Search Engine Optimisation

Last year I wrote a FAQ blog, which is one of the more popular blogs of last year. Since then I have collated many other questions from visitors and clients, so once again rather than repeat myself every 2 minutes, here are a few of the more common questions

Q.Does Using PHP or ASP effect SEO?

A. Short answer …. NO.
But I will explain why. Unlike what many people believe Search Engine Robot Programs (SERPs) are not effected by Server Side Coding. SSC’s such as PHP, ASP, Python and ColdFusion (amongst others), are generally used in conjunction with databases such as MYSQL. Drawing data from these databases and forming it into a static webpage.
And this is the key, the language used generates a static HTML webpage, which is what the user and the SERP will see. They do not see the complex structure behind it but rather the simple HTML it is delivered by the database.
Although used all over the net an example of php and MYSQL databases working together is this website.

Q. What is the most commonly used search engine?

A. Without a doubt the most commonly used SE is Google, though MSN Live from time to time says it is. Google has statistics to show that is has more than 300 million searches per day! and has indexed over 3 billion pages, however I believe this figure is to small by at least 10%!

Q. Other companies claim they have a “special relationship” with a search engine, does your company?

A. No. And I can promise the others do not. Yes, from time to time search engines use companies for testing purposes, but there is never a real relationship which will effect search engine results in any way, shape or form. If a company ever claims this type of relationship, I advise you cease contact as A) they are lying and B) they probably use black hat tactics.

Q. What is sandboxing? and why is it used?

A. Sandboxing is a tool of search engines, outed by google in 2004. It’s main purpose is simply to stop new “nothing” pages hitting the top ranks, i.e. before it has been fully indexed and ranked. This sandbox is normally only for a few weeks, just until enough pages are indexed to gain a full picture of the site. So why is it used? Well simply its used to remove the good from the bad, meaning ever page submitted or found has a rank and therefor the better and more reputable sites remain the top ranked.

Q. We have a password protected area, can it be indexed?

A. In short, not by an external SERP. This question is hard to answer fully. But in essence google will not search these “locked” areas, they will remain private. You can however set up your own search which will, an example is in a blog where you can lock the blog to members only which will have its own search robot.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask them, using the comments below.

Over the past few months I have made an effort to be positive and tell the world of Website Owners about how to achieve Great SEO Results. However, it isn’t always a bed of roses I am sorry to say. Below is my Top 10 List of actions which can cause your SEO to fail.

1. – Relying on Meta Tags – This has to be number one because its effectiveness has reduced month on month for the past few years. Don’t get me wrong, they are still important … just not for the same reasons they used to be.
Although opinion is spread about the keywords tag and it’s use, for those in doubt use them, and even if not in doubt still use them, some search engines still rely on them!
As for the Description tag is an important tag because although not used directly to improve your search rank, it is used in search results by most search engines, along with the page title, to give the search engine user and idea of what can be found on a specific page.

2. – Purchasing Links – Please do not think by this I mean you should not advertise or sponsor another site for the means of traffic, what I am meaning is that buying links within text on a website should be thought about carefully for the following reasons (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Search Engines have things called spiders/robots. As well as reporting back about your site and it’s content they also report back on certain areas and keywords found such as “Ad”, “Advert” and “Sponsor” etc.  It is believed that any links surrounding this will have no effect and will not be used for any kind of search engine ranking system.
• Google accepts report of paid linking (as do other search engines) and all reports are passed on to thier team of experts.
• Google has a large team in Asia who’s specific task is to look for (and at) paid linking, flagging any possible paid links, making it useless for the purpose of SEO (though this isn’t to say they do not drive traffic to your site).
• If a search engine finds that you are amongst the thousands always paying for links, a part of the pattern which they search for to show such a thing up they can and will ban your site, either on a permanent or temporary basis.
• Get only Meaningful Links

3. – Keyword Stuffing - This can be one of the most damaging aspects of content for a website. Spiders will report back on keyword density (amongst other things). If your site is found to have a density of above 15% it will be considered that you are keyword stuffing. Your site will then be reviewed and possibly face the same banning issues as for paid links. However if your site has a density of over 30% you are likely to face an immediate ban. The ideal density is around 7%.

4. – Invisible Text – This is text which a user cannot see, but a search engine can. It is normally hidden -9999px off a page or is disguised by being the same colour as the background. In truth this is easy to spot not least because if you perform such a (black hat) trick, you are likely to never have made a website and therefore perform the action directly in the code. However, even if its hidden in external CSS you can be certain this will have be spidered, meaning search engines know your site layout and will now look out for the attribute id’s and class names that may standout.

5. – Duplicate Content – This is normally done in one of three ways. Duplicate Websites this is normally where a company has 2 websites for the same selling purpose but with different marketing strategies. Doorway Pages / Links this is where two or more sites by the same company have “covert links” between themselves, this is to say one “about us” page may lead to the information on another site. Blog NOPP this is where a blog post does not use Old Post Promotion techniques (such as link backs with excerpts) but rather copies the whole post (making it appear like a new post), its quite easy to find two pages exactly the same on a site for a search engine.

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AK Designs Recently ran a christmas giveaway offering various prizes including FREE SEO contracts!!!

Congratulations to the winner:

First Prize Winner (3 free months SEO) -VoteTheDay  

Second Prize (1 free months SEO) - Dollar Dude 

And the winners of the 4 permenant links are:

TagZeo

JustH

CallenderCreates

ITriggers

Watch out for this weeks article: The Top 10 Things to Destory your SEO!!!

There is just one day left to enter our Christmas Giveaway 2008! 

Just by commenting or social bookmarking this post you can get 3 months FREE SEO work for your site!

Competition Ends Saturday 10th January 2009 at 11.59pm.

Ever thought what would happen if social networking died, rather prematurely…aka NOW?!?!

Well having just read the Google SEO Guide – PDF (again) I am now living in a little fear, at least with Google they could be about to significantly reduce the inpact Social Networking links have.

Sites built around user interaction and sharing have made it easier to match interested groups of people up with relevant content.
Avoid:
• attempting to promote each new, small piece of content you create; go for big, interesting items
• involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the top of these services

Although Social Networking has not been around for many years, it was quickly adopted by search engines as being very important. If a link became viral through these portals surely it was the crowds that wanted to see it! and this means it should be top of the rankings. However this was based on the ideal situation that no person would ever buy votes or anything like this. (This ideal shows what kind of sheltered life people at these search engine companies can live). So maybe this shows that at least Google are noticing this can and does happen (and it will never stop).

So what does this really mean? why should this bother the average website owner?
Well in truth, immediately I believe it means very little. Right now you should continue to social network, and share links with the world. This at least for the majority means you are encouraging good content. However at the same time you should consider that it appears as though the search engines are moving trends back towards real links from websites it considers to be “good”. This does not mean that social networking is or will ever be blackhat. However finding the next big craze that search engines like may also be key.

I think I found it in Twitter

This is a guest post written by Aaron Irizarry, of www.thisisaaronslife.com . Aaron is a creative geek, he is passionate not only about web design but also web development. I would like to thank Aaron for this article and hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

Working for a local search marketing company has had its benefits over the last year and a half. Not only have I had the opportunity to grow as a web designer, I’ve expanded my skill set to project management, user interface, and user experience design and control. I would have to say that the most valuable lesson that I have learned is the ability to combine Search Engine Optimization with design.

Now we all know that we need to optimize our sites to get them better ranking both in the local and organic arenas. Most of the time we leave this to others, but as designers if we are conscious of some of the major components that make up a well optimized site we can remove most of the extra effort by designing for optimization.

So what can we do as designers that will value / enhance optimization?

1)     Design for content.

One of the most important components of good optimization is valuable content. As we are designing it is important that we focus on content, knowing that content is king. So during the design process we should make sure to be informing our clients about the value of content, helping them understand its value to what we are designing as well as its importance to optimization.

“A website without a content strategy is like a speeding vehicle without a driver. Learn why content matters and how to do it right.” ~ A List Apart

2)     Building Sound Architecture.

When laying out a site keep in mind that the architecture needs to be sound. Once coded, does the layout lend to the search engine crawlers being able to crawl the site easily? Is there a solid internal link structure?  As designers, we need to keep architecture at the forefront of our designs; our content will not be used to its full potential if we are not building it around a solid foundation. Using internal links within our relevant content will help the crawlers to visit the pages within our site more frequently.

Not all of us code the designs we create, and at times the site structure has been predetermined, but we have the ability to influence the architecture by our design concepts… We must strive for solid architecture whenever possible.

3)     Don’t Put a Square Peg In a Round Hole.

Know when and where to use your tags, especially <h> tags. Not every title on your page should be an <h1> tag; learn about how to use your tags to effectively guide the crawlers through your site. Find creative ways to display your headings, either by using negative margins, or clean styling. Avoid using images for your headings unless you are using an image replacement technique.

Besides tags it is also important to know when to use graphics in our links. When creating buttons it is important to remember that anchored links are another important element to optimization, especially in the link building process. As designers it is our responsibility to use creative techniques via css or otherwise to add visual appeal to our buttons without sacrificing optimization.
  
Conclusion

As designers/developers we may not fully understand SEO, that is ok, it is not for us to master optimization (though the more we know the better) but instead to obtain a nice firm grasp of the basics. By doing this we can better equip our clients to get the most out of the product we are delivering, whether we are helping with the optimization, or someone else is taking it on, the least we can do is design the site so it is optimization friendly.

Granted I am no expert on SEO but just by increasing my knowledge base I have been able to improve the services that I offer my clients.

Thanks to Andy for the opportunity to contribute,

~ Aaron I

Article Editor – JGeary

Last year saw what must be considered the real launch of AK Designs (andykinsey.com). For many years I had fiddled with the likes of flash websites, wholey graphical websites, but then last year I made a change. I decided that rather than jump into a hole and dig it by doing everything myself I would take on a CMS engine, or two …now three. These engines mean I can now run websites with minimal effort, I can let the “site manager” actually manage! Before they would email be changes, normally in such a manner I couldn’t understand fully, but this means they can use a word processor type input and actually manage the site. One such website is Brettargh Holt. This includes blogs, e-commerce stores, and more.

Also 2008 saw me tackle something of great importance. I took on the challenge of Search Engine Optimisation, which this site is based on (so take a snoop around for more SEO info). Through the likes of Social Networking, Social Media and general Search Engine Optimising, I can bring almost any site from being a dead traffic zone to being amongst the alexa ranking sites (generally considered to be the top 1% of website rankings), improve a websites pagerank (googles ranking method) and much more (trade secrets hush ). I also now offer adwords packages as well as a range of general SEO/SEM packages.

Newsletters (otherwise known as E-Mail Shots) have also become a large part of the AK Designs business, in december alone reaching 50K openings! (and we are approaching 150K since the opening of this site and our e-newsletter service). We offer services to any company from the little market trader to the largest companies (including government agencies!).

So what for 2009? 
Well to be honest, the future is bright, AK Designs is in such a place it can take off quite soon. We can no longer be considered a small nominal entity, rather a medium sized specialist company. We have much to offer, and with many innovations coming soon, AK Designs can offer both its current and its perspective clients more than ever before.

Finally I would like to give special thanks to:
Leanne – Imran M. – Aaron I. – Mike Phillips – Derek Harvie – Sr Val – UniqueBlogger – Tim (TSLUK) – Paul Boag – Shaun Barnes – Leo Laporte
and many many more!