Findability Bliss Through Web Standards

Aarron Walter

http://buildingfindablewebsites.com

These Concepts are Explained In The Book

Available on Amazon

Here’s Where I’m Going

• The Big Picture
• Practical Examples
• A Warm Fuzzy
• Free Stuff

We All Have the Same Goal

Connect with your audience
and stay connected

Findability’s primary goals are to help users …

• Find the websites they seek
• Find content within websites
• Rediscover the valuable content they’ve found

Finda–what?

Findability?
Don’t you mean SEO?

Findability is More Than Just SEO

Get The Big Picture

SEO Stigma - I feel icky, oh so icky

Let Go of the Stigma

Don’t be hatin’ on SEO, yo.
Your clients get it.

Clarity, Context, and Kindness

Findability & Web Standards Sittin’ in a Tree …

web standards +
compelling content =
* findability bliss *

The Web Standards Connection

• Semantic Markup is machine readable
• Accessibility makes content legible for search engines
• Progressive Enhancement removes search engine roadblocks (JavaScript, Ajax, Flash)
• Microformats re-discoverable content, targeted search
• Less code = more efficient indexing

Semantic Markup Example: Image Replacement

<h1 id="logo" title="Fischer and Sons Funeral Home">
	<span></span>Fischer and Sons Funeral Home
</h1>

#logo {width: 329px; height: 25px; position: relative; }

#logo span {
    background: url(fischer-sons-funeral.gif) no-repeat;
	position: absolute; 
	width: 100%; height: 100%; }

Dave Shea’s image replacement reference

Essential Markup for Keyword Placement

• <title>
• headings: use them wisely
• <strong> & <em>
• meta description (don’t sweat meta keywords)
• link labels
• alt and title attributes
• table elements <th>, <caption>, and summary

Other Places to Include Keywords

• In your URLs
• In your style sheet’s file name
• In your logo’s file name
• Naturally in your content (7% or less)

Researching Keywords/Phrases

Research if targeting a specific market

Otherwise just stay on topic and communicate clearly with semantics

How Semantically Meaningful is Your Message?

Find out using the W3C’s
semantics extractor

(http://w3.org/2003/12/semantic-extractor.html)

Check Your Work: Sitening

http://sitening.com/seo-tools/

Accessibility: A More Complete Message

<acronym title="Web Content Accessibility Guidelines">
   WCAG
</accronym>
	
<abbr title="Louisiana">LA</abbr>

Anticipate search behaviors

Presenting the Entire Message

Footnotes

<img src="logos.gif" alt="Client logos" 
	longdesc="#footnote" />	
<a href="#footnote" title="Image description">D</a>

<a name="footnote"></a>
<div id="footnote">
<h4>Our Clients Include … </h4>
<ul>
	<li> Yahoo! </li>
	<li> John Deere </li>
	<li> CNN </li>
	…
</ul>
</div>

Progressive Enhancement: Clear the Roadblocks

Make content accessible when
JavaScript & Flash aren’t supported

Content is Accessible Without JavaScript

Accessible Navigation: No JavaScript Required

James Edwards’ Ultimate Dropdown Menu

Ajax Pitfalls

Content loaded by Ajax is not accessible to search engines, and has no URL

A Search Engine Friendly Ajax Interface

A Search Engine Friendly Ajax Solution

Another Search Engine Friendly Ajax Solution

Don’t load important content
with Ajax

Findable Flash

Flash is a top level interface layer - enhance accordingly

SWFObject for Progressive Flash

JavaScript detects Flash support then embeds SWF into page

http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/

A Findable Flash Promo

<div id="flash-promo">
<a href="#promos" title="See our latest promotions">
  <img src="images/promo.jpg" 
  alt="Save 10% on the Berry Bowl" />
</a>
</div>

SWFObject in Action

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/swfobject.js">
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
var so = new SWFObject("slideshow.swf",
"myswf","600","400","8","#ffffff");
so.write("flash-promo");
</script>		
	

No Compromise Rich Interface

If you build intelligently, you don’t have to compromise the user experience

Microformats

The ultimate in semantic markup

http://microformats.org

Tim Berners-Lee’s Dream for the Web

The Semantic Web
Let agents do the work!

Berners-Lee on the Semantic Web

Berners-Lee discussing the Semantic Web on YouTube

Put it where you can find it!

Microformats: Standardized Markup

Do Search Engines Take Advantage of Microformats?

Not enough yet, but they’re heading in that direction

Technorati, Yahoo! microSearch

Yahoo! microSearch

Yahoo! microSearch results for Aarron Walter

Will I Get a Search Ranking Boost for Validating?

Nope

Standards promote best practices, but a validation badge isn’t a backstage pass to the Google show.

The Strongest Argument for Standards

Websites that are findable can
reach more people and can be more profitable

The Day Findability Saved the World

The SARS virus

I’m happy to answer your questions

Findability Best Practices Guide
http://buildingfindablewebsites.com/findability-checklist.pdf

Join the conversation on the Facebook Group

Book site http://buildingfindablewebsites.com/

http://aarronwalter.com/