amyrivers.com

Over time, most website owners will re-design their websites - whether to improve functionality, re-brand or simply to put a prettier skin on their existing information. There also may be reasons to switch website hosting companies. During re-designs and hosting changes, there are a few things to keep in mind to preserve any optimization efforts you have already made (also to keep your current ranking).

First thing to know - if you are switching to a new domain name (i.e. xyzcompany.com is now abc-corp.com), it is absolutely critical that you redirect your previous URL’s to point to your new pages. Using 301 redirects, you will point old page URL’s to new pages resulting in something like this:

xyzcompany.com/about.html  — now points to– abc-corp.com/about.html

Same page. Different web address (URL).

Why is this important? Well, search engines have indexed the URL’s to your old pages - they use those URL’s to re-visit your site. If you completely change your URL’s, search engines will have a harder time finding you and you may lose ranking. Also, anyone who is linking to your old URL’s will find themselves with broken links unless you redirect the old addresses to the new pages.

In every re-design scenario, unless you are keeping the exact same site structure and URL structure, there should be a plan in place prior to the re-designfor redirecting old URL’s.

Second, make testing a priority. Don’t leave this all important step completely in the hands of your design team. They may not be aware of all the important SEO elements you’ve included in your site. Instead, check the new site yourself. Make sure all your page titles and meta tags have been transferred in the re-design. This is also important in hosting changes, since your data will have bee moved and it is possible that things may have been forgotten in the transition. Make sure your links work, that all the navigation works and that the site looks the way it should.

Third, work on your link generation efforts. If your site structure and URL’s have changed, you may need to contact the important websites that link to you and edit the page that they link to (often times, a friendly note to the webmaster will take care of this problem). Submit your new sitemap to Google using Google Webmaster Tools. And contact new sites to let them know about your new site design. Generating new links at this stage will only help you gain ranking and improve your Internet presence.

As part 2 of my case study for Travels in Taste, a new fine dining guide, I would like to discuss link building.  As you may suspect, I strongly advocate link building as part of a complete web marketing strategy. Since the links leading to your site impact your search engine ranking, it is really important to make link building a regular part of your web marketing efforts.

Case in point. With Travels in Taste, we began link building preparations months in advance of the site launch. Since the site was not live, we could not ask people to link to it at the time. But what we did do was start conversations. By contacting webmasters ahead of time, we were able to generate interest in link exchangea and determine which sites would make good link partners. In many cases, sites we contacted offered advertising only. This prep work allowed us to gather advertising information as well (information that we can now use in deciding whether or not to do online advertising).

Once the site launched, I quickly re-initiated contact with a handful of prospective link exchange partners and within a week of launch, we had links!

Inbound links are important during the launch of a new site because they provide points of entry for search engines (i.e. when a search engine is visiting a site, they follow all the links that site contains - hence, they find your site). The more often a search engine makes it to your site, the more likely that your pages will be added to the search engine’s index. In the case of TravelsinTaste.com, more than a dozen pages have already been indexed by Google.

I’m going to do a case study series on a new client site, http://www.travelsintaste.com. This is Part 1.

In my career, I have spent countless hours talking with prospective clients about the importance of doing web marketing prior to your website launch (i.e. during design or redesign phase). My client did a very respectacle amount of research, market analysis and planning prior to her website launch and I would like to share some of the ways in which this dedication to planning and strategy has benefited her.

First, in creating a website marketing strategy for TravelsInTaste.com, I performed extensive keyword research. Her website is comprised of numerous related pages (restaurant listings) located in a handful of US cities. Due to the sheer size of the site and number of locations, it became clear early on that avoiding duplicate content and creating an easy-to-manage SEO strategy would be our two primary goals.

To that end, I created a “keyword mapping scheme.” (i.e. rules for assigning keywords to content pages with as little duplication as possible) As you might imagine, coming up with unique keywords for hundreds of web pages is a daunting task. To create uniqueness, I used a series of rules and variations to keywords. For instance, for New York restaurants we used New York City, NYC and Manhattan as alternate ways to describe the location. In addition, we used modifying words like romantic, top rated, exclusive, fine and outdoor to differentiate keywords like “dining” and “restaurant.”

With the keyword mapping scheme clearly stated, it became an easy task to assign keywords to different pages and create optimized content. When new pages are added, optimizing these pages becomes a much simpler task. This became increasingly important as the website when from 300 to 400 and even 500+ pages! And, as the client expands the site to include new restaurants and locations, a clear process has been put in place to make optimization more manageable.

In Part 2, I will discuss link building preparation. Stay tuned…

Recently, a client asked:

If you do image replacement on headers with css will those images be indexed by search engines?

In answer to that question, I want to discuss intent. In the Google Webmaster Guidelines, Google says:

“If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages. ” (read complete discussion here)

Now, the use of CSS to hide text is listed as one possibly punishable offense by Google.  But the key phrase here, I think, is “deceptive in intent.” For instance, if you intent is to use CSS image replacement to load your pages with keywords that users will not see, then yes, you should expect to be penalized. On the other hand, if you are simply repeating your image text so that spiders can see it too, then you probably will not have a problem in the search engines.

Ultimately, determining intent is difficult - especially for a computer. If your site is otherwise search engine friendly and spam-free,  you most likely will not have any trouble in the search engines.

In implementing your CSS image replacement, please consider the following rules (rules that should be applied to all of your search engine optimization efforts):

1. Make sure your text is meaningful.
2. Don’t keyword load - use keywords sparingly and only when relevant to website content.
3. Always remember, your website is about human users first.  Use of cloaking and other deceptive devices intended to improve your search engine ranking can be extremely damaging and, in the end, may keep you from accomplishing your primary goal - to reach your target audience. 

On November 15, 2007, Julie Roberts asked:

I was wondering, I’m involved with a new startup company that is mostly web-based. We would like to set up some type of dialogue betweeen our target audience and ourselves. The challenge is we’re not sure what type of medium would be best. What do you think? Should it be an open forum or a blog of sorts… We would love to have your input on the matter…

To answer your question, I’d like to offer this discussion of blogs and forums.  First, blogs and forums share a lot of common features. They both allow you to post content. They both allow users to comment on posts and to comment on other comments. In this way, both blogs and forums create a arena for conversation between you and your customers.

 Some difference…

 Forums generally require registration before users can post comments. In addition, focums often allow users to send private messages to one another. Ultimately, forums encourage “community.” When users register for a forum, they are not only able to find information on topics that interest them, but they can easily connect to other people who share the same interests. In this way, forums are just as much about connecting people as they are about providing useful information.

Blogs also encourage dialogue between users, but in a different way. First, blogs do not necessarily require registration (though you can set yours up to require users to register before posting). In addition, blogs do not allow privte interactions in the same way that forums do. The point of a blog is more about the posting of articles and other topical content. Whether the blog is informational or merely a place to share opinions on selected topics, users interact with this content (or at least with a focus on content).  They do not necessarily interact with each other.

One important feature that blogs offer is RSS. Bloggers can setup their blog to offer RSS feeds. Users can then subscribe to blogs that they enjoy reading and receive new posts to an RSS reader or mobile device. In effect, users don’t have to go to your website to enjoy new blog posts - they just open up their RSS reader, cell phone or PDA and anytime you post something new, they can read it right away!

 From a search engine perspective, blogs do tend to get more notice. In my experience, forums can be harder to optimize. Posts are often short and the format tends to be very dynamic, making it difficult for search engines to grab hold of the content. With a blog, posts become permanent pieces of website content. You can use permalinks and other features to help search engines find your posts. And, since posts are often focused on a particular topic, it is easier to use relevant keywords to increase your search engine rankings.

 At the end of the day, both blogs and forums are useful in their own ways. It is important to ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish for your website. And, don’t forget, these tools are not mutually exclusive - you can have both!