On SEO and the Specious Voodoo Therein
We build sites for users, not search engines. And what a great mindset this is, because in our quickly evolving industry, modern search engines are utilizing algorithms that reward users and punish SEO voodoo.
When I forwarded the e-mail in question to our development team, I received a response that inspired this blog. There is nothing here that is new information. Rather, it is a wonderfully concatenated collection of hard facts and educated opinions based on solid experience, all of which sum up our core SEO beliefs. Because our own Jordan LaMons wrongfully doubts his writing abilities, I’m sharing the e-mail here, paraphrased for context, embellished for the layperson and with names removed to protect the not-so-innocent.
Discussing this blog with Jordan over IM, he summed it up with this bit of morose delectation:
“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, seem to always work for SEO companies.”
Unable to resist that spirit of schadenfreude, I’ll start with the items on which we and the SEO company most disagree and list them in descending order along with a corresponding and decidedly uneducated “voodoo rating” where, like in life, the more goat heads you see, the worse off you are.
Meta Keyword Tags
Voodoo Rating: 10 out of 10 goat heads
The Li Grand Zombi to SEO voodoo practitioners. For those of you unfamiliar with meta keyword tags, in the early days of the Internet, it was a common practice to “stuff” meta keywords into website code. Users wouldn’t see these words, but search engine spiders would. It was a way to trick search engines into granting sites a higher ranking. If it is any indication of this practice’s sleaze factor, porn sites made masterful use of meta keyword tags back in the day. These days, meta keyword tags are a big load of crap. Google doesn’t fall for them. Yet SEO companies still try to push them.
From Wikipedia: “No consensus exists whether or not the keywords attribute has any effect on ranking at any of the major search engines today. It is speculated that it does, if the keywords used in the meta can also be found in the page copy itself. With respect to Google, thirty-seven leaders in search engine optimization concluded in April 2007 that the relevance of having your keywords in the meta-attribute keywords is little to none and in September 2009 Matt Cutts of Google announced that they are no longer taking keywords into account whatsoever.”
Ever seen a 50-year-old woman in a tube top? That woman is the SEO company. And meta keyword tags are that pathetic piece of elastic barely covering tactics that have seen better days.
Image “Alt” Tags With Keywords
Voodoo Rating: 8 out of 10 goat heads
We disagree here with the SEO company less on the basis of SEO and more on the basis of the experience for users with disabilities. As noted in a previous blog, we are extremely passionate about making the Web accessible to everyone. What is an image “alt” tag? Geek speak: Alt is an attribute on the <img> element that can provide supplemental information to the user about the actual contents of an image. For the everyday Snooki: Visit a website and hover your cursor over an image. If text pops up in a little box, that’s an image alt tag.
Alt tags are to be avoided in most cases. While recent surveys by the WebAIM committee present relatively mixed results for preference on whether an alt tag should be used or not, the largest majority of screen reader users who are “Extremely Proficient” are okay with them, leaving the largest majority to not handle them well. Screen readers treat these (if they are non-empty) as text that needs to be read to the user, correctly assuming that it’s there to aid in their understanding of the site. While this sounds like a great thing, and it could be if done correctly, it typically adds little value in cases where a photo is used strictly for decoration in a Web design. The images on the site in question here were largely stock. Therefore, an alt tag of “Grandpa and girl hugging” or “Woman with headset” adds literally no beneficial information to the user. Alt tags are maintained as empty unless it actually is an image description that is needed/required in order to supply extra information to the page. At the farthest stretch of our allowance, it would only be used to help influence the “mood” of the page.
Our concern here is for the user experience. The original intent of image alt tags was to supplement information for users. Instead, SEO companies want to use image alt tags as a misdirected trick to attract search engine spiders. We believe sacrificing the experience of disabled users for a questionable SEO tactic is unforgivable.
Want your images to aid SEO? They can. But not with image alt tags. According to Google, short, accurate image file names are what they index.
Links With Keyword-dense Title Tags
Voodoo Rating: 6 out of 10 goat heads
Similar to image alt tags above—hover over a link on a website, and if you see text pop up, a title tag has been applied to the link. Again, our stance is one based on user experience and accessibility. And once again, SEO companies see something that was intended to supply additional information and latch on to it as another way to trick search engines.
Google has a clear stance on stuffing link title tags with keywords. The practice is harmful, not helpful.
In our ongoing self-education, here’s what we do currently support. The W3C Recommendation specification for the title attribute of links states that it is to offer advisory information about the element on which it is set. The attribute provides information on what you will read if you click the link. In addition to aiding sighted users, any non-visual/audio user agents use the title tags to render supplementary information about the link.
To craft informative title tags, we must not only consider what a sighted user reads upon hover, we must put ourselves in a non-sighted user’s situation and imagine listening to a site that, instead of saying “Our Solutions,” takes the time to say “Learn how we do such and such in the So-and-So Company solutions section.” As a Drupal shop who doesn’t control the sites we create, our job here is part facilitation (making sure site administrators can create link title tags through the CMS) and part education (ensuring site administrators are aware of how to properly use the attribute).
Links with title tags. Useful? Yes. Useful in the way SEO companies espouse? Do we really have to answer that?
Keywords Emphasized With <strong> Tag
Voodoo Rating: 5 out of 10 goat heads
The html element <strong> was created to provide “stronger emphasis”… essentially, making a word bold. SEO companies are convinced that peppering your website with bolded words will increase your SEO.
In our experience, we can’t honestly say that this does or does not help search engine optimization. However, the element is typically used purely as presentational markup (for appearances only), so we lean towards the “search engines don’t care” side of things. Have you ever received an e-mail from your boss in which he bolds, caps, and italicizes random words? Annoying, isn’t it? So let’s keep the reading experience pure. Bold words should be bold as emphasis for the reader, not as glitter on an old hooker desperate to attract a john.
<h1> Tags With Keywords
Voodoo Rating: Meh, it depends on what type of goat head we’re talking about
On websites, page headers carry tags that aid in the formatting of text. They also create a sort of hierarchy that’s intended to communicate significance in the code. Adding keywords to header tags can aid SEO.
<h1> tags carry the most significant and highest level hierarchy influence to all other html elements. Search engines understand this heirarchy and take this into account. While some screen reader users will navigate a site in “link mode,” recent data uncovered shows that most screen reader users will navigate a site in “heading navigation” mode. Which means that the reader will create a hierarchical representation of the site, only listing the headings, and allow the user to navigate the sections via that method. So, brace yourselves, we tend to agree with SEO companies here.
But… this can be a toughie, depending on your website design and content. Maybe, for some reason, your page title isn’t exactly the same as its link title, but as the header, the page title is the most prominent content element. When tagging it, skipping directly to an <h2> and avoiding the <h1> is a pretty big accessibility sin. However, you also don’t want to force an <h1> in any way that would require negatively indenting or hiding text. Search engines do not appreciate that.
We’re never afraid to admit we are always learning—all of our industry luminaries are guilty of the sins they now combat. Hindsight being 20/20, we can revisit past sites where our header tag optimization could have been better. Going forward, we search for the perfect combination of smart and hot. Our developers refer to that quality as “Natalie Portmanesque.”
Meta Descriptions
Voodoo Rating: 2 out of 10 goat heads
Meta descriptions are the descriptions that appear under the result in a Google search. We only get a couple of goat heads here because, while SEO companies place undue importance on this element, we do believe and agree it’s generally better to have a good, quality meta description than not. If you ever need to write one, the recommended length is 400 characters or less.
We begin to deviate from agreement with SEO companies when they start obsessing over having different meta descriptions for every page or putting all the keywords right up front. Not only is it more trickery aimed at search engines, it is minutae that doesn’t really affect rankings. On the seomoz.com site linked previously, meta descriptions are placed at a 19% (“very minimal importance”) influencer of search engine rankings. Yet another example of an SEO company making a money grab on the basis of ignorance and doubt. Maybe it deserves another goat.
Title Tag on Home Page Using Keywords
Voodoo Rating: 0 out of 10 goat heads
As long as it’s concise and serves the user’s needs, we’re cool with it. Hey, good job, SEO company.
Get off the soapbox, HCK2… how it should be done?
SEO schemes like the ones above are rarely proven to work. So what’s the best approach to SEO? Jordan quotes Google when they say this with regard to quality guidelines:
“Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, ‘Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?'”
They also say:
“Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.”
Maybe we should steal that thought. Oh, wait…
Five proven tactics for your SEO gris-gris:
1) Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content
2) Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it
3) Refresh content often
4) Give your users reason to come back (see #3)
5) Have a fast site. Yes, Google now uses site speed as an influencer of search engine rankings. Given that site performance is a specialty of ours, we can guarantee that this will be baked in
Don’t be scared of SEO
We don’t have anything against the idea of a company whose expertise is SEO. We do have a huge problem with hucksters. And these days, SEO companies just smack of those commercials that scare old people into buying life insurance.
SEO isn’t a big mystery anymore. Search engines these days like fresh, quality content, and as owner of your website, you—not anyone else—have ultimate control over your SEO by simply following our five recommendations above. You don’t even need us for that (but of course we are delighted to help).
On behalf of Jordan and the rest of our interactive crew, merci beaucoup, and steer clear of the hoodoo.