SEO Tips and Updates

It’s easy to become so entrenched in your SEO efforts, analyzing traffic, finding niche keywords, generating relevant content, optimizing landing pages, etc, that you forget to think about why you’re doing it and how a search engine like Google does what they do.

This article on BusinessWeek is a Q&A session with Matt Cutts on how Google tries to improve it’s product, with an emphasis on minimizing webspam in results.

Smashing Magazine provided an in-depth review on search results page design, detailing design and feature elements of successful search pages online, including google, bing, youtube, twitter, amazon, ebay, digg, cnet, wallstreetjournal.

Summary of best practices:

• Provide easy access to the search box for follow-up searches
• Where possible, search terms should be clearly indicated at the top, and in context in the results
• Related sponsored links can be included below the search box, near the bottom, or on the right
• Titles should be clickable and clearly differentiated from details
• Visited links should be indicated
• Pagination units should be visibly block-shaped and have a hover effect, to easily differentiate from one another
• Related products, tags, or keywords should be displayed in a non-obtrusive section
• E-Commerce sites should allow the “view” to be toggled between “list” and “grid”
• Advanced search options should be easily accessible
• Should allow re-sorting or filtering of results
• Where possible, results pages should have RSS feeds or “subscribe” options
• For complex interfaces, clear, easy-to-access search tips or instructions should be provided
• Sorting and Filters should be JavaScript or Ajax-driven, where possible
• Popularity or star-ratings should be shown for individual results
• Include an option to increase the number of results per page
• To monitor future improvements, request feedback from users after searches are conducted
• If results span different sections of the website, indicate this by sub-headings or other dividers

Source: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/09/28/search-results-design-best-practices-and-design-patterns/