The SEO Guys :: Web Design & SEO

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…

Top 10 File Name Factors

1.) Use keywords! Why use “contact.html” when you could use “contact-the-blue-widget-specialists.html”??? Your page names are a good place to slip in an “exact match” high-volume keyword phrase… Do this where appropriate - like every page on your site - to help reinforce the keywords in Title / Description tags.

2.) Use hyphens and not underscores! In a URL, or in a text anchor on a page, the underscore blends with the hyperlink underline, making it difficult to see that it is not a space.

3.) Do NOT use spaces! Aside from the fact that the operating system has to fill the gaps with the awful %20 - there are still some operating systems and browsers in use around the globe that struggle to process spaces in file names.

4.) Do NOT use CAPITALS in file names - Windows does not care, and will treat “Blue-Widgets.html” and “blue-widgets.html” as the same file… However, operating systems such a Linux are case sensitive and see that variation as two completely different filenames! If you’ve typed internal hyperlink file names with case variations, you may well generate broken links for some users.

5.) Confine yourself to the Alphabet, and numerals, with hyphens between words. Do not commit the heinous crime of adding special characters into your file names! Linux allows pretty much any character except a forward slash (/) - but other operating systems might choke on them!

6.) Remember that SE’s really don’t like all the “&” and “?” and “=” that some CMS systems add. For example, if you are an osCommerce user, its a straightforward task to have Ultimate SEO URL’s installed, and produce plain-English file names.

7.) Don’t use the default file names and hierarchical structures in Wordpress / Joomla / Drupal / or any other Content Management system. For example, is 2007 a good Category heading, or directory name? Its out of date in a few months time! Still, its not uncommon to see sites based on silly, out-of-date directory/file name combinations.

8.) Make sure your CMS site generates keyword-rich file names that reflect page content. This should be the “normal” way to do things, but apparently the people who write this software genre don’t really understand a web business must generate search engine traffic to survive.

9.) Prevent your session ID’s being added to pages served to search engine spiders. Aside from the special character garbage, it means every time they visit, they get a different URL for the same page - resulting in duplicate content indexing! That can get your site removed from the SE indexes!

10.) Before changing a filename, ensure that you first set up a 301 Permanent Redirect from the old file name to the new file name. This will make the transition seamless, and minimise the possibility of 404 page not found errors. Also, those people who had the page bookmarked will still arrive at the correct location in your site.

Yet another SEO article by Ben Kemp, a free-lance website seo consultant and web site designer. He offers free SEO articles & web design tips, see Web Page SEO & Website Design Blog : Web: www.comauth.co.nz 

Is placing all the eggs in one basket, in the form of 1-stop shop website design, maintenance & hosting the best option? In my opinion, it most definitely is not! Keeping all website elements separate is sound business risk management practice!

When you are setting out to establish a new venture on the web, its a daunting task. The terminology is complex and confusing. There are multiple aspects to consider - domain registration, website hosting, web site design, maintenance, search engine optimisation etc. There is a temptation to take the easy option of a one-stop shop, where someone else takes care of all the complicated items that you don’t understand. That way, you get one all-inclusive bill per month. There is an old adage - Jack of all Trades, Master of None! A bigger web design company that does everything rarely does individual things as well as a carefully selected group of specialists in their own fields of expertise.

The relationship between you and your website design company will evolve over time. As you become more knowledgeable (and more demanding) the relationship might even deteriorate! It happens… If you are in a 1-Stop Shop environment, you may be unwittingly placing your web business in potential jeopardy.

Domain Registration

Do it yourself, and you ensure that you actually own the site. If you let your web designer do it for you, and he/she puts his/her name as the registrant, its not your site! Most website designers are aware of this, and take care to protect your interests. Some do not! For a company site, make sure the domain is registered in the company name, not an individuals name. If the office girl registers the site in her name, then leaves without a forwarding address, you’ve got a potential disaster in the making!

Website Hosting

Some web designers offer hosting as part of the package. Its usually a re-seller arrangement, where the designer gets a commission on the monthly hosting fees - as opposed to a server owned and operated by the website designer. Realistically, you are better to shop around and find a hosting package that delivers the functionality you require in terms of site management and software. For example, a classic Apache server with cpanel management, and PHP and MySQL databases will meet most needs. Performance can be an issue - and its not in your best interests to be hosted on a server with 600 other sites.

If you’ve chosen a .com domain, make sure you have hosting in the country that your clients are located in… otherwise, you’ll be excluded from country-specific searches! 

Choosing Website Designers

Its best to develop a design brief - specify your goals and objectives, and give some examples of sites that appeal to you. Circulate the brief to a few designers you’ve selected after reviewing multiple web design sites. Build a chart that compares what each designer offers, at what costs. Engage in dialogue with a short list of 2-3 designers and resolve any issues you did not understand in their responses to your brief.

Finally, pick someone who can talk to you on your level without being condescending. Be firm about separating components such as domain registration, hosting, and design. If the designer is insistent on combining all elements, move them to the bottom of the pile. If they have a particular CMS that they want you to use, ask them if its an open-source system. If not, ask them what happens in the future, if you become unsatisfied with them or the product. All promises should be made in writing, and signed by the CEO… in the form of a legal and binding contract.

Make sure your potential designer is listening to you, and is trying to deliver what you require, rather than what is best for them.

Website Architecture

The web site architecture that you choose can make or break you. In terms of good search engine rankings, the simpler you can make the site, the better. HTML-based sites which allow total control over all page elements will always deliver the best results. If your potential designer is insistent on building the site in Frames, JavaScript, or Flash, or combination thereof, remove them from your list immediately. The rule is “form follows function.” It won’t matter a bit how wonderful your site looks, if no one can find it.  Modest use of JavaScript or Flash is fine… but the search engines can neither read or index anything in either – so it is best to ensure at the outset that your site is not doomed to obscurity!

Website Management

Free-form editing of individual HTML pages is the best option from a search engine optimisation perspective. Its not much more complicated than using a word processor, and uploading the page amendments to the live site is not particularly difficult. However, if you are going to use a Content Management System for maintenance instead, its in your best interests to opt for an Open-Source CMS! With “open source” the software is free, no license fees apply, and anyone can work on it. You own the site content, and can more readily export it to another CMS platform if you don’t like the current one. With an open -source platform, you are not limited to a single designer or developer. If things don’t go the way you want, changing designers or developers is relatively simple.  

Content Management Systems - CMS

Proprietary Content Management Systems (CMS) present a real threat if you become dissatisfied with the developer’s service / performance. “They” own the site, not you, and you are effectively locked in to the package, which usually includes web design, development and hosting. If you want to change suppliers, you may have to abandon your entire development investment and start again from scratch! 

Such an environment usually involves shared hosting on the CMS supplier’s server. This places your site in the midst of multiple other sites all running exactly the same software platform, and often all of the same site type - e.g. e-commerce. This is undesirable from a search engine optimisation point of view.

In my opinion, a CMS system is complete overkill for a site of less than 100 pages - which is most small business sites. This comment applies equally to any totally database-driven solution. Overall, content changes very little - for many pages, it might be an annual revision. Using an HTML editor to make minor page changes requires minimal technical ability, and publishing amended pages via FTP is a trivial exercise. Exceptions to this are e-commerce, dating, portal or similar special purpose site, where you require a pre-designed application such as a shopping cart solution. Even then, combining HTML informational pages with the open-source application is still the best option.

Website Backups

This can be a simple as a monthly download to your PC of the site plus databases. Do not totally rely on your hosting company for site backups! Do not totally rely on your website designer for backups! In the event of a total systems failure, or unresolved dispute, you may be left relying on what data you have at your disposal. As a minimum, you want multiple copies of the site, stored at multiple locations. The live site on your hosting companies server, plus a local copy on your PC, plus a backup copy on your external hard drive, plus a monthly copy on CD or DVD and stored at your Mum’s place should do it! 

Business Resilience

Rule No.1: Do not put all your eggs in one basket! Basically, you need to ensure that you minimise your dependence on any one service supplier. If your web designer goes belly-up, what becomes of your proprietary CMS system? If the hosting company goes out of business, you need to be able to quickly change hosts and servers.  

• use the national domain registrar - more expensive, but they might still be in business next year!

• use open-source software, if you must use a Content Management System! 

• use an independent web designer - if your relationship deteriorates, you can easily switch to another!

• use a independent hosting supplier - if it does not work out, you can change hosting companies!

• use an independent SEO supplier - if it does not work out, pick another!

• use a regular site backup regime - multiple copies in multiple locations!

Doing so substantially insulates you from other’s failings, and ensures you can quickly respond to a change of circumstances. Even in cyberspace, an ounce of prevention is still better than a pound of cure! 

One of the fastest way to minimise your chances of web business success is to use a Content Management System (CMS). There are a number of open-source CMS products, such as phpWS, Mambo, Plone, Drupal, Geeklog, Siteframe, and phpNuke etc and a plethora of proprietary CMS products espoused by individual web design companies as the answer everything from lack of HTML knowledge to rapid shopping cart deployment etc.

Expressing this in simple terms, its said that possibly as high as 80% of online purchases are made from leads generated by search engines. CMS systems place a huge handicap on achievable Search Engine rankings. meaning there is a direct, immediate and practically insurmountable conflict with business aspirations. There are multiple reasons for this.

Duplication of Content

Search engines loathe duplicate content. In the average CMS, there are numerous common design elements, images, HTML and/or JavaScript code blocks etc, which are portrayed across ALL sites using the same system, and this is not a good thing.

Many CMS systems make it hard to impossible to generate unique page Title, Description & Keyword meta-tags, meaning all pages can look identical in search engine results. Many CMS systems do not permit you to assign keyword-rich image names, or apply unique and specific image ALT tags, and the page file names are usually not directly controllable. Few CMS systems allow you to easily add anchors on specific pages, and to link to those anchors from other pages. All of this translates into losing you valuable search engine optimisation opportunities.

Shared IP Addresses vs. Unique IP

Proprietary CMS systems usually go hand in hand with a “total package deal” that includes web design, web hosting and CMS. The hosting is invariable on a “shared server” meaning your site has the same IP Address as all other sites on the server.
Should a situation occur Where another site or sites are offering very similar or identical products and services, there is a potentially serious conflict of interest which the web design & hosting company will probably not advise you of! The first site is highly likely to be given priority rankings and treatment by the search engines, and all subsequent sites are highly likely to be consigned to oblivion as Search Engines will probably regard them as “duplicate content!” So two or more “Christmas gift shops” on the same “shared server,” or two or more “human resource consultants” face a problem they will be blissfully unaware of. Having a unique IP address assigned to your site is far more sensible!

Usability

Open-source CMS systems are written by geeks and nerds, for other geeks and nerds. It is painfully obvious that none are written by people with the faintest understanding of search engine optimisation, or an awareness of the old adage “form follows function.” As for “usability testing” there is no demonstrable evidence that any research and science has been applied to either the user or the administration interfaces! Unfortunately, the same criticisms can be levelled at the commercial CMS systems on offer.

CMS and Being Held To Ransom

In terms of the proprietary CMS systems, you are also seriously at risk of being captured and held hostage by your web design company, because they now “own” your site and you cannot easily escape without sacrificing your total investment. In this respect, use of CMS demonstrates a complete lack of business risk analysis. From that point on, you can also be systematically milked like a cash cow for every amendment, change, edit etc that they carry out on your behalf! Believe me, it happens every day… and I’ve seen people charged $90 for a simple edit that took me less than 2 minutes to implement!

CMS Saves You Money?

Yeah, right!!! The overheads of managing a CMS are usually far in excess of managing a conventional site. Content percentage-wise, most sites actually change very little, and the majority of pages are static and do not change at all. CMS is total overkill for the average business site.

Stand Out from the Crowd, Don’t Join It!

To succeed on the web today, you need to be a clearly unique entity, with original content, properly organised, logically described, and all pages must be optimised for a set of specific keyword phrases that accurately describe your products or services. Anything less is a compromise, and is to YOUR business detriment. A CMS system has a direct, negative impact on almost all desired outcomes - from minimising business risks, improving search engine rankings and prompt return on investment.

Another SEO Article by;

Ben Kemp, aka The SEO Guy (nz)

Web: www.comauth.co.nz

Email: SEO@TheSeoGuy.co.nz

Contact us for a Free SEO Site Review….

 Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is a concept whereby your site is also assessed on content other than the keywords that you are obviously targeting in the on-page and off-page elements of the site. Partly, this is to combat using keywords to draw traffic to content unrelated to the keywords - as porn, gambling and pharmacy spam sites are inclined to do. 

More importantly, its because there is a very high mathematical probability that a site that is genuinely about a specific topic ALSO includes multiple iterations of related words, phrases and terms e.g.;

• nouns, verbs and adjective variations

• word derivations

• synonyms

• hypernyms

• hyponyms

Therefore, the major search engine algorithms’ are now applying the concepts of “latent semantic indexing” and taking into account all word relationships within the site. Whilst an algorithm might lack “intelligence,” the mathematical model is quite robust and delivers extremely accurate relevancy assessments. To apply the concept of LSI to your site, its a matter of NOT over-loading your page with primary keywords (spamming) but instead, using variations to more accurately describe your topic or theme; E.g. using the term “SEARCH” the following options appear;

Variations or derived words; searcher, searched, searching,

Synonyms  - query, queried, querying, seeking, looking, finding

Hypernym: activity, examination, examine, higher cognitive process, investigate, investigating, investigation, look into, operation, scrutiny, see.
> Synonym: explore, hunt, hunting, look, look for, lookup, research, seek.
> Hyponym: angle, beat about, browse, cast about, cast around, comb, cruise, divine, drag, dredge, exploration, feel, finger, fish, forage, foraging, frisk, frisking, fumble, gather, go, go after, grope, grub, hunt, leave no stone unturned, looking, looking for, manhunt, nose, poke, prospect, pry, pursuance, pursue, pursuit, quest, quest after, quest for, raid, ransack, ransacking, re-explore, rifle, rummage, scan, scour, scouring, seek out, seeking, shakedown, shop, strip-search, surf, want.
> Derived: searcher

Noun
> Hypernym: activity, examination, higher cognitive process, investigating, investigation, operation, scrutiny.
> Synonym: hunt, hunting, lookup.
> Hyponym: exploration, forage, foraging, frisk, frisking, hunt, looking, looking for, manhunt, pursuance, pursuit, quest, ransacking, rummage, scouring, seeking, shakedown.Verb
> Derived: searcher.
> Synonym: explore, look, look for, research, seek.
> Hypernym: examine, investigate, look into, see.
> Hyponym: angle, beat about, browse, cast about, cast around, comb, cruise, divine, drag, dredge, feel, finger, fish, frisk, fumble, gather, go, go after, grope, grub, hunt, leave no stone unturned, nose, poke, prospect, pry, pursue, quest after, quest for, raid, ransack, re-explore, rifle, rummage, scan, scour, seek out, shop, strip-search, surf, want.The purpose of the example is to show that there are many ways to describe the same activity, product or service. 

How to Apply Latent Semantic Indexing

Implement LSI on your site by thoughtfully including variations, derivations, synonyms, hyponyms and hypernyms of your primary keywords and phrases. You will more effectively convince the Search Engines of your content theme than you would by stuffing multiple iterations of the same primary keywords into those page/s!

Yet Another SEO Article by;

Ben Kemp, aka The SEO Guy (nz)

Web: www.comauth.co.nz

Email: SEO@TheSeoGuy.co.nz

Contact us for a Free SEO Site Review….

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.

One of the advantages touted by blog proponents is the ability to use your blog (and/or other blogs) to automatically add “fresh” content to your site. Search engines like regularly updated content, and will get in the habit of dropping in to see whats new!

However, as you will have quickly discovered if you’ve had a go at this already, getting the content flowing is somewhat tricky. Everybodys talking about it… but nobody’s saying hey, you can do it this way!

It depends a little on how your site is constructed. For normal people (read non-technical types) who are intent on good search engine rankings, you’ve probably had the good sense to build your site in HTML. That actually makes it a litle bit harder! It just seems that all the web-geeks out there use PHP or similar arcane web construction processes, and of course they make this stuff look easy. However, us normal people can be left sucking air a bit…

RSS to HTML - to use JavaScript or not?

There are quite a few JavaScript RSS to HTML applications available - some free, some at modest cost. My advice? Don’t go near them! The problem with JavaScript here, as in any other area, is that the search engines will simply skip right on by that section of your page. Yep, that’s right - a complete waste of time if you are trying to deliver “fresh” content that a search engine spider will find and index. 

RSS to HTML - use a hybrid PHP solution?

Nothing worth having comes easy… but hey, you know that already! Until someone comes up with a better/easier solution, you are going to have to get your hands dirty with code! What I found, after a day of searching down dead-ends, was a nifty little application called CaRP. Its a PHP-based tool, there is a free version, and it actually works! An example is midway down the page at The SEO Guys site where I’ve extracted and displayed a blog & directory feed from my own site, plus a third feed from an external site.

Achieving this took an hour or so - uploading CaRP, installing a MySQL database for it, running the configuration file, and tweaking settings to display the feed as required. A small block of PHP code must be installed in the HTML page where you wish to display the feed. Execution of PHP scripts within an HTML page has a couple of requirements.

- First, your Hosts server must be configured to allow this.
- Second, you will have to edit (or create) the .htaccess file in your site’s root directory and add a small block of code that allows script processing for your site. This can be configured as site-wide, or for a single page only.

CaRP allows multiple ways of customising the way feeds are displayed. For a start, you can set global formatting to apply to all feeds from within the config file. E.g. you might want to set a default font size on channel titles, and a different size on text within items. You might also want to change the total number of items displayed per listing, and set all links to open in a new window. (Recommended!)  

Then, within the individual HTML page where you specify the feeds to be displayed, you can add different formatting attributes to different feeds. In the example above, all site feeds are displayed as a bulleted lists.
  
For a closer look at the PHP code that achieves the current display, details of .htaccess changes, and for the download location of CaRP etc, go to the following page - RSS to HTML via CaRP

The CaRP application has good documentation, which you will probably have to read… yes, when all else fails, read the instructions!

Good luck!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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;

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.

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.

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.

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;

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.

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.

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.

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.

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