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Technics for Search Engine Optimisation
Many web designers view search-engine optimization (SEO) as a “dirty trick,” and with good reason: search engine optimizers often pollute search engine results with spam, making it harder to
find relevant information when searching. But in fact, there is more than one type of search-engine optimization. In common usage, “black-hat” SEO seeks to achieve high rankings in search
engines by any means possible, whereas “white-hat” SEO seeks to code web pages in a way that is friendly to search engines.
Two years later, I am going to take Brandon’s conclusions a step further. I have been a search engine optimizer for several years, but only recently have become infatuated with web
accessibility. After reading for weeks and painstakingly editing my personal website to comply with most W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, I have come to a startling revelation: high
accessibility overlaps heavily with effective white hat SEO.
Accessibility for all users, even search engines
On further reflection, this overlap makes sense. The goal of accessibility is to make web content accessible to as many people as possible, including those who experience that content under
technical, physical, or other constraints. It may be useful to think of search engines as users with substantial constraints: they can’t read text in images, can’t interpret JavaScript or applets, and
can’t “view” many other kinds of multimedia content. These are the types of problems that accessibility is supposed to solve in the first place.
Walking through a few checkpoints
Now that I’ve discussed the theory of why high accessibility overlaps with effective SEO, I will show how it does so. To do this, I am going
to touch upon each Priority 1 checkpoint in the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines which affects search-engine optimization.
1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element.
Not only are search engines unable to understand image and movie files, they also cannot interpret any textual content that is based on vision (such as ASCII art). alt and longdesc attributes will,
therefore, help them understand the subject of any such content.
Search engines are also “deaf” in reference to audio files. Again, providing textual descriptions to these files allows search engines to better interpret and rank the content that they cannot “hear.”
1.2 Provide redundant text links for each active region of a server-side image map.
Text links are very important to search engines, since anchor text often succinctly labels the content of a link’s target page. In fact, many search engine optimizers consider anchor text to be the
single most important factor in modern search algorithms. If a website uses an image map rather than a text-based menu as the primary navigational method, a redundant text-only menu
elsewhere on the page will give search engines additional information about the content of each target page.
4.1 Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document’s text and any text equivalents.
Major search engines maintain country and language-specific indexes. Specifying the language of a document (or of text within a document) helps search engines decide in which
index(es) to place it.
6.3 Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported
Some users choose to disable JavaScript and applets in their browser’s preferences, while other users’ browsers do not support these technologies at all. Likewise, search engines’ “browsers”
do not read scripts; therefore a webpage’s usability should not be crippled when scripts are not supported. Otherwise, search engines may not even index the page, let alone rank it well.
14.1 Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site’s content.
It is a bit less obvious how this particular checkpoint aids SEO. But if a website contains the “clearest and simplest language appropriate
for the site’s content,” it is probably using those keywords with which potential searchers will be most familiar. Searchers tend to use succinct queries containing familiar language. Thus, to
receive maximum traffic from search engines, it is best that a website contain the same words which the site’s audience will use when searching.
The benefits do not end with Priority 1—many of the Priority 2 and 3 Checkpoints are important for SEO purposes, too. For instance, Checkpoints 6.2 and 6.5 refer to the accessibility of dynamic
content. In fact, making dynamic content search engine-friendly is one of the most daunting tasks a search engine optimizer faces when working on an ecommerce or database-driven site.
Following the W3C’s recommendations can help to avoid any indexing or ranking problems related to using dynamic content.
From the horse’s mouth
If you doubt any of the above, perhaps a visit to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines could convince you that Google rewards high accessibility. This page specifically mentions best practices
which will help Google “find, index, and rank your site.”
Design and Content Guidelines:
* Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
* Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
* Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
* Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
* Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.
* Make sure that your title and alt tags are descriptive and accurate.
Technical Guidelines:
* Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs,
frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
The checkpoints I highlighted above are just a few of the many ways that high accessibility will help optimize a website for search engines—many of the other checkpoints in the W3C Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines are helpful to SEO, as well. Of course, to most web designers, the goal of accessibility is (and should be) to make sites accessible to all people, independent of their platform or any disabilities they have. But if accessibility gets a website more traffic from Google, even better!
Contact HeyGoTo at (702) 475-4227 or go to www.HeyGoTo.com today to find out how we can help you! To read more industry information go to the HeyGoTo Blog at http://heygoto.com/wordpress/
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