Search Engine Optimisation

Today has seen the launch of what is one of the more simple websites I have seen.

The site has been redesigned from being a busy rubbish ridden “thing” to being a simple website with a clear call to action without clutter. Now I’m not saying this site is perfect and I’m not saying that the redesign they have launched will work, but I like it and whats more its been launched by a friend who has been in the web design game as long as me (since 2005) whom is going to partner with me on several upcoming projects as he is a media mogul with his fingers in way too many digital pies.

So check out the site and give him a shout if you have an upcoming project you need media coverage for.

Manchester Design and Marketing (Online and Offline Media)

If you have redesigned a website or are planning a new design let us know (leave a comment below)

Want to see the top redesigns of 2009  - view our redesign 2009 post

Over the past few month’s I’ve come across many a site with this issue, and the website owner always always says the same thing … (and its right to an extent) … we are the brand leader, bringing something new to the market and want to be seen for x, y and z … and to emphasise this we want it over 3 or 4 websites or sub-domains … but we want the content to be pretty much the same… but content duplication isn’t allowed by the search engines.

Well ok it is true the you can be penalised for content duplication over one or more websites seen to be related, mainly via an IP address or similar domain or as a sub domain (which Google is known to treat as a different domain) … So I here you ask how can I be saying you can do it right … how can you legitimately duplicate content over websites and domains … well it is fairly easy

The answer is “cross domain canonical tagging”

By now we should all be using the meta tag canonical – aka telling the browsers and search engines the content originates at this websites and location … it is all your content and not taken from else where. (if not take a quick look on Google for it).

Now to use content from one site on another you need to show that you accept the origins of the content as not being on your site and being from another URL. This can be done on any element using the tag rel=”canonical” – so links, images, block quotes, data tables anything with any attribute (including a full DIV) can use this tag and search engines will pick it up.

Still have questions? Please do ask them below or twitter me @andykinsey

As part of my work I am more and more being asked by local business owners (salons, cafés, estate agents, pubs and others) how they can be found by local people, tourists and far further afield other businesses.

It used to be a simple tasks because you would “bid” on keywords … the trend wasn’t ever until recently to use terms such as “in xyz” or “near xyz” at the end of the search. But since early 2009 with Google wanting to “localise” search this has become an overwhelming trend.

Take for example a client I am currently working with … they search the terms “marketing in xyz” and I am top of the local map for this (which in some search are currently placed above organic and below sponsored search results).

So by what means can you get to use such maps of local business… well its simple … hop over to the Local Business Centre on Google – bing has one coming online soon too …

Once your location and business is claimed you must verify the location (generally by post). Your listing then appears on the searches where appropriate.

If you have any questions or wish to go further than this listing for your local marketing leave a question below and/or hire me

Now a lot of you will know that I don’t rely on PageRank for anything, but I know a lot of people do (your all mad i tell you). So I check from time to time on the latest PR scores for monthly reporting to clients, and yesterday evenings update by Google to PageRank has come up with a few surprises… including I seem to know what I am doing

Below are some results – not all but I will publish more as I do monthly reports.

andykinsey.com – was 5 – now 4
andykinsey.co.uk – was 0 – now 4
seoandy.com (launched oct 09) – was 0 – now 3
spirit-retail.co.uk (launched nov 09) – was 0 – now 2
xmasseo.co.uk (launched dec 09) – was 0 – now 1

Ok so looking at the first 2 results you would be forgiven for thinking this is a bad thing, but a loss of page rank here is due to the site activity over the past few months. I moved all the articles to this site and therefore most if not all of the original content has been removed. Google also won’t be too happy that a number of links to andykinsey.com are no longer available through .co.uk nor redirected to seoandy … something I don’t feel I need to fix as google has been made aware via google webmaster tools that the site has moved.

SEOAndy as i have stated now has all of the content of the former andykinsey.com website. So with google aware of the move it was a matter of time before rankings picked up, however seoandy.com has smashed all stats records set by andykinsey.com previously!

The biggest shock of the group above is Spirit Beauty Salon – within a month an half the site has gone from nothing to a page rank 2 ! This i feel is nothing more than amazing, the site is still in a stage of growth and change – I still feel it’s a beta website with so much potential which will make for a huge growth and ROI over the next few months.

So with my amazement made clear I would like to offer you a chance to check your pagerank using the box below, simply enter your domain and hit enter. Leave a comment and let us know what your page rank is!

Hi There

Happy New Year for 2010

“this is a pre-recorded message for 00.00.01 01/01/10 – if your reading this please note andy loves you and your special in the head so happy new year and have a prosperous 2010, much kind hugs Andy”