PROJECT The Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ini-

t i a t e d a p i l o t p r o g r a m to expand its online presence through social media,

REPORT
video segments, and webcasts. The project targeted ten high traffic biography
pages on CHFs main site.

SEARCh ENGINE
INSIDE
1. Background

optimization (SEO)
2. Statistics
3. Implementation
4. Milestones and Impact

@Chemheritage
Accomplishments:
Updated 10 pages from historical biographies
Additional 100,000 more views year over year for optimized pages
Bolstered popularity of embedded media on other platforms
 BACKGROUND
The search engine optimization (SEO) project is part of CHFs efforts to expand its
online presence through social media, video segments, and webcasts. The project
targeted ten high traffic biography pages on CHFs main site: Robert Boyle, John

Search Engine Dalton, Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, Leo Baekeland,
Meyer and Mendeleev, Joseph Priestley, Joseph John Thomson, and Watson, Crick,
Wilkins, and Franklin. Each page was edited to include the following
Optimization embedded videos
in-line links

Pilot Case Study sidebars promoting related content

images
the ability to request those images for use
(with Tactical Helps language likely to be noticed up by a search engine
external links were added with hopes that the sites we link to will return the

for Cultural favor

collaboration with CHFs GLAM-Wiki program for deeper ties to similar content
on Wikipedia
Institutions) The purpose of the project was to test the effectiveness of SEO practices on a
number of factors including
daily page views,
bounce rate,
pages per visit,
average time spent on page,
and unique visitors.

Google Analytics recorded all of these numbers, and others were extrapolated from
Social Reports, both valuable tools for future SEO work. After analyzing these
metrics and comparing them to the same reporting period (May December) in
2012 and 2013, it is clear that the targeted web pages significantly improved in
almost every area. It should be noted that analysis of other pages that were not
changed in this project showed a similar (but generally lower) rate of growth.
This leads to the conclusion that CHFs website as a whole has many more visitors
staying on pages longer in 2013 than it did in 2012, but that SEO practices can help
those metrics improve even faster.

Instead of going into depth on each page, this document will analyze John Daltons
biography page (http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/
chemistry-in-history/themes/the-path-to-the-periodic-table/dalton.aspx ) and
explain how those same techniques applied to the other web pages on this list. John
Dalton is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic
theory, and his research into color blindness (sometimes referred to as Daltonism,
CONTACT: in his honour). Daltons biography is one of the most consistently viewed pages
on CHFs website, so any benefits caused by changes to it should represent what
happens on the lesser-viewed pages, albeit on a larger scale.
Jeffery K. Guin
Manager of Emerging Media
Daltons page was edited to include in-line links to CHF materials, such as
JGuin@chemheritage.org
Meteorological Observations (CHFs Othmer library has images of the book online)
Twitter: @heritagevoices
and links to other biographies. The sidebar links to an article that appeared in
Chemical Heritage Magazine by Mark Michalovic and a number of books in CHFs
library that are related to Dalton. Linking to other content on the site has the
Jacob Roberts added benefit of refreshing resources that would not have received attention
Staff Writer, Chemical Heritage Magazine otherwise. CHF has a vast collection of material and content that could be
jacobr@chemheritage.org considered evergreen, and SEO is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of it.

The page also links to a lesson plan for an experiment to test Charless Law and

Page 2 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

includes an embedded video of Arnold Thackray providing background on Daltons
life and work. Finally, there is a section of external links to Linda Hall Library,
Wikipedia, and Frostburg Universitys content about Dalton. Once again, showing
CHFs willingness to link to other websites will offer benefits in the long run when
those sites link back in return.

All of this added content and linking is likely not relevant to every person who
visits the updated page, but there is something there for each of our main
audiences. A high school student doing research for a paper might benefit from
the additional links at the bottom of the page. A chemistry teacher can copy a
lesson plan to perform an experiment in class. A CHF donor will see a video of the
organizations founder, and a journalist will be able to request an image of Dalton CHEMICAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION
to run with an article. None of these groups of people would have necessarily found CHFs mission is to foster dialogue on
anything useful on the page before these additions. science and technology in society. Our
staff and fellows study the past in or-
der to understand the present and in-
STATISTICS form the future. We focus on the sci-
ences and technologies of matter and
Between May 1 and December 1, 2012, John Daltons biography regularly ranked in materials and their effect on our mod-
the top ten most viewed pages on CHFs entire site. 63,740 people visited the page, ern world, in territory ranging from
and 19,788 of them were returning visitors. There were also 39,177 bounces, the physical sciences and industries,
meaning that those visitors left CHFs website completely after looking at Daltons through the chemical sciences and en-
page. Bounce rate is an important measure of the audiences interest. The lower the gineering, to the life sciences and
bounce rate, the more people are exploring other parts of the site and experiencing technologies. We collect, preserve, and
CHFs content. If a page is very engaging, it will have fewer bounces. exhibit historical artifacts. We engage
communities of scientists and engi-
The other most important metric to measure is time spent on page. This directly neers. We tell the stories of the people
correlates with how much of the content people are experiencing. The average time behind breakthroughs and innovations.
spent on Daltons page in 2012 was 5 minutes and 5 seconds. This is a very good
number, especially compared the sites average time: just 1:58. ON THE WEB:
http://chemheritage.org
Finally, pages per visit is a notable number to watch. Similar to bounce rate, this twitter.com/chemheritage
metric shows how many other pages people are seeing before leaving the site. They facebook.com/chemheritage
could either be arriving at Daltons page from there or leaving Daltons page to get
to another one. In 2012, people who went to Daltons page visited an average of
1.28 pages, meaning that most of them only saw one page. The site average was
IN SUMMARY:
slightly higher, at 1.78 pages per visit. Similar to Daltons biography, the other
web pages SEO practices were applied to
After making edits to Daltons page earlier this year, there has been ample time to showed an improvement in the number of
evaluate their impact. Between May and December of 2013, 75,481 people viewed visitors, bounce rate, time spent on page,
the page. That is an increase of more than 10,000 views over the same span of and pages per visit. Using these same
time in 2012. 47,041 were returning visitors, also a dramatic increase over 2012s techniques on other high traffic pages
numbers. The number of bounces, while higher than 2012, is still proportionally should help CHF retain visitors and appeal
lower compared to the total number of page visits. to wider audiences.
The amount of time spent on the page showed an increase as well: in 2013, the Thinking of CHFs website as a literal
average was 5 minutes and 29 seconds, an increase of 24 seconds. Considering web with strings connecting each page
that so many more people are visiting the page each day, it is impressive that the together, most pages are completely
time on page went up as well, and it really shows that people are responding to the isolated except for their connection to
added content on the page. The time spent watching the video probably accounts the index page. The more strands that are
for a lot of this. created between each page with in-line
links, the more easily visitors can navigate
The only disappointing metric was the number of pages per visit, which decreased through the content and more information
very slightly to 1.24 in 2013. Most people are still viewing only Daltons page can be shared. CHFs website is a treasure
before leaving (although the other SEO edited pages are much better in this trove of information and images, but
category). It is also worth noting that the sites overall average pages per visit visitors need the means to explore and
decreased, from 1.78 in 2012 to 1.68 in 2013. Daltons metrics changed less than make connections between pieces of
the average in this category, perhaps demonstrating that the edits helped slow a content more thoroughly.
site-wide trend.

Page 3 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

page breakdown: John Dalton
http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/chemistry-in-history/themes/
the-path-to-the-periodic-table/dalton.aspx

SEO Tactic
Embedded
YouTube
Video

SEO Tactic
Sidebar
links to
magazine
and library

SEO Tactic SEO Tactic

Links to Expanded
Othmer Li- image cap-
brary books tion

Page 4 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

 SEO Tactic
In line links
to other
biography
pages

SEO Tactic
Selected
images
owned by
CHF

SEO Tactic
Allow users
to request
images
SEO Tactic
Mouseover
text with
SEO text

SEO Tactic
External
links with
more infor-
mation SEO Tactic
Call to ac-
tion on so-
cial media

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalton

CHFs Dalton
page linked
on Wikipe-
dia

Page 5 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

 Statistics from
July to July,
comparing 2013
to 2014

metrics

The average
How many time spent on a
unique visitors page decreased
entered came to slightly
the website

This graph
shows that SEO
pages had much
more traffic af-
ter being edited

Bounce rate
How many times
shows how many The number
people entered
people left after of pages per
each webpage
visiting only one visit decreased
page slightly across
the entire site

Page 6 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

 Social
Images from
each SEO page CHF gained more
were posted on followers after
this album was

Media
Pinterest with
trivia posted

http://www.pinterest.com/chemheritage/

The embedded
videos in the
pages became
among CHFs
most popular on
YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/chemheritage/

Page 7 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

 This template
was used to plan
improvements in
each SEO page

We searched for
any words that
could be hyper-
linked in the
article

Page 8 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

 Magazine, pod-
cast, blog, and
external content
were searched
for and linked

Page 9 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

Page 10 Search Engine Optimization Project Report
 Most SEO pages
were accom-
panied by blog
posts like this
one

Page 11 Search Engine Optimization Project Report

 http://www.chemheritage.org - http://w Go to this report
Chemheritage.org

Wikipedia Impact Monitoring Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014

Compare to: Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013

All Visits
+0.00%

Avg. Visit Duration Wikipedia Referral

Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014: Visits
00:02:09 Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013: Visits
Site Avg: 00:01:39 (30.56%) 200

Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013

00:01:56
Site Avg: 00:01:32 (25.73%) 100

GeoMap
April 2013 July 2013 October 2013 January 2014 ..

Country / Territory Visits

United States
Visits by Destination Page
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 3,808
Destination Page Visits
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 3,272
/
% Change 16.38%
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 1,278
India
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 250
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 708
% Change 411.20%
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 181
/discover/online-resources/women-in-chemistry/kiran-mazumdar-shaw.aspx
% Change 291.16%
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 596
United Kingdom
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 0
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 319
% Change 100.00%
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 285
/discover/online-resources/chemistry-in-history/themes/early-chemistry-and-gases/index.aspx
% Change 11.93%
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 475
Germany
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 613
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 216
% Change -22.51%
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 138
/discover/online-resources/women-in-chemistry/stephanie-kwolek.aspx
% Change 56.52%
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 285
Canada
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 0
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 181
% Change 100.00%
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 190
/web/20080619013348/http://chemicalheritage.org/pubs/ch-v25n2-articles/feature_cannabinoids.html
% Change -4.74%
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 276
Australia
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 35
Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 121
% Change 688.57%
Mar 4, 2012 - Apr 3, 2013 112
/discover/online-resources/chemistry-in-history/themes/molecular-synthesis-structure-and-bonding/kekule-
% Change 8.04% and-couper.aspx

Singapore Mar 4, 2013 - Apr 3, 2014 216

SMALL CHANGES; BIG IMPACT
Even a single edit can have an impact, by making
readers aware of a resource that they might
otherwise miss. Over the last year, two links
to CHF were placed on the Percy Lavon Julian
Wikipedia page. One was a citation referencing
an article: Restoring And Regulating The Bodys
Biochemistry: Percy Lavon Julian, Russell Earl
Marker, Carl Djerassi. The other was a link to a teachers guide
on The Life and Science of Percy Julian. Comparing traffic from
2013 and 2014 on April 11, 2014, Percy Julians birthday, we see a
substantial impact in traffic to CHFs website: