Hello-Add Our RSS FeedThe Netrafic.com Blog offers a mix of “lowdown” and “hoedown” about the Search Marketing Industry. Articles from our monthly newsletter, tips, highlights and "news you can use" will be found here. Thanks for stopping by, Chris and Dave.
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Dec 14 2009

Search Engine Friendly Design

Published by David under Search Engine Optimization, Web Design

Search Engine Friendly Design

A search engine friendly website design is the starting point for any SEO campaign. When considering a new site or redesign, get us involved as early as possible. Often our involvement early in a project will cover a good chunk of the SEO fee we charge by saving you from extra redesign costs and extended development time.

Domain: Your entire primary websites content should be delivered within the domain url structure. Content located anywhere else is NOT considered to be on your website, and no amount of SEO will correct this. This includes content located on off-site blogs, sub-domains of your domain, booking engines, quote engines, MLS data, and reservation systems that reside off-site.

Structure: All design elements and scripts should be called from an external file, not inline or embedded into the web page.

Meta: The <title> tag and <meta name=”description”> tag must have the ability to be independently structured for every page, and must not be tied to any on-page element such as the navigation or the H1 tag. I know this might seem like a remedial SEO point, but I still run into web designs on a regular basis that completely ignore this basic rule. In addition, your site or CMS must not prepend and append any text to the <title> tag.

URL: Every effort should be made to deliver url strings that are short, easy to read, and contain as few odd characters as possible. With URL strings that are dynamically delivered, your web designer should implement a url rewrite technology to emulate a static URL structure.

Content: Text is still the primary way that search engines interpret what your website and individual web pages are all about. If you require a design or page that is primarily graphic or media (Flash or video) there are a number of design tactics that can be used to place text on a web page in a manner that is approved by the search engines, but has a small footprint on the web page.

Duplicate Content: Repetitive content such as calendars or photo galleries should be excluded from the search engines. They create a massive number of duplicate content pages on your site for the search engines to crawl, reducing the overall value and Page Rank equity of your websitesite. Your designer can hash (#) the url strings, or put the section in a directory that can be excluded.

Common Page Elements: Your site design should not include excessive duplicate content that is placed in common site headers, side bars, and footers. Excessive amounts of site-wide repetitive text will dilute your sites content, and its ability to perform in the search engines

Size & Speed Matters: Your site’s load time and overall size have a direct impact on your search engine rankings. Pages that load faster have an advantage. Websites that have more pages have an advantage. Breakup your web pages where feasible. In addition, consider moving to the best server environment available. Dedicated servers and virtual private servers have come way down in cost – hosting is no place to skimp.

Internal Linking: The search engines need to easily be able find every page on your site. Create a navigation structure that is visible to the search engines. Navigation that is deployed in a scripting language like Java or Flash can be invisible to the search engines. Use html links, consider using breadcrumb navigation on every page, and have both a visitor and XML sitemap. The visitor sitemap should have a link on every page, and every page should be on your sitemaps.

Images: Make sure that all unique images have the correct description in the IMG ALT tag. ALT text should be brief and describe the image. Design graphics should leave the IMG ALT tag empty.

Now that your design team has created your search engine friendly website, the next challenge is How to Move Your Website.

*** Thanks to Meredith over at Key to the Rockies ( Keystone Lodging ) for prompting me to write this blog post!

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Dec 13 2009

RightNowosphere Media Marketing

Published by David under Google, Search Engine Optimization, Social Marketing

Google recently added a real time widget to their Search Results Pages (SERPs) in an effort to integrate the growing volume of social media, breaking news, and blogosphere content into the Google Index. The Google Real Time search widget is triggered when the volume of content in the RightNowosphere reaches a certain trending and distribution level. We have experimented over here at RightNow and it is possible to trigger the Real Time display box with a few well placed search term targeted content releases in key channels. Without sustained content support the display box is short lived.

The primary content sources that have been observed in the display are Twitter, press and news websites, plus active blogs and news release sites that deliver an RSS Feed. In addition, press releases and article distribution sites have made appearances in the Google Real Time results.

What This Means to You:

First, we have always and continue to recommend that your online marketing efforts include at a minimum, a blog or news element for content building and link development reasons. Potential inclusion in Real Time Search is another great reason to make sure you have a correctly installed blog or news system in your arsenal. Regular content releases will naturally get distributed in the live results creating additional traffic, and a broader search term base.

Additionally, it is time to consider Twitter; We are seeing actual traffic conversion (revenue!) in certain markets. The key is to have a long term SMM plan that builds your audience, leverages all your web assets, and delivers regular targeted communications. With Twitter you have to be “In It to Win It” and that means a full time effort.

Don’t know where to start?

We can point your blog or SMM plan in the RightNow-o-Sphere direction – Contact Us.

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Dec 10 2009

The Plight of the Dinosaur

Published by Chris under Industry News

I like to read a newspaper just as much as the next person. But I also take in news all day long from so many sources I can’t even count. Nor do I have to. Just today, I was intrigued by the buzz story in the Wall Street Journal about Apple’s ITunes considering a move to the web.

But when I went to the WSJ site they demanded I pay them to read the story. Now, if I read the WSJ regularly online I probably would already be a subscriber. In fact, I do subscribe to several online publications. They never demanded that I do it though.

So what did I do? I went back to Google and queried it for “ITunes on the web”. There was the WSJ link at the top of the page. But Mashable had a take on the same news and there was Reality Check and Huffington Post and all the usual pundits. When I clicked on the blog search button I backfilled with more info about the subject. I even viewed a free video about it!

I will not be bullied on the web. After all its my space not the Wall Street Journal’s. But what’s a dinosaur to do? Everyone has always paid dearly to have one association or another with them. It’s not my fault that they lack the creativity to come up with a new workable plan. It’s remarkable to watch businesses large and small get caught up in the sea change.

I just have to wonder how I might have reacted if the story in the WSJ was really, really good and they just let me read it. What if a banner at the end of the story said, “If this article read was important to you click here”, and in so doing I was swept away to an offer page that made me feel like I was an important business reader. How hard would that be to do ? What would the potential be to convert new business after everyone who was going to subscribe to you already had?

Sorry folks there really is no place in the market for relationships that are not win-win anymore. Those days are fully over. Think about your promotions. Are you doing them because you have to and this is how we’ve always done it? Or are you doing it to cause new business to come from a different angle than you are already getting it from?

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Dec 03 2009

Moving or Redesigning Your Site

Published by David under Search Engine Optimization, Web Design

Moving or Redesigning Your Site

Moving or Redesigning You Site
SEO & Linking Considerations

Your web site is going to move to a new server, or be involved in a site redesign at some point. Often this transition is simultaneous. The prospect of expanding your web presence can be exciting, and help boost your bottom line if done correctly. If done incorrectly, you can wipe out a huge portion of your past work and customer base, as well as destroying your rankings in the search engines. A failure to plan your move is a sure-fire plan for failure!

Are the URLs of your site going to change? Most likely, the answer is yes. Reasons for generating a new URL structure could be that you are moving from a static site to a dynamic site like adding a content management system, upgrading to a different server technology, like moving from .php to .asp or ColdFusion, or implementing a process to make your URLs more Search Engine Friendly.

Your web page URLs are your addresses from the internet to your site. If you change your address without notifying inbound requests, people will not see your website, but instead a blank page with the error message, “The page cannot be found.” This can be devastating if the request is made from a search engine trying to spider your site!

In addition, if you have been developing a comprehensive SEO program for your site, you will have deep links - inbound links to the interior pages of your site. You will lose a large portion of your inbound link inventory if you don’t plan your move.

Here are the steps your web design team needs to take to make the move as smooth as possible.

301 Redirects: Research - pull an inventory of your natural search engine results (in Google use the site: command) and match it up to your most powerful page urls by comparing your statistics. Make sure that you implement a 301 redirect for every indexed page and point requests to the new page location. This needs to be done before moving day.

Custom 404 Page: Realize up front that there are going to be some loose ends. Design a custom 404 “not found” page that is inside the structure of your site and offers a clear menu of options for the human searcher. This will help them engage with your site. Make sure that the site has a clear text link to your sitemap so that search engine spiders can learn about the structure of your site. NEVER automatically redirect bad requests to the home page.

Sitemaps: Make sure you launch the site with a complete sitemap in place so that the search engines can spider your new structure. In addition, you will need to create an XML sitemap and submit it to Google increase the speed at which your new site is indexed.

Pay Per Click: Consider increasing your PPC budget for core terms that drive your business. There is always a natural short term drop in search engine results when you make a change.

Backlink Check: Pull your inventory of incoming links. Change any links that will point to URLs that will become obsolete where possible. Use Google Webmaster Tools to detect broken backlinks. A proper 301 redirect plan should take care of most of these issues.

Outbound Links: Do you have a list of resources or links on your site, or reciprocal link agreements? If so, make sure you have a plan to reinstall them in the new site, and there is a clear way to get to them.

Robots.txt File: Move and update the robots.txt exclusions file to reflect your site structure change. If your private data, images, or testing area has changed locations, make sure to add a line in the file to account for it.

Hosting: If your move involves a hosting / server change make sure your new IP address is not black listed. Some IP ranges get recycled, and may have been previously used in an activity that got them banned. Check how many other sites will be sharing your server if not dedicated  the lower the number the better.

Timing: If you have a seasonal site or known high / low traffic periods plan your move during the slow season.

Build Links: Obtain high value back-links pointing toward your critical interior landing pages just after the site is moved. This will help get your site re-indexed quickly.

It is important to consult your SEO firm prior to making any changes in your site design. This way you can avoid turning your shining star into black hole.

Play Safe! Link-a-Billy Dave

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Nov 18 2009

To Discount or Not To Discount

Published by Chris under Marketing

The burning question in every business owner’s mind this time of year is should I discount and if so when and how much. Under normal economic conditions a good argument can be made for both sides of this discussion. But in tough times like we we face now it’s harder to argue for the side of holding that line. It nearly acknowledges that you are out of touch with consumers.

Because in an extraordinary time like this we are actually resetting prices. Yes, we will be able to raise them again some day, but in my opinion right now we have to pay close attention to what the market can bear. Just look at how WalMart is dominating the early holiday shopping ads with their heartfelt plea to offer low prices.

Face it, if you sell low priced units you are selling less of them or discounting and taking less profit. But most of our clients sell big ticket units and a large majority of you sell leisure and/or vacation oriented units. The plain truth is that consumers who could marginally afford what you offered in the past are “off the list” now. Many who could afford you are now marginal. Yet, still a small percentage are actually doing ok and are able to seize good opportunities to buy cars, homes and leisure time at will when the perceived value is “too good to pass up.” With all of this in mind, you need to spend some time being creative.

What can you offer that is different from the crowd. Right now, it seems like it takes something equal to at least 30% off of your full price. This is not a time to just pay the concept of “discount” momentary lip service and move on. Obviously, the more margin you had to start with the chance you have to still make a reasonable profit. But you also need to look at what a creative discount promotion can do in the long run; create new customers you might never have had.

If you “steal” a long time customer from the competitor down the street through a creative deal that gets people excited and then end up delivering a better product than they got at the other place you sow the seeds for a growing customer base of the future. While out of the scope of our day to day work we do for our clients, we have been marketers since the dawn of time and would be happy to be your sounding board on creative ideas and help you steer through these turbulent times successfully.

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Nov 17 2009

How To Use Google Alerts to Monitor Your Business

Published by David under Google

Google Alerts www.google.com/alerts is an essential tool for business owners that want to monitor their brand, business name, and ultimately their reputation online. With a few quick entries you will be notified via email every time Google discovers the topic of your Alert.

Here is the syntax that I recommend you set up for your Alerts.

Your exact business name in parenthesis - “business name here”

Your domain is mentioned – yourdomain.com

Your website gets indexed – site:yourdomain.com

When links point back to your site - link:yourdomain.com -site:yourdomain.com

This is not a great solution for larger business that receive a large volume of traffic on their brand. But for the normal small business, or individual it is a good advance warning system.

Netrafic clients - If you need help setting this up please feel free to contact us.

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