Search Engine Optimization

Some basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques can help increase the visibility of your website, as well as making it easier for users to find your content as the result of searches. UNM’s internal search engine is a Google Search Appliance, and uses the same techniques as the google.com search engine.

• Use keywords in your page title. Ensure these keywords also appear in your content. Every page title should be unique.
• Optimize your robots.txt file.
• Use alt attributes for images.
• Use descriptive anchor text. Avoid “click here”, “read more”, etc. Keep the anchor text under 55 characters.
• Use the title attribute in links. The title or a description of the page you are linking to is an appropriate value for the title attribute.
• Use header tag properly. Only one <h1>, and properly nested <h2>, <h3> etc.
• Ensure your first paragraph and meta description are representative of the content of your page.
• Use search engine friendly URLs. The URL should be descriptive. Avoid using URLs like site.unm.edu/p=232323. Instead consider site.unm.edu/topiic/help.html

Please review Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide for more information.

UNM IT and UNM University Libraries have been working on a  joint project of to implement an updated UNM Search service.  As part of that project they have created a set of videos discussing SEO.

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