| General Theory |
Define the term findability, and describe its relationship to SEO, usability, information architecture, and accessibility |
|
| Define the term "folksonomy" and describe its findability benefits |
|
| Markup |
Describe the relationship between web standards, accessibility, and SEO |
|
| Identify important (X)HTML tags that communicate a clear information hierarchy and keyword prominence to search engine spiders |
|
| Use image replacement techniques to present well designed content in a search engine friendly format |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Describe the role of meta tags (description, keywords, robots, author, geo) in making a web page optimized for search engines |
|
| List and describe black hat SEO techniques that should be avoided at all to avoid getting a website black listed from search engine indexes |
|
| List and describe methods to prevent search engines from indexing certain content |
|
| Describe how frames, popup windows, deprecated markup, images maps and coding errors can present challenges for search engine spiders |
|
| Microformats |
Describe how the use of microformats can make content more findable |
|
| Use hCard and hCalendar microformats to make content on a web page portable and re-discoverable |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Content |
Describe how high quality content that serves a target audience's needs can affect the findability of a website |
|
| Use keyword research tools such as WordTracker and the Google AdWords research tool to identify a series of keywords and phrases that should be made prominent in your content in order to reach your target audience |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Create a high keyword density and prominence within a web page using key HTML elements and content authoring strategies |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Evaluate keyword density and prominence using various online tools. Example: Rank.nl |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| List and describe best practices in content creation that foster findability |
|
| Describe how Creative Commons open licensing of content can potentially improve findability |
|
| Social Networking |
Describe the role of social networking websites in improving findability |
|
| Create and implement a findability strategy that uses social networks to drive traffic to a website |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Server-Side Strategies |
Create a custom 404 error page that helps lost users find the content they seek |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Create a robots.txt file that excludes specified directories and files from indexing, and points search engine spiders to a sitemap.xml file |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Create a sitemap.xml file to describe the structure of a website, and register it with all search engines that support the protocol |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| List website optimization techniques that can speed up the indexing of a website |
|
| Describe how the Google canonical problem can adversely affect a website's search ranking, and outline the solution to the problem |
|
| List best practices in file and directory naming to improve search rankings |
|
| List best practices in URL design to improve search rankings, and describe how dynamic URLs can be made search engine friendly |
|
| Identify why younger domains have lower search rankings |
|
| Describe the best solution for directing users to a page that has been relocated in a website while preserving the search ranking of the old page |
|
| Preventing Findability Pitfalls |
Identify how audio and video files should be presented on a website to ensure search engines can index their content |
|
| Describe progressive enhancement and it's role in SEO |
|
| List and describe methods of presenting Flash content to improve SEO |
|
| Describe the indexing problems posed by Ajax, and identify methods that could make Ajax more search engine friendly |
|
| Search |
List and describe tools and techniques that could be employed to add a search system to a website |
|
| Describe OpenSearch and how it might be integrated into a website to improve findability |
|
| Integrate a search system into a website and include an OpenSearch XML file to let users search the site without visiting |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Describe how logging search terms can inform a findability and content creation strategy |
|
| Analytics |
List and describe important web analytics metrics that are markers of findability success or failure |
|
| Describe how heat maps and session recordings can inform the design of a web page |
|
| Install a web analytics system such as Google Analytics or Mint on a website |
- Assignment: Findability Website
|
| Describe how web analytics software typically gathers information |
|
