The debate about optimising for the user experience

Currently there is a debate as to whether Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) should be guided by User Experience Optimisation (UXO). One of the leading supporters of the personalisation of search engine experience, Goggle’s Matt Cutts, believes that “instead of chasing after the search engines, chase after the user experience because the search engines are chasing after the user experience. By chasing after a good user experience, you help ensure that you and the search engines are both working in the same direction. That’s much better than you chasing the search engines, which are in turn chasing what we think is best for users“. Although Cutts’ quote sounds more like philosophy than implementation, there is some value to it. The ultimate goal of most search engines is to provide better results for users but often the reality is that competitive and time and money pressured web marketing consultants sacrifice user experience for short term gains in visibility. Cutts believes that by treating user experience as the main priority, most web marketing consultants will be able to align their  incentives with those of the search engines and get better long term ROI results.

However, the opposing camp, which has only one goal in mind and that is to earn higher rankings, argues that SEO is not and should not be UXO because the job of an SEO professional is to build and target ranking authority off-site and use that authority on-site and there is just no space in that job for prioritising user experience. The foremost priority of the ‘against camp’ is to know the search ranking factors and to effectively use that knowledge to boost rankings. For example, these people believe that ranking authority comes from other websites in the form of external links and it doesn’t matter how good, relevant or usable a website’s content is as long as it is link-worthy and a link to this website is included on other websites. Furthermore, the ‘against camp’ argues that SEO and UXO are not the same and sometimes it is necessary to chose between the two.

I support the ideas proposed by the “for camp” and believe that optimising for the user experience is definitely a way forward. As a search engine user I am always more satisfied with sites which manage to achieve the best of both worlds – be number one in Google and be number one in terms of usability, accessibility and desirability. A site optimised for the user experience also gives credence to the professionalism and forward thinking of the web marketing consultant.

Google University at E-commerce Expo North

After reading through the show preview for the E-commerce Expo North 2010 (27th May 2010), I had decided that the two talks by Google speakers were going to be my top priority to attend that day. Not only was this a chance to be one of the lucky few to attend a lecture by ‘celebrities’ of the SEO world, but the things I learnt would benefit me in my work placement and help me to understand the importance in what Kent House does.

At E-commerce Expo North, Google University were holding two sessions;

Google University AdWords – This session’s aim was to layout the groundwork for a successful AdWords campaign. It was aimed at people who wanted to get started with AdWords, or just simply wanted a refresher in the basics of online advertising.

The session aims to teach you;

• How the AdWords system works
• How campaigns should be structured
• How keyword lists and ads are developed
• How to optimise campaign for maximum performance
• Q&A with Google AdWords experts

Google University Analytics – This session’s aims are to give you an overview of how Google Analytics can help your business. As well as learning where your site visitors come from and how they interact with your site, Analytics will also give you information to write better ads and strengthen your marketing initiatives.

The session aims to teach you;

• How to set up an Analytics account
• The various different report types
• How the data shown can influence your business decisions
• Q&A with Google Analytics experts

Due to the nature of my work placement and having already being involved with using Google AdWords, I had initially planned to attend both of the talks during the E-commerce expo – with the talk on AdWords being slightly higher in my priority list. However, after the successful 1st talk on AdWords proving to be very popular, I was unable to attend the 2nd talk on Analytics due to the large amount of people queuing.

Regardless of not being able to see the session about Analytics, I thoroughly enjoyed the talk on AdWords and found it extremely useful. I met people who had only just heard about this type of marketing campaign, and like myself, were there to simply learn the basics. It was explained very well and useful examples were given to help the audience relate AdWords to their business.

What SEO cannot do

A carefully thought through SEO campaign can get you to the top of the search engine rankings, but it cannot encourage customers to buy your products or services where there is little demand for them. Equally, you may be listed high up in the search engines, but for search terms that no one uses.

Unfortunately there is very little you can do about creating demand where none exists. But you can work to ensure that you are targeting your optimum keywords. To do this we advise you to perform a thorough keyword research first before embarking on your SEO strategy. Remember that a successful SEO strategy is not necessarily about targeting the broadest, most popular search terms, but more importantly it is about identifying keywords that people actually use, and can potentially lead to a business deal.

When working on your SEO campaign, try to avoid such unethical techniques as:

• Keyword stuffing (excessive repetition of your keywords in the text or meta tags in order to influence ranking).
• Use of keywords in the meta tags that are not reflected in the page content.
• Creating multiple pages with virtually identical content.
• Automatically generated doorway pages which contain little user oriented content.

When the campaign ends…paragraph and section headers for SEO

Continuing on from my earlier article the next item down on the list of things to pay attention to was paragraph and section headers. These are a very simple and effective way of letting the Search Engines know what words they should pay attention to and to give your keywords additional weighting on the page.

Traditionally when writing a document, you would put paragraph or table headings in bold and maybe increase the font size to show your readers that the title of the paragraph or table was “Racing Bikes” for example. However, for SEO you should always ensure that it is set as a header. Headers look like the below in their rawest forms:
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6>

Most good Content Management Systems will give you the option of making a piece of text into a header rated 1 – 6 within the actual text editor. These should normally be set and styled by your web designers so that they are in keeping with your site’s look and feel. Generally speaking page titles are set as H1’s with every sub-category underneath that being a H2 and so on down to H6. I must admit though that I have never used a H6, at that stage you might want to come up with a different way of structuring your information!

When creating your paragraph headers, ensure you use keyword rich, descriptive text. So if I wanted to create a page on the types of services offered by Kent House with a specific focus on Staffordshire, I would structure the page a little like this:

Kent House, Staffordshire based online marketing agency – our services

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for Staffordshire based companies

We have a great SEO track record for clients, helping them to achieve much improved rankings in Google, Yahoo! and Bing.
Work directly with our Internet Marketing Manager Yvonne Conway to improve your company’s search engine results.

Website design for local Staffordshire companies

Kent House have been designing websites for big and small companies across Staffordshire since 2001. Give us a call today to see what we can do for you!

And so on through each of our services…So remember when you are creating your pages, ensure you use set headers for paragraph and section headings rather than simply using basic formatting.

When the campaign ends…page titles

There is always a worry that after spending thousands of pounds on an SEO campaign with an agency, your site will lose its positioning in the SERPs once the campaign is over and you begin to add new content yourself.  Therefore I have come up with a guide on adding content to your site to help you overcome this worry and to continue the work where your search engine optimisation agency left off.

When adding new content there are 6 key areas you need to be aware of.

• Page Titles
• Paragraph or Section Headers
• Words in bold and italics
• Internal links
• Images and Alt Tags
• Keyword selection

For the purpose of this first article I will focus on Page Titles and how they can be “optimised” for search. Before I do that a quick explanation of page titles is probably in order. The page title is what you can see in the top bar of your web browser – it generally shows the website’s name and some blurb about the business or the site. It is prime SEO real estate and a very quick and easy way to improve your on page optimisation.

For a number of reasons page titles are one of the most important aspects of search engine optimisation. Firstly, because they are the first thing that is displayed when a search engine shows your page, so they should always be relevant, concise, descriptive and encourage people to click on your result. Secondly because they are the first thing a robot will see when it comes to your site and thirdly because they are a great way to get some more keywords onto the page and make your site relevant to the crawler for a search term.

When coming up with page titles there are several schools of thought on how to structure them. The two predominant theories go:

(A)    Company Name |Section | Product or Service
e.g.
ABC Ltd | Mountain Bikes | The Brilliant Mountain Bike 2.1

(B)    Company Name | Brief description of what is on the page
e.g.
ABC Ltd | Specialists in mountain bikes such as The Brilliant Mountain Bike 2.1

I personally prefer the second variant as it gives a description of your business which then appears in the SERPs, giving your company a more human face and encouraging people to click on the result. However, when done well either option will help your positioning and continue your site on its way to a page 1 result.