can set up Google Analytics to track traffic from local results in SERP’s.

Tool for local research and citations -
http://www.whitespark.ca/tools/local-citation-finder/

The Science of Twitter Success

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Site Architecture + Technical Best Practices for Big Site SEO

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Constructing Effective SEO Audits

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Scaling Organic Search – The Business of SEO

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More to come in the following week

I decided to go through my notes, pull out important points, then update this blog post, instead of doing a live-blog for the event, as I’ve done for past web conferences.

I’m registered and ready to attend SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar, August 30 – September 1, 2010 in Seattle, WA. The conference provides an arsenal of Tips, Tricks & Tactics to elevate SEO skills.

Lets Meet in Seattle

If you’re in Seattle, lets meet up! SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar is Aug 30 – Sep, but I’m arriving in Seattle, Aug 27th. Follow @garrettn on Twitter.

SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar in Seattle

• Follow SEOmoz Pro Training Seminar (Seattle) attendees on Twitter.
• SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar Agenda (1-pg PDF)
• RSVP to the SEOmoz Pro Training Seminar on Facebook and/or LinkedIn.

Parameters & Google Search Appliance

Search Protocol Reference for Google Search Appliance is a good place to start to see all available parameters and what they include.

Additional fields can be added to search forms to retrieve content based on meta-data, collections, date ranges, page titles, sites, and more.

URLParams plug-in for Firefox as an easy way to view and modify parameters after submitting a search.

Use getfields = * to return all meta-data for pages. If you’re going to use meta-data in your search  results you must get meta-data using this parameter.

Boolean logic can be used with any parameter or collection. AND (.), OR (|), NOT (-), use parenthesis to direct to evaluate Boolean first.

Interface can be built in GSA using XSLT or can be created in the language of your choice and passing XML results back and forth to GSA. JavaScript and jQuery can also be used in HTML form if you don’t want to use server-side technology.

Enhanced Simple Search

Using operators, but operators may be difficult for users to remember. These can be submitted in the URL string using form fields in search.

Use a simple HTML form to submit data strings on search.

Google Admin Interface

Set where to get dates from your pages using Document Dates (under Crawl and Index).

Collections Versus Meta-data

Collections are vertical. Examples, all PDF’s, all Word files, sub-section(s) of your site, or multiple web sites.

Meta-data is horizontal, across all collections.

Advanced Search

Start out using the advanced search out of the box. By looking at the source of the page, you can see the page is generated using an HTML form.

Google Search Appliance Form Generator was built to help people understand how to put together advanced search interfaces. It generates a form which can be used as a start for your search interface. It also gives you hints for various search parameters.

More info

• Web sites using Google Search Appliance
• Google Search Appliance links from Fig Leaf Software
• Advanced search report decipher’er
• Display multiple collections in multiple iframes
• http://www.learngsa.com

Site Search Analytics – what users want from your site, in their own words.

A little goes a long way. The Zipf distribution, shows that investment in results for most frequent search terms can go a long way. Focus on small number of most popular search terms, work on those, then pick another small chunk.

Users stop (and maybe search) when they lose the scent of information.

Search Terms or Queries

Interesting parallel between meta data and what people search for on your site. Meta data distills content found on a page, and search queries distill what user is looking for on the page.

Cluster your queries and determine which terms seem to mean the same thing? This will enable you to learn more about users’ language and tone. This also gives you a sense what might go into taxonomies, meta data and page content. Can give insight on what types of what facets you might consider for your search.

Determine content type

What kind of content is a user searching for when they use various search terms. Applications, news, reference content, contact info, instructions. This allows you to create a ranked list by content type which allows you to better understand contextual navigation. Content type can also be use to improve search performance, using content type as a search facet. Understand seasonality to determine editorial schedules.

What is unique about your queries? Product codes, course codes, proper nouns. If you see product names or unique queries you can identify, try to give search results more context, make your query string suggest sorting. When queries begin to spike, compare to current content and determine if there might be a need for more content on this topic.

You might use cookies for audience segmentation, so you can break down search and needs by different audiences. Are queries for content that doesn’t exist on your site? Try to determine what’s commonly important to all audiences.

Use numbers for proof you need to de-jargonify

Are people searching for jargon, where do search terms cross your company jargon? Focus on naming content what it is.

Key is to constantly tune your site’s performance. If you’re always looking at what users want from you, you have more of a chance of satisfying them than you do spending x number of dollars on a redesign every x number of years.

Goal-Driven Analysis

Remember to analyze failed search terms. Look at successes and failures in processes.

What are top pages where user searches from? What are the search terms for each page? Is page titled in an unclear or ambiguous way? Are you missing content from the page?

Test performance of most frequent queries. Measure using original two sets of metrics.

• Relevance (or queries with the best result).
• Precision (assess each result on a scale or relevant, near, misplaced, or irrelevant).

“Relevance will only work if you have an idea of the best results”

Getting Started with Site Search Analytics

If you use Google Analytics, you must enable search query collection in the settings.

Check out:

• Lee Romero’s blog
• Jeannine Bartlett’s SIX Metrics Framework

JavaScript Libraries

Like a Swiss-army knife. Allow you to write JavaScript quicker, easier and better. They do not replace JavaScript, they extend it. Extremely light-weight and cross-platform compliant. Most are open source.

Help to design an experience. Used to prototype and indicate JS functionality. They are used for page searching and modification, CSS and DOM organization, handle events, animations, transitions and AJAX (get and submit data without page reload).

Core Libraries and UI Libraries, many are considered hybrids.

Procedural Programming – JavaScript, PHP, ColdFusion, ActionScipt 1 and 2. Tend to be simpler and require less code than Object-Oriented counterparts, but runs into it’s own challenges.

Object-Oriented Programming – C#, Java, ActionScript 3. Individual components allow greater flexibility. In a well-written object-oriented program, all components function independently.

Object-Oriented Terminology

Package – Filing cabinet or a folder, where files live.

Class – The most important. In order to have and use an object, you must define it. A class defines your objects. You can think of a class as a blueprint. You can’t actually use a class, it’s just the definition of the object. The class is stored in the package.

Object – Defined in the class. What you use in your program. In many cases the term object and instance are interchangeable. This is the house or where you do things.

Property – The nouns of the object. The items in the house. Defining the parameters of the object. Variable = property.

Methods - The verbs of the object. To-do list, things you do in the object. Function = method.

Dot Notation – If you have a class inside of a package, this is how you reference it. If you’re calling a property of an object, you reference using dot notation. Examples: flash.display.MovieClip, txtFirstName.text, etc.

WordPress is the worlds most popular blogging software.

Content Structure

Must plan ahead for content structure. Many think WordPress isn’t capable of doing things such as departments, features, columns and sections. WordPress templates let you to filter by category name or category number. Start with a clean and logical system to simply this process. Ability to set up RSS feed for each category. Sections are set up with slightly different color schemes. Ability to display related articles on an article page left nav.

Category for front page, items classified here show up on home page. Create an e-newsletter by creating a category for stories you wish to appear in your newsletter. Keep category slugs short, but descriptive.

To change automatically generated category ID numbers, you must go into MySQL and update two tables.

• WordPress Posts vs Pages

Editorial Workflow

Normal editorial workflow includes Story Creation, Copy Editing, Line Editing, Publishing. You must extend WordPress plug-ins and techniques to enable each of the workflow steps to work in WordPress.

Plug-ins to enable real-world editorial workflow

• Custom Field Template
• Get Custom Field Values
• Co-Authors Plus
• Capability Manager
• Peters Collaboration E-mails
• In-Series (if story is part of series)
• Custom Field Images
• Simple Pull Quote
• Peters Post Notes (internal notes which never get published)
• Scissors
• NKMImageField
• Remind Me (for cross references within your site, if you change permalink structure, links continue to work)
• Public Post Review (send proofing link before posting it on the site)
• Suma (to allow paid subscriptions, this one isn’t free, but worth the price)

One of the big limitation is the WordPress loop, or the text in the body of the post.

WordPress Limitations and Solutions

Slides at http://bit.ly/D2WCPSB

Books by Rob Huddleston

Adobe Flash Catalyst

Catalyst is middleware. Start in Illustrator or Photoshop, then pull in project using Catalyst. Convert to Flex project, then go to Flash. Catalyst does have very basic drawing tools and could be used for wireframe or a very basic prototype. Biggest challenge will be training designers to create things in Illustrator or Photoshop that will work well in Catalyst. Fireworks has the ability export as .fxg file which can be imported into Catalyst. It’s important to remember, Catalyst is a 1.0 application. It’s stable, but there are obvious capabilities that are missing.

Complete round tripping with Illustrator and Catalyst. A plug-in is needed for Photoshop and Catalyst and it’s not as seamless. Catalyst is creating code, Flex projects are written in ActionScript and MXML.

Best Practices for Designers

• The web is not print, as different from print as video is from print.
• Design for interactivity.
• Don’t overuse interactivity. Realize when you’re enhancing and when you’re making something obnoxious.
• Stay organized. Become obsessed with meaningful layer names. Rename layers, group them logically.
• Plan your layer structure.
• Use a naming convention. Figure out logical naming convention and stick to it.
• Do not link to external files.
• Design assets to be duplicated. Come up with a way in your naming convention to notate these.
• Create outlines for text with filters and effects and text with uncommon fonts.
• Do the right things in the right order in Catalyst.
• Use components in Catalyst, everything in Catalyst becomes a component.
• You don’t have to be a Flex developer, but understand Flex.

Other thoughts on Flash Catalyst best practices

Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 best practices

What is the difference between us?

Let’s start with some generalizations.

• Developers are killjoys, squashing creativity to make a deadline or taking the easy way out to implement features within an application.
• Designers are fun, but reckless, they create great work but aren’t concerned with the bottom line.

A little reality please.

We all want to create really cool stuff that delights our users. We must work together, have a rudimentary understanding of each others disciplines.

Change is needed. Designers need to be more practical and be able to move on when goal is achieved. You must remember the scope of the project. Developers use a mantra of release early, release often. This might be something designers could learn from. Web applications are evolving and things can change post-launch, or in phases. Developers must realize that design does matter. Nothing will ever be completely resolved, Wabi-sabi. If code can be agile, why can’t design be?

Integration Points

Process

Do you have a process? Having a defined process will get you much farther ahead of the game than someone who hasn’t gotten started. “Four D’s,” Define, design, develop and deliver. These four points must communicate throughout every step in the process. It’s the job of each group on the team to define what they need to get their work done effectively.

Workflow

Do developers produce wireframes, do designers? Which is appropriate? If designers are in communication with client and understand their needs, it’s more appropriate to have them do wireframes. If developers keenly understand client expectations and have regular communication with client, they should design or create wireframes. There are times when it’s appropriate for developers to lead a project and others when a designer is appropriate.

Integration Points

File organization and directory structure. We shouldn’t be arguing over how things are named. Directory structure is not a battlefield, but try to make naming make sense and shouldn’t include names, version numbers, dates, etc. Deep Thoughts On File Naming Conventions.

Versioning

You will need to sell the benefits of this to your designers. Maybe it’s not the best idea. Versions is user-friendly SVN for Macintosh. Service called Assembla does hosted versioning, ticketing, hosted workspaces.

Taxonomy

Standardize the way you talk about things. Do we call them wireframes, block diagrams, something else? Do designers know what vectors, arrays, objects, etc. are? Are you using a lot of jargon? Art history language?

Workflow is all about solving problems.

“Nobody knows what they want, until they see it.”

jQuery UI Themes recommended.

Site Design

When you think of any web site, you think of something visual. If you’re going to have a perfect prototype, why not work with a technology where you can use templates, libraries and patterns and apply a skin to change the look. Clients will often push back. You can push back too, just do it in a friendly way, you’re managing the push back.

Skinning is more than personality. If you can take your prototype and you can apply your company skin, people are going to feel better. When you’re doing your skin design, it’s all about the persona of the company you’re designing for.

Page Design

Usability is not optional. We know what a page does because we created it, when someone else sits down to use our application, do they know what it does, why it exists?

Page Intelligence

• John Farrar on the COOP ColdFusion Framework
• COOP project page on RIAForge

These principles can be extended to ASP and other server side scripting engines. They are in the process of building a reference library for this.