SEO is in the details

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) analysis is one of my favorite kinds of projects. While a top-to-bottom reworking of the site might be appropriate, sometimes you don’t have to change very much structurally to get benefits.

Titles, Headings and Meta descriptions

Let’s talk about low-hanging fruit. It doesn’t get lower hanging than page titles. Any scripting language out there offers the ability to craft dynamic titles, so there’s literally no excuse for same-page titles. Yet, what is out there?

Today’s site analysis victim is Glendale, Arizona’s Jobing.com Arena. We’ll leave aside the name for this exercise and focus on the Web site.

Title

If you try searching for events happening at Jobing Arena, you may have trouble finding them–or at least knowing you’ve found them if you do. Take a look at the screenshot below and see if you can tell what’s what.

You have to read the details to figure out what anything is. For this screenshot, I’ve isolated the site’s results, but if you saw this result in a list with offerings from other sites, what would you click on?

Not only does it yield results in terms of user clicks, but the title is highly valued in terms of PageRank (Google’s proprietary calculation of a page’s relevance to a given query). Make sure it’s readable, but by all means put those keywords in the title to ensure your page’s relevance. In the case of jobingarena.com, keywords include location, date, tour name and artist name.

Put the most unique stuff up front, followed by the stuff that stays the same from title to title. In this case, one option would be “Taylor Swift Fearless Tour May 21, 2009 – Jobing.com Arena Official site.” Note that everyone who lists the event has “Jobing Arena” in the title somehow, so adding “Official site” can help the Arena differentiate its listing.

I mocked this one up, but you can see how the results at least align with competing results, regardless of whether you feel the “Official site” gives it an edge or whether it should include the word “tickets.” I would argue that the Official site designation implies that tickets and authoritative information is available there. Additionally, you only get about fifty characters to display before the ellipses are inserted. Make the most of it.

Headings

The word above is a heading. It uses an <h4> tag. The header above it in this article’s outline is an <h3>. Text in heading tags are, like titles, seen by search engines to be clear indicators of the information being discussed. Used sparingly headings can be effective boosters of your PageRank by emphasizing the key points you’re covering.

Headings help break up long stretches of text, all of which may be interesting but otherwise intimidating. By providing a reading guide–a sort of just-in-time table of contents–the content is more readable. By choosing headings that also reinforce important keywords, you again get tremendous benefit from little effort.

Take a look at the text on this event detail page for an upcoming concert, “Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood Together Live.”

Now check out the version with possible headings.

Obviously, this is somewhat a matter of taste. The best keywords we put in were “Parking” and “Live together at Jobing.com Arena,” but when you’re fighting for PageRank with 100 ticket brokers, every little bit could make a difference.

Meta descriptions

The main reason I chose Jobing.com Arena as today’s victim is that, when I found their site on Google, this is what I saw.

That’s right, whoever implemented Joomla as their content management system never updated the meta description, so when some of the site pages are displayed, you see “Joomla – the dynamic portal engine and content management system.” Pretty professional, eh? Remember that, by default, the contents of the meta description are what Google displays when your site comes up in search results (unless a more relevant excerpt is found in the body of the page). Make sure it concisely describes your site or page.

Use a Launch Checklist

Pay attention to the details, because they matter a great deal. Use a launch checklist to ensure you cover all the bases before going live. Monitor your results by watching what keywords users are using to find your pages and look for opportunities to build on your successes. If your most valuable pages are not getting hits, try reworking your keyword placement and selection.

Good luck getting found, and let me know how I can help.

Popularity: 68% [?]