Search engine optimization

A redesign of the website at susanlitton.com for the purpose of maximizing search engine placement

Susan C. Litton

Tasks for maximizing SEO

• Choose effective keywords based on a keyword analysis
• Change folder structure, URLs and page titles to target chosen keywords
• Use keywords in anchor tag text as well as in alt and title attributes
• Rename images to include keywords
• Find additional ways to maximize those pages on the site that have the richest content
• Create a non-Flash home page
• Create a sitemap for the new site and submit to Google

Choose effective keywords based on a keyword analysis

• Used Yahoo's Keyword Selector Tool and
• Word Tracker
• Learned that "psychotherapy" is not a good search term, but "psychology" is
• Identified numerous keywords in the "longtail" that should work well for the site

Change folder structure, URLs and page titles

• Original site was all on the root level
• Created folders for utilities and resources (images, scripts, etc.) to create better structure and make the site easier to update
• Created folders for subpages using keywords, e.g., abuse, attachment-disorders, dissociation, etc.
• View new folder structure

Change folder structure, URLs and page titles

• File names were also changed to maximize keywords
• View old and new file names

Find additional ways to maximize richest content

• An analysis of the statistics on the original site revealed that many of the hits were from searches that landed on pages in the "Questions & Answers" portion of the site.
• For the new site, a left nav section was created that uses keywords to link to pertinent pages in the Questions & Answers section.
• This change was done to help users navigate to sections that interested them and also for better SEO.
• New content was also written for the Questions & Answers sections.
• Screenshots of the old and new sites

Redirect the old site to the new

• Create .htaccess file with 301 redirects

Example: redirect 301 /map.html http://susanlitton.com/map.php

• Add a mod_rewrite command to correct for the Google Canonical Problem:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.susanlitton\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://susanlitton.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Final touches

• The new site and sitemap (http://susanlitton.com/sitemap_google.xml) were submitted to Google, Yahoo! and other search engines
• The site was submitted for consideration to the DMOZ Open Directory Project

Results

• Mint (haveamint.com) was installed on the original site on March 8th, 2007, a couple of months before the redesign and move.
• The site was submitted to Google Analytics in mid-April, 2007.
• Although the pre-redesign pageview data is contaminated by visits from the developer, data on unique visitors shows an impressive increase of 76% from April to August.

(Data adjusted for partial month in March)

Page Views Mesasured by Mint

Google Analytics

• There is no pre-redesign data from Google Analytics.
• Google Analytics Data

Conclusion

Based on the dramatic increase in unique visitors, it appears that the SEO redesign was successful.