North Dakota State University

Search Enhancement

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This document covers SEO technical best practices from a web developmentstandpoint. It's provided as a framework to build a search engine friendly website, which will also improve user experience. Links are provided from reputable SEO sources to provided additional detail. 

1. Robots.txt file tells search engines which pages are allowed to be indexed and which are not. Development, QA and testing servers should block all robots.
2. Unique page title tag on every page which use keywords pertaining to the content of the page. See link above for incorporating brand related keywords, ie: ASU, Arizona State University at the end. There is a 70 character limit. Use content related keywords first.
3. Unique meta description tag on every page that also uses brand and content related keywords. The meta description tells search engines what the context of the page is concerning. This is another good opportunity to add brand related keywords at the end, ie: ASU, Arizona State University, There is a 155 character limit.
4. Use the meta and title tag tester to verify length, title and meta desc relevancy to the content of the page.
5. Don't bother with the meta keywords tag. It's been deprecated.
6. Clean hyphen-delimited URLs . IE: asu.edu/contextual-based-url-keywords
   • Urls provide additional context for search engines and user experience to describe the content of the page. Use keywords that relate to the content of the page. Note: node/1234 should be set up using the URL alias module in Drupal. Avoid dynamic variables in URLs. See link above for more info on avoiding URL variables.
7. Setup canonical URLs , choose www or non www for all pages on the site or sub domain. It's best to set up a solid architecture on the server using rewrite rules to either www or non www versions of the site. You want to avoid the duplicate content issue . For instance. http://asu.edu /,http://www.asu.edu , http://asu.edu/index.html , http://www.asu.edu/index.phpare all potentially paths to the same content. Use a trailing slash instead ie:http://www.asu.edu/ . 301 (moved permanently) redirects should be set up. Instructions for configuring Apache or IIS servers can be found here . Rel="canonical" can be used on the page but best practice is the set up a properly configured server or CMS to handle URL canonicalization. Each page should have only one path to it, URL variables should be avoided. Additional info on why to use canonical URLs can be found here .

Drupal SEO Resources

1. Drupal Redirect module: https://drupal.org/project/redirect
2. Drupal Global redirect module: https://drupal.org/project/globalredirect
   • HTTP redirects should be set up for all 404 pages. Google Analytics or Webmaster tools can be used to find 404 pages. Weekly audits should be done to insure user experience and search engines path through the site are not broken.
   • Use an XML Sitemap. A sitemap is an xml file that search engines consume to have greater access to the published content of your website which you want indexed.
3. Drupal XML sitemap module allows you to include each page, node etc in the sitemap on a general or specific basis. It will also alert Google and Bing when changes to the site have been published so the search engine will index the content.
4. Non-Drupal sites can be use something similar to the xml sitemap generator although this only works best for sites that do not have new pages added or deleted frequently. It will spider the site and create a sitemap which you can upload to the web root directory.

Additional Resources

1. Configure Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools and authorize ownership of the site to both search engines and submit your xml sitemap. Yahoo shares it's datasource with Bing so it's not necessary to submit to Yahoo.
2. Images : use subject related keyword phrases in the "alt" tag of the image. This good for SEO but a best practice for screen readers and ADA compliance. Keywords can also be added to the file name in a hyphen delimited manner. IE: sparky-at-asu-graduation.jpg
3. Link anchor text is a great place for contextual keywords of the destination URL.
4. Use HTML <h1>, <h2> etc header tags to describe the content of the section below the tag and the relative importance of the content to the page. <h1> most valued content, <h2> second, <h3> third etc. The context of your page <title>, meta description, and heading tags should be correlated.
5. Avoid Flash or Java content if at all possible.
6. Write semantic and clean HTML, CSS and JavaScript, validate your code using the W3C HTML and CSS validation tools. Search engines need to be able to traverse the DOM to index the content of the HTML. Broken or non-semantic code will hinder indexing.
7. Never use images in place of text for non-system fonts or hover state behaviors. Text within images (nav, buttons etc) cannot be indexed and it creates bandwidth overhead. Explore web fonts, and CSS3 techniques for hover effects when possible.
8. Video - use YouTube when possible, writing video descriptions which are unique and describe the content of the video accurately. This is an opportunity for linking to your website from the bottom of the description and using brand (ASU) or product (degree name) related keywords and tags.
9. Put all JavaScript at the bottom of the page before the closing </body> tag.
10. Use progressive enhancement web development techniques. Your page content should load with JavaScript disabled adding JavaScript and CSS for additional functionality.
    • Core Progressive Enhancement Principles
      • basic content should be accessible to all web browsers
      • basic functionality should be accessible to all web browsers
      • sparse, semantic markup contains all content
      • enhanced layout is provided by externally linked CSS
      • enhanced behavior is provided by unobtrusive , externally linked JavaScript
      • end-user web browser preferences are respected
11. Use schema.org and microdata to give search engines access todescriptive, rich snippets .
12. Add social sharing icons to pages to allow users to easily share your content providing link from reputable social networks when the page is shared.
13. Add links to your social accounts, G+, Facebook page, Twitter, YouTube, commonly in the footer include.
14. Tools for benchmarking, testing and showing SEO improvement

Search Engine Optimization Tools

1. Meta tag analyzer tests meta tag length and relevance to page content
2. Moz Analytics is a great tool for keeping up on SEO errors
3. Google Webmaster Tools show's errors, malware, and SEO related stats
4. Google Analytics a free tool that can show SEO improvements over time and how visitors are interacting with your website content before converting
5. Google Rich Snippet tester - test microdata and see how it will appear on Google