55 hannon

Lessons on Effectively Optimizing
Content for Internal and External
Search Engine Discoverability
Society for Scholarly Publishers
June 2005 Annual Meeting

Kevin Hannon
Principal Consultant and Founder,
InfoCurators, LLC
khannon@infocurators.com

Content Optimization for Search Discoverability
June 1, 2005 khannon@infocurators.com 1

Content Optimization for
Search

l Introduction
• Misconceptions of Search
• Search Makes a First Impression


Misconceptions of Search

l What You Don’t Find Can Be Important
• There is a lot of important and very useful content
that you won’t find.
• Just because something is relevant to your need, it may
not be relevant to your search.
• Search is competitive – What you will find is content
relevant to your search.
• Bad metadata hides good content.


1


l Things Aren’t Always What They Seem
• The Lost Content
• This is content that is found only on occasion by Web
explorers.
• This is content that is unmarked by meaningful metadata
– it is uncharted.



l Things Aren’t Always What They Seem
• The Lost Content
• With titles such as:
• “Microsoft Word - 06682_0.DOC” – describes safety requirements for a
company’s low-power laser products.
• “Microsoft Word - 006702_1.DOC” – a PDF technical document for
company field technicians.
• “C10786_(company name)_AR_eng_001-014.qxd” – a company’s annual
report.
• This content can remain anonymous indefinitely.
• When Web explorers do find it, it’s usually a one-time
occurrence.
• The Lost Content become mythical information that people talk
about, but few actually see.


Search Makes a First
Impression

l The Search Result Page
• Whatever people find first, that is what they will
remember about your organization.
• If you don’t appear as a highly relevant result on a
public search engine, you’ll lose many potential
customers.
• If customers or employees come to your site and
use your search, but have difficulty finding
anything useful, they may not come back.


2

Impression

l Deliver What You Promise.
• Poor labeling is the cause of the Lost Content.
• Labels can misrepresent content, confusing
customers and employees.
• This search result claims to be about head and
neck surgery:
The search result title is
misleading.


Impression

• When opened, this search result has nothing at all to do with
heads, necks or surgery.
The searcher would be
disappointed by
this result.

Documents that aren’t
what they claim to be are
a waste of time.


Impression

• On this particular site, however, the problem is that EVERYTHING
is about Head and Neck Surgery.
This search results page represents a
different problem: everything claims to
be the same document.

This is a common problem on many Web
Sites. Finding anything useful is
frustrating.


3

Search

l The Basics of Effective Search Results
• It’s All About the Customer
• Boiled-Down Metadata


It’s All About the Customer

l Remember Who Is Looking for Your
Content
• You know your content.
• Your customers, or employees from other areas of
your organization don’t.
• Your customers or other employees are the ones who
need your content.
• They are the ones who will search for it.
• You need to look at your content from the
perspective of an outsider.



l Speak English (or Spanish or French, etc.)
• Organizations, departments and working groups develop
their own language.
• While this helps the group to communicate internally, it
hampers communication with your customers.
• It is critical that you apply simple, common terminology to
your searchable content.
• This is a principal cause for good content to be missed in a
search.
• Highly relevant content is passed over because it does not
match the search terms.


4


• Organizations, departments and working groups develop
their own language.
• While this helps the group to communicate internally, it
hampers communication with your customers.
• It is critical that you apply simple, common terminology to
your searchable content.
• This is a principal cause for good content to be missed in a
search.
• Highly relevant content is passed over because it does not
match the search terms.



• Non-standard terms can make content virtually invisible.
Important and useful information, such as this article from
Novartis Oncology can be found easily only if it is labeled
with common terms.

This article on Multiple Myeloma is virtually invisible on
Google because of its label.



• Non-standard terms can make content virtually invisible.
Unfortunately, this article (result # 3) is labeled with non-
standard language.

The search term that located this content is “multiple
myeloma disease”, which matches the center of the search
result title.

Someone looking for this information is unlikely to type in the
entire phrase “Multiple Myeloma Disease”.

An individual seeking this information would most probably
be looking for themselves or for a loved one and therefore
would be upset and anxious.

The term used in this example is probably standard for an
oncologist, but not for a lay person.


5


l Speak English (or Spanish
or French, etc.)
• Non-standard terms can make
content virtually invisible.

• When the common term “multiplemyeloma is used
”
alone, the article’s search rank drops from #3 to
#79.


Boiled-Down Metadata

l A Little Metadata Goes a Long Way
• Up to now, you have seen ways in which
metadata can hurt your search performance and
ranking.
• How can metadata help?
• How much metadata?
• What metadata?
• What is metadata?
• We’ll discuss this briefly.



• What is metadata?
• Metadata is descriptive information about a thing (in our
case, it is a document or a Web page).
• Metadata is only visible under certain circumstances.
• You don’t see keywords or a description when you view a Web
page.
• You DO see titles and descriptions when you view a
search results page.
• When documents from Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat
are published to the Web, they need the same types of
metadata as Web pages require.


6


• There are three key pieces of metadata that are
common to most search instances, both public
and corporate.
• Title
• Keywords
• Description



• Title
• This is arguably the most important piece of metadata.
• Up until now, I have called it a “label”, but its real name is
“Title”.
• A Title is the name of a search result and it is the first
thing that you notice when scanning a search result
page.
• The Title is usually the key element that decides whether
someone will click on a search result or pass it over.



l A Little Metadata Goes a
Long Way
• Title on a Search Result Page

Title

The title is what identifies a search result.

The title is the easiest way to tell one result
from another.


7


Long Way
• Title on Web browser window

Title

Once a search result is selected, the title is
visible at the top bar of the browser window.



Long Way
• Title in MS Office and
Adobe Acrobat are accessed
as “Properties”.

Properties
Properties is accessed via the “File” menu in
MS Office and Adobe Acrobat.

Adobe Acrobat’s menu item is “Document
Properties”, while MS Office is just “Properties”
as illustrated to the right.



Long Way
• The Properties
Window

Title
The information in the “Title” field becomes the
Search Result title.


8


• When Title Goes Awry

Identical Titles

Many sites suffer from this problem –
where every page has the exact same
title, which makes it difficult to find
anything.



• When Title Goes Awry

Useless and
Misleading
Titles

Another common problem is when
Acrobat documents claim to be
something that they are NOT.

(Note the PDF file icons combined
with the titles “Microsoft Word”.)



• Description
• The metadata Description is a useful tool to deliver
meaningful search results.
• The Title is critical for communicating to your customers
and employees.
• The Description supports your Title and gives searchers
an additional reason to click on your search result over
someone else’s.


9


• Description
• The Description is ONLY visible on the search result
page.

Meta Description

The meta Description supports your
title and can add relevance to your
search performance.



• Description
• The Description is ONLY visible on the search result
page.

Meta Description

The meta Description as HTML code.



• Description
• The Description does NOT appear on the Web page.


10


l The Myth of Keywords
• Keywords are an important piece of metadata.
• Keywords, when used correctly, can help drive
search results effectively within a corporate search
engine.
• When used incorrectly, keywords can dilute search
results by delivering too many results for certain search
terms.
• Keywords do little, if anything to improve search
relevance on public search engines.



l The Myth of Keywords
• Public Search Engines
• Search relevance is driven more by titles, descriptions
and content than keywords.
• Search results that contain your keywords in the title or
description will be ranked much higher than YOUR
content.
• Keywords will help your content to be returned in search
results, but will do little for your search result rankings.



l Keep It Simple
• The best metadata is simple.
• Your Titles and Descriptions need to communicate
to searchers quickly and directly.
• Remember that people are scanning a search
results page quickly and don’t care that you have
good content (unless you can pique their interest).
• Get to the point.


11


l Keep It Simple
• The best metadata is simple.
• Your titles and descriptions need to communicate
to searchers quickly and directly.
• Remember that people are scanning a search
results page quickly and don’t care that you have
good content (unless you can pique their interest).
• Get to the point.


Search

l Optimizing Your Content – What’s Right
and What’s Wrong
• Natural and Artificial Search Ranking
• Content Organization


Optimizing Your Content –
What’s Right and What’s Wrong

l Natural and Artificial Search Ranking
• Natural and Artificial Search Ranking for Public
Search
• Natural ranking is based on several variables:
• How relevant is your content to the search terms provided?
• How often is your content indexed by the particular search
engine?
• Do you represent an Authoritative Source?


12


Search
• How relevant is your content to the search terms
provided?
• We have covered this in the previous sections. Your content
needs to match the search terms in the title, description and the
text.
• However, other content with similar metadata may be ranked
higher than yours. Why?
• The answer is in the next topic: How often are you indexed?



Search
• How often is your content indexed by the particular
search engine?
• This will effect relevance.
• If a search engine such as Google or Yahoo visits your site
regularly and often, then the chances that your content is
considered relevant are increased.
• But how do you make sure that you get indexed?
• You need references.



Search
• To Get your site indexed regularly and often by public
search engines, you need to have other Web content
pointing to you.
• If other Web sites point at your content, then your site is
considered more important.


13


• Natural and Artificial Search Ranking for Public Search
• When sites link to you, you are more important.

Public search engines
index many Web sties
If some of those sites
point (link) to you, then
the public search engines
will index you also

Your Site



Search
• In order for this to be a “natural” ranking, you need to use
legitimate site links.
• The best strategy is to use:
• Partner companies whose Web sites that list you as a business
partner and hyperlink to your Web site.
• Press releases to major media outlets that include your corporat e
URL and active hyperlinks to your site.



Search
• Maintain your site and avoid broken links.
• Avoid Search Engine Optimization Web sites.
• These are Web sites that sell space for you to publish your
corporate URL. The purpose is to create artificial references to
your Web site.
• The problem with these sites is that, as Google discovers them,
URLs that are included are penalized by being UN- indexed.


14


Search
• Avoid Search Engine Optimization Web sites.

Example of a Search
Engine Optimization site.



l Content Organization
• Make sure your site is searchable.
• Flash animation is NOT searchable content.
• While flash is effective for communicating a message, it needs to
be used sparingly.
• Avoid pictures of text.
• Search Engines can’t understand text unless it can be recognized.
• Just because you link to it, doesn’t mean it can be found.



• Just because you link to it, doesn’t
mean it can be found.

Link
This link will take the site visitor to a PDF
excerpt of the book.


15


• Just because you link to it, doesn’t
mean it can be found.

Actual Document
If a site visitor were to come across that excerpt in a search
result, he or she would not recognize that they found anything
significant.

Too often, links are relied on too heavily to direct site visitors to
content.

More Web users are turning to search before they will navigate
to content. If search doesn’t work, they will probably leave the
site.


Search

l Search Maintenance
• Content Stewards
• Process, Process and More Process


Search Maintenance

l Content Stewards
• Content Needs Ownership
• When content has owners, it is well-managed.
• Content management systems DON’T replace content
stewards.
• Content management systems provide function ONLY.
• Content stewards provide intelligence.


16

Search Maintenance

l Content Stewards
• Content Needs Ownership
• Sites that lack content stewards are obvious.
• When sites have poor metadata, disorganized and out-
of-date content, they most probably lack stewardship.
• Content stewards will assure that your information
remains relevant.


Search Maintenance

l Process, Process and More Process
• In order for content to work well with search
engines, it needs maintenance and stewardship.
• In order for the content stewards to work
effectively, they need to have solid processes to
follow to maintain active and relevant content.


Search Maintenance

• Content and document management systems
provide out -of -the-box processes and workflows.
• You need to go back to basics and identify the
best processes and workflows for your
organization.
• These well-defined business processes need to be
programmed into your content management software.


17

Search Maintenance

• YOU drive the technology.
• When you allow the technology to drive your
process, you are in trouble.
• Well-managed information is managed by people.


Search Maintenance

Thank You


18

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