Drupal SEO Kristen Pol CruzTech, LLC (Freelance)‏ Web, Drupal & SEO Santa Cruz, CA drupal: kepol

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?  Improving your Site Structure, Content, and Links for Higher Search Engine Ranking  Increased Traffic!  Organic vs Paid  Search Result = Marketing Message

First Position => Most Clicks Percent of Clicks Relative to 1st Position:  1 (First)42.13%n/a  2 (Second)11.90%3.5x less  3 (Third)8.50%4.9x less  4 (Fourth)6.06%6.9x less  5 (Fifth)4.92%8.5x less Does Ranking Really Matter?

What Do YOU Think Impacts SEO?

A LOT!  200+ factors!!!  12 changes to algorithm weekly  Don't worry about keeping up with search engine changes... worry about your content

Site Quality  Getting #1 in Google won't help if your site sucks!  Off topic  Outdated  Buggy / broken links  Confusing UI  Design your site for your users

(Some) SEO Factors  Content! (unique and on topic)‏  Page title (mucho importante!)‏  Meta data (marketing blurb, robot control)‏  Keywords (chosen & used wisely)‏  Internal & external links (keywords/related)‏  Domain trustworthiness (age, links in&out)‏

Content  Relevant and unique  Timely/fresh  Well chosen and used keywords (don't spam!)‏  Link text is very important  How far page is from home page  Clean, readable links (with keywords)‏  Sitemap for finding content

Header & Meta Data  Page tag!!!  Meta description = MARKETING message  Meta keywords – placeholder for your keywords  Robot meta data – nofollow, noindex, nocache

Connectivity  Link text is IMPORTANT  Inbound links (external links)‏  Outbound links (to trusted & relevant sites)‏  Internal links  Cross links – beware of link farms!

Techie Details  Clean URLs  SEO friendly theme  Valid HTML  No broken links  robots.txt – index control  nofollow – untrusted or unverified links  sitemap.xml – list of indexable pages

SEO Related Modules Path Path Auto Page Title Global Redirect Path Redirect Meta Tags by Path by Node Type XML Sitemap Search 404 Menu Attributes Links Checker SEO Friend SEO Checklist SEO Checker HTML Purifier Google Analytics Service Links Nofollow List RobotsTxt Excerpt Alinks More Like This Related Content Featured Content Glossify Internal Links URL List Custom Breadcrumbs Pathologic Automatic Node Titles YIKES!!!!!!

Path – Clean URLs  Requires apache mod_rewrite   Off -  On -

Path – path module  Optional core module  Enable  Edit page & specify in URL path settings text field  Use short, intuitive paths with good keywords

Path – pathauto module  Enable & Configure - site building > url aliases > automated alias settings  General settings – Update Action  Node path settings – default can be empty, patterns for specific content types  Edit a page - “automatic alias” will be checked (be careful if unchecking!)‏  Keyword relevant patterns => good URLs

Path – path_redirect  Enable  Configure pathauto Update Action  Create custom redirects  301 redirects from old aliases to new aliases

Path - globalredirect  Enable & Configure – site configuration > global redirect  Will make sure duplicate URLs are handled with 301 redirects  node/1/ => node/1  ?q=node/1 => node/1

Content - page_title  Enable & Configure – content management > page titles  Add patterns (site specific)‏  Check content types for text field  Edit page – enter page title – will follow pattern if specified  tag is MOST important on-page optimization (marketing + search algorithms)‏

Content – nodewords  Enable & Configure – content management > meta tags  Tags to show on edit form (description, optionally keywords  Front page info  Edit a page and fill in meta tag text  Description shows up in some results (marketing!)‏

Tools - xmlsitemap  Enable (base module + submission and node)‏  Configure – site configuration > xml sitemap  Defaults okay  Run cron  Creates [domain]/sitemap.xml e.g.  Provides list of pages for search engines

Tools – SEO Friend  Enable & Configure – content management > SEO Friend  Required, min/max length & words, duplicate checking  Pathauto checkbox (keeps track if unchecked)‏  Reports – reports > SEO reports  List of SEO modules installed  List of page titles and meta data and duplicates  Pathauto update action check  Open to new features!!!

Q&A

Thank you...