YBO Interactive Blog

It happened lately a few times that I asked customers to make changes on their website and got the answer “the company that built our website said that it is impossible”.

I heard it even on simple requests like removing the company name from the pages <TITLE>. Not mentioning META tags, ALT tags, nofollow links, 301 redirects, and many others requests that were simply rejected.

So I made this list.

This is what I want from web development companies that are going to work with my customers.

1. Configurable <TITLE> tags: I would like to set the title of every page myself. I don’t want the company name added to the title automatically and I don’t want the title to be the anchor text of the link from the main menu (I may want that, but let me choose). I need full control on title with no exceptions.

2. Configurable Meta <Description> tags: Most companies will let you do that through their CMS, but some that I have seen never heard of it.

3. mod_rewrite: Let me decide how I want the URLS on site to look like. In some cases, instead of having this URL http://www.example.com/product.php?action=7&id=8 I may want this one: http://www.example.com/blue-car-with-sun-roof

4. Nofollow links: I need the option to set links on site to nofollow. This may include links on the main menu or links that appear on every page on site.

5. ALT Attributes: It should be possible to set ALT Attributes to every image on site.

6. H1 H2 H3: Let me add any HTML tag I want on my page. Especially Heading tags.

7. Crawlability: site must be fully crawlable, with no javascript links that block the flow.

8. Javascript: In some cases I will still need the ability to add javascript code. Whether it is Google Analytics, or other e-commerce tracking codes, many CMS systems I saw do not allow javascript. The ones my customers use need it.

9. Editable Footer: I will need to edit the footer for many reasons. Mostly for adding tracking codes that should appear on every page on site, and in some cases adding links or graphics. Don’t show me a fixed footer with sitemap and privacy policy links. Let me change it.

10. Dedicated IP: This is a hosting issue, that in many cases comes in the same package. Dedicated hosting is a big advantage. This means that our site is the only site that has our IP address. I don’t want to get search engine penalties because of adult sites running on my machine.

11. USA hosting: I know that hosting in India is great. I really do. But my market is in the US, and my site should be where my customers are. Both in terms of SEO and network aspects. My site should be rocket fast both to my customers and to Google.

12. LAMP: Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP is my favorite. CMS built on these machines just makes me happier. I can’t explain this one. It’s a matter of belief.

13. Standards: Standard site according to the world wide web consortium is an advantage. I’ll be actually very surprised if anyone will say yes to this one.

14. Firefox: That is the easiest request. I saw web sites that belong to web development companies that can not be viewed with Firefox. How stupid is that?

15. Flash: I don’t like flash websites. Neither does Google.

If you have any additions to this list please comment…

Hitwise Reports that Google has 67% of All US Searches. They also say that Yahoo! has 20% and MSN has 7%.

Is it a surprise? not to most of the people I know.

It may be interesting to see where exactly they collected their info. There is no question that information collected from Nebraska will be significantly different that the information collected from California. There are so many tech-oriented users in the Silicon Valley area, and these guys would never use Yahoo! or MSN as their search engine for technical purposes. (Of course, this does not include the employees of Yahoo! and MSN…)

So who are those people that use MSN and Yahoo!?

Most of the users that use MSN are the ones that got their computer with Windows and Internet Explorer and have no idea how to change the default search engine and their browser. In fact, they don’t even know that it is possible. They search, it works, and they are happy. I call this audience ‘the houswifes’.

Yahoo! is a different story. Yahoo! was there first, and there are still people out there that think that Yahoo is the Internet. They open their browser, go to Yahoo.com and then, they type the url they want to browse to, sometimes IN THE SEARCH BOX. Don’t get me wrong, not all Yahoo users are “computerly challenged”, the thing is that Yahoo was there first (almost), and quite a lot of people know how to use it, like the way it works, they like the content, the channels, the email, the news and see no reason to go anywhere else.

What can you learn from it? If you’re running a Pay Per Click campaign or thinking about SEO for a company that sells a Firewall Analyzer, Google is your place and all the rest is a waste of money. IT Managers, Software Engineers, Security Experts are not looking for you in Yahoo!. On the other hand, if your web page is about the Acropolis Audio Tour, You should definitely pay attention to MSN and Yahoo!. Your customers might be there as well.

I was asked by one of my customers to explain why removing the company name from all his pages titles is a good idea. It just didn’t make any sense.

As you can see in this list of Top Factors for Google Search Engine Ranking, the most important ranking factor on a web page is the <TITLE>.

A web page with the title “Johnny Depp’s Aquamarine Gemstones Shop” will rank significantly lower for the keyword aquamarine gemstones, then a web page with a title “Aquamarine Gemstones” assuming all the other ranking factors are the same. Google might get the impression that this page is also about “Johnny Depp”, “Johnny Depp’s shop” , a “Gemstones shop” or an “Aquamarine shop”. Keyword Focus is very important when optimizing titles. The less words you have around your keyword, the better. In most cases, your potential customers won’t search for your brand name, but more likely search for your product description. The ones that search for your brand name already know you, and know how to find you. Adding your brand name to the product description will be a total waste energy that won’t bring any good.

On any internal page it would be the best to have a title with the product description without a company name. Having said that, Home Pages are different.

I would put a company name on a Home Page <title> simply because a Home Page is not like any internal page on site, it has more importance than all the rest especially in terms of branding. In terms of look&feel, your company name simply belongs there. SEO is very important, but it is just another part in the marketing puzzle.

The first thing I would do when optimizing a new site is to remove the company name from all titles. It is not always easy to convince your customer that this is the right thing to do, but once they do it, it takes a very little time to show them that it works.

And it works great.

Warning: Search Engines like Google don’t ‘like’ big changes. Changing all titles of a site can cause damage. The advice that appears in this post is very good for new sites, or sites that have very little traffic and want to grow. If your site already has a lot of traffic, it is recommended to change the title of new pages (if it’s a blog, do it above a certain %postid%), and keep the old pages untouched. In any case, the best would be to consult an expert before doing big changes.