“… A good way to solve problems is to start with the big picture… [because if you don’t understand the big picture] you may solve the wrong problem, or might not explore other—possibly better—answers.”

I thought that idea neatly summarized the perceived battle between “new” SEO and “old” SEO. Search optimization professionals should know and understand the big picture before they define and tout the “new” SEO.

Instead of focusing on flavor-of-the-month/day/year optimization tactics, what are the big-picture items SEO professionals should always keep in mind? Does each flavor-of-the-month tactic support the big picture… or is it merely a flavor-of-the-month tactic that can largely be ignored or discounted?

Here is my take on the perceived smackdown.

Keywords have always been an important part of an SEO strategy because labels and descriptions of Web documents often contain keywords that communicate both aboutness and information scent.

Keywords, Aboutness And Labeling

Keywords, keywords, keywords — I swear it’s a search optimizer’s mantra. I’ve heard myself chant this mantra many times over the years. I’m equally guilty of this chanting.

Honestly, though, what are we optimizers really chanting about? Keywords? Maybe not.

Maybe the bigger picture we’re not seeing is that we are chanting about different types of labels, including but not limited to:

• Content labels
• Navigation labels
• Document labels

Of course, when I just re-read what I wrote in the previous paragraph, one word jumped out: about.

Maybe the true big picture is aboutness. Keywords are important for communicating aboutness for both human and non-human users.

So maybe the “old” picture is keywords. The “big” picture (which has always been present) is aboutness.

Site Architecture & Design

Site architecture, page layout, and design are still important for communicating:

• Sense of place
• Information scent
• Accessibility (to content)
• Visual hierarchy

Remember, site architecture includes both information architecture (IA) and technical architecture. A website’s infrastructure should get stronger over time and allow for the natural evolution of content.

So, I ask: how are any of these concepts “new” SEO? SEO pioneers, such as Eric Ward and I, have  known these big-picture items for many years. And, we’ve refined our methodology to accommodate technology evolution.

And, that brings me to another hotly debated topic…

Link Development + Social Media = Validation

I remember reading this from Selena Narayanasamy’s article, Lessons From The Auto Industry: Leveraging Social For Organic Traction:

“Links are not often thought of as a by-product of a great social campaign. Often the goals of those working on social profiles for a brand revolve around a simple goal: Getting more followers and building an audience… There’s more to social than simply having a sounding board. If you leverage your fans and followers correctly, they’ll be your key to naturally generating links and mentions around your brand.”

I loved reading that observation because I tend to share the latter perspective. I have always viewed social media as forms of validation and credibility.

Here’s my point: Eric Ward has been a link-building practitioner since 1994 (and he has a library/information sciences background like me). SEO companies in the 1990s specialized in link development (such as John Audette’s Multimedia Marketing group) years before Google became known and popular.

Social media has existed for a long time. Instead of newsgroups and forums, we now have Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and others. Who knows whether or not these social media icons will stand the test of time?

I know that validity and credibility will stand the test of time because they are a critical part of the searcher experience.

Credibility is a key facet in a positive searcher experience.Reprinted with permission from Peter Morville.

(To download the full image and explanation of Morville’s “User Experience Honeycomb: Searcher’s Edition,” please go to Flickr.)

Web Searcher Behaviors

Searching/finding behaviors are still important, with informational goals coming more and more to the forefront due to the knowledge graph and ever-evolving semantic search.

In spite of the one-size-fits-all mantra of responsive design supporters, they still do not realize that people locate and discover desired content differently on mobile devices than they do on devices with larger screens.

For example, currently, quick-fact searches (an informational type of search) are more common on mobile devices than on devices with larger screens.

Navigational and transactional queries are still important, as they are with desktop/notebook computers. But user experience professionals need to look at the big picture as well — findability is a critical part of the searcher experience.

Look at the User Experience Honeycomb above. See “Findability” in there? Yup, it’s there. As information architecture guru Peter Morville said in his book “Ambient Findability,” “You can’t use what you can’t find.”

So, is “new” SEO that different from “old” SEO? Maybe the details… but not the big picture. Search Engine Land readers, I think that first quote is critical for truly understanding SEO. You have to understand the big picture or else you will probably solve the wrong problem.

Selecting a user-friendly (and searcher-friendly) color scheme usually falls into the hands of technical and/or artistic staff who might not understand the usability and SEO impact of color selection.

As I mentioned in SEO Smackdown: Information Architecture vs. Technical Architecture, whenever I hear certain geek-speak, I am reasonably sure that I am not talking to a person who truly understands the SEO big picture.

Honestly, how many Web designers commonly use the SEO jargon of crawlability and indexation?

Website design and development are two unique skill sets that often overlap. Some artists and graphic designers have incredible technical skills and vice-versa. Color selection often falls into the hands of both technical and artistic staff.

To both designers and developers: do you understand that your color selection affects how your website content might be interpreted and displayed by a commercial Web search engine?

Do you understand how Web searchers might interpret your color selections? Do you understand that your color selection can negatively affect conversions… even with a #1 search engine ranking?

Usability Impact Of Color Selection

As I mentioned in a previous article, Clickability and Search-Engine Friendly Web Design, clickability is a critical part of the user/searcher experience.

To reiterate important points:

• All clickable items on a webpage should look clickable
• All unclickable items on a webpage should not look clickable
• All clickable-looking items on a webpage should be clickable and provide feedback
• Don’t put a link on a page that you do not intend for searchers/users to click

I am certainly not saying that every text link needs to be formatted as blue and underlined. Not at all. I am saying that clickable and unclickable text should not be formatted the same way. To a search engine, it might appear as if you are trying to hide links from users but not search engines.

“But Shari!” I hear many Web developers and designers alike exclaim with the requisite eye roll. “That design principle is Sooooo outdated. People will figure out what to click on after they put their cursor/mouse/finger on the text.”

What these designers and developers are describing is called minesweeping. According to Usability.gov, minesweeping is:

“An action designed to identify where on a page links are located on a web page. Minesweeping involves the user rapidly moving the cursor or pointer over a web page, watching to see where the cursor or pointer changes to indicate the presence of a link.”

I’ve personally conducted usability tests for over ten years on desktops, mobile phones, and tablets. I’ve observed, first-hand, who minesweeps for links and who doesn’t. Do you know the group who genuinely likes to minesweep? Children.

Now my next question to you is this: does your target audience include children? I didn’t think so.

Furthermore, requiring users/searchers to minesweep slows task completion. And, to be perfectly honest, if an item on your webpage does not look clickable, most users/searchers won’t click on it.

So, if  you are going to use color to indicate clickable and unclickable elements, please use them consistently. Don’t confuse both searchers and search engines.

Color, Legibility & Readability

In my first book, “Search Engine Visibility,” I wrote about the five Rules of Web Design. The first rule is that all websites should be easy to read. Of course, the rule has corollaries, such as:

• Easy to scan (visual hierarchy)
• Legible
• Understandable

Color contrast is extremely important for legibility. The highest color contrast comes from using the two colors black and white. Some Web designers like to use white text against a black background because it seems to be more stylish, but it is actually more difficult to read and can lead to lower conversions. If you make content too difficult to read, it does not lead to the best link development. And, as we all know, link development is still a key component of the SEO process.

And, do you use colors that have low color contrast, such as light gray text on a white background? Or, did your Web designer set your text size too small to read (which I commonly see in mobile designs)? That would be considered a form of search engine spam, even if the text were barely legible.

If I am working on a website that implements responsive design, for example, I make sure the font-size never falls below a certain size. Sacrificing legibility and readability for simpler coding isn’t a very user-centric approach.

Color must also be understandable and easily interpreted. “Color communicates a message by association,” said Flint McGlaughlin from MECLABS in his recent webinar, “How Do Website Colors Impact Conversion?”

The color blue can have many different meanings. Navy blue can communicate professionalism, security, trust, and dignity. Aqua blue has a different message (whimsical, cool, tropical, water). And a soft, light blue can often feel more feminine than masculine.

So, always keep color contrast in mind so that your site is easy to read and easy to interpret by both searchers and search engines. In order for your website’s color scheme to be understandable, you should also understand color associations and culture.

Color Associations & Culture

“Most international marketers know they need to handle the broader cultural issues rather than just language, said Andy Atkins-Krueger, CEO of WebCertain. “But not so many can easily define culture. For me ‘culture’ is our home environment, the one we’re used to and when things look a bit odd – when we’re browsing the Web, for instance, and seeing strange websites – then that’s probably because what we’re looking at has been created by someone with a different home culture.”

Some people might not know this about me: my master’s degree is in Asian Studies (Japanese), and I spent some years teaching Asian religion, literature, and culture.

As a Web designer and SEO, I know that the color red communicates happiness in China; anger and danger in Japan; and life and creativity in India.

When I design websites whose target audience is outside of the US, I rarely use the same template and color scheme.

Here’s a quote from my favorite SEO book of 2012, “Global Search Engine Marketing: Fine-Tuning Your International Search Engine Results”:

“Even Baidu notes ’Chinese culture has some identity-forming meanings that affect user behavior strongly, namely in color, number, symbol, language, and so on.’”

“I have found that the color red is not as negative as in the US. I have found American designs be much based on the color blue while Scandinavians are more open to multi-colors,” said Kristjan Mar Hauksson, Director of Internet Marketing at Nordic eMarketing and co-author of “Global Search Engine Marketing: Fine-Tuning Your International Search Engine Results.“

“You really need a whole list of potential cultural issues – or you could call them trust factors since working with someone within their culture builds trust which means they’re more likely to buy,” said Atkins-Kruger. “The problem is that culture isn’t just one thing. It’s not just the colour selection, the language, the currency symbols, the complexity or simplicity of the page, reading right to left instead of left to right, calendar formats, forms, zip code formats or alternatives, credit card symbols, delivery timescales, image content or any of the other hundreds of small items. It’s all of them. It’s their combined effect. It’s the answer to the question, “are we among friends?”

“So for example, in southern Ireland or Eire, there are no postcodes at all (don’t make them mandatory),” he continues. “In Thailand, purple represents mourning whereas the west associates the colour with Royalty. If you don’t accept Union Pay credit cards in China, you almost certainly won’t do any business. When western companies change their template from left-to-right reading, to right-to-left, they frequently forget to change the calendars.  And dates in the UK are not presented in the same way they are in the US.”

So, Search Engine Land readers, please consider how you implement color on your websites. Color is a very large part of search-engine friendly design. Color affects link development. Color affects conversions. And the improper use of color can be considered search engine spam. Color is extremely important to searchers.

References

• Provide Consistent Clickability Cues. For research and examples about minesweeping.
• Avoid Misleading Cues to Click. For research and articles about clickable links.
• Lighthouse International. Worldwide organization dedicated to overcoming vision impairment through rehabilitation, education, research and advocacy.
• Color: Designing for a Global User Experience. Webinar about color and culture from one of my favorite speakers and authors, Molly Holschlag.
• Kennedy, Anne F.; Hauksson, Kristjan Mar (2012). Global Search Engine Marketing: Fine-Tuning Your International Search Engine Results. (Que Biz-Tech), Pearson Education (US).

That thought reminded me of information architecture guru Peter Morville’s 3 Circles/Pillars of Information Architecture (diagram below):

Used with permission of http://semanticstudios.com

In this diagram, Morville shows how and why we must strike a balance on each web project between “business goals and context, user needs and behavior, and the available mix of content.”

I wondered if there might be an analogous diagram for SEO, and I came up with this:

Contributors to a successful searcher experience: website owners, searchers, and search engines.

In order to achieve a successful searcher experience, all 3 of these elements need to be present and align beautifully. Let’s look at each of these items individually and see how each group is responsible for their part of the searcher experience.

Website Owners & Aboutness

Website owners have a very important contribution to the searcher experience: aboutness. Aboutness needs to be communicated to both searchers and search engines:

• Do content labels (titles, headings, subheadings, annotations/descriptions, etc.) communicate what page content is about?
• Do navigation labels reinforce a sense of place, information scent, and the aboutness of page content?
• Do document labels (file name, URL structure, etc.) communicate aboutness well enough when search engines are not yet able to clearly determine aboutness from actual document content, such as a graphic image (GIF, JPEG, PNG)?

Aboutness is a term that few people know about or comprehend. Because of this “aboutness” ignorance, it is often skipped and/or misinterpreted during the web development, content creation, and search optimization processes.

Regardless of knowledge level, website owners and SEOs alike both contribute heavily to the searcher experience. Our responsibility is to communicate aboutness to both search engines and searchers as succinctly and clearly as we can.

That being said, now let’s look at another circle of the searcher experience….

Web Searchers & Keywords

Web searchers have a responsibility to communicate what they want to find. As a website usability professional, I have the opportunity to observe Web searchers in their natural environments. What I find quite interesting is the “Blame Google” mentality.

I remember a question posed to me during World IA Day this past year. An attendee said that Google constantly gets search results wrong. He used a celebrity’s name as an example.

“I wanted to go to this person’s official website,” he said, “but I never got it in the first page of search results. According to you, it was an informational query. I wanted information about this celebrity.”

I paused. “Well,” I said, “why are you blaming Google when it is clear that you did not communicate what you really wanted?”

“What do you mean?” he said, surprised.

“You just said that you wanted information about this celebrity,” I explained. “You can get that information from a variety of websites. But you also said that you wanted to go to X’s official website. Your intent was clearly navigational. Why didn’t you type in [celebrity name] official website? Then you might have seen your desired website at the top of search results.”

The stunned silence at my response was almost deafening. I broke that silence.

“Don’t blame Google or Yahoo or Bing for your insufficient query formulation,” I said to the audience. “Look in the mirror. Maybe the reason for the poor searcher experience is the person in the mirror…not the search engine.”

People need to learn how to search. Search experts need to teach people how to search. Enough said.

Connecting Searchers & Web Documents

Search engines certainly have a responsibility in the searcher experience. Not only must search engines correctly and accurately interpret searcher intent from often-insufficient keyword combinations, they must also accurately determine the aboutness of millions (or billions) of Web documents. And then rank those documents accordingly.

Search engine software engineers have a very difficult responsibility, as website owners and other Web professionals do not label content and navigation clearly, and searchers honestly do not know how to search effectively. Add to that the many, many unethical SEO practices that are misleading and that miscommunicate aboutness? Well, let’s just say that I have a great deal of empathy for search engine software engineers.

What are your responsibilities and contributions to a successful searcher experience…both as an SEO/SEM professional and as a web searcher? Can you objectively see your “Blame Google” mentality? Can you objectively and consistently communicate aboutness to both humans and machines? Do search engines misinterpret searcher behaviors and aboutness?

Think about it. The answers might not be as simple as we would like them to be.

Without understanding the reasons why people search, SEO professionals will often misinterpret or improperly classify keyword phrases.

• What are people searching for? (keywords/labels, file type)
• Where are people conducting their searches? (location)
• When are people conducting searches? (date, time)
• Who is using the commercial web search engines? (target audience)
• How are people searching? (desktop/tablet/mobile, query/browse/ask)
• Why are people conducting searches? (goals, intention, motivation)

Keyword research tools, web analytics data, advertising data, and other resources provide us with some answers. However, for our conclusions to be accurate, we should also understand the data and resources in context.

For example, keyword research tools can tell us what people are searching for and the order in which searchers type in keywords. But keyword research tools do not provide a lot of context about each keyword phrase. Therefore, savvy search engine optimizers know that they must use other means to understand searcher context.

Common Mistakes In Query Classification

When it comes to keyword classification, I often observe SEO professionals place their mental models onto keywords without (a) understanding searcher context, and (b) understanding query classification.

Here are some examples.

Scenario #1

Web searcher Bob is about to vacation in Hawaii. He wants to check the balance of his frequent flyer miles. Is Bob’s intent navigational, informational, or transactional?

Many people answer this question incorrectly because they believe that the word “check” indicates transactional intent. However, in order for a person to check the amount of his frequent flyer miles online, he must go to a specific website and log in.

Even though the final intent is to do online activities (log in and look up frequent flyer miles), the essential step before these activities is to go to a specific website. Therefore, the query (keyword) classification is navigational.

Scenario #2

Searcher Natalie conducts a Web search for headphones. Does this keyword communicate navigational, informational, or transactional intent? Explain your answer.

All too often, the immediate and natural thought process is like this: “If I typed in the word headphones into Google, what does it mean?”

The problem with this way of thinking is simple. The second you think about what you would do and why you would do it, you are placing your personal mental model onto the searcher. The idea behind query classification is to understand searcher context, not your context.

So how would I answer this question? Here is my analysis:

(1) Ad hoc query

My initial thought when I saw this query? I thought it was an informational query, more specifically an ad hoc query. With an ad hoc search, the searcher’s goal is to find as many relevant documents as possible about available headphones, a “fishing expedition.

Headphones is a single word. Natalie did not mention brand, type, or any other qualifier word. This single-word query also leads me to believe that this is an ad hoc search.

(2) Transactional intent not specified

Natalie might want to purchase headphones eventually, but the single keyword does not specify whether or not she wishes to make the purchase online or in a physical store.

Transactional queries are ones where the searcher wishes to perform some Web-mediated activity. Since Natalie did not specify whether or not she wanted to purchase headphones online, this makes the keyword query seem less transactional.

Even if Natalie eventually planned on purchasing headphones, she might want to find out about the different types of headphones (over-the-ear, wireless, earbuds, etc.) and compare prices.

So before Natalie decides to purchase, she is finding out information about headphones before an actual online or offline transaction.

(3) Plural = possible list

When a searcher types in the plural form of a keyword, it is an indication that he or she wants to see a list of items. When a searcher wants to view a list of items, it shows informational intent.

Headphones is a word that can indicate singular or plural.

Therefore, I concluded that the keyword headphones is an informational query that might lead to an online or offline transaction – keeping in mind that the online or offline transaction might not be an immediate need or desire.

Granted, these are just my interpretations of the keywords. Had I observed Bob or Natalie in their natural search environments, I could determine more easily their searcher goals.

Card Sorting Analogy

As a website usability professional, I am fortunate to observe people in their natural search environments. Furthermore, I get to conduct usability tests with keywords. Many of my SEO insights are a result of ongoing usability testing.

One usability test I use to determine searcher mental models about keywords is a card sort test. (Please see When Good SEO Becomes Bad Information Architecture for info on the different types of card sort tests.)  Card sort tests can also help SEO professionals determine the best labels when optimizing web documents.

I recently attended a webinar presented by information architect and card-sorting guru Donna Spencer entitled Designing Usable Categories with Card Sorting. I discovered that Donna and I have the same experience with keywords and user mental models.

Card sort tests can be conducted online and offline (usually face-to-face). In her webinar, Donna explained some of the differences between a face-to-face card sort test and an online card sort test. Sometimes, Donna conducts face-to-face card sort tests in groups of three. The value of group testing is listening to participants talk through what they think.

She could observe:

• Where test participants really disagreed
• How test participants resolved the labeling dispute (if it were resolved)
• The words that participants did not write on a sticky note or an index card

In other words, she often hears why test participants had an easy or difficult time determining a category label…something she might not experience by conducting the same test online.

When I observe users/searchers in their natural search environments and during usability tests, I often learn information that I do not get from keyword research tools.

For example, recently, I discovered that if I architected a website based on keyword research data, I would have completely missed the users’ mental models.

The keyword research data showed that the vast majority of search queries were by type. But all test participants mentioned their personal status (single or family) during the usability test. Consumers didn’t know the jargon for different types of services.

So for this company’s website, the primary way of organizing information was by target audience, not by type. Because of this, I modified the primary navigation and relevant page interlinking on the website.

I did not discount the keyword research data. I just used the keywords in the right context.

Sometimes, the missing SEO ingredient is understanding why people search.

To me, search engine optimization is optimizing a website for people who use search engines. Understanding searchers, their contexts and environments, behaviors, and intentions is just as important as understanding how search engines work.

In my opinion, if SEOs are optimizing websites without considering query classification and searcher personas, then they are optimizing more for search engines than for searchers (technology-centered optimization). Keyword classification is crucial for long-term search engine visibility and conversions.

Is query classification a part of your SEO plan?

Resources:

Broder, A. (2002). A taxonomy of web search. SIGIR Forum, 36(2): 3–10. Retrieved at http://www.sigir.org/forum/F2002/broder.pdf.

Jansen, B.J., Booth, D. & Spink, A. (2008). Determining the informational, navigational and transactional intent of Web queries. Information processing and management 44 (2008), 1251-1266.

Spencer, Donna. (2009.) Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories. Rosenfeld Media: Brooklyn, NY.

Thurow, S. and Musica, N. (2009). When Search Meets Web Usability. New Riders: Berkeley, CA.

Images from Shutterstock, used under license. 

He asked for some books to read, online courses to take, webinars to attend, and so forth. I gave him a partial list as a solid starting point.

When I sent him an upcoming webinar list (with descriptions and agendas) that had me excited, he replied, “I looked at these agendas, and I didn’t see anything related to search engines and SEO.”

My heart sunk. Smart man…very smart man…stuck inside of a SEO bubble.

As SEO professionals, we have conditioned ourselves to believe that if a document (webpage, image, video, webinar, etc.) contains a keyword phrase, then that keyword phrase must somehow describe the document and/or that document’s content.

As SEO professionals, we have conditioned ourselves to believe in, "No keywords? Not related!" Sometimes, there are connections we do not see because we view websites inside of an SEO bubble.

And vice versa—if a document doesn’t contain a keyword phrase, then the keyword phrase must not be applicable to that document.

One usability topic, in particular, might not seem as though it is related to search engine visibility, but it is: emotional design.

Visceral, Behavioral & Reflective Design

One of my favorite usability books is Donald A. Norman’s Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things.[1]  In his book, he discusses 3 different aspects of design:

• Visceral design
• Behavioral design
• Reflective design

According to Norman:

Visceral design concerns itself with appearance. The visceral level is fast: it makes rapid judgments of what is good or bad, safe or dangerous….  (p. 5 and p. 22)

Behavioral design has to do with the pleasure and effectiveness of use. The behavioral level is the site of most human behavior…. [It] is not conscious, which is why you can successfully drive your automobile subconsciously at the behavioral level while consciously thinking of something else at the reflective level. (p. 5 and p. 23)

Reflective design considers the rationalization and intellectualization of a product. The reflective level is the contemplative part of the brain. We can remember previous experiences and tell others about our problems. (p. 5 and pp. 22-23)

Usability professionals are mostly concerned with behavioral design. And Web designers are concerned mostly with visceral design. Interestingly, users/searchers are more tolerant of errors in attractive designs than in ugly ones.

“…although poor design is never excusable, when people are in a relaxed situation, the pleasant, pleasurable aspects of the design will make them more tolerant of difficulties and problems in the interface.” [2]

As a pioneer of search-engine friendly Web design, I have not focused primarily on aesthetic design. I have not focused primarily on accommodating search engines only because optimization involves both searchers and search engines.

Visceral Processing & Google Gullibility

I constantly observe 3 levels of processing all of the time when people interact with search engine results pages (SERPS) and websites.

The visceral level is hard to ignore on a Web SERP because of our instinctive human perceptions. If a site’s listing appears at the top of search results right now, it must be the most relevant, right? And if Google or Bing put that listing there, the link(s) must be safe to click, right?

How many times have we, as searchers, been constantly inundated with inappropriate search listings? Was it the searchers’ fault because we did not formulate an accurate query? Or is it the search engine’s fault, not able to filter out search engine spam? Or both?

Website usability guru Jakob Nielsen stated his article, User Skills Improving, But Only Slightly:

When it comes to search, users face three problems:

• Inability to retarget queries to a different search strategy
• Inability to understand the search results and properly evaluate each destination site’s likely usefulness
• Inability to sort through the SERP’s polluted mass of poor results, whether from blogs or from heavily SEO-optimized sites that are insufficiently specific to really address the user’s problem

Given these difficulties, many users are at the search engine’s mercy and mainly click the top links — a behavior we might call Google Gullibility.

In Emotional Design, Norman said that the visceral and behavioral levels are about the “here and now,” a user’s feelings and experiences when he/she is actually seeing or using a product. In our context, that product is a web search engine. What do searchers see? What do searchers do based on what they see in SERPs?

On the flip side, the reflective level is long term. On the reflective level, users/searchers remember past experiences with SERPs and corresponding websites.

Therefore, to overcome Google gullibility, we have to rely on a different part of our brain: the reflective level.

Reflective Design In Search Listings & Landing Pages

In Emotional Design, Norman said:

Of the three levels, the reflective one is the most vulnerable to variability through culture, experience, education, and individual differences. This level can also override the others. (p. 38)

I observed reflective processing in full force in the last month on an ecommerce website.

The searcher task was to purchase a box of blank-ink markers from a particular brand. Interestingly, one persona in their target audience loved this particular brand of markers so much that they constantly wrapped the markers with colored tape (so no one else in the lab would steal them). And they kept secret stashes in their lab stations.

I understand. I worked in biochemistry labs for about 10 years. These markers are perfect for labeling test tubes, Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers, and the like.

The brand owner of this marker created a separate website for these markers. And guess what searchers clicked on when they viewed the Google SERP? The mini-site’s listing, of course.

Searchers thought that going right to the source of their prized markers would save them a lot of time and (hopefully) money instead of browsing through a bunch of online stores.

However, the homepage of this branded marker site was a Flash-based splash page. I will summarize the basic response to the landing page:

“Oh hell no!” (Immediately clicked the back button)

This response clearly shows a reaction to reflective design because the searchers remembered what it was like to experience Flash-based splash pages. They didn’t want to watch a Flash movie in order to buy their prized markers.

Throughout the month, we performed other search tests. Do you know what happened when the searchers saw the mini-site’s listings appear in search results? Again, I will summarize the basic response:

“I’m not clicking on THAT link again!”

Search engine optimization isn’t only about the here and now. SEO is not a quick fix or a flavor-of-the-month set of strategies. SEO is about consistent, long-term findability.

Emotional design is an important part of the searcher experience from the very first to query to subsequent queries months later. Search engines do not have emotions…but searchers do.

References:

1. Norman, D. A. (2004). Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things. New York: Basic Books.
2. Norman, D. A. (2002). Emotion and design: Attractive things work better. Interactions Magazine, ix (4), 36-42. Retrieved at: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/emotion_design.html.

When it comes to keyword classification and context, it is far too easy to inject our personal opinions onto keyword phrases. It is not a “bad” thing to want to relate to, engage, and connect with your target audience.

As search optimizers, we sincerely hope that searchers’ mental models of desired content matches the content we have on our own and our clients’ websites.

Nevertheless, the ability to be objective about keywords is vital in order to truly understand web searchers. As SEO professionals, we not only need to understand the words and phrases that our target audiences type in to search engine, we also need to understand the context of keyword phrases.

Searcher Mental Models & Search Conditions

What exactly do I mean by context? By context, I am referring to a searcher’s mental model and the conditions under which he or she is searching.

Questions to consider:

• Is the search being conducted at home or at the office? Or both?
• Is the searcher using a desktop computer, tablet, or mobile phone?
• Is there a time constraint on the search query, such as needing to change ones hotel reservation due to a delayed flight?
• Or is the search session one that lasts over a period of 2-3 weeks, such as when a person is researching a product before purchasing?
• If the search session is long, are the keyword phrases repeat queries, possibly re-finding queries?
• Is the searcher a newbie, experienced, or expert Web searcher?

Some context can be gathered via Web analytics data and other types of software. But not 100% of searcher context. All too often, Web searchers do not type in their keyword context in a search box.

Keywords Without Context

Here is an example from some usability tests my firm conducted last year. We presented over 100 participants with a search box with a single keyword. The first word we presented was the word gas.

Here are a number of images that came to their minds (not presented in any particular order):

Images associated with the word gas.

Most participants immediately thought gas meant the gasoline that they put in their cars. We observed facial expressions of amusement when participants were thinking of belching/burping or farting.

Then, we changed the context. We told participants that the context was a medical/heathcare context.

None of them thought of natural gas or car fuel. Some participants thought of oxygen. Some (again) thought belching or flatulence. And a couple of participants thought of Group A Streptococcus (abbreviation is GAS). So even though the context was more specific with the second question, the keyword associations were quite different.

We next used something possibly simpler than a word: the letter K.

Here are a number of images that came to their minds after being shown the letter K in a search box (also not presented in any particular order):

Images associated with the letter K

I can tell you my immediate association with the letter K. It was file size, as in kilobytes. I am a Web designer/developer and an SEO. I optimize PDFs as part of my job. So that is my personal mental model.

Around 10% of participants associated the letter K with Vitamin K, which can be found in some of the foods shown above. Keywords associated with Vitamin K include vitamin(s), diet, supplement, vegetables, food, and so forth.

If you put a number in front of the letter K, it can completely change the context:

• 401(k)
• 18K or 14K

What are the words associated with 401(k)? They are probably words associated with savings, retirement, financial planning, and money.

What are the words associated with 18K and 14K? Probably jewelry, metals (gold, silver, platinum), gemstones, and so forth.

Notice how something as simple as a single number or a single word affects context. Notice how users/searchers expect to see different words on webpages based on their search conditions and mental models.

And, as I mentioned previously, searchers do not often type in their context into search queries.

The Untyped Context

Labeling is an area where the areas of information architecture and search engine optimization overlap. Part of my job, as an information architect and an SEO professional, is to understand how a client’s target audience organizes and labels content on a website.

One of my most eye-opening and humbling experiences as an information architect was to recognize that Web searchers do not organize content based on keyword research data. With every card sorting and other usability tests, I heard (and recorded) comments that were contrary to keyword research data.

People do not categorize insurance, travel, real estate, healthcare, food and recipes, etc. by topic but via other means. They might first categorize themselves as a part of a group and then search by topic.

They don’t type in their personal information (What group am I in?) in the search box. But they expect to see their context in search results and corresponding landing pages 100% of the time. They expect to see text, images, and even color associated with their context.

I constantly observe SEO professionals and website owners use volume of queries to architect a site when users/searchers organize content by less common keyword combinations.

In the examples above, look how a single word or a single letter changed the searcher context…and you might not see these words in analytics data or in the right volume.

I am not saying to discount keyword research tools. I have used them since 1995. They provide useful data, particularly for labeling. But I urge SEO professionals to consider alternative means of understanding searcher context.

• Field studies
• User interviews
• Usability testing
• Observing users/searchers in their “natural” search environment
• Diary studies

As information architect Peter Morville stated in his User Experience Design article years ago,”…we must strike a unique balance on each project between business goals and context, user needs and behavior, and the available mix of content.”

Adapted from information architecture guru Peter Morville’s 3 Pillars of Information Architecture. Image used with permission.

And from noted search expert Richard Zwicky in his Context Within Search and Optimization article, “This process of helping guide the search engine to better understand the context of a document, so that the engine can properly direct searchers to the right document, and thus ensure relevant results, is a the core of what any good search engine optimization firm must do. It should be at the core of every search engine algorithm, but obviously context is not yet there.”

Help search engines understand context. Open your eyes to other research methodologies. You won’t regret it.

How well do you know Web searchers? How do you know which data sources are best for understanding searcher goals and behaviors?

I created this short quiz to make sure that all players on your SEO team are on the proverbial same page. (Answers are at the bottom of the page…no cheating!)

1.  The word “login” is strong indicator of what type of Web searcher intent?

1. Navigational
2. Informational
3. Transactional
4. Commercial
5. All of the above

2.  If a Web searcher types in the keyword phrase “benjamin franklin pics” (without the quotes) into a search box, that type of query intent is classified as:

1. Navigational
2. Informational
3. Transactional
4. Commercial
5. All of the above

3.  What type(s) of webpages can naturally satisfy informational searcher goals?

1. Category page
2. How-to pages
3. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
4. Product reviews
5. All of the above

4.   True or false?

A low bounce rate coupled with multiple page views per visitor is a strong indicator of a positive searcher experience.

5.   According to information architect Peter Morville, which of the following attributes are not a part of the searcher experience?

1. Desirable
2. Useful
3. Findable
4. Valuable
5. Profitable

6.  Which of the following data-gathering methodologies provide information about the goals and the intentions behind searcher keywords?

1. Keyword research tools
2. One-on-one usability testing
3. Large-scale log analysis (log file data)
4. Diary studies
5. Website analytics data
6. All of the above
7. B and D
8. A, B, and D
9. A, B, D, and E

7.  True or false?

Both finding and re-finding searcher goals involve recognition and recall.

8.  Of the following items on a webpage, what do eye-tracking usability tests not reveal?

1. Where people spend their time looking
2. What people do not look at
3. Perception through peripheral vision
4. How people separate (or ‘chunk’) information
5. Sequence in which people look at items

9.  What type of search query is a “fishing expedition” (finding all relevant documents about a topic)?

1. Site finding search
2. Ad hoc search
3. Entry page search
4. Known-item search
5. None of the above

10.  True or false:

Web searchers always exhibit orienting behavior whenever they view search engine results pages (SERPs).

Answers To Searcher Behaviors Quiz

1.   A – Navigational. In order for a person to login, he/she must go to a specific website in order to login to it. This word often appears with other keywords, such as the official company or organization name, or all or part of a domain name.

2.   C – Transactional. Even though the searcher might want to see a variety of pictures or photographs of Benjamin Franklin, the words words photographs (and its derivatives) and pictures (and its derivatives) indicate that the searcher wants to engage in the activities of look, see, or view. Not all transactional keywords are verbs.

3.  E – All of the above. A category page normally contains a list of items. A how-to page answers a question about a topic. FAQs pages typically answer multiple questions about a topic. And the word reviews indicates that a searcher wants to read multiple reviews about a product and/or service. Reading, knowing, and learning goals are informational goals.

4.  False. Unfortunately, there are no cut-and-dry conclusions that can be derived from bounce rates and page views per visitor. The answer depends on searcher context.

For example, if a Web searcher’s goal is to find the store hours of his preferred pharmacy, and he finds that information (quick fact) immediately, then his searcher goal is complete without having to view multiple pages. On the flip side, viewing multiple pages can indicate that the Web searcher is lost on a website, especially if pogo-sticking click paths are followed.

5.  E – Profitable. Even though website usability is balancing business goals with user expectations, a website should provide value to searchers/users. Search engine spam, for example, does not provide value to either search engines or Web searchers.

6.  G – Both B and D. Keyword research tools, log file data, Web analytics data, and even site search analytics can reveal what people search for and how people search. They can also reveal how searchers interact with search engine results pages (SERPs) and other web pages. Ultimately, direct human-researcher interaction with web searchers is needed to determine the whys of searcher goals and behaviors.

7.  False. According to researchers at Virginia Tech, finding goals and behaviors are more exploratory in nature and have a degree of uncertainty, whereas re-finding is more directed. Web searchers know that desired content is available because they have probably seen it previously; therefore, re-finding relies on both recognition and recall.

8.  C – Perceptions through peripheral vision. According to usability guru Jakob Nielson and Kara Pernice in their book Eyetracking Web Usability, users get desired information with peripheral vision. They might not focus on a page element because they believe the element is not needed for the immediate task at hand (search bar, ads, items that look like ads, etc.)

Additionally, usability expert and author Dr. Susan Weinschenk said that people sometimes choose to not fixate on an item because their peripheral vision indicated that the item was not easily decipherable. And she said that it is possible for people to be looking at one thing and actually pay attention to something nearby.

9.  B – Ad hoc search. A known-item search is similar to an ad hoc search but the target of the search is a particular document, or a small set of documents, that the searcher knows to exist in the collection and wants to find again. Site finding is similar to known-item searching because the searcher is looking for a particular website.

However, with a known-item query, the searcher has already visited the site previously. With site finding, the searcher might want to go to a known or an unknown website. With an entry page query, web searchers’ desired content is a central page of an organization—a page that functions as the portal of information.

10.  True. Orienting is a behavior whereby users/searchers determine their position in a website with reference to another point—establishing a sense of place. It occurs naturally during the browsing and searching processes. Web searchers quickly scan the top screen of the results page (from top to bottom) to ensure that they have been delivered to the most appropriate page (orientation) before reading individual search listings (ads, organic, and blended listings).

How did your SEO team do? Are there any questions or answers you think should be added, deleted, or edited? Fill out some comments below and let me know.

Normally, I teach SEO professionals about information architecture: what it is and is not, how to determine the best IA for websites, and so forth. At this event, it was the other way around. I was educating, or perhaps re-educating, information architects about SEO.

Search engine optimization has never been sprinkling magical pixie dust on a website.

Teaching SEO can be frustrating because one must deal with negative stereotypes (“snake-oil charlatans”) and erroneous, preconceived notions about SEO.

How many times are we faced with a prospect who thinks SEO is about sprinkling magic fairy dust on a website so that it ranks #1 in Google all of the time for every targeted keyword phrase?

Oh, apparently we have the magical ability to make this happen…last week.

To be perfectly honest, I often prefer to work with people who are completely ignorant about SEO so I don’t have to deal with the stereotypes, preconceived notions, and Google gullibility.

Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge that the stereotypes, SEO myths, and gullibility exist. Acknowledging and challenging the negative stereotype is par for the course.

SEO Awareness

I have said it before. And I will say keep repeating until the world grasps this fundamental SEO concept: SEO is optimizing a website for people who use search engines.

Like the term “website usability,” the term “search engine optimization” is easily misunderstood. People honestly make statements such as, “I am the user,” and “Optimize for the average searcher,” and “People use my website all of the time; therefore, it is user friendly.”

Usability is about task completion and involves the following items:

• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Learnability
• Memorability
• Error prevention
• User satisfaction

It is easy for people to believe that search engine optimization is optimizing a website for search engines only. Too easy, I think.

In reality, SEO has always been about searchers and search engines. Ignoring one at the expense of the other is a mistake…a big mistake.

So how do we make people aware of what the SEO process really is? I posed this question to one of my clients. Here is his 2 cents:

“Even though staff learned about SEO responsibilities that were not directly a part of their jobs, at least they have an awareness about how their contributions can positively or negatively affect SEO. That awareness is invaluable.”

I believe his comments show great insight. Don’t expect everyone to know how to do SEO after a short presentation. Don’t expect everyone to instantly become an SEO expert after a few hours in a certification course. Expertise comes from knowledge and experience.

Nevertheless, I think it is reasonable to expect a fundamental awareness of SEO, knowing that SEO involves meeting the needs of both searchers and search engines. And also knowing that SEO is not the process of sprinkling magical pixie dust on a website.

I expect that fundamental awareness from anyone working on a website: designers, developers, usability professionals, user experience designers, writers, advertisers, information architects, and so forth.

That awareness is invaluable.

SEO Knowledge & Aptitude

Here is a proverbial tough pill to swallow: not everyone has the aptitude for SEO or different aspects of SEO.

SEO professionals should understand how people search as well as why people search.

Search engine optimization has a human element as well as a technical element. Some SEO professionals are gifted technical SEOs. This is the group to turn to for assistance in managing duplicate content.

Some SEO professionals are expert copywriters. Some SEO experts are skilled at usability testing and might be the group to turn to if a site has search engine traffic and low conversions. Some SEOs are knowledgeable about how people search. And some SEOs are knowledgeable about why people search.

I wouldn’t ask an search engine optimizer who specializes in copywriting to program redirects. Nor would I expect a developer/programmer to be skilled at information architecture and usability testing.

I expect SEO professionals to have more than awareness. I expect them to have aptitude and knowledge.

If an SEO professional does not have a specific SEO skill needed for a project, I expect that person to reach out to an SEO who does…without feeling threatened. SEO should be a group effort. Everyone is on the same team.

I know. I know…easier said than done. Stereotypes, myths, and misconceptions can be difficult to debunk. So what did I share with the audience of information architects?

Part of an SEO’s job is:

• Labeling website content so that it is easy to find (unique aboutness)
• Organizing website content so that it is easy to find
• Ensuring search engines have access to desired content
• Ensuring search engines don’t have access to undesirable content (or at least limiting access)
• Accommodating searchers’ navigational, informational, and transactional goals

Information architecture decisions can positively and negatively impact SEO on web search engines as well as site search engines. Information architects have a role in SEO. Have the awareness.

Even better? Have the knowledge to hire an SEO professional when one is needed. Have the knowledge and humility to recognize that you might not have the aptitude and talent for optimizing. Understand that SEO knowledge does not necessarily mean SEO aptitude. Understand your role in the optimization process. Be knowledgeable enough to recognize a “snake-oil charlatan.”

Information architecture guru Peter Morville wrote the following in the foreword of When Search Meets Web Usability:

“Shari Thurow is among the few specialists brave enough to jump the gap between search engine optimization and web usability. As a result, she has learned how and where to place stepping stones and build bridges. She can speak the language of link analysis and relevance ranking algorithms, while also understanding user psychology and information seeking behavior.”

Yep, I build bridges. But I cannot make anyone cross a bridge. Awareness is the first step. Take that first step, information architects. You won’t regret it.

Doing SEO without understanding searcher goals and behaviors is like doing math without knowing how to add.

Many people believe that SEO is simply optimizing a website for search engines. In reality, SEO is optimizing a website for people who use search engines.

Saying that you know SEO without understanding searcher goals and behaviors is like saying that you understand math without knowing how to add.

Likewise, many people believe that website usability is simply making a website easy to use. Easy to use for whom? The developers? Website owners? Web searchers? SEO professionals?

Search engine optimization has fundamenal building blocks. So does usability. Website usability professionals typically measure:

• Effectiveness
• Efficiency
• Learnability
• Memorability
• Error Prevention and Recovery
• Searcher (User) Satisfaction

Let’s look at each of these items individually and how they pertain to the field of search engine optimization.

Effectiveness

Contrary to what many search engine marketers believe, website usability is not about ones’ personal opinion. Usability is about achieving objectives and task completion. So when search usability professionals measure the effectiveness of a website, they evaluate the following:

• Can searchers achieve their objectives and complete specific tasks via the commercial web search engines and your website?
• Can searchers easily find their desired information, destination, or activity on a website?  
• If searchers cannot or do not achieve their objectives, what were the roadblocks encountered? Can those roadblocks be eliminated or minimized?

Navigational queries are very important to search usability professionals because the searcher goal is to go to a specific website. And website owners should help searchers achieve that goal very easily.

One way for me to evaluate this is to perform navigational queries to see which pages appear in search listings.

• Pancreatic cancer cancer.gov
• Cancer pancreas National Cancer Institute
• “pancreatic” site:www.cancer.gov (with and without the quotes)

If I do not see the most appropriate page appear at the top of search listings for navigational queries, then I know that the labeling system and other information architecture items need tweaking.

Efficiency

Once usability professionals determine that task completion is possible, they want to see how efficiently searchers were able to complete their desired search objectives.

• How quickly can site visitors perform specific tasks on your website?
• How many steps were required to complete simple search tasks? (Too many, too few, just right)
• What elements on your website discouraged or prevented searchers from attaining their search objectives?

SEO professionals should be careful about over-generalizing efficiency. Even today, I still hear and read SEO professionals touting the 3-Click Rule. The 3-Click Rule basically states that every piece of content on a website should take no more than three clicks to access.

Well, SEO professionals and website owners, the folks at User Interface Engineering disproved that rule a long time ago. (See Testing the Three-Click Rule at UIE for details.)

Information scent and task completion are more important to searchers than the number of clicks.

Learnability

Usability professionals also evaluate how quickly and easily searchers learn how to use your website the first time they encounter it. They review and evaluate webpage items such as:

• Site navigation (placement, formatting, and labeling)
• Clickability (visual affordance)
• Content labels and descriptions (aboutness)

Simply put, if searchers have to spend time learning how to use your website, they are spending less time on achieving their searcher goals. If a website is too hard to learn, then searchers hit the Back button.

Memorability

After a searcher has learned to use your website, how quickly and efficiently can that searcher accomplish his or her searcher goals?

For example, if the searcher goal is a quick fact, where might the searcher look for that information on your website? The FAQs section? The Tips section? If the searcher goal is to log in, does the searcher want to go to a specific login page? Or does the searcher just want to arrive at your site and quickly scan the utilities navigation for the Login link?

During usability tests and evaluations, I have personally observed web searchers exhibit re-finding behaviors.

Searchers might not remember the name of the website or the webpage where they initially found their desired content, but they remember the keyword phrases used on Google (or another search engine). Once they see a title, snippet, URL, image or video thumbnail on a SERP, they immediately click on it.

If your site is memorable, it can make re-finding search queries easier for web searchers.

Error Prevention and Recovery

Granted, there is no such thing as a perfect website. Nor is there a perfect search engine. Search engines might not display the most appropriate page. And searchers might go down a less-than-ideal browse path. Nevertheless, error prevention is a critical part of website usability.

Website usability professionals regularly monitor and evaluate:

• What errors do searchers and search engines typically make and encounter?
• How frequently do these errors occur?
• How severe are the errors?

Some errors are dealbreakers. And they absolutely must be addressed and fixed, such as missing content (a 404 Page Not Found Error) with quality link development.

Conversely, some errors are infrequent and not so severe. They should be on a to-fix list but are not necessarily at the top of the list.

SEO professionals might not realize that by monitoring data from web analytics data, webmaster tools, site search analytics, and SEO software, they are actually analyzing items that are important to usability professionals as well.

Searcher (User) Satisfaction

The searcher experience has never been as simple as, “I like this website” consensus in a focus group. Nor is it a, “This is cool!” exclamation during a usability test. Searcher satisfaction is tied very heavily to goal achievement.

In other words, if searchers are able to achieve their goals and complete search tasks efficiently, they rate their searcher experience as high. If searchers encounter too many roadblocks and do not find their desired content, they rate their searcher experience as low.

So Search Engine Land readers, this is what website usability is all about: effectiveness, efficiency, memorability, learnability, error prevention, and searcher satisfaction.

Next time you read or hear an SEO professional make any statements about website usability, make sure that he or she understands these usability fundamentals. If you don’t hear this terminology or understanding? Well, then, maybe you will know which search usability professionals to listen to…and which ones you can dismiss.

“What is your SEO archiving plan?”

Do you know what the typical response is? Stunned silence.

Then I ask another question:

“Who is in charge of archiving your blog content as well as your corporate website content?”

Do you know what the typical response to that question is? Continued silence. More stunned expressions. People looking at each other to see who might have the answer to that question.

You see, to too many people, SEO is all about keywords and rankings and freshness and the latest flavor-of-the-month tactic. A topic like archiving does not appear on an SEO professional’s radar until a specific situation arises, such as a site redesign or a migration to a new content management system (CMS).

The Costs Of Not Having An Archiving Plan

Long time Linking Strategist Eric Ward, who also publishes LinkMoses Private, shared this URL archiving horror story with me:

“I worked with a client for many years, each month seeking links for the new content they added each month. This new content was always subject specific, and was placed within a subdirectory at a nice short URL that made the link seeking process easier. In this company, the marketing departments and IT departments didn’t communicate every decision they made to each other.”

“Well, the IT department made the decision to change web content delivery platforms, but they did not share this with the marketing folks, who had no idea it was happening. Overnight thousands of URLs changed, with no redirects in place. Nothing but 404s.”

“This meant that all the deep links I had obtained over the course of several years became useless. There was no migration or archiving plan in place. There was no old site map or list of previous URLs. The lesson from this is Web sites demand planning and cooperation across departments. One decision can wreck a lot of work.”

Unfortunately, I encounter this type of situation all too frequently. There is a mad scramble to put together properly programmed 301 redirects without considering the searcher experience.

Web pages that should return 404 File Not Found errors are redirected to the home page in the chaos to retrieve lost link juice. 301 redirects might have to be implemented and re-implemented, diminishing their value. Web content that had solid link development and easy access is suddenly buried in the revised information architecture.

The costs of not having an effective archiving plan results in lost search engine visibility (temporary and long-term), diminished brand credibility, and considerable staff/outsourcing time and expense to repair the damage. Ultimately, these items lead to lost prospects and lost sales.

Archiving Blog Content

Many pre-formatted blog templates offer archives by date, but this feature is not enough for effective SEO and overall findability.

So let’s go back to my original situation. During the wave of enthusiasm for launching a blog for increased freshness, spidering, and (hopefully) increased search engine visibility, an archiving plan is never discussed.

And if archiving is mentioned? The answer is a typical brush off — just use the pre-programmed archives in the blog software. End of archiving discussion.

Well, I can tell you that pre-programmed blog archives is not an effective way to archive content because users/searchers generally do not discover or locate desired blog content by date.

They search for it by keywords using either a commercial Web search engine or a site search engine. They browse by categories and related content. Therefore, it is important for blog content to contain both parent-child and sibling-sibling links to related content.

Too many blogs remain uncategorized or rely on tagged pages as a poor substitute for an effective information architecture.

(Note: Tagged pages on blogs typically lead to duplicate content delivery. Duplicate content delivery to search engines can result in less pages being indexed, important pages not being available to rank, and a compromised searcher experience.)

Furthermore, blog content should not be written once and discarded. If you want your blog content to have long-term search engine visibility and grow stronger over time, archiving and categorizing are a necessary part of the SEO process.

“Posting valuable website content is not for a one time, getting attention driving endeavour. It’s also about long-term value,” said Ezra Silverton, Website Architect at the Canadian-based 9th Sphere. “One key attribute to long-term content value is making it easily accessible to visitors and crawlers long after its posted.”

Think about this: every blog post you write is going to eventually disappear from the home page and top-level category pages. When those links disappear:

• How are you making that content accessible to both searchers and search engines?
• What parent-child links are available on blog template pages?
• What sibling-sibling links are available on blog template pages?
• If you cannot put these links in the template, how else are you accommodating natural finding behaviors?

If you didn’t have an archiving plan from the outset, imagine the amount of work it would take to implement these items and achieve the long-term benefits. Not having an archiving plan or strategy ultimately hurts all types of websites…not only blogs.

As SEO professionals, we understand that SEO should never be an afterthought during the site design or redesign process. SEO works the best when it is addressed during the planning stages of website development. Archiving is no different. Archiving is an important part of the SEO planning process. It shouldn’t be an afterthought.

In other words, the answer to, “What is your SEO archiving plan?” should never be stunned silence.