Search Engine Optimization With Rich Media

2. Search Engine Optimization With Rich Media Pete LePage Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft http://blogs.msdn.com/petel

3. SEO is SEO • SEO isn’t black magic • HTML requires simple guidelines for best SEO • RIA’s require some special help

4. SEO Basics

5. Design Guidelines • Always create a Site Map • Great for search engines, and helps users • Don’t put too many links on a page (>100) • Take advantage of accessibility features • Set ALT attribute • Set page Title • Use semantic HTML • H1 for major headings (1 or 2 on a page) • H2 for sub headings (a few on apage) • H3..H6 for other headings

6. Technical Considerations Do not use data in the URL to track users Server should support If-Modified-Since request Use robots.txt to specify what should and should not be crawled Silverlight, Flash, JavaScript, DHTML, Frames and many other features can stop Spiders

7. Quality Considerations • Always try to display new or original content • Don’t just syndicate data from other sites • Using words/language that your users will search for • Be consistent in linking • http://www.microsoft.com/expression • http://www.microsoft.com/expression/ • http://www.microsoft.com/expression/default.aspx • Ask yourself, do I want to visit this site?

8. Submitting Your Site • About.com • http://www.altavista.com/addurl/ • Google.com • http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl • Live.Com • http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx • Yahoo.com • http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

9. Avoid Black Hat SEO • Too many links on a page • Hiding text or links from a user • Setting font size to zero • Using same background colour as the text • Setting css display property to hidden • Putting large quantities of text behind an image • Serve different content to search engines than real users • Create pages with little or no original content • You May Be Removed From Search Engines For Violating These Guidelines!

10. Demo

11. Testing Your Site For SEO • Test your site with JavaScript turned off • What will the search engine see • Turn off Images and view ALT text • Are you displaying relevant info? • Use Lynx or other Text Browser • What does the Spider see

12. RIA SEO

13. Silverlight SEO • Spiders do not index Silverlight controls • For best indexing, place plain HTML content inside Silverlight <DIV> • Content is replaced by Silverlight when installed • Spread content over multiple pages/controls • Don’t put all content in one Silverlight control

14. Silverlight SEO Demo

15. ASP.NET SEO • Avoid POSTBACKs • Spiders don’t click on buttons • Instead use a link with a query string property • Use URL Rewriters • Spiders like short query strings • Turn off ViewState • ViewState can get big, and push content down • Ensure unique page titles and meta data • Engines might think the pages are the same • Use the built in Site Map creator

16. AJAX SEO • Show by default, use JavaScript to hide • Doesn’t look or feel like black hat • ASP.NET Accordion control does this • Provide links to all content • Use anchors to point at content • Use URL Rewriters • Spiders like short query strings

17. Pete.LePage@Microsoft.com http://blogs.msdn.com/petel Questions?