Review: Drupal 6 Search Engine Optimization

Posted on October 3, 2009 by agentrickard

When I was at DrupalCamp Atlanta two weeks ago, I spent some time talking to Ben Finklea, CEO of SEO firm Volacci. Ben was in town to present on Drupal and SEO marketing (naturally). After the con, his office contacted me and asked if I would review Ben's new book, Drupal 6 Search Engine Optimization

Let's start back in the dark early days of the Internets. I got my start in this business back in 1998 (though I was teaching rudimentary web page building as early as 1995). This was, if you can believe it, before Google ruled the web. (Looking on Wikipedia, it seems that Google was incorporated a scant two weeks before I started by job.)

I think this is important to the review because I have a deep mistrust of SEO as a concept, and that extends to the people who peddle SEO like a commodity. I have seen the rise of SEO and the tricks that came with it. Like this classic bit we all tried to add keywords to pages. And I have seen the failure of those techniques, as the search engine providers get smarter and trying to game the system gets you punished.

Well, the good news is that I think Finklea is on the good side of that battle. And a read through his book confirms it.

This book serves two purposes, and unlike some books that suffer from a split focus, pulls both off very well. On the one hand, the book is a gentle yet thorough introduction to current SEO practices, terms and tools. The other focus of the book is using Drupal and its contributed modules to optimize your site for Google. (Though other search engines are mentions, Finklea points out that Google's market dominance makes it the best target for your optimizations.)

One might argue, in fact, that the last chapter of the book ("Increasing the Conversion Rate of Your Drupal Web Site") should in fact be the first, since it introduces essential marketing strategies that, if you don't know already, you need to learn. But that chapter is deliberately placed, and ties together the technical details of the book with a marketing strategy. What you are left with is a nicely balanced, short introduction to SEO with a focus on Drupal best-practices.

Reading through the book, you will learn (or be given a refresher on):

• How to install Drupal modules
• The essential modules for SEO in Drupal
• Best practice usage of those modules (over two dozen are discussed)
• How to perform keyword research
• How to optimize content for search
• Using OpenCalais and Apache Solr to increase site traffic
• What not to do because it a) won't help or b) will get your site penalized
• How Google uses Robots.txt
• Which META tags you need use and which to ignore
• The importance of page weight and load speeds
• How to perform basic usability testing
• How (and why) to perform A/B variance testing to optimize your site design

That's a pretty long list, and doesn't cover the entire book. Particular standout sections of the book hit the following topics in detail:

• Picking the right keywords to target
• Using the Page Title and Token modules to advantage
• PathAuto configuration (which is always a little messy)
• How to write good content to increase search relevance
• Proper use of <H1> and heading tags
• Optimizing Drupal's default robots.txt file
• Identifying the goals of your web site so you can target your marketing spend
• Google Webmaster Tools, plus a survey of other free and commercial tools for SEO, such as SEOmoz

The book is written in an easy, conversational style, and I only found one instance where I thought I was reading a sales or marketing manual. (This comes fairly early, in discussing a site's first SEO campaign, Finklea writes "Since we want to justify a fuller campaign, we need some easy wins". In this book, that statement was a little jarring, and I couldn't tell who needed to sell a "win," to whom, and for what reason. This is the kind of sales setup which makes many of us wary of SEO firms, and I think the editor should have caught that error in tone.) A few parts of the book feel a bit rushed, too, such as the end of chapter 4, where some additional screenshots are noticeably absent.

Let's get to the bottom line: If you build or maintain Drupal web sites (or manage people who do), should you run out and spend $44.99 on this book? Well, if you know nothing more about SEO than what I have told you, then, yes, immediately go buy a copy. Otherwise, I would find a copy and read Chapter 10 (or browse the TOC online). If it contains ideas which you haven't considered when building your web site(s), then you'll know that this book is right for you.

One final note: this is perhaps the most gracious of the Drupal books that I have read, and the thanks to Drupal contributors (including Palantir's own John Wilkins) are sprinkled liberally throughout the book (there are more than 30 in the introduction alone). And this generosity really helps sets the tone for the community spirit that helps make Drupal so powerful for web site builders.