SEO and Taxonomy

Search engine optimization (SEO) is becoming more important to organizations of all sizes and industries.  With most people using Google, Yahoo or MSN search to begin exploration of products and services, adjusting content and various web site parameters to improve search ranking has taken on a new level of urgency. 

Improving search ranking is addressing “findability” at a macro level:  how does the world find your site and find what they are looking for? This is a very similar problem to that of web site findability, but the context is different.  At the macro level, we are trying to link short, sometimes ambiguous terms to precise content.  The challenge is that we don’t know  what the user really has in mind when they execute a search. 

Both taxonomy and SEO are about semantics, keywords, terminology and metadata and about divining intent from ambiguity.  Many organizations are doing work to understand how users think about internal and external content from a taxonomy, metadata and content management perspective.  Other groups are engaging agencies and SEO specialists in improving organic search rankings.  However, SEO and taxonomy are not always considered from a holistic perspective. 

In this session we’ll review taxonomy and SEO concepts and discuss connections between the disciplines along with recommendations for reviewing SEO in a taxonomy context and taxonomy in an SEO context. 

Josh Pike from Rock Coast Media, Inc. will talk about how people have changed the way that they navigate the Internet to find and consume content. Instead of navigating to a site’s homepage and drilling-down to the desired content, users often turn to search, social content sites and RSS feeds to find what they are looking for. As a result, many websites are being designed to cater to that behavior, leveraging search-based navigation and flash or AJAX-driven navigation. Unfortunately search engines are challenged by this as they can’t perform the queries or operations necessary to find the content. We will discuss some of these considerations for businesses looking to streamline content delivery.

Jeff Carr from Earley & Associates will discuss organic or natural SEO and the fundamental principles that form the foundation of a solid strategy.  His discussion will examine both the technical factors affecting a site’s crawlability as well as the contextual elements required for long-term success.