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9 posts
SEO
Tapping Into SEO: How Government Websites Can Improve Content Reach
An introduction to keyword research and search engine optimization for broadening content reach.
This Week's IDEA
Spring Cleaning Tips for Web Content
Three tips to tidy up the content on federal websites
Video
An Introduction to the A/B Testing Community of Practice
We know there are many ways to use A/B testing to inform decision making at your agency – this is a quick introduction on the many ways CFPB has used it to improve UX across their website.
Video
How Search Engines Index Your Websites
Join Search.gov as they walk you through the fundamentals of how search engines monitor your content and pull relevant data from your pages.
A Conversation With ITIF About the State of Federal Government Websites
Since it’s been nearly six months since their report was released, we wanted to check in with ITIF and see what they’ve learned, what they’ve heard from agencies and what their future plans are to build on this research.
Steps Towards SEO: Meta Descriptions on MedlinePlus
MedlinePlus is a consumer health website produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), available in both English and Spanish. As part of our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, we recently added meta descriptions to our health topic pages. A meta description is a short HTML attribute in the head tag that describes the contents of a
New ITIF Report Inspires a Closer Look at Website Performance and Security—Here Is Where to Begin
The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) recently published a report, Benchmarking U.S. Government Websites, that looks at the performance, security, and accessibility of the top 297 government websites. ITIF is a think tank in Washington, D.C. whose mission is to formulate, evaluate, and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation in technology and public policy.
The Content Corner: How Google Judges Your Content
Every week my main goal is to usually provide new ways to help you feed the content beast. However, today I am going to remind you of why feeding the beast is important, especially when it comes to your search engine rankings and helping users find your content. I’ve discussed key search engine optimization (SEO)
The Content Corner: Can You Leverage Cornerstone Content?
If you have a website, then you most likely have cornerstone content—though you may not think of it in that way or even considered it. Just as in architecture, a cornerstone is a basic and essential part of any online presence. Cornerstone content is also important to any new visitors to your agency site, even if you
The Content Corner: The Balance Between SEO and the User
I always think of SEO like the dentist—no one really likes it, but you need to do it. Yet, despite my lack of excitement for the topic, this will be at a minimum my second post (here’s the first) about the relationship between creating good content and SEO practices. Today I want to dive a little
HTTPS and Other Ranking Factors: What Impacts the SEO of Government Websites?
Following the recent OMB memo that all publicly available federal websites and Web services must implement HTTPS by December 31, 2016, Web content managers across government are considering the SEO (search engine optimization) implications of the transition, among other details. In August 2014, Google confirmed that HTTPS is a ranking signal in their algorithm. But
