Search Engine Optimisation

Today (25th Sept) is our birthday.

That’s right this online venture is officially one year old (ok so officially AK Designs is older, but I’m talking in this current very successful format). When I began writing these blog posts and articles last year I never believed myself I would still be writing today about the same stuff, I thought I would quickly run out of steam and maybe become tired of it. This really isn’t the case though! I am more excited than ever to be part of this industry and joining the innovation train to success.

Apparently This is What My Cake is Meant to Look Like

Can I just mention that if my cake looks like this I will be happy… I suspect its squished though. Also I will be even happier if it had a Windows logo or the Google logo on it.
(this image was sent by a few people so i suspect it’s a wind-up …but I will take a pic of real cake later)

At this point I want to just thank everyone who has supported my efforts over the past year, all the people I annoyed the hell out of in an attempt to get things proof read (which didn’t always run smoothly) … those people I bore with details on the more complicated aspects of SEO, the freelancers I work with for everything they have done and continue to do for AK Designs. But most of all I want to thank you the reader, without your support this blog would be nothing, and AK Designs would have zero clients and wouldn’t be the on going success it is. So thank you.

Just this morning I received another update from GoogleWebmastersBlog – a little gem if you’ve never heard of it … full of little tit-bits we all really should know… and a few slightly more complicated things too but hey thats life.  Anyway this weeks subject was “Google Doesn’t Use the Keywords Meta Tag in Ranking” … I decided this was worth a read (most the time I pass on the opportunity given that I read so many blogs and GMB seems to go over the same subjects without so much depth).

It won’t be a surprise given the title of the post that Google claim they never really use this meta tag and they haven’t for a while… no surprise at all if you’ve worked in SEO for more than a couple of days… this theory is years old (and now seemingly confirmed).

Without going over what has been said in the blog post I want to draw a few conclusions about the post.

1. Although Matt Cutt’s is completely open about everything (it appears) and posts this kind of thing on a regular basis, I’ve began to question why … for so long Google were secretive about things and now they are letting slip a little… I don’t think so … I think its more likely that Matt is regurgitating old news. – So don’t take anything as gospel.
2. In the post they even state they do have the option to implement this on enterprise search but don’t keywords “simply don’t have any effect in our search ranking at present.” and “currently we [google] see no need to change that policy.”… to me this means they are more than likely to go back to using them at some point… maybe this post is their effort to slowly begin the process of removing this tag from the wild … so in a few years it can return hopefully in a much cleaner and less spammy format.
3. This I must repeat is fairly old news! All SEO’s have known for sometime a number of Search Engines discard them (to some extent) or maybe just don’t weight them … we all know Content is King! – and always will be. … but incase you need some in-depth help – here is my Stupidly Simple SEO guide.

So the question now really is will you continue to use Keywords on your sites? (let us know below)

For myself I will continue to use them, I know some smaller engines still use them… I never ranked them highly enough for this post to matter to me as I know Content is King! But all of my sites will continue to have keywords in the meta … and in the future this may help … who knows when they will flick the switch to make them matter again?

Ok firstly I apologise in the break in service here, but I feel like as a Geek with a G1 (Google Phone / T-mobile G1 / HTC Magic) and as an early adopter of said phone that I need to share my rather excited manner surrounding it. Today I installed a Custom ROM onto the system … it makes it faster… more tactile and it has added features (which I will talk about in a moment).

Now I wont go into all the details of how to do that … its fairly simple so just head over to SmarterWare.org and take a look at Gina’s little walk through. What I do want to do is spend a few moments explaining a few of the pitfalls and failwhales that can / did occur.

Firstly the size of the ROM is an issue in my non 3G area (I moved here!) however this was salvaged by using someone’s internet when they wern’t looking. – ok not really an issue

Next is the issue that it took a few downloads as the download was corrupted according to the phone – but you wont know this until your almost finished (just as you go to install it says its corrupt…bummer … you have to restore your backup in nandroid – be careful not to do what i did on another handset and backup a corrupted system…. its quite hard to get back from – if this happens contact me I will help you – again this isn’t a regular occurrence it appears which is nice

Thirdly you really must be very careful and backup all of your data from your SD card – I forgot and have lost A LOT of images.

Fourthly you loose all your apps (even paid ones) this sucks a little bit more than most things.

Next with the update in this tutorial I have an issue with WorkMail …. it doesn’t authenticate properly and is being silly.

Next up is an issue that I came across during my second attempt (of 3) basically during the reboot sequence it began looping …. I left it 20mins hoping but it continued… only way out was to remove the battery and restore to try again.

After you successfully install it, it installs its nice new logo … it will stick there for a few mins and then may black screen for a few mins – don’t worry it will load… if it doesn’t remove the battery and try again … after a second attempt restore – something has gone wrong in the update sequence restore and start again.

Next and not a huge issue really as its still an improvement on the previous is the camera blur… its still there but there are handy doughnut bits in here.

Finally and this is something still of concern to me … I presume due to the over clocking and then system being at its limits this occurs … the handset can get really quite warm… I am not sure over time what will happen but I will keep you posted as I fear over time it may kill the phone through failure.

Anyway in the next post normal service will be resumed – see you soon geeks / and lets face it you read all the above so you must be a geek at heart

Lets be honest we know there is a  small but semi-connected community surrounding AK Designs … mainly people I know or knew in years gone by, but also by lots of people I’ve never met … but are equally welcome if not more so.

Anyway a few weeks back we made a little move to get a Facebook fan-page (link below).
So please do go and join the group.

I personally am very open about my networking (unlike some of the developers) so:

Follow Me (AK Designs) on Twitter
FriendFeed (updates from everywhere)
My Digg Profile
Flikr (not used much though sorry)
BrightKite (new here)
Finally, Technorati (go favourite me)

Recently one of my posts was published over at boagworld … eran subsequently passed comments about how User Experience (UX) has nothing to do with SEO. Something I couldn’t really disagree with more… but rather than simply state my opinion I want to be a little more constructive and so here are my 9.5 Steps to UX & SEO heaven.

1. Breaking up is hard to do

Check my text page … pretty much unreadable (even if you ignore the Lorem Ipsum) … not very nice right?
Splitting text into short, relevant paragraphs makes it easier on the eyes … eye stress often means the brain will either fall asleep or the user will click of a page … also if the page appears to be overwhelming a user is likely to just click back.

Further than this splitting text into paragraphs makes life easy on the average user… take a look at your screen your not just concentrating on this site, you may have your emails open, some social networking site, maybe another blog or news feed, instant messenger  conversations, your media player the list is endless … if you break things down you encourage someone to finish the sentence and come back… because they know where they were.

2. Remove the Rubbish

Both the users and search engines love relevancy so cut the crap…

Over decorative and flowery language may rub in poetry classes, but not on the internet. Be direct and jargon free in everything you say…

A good example would be:

We offer supportive information for when your machine goes boom or your mouse makes a funny clicky noise…

Where as maybe you should just be saying …. Technical Support.

3. Update your content on a Regular basis

There is nothing more annoying than visiting a site and seeing it was written in the 90′s and has never been updated … unless its some report of course. Its the same for search engines, they like fresh and up to date content.

Make a point of checking all your pages every few weeks, update content where possible… obviously this depends on the type of site you run… for the most part blogs should be left as they are… its static pages that you should be looking at.

Another advantage of refreshing content is that with time comes clarity, so maybe you can become more direct in your text and/or find a better way to display something to the user and search engines.

4. Use Heading tags

Most people are only scanning your text in the first few seconds. If you can grab the attention of the user in that time using a heading you’ve made their experience a little better … and what’s more is that in making the experience better for a user you are helping search engines find relevancy in your content.

5. Important things should Stand Out

If you have something important to say you SHOUT IT … but on the internet you can’t really do that too well… or can you?

Well yes you can and when you are emphasising something there are two little ideas you should consider … if you simply want to emphasise something then use italics … should you just want something to stand out then bold it… or both should you want.

In doing this you also once again draw the attention of the user and the search engines … it makes life easier for all parties.

6. First Impressions Count

It’s believed by many in the web world that you have about 17 seconds (in most cases) to grab the attention of a user…before they get bored. So don’t waste it with a flash loader or flash of any kind…or a splash page even. Instead put the content where it can be seen, don’t waste a user or a search engines time. A search engine will only spend a certain finite time on any given page before moving on … yes it will come back to index the rest but its that first visit that counts… just as with the user.

7. Feedback & Questions

Make it clear where users can leave feed back and questions should they want to.

Blogs are great for this… the commenting system at the bottom of the posts is almost a requirement … so use it!

From an SEO view point the more people comment the more relevant and constructive content you will get on a page.

8. Thinking is bad for your site

In Steve Krug’s book (don’t make me think) he makes several interesting points. To some them up, be clear and concise in what you do… clean and crisp with attention grabbing features means that no real concentration should ever be required when visiting your site.

9. If its relevant … Link to it

This is fairly self explanatory. If you think another site has relevant content or your making a citation give them a link. It helps the user and will not water down or leak your websites ranking in search engines. Indeed there are some that believe this may increase your website authority …therefore increasing your search rank.

9.5 Be unique

Stand out from the crowd & do something different.

It’s always bugged me how people “in the know” speak in particular lingo… they jargonise what they say to make life as hard as possible for “outsiders” who want to just get a little information to understand something. As you will have noticed from most of my posts I try to avoid jargon like the plague and if I really need to use it will explain it in simple terms too. Anyway this week I was upset by a few posts I’ve found (I won’t name names though) … So I got to thinking about what SEO terms are commonly used in the trade but probably aren’t understood by the average website owner or user. Today I want to share some of the list with you:

• SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
• SEM – Search Engine Marketing
• SERP – Search Engine Result Page
• ROI – Return On Investment
• PL – Paid for Links
• PPL – Pay Per Lead
• ISP – Internet Service Provider
• CSS – Cascading Style Sheet
• HTML – HyperText Markup Language
• PPC – Pay Per Click
• CPM – Cost Per 1000 Clicks
• CTR – Click Through Rate
• CPA – Cost Per Aquisition
• SSI – Server Side Includes
• SSL – Secure Sockets Layer
• PFI – Pay For Inclusion
• DR – Data Range
• B2B – Business 2 Business
• B2C – Business 2 Consumer
• DTC – Direct 2 Consumer
• IBL – InBound Links
• WYSIWIG – What You See Is What You Get
• KW – KeyWord
• -KW – Negative KeyWord

Hopefully this covers most of the short-hand we use in SEO. I’m sure there are more floating around, if you find one feel free to comment it below.

One Last Thing
I would like to mention that BoagWorld (a PodCast / Blog for Website Owners) has posted my article on “hiring an SEO” – so headover there to leave a lovely comment … or to keep the argument flowing there seems to be going.

I attempt not to make tangents into jargonised techie / geek speak … today is pretty much the same except today I wish to ask you to indulge myself as I feel I need to rant a little about the forthcoming HTML5, and a particular Quirk.

Unsure what HTML5 is? I tried to write it down and explain a few times but I couldn’t so heres the best website I could find to explain it.

Looking at HTML 5 from an outside view (as a website owner or user, rather than a coder) you would be forgiven for thinking not much is going to change… a few modifications to make more things possible and to make the existing easier. To an extent you are correct, but on the other hand as a coder, I look at HTML 5 and see all the possibilities it holds for the web. New ways of doing things, ways of making things easier for everyone… HTML for me is a way of making the websites I create more accessible. And I can pretty much say I’m not alone in what I feel about HTML5.

However, over the past months I’ve began to look more and more around the syntax and documentation of HTML 5 (and yes I know its not been published or finalised yet fellow coders). Last week I stumbled upon something of a Quirk. The ALT tag is to be made “optional” rather than “mandatory”.

For non-coders:
Currently the ALT tag is considered to be mandatory for accessibility reasons. Ever been to a page and expected to see an image or graphic but you just get some text (generally the same type of thing as in a caption) in its place? Well that’s ALT text. But that’s not all it is used for. ALT means alternative, as the alternative it is used by “accessible” browsers such as JAWS and LYNX (which are text display browsers for the visually impaired) and were / are intended to describe what is in the image in simple terms. However this is not all they can be used for, search engines also use them for image searches as one of many methods of “seeing” what is in an image or graphic file.

Now, personally I don’t give a damn how it is to be considered and nor should you. The ALT tag should always be used regardless of its requirement as set out in the W3C recommendations. So if I am going to continue using it, and I believe (or hope) 99% of other current developers will …

Does it really matter?

The quick answer is Yes.

The reason this matters is because if the attribute becomes “optional” then it gives no reason for New and Upcoming developers to use the tag. Nor does it give reasons for schools, colleges or universities a reason to teach the importance of this tag.

But all this techie stuff isn’t what this rant is about… so here it is

If the ALT tag is no longer used then the web comes “visual only” and the right to accessible information and media for everyone is diminished and life on the internet becomes a whole lot harder for a good number of people. Accessibility is a right not some kind of reward given by society. Now I know the ALT tag doesn’t solve all the problems of the world, nor do I think it has ever been completely utilised by developers but the tag is a means to an end.

Maybe I’m looking at this through rose-tinted glasses in the belief the world should be perfect, and it never can be. No developer, no matter what they claim, will have used the ALT tag on every graphic they publish online (or even captioned them) … and most developers I know don’t come through university or anything like that. Web Design & Development is often a hobby and passion more than a job, and often that means we read around various blogs, look at other peoples code and learn from them. We read to be enlightened and enriched, we indulge our passion in design and development … so as long as that continues to happen maybe we’ve nothing to worry about. Through this enrichment process and learning curve I hope the ALT tag sticks with us, it does help… if only a little to make the world a bit of a better place.

Want to know more about accessibility of the web then take a look at some nicer W3C documents: WCAG2.0 and WAI.

Ok so I’ve been playing in Google Labs for some time… I say playing because unless your GMail (Google Mail) most of the things in the Labs are fun and will never “graduate” into the real world of Google… or do they?

Basically the Labs are a place where small projects (generally projects attached to something google does, though sometimes totally new and fun) go to grow, play and be tested by a lot of Geeky Techies … Like Me. In essence it is a testing ground before the “big-time”.

So… over the past few days and weeks I’ve been playing with quite a few little things from Labs… and I want to share just one or two with you:

SEARCH  LABS

• Similar Images – Ever wondered who took your image / graphic, but didn’t want to trawl the net yourself. Or maybe you have an image of something with something missing and want to get the full picture… Well give this a try.
• News / Latest Updates – Timelines are awefully useful & I use the one in the lastest google update (Caffeine) on a regular basis… so they are playing around and we now have a new stream type thing … one problem is unless you have a nice bandwidth it maybe slower than desired.

ANDROID LABS
Many of you will know I own a G1 (my Google Phone / … as i call it … “googie”) so I like playing around with apps from developers I know, messing with the code etc… but lately google has come up with some nice ideas.

• Tracking Yourself - want to see where you’ve been? lost your phone or had it stolen and want to find it… if you left GPS on this is for you… nice app … almost as nice as latitude … with one advantage, it will log where you have been.
• TwiDroid – Ok this isn’t a labs app …but it is an android app… but I use it lots and its awesome, I use it whenever I’m on the road or just am too lazy to load up the site on my computer. Recent updates have made it much easier and faster to use, attach images with ease to a number of outlets, read @replies or DirectMessages etc… or just check your timeline of friends… TwiDroid is amazing! Go check it… its FREE.

CHROME LABS

• Google Gravity – Ok so not strictly a labs, but an experiment of Google Chrome (which I suggest you all get as it is simply an amazing browser) … if you don’t have chrome installed it won’t work sorry… but if you have it you will love this (try a search on the floor) … and here are the other Chrome Experiments.

These are just a few of many Labs… Google, Bing (formerly MSN), Yahoo and others have a large Labs base…. if you have a fravourite App for your Android / Iphone or your have a little Lab you want to share please let us know below

Ok, so under confession of being a bit of nerd … geek … whatever you feel like calling me along those lines…. I neglected to buy dConstruct tickets (because i’m an idiot) … and I’ve also not bought a Future of Web Apps (FOWA) ticket yet… which sucks!

Anyway after watching the latest Diggnation, i followed kevin’s link to FOWA … and noticed something … If i put the badge below on my site I could win a FREE ticket (helpful since i don’t have the nearly £400 to buy a ticket now *buy me one if your buying yourself one*).

So now your wondering why i need your help? well its quite simple… i need you to link to this page from any social network (as many as you can) … there are some nice links below  this post. So why do i want you to do this… well with some luck the more diggs, mentions or links i can get to this page, the more people will visit the link (from the banner) below, so pelase click it… and the more this happens the more i believe i may get this ticket

So without further ramblings…. Thank You