The Importance of Images
Greetings, Wikians!
One common SEO question at Wikia is about the impact images have on rankings. Search engine algorithms are not public and most look at hundreds of unique factors, but correlation studies have shown pages that include properly tagged, relevant images often rank higher than pages that do not.
Google and other search engines are getting better at understanding the relationship between images and other on-page content, but search bots cannot understand the images themselves. Happily there are some steps we can take to help the search engines out.
- 1 File Names
- 2 File Descriptions
- 3 Image Galleries and Image Navigation
- 4 Next Steps
File names should be as descriptive as possible; James Bond-Thunderball-Jetpack.jpg is better for SEO than…
Using Keywords Without Stuffing or Spamming
Hello, Wikians!
I introduced some simple keyword research tools in the previous SEO blog post; this time I want to discuss how to include those keywords on the page for maximum impact on search rankings and user experience.
The internet was less sophisticated in the mid to late ‘90s. During the Geocities era, it became a common practice to “optimize” pages using spammy blocks of unrelated keywords or sentences stuffed with synonyms and close match variations.
In the attempt to adhere to this outdated best practice, countless websites still publish nonsense like this:
C3PO, sometimes called Threepio, is a gold droid (robot) built to assist humans with customs and translation. Protocol droids like the talking robot C-3P0 can be different colors, but T…
Search Suggest, Trends, and Content Coverage
Hello, Wikians!
Most active communities have a growing list of wanted pages and numerous articles that could be improved. With so much on our to do lists, how do we even begin to prioritize?
In this post I'm sharing a couple of simple tools that are ideal for quick keyword research. Figuring out what searchers are searching can focus our creative efforts on the topics people are most curious about and help us gain more readers and contributors through prime placement in organic search results.
Those who hear about Search Engine Optimization for the first time often guess that it has something to do with keywords—and for good reason! Keywords are the words or phrases that a user enters into a search engine, and both search algorithms and the bro…
Intro to SEO
Hello, Wikians!
My name is Angelina, and I recently joined Wikia to help out on SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. That sounds impressive, I’m sure, but what does that mean?
SEO is a multi-discipline field that aims to bring greater visibility and traffic to each of our communities through prime placement on search engine results pages. Our team monitors traffic and rankings, devises tests and impact projects, and makes recommendations across a wide range of topics—from the words linked on each page to the names of our image files to mobile-friendliness of pages.
Some days are spent helping the Product and Engineering teams on new or improved features, and others are spent updating help pages or creating documentation for the Community Team. …