findability bliss through web standards

An Event Apart Seattle, WA May 5, 2009

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Findability

simple goals3

find your site

find stuff in your site

rediscover your site

Beyond SEO

the common thread

Findability is not ...

Findability is ...

Content

web standardsgreat content +

=

findability bliss

web standardsgreat content +

=

The Standards Connection

Semantic Markup: machine readable

Accessibility: legible to search engines

Progressively Enhance: remove barriers

Microformats: re-discoverable

Semantic Message

“Aboutness”

Position Keywords

<title>

<h1>

<h2>&

friends

<em>

<strong>&

<a ...>here</a>

title=“here”

alt=“here”

More Keyword Placement

Your URL

Logo file name

Naturally in your content (<= 7%)

<h1 id="logo" title=”description”> Site or Organization Name</h1>

/* css */#logo { text-indent: -9999px; background: url(image.gif); width: 200px; height: 25px;}

image replacement

mezzoblue.com/tests/revised-image-replacement/

Bad Karma?

mezzoblue.com/archives/2008/05/05/image_replac/

apple.com

Keyword Research?

WWMD?

delicious.com

adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Check Your Work

Ranks.nl

Ranks.nl

Sensational-SEO.com/

Sensational-SEO.com/

Find YourCompetitors

Accessible Message

present the entire message

description link

<img src="logos.gif" alt="Client logos" /> <a href="#footnote" title="Image description">about this image</a>

<div id="footnote"><h4>Our Clients Include … </h4><ul> <li> Yahoo! </li> <li> John Deere </li> <li> CNN </li> …</ul></div>

<acronym title="Web Content Accessibility Guidelines"> WCAG</acronym> <abbr title="Georgia">GA</abbr>

anticipate search behaviors

What about JavaScript?

Ajax Pitfalls

Ajax Pitfalls

Progressively Enhance

make it work without JavaScript support

navigation can’t rely on JavaScript

http://www.udm4.com/

What About Ajax?

Ajax Problems

No unique URL

JavaScript required to load

Not search engine friendly

Ajax Solutions

Don’t use it for mission critical content

Use the Hijax Approach

Fetch content server-side

Portable Content is Re-discoverable

<div id="hcard-John-Stewart" class="vcard"> <span class="fn">John Stewart</span> <div class="org">The Daily Show</div> <div class="adr"> <div class="street-address">123 Some Street</div> <span class="locality">New York</span>, <span class="region">NY</span>, <span class="postal-code">12345</span> <span class="country-name">USA</span> </div></div>

hCard microformat

soupstudios.com/contact/

<div id="hcalendar-An-Event-Apart" class="vevent"><a href="http://aneventapart.com" class="url"><abbr title="2009-05-04T09:00-05:0000" class="dtstart">May 4th 9am</abbr> : <abbr title="2009-05-05T20:00-05:00" class="dtend">5th 5pm, 2009</abbr> :

<span class="summary">An Event Apart</span> in <span class="location">Seattle, WA</span></a>

<div class="description">For people who make websites.</div>

hCalendar microformat

microformats.org

Do search engines recognize microformats?

Will I get a ranking boost from validating?

Findable Websites AreSuccessful Websites

Your Clients Demand It

Thanks

http://buildingfindablewebsites.com

BuildingFindableWebsites.com

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