PubCon Recap Day One: SEO Advice From Google

Well the first day of PubCon is over. I must say I learned quite a bit more than I thought I would. The most memorable take-away was during my first session. The topic was Big SEO and Search Engines.

Google had a representative there who spoke last, after AOL and Yahoo bored the crowd to sleep. Google's Search Evangelist Adam Lasnik gave a brief 10 minute overview of what he thought "mattered" when it comes to site design for making Google happy. He called it the SNACCC approach:

S: Speed counts. Slow site response times can hurt you in rankings. People don't like them and neither does Google.

N: Navigation. Ease of navigation from relevent content is very important. Make sure you navigation is self-explanatory.

A: Accessibility. Reasonable URL lengths. Alt tags should contain useful information. A good test: How would your site translate in a audible-translator for vision impaired?

C: Clarity. All links should be easy to see and underlined. No two links on a page should go to the same page.

C: Comfort. Text is easy to read. All images include a height/width specification. This helps avoid jumpy images when a page loads.

C: Consistency. Google loves consistency. Read into that what you like...

Last but not least... Keep all your related content under one domain! Sub-domains are okay, but don't go breaking it out into 10 different domains/sites. Your site will build up more value and trust if you keep all the content under one umbrella.

Next up... my recap of day two.