Blog Three: Optimizing Content

Optimizing a website's content for key words and phrases is important. Search engine crawlers can search websites better when the following guidelines are adhered to:

Use specific alt tags and title attributes for the images.

Meta information can be supplied in the image file. Make sure this information is relevant.

Use descriptive captions, and keep relevant copy close to the relevant image.

Make sure the header tags and images are relevant to each other.

The use of descriptive file names.

Choosing key phrases is key for search engine optimization. Keywords must reflect your websites content and each page on a site can have 2 to 3 key phrases associated with it.

Along with key words, links also allow search engine crawlers to organize webpages better in organic search results. Links, a URL to an external site that's listed on a webpage, tell website crawlers that the linked webpage is validated and important. The HTML code for a link looks like this: <a href=“http://www.targeturl.com/targetpage.htm”>Anchor Text</a> and might appear on a webpage as a linked word like this.

Links and key words have been a common index tool for SEO, but as algorithms and technology advance, there are new emerging trends. The four, most prominent emerging trends are as follows:

Personalized search- a search engine result is personalized based on what the search engine thinks user is looking for

Usage data- data on how relevant the site is to what the searcher was looking for

Real-time search- seeing the latest mentions or URL's published on the web

Localization- creating a local version of a website for a different country or language

While trends and the topics of SEO can get technical, Google urges web site users to not let clarity for humans become sacrificed because a robot is reading sites.

Learning to look at a website through the eyes of search engines is helpful in understanding the GOMC. Prior to this course, I used Google searches multiple times a day and had no idea how search engines chose the websites that appeared in the search results. Understanding search engines viewpoints will allow our groups for the GOMC to better spend our budget on keywords that will help promote our client's website in the way that it should be promoted to meet goals.

Some of the information about optimizing a website for key words and phrases seemed a bit technical and hard to understand. I think it would have been helpful if the chapter went into more detail about meta tags, URL rewrite, using tags around keywords, etc. Since we don't have access to our clients websites, I wonder how affective choosing keywords will be. Should we encourage our companies webmaster to optimize their website for the keywords and phrases that we've chosen?

Blog Two: Experimental Design

It's not a good move for businesses to implement a product or procedure without real empirical evidence to back it up. A few of the articles and videos this week were based off of this idea. The Harvard Business Review article, "Finally, A Majority of Executives Embrace Experimentation," written by Wilson and Desouza outlines three types of experiments that are common in the world of business: prototyping, simulation, test groups and A/B experimentation.

A prototype is a first, or preliminary model of something which is used as a model to make more of that item, usually with alterations. BMW uses clay prototypes or "concept vehicles" to gauge customer reaction to new styles and technology.

Source: http://luciano63.hubpages.com/hub/Sculptural-car-design

 

 

Simulation is a type of experiment that is also used frequently in the car industry. It's an analysis of alternative actions or undesired consequences. Crash simulation models help car manufactures make important decisions on designs.

 

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/10/crash-test-dummies-obesity


 

Lastly, test groups and A/B experimental design deals specifically with webpages and allows a webmaster to test variances of a webpage on groups of  users to determine which page most closely results in the desired outcome.