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Search is an access issue 1 Find this for me… 2 It’s all related… Standards = Access = Flexibility = SEO • The core advice is remarkably similar: – W3C on access: Create well-formed, structured content – Google on SEO: Create well-formed structured content W3C: www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php Google: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 3 Web search and user interface 4 >90% of our content depends on search 5 Standards = SEO = Access • CSS helps promote both access and search optimization • XHTML provides semantic structure a crawler can understand – h1, h2, h3, <p>, <ul>, etc. • Allows you to order the page content logically & graphically – DIV and ID structures contain & order content – Text content flow can be independent of graphic layout 6 Standards = SEO = Access • Search engine crawlers are the most frequent “disabled users” on the web • Crawlers can only read text • Crawlers don’t use mice and don’t understand “click here” • Can’t see your pictures & graphic display text • Crawlers don’t use: – Javascript – Cookies – Flash • How will a crawler read your page layout tables? Across rows? Down columns? 7 Search engine optimization defined • Clean separation of content & presentation • A consistent set of principles for content structure • A consistent approach to page graphic layout & design • An awareness of how search crawlers “read” a site – Crawlers read & rank PAGES, not sites • SEO is intrinsic to the site design & structure – The principles are simple – You can’t buy SEO, or simply “add it on” later 8 Page titles are the key starting point • Single most important element in SEO • Provide the keywords and themes for the page • Provide the most prominent text for the search results • MUST contain carefully chosen keywords, consistent with the rest of the page content • Provide the text for user bookmarks • Should be as unique as possible – GOOD: Yale | Medical School History – BAD: Yale University School of Medicine | History of YSM – Bad bookmark result: “Yale University School of…” 9 Keywords • Consistent across: – Page title <title> – Headers <h1>, <h2> – Content • Ideal keyword occurrence range is about 5-9% • Heavy repetition of keywords de-ranks a page (looks like a search scam) – File & directory names: yes, they count too! • Use meaningful plain English words, use hyphens as separators Good: plain-english-words-work.html • Underscores are “non-breaking,” and are not read as individual words Bad: this_is_not_search_readable.html • Directory names count too seo-advice/keywords/plain-english-words-work.html 10 SEO beyond the page content itself • Every word involved in your site structure matters also: – File names – Directory names • Use plain-English words with breaking characters like hyphens • Make sure your file names are readable by search engines: – “sea-animals” reads as “sea” & “animals” – “sea_animals” reads as “sea_animals” (not a recognizable word) • Examples – Good: sea-animals/marine-birds/greater-shearwater.html – Poor: sea_animals/marine_birds/greater_shearwater.html – (Nothing in the second example contributes to content relevance) 11 Meta tags and search • A great idea, subverted by greed • They can’t hurt, and might even help • DON’T use them to cheat; that will get you blackballed <link rel="schema.DC" href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" /> <meta name="DC.title" lang="en" content="Patrick J. Lynch personal Web site" /> <meta name="DC.description" lang="en" content="Personal Web site of artist, author, designer and photographer Patrick J. Lynch." /> <meta name="DC.creator" lang="en" content="Patrick J. Lynch" /> <meta name="DC.publisher" content="Patrick J. Lynch, Yale University" /> <meta name="DC.format" scheme="DCTERMS.IMT" content="text/html" /> <meta name="DC.keywords" lang="en" content="web design, web style guide, yale university, yale school of medicine, yale, wildlife illustration, wildlife art, wildlife photography, medical illustration" /> 12 Flexible styles 13 Use the cascade skin.css CSS CSS CSS Local graphics & colors unique to this page typography.css All site typography core.css Layout DIVs for all pages • Core & typography shared throughout the site • Unique “skins” create graphic variations 14 Yale web standards layouts Variations are produced by different “skins” The HTML remains the same skin1.css skin2.css skin3.css skin4.css Page engineering by Victor Velt, Yale University 15 Use the cascade skin-green.css skin-red.css CSS CSS “Skins” provide visual or structural variation All pages share the same underlying XHTML structure Styles shared by all pages CSS CSS CSS CSS core.css typography.css print.css mobile.css 16 Yale web standards layouts (wireframes) 17 Flexible styles across display conditions Screen media=“screen” Print media=“print” Mobile media=“handheld” 18 Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox 19 The ironies: Violating user expectations What users expect to emerge from the printer WYSIWYG Huh? A foundational principle of the graphic user interface 20 What does “handheld” mean these days? Limited mobile The regular web, on a mobile device 21 Thank you [email protected] patricklynch.net 22