Website Idiosyncrasies & Content Duplication Idiocies
The laziest amongst us, those with an allergy to original thought, and those who hate writing the most are almost always adamant that unique content is over-rated, unnecessary or even pointless.
One of the website content frustrations I frequently endure is the failure, on the part of others, to comprehend the value of accuracy and uniqueness. There is intransigence in that respect, particularly on the part of some designers of e-commerce and content management systems. It is indicative of 3 parts of ignorance, arrogance and stupidity, in almost equal measure…
I personally believe that it’s important that every page expresses its reason for existence clearly. If you cannot achieve that simple task, how on earth could anyone who wants what you have, be expected to find your content?
Example 1: Online Gift Shop
This site’s top level pages were beautifully rendered in elegant verbiage, all embedded in delicate, pastel-coloured images… Yes, in its entirety, on all Category pages and the Home page! Not a single word of explanatory, descriptive text! Text embedded in images is such a fundamental error of judgement, I am amazed that the client’s website designers did not vehemently urge it not be done thus… Incredible!
And of course, many pages shared global meta-data… At least the Category pages were possessed of editable titles and meta-tags…The “informational” pages, on the other hand, were bereft of any meta-tag editing facility, as the designer was not of the opinion that this was relevant in the age of Web 2.0! He was eventually disabused of that notion and, after weeks of prompting, finally deigned to add this most basic but fundamental facility.
Example 2: Prominent City Law Firm.
This site languished below the Google radar, despite their website designers having an “SEO expert” onboard – a Microsoft and Google certified one, allegedly. I built links to expand the keywords associated with the site, and hand-edited 30 of the main pages, out of 100+ pages. That helped a lot at Yahoo and MSN, but it did not get the site out of the doldrums at Google.
The designers were adamant that the site must have been black-listed in some way, and wanted me to identify the problem and tell them how to resolve it. I explained at the outset that duplicated content was an issue but the designers were emphatic that it must be something far more sinister; a legacy of the previous incumbents who had transgressed in some indiscernible, arcane, black-hat clad manner…
So, I instructed the office manager that she’d have to over-ride the objections of the designers and compel them to ensure that every single page had accurate Titles, Descriptions and Keywords. Basically, they had too high a percentage of “cookie-cutter” pages that all shared global meta-tags. In most cases the meta-tags contradicted the on-page content. As soon as that was sorted out, the handbrake went off at Google HQ, and the site popped up into page 1 SERPs for almost all relevant search phrases…
Conclusion
Duplicated content in all forms is (and always has been) a sin as far as search engines are concerned. Every page ought to be accurately described using the meta-data elements provided expressly for that purpose. Each page must contain accessible and unique content in both on-page and off-page elements…
This surely should not be such a hard concept to grasp? If you can’t accurately describe what your site is all about, in your own words, and place accurate information into all the areas Google et al look for clues as to content and purpose, how can you reasonably expect to prosper online?
- If your website software does not allow you to thoroughly and accurately describe your product and services, you should be concerned, fearful even…
- If your website designer does not think that search engines are at all relevant in the 21st century, you should be very, very afraid…
Of course, you should also bear in mind that nothing in the virtual world is set in concrete… Never, ever be afraid to start again… There are good designers out there, ethical men and women with great website software. They approach their task with intelligence, diligence, and an open-minded awareness of the possibilities. You always have the freedom to make an informed choice… so don’t settle for being 2nd best!
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.
A Rose By Any Other Name May Smell as Sweet – But Do YOUR File Names Stink?
File naming is an element of SEO that most people pay little attention to, yet its a crucial issue for two key reasons;
Search Engine Page Results
When a reference to one of your pages shows up within a SERP, there are 3 important cues that can entice a visitor to click the link and visit your site. In order, they are Title, Description and URL – or page file name. Why not give yourself every possible advantage when competing for visitors, by providing accurate and readable file names? It might well be the final push that slides the mouse pointer in your favor.
Search Engine Rankings
Equally, when search engine spiders are mapping your site and trying to figure out what on earth its all about, giving them some accurate information in every possible area would seem like a smart move, right? Keywords in file names are important, and they do make a difference. It might only be one of 100-plus elements in a search engine relevancy algorithm, but the more places you can tick off as being perfect, the better!
The Reality Check
Oddly enough, few people actually do this! Most file names are either a model of brevity, acronymic, cryptic or just plain gibberish! That’s a bit like driving with the handbrake on… Read more
Multiple Domain Names Penalty
If you own a web site AND you have multiple domain names registered, you might want to read this with your full attention. There are a great many web sites out there which, by inappropriate use of multiple domain names, effectively cripple their search engine rankings by blatantly breaching search engine guidelines! Site owners often register more than one domain, and there are sound reasons for doing this, including;
- The main URL includes a keyword phrase but is too long to type quickly, so a shorter, cryptic one is utilised and maybe is also used on business cards and letter heads.
- You take various versions of domains to prevent competitors from grabbing them – dot.com, dot.co.nz, dot.biz, dot.info etc, and point them all to the “main” site.
- You take various country versions – dot.co.nz, dot.com.au, dot.co.uk because you are going to expand into those markets – but in the interim you point them all to the “main” site.
There are also misguided reasons for doing this, including;
- Having multiple domains pointing to the same location in the hope that the search engines will be duped into indexing ALL of them as different content, giving you lots of top rankings under different domains.
Search engines hate duplicated content with a passion… but their automated spiders and bots cannot determine which category YOU fall into – uninformed and innocent of intent, or deliberately and knowingly manipulative. So all sites who transgress can expect to be treated equally. And yes, you can be banned from the SE indexes for getting it wrong!
The search engines do not give out many guidelines – in fact they are all very coy about giving too information much away. However, when they do make a statement by way of guidelines, regardless of how politely it is worded, you had best sit up and take notice because they are really, really serious about it!
Google Guidelines on Multiple Domains
In the case of Google, their Webmaster Guidelines are unambiguous! E.g. on this page; http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 Google are quite clear on this;
Quality Guidelines – Specific Guidelines
- Don’t employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
- Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content
What This Means to You
There is a clear and present danger in having multiple sites pointing to the same location if they load exactly the SAME content - this is a SERIOUS breach of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and is expressly FORBIDDEN because the search engines can only interpret this as a blatant attempt to generate duplicate content under different URL’s. Regardless of your actual intentions in this, its likely to result in a BAN from search engine indexes. 
Not a good start to an online presence, right?
Ignorance of The Law is No Excuse
Ignorance of search engine guidelines is not a valid excuse either! Unfortunately, many web designers and hosting companies are blissfully unaware of the correct way to implement multiple domain names. The result is that many web site owners unknowingly jeopardise their site’s inclusion in the search engine rankings.
My advice is that if you have more than one domain name, you check how its been set up. If your have two domains; http://www.2nddomain.com and http://www.2nddomain.com and BOTH load the same pages but with the different domains showing, then you have a problem. If you can also load the sites as http://www.2nddomain.com and http://www.2nddomain.com then totals 4 different ways of indexing the SAME content!
The Right Way to Do It
That said, it IS permitted to have multiple domains pointing to the same content BUT it may only be done via the use of a Permanent 301 Redirect being applied to the secondary domains, e.g. typing in the URL for any of the secondary domains will redirect you to the main site. This change can easily be implemented, at no cost other than a few of minutes of time.
In this example, http://www.2nddomain.com is redirected to http://www.2nddomain.com and and neither visitors nor SE spiders ever “see” content under the secondary domain name. The same logic should also be applied to the non-www versions of both domain names to complete the process and to prevent potential conflicts with the search engines.
Web Designers – Why Not Outsource Your SEO Needs
Web design and search engine optimisation are two quite different disciplines, and usually people specialise in either one or the other, but rarely in both.
However, there are synergies and consequent opportunities for strategic partnerships and alliances…
A great many web sites are launched every year, and during site creation, SEO requires extra effort and consequent additional costs. For that reason, many site owners opt to not do SEO at the outset, but will find it necessary to address SEO later – when site traffic and sales revenues do not match initial expectations.
The SEO Reseller Option
Recently, we’ve had a number of approaches from New Zealand & Australian web design companies interested in outsourcing professional SEO services to offer to their existing clients. In each case, they lacked in-house SEO expertise, and preferred to work with an established SEO practitioner instead. They also felt that pricing from some other SEO firms they had contacted was exorbitant and much preferred our more modest search engine optimisation rates!
In response we developed and offered an incremental range of competitively-priced SEO services. This was so successful that we’ve decided to further expand our business by actively marketing our SEO outsourcing service on a commission basis e.g.;
- You quote our price to your clients and you bill them once work is completed
- We supply the webmaster (usually you) with the SEO amendments to insert, meaning there is additional billable work generated for you in the process.
- On completion, we bill you the previously quoted amount, less the commission.
We are willing and able to work cooperatively with any web designer or web site developer seeking to outsource SEO reseller services for their clients.
It’s our preference to offer SEO services on a fixed price basis. This presents clients with a known quantity for budgetary purposes. To review these rates and services [click here] and then contact us to discuss details.
The SEO Imperative…
To any business enterprise hoping for significant Internet-based sales, it’s imperative that prospective clients can actually find the web site. Many business / client relationships commence through contact established via search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.
The prospective client seeks a product by searching for a specific keyword or phrase. If your site doesn’t rank in the Top 30 results, you have minimal chance as barely 10% of searchers will go to (or past) the 3rd page of results. If they don’t find what they want on the 1st or 2nd page, the majority will either refine their search term, or go to a different search engine.
Search Engine Optimisation is all about marketing a web site more effectively, with the goal of improving the site’s exposure to customers and clients on the Internet.
I’ve been practicing SEO since bG (before Google); back when Alta Vista, Excite, Hotbot and Northern Light ruled the search engine world. Additional background information is available at TheSeoGuy’s web site.
SEO Return On Investment…
In terms of the potential results for your clients, reflect a moment on the fact that there is a great deal of competition for rankings on the search engines. Not ensuring that a site is properly optimised dooms to mediocrity. The “return on investment” for SEO is usually very good indeed.
No-Risk Test of our SEO Services!
Pick a “normal” site whose owner thinks it needs a rankings boost, and provide us with the details. We are so confident of success that we will put our money where our mouth is by offering a do a Basic SEO Package project for one of your clients on a “no cure, no pay” basis. E.g. we do a SE ranking report before commencing the job, and again after completion – if there is not a demonstrable improvement in Top 30 rankings in 6 weeks, the job is free! You could document the project, and include the details in your monthly newsletter.
Hey, thanks for taking the time to read this, and I look forwards to hearing from you soon!
Kind regards
Ben Kemp
aka “The SEO Guy”
+64 9 974-3553
URL Decisions – Whats in a Name
A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet… but in the World of the Wide Web, picking the the wrong name stinks!
I’m often asked if the Domain Name is important, and I have to say yes, the selected domain name is a very important element in the overall scheme of things, for a variety of reasons. Some of these are outlined in this article.
Keywords in Domain Name
The search engines assign some relevance/importance to the words used within the domain name. You can see some evidence of this in Google’s search results, where any words in your search term that exist in the URL are highlighted.
When starting a new site, it is important to maximise whatever advantage the name might give you! I can’t say for certain just how important it is, but as sure as God made little apples, every little element that you have working in your favour can only be regarded as “a good thing” 
There are limits… not only to the total length of the URL, but in terms of what might be acceptable, and the only thing the SEO experts are consistent on is all having a different opinion!
However, here are a few thoughts;
- From a total length perspective, there is a limit to what people are prepared to type in…
- keyword spamming would not be a smart idea here as in any other area…
- Some suggest separating all words with hyphens, others say use only one hyphen at maximum…
- I’d say two to three primary keywords is enough – any more and it becomes difficult to enter accurately.
Dot.Com or Country-specific
The choice of domain type does have an effect on the way the search engines categorise the site. If you are a New Zealand or Australian business selling to a lot of USA or UK clients i.e. if its a global deal, then a Dot.Com URL is arguably a better option. Not least of this is that its easier to get it listed in some international directories.
However, if you are marketing a specific NZ/AU product/service in the domestic markets of New Zealand/Australia, then a .CO.NZ or .COM.AU is the best choice.
With the increasing trend of search engines towards “Local” content, explicit in the Google.Co.NZ, Google.Com.AU and Google.Co.UK, it will become more and more difficult for a non-country-specific site to dominate within a specific country. To put that in context, a Dot.Com site will struggle to out-rank a .Co.NZ site in Google.Co.NZ…
Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, Lycos etc are all expanding their country-specific indexes. These do (kind of) get incorporated into the main index in the parent Dot.Com site, but you would need to be more specific in your search for a country-specific product.
E.g. if you were on Google.com, and search for “mats” the results would be different to carrying out the same search on Google.Co.NZ (having specified NZ sites only).
However, if you searched on Google.Com for “mats new zealand” the result might well include sites which ranked highly on the Google.Co.NZ search.
Multiple Domain Names
You CAN have the two or more URL’s pointed at the same site… but I would not advise any attempt to actively promote more than one! There is a danger that the SE’s could could punish you for attempting to get duplicate content indexed, which is a forbidden practice.
However, it is completely legitimate and common practice to point multiple URLS at the same IP address;
- To prevent competitors pinching your domain name/s on .com, .biz, .info etc etc.
- To prevent confusion e.g. the client types the “wrong” URL, but still finds you – e.g. a miss-spelled version.
- Having a longer keyword-rich URL to maximise Search Engine ranking gains, and a shorter (easier) one for people to type in to get to the site.
You could easily a Dot.Com URL for advertising purposes, letterhead, business cards etc, and even use it as Google Adwords “display URL” but be careful to only use the primary (.Co.NZ) URL for all search engine promotions, link building, search engine and directory submissions.
Have You any Hidden Perils Within Your Web Site…
Imagine the nausea and anxiety of having your site disappear without trace from multiple major search engines in the space of a few days… no longer able to be located on Yahoo’s new search engine, and consequently MSN, plus other Yahoo search partners! And this a niche tourism site which, by design, had for the past few years enjoyed No.1 placement on all the major search engines for an array of relevant keyword phrases, and was generating 10,000+ “qualified” visitors per month.
We are not talking about a slip in the rankings here either – we are talking about a total purge from Yahoo’s web results, despite the site being a long-standing, high ranking site within the Yahoo directory. We are also talking about a site which continued to rank No.1 on Google throughout this little crisis. A site which had not had any significant recent modification, had no “dodgy” optimisation trickery, and which has been a stable, reliable repository of 300+ pages of useful, regularly updated content. How could a site like this disappear, you ask? Could it happen to me, you ask? Let me explain how it evolved…
After checking search results intently for a week, hoping the site would bounce back into the limelight, and wracking our brains to figure out what had happened, we decided to subscribe to Yahoo’s Site Match program to get the site re-indexed. And re-indexed within a couple of days it was, according to the Site Match stats, but still it did not reappear in the index. An urgent message to Site Match support received a very prompt response, as follows;
“Hello Ben,
Yahoo does not like custom NOT Found pages used to advertise other links to your site. You may want to revisit this approach.”
Best Regards, Overture Site Match Support, Overture
Gulp… the site had always had a custom 404 page, and since a major site revamp 3 years ago the 404 page has had a mini site-map providing links to content relocated onto other sites. We very quickly blew all that stuff away, but the anticipated reappearance in the Yahoo search results did not occur. Again, a mayday to Site Match support received another prompt response, as follows:
“Hello Ben,
It is apparent that you had fixed your 404 problem. However, we ran your URL through an HTML validator and found that it did have errors in the code. Even though this is not critical, every little bit helps in getting good placement to drive traffic to your site. Here is that URL to the validator. We hope this helps. http://validator.positiontech.com/anthr.cfm”
Best Regards, Overture Site Match Support, Overture”
Well, under stress, its always good to have a goal…. So after a visit to the validator URL above, and verifying that there were indeed some issues, we downloaded a copy of CME’s HTML Validator Lite 3.5 from www.htmlvalidator.com and systematically eliminated every issue. None were major – some extra and tags, which translates as incorrect nesting. The home page title had an ampersand done as “&” instead of “&” So now, there is not a single HTML error in the site’s index.htm page…
Now, I have to say we had serious reservations about something as simple as this being the key to reinstatement in the Yahoo index. I mean, since when have search engines been pedantic to the point where they will completely banish a site for a few minor code errors? Google, the epitome of search engines, has obviously accommodated or ignored the minor errors on the site.
White text on white background, ok… but an ampersand? Please!
Well, to my complete amazement, within 12 hours the site was back in the Yahoo index, sitting at No.1 for the expected range of keywords within Yahoo web results.
All the best stories have a moral, and this one could even achieve parable status.
- First thing is, go check your custom 404 pages.
- Second, tidy up your HTML code before they drop your site.
This exercise has got to be good for you (just like organic muesli, bran flakes etc). After all, how often do find a legitimate excuse to mess with raw HTML code these days? Honestly, either option is about as appealing as a bout of self-flagellation!
Speaking for myself, I have an intense dislike of anything that raw – muesli and/or html. I must also make the point that I did not make the HTML code mistakes myself, you understand? (Well, maybe I did the & ampersand thingy) J
Complacency is the issue – the site was error free on creation, but has been online for several years, generating business. The regular maintenance, rebuilds, rearrangements etc had obviously allowed accumulation of some minor HTML code errors over time, and we had foolishly not kept a close eye on that particular issue, relying on the HTML editing software too much.Like most webmasters, since their invention I’ve cheerfully and unashamedly used a “WYSIWYG” HTML Editor – which of course inserts the dodgy code all by itself. In my case, the culprit is Microsoft’s FrontPage, which I am very fond of. I love it because it does lots of really, really clever stuff at a very sensible price. There is a touch of irony to this story, because MSN Search is currently getting its results via Yahoo… Microsoft’s own software could therefore be responsible for eliminating some very good sites from its own search index.
So now, we’re back in the Yahoo index at No.1 but not yet out of the woods. We are out a hundred US bucks though! To sign up for the Site Match program, first there was the US$50 sign-up fee for the indexing for a year, and then the US$50 in advance for the 15c per click-thru from the search result listing…. However, we’re very grateful for the rapid and accurate advice from the Site Match support team!
I wonder what happened to those guys?
Good Site Design Criteria Incorporates SEO
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Focus on the Product
1.2.1 Decide on Site Name/URL
1.2.2 Internal Page Naming
1.2.3 Image Names
1.3 Design Issues
1.3.1 JavaScript
1.3.2 Flash
1.4 FRAMES
1.5 Splash Pages
1.6 Databases vs Text
1.7 Page Layout
1.8 Content
1.9 Links
1.10 Geographic/Location Searches
1.11 HTML Coding Errors
1.12 Choosing a Designer
1.13 Site Maintenance
1.14 Ten SEO Design Rules
1.1 Introduction
Should you be contemplating a new web site, or the rebuild of an older site, there are many issues you need to consider. High in the priority list at the outset should be search engine rankings, and design of the site to maximise the site’s potential web profile is crucial to success. A key design criteria should be to ensure that the web site, as launched, will require minimal remedial search engine optimisation. In the process of site creation there is almost always conflict between form (design) and function.
The key premise must be that without visitors, the site is worthless. To achieve a return on investment (ROI) the site needs to generate the maximum volume of “free” traffic. Your design goal is generation of qualified traffic i.e. potential customers who want what you offer, and arrived on your site by choice because it was relevant to their search. These days, you will see this referred to as “organic” search results.
Aside from this, the site may also generate traffic from newspaper advertising, mail-outs, your business stationary and business cards etc containing the site’s URL, and from pay-per-click advertising campaigns on search engines via Yahoo Search Marketing and Google Adwords. This is not “free” traffic because it is generated at additional cost over and above your site’s establishment and operating costs.
Ranking highly establishes brand recognition and there is the underlying impression of credibility if you are always in the Top 10 on search results. Organic search results achieve a much higher click-thru rate than paid advertising.
The items covered here are all elements within any serious search engine optimisation program, and should all be incorporated into the site design to varying degrees. Each of the major search engines has a great many elements in its ranking algorithms and the more you can get right, the better the results. You are setting out to make a crystal clear and unequivocal statement of what your site is all about.
1.2 Focus on the Product
Be very clear what it is you are selling… and aim all content and copy at ensuring that potential customers know that you have it available.
1.2.1 Decide on Site Name/URL
There is definite benefit in having primary keywords in the site’s URL. e.g. www.fast-food-delivery.com There is a balance to be struck between wanting to include multiple important keywords, and user inconvenience in typing very long URL’s.
Separatong words with a hyphen; e.g. www.fast-food-delivery.com is possibly better than stringing them together as www.fastfooddelivery.com – although some SEO guru’s suggest being sparing with the total number of hyphens. Some say one is enough…
1.2.2 Internal Page Naming
There is also definite benefit in having keywords in the site’s internal HTML page names, e.g. www.fast-food-delivery.com/riccarton-food-delivery.html The more clues you can give to the search engines regarding the content of a page, the easier it is for the SE to rank it.
1.2.3 Image Names
There is also benefit in giving descriptive image file names e.g. gourmet-hawaiian-pizza.jpg is better than pic1.jpg
The keywords contained in the image names will not be ignored by the SE’s and will usually gain you some additional traction.
Search engines now index image files, and it is therefore useful to give all your image files descriptive names. Some traffic will be generated this way, so you might as maximise the opportunity.
1.3 Design Issues
There are many elements to be considered in building site that will rank well on the search engines.
1.3.1 JavaScript
Bear in mind that pretty much anything contained within JavaScript is ignored by the search engine spiders. A nice JavaScript menu is all very fine and dandy, so by all means use one – I always do. However, because the links to internal pages within that menu will not always be seen by Googlebot and other spiders, it is crucial to provide an internal HTML pathway that allows the spiders to index all your content. Achieve this by;
- Content links – provide text links to internal pages from within the Home page. Anchor text that uses primary keywords, linked to an optimised page that has relevant information, will score you lots of brownie points. Pages with direct links from the Home page are also accorded a higher value.
- Site map page – ensure you have a text link on the Home page to a site map page which has a text html link to every internal page. Spiders seldom go deeper than 3 levels, so this tactic ensures all pages are accessible at no more than 3 levels deep.
Use JavaScript sparingly – every additional word and comment tag within a page diffuses keyword density within that page.
Use an external file and “call” your JavaScript applications instead of adding them to the pages. This is more efficient and, where a change is required, means editing one file instead of dozens of pages.
1.3.2 Flash
Do NOT use it to build a site in its entirety. There is no known benefit and lots of downside. Seriously, Flash animations should only be used where they can serve a key purpose – perhaps to establish a theme, or to tell a story. Images should be kept small, and file sizes less than 200k if possible.
On the Internet, attention spans are short, time is precious, and we want as near to instant page load times as possible. Flash is slow to load, content is not easy to index, and maintenance is more complicated and expensive. Please remember that not everyone is on Broadband yet…
1.4 FRAMES
Frames are an architecture solution for strictly controlling what the viewer sees on the screen. They are also a disaster from a search engine perspective, as search engines cannot readily penetrate into internal content Were search engines able to index internal pages, a viewer directed to the indexed pages would not see that page within the normal context of framed page menus, headers and footers, making navigation a confusing experience. Do not allow your web designer to use FRAMES.
1.5 Splash Pages
A growing trend on web sites is to have a “splash” page which might have a nice animated Flash graphics introduction etc, and looks superb.
Do not permit your designer to use a splash page. It forces your users to “click to enter the site” and this irritates people enough the first time, and really reduces their enthusiasm to return.
A “Splash” page is like the box-within-the-box type of present – really amusing for the guy who cello-taped up the boxes, but bloody irritating for the person trying to get inside to the goodies.
Splash pages are invariably a monument to the designer’s graphical and artistic genius, and serve no purpose in the site’s function.
1.6 Databases vs Text
I am fixated on not using databases, as this is generally an awful approach to building a web site from a SEO perspective. For most “small business web sites” there is simply no sound justification for a database-driven approach. However, on an e-commerce web site it will almost certainly be necessary to drive your online ordering system via a database, often using extensive JavaScript programming etc. What I’d recommend is building an “outer” HTML-based site with an inner Shop.
For an example of this, take a look at www.kozitoez.co.nz or www.BenArthur-Photography.com – These are modest little static HTML-based sites with an osCommerce core and a reasonably seamless integration of SEO requirements… Perhaps your online ordering application could work in a similar same way, where the outer HTML pages would be unique and fully optimised with individualised file names, titles, description, keywords etc.
Most database-driven sites make it difficult to produce unique pages – usually there are generic title, description and keyword tags to make it easer to maintain. Databases are also famous for impenetrable URLs – any URL having a “?” or “&” in it makes life difficult for search engine spiders trying to index internal content.
Databases are often promoted on the “ease of maintenance” grounds. Instead, I recommend the use of “include” pages to produce standard elements such a header, footer, side menu. One change on one page is reflected across all pages.
1.7 Page Layout
Keep it simple. There are some basic rules to be observed that will ensure best results in search engine rankings. These can conflict with the site designer’s view of the world, and you need to make informed decisions when/if compromises are to be made.
The search engines place greatest emphasis on the top of the page – the 1st heading or title, and the 1st paragraph. Your keywords must be placed prominently there. Use a narrow header holding a company logo, this header could be common to every internal page.
Follow this with a Title/Heading in H1 style to emphasise its importance, and containing the keywords/ key phrase. Follow this with a brief first paragraph, containing the keywords/ key phrase at the beginning, highlighted in bold. If possible, using an iteration of the keywords/ key phrase as the anchor text, add a link to an internal page containing more detail.
Some search engines will look for the first iteration of the search phrase, and include a portion of the paragraph as their results for the search. Its crucial that you control what searchers see by providing good copy.
You need to have around 300-500 words on the page. Place some strategic links to key pages on the footer, plus your address with all relevant geographic location details.
1.8 Content
Content is king, content rules, ok! To achieve consistently high rankings, you need good content, able to be readily indexed. To me, this means a series of simple heirachical HTML pages, which might include;
- Products and/or Services
- Contact Us – a form-based interface for customers to contact you with suggestions, complaints etc
- Web Resources – a links page to sites of interest to your clients
- A “Link to Us” page outlining your preferred link-back text
- Site Map page listing every in text hyperlinks
- Company Profile
- Newsletter
- Location Map if applicable
- Coverage Area Maps
- Special Deals and promotions
- Hours of operation
- Rates
Build yourself a dozen or so unique pages with around 400 words apiece, targeting slightly different keywords/phrases on each page. Now you’ve got some substance for the SE’s to work with.
1.9 Links
Incoming links to your site are a crucial element of the search engine ranking game, and especially important on Google. In fact, its very difficult to get indexed at all on Google if there are no incoming links to your site.
The quality of links and their context are more important than the quantity. E.g. a link to your site from Telecom’s Internet Yellow Pages, on a page of content related to your theme is worth 25 links from B&B’s, hotels etc.
Search out all the local business directories in your area of operation. See which ones rank well and get listed on them even if it costs you a few $ annually to do so.
When you have nothing to do, sit down and look for sites that link to your competitors and contact their webmasters seeking reciprocal links.
1.10 Geographic/Location Searches
These days, most searchers refine their query with multiple words, frequently using location e.g. “fast food delivery Christchurch” or “hotel accommodation Ashburton.” If you are city or suburb specific, be specific about that. E.g. specify this in page Title, Description, Body text etc. Include city, suburb, address, postal code in the page footer on all pages.
Search engines are also heavily focused on “location” as an indexing element that enables increased relevancy searches, in particular geographic location.
1.11 HTML Coding Errors
Ensure the designer does produce perfect HTML code. You can easily validate (check) this, but be sure to indicate to the designer that this is a prerequisite. Yahoo in particular will not index a site if there are HTML code errors – and this as a consequence would exclude you from MSN and many other search engines and portals as well!
1.12 Choosing a Designer
By now, you’ve got a better idea of the overall design goals, and you can use these points to help in specifying your design requirements. Set out a design brief and circulate it to several designers for appraisal and request project cost estimates.
Refine the list to a group of 3 potential designers from the preliminary response to your design brief. Meet with each and discuss the site project with them, ensuring that they understand what you want. Redefine the plan, refine costs.
Request a “fixed price contract” which requires that you have agreed on everything before hand. If it takes longer than estimated, that becomes someone else’s problem, not yours. Any amendments required by you are obviously a variation to the plan, and must therefore be made at additional cost to you. All such amendments should be requested in writing, costed by the designer, and agreed to by both parties.
1.13 Maintenance
Site maintenance is a key issue. There will be ongoing site changes – to the links pages, food specials, pricing etc. You need to figure out who will do that for you, and to keep it as simple as possible. Rather than requiring expensive, complex software, or arcane FTP file transfers etc, you need a simple maintenance process, no more complex than using a word processor.
Many of my clients use MS FrontPage 2003 for site maintenance because it gets the job done reliably and at a modest price. A good alternative, although somewhat more complex, is Macromedia Dream Weaver.
Maintenance becomes an issue for many, either from a technical or lack of time perspective. Usually the task does not require a full-time webmaster, and but for small business there are not always skilled staff available to handle it the task. Your site designer will usually offer to do maintenance for you, and there are also “contract webmasters” available to assist.
1.14 The SEO Guy’s 10 Design Rules
1. No “Flash”
2. No “Splash” page
3. No “FRAMES”
4. No unnecessary databases
5. Simple layout – Logo, Heading, 1st paragraph, followed by balance of body text
6. Use HTML pages – fast, easily indexed
7. Unique Pages – every page has a different title, description, keyword targets
8. Fast page load times, minimal graphics use
9. No Coding Errors permitted
10. Use of Headers, Footers, Side Menus– via “include” pages, to minimise maintenance
Hell, if all designers did this, The SEO Guy would be looking for another job!
