Let go and let Google
I have been doing quite a bit of practical SEO research since launching this site; Little tweaks here and there have been slowly pushing me up the perverbial Google ladder and it finally appears to be paying off.
It’s funny, almost imediately after launching the new design, Yahoo! listed me at the top of the front page (when searching for “James Angus”). Google, on the other hand, had me at the bottom of page 11… Not quite what I had in mind!
While looking at the myriad of recommendations on “white-hat” SEO-techniques, there were plenty of quick and easy changes to implement.
One of the things that sounded a little crazy, but worth experimenting with was the idea of removing the “Description” meta-tag completely. The idea is that because blogs (especially the front page of blogs) change so often that the description meta-tag doesn’t ever really accurately represent the content on the page. By removing this tag completely, you allow the GoogleBot to do what it does best; Index your page according to the content.
So, what was the result? Well, today, after giving the GoogleBot a couple of weeks to re-index the site, I can happily say that this technique worked a dream; ucantblamem.com is now on the second page of a search for “James Angus“!
Of course, as with any good SEO strategy, I’m not one to rely on one technique alone. This latest change has certainly sparked a large jump for the site, but along with it, I have also (since launch):
- Added a Google sitemap to the site
- Applied many of the mobile-centric considerations to the site.
- Made a number of accessibility changes as pointed out by WebXact and the Web Accessibility book.
- Aimed for perfectly valid (and Strict) XHTML.
- Changed my strategy for writing content, to cut down fluff and keep it relevant.
It has been a really interesting experiment / experience focusing so intently on SEO; Having preached on many an occasion the benefits to SEO that standards-based techniques provide, it was great to see it all unravel before my eyes on a real site. I can most definitely confirm that focusing on Accessibility will take you a long way to effective SEO.
A web-developers’ job is never done and so this little experiment is on-going, but I felt it pertinent to share my latest findings and document the journey.
April 11th, 2007 at 9:38 am
The world of SEO or Search Engine Friendly websites is ever growing as more hints and tips popup.
The shortlist you put there are a good example of what works across the board and I am not suprised by the description tag as Google pretty much ignores it these days other then to display a description on results and not worry about the content in it. It is even pretty much the same for keywords these days as they are to easy to spam.
Be wary as these search engines are clever and things like white text on white background will be found and you will be punished, but I think you know these things as you already know the terminology ‘White Hat’ ;)
I plan to down the track do a lil article on SEF/SEO techniques that I use in sites that I have seen some great success from in the past, but again these are what I would call the basics still.