09 November 2008
SEO Trade Secrets - Writing Good Links
Every quarter I run a seminar Bristol for SMEs and start up businesses called How To Market Your Website. On this course I outline best practice for optimising your website to be found by your prospects using search engines, specifically Google.
External links - links from other sites
Internal links - links on your pages
Site maps
Links on your main page
So on the last course the entrepreneur who runs this Bristol Fashion Boutique asked how she could write better links in her website copy, or indeed when someone links to her site.
Well, the above link is a pretty damned fine example even though I do say so myself. I'll tell you why...
The "Anchor Text" (the blue, underlined bit) is useful to Google and humans. It describes what you will find when you click the link, and Google loves good anchor text...
In this case the anchor text is "Bristol Fashion Boutique", which means that Google will improve the landing page's (the page that the link points at) standing within it's index for the words "Bristol Fashion Boutique". I could have used the domain name: www.elsieriley.com as the anchor text, but that just means that Google will rank the page more highly for that search term and the website will always rank highly for that, so it's a waste of time. Plus, if people know the domain name, then they already know what the business does, so we're unlikely to win any new sales. The search term "Bristol Fashion Boutique" is much more likely to be used by people who don't know that Elsie Riley exists and therefore is likely to win more new sales from new customers.
I could have used the other crappy web page standards of 'click here', 'more info' and 'find out more' as the anchor text, but these would tell Google to rank the landing page more highly for the words 'click here', etc and who wants to rank highly for that?
If you mouse over the link to Elsie Riley's site again, you'll notice that a little bit of descriptive text pops up to tell you a bit more about the landing page than is already contained in the anchor text... this is called the 'title' attribute for the link (not to be confused with the page title). This is great for people using screen readers (devices which 'speak' the web page to a blind person) and again, for Google!
So, in short you should put descriptive keyphrases (the search terms people would use to find your site on Google) in your anchor text links, and in those anchor text links, include keyphrase rich title attributes anywhere you can, such as:
External links - links from other sites
Internal links - links on your pages
Site maps
Links on your main page
Here's a template you could use to create good anchor text links:
To make this link: A Descriptive Keyphrase, you need to use code that looks like this:
<a href="http://www.your-web-page.com" title="another keyphrase about the landing page">A Descriptive Keyphrase</a>
<a href="http://www.your-web-page.com" title="another keyphrase about the landing page">A Descriptive Keyphrase</a>
It's really useful to use this format as a link in the signature you use in any forums to help build link popularity too.
If you find this all a little difficult, just create a word document telling your web designer what you'd like the anchor text and title attribute to be for each text link on your site (if you have lots, just start with those on the most popular pages) and send it to them asking for a quote. If they tell you it's not relevant or it's too time consuming then send them to me. I love making web designers bend to my will.
Alternatively contact me, the web consultant and I'll help you get your web site to rank higher in Google. See what I did there, anchor text link fans?
Big love to you, and as we say in the 'hood; Peace Out.
Labels: better search engine rankings, SEO Trade Secrets
13 October 2008
SEO Trade Secrets - Generating Sitemap XML Files
If you want Google to know about every link on your website... you need to get an account here:
www.google.co.uk/webmasters/
And upload a sitemap.xml file - I spent ages trying to find a way to generate for these pesky sitemap.xml files and found this sitemap generator. It's fantastic and does loads of additional stuff such as point out 404 errors and broken links.
Sweet huh?
I'll go on about xml sitemaps and their importance to Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN/Live when I have more time.
www.google.co.uk/webmasters/
And upload a sitemap.xml file - I spent ages trying to find a way to generate for these pesky sitemap.xml files and found this sitemap generator. It's fantastic and does loads of additional stuff such as point out 404 errors and broken links.
Sweet huh?
I'll go on about xml sitemaps and their importance to Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN/Live when I have more time.
Labels: better search engine rankings, SEO Trade Secrets
31 July 2008
SEO Trade Secrets - 301 Redirects
301 Redirects are something I touched on briefly in this post: Considerations When Building A New Site. However they so important when you re-launch, re-design, re-jig or just shake up, your website, that the humble 301 Redirect deserves a more detailed post.
301 Redirects are simple little bits of code that say "Hi, this page has moved - I'll send you to the new one". Now we as humans don't see this, so why are 301 Redirects important?
Well, when you change the content of your site, often all the old pages disappear and result in error pages which look like this or this. These missing pages are known as 404 errors. Gosh! Aren't we having fun with these 3 digit numbers?
Anyway, this is bad news for anyone who has bookmarked the (now missing) pages on your website and slightly inconvenient for them as they'll have to type your URL (your web address) into their browser.
Even worse if the web visitor has arrived on this non-existent page having followed a link from another website which is extolling the virtues of your product and you as a supplier. They ain't buying from you now, you look like some flaky internet con artist.
Possibly even worse than this is when the page is featuring in the natural search engine results of Google or similar, because not only are your prospective customers following this link, finding an error and buying from someone else, but Google itself is repeatedly checking your site and finding 404 errors where it used to find, good, useful information. If you've worked hard on your site it probably has a good Google Page Rank and these missing pages are likely have an adverse effect on the page rank for all the pages within your site.
301 Redirects will stop all this happening!
Use a 301 Redirect to redirect all pages on your old site to your new site permanently. This tells search engines and users that your site has permanently moved. Google recommends that you move and redirect a section or directory first, and then test to make sure that your redirects are working correctly before moving all your content.
IIS 301 Redirect
1. In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
2. Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
3. Enter the redirection page
4. Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
5. Click on 'Apply'
ColdFusion 301 Redirect
<.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently"> <.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html">
PHP 301 Redirect
<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html" );
?>
ASP 301 Redirect
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html/"
%>
ASP .NET 301 Redirect
<script runat="server">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html");
}
</script>
JSP (Java) 301 Redirect
<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>
CGI PERL 301 Redirect
$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect("http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html");
Ruby on Rails 301 Redirect
def old_action
headers["Status"] = "301 Moved Permanently"
redirect_to "http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html"
end
.htaccess 301 Redirect (for HTML 301 Redirects use this too)
1. Either create an .htaccess file, open notepad, name and save the file as .htaccess (there is no extension) or if you already have a .htaccess file on your server, download it to your desktop for editing.
2. Place this code in your .htaccess file:
redirect 301 /old/old.html http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html
3. If the .htaccess file already has lines of code in it, skip a line, then add the above code.
6. Save the .htaccess file and upload to the root folder of your server.
If you are running a Unix server with mod_rewrite enabled you can do some really funky redirects, but I'm not showing you that for nothing. You'll need to buy me sweets.
If you have any questions call the web consultancy and I'll help you.
Bo!
301 Redirects are simple little bits of code that say "Hi, this page has moved - I'll send you to the new one". Now we as humans don't see this, so why are 301 Redirects important?
Well, when you change the content of your site, often all the old pages disappear and result in error pages which look like this or this. These missing pages are known as 404 errors. Gosh! Aren't we having fun with these 3 digit numbers?
Anyway, this is bad news for anyone who has bookmarked the (now missing) pages on your website and slightly inconvenient for them as they'll have to type your URL (your web address) into their browser.
Even worse if the web visitor has arrived on this non-existent page having followed a link from another website which is extolling the virtues of your product and you as a supplier. They ain't buying from you now, you look like some flaky internet con artist.
Possibly even worse than this is when the page is featuring in the natural search engine results of Google or similar, because not only are your prospective customers following this link, finding an error and buying from someone else, but Google itself is repeatedly checking your site and finding 404 errors where it used to find, good, useful information. If you've worked hard on your site it probably has a good Google Page Rank and these missing pages are likely have an adverse effect on the page rank for all the pages within your site.
301 Redirects will stop all this happening!
Use a 301 Redirect to redirect all pages on your old site to your new site permanently. This tells search engines and users that your site has permanently moved. Google recommends that you move and redirect a section or directory first, and then test to make sure that your redirects are working correctly before moving all your content.
It's best not to do a single redirect directing all traffic from your old site to your new homepage. This will avoid 404 errors, but it's not a good user experience. It's more work, but a page-to-page redirect will help preserve your site's ranking in Google while providing a consistent and transparent experience for your users. If there won't be a 1:1 match between pages on your old site and your new site (recommended), try to make sure that every page on your old site is at least redirected to a new page with similar content.
How to do 301 Redirects.
IIS 301 Redirect
1. In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
2. Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
3. Enter the redirection page
4. Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
5. Click on 'Apply'
ColdFusion 301 Redirect
<.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently"> <.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html">
PHP 301 Redirect
<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html" );
?>
ASP 301 Redirect
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html/"
%>
ASP .NET 301 Redirect
<script runat="server">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html");
}
</script>
JSP (Java) 301 Redirect
<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>
CGI PERL 301 Redirect
$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect("http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html");
Ruby on Rails 301 Redirect
def old_action
headers["Status"] = "301 Moved Permanently"
redirect_to "http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html"
end
.htaccess 301 Redirect (for HTML 301 Redirects use this too)
1. Either create an .htaccess file, open notepad, name and save the file as .htaccess (there is no extension) or if you already have a .htaccess file on your server, download it to your desktop for editing.
2. Place this code in your .htaccess file:
redirect 301 /old/old.html http://www.new-url.com/new-page.html
3. If the .htaccess file already has lines of code in it, skip a line, then add the above code.
6. Save the .htaccess file and upload to the root folder of your server.
If you are running a Unix server with mod_rewrite enabled you can do some really funky redirects, but I'm not showing you that for nothing. You'll need to buy me sweets.
If you have any questions call the web consultancy and I'll help you.
Bo!
Labels: better search engine rankings, SEO Trade Secrets
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