I work on a cruise information site built in Drupal 5. In addition to a handy guide explaining the essentials of a 1st cruise, we lets users browse and share cruise ship pictures and cruise stories. We've given some thought to SEO, so I thought I'd share a few things we've learned....
1. Optimize titles and file names. This is a major part of how Google matches your page to someone's search results. So, use clean URLs, Automatic Node Titles, Pathauto and Page Title. Also think carefully about how you name nodes and panels, taking into account the words people would use when searching. For example, few people search for "gallery" so "pictures" may be a better choice.
2. Submit to DMOZ. Their directory pages typically have high Rank, and even more importantly Google and AOL use DMOZ in categorizing websites. Always follow the submission guidelines in selecting the right category and writing up your description. Trying to game the system by picking a "more popular" category or writing a "jazzy" description will only work against you.
3. Write enticing meta DESCRIPTIONS. The Meta Tags module allows you to write custom meta keywords and descriptions. Keywords are now ignored by SEs, but descriptions are shown in Google search results, so they can have a big impact on click-through.
4. XML Sitemap. Many sites are actually fine without this. But if you have content that changes frequently or a very large archive of documents that aren't well inter-linked, it's probably worth using XML Sitemap.
5. Track your results. Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools are wonderful. Analytics will let you track daily visits, where people are coming from, and even what keywords they used to find you. Be sure to create a filter to exclude visits from yourself and your team. Webmaster Tools will help identify any problems with the site that may offend Google.
6. Use Mailhandler to stay on top of press releases. More content is always better than less. So have press releases sent to an account that goes to Mailhandler, which will automate the import. But, simply republishing press releases is counter-productive: Google disregards duplicate content. Instead, have Mailhandler import releases as "unpublished" and use them as basis for your own unique articles.
7. Ask for a plug. We all know bloggers and journalists. Don't be shy! Ask them to write about your site. Offer to do an interview. Even if it's just a simple "a friend is working on this" link in your buddy's blog, it'll help people (and Google) find you.
5. More specifically, ask for anchor links. For a new site, these really help Google figure out what you do. Let me give you two versions of the same sentence:
(a) Nice to have: "http://www.CruiseSavvy.com is a helpful site for people thinking about their first cruise, or who want to browse and even share cruise ship pictures and cruise stories"
(b) Awesome to have: CruiseSavvy.com, is a helpful site with for people thinking about their first cruise, or who want to browse and even share cruise ship pictures and cruise stories.
Version (b) takes up no more space on the blogger's site, while also linking words like "cruise ship pictures" to specific destinations on the site, complete with Title descriptions when the reader hovers over the links. This is helpful for the readers, and helps Google figure out what a site is all about.
The HTML for that, by the way, is:
<code>
<a href="http://www.cruisesavvy.com" title="Cruise Reviews and Information">CruiseSavvy.com</a>, is a helpful site with for people thinking about their <a href="http://www.cruisesavvy.com/savvyguide/introduction_to_cruises" title="Introduction to Cruises">first cruise</a>, or who want to browse and even share <a href="http://www.cruisesavvy.com/gallery" title="Cruise Pictures - search by line, ship and topic">cruise ship pictures</a> and <a href="http://www.cruisesavvy.com/journals" title="Members' personal cruise journals">cruise stories</a>.</code>
Speaking of which, would YOU be so kind as to help spread the word about CruiseSavvy?
I sure would appreciate it. =)
Hope that helps. And if you have additional ideas, please share!
Comments
tip 9 and 10
9/ Be careful not to cross the line between useful SEO and "spam"...
IMO, this post (and the followup edits) are pushing the line between self promotion and shameless self promotion.
10/ Spread your off-site promotion around and keep the value/promotion in balance
The case studies page needs more good content and has much more value for SEO than some random g.d.o page. If you write up a really solid case study and add it to that section it will do much more for your SEO than this page might.
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Open Prediction Markets | Drupal Dashboard
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
Case study, interesting...
Sorry, didn't mean to be overly spammy. I figured the subject matter was topical, and the approach somewhat illustrative.
As for a case study, well, I know the lead engineer on the team has talked about writing up the project at some point. I'll take a deeper look at the examples you pointed to and see what makes sense.
Anyway, thanks!
tip 9 & 10
seriously, too many gumbie seo's reading link bait articles on "Who has the best link baiting techniques?" and turning loose on UGC. Lame. Truth.
Ooh! Another cool one
Just discovered this, and wanted to share, as it's a bit obscure, but important if you put blocks on the LHS:
On posts that don't warrant the effort of a unique Meta Description (enabled by the awesome Meta Tags module), be sure to use the
<--break-->tag after your lead-in paragraph.This way when Google shows results for that page it'll show something meaningful. Without the break tag to highlight the teaser, Google was picking up "related links" from the block on the LHS and using that for its rather confusing description.
For example, an article titled "Ships must fight fires alone in Montego Bay" had as its description in Google's Search Results "Site Blog. Latest posts... RCI's Botany Bay - Project Genesis: a Star Trek analysis - How rude! QE2 retrospective - from our archives ..." -- not very appealing if you're looking for Montego Bay fire safety!