Search Engine Optimization for the Research Librarian, or How Librarians Can Beat Spammers at their own Game

1
Search Engine Optimization for the Research
Librarian, or How Librarians Can Beat Spammers at
their own Game

• Melissa Gasparotto
• Librarian for African and Latin American Studies,
  Rutgers University Libraries

2
What is Search Engine Optimization?

• A relatively old concept and set of practices
  that libraries and particularly published faculty
  repeatedly fail to take advantage of.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the
  process of identifying factors in a webpage which
  would impact search engine accessibility to it
  and fine-tuning the many elements of a website so
  it can achieve the highest possible visibility
  when a search engine responds to a relevant
  query. Search engine optimization aims at
  achieving good search engine accessibility for
  webpages, high visibility in a search engine
  results, and improvement of the chances the
  webpages are retrieved. Zhang and Dimitroff, p.
  666.
• This can apply to journal articles that are put
  online, as well, whether in a database or
  institutional repository, or simply an open
  access journal.

3
SEO, cont.

• Has gotten a bad name because of unethical
  spamming practices, but when
• done properly is simply a set of best practices
  for website metadata. As
• Yahoos SEO guide says
• Good SEO copywriting makes your page more
  readable for both search engines and humans

4
Is SEO appropriate for academia?

• Good SEO is about the accessibility of our work
  and resources. A newer subfield called Academic
  Search Engine Optimization helps scholars learn
  how search engines like Google Scholar include
  and display content in ways that are different
  from regular search engines. This is of
  particular utility to librarians.
• As open access gains credibility, making articles
  and bibliographies easily findable on the web is
  essential.
• Google Scholar is very particular about how it
  includes content preparing and displaying your
  documents with good SEO in mind will help
  webcrawlers find your work and include it.

5
Case Study Optimizing the Online Bibliography of
US Latina Lesbian History and Culture

• Project Goals
• As in the Rushton, Kelehan and Strong pilot
  project at SUNY Binghamton, goals for the
  optimization project included
• 1) Increasing the page rank of the bibliography
  for a targeted set of keywords
• 2) Increasing the number of search engine
  referrals
• 3) Increasing the number of page views

6
Methodology

• Step 1
• Put bibliography on the web and wait for it to be
  indexed by Google and hover at natural site
  equilibrium in rankings.
• Step 2
• Select target keyword search strings using
  keyword analysis tools.
• Step 3
• Measure the placement of bibliography site for
  each of these searches.
• Step 4
• Optimize site with these target search strings in
  mind.
• Step 5
• Measure the placement of bibliography site for
  this series of search strings after a period of
  time.

7
Step 1 Put Bibliography on the Web

• Bibliography put online at free NYU alumni
  webhosting space
• http//homepages.nyu.edu/mg128/Lesbian.html
• No frills, text only.
• Did include machine-readable internal linking
  structure for Table of Contents.

8
(No Transcript)
9
Step 2Selecting target keyword search strings

• Knowledge of the field
• Google Trends
• Google Insights Keyword Tool
• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• Topicmarks

10
Google Trends
11
Google Insights
12
Google Insights, cont.
13
Google Adwords Keyword Tool
14
Topicmarks
15
Step 3 Measure Search Engine Ranking of Site for
Targeted Keywords

• 3 measurements taken once at beginning of
  project, once post-equilibrium/pre-optimization,
  and once post-optimization
• The sites natural ranking equilibrium happens
  to be very high in the rankings (on first page of
  Google results) for many of the keyword searches
  I had chosen for this case study.
• Therefore, no optimization was necessary for over
  half of the keywords I chose!

16
Initial site rankings for targeted searches
17
Step 4 Adding Metadata to Site

• The following pieces of metadata were added to
  the sites html ltheadgt section
• ltmeta name"description" content"Resources for
  the study of Latina lesbian history and culture.
  A comprehensive bibliography of published works,
  archives and audio-visual resources."gt
• This section is the little blurb that displays
  underneath a listing in a search engine.
• ltmeta name"keywords" content"latina lesbian
  history and culture, lesbian studies, latina
  lesbian research resources, latino studies, queer
  studies, gay studies, hispanic american lesbian
  studies"gt

18
Site rankings for targeted searches after 6 weeks
19
Initial Results

• Results following most basic of SEO were so good,
  little else turns out to be necessary.
• There are other guidelines and best practices for
  different kinds of web publications that are
  important for librarians and scholars to be aware
  of, however, and some of these could be
  incorporated in the future include abstract on
  page, attach pdf file, etc.

20
Best Practices for Web Publications

• Include important subject keywords in your
  article title, abstract, and html metadata tags.
• Keep titles relatively short.
• Assign good metadata to any uploaded PDF files,
  especially author and paper title names.
• Use machine-readable vector images.
• Format article with standard terminology
  Introduction, Literature Review, Results,
  Bibliography, etc.
• Publish in an open access journal.

21
Best Practices, cont.

• Upload articles to your institutions repository,
  departmental webpage or personal webpage.
• If putting articles on your personal website,
  create a separate webpage for each article title
  and abstract PDF Google Scholar will index
  only 1 citation abstract per page.

22
Things to Avoid

• Using keywords more often than necessary you
  will annoy your readers and possibly be flagged
  as spam
• Use flat images with text that is unreadable by
  machines (.bmp, .jpg, etc.)
• List multiple article abstracts on the same
  webpage.

23
Sources

• Beel, Jran, Bela Gipp, and Erik Eilde. "Academic
  Search Engine Optimization (ASEO) Optimizing
  Scholarly Literature for Google Scholar Co."
  Journal of Scholarly Publishing 41.2 (2010)
  176-90. Print.
• Google. Search Engine Optimization Starter
  Guide. http//static.googleusercontent.com/extern
  al_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/web
  masters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-gu
  ide.pdf
• Rushton, Erin E., Martha Daisy Kelehan, and Marcy
  A. Strong. "Searching for a New Way to Reach
  Patrons A Search Engine Optimization Pilot
  Project at Binghamton University Libraries."
  Journal of Web Librarianship 2.4 (2008) 525-47.
  Print.
• Zhang, Jin, and Alexandra Dimitroff. "The Impact
  of Metadata Implementation on Webpage Visibility
  in Search Engine Results (Part II)." Information
  Processing Management 41.3 (2005) 697-715.
  Print.
• Yahoo! SEO Basics. http//styleguide.yahoo.com/
  resources/optimize-search-engines/seo-basics