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Search engine tools for researchers
26 August 2010
By Hannah Dee
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the business of pushing your website up the ranks, and of getting traffic to your site based upon the terms you choose. It's big business, but there are some tips from this field that might be useful for researchers.
These days, when we talk about SEO we're really talking about Google optimisation; their share of the search market is completely dominating. And any attempt to guess or to game the way in which Google ranks the search results can end up in you getting black-listed and your site disappearing from the Google results completely. But there are some things that we know about the way Google's PageRank algorithm works: it favours pages which have lots of links back to them (strange techy trivia - Google was originally called "Backrub"!); links back from popular pages count better than links from unpopular pages; the text that appears in links back to your page contributes to the keywords your page is stored under; and it favours pages which appear up-to-date (that is, which change regularly).
This gives a couple of obvious ways to improve your page's ranking. Link back to it from popular pages: you might not run any other websites, but you can link to your homepage from Academia.edu, Linkedin, Twitter, and so on. When you move insitution, make sure your old page links to your new one and all the other links get updated. Keep your page up-to-date - blogs are good for this, as long as you bother keeping them up. If you've got a twitter account, add a link whenever you do an update. Try to use your name in any links you create pointing to your page, as it's your name that you probably expect people to be searching for.
But is it working? Well there's one sure way to find out (other than Googling your name and counting how many times you have to click "next"). Install Google Analytics on your page! This is invisible tracking code that lets you spy on your website visitors - sign up for an analytics account, and they give you a "key" (a string of text unique to you). You then put this in some JavaScript code, and paste that at the bottom of every page you want tracking. And then you can see ...
Maps!
And all sorts of other interesting facts about who's coming to your homepage, what search terms they're using to get there, and how long they stay. You can even find out what people have typed into Google to get to you - strangely, lots of isitors seem to end up at my site through typing "runner bean soup".
Tennie Videler26 August 2010 at 08:56 PM
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Is 'runner bean soup' maybe your google analytics key? or do you have a recipe on your blog?
When I get a slightly less hectic moment I will look into the analytics on this blog and promise to report back. Especially looking forward to the search terms that get people here. but it lookslike I have a lot of work to do!
John Igoe27 August 2010 at 09:15 AM
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Some very valid points Hannah.
It is also worth noting that your choice of words and where those words are, has an impact on your rank within a search index.
Many search engines focus on metatags and text in <h> tags (HTML header script). It is worth exploring what words would be best used to optimimise your position in listings.
The challenge is the balance between great key words, and the words you use having a relevance to the content of your website/blog. This should be reviewed regularly to ensure that they are not outdated. Analytics are very useful in doing this. With the possibility of discovering what key words people used, where they were referred from and whether they found the content of your site relevant (through bounce rate), you are half way there.
It's fascinating how quickly analytics are advancing and it is worth keeping up to speed on forums/blogs which are dedicated to SEO.
Matthew Salois31 August 2010 at 08:40 PM
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This is all very interesting, I had no idea the term SEO even existed. Still this is very practical and easily implemented advice. Now I just need to create a webpage!
By the way, I love your use of pictures, it really makes this particular post look very nice.
I am also happy to have a bit of Google trivial in my head now. I am glad they changed the name. Backrub!? I wonder whose idea that was?
Andy Humphrey07 September 2010 at 01:28 PM
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For the non-techies amongst us: is there a way to incorporate Google analytics onto web pages that are generated via a template, rather than being programmed ourselves? I'm thinking about this for my personal webpage (on webs.com) and my blog (on blogger.com) but both of these use pre-designed templates and I have no idea if it's possible to just cut 'n' paste Java code therein!
Hannah Dee07 September 2010 at 02:59 PM
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Hi Andy -
This link tells you how to get Analytics onto your blogger blog:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2019724_google-analytics-blogger.html
I'm not familiar with webs.com - does it not let you access the HTML?
Also... Tennie (sorry for the late reply) it really was runner bean soup. http://www.hannahdee.eu/blog/?p=515
Andy Humphrey10 September 2010 at 04:13 PM
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I think webs.com does allow you to use HTML but this presupposes that one knows what one is doing. I've never used HTML in my life and wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start - and the last thing I want to do is risk b***ering up my website!