Dokmai Gardens – SEO Case Study
On Jan 13th 2010 I was commissioned to apply a search engine optimisation remedy to www.dokmaigarden.co.th
My initial review showed the site to be deficient in virtually all respects…
1.) On-Site SEO:
Requires optimising of individual pages for specific keyword search phrases; there are 200 plus elements assessed in Google relevancy ranking algorithm, of which the following are among the most important;
- Title: Welcome to Dokmai Garden, a botanical garden in Chiang Mai, Thailand But – the important keywords MUST be first!
- Page URL:www.dokmaigarden.co.th - no keywords used in domain name, few in page names
- Description Tag: <meta name=”description” content=”botanical, nature, vascular plants, including tropical ornamental plants, forest plants, fruit trees, vegetables and weeds.”> only one relevant keyword used in Description!
- 1st Heading: its an image – Zero relevant keywords
- 1st Paragraph: Zero relevant keywords
- Keywords in Internal Links: none
- Image File Names: http://www.dokmaigarden.co.th/images/header.jpg - Zero relevant keywords
- Image Alt Text: Missing – Zero relevant keywords
- Keywords Tag: <meta name=”keywords” content=”botanical, botany, garden, mushroom“> 2 relevant keywords
- Highlighted Words in content: Zero relevant keywords
Score: 0 out of 10
2.) Off-Site SEO:
Requires building links that incorporate relevant search phrases in Anchor Text (link titles) on incoming links TO your website. As you can see in the next illustration, there are ZERO iterations of “botanical garden Chiang Mai” in incoming Anchor Text (link titles). There are 2 instances of “garden” and 2 of “chiang mai”
Score: 0.1 out of 10
Achieving a concurrency between internal website content (what you say the site is about) and external links (what other people say the site is about) is the objective of the search engine optimisation exercise.
There are a variety of way of doing that; optimising page, building links, and advertising on high-traffic websites.
Work commenced 16th Jan;
- Keyword research
- Prepared 4 Title / Description combinations for directory submissions, using multiple primary keyword phrases as anchor text
- 1000 link-building submissions to web directories between 18th – 26th Jan
- On-Site page optimisation completed on 27th Jan
SERP’s 28th Jan: From relative obscurity to demonstrable prominence in a week?
(There are times when I even surprise myself!) 
The results thus far are due to the Link-Building only…data shown below is from 28th Jan 2010
As of 29th Jan, Google still held a cached version of the Home page from 25th Jan 2010.
The expectation being that over the next 2 – 3 weeks, positive results pointer will climb steadily as the individual website pages are progressively re-indexed.
Google NZ shows new results first?
On 29th Jan on Google.co.nz is showing a 2nd place result, up from 6th overnight. Whilst .COM / .COM.AU / .CO.UK / .CO/TH all still show 6th place… as per the report above
Regardless, the client is not unhappy…
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Dear Ben,
Very impressive, we’ll absolutely recommend you!
Cheers, Eric
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Dear Ben,
Thank you so much for your terrific job. We are looking forward to see how high up Google puts us.
Cheers, Eric
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SERP’s 5th Feb 2010:
At this point, Google has just indexed the revised Home page overnight…
The next stage is to await the impact of re-indexing all the internal pages…
SERP’s 12th Feb 2010:
Now we start to see some Top 30 rankings kicking on for the internal pages…
WordPress STD’s
Wordpress STD’s (Security Transgression Defilements) are a common occurrence. WordPress-powered websites are far from being immune to hackers, although the latest release/s address many earlier security issues. WordPress, like other content management systems and forums such as phpBB, vBulletin, is a major target for hackers and spammers. Basic prophylactic measures, or condoms for WordPress STDs, need not be complicated or expensive.
Those involved in hacking WordPress usually want to use the sites as concealed (cloaked) link farms. Its rare that actual damage is done to your site, and often the site owner remains blissfully unaware that there’s been any interference. Some of the link injection systems are extremely sophisticated! Testing for enemy action can be as simple as opening your site and choosing View / Source and reading through the content of the
section down to, and including, the tag. The link injections I’ve seen are usually immediately after . Is there a long string of HTML code containing links to dozens of sites you know nothing about? If there is, you’ve been violated, and have a WordPress STD (Security Terminated Deficiency)!This article is not about fixing security violations. Its about simple prophylactic measures most “non-technician” site owners take. This is not slick and professional security strategy, and there are some who will scoff at using “security by obscurity” as a primary tactic. However, even on a tight budget, the following 12 zero-dollar steps can and should be taken to minimise the possibility of attack.
1 – Always Use the Current Version
Why anyone would persist with an older version is beyond me. Upgrading has always been easy enough, and recent versions reduce the pain to a button click! The community of authors work extremely hard and surprisingly quickly to address known security problems.
2 – Remove Primary Target Identifier
Remove the Powered by WordPress credit details in the footer of your website’s theme – e.g.; /wp-content/themes/the-current-theme/footer.php. This is the fastest way to reduce the chances of the ill-intentioned finding your site in the first place! Try it – do a search on Google for “Powered by Wordpress” and you’ll get the picture… At time of writing, there are 106 million competing page opportunities out there for hackers!
By all means give WordPress the credit they deserve – but you could do it on your links page, or make it a graphic / image link instead of text…
3 – Remove Secondary Target Identifier
A lot of WordPress themes come with an giveaway WP version HTML tag in the
Obviously, this immediately reveals the WordPress version used on the site. Since some versions are vulnerable to known security flaws, you’ve just told the hackers where they are best to start their evil work…
Removing this giveaway is straightforward enough. Simply open up /wp-content/themes/the-current-theme/header.php and delete the code that’s outputting the Meta Generator tag.
4 – Remove Tertiary Target Identifier
There is another version identifier tag in the RSS Feed output, e.g.:
The line immediately below that statement commences with: echo apply_filters(‘the_generator’…… Place a # character in front of the word echo, as per: #echo apply_filters(‘the_generator’ etc
5 – Remove Lesser Target Identifiers
Doing the above pretty much gets you out of the spotlight and into the shadows. You could also remove links to “Log In” from the current theme’s footer. There are 3.8 million competing page opportunities for a Google search for “wp-login.php” and its probably a good thing to not be in that list either.
Wordpress also adds two easily accessible files in the directory into which it is installed; licence.txt and readme.html. Renaming or removing those is important because they also contain WP version information!
6 – Don’t Use Easy Passwords
Don’t make it easy for the hackers! Use super-difficult passwords that are impossible to guess, and not easy to crack. That applies to the hosting account control panel, FTP access AND the WordPress administration access. Ideally, high-exposure sites should use different password for each of those areas.
Recent versions of WordPress seem to have addressed the issue of directory browsing, by keeping people out of areas they should not be looking. Securing the wp-admin area via SSL is a lot more complicated than it should be. There are no well-written, easy to use plugins available for this – those that do exist appear well past their WP version use-by date. Its also far too easy to end up locked out of your site while trying to make them work!
7 – Don’t Use Default Admin ID
If you recklessly use “admin” as the default user ID, you’ve given the hacker half the pieces of the puzzle and they only have one item left to crack – the password.
8 – Ensure WP File Permissions Are Adequate
File system security is important, to prevent easy unauthorised access. There may be times when you have needed to alter permissions to edit a file, or copy files into a directory. Did you reset permissions to the correct default afterward? If not, you’ve left a door ajar… Pull it shut and lock it again!
9 – Plugin Integrity
As a general rule, only install plugins from the official WordPress Extend / Plugins repository. There at least, they are in the spotlight, and subject to some scrutiny. Installing plugins from anywhere else leaves you wide open to malware exploitation!
10 – Theme Integrity
Ok, you can go anywhere and get free themes and make them work… but can you trust the source? Can you be sure that no malware is included? Can you be sure that no security breaches are opened by insecure coding? Personally, if I want a theme, I’d rather go to a reputable source and buy one that is coded for the latest version of WP, and where some assurance is implied as to suitability for the intended purpose.
11 – Automate Your Backups
There are backup plugins that automate the process of backing up your WordPress database and emailing the file to you daily or weekly. Install and use one of them! They can be a lifesaver, for a variety of other reasons.
12 – Server, Network and PC Vulnerabilities
Be aware of the configuration of your hosting company’s web server. Is it running old versions PHP, MySQL, cpanel in a shared hosting environment? If so, that places you at greater risk than being on a hardened server with up to date tools and services running.
Never access your WP installation from a non-secure networks such as internet cafes, coffee shop or hotel WiFi systems.
Another commonsense measure is to ensure your PC you post from uses current and reputable anti-virus software that also detects malware, spyware and key-loggers.
Select First Motorhomes – UK
Hello Ben
You will be pleased to hear we are having a great year, with sales, sale and buy back, and rental, in fact rental has been a surprise with the motorhomes fully booked to September/October already.
Due to the closure of two large dealerships in our area, we are considering moving in to Caravan sales as well for later this year, or early next year! Would you suggest a new website, majoring on the caravan sales, should we go that route, or updating our existing Buy-Sell-Rent website to incorporate caravans?
Obviously we would not want to jeopardise the excellent number of enquiries we get though the Motorhomes website by changing it significantly, but perhaps we should look at updating it sometime, perhaps to a website I can change more of the content of myself, like the hire website? I would be pleased to hear your thoughts and ideas on the matter.
Regards
Graham
Select First Motorhomes Ltd
Unit 3.4 Wealden Forest Park, Herne Common, Herne Bay, Kent. UK.
CT6 7LQ
Tel: 0845 2606088 (local rate call)
www.motorhomes-buy-sell-rent.com
Regd office: Select First Motorhomes Ltd, 44 Woodside, Dunkirk, Faversham, Kent ME13 9NY
Regd in Cardiff number 5628291
Links 101 – Puritans, The Puerile & Pragmatic
Links, and the acquisition thereof, is a subject which has accumulated vast misunderstandings and no end of illogical pontificating. This is not entirely unusual in SEO circles, where the ill-informed preach to the unenlightened on a daily basis. Conspiracy theories notwithstanding, there is a general lack of comprehension on how to achieve real value from efforts expended on gaining links. Everyone agrees they’re needed… but that’s about where consensus ends… There are three main schools of thought – the puritanical, the puerile and the pragmatic…
The Puritanical View
Only GOOD links are good! All links to your site should be from sites specifically relevant to your site. Links from non-relevant sites will put a world of hurt on you. Quality is crucial! Or Google will disinherit you, banish you, consign your site to galactic oblivion etc. Build wonderful content, and links to it will come as of right… These people are muesli-munchers – vagrant vegetarians who view the world in a mosaic of black and white…
The Puerile View
You desperately NEED links! Leave no stone unturned. Get links from anyone, anywhere, anytime… infiltrate forums, buy links, babble out blog comments, gush into guest books – use any means to get links back to your site… Never mind that inserting your links into someone’s website without asking is plain rude… These people are unshaven vodka-drinkers, viewing the world dimly through fake Raybans… dismal, and bereft of class…
The Pragmatist’s View
The truth lies like a mid-river island emerging from the murky waters, protruding clearly and plainly mid-stream…
Personally, I think the puritanical view is as relevant to SE rankings as vegetarianism is to good health. Many sites selling products or providing services are never going to naturally accumulate links in any significant volume. The puerile view is discourteous, frequently offensive, and in the long term, counter-productive.
So… What to do?
At the outset of a website’s life cycle, the world is unaware of its existence. Incoming links will not happen by a process of osmosis, and the theory of divine intervention is (as yet) unproven. Still, links are crucial. A website cannot achieve any prominence without incoming links or, more to the point, relevant keywords within anchor text in incoming links.
Don’t Spam
My advice is to certainly avoid the blatant spam approach. Don’t begin any journey by alienating anyone. Don’t go and buy a link-builder software program that is guaranteed to streamline the process of building links with similar sites… the conversion ratio is far, far worse than pay-per-click advertising and even more costly! Don’t buy links specifically to increase your Page Rank – Google is deeply offended by that. On the other hand, you could buy into an exorbitant site review that might get you included into a prominent directory (or two)… And, if approved, such a link might inadvertently increase your Page Rank. Apparently, that’s ok… which is why the puritanical can’t get their head around this stuff – there are 256 shades of grey at work in here…
Build 1-Way Incoming Links With Keywords in Anchor Text
Everyone says that’s what you have to do… Applied logic would suggest that what you ought to do is consider who on earth wants or needs links, gives them away for free, and is likely to have pages or sections of content relevant to your site’s focus. Impossible, I hear you say? Simplistic, far too easy, I hear you scoff… Au contraire!
Since the web began life as a few optimistic IP packets seeking to connect intelligent life-forms across vast distances, the very first source of relevancy has been web directories. By definition, a web directory describes the “Who & What” and tells you the “Where!” Some of the earliest examples are still in existence – notably Yahoo and Open Directory. Respectively, they are excessively expensive and virtually impenetrable. They both still wield considerable power with blithe indifference to what’s really required, remaining resolutely devoid of customer focus… After a decade of observing no discernible improvement in any respect, I think the www would be better off without them. Best render them irrelevant – and if we all ignore them, maybe they’ll go away and re-invent themselves!
There are many other directories – optimistic, welcoming, organised, nurturing and practical, catering for both general and niche areas. Many are desperately in need of good quality listings as a path to growth, and onwards to fame and fortune. Seek them out!
Your goal is to get your site listed in a compatible category, nestled comfortably with sites offering similar products and services. Relevancy personified… A description encapsulating your reason for existence helps – nothing warm and fuzzy! Crisp, to the point, with an “exact match” high-search-volume keyword phrase foremost in the title – but only if its written to make sense. And don’t settle for one title – by all means, create and use a handful of relevant title & description combinations that expand the keywords the search engines will find pointing to your site.
“Wrong” Links Will Hurt You? Yeah, Right…
Regardless of the opposing views, simple logic should tell you that its quite unlikely for a normal, mainstream link-building strategy to visit harm upon you.
- Lets get real here – this is how links have been garnered since the inception of the Internet. Its a basic, fundamental process of indexing www content. How could it be “bad” to be listed in web directories?
- In the main, a directory assesses site quality before inclusion in their listings. Human-edited listings are the hallmark of a good directory, intended to provide users with the most relevant sources of information, products and services. Why would such a link be a bad thing???
If such links could hurt you, then your shadiest competitors would most certainly spend weeks building directory links in an effort to cause you grievous bodily harm! It would be far easier to shaft you than fix up their own sites…. Don’t for one moment think that some toe-rag has not considered it, tried it and failed…
Frankly, the pointy-heads over at Google are a decidedly smart lot, and are well aware of what the lazy and unscrupulous are capable of… Give the Google-dudes due credit for having the sense to not only be aware of the possibility, but for actually taking some care to protect you from such rancid and distasteful acts.
Fear Not – Go Ye Forth and Multiply
Seek links in appropriate directory categories, particularly in relevant niche directories if they exist. For example, don’t you dare try and list your cattery in a Business-to-Business software category… That would be stupid, and unlikely to be accepted! And don’t cheat… automated directory link submission schemes are a pointless waste of time.
Work is required – an anathema to many! Do your homework, select good directories and seek placement where it will both do you some good, and increase the possibility of acceptance.
Exchange Links
Don’t be frightened to exchange links with other sites, especially where there is a commonality of interest. Car sales and car insurance – boats and motors – houses and mortgages… obvious relationships are reputedly better, although proving that theory is harder than you might imagine. Prophylactic avoidance of link farms, web rings and FFA link schemes is patently sensible – their glory days are long, long gone the way of hidden text and 1×1 pixel images…
But if Aunty Ethel wants a link to her travel blog – hell, by all means do the old biddy a favour! Maybe your visitors will get a vicarious chuckle over her exploits and thank you for it! Maybe Aunty Ethel will leave you a pile of folding stuff in her will, a fond recompense for your charitable act…
Sure, those reciprocal links might not be quite as valuable as 1-way incoming links from a high-profile directory. But they are natural, useful, and public-spirited. Reach out a helping hand to your fellow man…
Think of links as being more like an investment portfolio! Some items have a higher price coupled with a long-term return – such as expensive review for the Yahoo Directory. Some items are minimal cost, minimal return… reciprocal links fit this group. Some are volatile, capable of good rewards but transient – social bookmarking links being one example. Some are solid, hard work, modest and unexciting – like article marketing…
Any sensible link strategy should include a broadening spread of links – and don’t sweat the small stuff…
Content Management Systems & SEO Revisited
Two years ago, I wrote an article entitled “Content Management Systems Equal Business Suicide.” The basic premise was that at that time, CMS applications were inherently devoid of basic SEO functionality. Building a new site, or converting an existing site to the existing CMS versions of 2 years ago was rapid way of consigning those sites to the oblivion of Google’s supplementary index. Lacking inbuilt search engine friendly URL’s, outputting duplicate titles, descriptions and keywords, no ability to have customised Titles that differed from Headings – all those things were extraordinarily bad elements.
Read the rest of this article…
SEO Guy’s Website Rebuild
Well, regular visitors may have noticed a change of design layout and architecture. After a marathon 3-4 days, during which I’ve been extremely focused and very unsociable, I’ve finally – after a shaky start 5 months ago – now 95% completed the extreme makeover on www.ComAuth.co.nz What a mission! As an aside, for anyone who’s ever wondered – the domain name goes back many years, when I was a free-lance Computer consultant primarily working for Local Authorities (city / district goverment).
- Search – a part of the “Corporate” theme - using it just generates a blank page…
- Tags – no idea whats up with this – just get a blank page with either Simple Tags or std WordPress tags… but the internal tagging functions all work fine!
- Images: added 255px images in widget areas – they get auto-shrunk to 233px Must be a template function at work there!
Apologies if you encounter any difficulties – its a work in progress, and may take a week or two to fix everything. Content revision is also ongoing…
Case Study: Website Rebuild and Search Engine Rankings
Fasteners Direct is an Auckland-based company specialising in supply of fasteners & hardware to the construction, building & engineering industries. Their old website was static HTML pages originally done in MS Frontpage, but which basically contained a lot of picture and not much text. We were asked to carry out an SEO Review on 24th Feb 2009, and as part of that, pointed out that the old site really would benefit from need updating.
Managing director Andrew Benton agreed and gave us the go-ahead to rebuild the website in a WordPress CMS so they could easily add / edit content as required. The additional ability to use the blog aspects of WordPress to create news, DIY articles, product reviews and distribute newsletters etc is also a consideration…
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- We also needed to address the following issues;
- Lack of incoming links / lack of keywords in Anchor Text
- No robots.txt file
- No custom 404 Error Page
- No sitemap.xml
- Duplicate Titles, Descriptions, Keywords
- Etc etc..
Case Study: Extreme Website Makeover with SEO
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the nice folks at Flexiscreens® in Tasmania. The site had been live for years and had previously been generating good business. However, things were in a downward spiral, not helped by the global economic downturn. They needed help;
- their HTML website was looking old and tired
- other people had stolen their content and were getting better rankings
- their site’s visibility had slowly diminished
Flexiscreens - the tired old website
- Lack of incoming links
- No relevant keywords / phrases in link anchor Text
- Dduplication of Titles, Descriptions, Keywords
- No use of H1, H2 in page headings, and poor keyword targeting
- 1st paragraphs not targeting specific keywords
- Overly long pages
- Text hidden in DIV’s containing blatant keyword spam
- No sitemaps / robots.txt / 404 Error page handling
- Etc!
The plan put forward included keyword research, link building submissions, rebuild into a WordPress CMS, full Search Engine Optimisation on all pages, and attention to all the serious issues noted in the review.
Select First Motorhomes Ltd UK
Unit 3.4 Wealden Forest Park, Herne Common, Herne Bay, Kent. UK.
CT6 7LQ
Tel: 0845 2606088 (local rate call)
www.motorhomes-buy-sell-rent.com
The WHY of SEO – A Thermal Lifejacket for the Economic Ice Age!
There are many articles written on the HOW of SEO, covering the many and varied aspects of the art of improving your site’s position in search engine ranking pages (SERPs). Whilst most people have heard the term “search engine optimization” and have a vague appreciation (or apprehension) of the hoped-for outcome, surprisingly few people seem to really understand WHY it is absolutely essential.
That includes a depressing number of website designers, some of whom actually tell their clients that SEO is a waste of time and money, and that it’s quite unnecessary these days because Google is smarter than ever before… Au contraire – it becomes more and more critical every day, as website numbers expand exponentially! Lack of knowledge is not confined to website designers, it also includes a number of wanna-be SEO firms who make outrageous claims about their special relationship and affinity with Google etc, but have little idea of what it takes to consistently succeed in attaining Top 30 rankings.
Be very aware that in most cases website design is taught as an Art, not as a Business discipline. Website designers are rarely taught anything about search engine optimization, and few are interested in mastering the skills required to produce optimal results. That’s all very fine and dandy – but it leaves a lot of website owners desperately disappointed in mediocre results! You’ve probably heard the analogy about building a shop in the middle of a forest too, I bet? Seriously, it really does not matter how beautiful the site is – if no one finds it, then it’s just a gorgeous waste of virtual space.
Content is Still King
Regardless of the various conflicting opinions, Google conspiracy theories and misinformation, it comes down to a very simple concept – content quality, and accurate content classification. Content is where many sites fail dismally! The sites that thrive are those with well written, well organised original, interesting and useful content. Don’t copy other peoples stuff. Aside from being illegal, at best it immediately downgrades you to second best… As a general rule, from an SEO perspective, bear in mind the most fundamental issue – Google loathes duplicate content! Read more
