Search Engine Optimization

Assignment 3 in Internet Search Techniques and Business Intelligence. You work in a group of 4 people as you did for the previous assignments.

Task

The task is to perform search-engine optimization and demonstrate the results. Consider the following steps of your work:

Make a small website available for the assignment, as described below.
Select a webpage to optimize, and a search phrase to optimize the webpage for.
Index you website by SiteSeeker, search by the selected search phrase, and note the (hopefully poor) position of your selected webpage in the search results.
Do search-engine optimization according to the instructions below.
Re-index you website, do the search again, and note the (hopefully improved) position of your selected webpage in the search results.
Write and submit the report.

Preparation

Website

Create a number of web pages and make a small website. Choose a real site if you can - at work, your homepage, your hobby site. If not, create a few throw-away web pages. There are two options how you can publish your mini-site:

DSV students can create their own HTML pages and publish them through their student account:
- IT-miljö vid DSV → Personlig webbsida , information in Swedish only
Develop your mini-site using blogging and self-publishing software. Please be advised that some blogging and self-publishing sites do not allow "unauthorized" crawlers; make sure your web pages can be crawled before you develop your mini-site. Blogger.com and Wordpress.com seem fine.

The number of pages on your mini-site should be at least 5.

Page to Optimize

On your mini-site, select one page that you want to optimize. This optimization target page must contain a fair share of text, not only images.

Typical mistake. Some students scatter their optimization activities across several pages. While link optimization does involve several pages, there is only one optimization target page, please stay focused on it.

Search Phrase

Find a phrase, made of two-three keywords, that you will optimize your target page for. Try using the keyword discovery methods mentioned during the lecture.

Make sure your target page does not end up #1 in search results for the selected phrase before optimization. If the page already has the top position, change the search phrase to leave space for improvement after the optimization. If the page does not show up in the search results, change the search phrase.

Typical mistake. Some students have no idea what they optimize for. Scattering a number of keywords across the website is not optimization.

Initial Indexing and Search

Use SiteSeeker to index your pages. Please consult the description of SiteSeeker Administration Interface, ask eriks@dsv.su.se for the account name and password. If the number of pages on your mini-site is small, index also a portion of some competing public website.

When you tell SiteSeeker which website to index, please pay attention to the communication protocol - HTTPs or HTTP. Most websites use HTTPs, and HTTP does not work, nothing gets indexed.

Run the search phrase you have selected to optimize your site for. Record the position of your optimization target page in the initial search results; you will need to compare this position with the new improved position after optimization.

Optimization

Text Optimization

You optimize the text of your selected target page. Follow the guidelines in the lecture slides, use your imagination, feel free to enrich this assignment.

Choose a keyword-rich URL if your web-publishing software allows it. Normally you cannot or should not change the domain name; you can change the file/path name.
Optimize <TITLE>.
Optimize the body text and headings. Place keyword-rich text within the body.
Optimize images. Place concise descriptive text with relevant keywords into the ALT-tag of the image.

Think Hummingbird. Develop content that helps people to solve a need. Distinguish keyword-rich entities and relationship between them. Please observe that SiteSeeker may not be that good at resolving synonyms (test it!).

Link Optimization

On your mini-site, pages must be easily accessible.

Organize your links so that the page rank is focused on the page being optimized.
Human visitors, however, should not be bothered by your link optimization activities. Use NOFOLLOW if you want the search engine to ignore the link.
Optimize the link texts, i.e., use your keywords in the link texts that point to your target page.
Avoid menus on the top or bottom or in the sidebars of every page. If the publishing tool creates them automatically, "nofollow" them. Design your own purposeful link structure to facilitate the optimization of the target page.

NB! The main reason why the assignment gets rejected is insufficient link optimization. Please do put effort into link optimization.

Typical mistake. Some students only create links that leave the optimization target page. This is not sufficient. Your optimization target page needs incoming links from other pages.

Final Indexing and Search

Re-index your site after optimization. Run the search phrase you have selected to optimize your page for. Record the position of the optimized page in the search results.

Report

In the report:

Include the link to your-mini site.
State clearly which page you have optimized.
State clearly which search phrase you did optimization for.
Explicitly (e.g., in a table or by a screen shot) show the position of your optimization target page before and after the otimization, as well in the relation to the pages above in the result list. Tell which one is your link, or mark it in the picture. Comment the changes. If there still are pages above in the result list, why?
Address all the above optimization features, motivate all that you did.
- Make a list of all the links that you have optimized, which URL was added or changed (the new version if it changed) on which page, tell what was changed and why.

Don't forget to write your names on the report.

Eriks Sneiders