TexasDesign.com

Imagine a company coming to you that is thrilled to finally be revamping their tired old website design with your fresh new concept.  They love the vibrancy of the colors, they are ecstatic about the design, they can’t get over your creativity with the layout… then when the site finally goes live, their search engine rankings plummet because the URL’s weren’t redirected properly.  Suddenly, that once happy client is now leaving a message that begins with “we have to talk…” on your voicemail.

It happens all the time.  I saw this very situation happen up close and personal with a large children’s clothing e-tailer.  When I met them, they were desperately trying to boost their search engine position by spending a large sum on aggressive SEO after loosing ranking in the wake of a website redesign.

When redirecting URL’s it’s best to learn about the topic in full depth or to factor in the cost of hiring a web development firm that specializes in search engine optimization to help you to accomplish this properly.

Here are some key things to note if you’ll be handling the redirect yourself:

• Never use JavaScript to redirect:  Search engine spiders don’t execute JavaScript and therefore will only read the content from the old pages.
• Use a permanent 301 redirect if the URL’s will change, or if there are pages that once existed, but won’t any longer.  If you’re going from HTML to PHP file extension, or if you move from a flat file to a directory structure then consequently, all of your URL’s will change.  Also, if you change shopping cart software, the long query string associated with products will be completely different once the new software is implemented.
• Prevent future redirect problems by create search engine friendly URL’s using rewrite rules in the .htaccess file.

Example:

RewriteRule ^dog_beds/(.+)/(.+)/(.+)-(.+)-(.+)-(.+)\.htm$ product_info.php?group_title=$1&product_title=$2&sub_title=$3&pet_title=$4&breed_title=$5&figurine=$6

• If you only want to redirect visitors temporarily (for example, to show an “under construction” page) use a 302 temporary redirect.
• Use the “site:www.yourdomain.com” command to ensure that all of the pages that search engines have indexed have a new home.  This will allow you to view all of the pages that Google has indexed so that you can test for a proper redirect.

David Williams is an Ethical Search Engine Optimization expert located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is vice president of the web development and SEO firm Unlimited Web Solutions.  David is a public speaker and has worked with people all over the United States marketing their websites.

There is a right way and a wrong way to create a website’s overall URL architecture in terms of SEO. Though not part of the “design” itself, designers must often establish the linking structure when tasked to create the individual pages of the website, filling them with existing content or design elements.

Take a look at the following two URL’s:

www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/gaming/

www.orangeshag.com/?page=10&cPath=21

Both of these pages sell t-shirts, but judging from the URL only, you can only guess that the first one sells t-shirts.
You should be able to read a URL backward and know exactly what each page contains. Search engines can only read text, so this is critical. If you were to read the first URL backward, you could discern that this page offers “gaming tshirts,” and it absolutely does.

Though the second site is beautifully designed, the context of the page is completely ambiguous from the URL. Not surprisingly, I found the second example from a paid advertisement, not from an organic web search.)

This type of linking structure has been coined “siloing” by SEO guru Bruce Clay.

Some other points to mention in terms of creating SEO friendly URL’s

• Keep categories (such as “gaming” and “tshirts”) short, sweet, and descriptive
• Use dashes instead of underscores
• Use static URL’s versus dynamic

David Williams is an Ethical Search Engine Optimization expert located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He works with people all over the United States marketing their websites. David has also been a public speaker since 2000.

There is a right way and a wrong way to create a website’s overall URL architecture in terms of SEO. Though not part of the “design” itself, designers must often establish the linking structure when tasked to create the individual pages of the website, filling them with existing content or design elements.

Take a look at the following two URL’s:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/gaming/

http://www.orangeshag.com/?page=10&cPath=21

Both of these pages sell t-shirts, but judging from the URL only, you can only guess that the first one sells t-shirts.

You should be able to read a URL backward and know exactly what each page contains. Search engines can only read text, so this is critical. If you were to read the first URL backward, you could discern that this page offers “gaming tshirts,” and it absolutely does.

Though the second site is beautifully designed, the context of the page is completely ambiguous from the URL. Not surprisingly, I found the second example from a paid advertisement, not from an organic web search.)

This type of linking structure has been coined “siloing” by SEO guru Bruce Clay.

Some other points to mention in terms of creating SEO friendly URL’s

• Keep categories (such as “gaming” and “tshirts”) short, sweet, and descriptive
• Use dashes instead of underscores
• Use static URL’s versus dynamic

About the Author
David Williams is an Ethical Search Engine Optimization expert located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He works with people all over the United States marketing their websites. David has also been a public speaker since 2000.

Menu links are some of the most important features on a website in terms of SEO. The keywords in these links tell search engines about the main idea of the content on the connecting page and also give search engine spiders access to other areas of the site. That is – if the menus are search engine friendly.

Many of the more visually elaborate menus are SEO show stoppers. Some ways to ensure that your menus are search engine friendly are:

• Use text for menu links: Search engines read texts, so ideally menu links should be text as opposed to graphically designed buttons. Instead, use CSS to create design. Read more

Creating a well designed web sites is the goal of every designer. But, before you have even started designing the site you need to make sure people can find it, very rarely do people just type in your URL and go to your site. So you need to dive head first into learning how to create Search Engine Friendly web sites.

Here is the good, bad, and the ugly.

Good news: There are a ton of sites and services that give away information regarding Search Engine Optimization. The bad news is sometimes that info is wrong, and the ugly is that sometimes you can’t tell which is which. The SEO game moves a fairly fast pace and what works today may or may not work tomorrow. there are fundamental tactics that will always work.

Below is a listing of sites/blogs that take the long view on creating sites that will work today and tomorrow and should hold up to any scrutiny as the SEF game continues to evolve. My recommendation is to look over the links below, and follow the ones that make the most sense for you. These flks know thier stuff and will not lead you astray..

SEO Book

SEO Research Labs

Stunt Doubl

Traffik

A great overview for building a site http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm

In conclusion. the title says Free (well almost). The only costs are your time!

Article submitted by By Michael Cordova of Mercury Leads, Inc.

A landing page is a web page that is created for one purpose - to persuade the site visitor to convert into a customer by making a sale, completing a form (thereby becoming a qualified lead), signing up for a newsletter, etc. The landing page quick reference tip sheet is designed so that you can referrence it out every time you are creating a persuasive landing page.

First and foremost, consider that you have 8 seconds or less to convince your visitor to act. If you haven’t convincingly made your case in this time then your visitor will move on and will be lost, as the Internet has created the most fickle customer in sales history. Read more