This session, presented by Matthew Bailey, was a quick insight into effective site architecture. Matthew started off by saying that a successful strategy always rely on this best practice: to do SEO before development. He says that one should never patch a site – no band-aids. It is important to get involved in the design before re-design of an old site or development of a new site commences.
A few things he covered in this session:
Usable architecture
- As marketers, our #1 goal should be to get people to the site
- #2 is to get them to do what we want them to do
The secrect of Search Engines
Searh Engines want to provide most relevant results by accounting for humans factors – they mimick human factors. We need to keep in mind what the human factors are what search engines might be looking at.
Site building foundations
- Architecture – how well the SE can get through your site
- How many links within and to the site
- Content of your site
These 3 are inter-related.
Matthew says that the #1 problem in sites are that their architecture is wrong – sites need to be easy to read and it should be easy to find the rest of the information you are looking for. Search Engines are the dumbest user coming to your site and therefore we need to make our sites accessible for them as well as the human visitor.
He then moved on to several aspects of site architecture and covered the following:
- We should use Google Webmaster Guidelines and also the W3C guidelines as a standard for design – both are similar to each other and give a good direction
- Does your site ask the user something? This is called user dependant action (something like a dropdown list) – Rather than using that, give people an alternative way to enter your site
- The SERP’s is the first marketing message people will see – you need to control this space – write good page titles and meta descriptions
- Don’t use cluttered or unfriendly URL’s that are not rewritten
one “=” sign – you’re good
two “=” signs – mmm, maybe
three “=” signs – not good
- Do you use a favicon? Perhaps you should (your brand can be saved to the user browser)
CSS & Standards
1. Can validated code help you rank higher?
2. Do sites using CSS rank higher?
Matthew basically asnwered both questions in one sentence by focusing on CSS. He basically said that CSS focuses on content and used right, it defines the content of a page. All the design elements are external and CSS reduces page clutter. So his answer is a yes.
Standards & Validation
1. Validation uncovers coding erros
2. It also assures that spiders can index content
Validation does not increase rankings but does affect it.
He then went on to the topic of mobile browsing, explaining that it is “getting hot”, and that our sites should be accessible via mobile phones and PDA’s. The bottom line for all of us is to design a site to be accessed “at any time, through any device”…
Next he talked about keywords. The #1 rule of keywords is to call products what they are and to not try and define a new market. So, when people are searching for “nails” you should optimize for nails and not something you thought was quirky and new.
Brands are NOT top of mind to people searches – needs are.
Then Matthew continued about importance of Page Titles, descriptions and keyword tags. He said Page Title tags is priority #1, Meta Description tags priority #2 and Meta Keyword tags are a waste of time. Personally, yes and no, I’d say the best is to use it, but not spend too much time on it. It can still help.
Then he continued on page structure and how people read a page. the fact is people don’t read, they scan content – 79% of users scan and 16% read word for word.
People scan:
- headlines
- meaningful sub headings
- bulleted lists
- headers: one idea per paragraph
You content arrangement needs to have the most important info at the top and, as Matthew suggests, you should half the word count to double the retention.
MAKE PAGES EASY TO SCAN with links in content – links in context
Lasly he mentiond problem in usability
#1 – small text on sites
#2 – scrolling text
#3 – blinking text
#4 – rotating text
#5 – text on fire
#6 – low contrast
