Optimizing Library Websites for Better Visibility

Erin E. Rushton [email protected]

Binghamton University Libraries

Optimizing Library Websites for Better

Visibility

College and Research Libraries New England Chapter

2010 Spring Conference May 14 2010

Acknowledgements

• I would like to acknowledge the work Marcy Strong who helped develop an earlier version of this presentation and who participated in Binghamton University Libraries’ SEO Pilot Project.

• I would also like to acknowledge Martha Kelehan who worked on the Pilot Project.

Agenda

• How we became interested in optimization

• Search engines and search engine optimization

• SEO and the relationship to libraries

• Our experiment in optimization….

• Challenges• SEO tools and resources

• Conference series for webmasters, digital agencies, online marketers and corporate decision makers.

• Presentations about:– designing search engine-friendly web pages – building links and their importance to

rankings – building analytics package into websites and

interpreting the results

Where it began…. A trip to NYC

Where it began….

Search consultants and advertising agencies

Charts from 'Ad Age' Search Marketing Fact Pack

‘Ad Age’ Search Marketing Fact Pack

Why the competition?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skwishy/2048677231/

Search is popular

Pew Internet “Search Engine Use” August 6, 2008http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/pip_search_aug08.pdf

Competing for prime real estate

Paid Results

Organic Results

How to

make this

happen?How to

make this

happen?

Search Engine Optimization

Activities that improve search engine visibility and increase targeted traffic to a website.

Results in websites that:•are search engine (robot) friendly•are highly ranked •have successful conversions

How search engines work

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/simonpow/252312738/

Disclaimer

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marciookabe/3102556540/

•Frequency of keywords•Weight of keywords•Keyword proximity

Optimize with Keywords

Optimize with keywords

Understand what users are looking for and understand how they look for this information.

Incorporating these words into the site

Paradigm shift in how we provide

access to our services and resources

Look for opportunities to use keywords

Slide from “Search Engine Guide” http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/seo-101-part-12-everything-you-need-to-k.php

Keyword prominence and location

metaDATA

Popularity

• Quality and authority of incoming and out coming links (not quantity)

• Number of visits AND time spent on site

• Number of repeat visitors

Indexing of webpages

Pages not indexed by spider will not appear in the search engine results

Why optimize the library?

Image of Bartle Libraries from: http://www.hermanmiller.com/DotCom/jsp/research/caseStudiesDetail.jsp?csId=15

Are we even relevant anymore?

We are but….

We can accomplish this through Search Engine Optimization

…we need to make our services and resources more visible on the web because that is where are users are

Promote Library Content and Resources

Library Guides

Subject Expertise

Ask a LibrarianServices Library

Catalogues

Special Collections

Digitized Collections

Exhibits

Databases

Newsletters

Other reasons to optimize

• Better understanding of information seeking behaviours and needs • As users become independent

searchers our role shifts to that of guide and educator

• Good practice to have an optimized site

• Knowledge gained from web analytics

Mission: Optimize selected pages on the Libraries’ web site with the goal of improving the ranking of these pages on major search engines.

Pages included “Ask a Librarian” and pages related to Edwin A. Link (Special Collections)

Pilot Project

• Increase:– # of successful conversions– # of referrals from search engines– # of page views– # of unique visitors– Page linkability with non-commercial sites

• Achieve higher page rank than competitors

• Identify problem areas with website in general

Objectives

Phase 1: Pre-Optimization• Track web traffic and website

activity• Set conversion goals • Reviewed keywords, metadata,

html tags• Calculated number of indexed

pages and inbound pages• Tested pages used free analyzers

Phase II: Optimization

• Ask a Librarian link added to homepage

• Added links to Wikipedia and other popular and quality websites

• Title tags and html were rewritten to be more descriptive and include keywords

• Broken links were repaired

Phase 2 (cont.)

• Metadata title, description and keyword tags were added to webpages:

Phase 2 (cont.)

• Text was rewritten when possible to include optimized keywords and phrases

• Pages were validated using W3C• Alt text was added to several images• Images were resized• Robots.txt file configured for crawling• Sitemap.xml file created

Phase III: Post-optimization Testing and

results• Some pages had increase visits after optimization

• Some pages had a decrease in visits• Overall, refers from website and search

engines went up• Keywords helped improve the ranking of

the Special Collection pages (Edwin A. Link)• More pages indexed (pre optimization

Google only indexed 2 of our pages)

• Our activity may have distorted results

• Only few pages optimized• More time spent ensuring

good keywords• Issues with Google Analytics

Challanges

Next Steps

Continue with SEO

• New website launched last year with some SEO “built in”

• Produce a fully optimized Library website and to share SEO best practices with other BU departments.

• Won a grant from the University which will help fund this project

Goals of SEO for Binghamton

• Improved ROI on the millions of dollars spent annually on specialized research literature databases, journals and books.

• Provide greater visibility of unique digital collections to students, faculty, the local community, alumni, prospective students and donors.

• Better understand information seeking behaviours and needs of students, faculty and staff.

Goals

• Create a Search Engine Optimization Task Force composed of library and university faculty and staff, utilizing skills in information technology, reference, instruction, public relations, marketing and web usability.

• Establish baseline levels of typical web activity for the libraries’ website using Google Analytics.

More challenges…

• Not experts• Lack of time • Measuring success

Websites about SEO• Delicious.com/novascotia32/seo• Search Engine Guide: The small business guide to search mar

keting

• SEOmoz.org - http://www.seomoz.org/: serves as a hub for search marketers worldwide by providing education, tools, resources and paid services to help make every SEO the best they can be.

• SEO tips index - http://www.seoconsultants.com/seo/tips/• ClickZ - http://www.clickz.com/: News and expert advice for the

digital marketer• Google Webmaster Central Blog -

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/: Official news on crawling and indexing sites for the Google index

• Search engine optimization tips for libraries, from The Other Librarian - http://otherlibrarian.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/search-engine-optimization-seo-tips-for-libraries/

• Is SEO evil? http://www.slideshare.net/gleddy/is-seo-evil-web-directions-2007

SEO Tools

• Google AdWords - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal: Keyword tool generates keyword ideas

• 30 SEO Bookmarklets to Save You Time

• Learn SEO in 30 Minutes a Day• 69 Free (or low cost) Tools to Im

prove Your Website

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Optimizing Library Websites for Better Visibility

Education

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