findability: going beyond seo
DESCRIPTION
Search engine optimisation is usually the first subject that comes to mind when thinking about ways to improve the visibility of your organisation online. But it's only a piece of the puzzle. In order to help the intended audience find, use and reuse your information, we need to look beyond SEO. Findability could help complete the puzzle. It's a much broader concept, touching on almost every aspect of the web design and development process, where specialist fields intersect and overlap. We need to try and identify these elements of findability and "plug" them into the user-centred design workflow. It's a big challenge... Can we connect the dots and bridge the gaps?"TRANSCRIPT
Going Beyond SEO
acknowledgements
What we find changes who we become.
Ambient Findabilty, Peter Morville
Web Standards + compelling content = improved findability
Building Findable Websites, Aarron Walter
• defini@ons • some stats for context
• SEO ≠ findability • elements of findability
• tools & resources
overview
findability = NABA
SEO SEM
WCAG YAML
POSH
ORM
IBL PPC
CPC
CPM
CSE
DC
PR
DMOZ
LSI
KEI
OBL
PPA SE
SERP
ODP
SI
TR
(it’s NOT another bloody acronym)
IxDA
object level
ways people find objects or informa@on across channels, plaYorms, devices in the physical &
digital world
system level
ways to support wayfinding, naviga@on and retrieval
source: Ambient Findability, Peter Morville
defini@ons of findability
to increase the volume of qualified visitors to a website,
by improving the rankings of it’s pages in the algorithmic search
results of popular search engines, for relevant search terms or keywords
defini@on of SEO
Sessions/Visits Per Person 44
Domains Visited Per Person 68
PC Time Per Person 43:23:48
Dura@on of a Web Page Viewed 00:00:52
Ac@ve Digital Media Universe 12,169,348
Current Digital Media Universe Es@mate 16,355,423
source: Nielsen NetRa@ngs
Australia, July 2008
Australian web usage data
Property Name Unique Audience Reach % Time Per Person
Google 10,208,000 83.89 01:13:35
Microsoi 9,480,000 77.90 02:24:52
News Corp. Online 5,806,000 47.71 01:00:02
Yahoo! 5,580,000 45.85 00:57:19
eBay 5,457,000 44.84 01:50:11
Telstra 5,430,000 44.62 00:28:00
Australian Federal Government 4,760,000 39.11 00:53:13
Fairfax Digital AU & NZ 4,069,000 33.44 00:43:13
Wikimedia Founda@on 3,699,000 30.39 00:12:42
Apple Computer 3,668,000 30.14 00:55:53
source: Nielsen NetRa@ngs, AU ‐ July 2008
Top 10 AU domains
Search Engines
Referring Sites
Direct Traffic
Other ± 60 %
± 25 %
± 15 %
typical website visitor referrers
onemansblog.com
source: Google Trends
search as naviga@on path
The path to Amazon.com via Google is a richer experience for her than the direct naviga@on path, without much cogni@ve overhead and without much perceived risk.
comment by John Andrews, on Ma=hew Kirkpatrick’s arBcle:
“Will Mainstream Users Ever Learn About The Browser’s Address Bar” – ReadWriteWeb.com
richer & safer experience?
source: Cabel Maxfield Sasser
no more URL’s?
SEO ≠ findability
Website findability goes beyond op@mizing to rank well in search engines. It’s the common thread that runs through the website design & development process, linking all the elements of user experience with the site’s objec@ves.
to the website
through the website
return to the website
• word‐of‐mouth • search engines • email newslesers • personal emails • website link • blog feed • social networks • microformats • reference books • newspapers/mags • television/radio • streetscapes ... etc.
• browse/scan • navigate menu’s • site search • follow links in copy • sitemap page • forms ... etc.
• bookmark • blog feed • email themselves the link for ref. later • email newsleser • tool/resource • promo@ons ... etc.
web analy@cs
source: [email protected]
trouble shoo@ng
source: searchengineland.com
hos@ng
• speed • security • local • dedicated server • set‐up rewrites and redirects • watch out with domain forwarding
URL rewrites, redirects & HTTP Response Headers
• usability benefits • customised 404 Not Found page
• curb canonicalisa@on hsp://www.yourdomain.com hsp://www.yourdomain.com/ hsp://www.yourdomain.com/index.html hsp://yourdomain.com
etc...
accessibility
It’s not a feature... it’s a legal requirement!
On the whole, accessibility should always trump markeDng. However, there really isn’t a huge divide between the two. In any circumstances I can imagine, there’s no search marke@ng benefit to choosing a less‐accessible solu@on.
source: joedolson.com
see: hreoc.gov.au
progressive enhancement
Do the 30 second test!
see: Scos Gledhill, standardzilla.com
Image / Flash Replacement
If you're using text to try to describe something search engines can't access – for example, Javascript, images, or Flash files ‐ remember that many human visitors using screen readers, mobile browsers, browsers without plug‐ins, and slow connec@ons will not be able to view that content either.
Using descripDve text for these items will improve the accessibility of your site. You can test accessibility by turning off Javascript, Flash, and images in your browser, or by using a text‐only browser such as Lynx.
source: Google Webmaster Help Centre > “Hidden Text and Links”
It’s OK!
Flash
In addi@on to finding and indexing the textual content in Flash files, we're also discovering URLs that appear in Flash files, and feeding them into our crawling pipeline
source: Google Webmaster Central Blog > “Improved Flash Indexing”
HIJAX your AJAX
Applying Progressive Enhancement to AJAX
• start with non‐AJAX
• intercept ‐ try to use unobtrusive javascript
• send using XMLHspRequest object
source: Jeremy Keith, hsp://[email protected]/presenta@ons/xtech2006/
informa@on architecture
source L > R: Google Keyword Tool and userpathways.wordpress.com
meta data
Zotero
Usability
source: usabilitynet.org
encourage sharing
open content generates asribu@on
source: Aarron Walter, Building Findable Websites
microformats
sources: hsp://local.yahoo.com/, Flickr:niallkennedy
how we thee wed?
source: Aaron Walter, Findability Flower
source: Jesse James Garres, Elements of User Experience
the findability honeycomb?
source: Peter Moville, Findability Honeycomb
My messy asempt to visualize elements of findability...
Let me know your thoughts.
tools & resources Building Findable Websites (Aarron Walter)
hsp://buildingfindablewebsites.com/resources.php
Jane and Robot (Vanessa Fox & Nathan Buggia) hsp://janeandrobot.com/post/Search‐Friendly‐Design‐Paserns‐For‐Web‐Developers.aspx
Google hsp://www.google.com/webmasters/ hsps://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
hsps://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEs@matorSandbox hsp://www.google.com/trends hsp://www.google.com/insights/search/ hsp://labs.google.com/sets
Yahoo! hsp://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
MSN Live hsp://adlab.microsoi.com/alltools.aspx
Thanks!
• email : [email protected] • twiser : twiser.com/radicaraeves
• will upload slides to: hsp://www.slideshare.net/RRaeves