Mystery Guest and I arrived in New York on Saturday and have been enjoying the city tremendously. During our stay, I've been conducting a remarkable number of searches to find museums, shows, restaurants and shopping. One site has consistently dominated the results at Google and, as an SEO, I couldn't be more impressed - NYMag.com has done a remarkable job building and marketing their site.
A few of their top rankings:
- #1 for New York Restaurants
- #1 for New York Sales
- #1 for Best of New York
- #2 & 3 for New York Nightlife
- #1 for Balthazar Soho (a popular restaurant)
- #3 for New York Galleries
They're at the top for general queries & specifics and the best part is - their content is truly top-notch. Every time I see them in the results, even if they're not #1, I click their listing. To help analyze why they've had this tremendous success, I'll point out a few of their best features.
Layout & Design
The layout follows some good conventions - top level navigation at the top, section-specific navigation on the left sidebar and featured content navigation in the center. Ads don't overwhelm the site, though they are present, and a multi-header on the right helps make for more accessible content. The design is terrific - simple, elegant & classic - it fits perfectly with the branding of the magazine.
Navigation
The navigation throughout the site is good, but the restaurant (and store) finder in particular are brilliant. The criteria allow you to refine quickly via a drop-out sidebar, sorting by price or cuisine, name or rating are easy.
Content
The content throughout the site is top notch - great reviews of restaurants (like this one for Craft) include maps, slideshows, a brief but informative write-up, user reviews, links to the official website (I hate when that's missing) and often, even a link to the menu. The screenshot above showcases their shopping section, where the latest sales are posted the day they're announced so smart New Yorkers can save on Allessandro Dell'Acqua's Italian fashion. Content like this is bound to attract links - it's one of the major advantagesof being a respected publication, too. With reporters and relationships in place, your access to breaking news and direct sources is considerably higher than a site like Yelp, Judy's Book or even Citysearch.
Smart SEO
NYMag.com has nearly perfect title tags & URLs:
- https://nymag.com/movies/ - Movies in New York City - Showtimes and Reviews - New York Magazine
- https://nymag.com/restaurants/openings/30315/ - New York Restaurant Openings - Provence - Resto - Gold St. - Zipper Tavern - New York Magazine
- https://nymag.com/realestate/ - Real Estate - New York Magazine
- https://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/provence/ - Provence - Soho - New York Magazine Restaurant Guide
These follow nearly every rule I've got for good title tags & great URLs, and although I might try things a bit differently, when you compare them to the NY Times, Citysearch or other competitive listings, they're a clear leader.
I've got to run, but please share with us some of the sites you learn from and what you've gathered.
p.s. SES NYC is going great - Mystery Guest and I were treated to Babbo last night after the IM-NY event.
Sorry Rand, but got to disagree on the URL part. They're almost good, but when you dig further, I get such beauties as:
https://nymag.com/search/dblistings-search.cgi?crumb_qid=11762160650&nymbreadcrumb_push=Breakfast&other_params=%7Crestaurant%3Bnyml_subtype%7C0%3Bnyml_is_closed%7C0%3Bnyml_not_in_search%7CAsian%3A%20Southeast%3Bnyml_restaurant_cuisine%7E%7EAsian%3A%20Southeast&sort_params=nyml_guaranteed_sort_name%3Balphabetical&results_per_page=25&sort_param=name&search_type=restaurant&autonomy_fieldname=nyml_restaurant_special_features&autonomy_fieldvalue=Breakfast&filter_prettyname=Breakfast
https://nymag.com/search/dblistings-search.cgi?nymbreadcrumb_push=Asian%3A%20Southeast&other_params=%7Crestaurant%3Bnyml_subtype%7C0%3Bnyml_is_closed%7C0%3Bnyml_not_in_search&results_per_page=25&sort_params=&search_type=restaurant&autonomy_fieldname=nyml_restaurant_cuisine&autonomy_fieldvalue=Asian%3A%20Southeast&filter_prettyname=Asian%3A%20Southeast
https://nymag.com/movies/listings/tn_579220070410.htm#9610
https://nymag.com/search/listings-search.cgi?nymbreadcrumb_push=Art&other_params=art%3Anyml_subtype&results_per_page=25&search_type=event&autonomy_fieldname=nyml_subtype&autonomy_fieldvalue=art&filter_prettyname=Art
I do however agree with the site being well thought out in terms of layout and navigation. Everything is where it should be, and works nicely.
Couple of thoughts though...
1) Fonts. The navbar font just isn't working for me. It looks clunky and it's not antialiased.
2) Canonicalisation. The main title banner goes to www. The home button goes to non-www. All www.'s redirect to non-www. Why not just not have things pointing at www. in the first place?
3) Page size. That homepage is HUGE. I mean, I have to do a lot of scrolling. And some of the navbars are pretty huge too. If it's that big, you're showing me too much. Slim down and make everything simpler.
Coo you had fun then!
Weirdly I like the font better than things I've seen elsewhere. For a news site the page is too ling but I guess I kind of looked at it as a kind of blog page (in the middle)
Dunno...
Say, did we scare everyone off or is *everyone except us* at SES NY?
I'm not at SES NY. I'm working away like a busy little bee...
neither of us are... thus the comment
*smiles*
Us busy bees just working away... looking up all those .edu domains ranked by number of parasite pages that rank... *grins evilly*
Ahh... I'm afraid my brain is now in end of day dead mode, hence the lack of any kind of intelligence in my last comment. Sorry :p
Yeh, it's a hard life... checking those links, wondering why msn link count isn't working, then swearing loudly as we remember why...
I feel your pain... I surely do...
haha lol.. thats badd!!!
I wanted to be there, but sadly couldn't make it. I think the lack of comments is in part people at the conference and in part that there's less posts for the moment to check in on.
True... true
But at least there is something to comment on *smiles*
The Nav Bar
I think it's fine for the navbar to be unaliased: it's text rather than a graphic, allowing them to include anchor text (& makes it easily accessible in text-only mode).
As for clunky, it looks like georgia to me, which always comes out quite nicely in usability tests. Block caps would be tough to read in body content, but works fine for navigation. Here are a few things I think the nav bar does really well:
I agree on the URLs - looks like perhaps something was hastily fixed & they've never gone back to fully sort it? From the looks of their robots.txt it looks like they occasionaly make ad-hoc fixes.
Bad 404s?
Looking at the headers for missing pages, eg https://www.nymag.com/testeraaa, they return a 302 temporary redirect followed by a '200 ok' error page. I'd think they'd want to change that to a 404?
Content
The real winner on nymag.com seems to be the content. They've got 95% of the onsite seo basics right, built up a good amount of inbound links & built fantastic content. It's not too ad-heavy &, unlike many of the sites in its market, it mostly looks like genuine editorial content rather than just paid-for advertorials. All of which make it 'linkerati friendly'.
daniel
I agree, the fonts in the navigation bar could be better.
It would be nice to know what in-house employee(s) or what SEO company is responsible for such solid efforts.
SEO is the effort of the entire staff at nymag.com... and that really means everyone (including senior management, technologists, editors, designers, producers and ad sales). Nothing is released to the web without consideration to SEO.
What you see is the cumulative result of several years of best practices, years of thinking "search engine friendly", and a little of our own "special sauce" to make it all work. We have a world class staff that puts it all together to bring you the experience you see today.
As others have identified, there are a few missteps, but they are on our radar.
Rand: Thanks for the thumbs up. Look for us out here at SES NY. There are quite a few of us here from New York Magazine!
I have to say that I think that you've done an amazing job. To get this sort of buy-in from people not associated with SEO is (I know) a very major accomplishment.
As I believe they say in New York, props to you sir!
Or maybe that's only in the films that I watch....
I'll echo ciaran. I'm impressed with the site too and I think it's amazing you could get everyone on board at the magazine give consideration to seo before anything is released.
And a double bank holiday bookending the weekend
??
Confused of Esher
Have to say I'm a bit confused there myself.
Fun fact: Marshall Simmonds developed and worked on the NYMag SEO strategy and now runs the SEO show at NYTimes.com. That's a big chunk of the NYC search market.
Now that IS interesting. I may have to look this guy up and see what else he's done...
I think it is a well put together site. Good use of tags and URLs, good design and easy navigation. Obviously, like any site, there are going to be things less than perfect. If there was a perfect website, everyone would copy it. But great job to them.
Immediate response = the site looks classy, very informative, intuitive side navigation. I have not decided yet if I like the drop down top navigation, when I move over multiple categories too quickly I am getting a little 'sea sick'. Certainly a ‘one stop resource’ for NYC information. Thank you for the great info Ran.
A lot of local searchers like the small sites like that to find the hot spots near them. I think now days I would rather use something like that than a local search engine, especially since they typically know their region the best and they usually have a good local following to provide reviews and user feedback. Since they complimented all those pros with good design, usablility, social and marketing tactics, they now have a winning combination.
BTW, did you test out 1-800-GOOG-411 while in NYC?
Smart navigation, rich and unique content, clean but still eye-catching design and excelent practice of SEO techniques...9 out fo 10. Love it.
Congratulations to everyone at NYMag.com!
it is good that they have good titles and urls... but it is even better the they have excellent content that is linkable and gets them a lot of links...
Very impressive rankings.
It's certainly top notch design, but while the colors are kept fairly neutral, feels like there is so much information that increasing the white space would be a little more calming.
I kind of wish the site would settle on one format for the interior pages as I found myself having to reorient going from some sections to others.
We are probably on the cusp of the larger resolutions, but I still think it is risky moving beyond the 800x600 for sites that cater to the broader demographics. The risk of alienating users by making them scroll horizontally seems a little too high still. Maybe this works for their demographic, but hopefully the decision wasn't based solely on traffic log analysis... too many designers seem to equate that resolution with browser viewport.
I liked some of the large photos at the main sections and wished they would have been incorporated throughout... while still very visual, those largely defined visual blocks helped to simplify the initial "hit" of content and give the user some place for their eyes to land before venturing out into the rest of the content.
Kudos nonetheless though as this is no doubt quite an undertaking.
Can I joine in on the fun?
this is my opinon and no one else this site is very attractive it caught my attention right away. The menu is wright were you need it every thing is tuck in nice and neet this post gets two thumbs up and so do the team over at mymag they just got bookmarked
Great post. It really shows how paying attention to small details that users want and detail on SEO skills can get big results!
Excellent website. I like the restaurants section. Absolutely stunning. Can some one tell me which technology are they using. Any content management system?
Great to see proper top notch websites rank on SEs. Its a problem here in Australia that websites which rank (for whatever keyword/industry) seems to be of sub standard levels, causing great information to be lost in the voids of space
Ooo... not all Australian websites are substandard. Most of our websites rank, look great and have good usability!
A great example for online SEO page factor
are you a dominator if you have pr6?
It looks like they do quite well when you abbreviate the city name too -- either NY or NYC, although they've clearly pushed harder for "New York" (which is their brand, after all).
I love that site. Even though I live in NC, i like to read it b/c the content is so well done.
And they have a fantastic fashion section.
This is the area where I first noticed them dominating. For nearly every fashion label to be found in New York, the nymag listing is in the top 10 and has store ratings for selection, service and bargains. Very useful.
I think Ben Williams is the "secret weapon" on this one. Just search for the domain and you will see good use of press, RSS feeds, UGC and just general goodness. I did find this bio for Ben but watch out - it's a PDF.
Its a great site - and my biggest competitor in the NY market. At least CitySearch is losing out - after years of dominance they're finally feeling the hurt caused by blatant user neglect.
When I went to NY a few years ago for my honeymoon we ate at a French place called Le Veau D'or. It is a small restaurant. The food was incredible. I’m not a French food expert but the reviews on City Search say it is the best outside of Paris.
https://newyork.citysearch.com/review/7158511/1646197
Wow, I really like the top and side navigation. I wonder how I can make something like that work on one of my sites?
It just goes to show as a user why not just good SEO but good web design brings users and gets used.
Idon't know if anyone pays for listings but it becomes the kind of site that you no longer search on Google for things within it - it becomes the destination to start your search from.
Looks very nice... I wish our folk had someone to advise a design like that *drools*
I knew that site looked familiar - I've been there before to read the fashion blog. Heather & Jessica of Go Fug Yourself do the blogging during New York fashion week, and they are hilarious. As you noted, Rand, the great content is just as much a part of the SEO as the title elements, URLs, etc.
beautiful. I just used that format of meta tags for the one I'm working on.
Just to be nitpicky, they should probably be consistent with their XHTML, seems problematic that only a few of their meta tags are correctly closed. Again, not a huge deal, but if their gonna declare a doctype they should probably follow it.
It looks like maybe they are dealing with developers coming and going or something, hopefully its not a CMS throwing these things out. (incorrectly formatted lists etc...)
Again, nitpicking, before you chew me to bits, the site is very well done and obviously doing well in the rankings, just that the code has some definite issues.