Berkeley BAD Camp Drupal SEO

1
Berkeley BAD Camp Drupal SEO

• Kristen Pol - http//kristen.org
• Jen Lampton - http//jeneration.com

2
Search Engine Optimization

• Search Engine Optimization is the process of
  increasing traffic to a web site from search
  engines. Typically, the higher a site appears in
  the list of search results, the more visitors it
  will receive from the search engine.
• Organic vs Paid
• First Position gt Most Clicks
• Search Result is your Marketing Message
• Result Position Percent of Clicks Relative to 1st
  Position
• 1 (First) 42.13 n/a
• 2 (Second) 11.90 3.5x less
• 3 (Third) 8.50 4.9x less
• 4 (Fourth) 6.06 6.9x less
• 5 (Fifth) 4.92 8.5x less

3
Audience Involvement

• 200 factors
• 12 changes to algorithm weekly
• Don't worry about keeping up with search engine
  changes worry about your content

4
Site Quality

• It won't matter if you do achieve the number-one
  rank on a search page if the web site you send
  people to doesn't work. Before you focus on a
  site's search rankings, that site needs to be
  capable of achieving the objectives set out for
  the project. Your site needs to be designed and
  built with the user experience in mind,
  optimizing your search rankings should be
  secondary.
• Getting 1 in google won't help if your site
  sucks
• Example of bad site.. why is it bad?
• Site does not look on topic (big non-relevant
  ad)?
• Site looks oh-so-1990s (outdated implies
  irrelevant)?
• Broken links on the page
• Make sure your site is well designed for your
  users

5
(Some) SEO Factors

• Content! (unique and on topic)?
• Page title lttitlegt (mucho importante!)?
• Meta data (marketing message and robot control)?
• Keywords (chosen and used wisely)?
• Internal links (use your keywords)?
• External links (similar sites / related topics)?
• Domain trustworthiness (age / links in out)?

6
Content

• Relevant and unique
• Timely/fresh
• Well chosen and used keywords (don't spam!)?
• Link text is very important
• How far page is from home page
• Clean, readable links (with keywords)?
• Sitemap for finding content

7
Meta Data

• Page lttitlegt tag VERY IMPORTANT!
• Meta description included in some search
  results MARKETING message
• Meta keywords don't need to add these here but
  they are a good placeholder for the keywords you
  have chosen
• Robot meta data - nofollow/noindex/nocache

8
Connectivity

• All links link text is IMPORTANT
• Inbound links (external links)?
• Outbound links (to trusted relevant sites)?
• Internal links (link to your own pages a lot)?
• Cross links sites link to each other (beware of
  link farms!)?

9
Search Engine Helpers

• robots.txt control what pages are indexed by
  the search engines
• Nofollow add to links or pages to prevent
  following links (saying this is not a trusted
  or relevant link) link juice / link sculpting
• sitemap.xml create a list of pages you want the
  search engines to find (instead of waiting for
  them to find them)?

10
Techie Details

• Clean URLs with minimal query string
• SEO friendly theme (content above navigation)?
• Valid HTML
• No broken links

11
Path Clean URLs

• Requires apache mod_rewrite
• http//stellar/admin/settings/clean-urls
• Off - http//stellar/?qadmin/settings/clean-urls
• On - http//stellar/admin/settings/clean-urls

12
Path path module

• Optional core module
• Enable
• Edit page and specify in URL path settings text
  field
• Use short, intuitive paths with good keywords

13
Path pathauto module

• Enable (token too)?
• Configure - site building gt url aliases gt
  automated alias settings
• General settings Update Action
• Node path settings default can be empty,
  patterns for specific content types
• Edit a page - automatic alias will be checked
  (be careful if unchecking!)?
• Keyword relevant patterns gt good URLs

14
Path path_redirect

• Enable
• Configure pathauto Update Action
• Create custom redirects
• 301 redirects from old aliases to new aliases

15
Path - globalredirect

• Enable
• Configure site configuration gt global redirect
• Will make sure duplicate URLs are handled with
  301 redirects
• node/1/ gt node/1
• ?qnode/1 gt node/1

16
Content - page_title

• Enable
• Configure content management gt page titles
• Add patterns (site specific)?
• Check content types for text field
• Edit page enter page title will follow
  pattern if specified
• lttitlegt tag is MOST important on-page
  optimization (marketing search algorithms)?

17
Content nodewords

• Enable
• Configuration content management gt meta tags
• Tags to show on edit form (description,
  optionally keywords
• Front page info
• Edit a page and fill in meta tag text
• Description shows up in some results (marketing!)?

18
Content - auto_nodetitle

• Enable
• Configure go to content type you want to have
  it on (e.g. admin/content/node-type/page)?
• Edit a page node title will be based on other
  data in the node based on pattern
• Node titles show up in lth1gt and lth2gt (theme
  specific) which are very important

19
Tools - xmlsitemap

• Enable (base module submission and node)?
• Configure site configuration gt xml sitemap
• Defaults okay
• Run cron
• Creates domain/sitemap.xml e.g.
  http//stellar/sitemap.xml
• Provides list of pages for search engines

20
Tools SEO Friend

• Enable
• Configure content management gt SEO Friend
• Required, min/max length, min/max words,
  duplicate checking
• Pathauto checkbox (keeps track if unchecked)?
• Reports reports gt SEO reports
• List of SEO modules installed
• List of page titles and meta data and duplicates
• Pathauto update action check
• Open to new features