YBO Interactive Blog

Every now and then I bump into stupid mistakes that web developers do, and sometimes it really hurts to watch. Take a look at this URL: http://www.syrolight.com/web/8888/nsf/sbs.py?&_ID=12633&G=11813&did=5067&PF=1&SM3=12633&SM=11813?=EN&_UserReference=F2ADA3622DE0ABB14A3F44C7

What the hell is happening here? This URL should be ILLEGAL! The programmer of this URL should go to Jail for Internet abuse!!!

Here are the mistakes, one by one:

1. The URL has a parameter called  _UserReference. This param changes on every session.  This is very bad for Search Engines because every time they crawl the site they find a new URL for the same page. As you know, age matters and the older the better. On this site all pages will always be NEW! Not only that, since more than one page has the same content, this site has a severe duplicate content problem.

2. URL has no keywords - this is so basic, I can’t get it. This page is about a product called biostick. Wouldn’t that be useful to mention the word biostick in the URL?  When will those web developers understand that mydomain.com/red-car performs so much better than mydomain.com/?fdsafdsfdsa=43214&fdsafdsa=gfhdsjlgf&fdsdsaf=fdsasaf

3. URL is ugly! I know I’m not the average internet tourist,  but when I go to a website, I look at the URL. It usually helps me understand what is the page hirarcy and what is the page subject and sometimes it helps me get back to that page later. This URL can’t do that.

4. E-commerce shopper confidence - I don’t have a solid proof for that, but I think that shorter URLs sell more. There are hundreds of factors that build the Buyers trust level. We know for a fact that there are fonts that sell more than others. I don’t see a reason why URL length will not be part of this equation.

5. There were times that Search Engines couldn’t read more than 2 parameters.  Today Google has no problem with that any more, but other Search Engines might still hate ugly URLs.

6. It is really really ugly!

One of the most frustrating steps I face when building a new website is looking for a great domain name. Since nearly every domain name you can think of is already taken, some creativity is needed here.

So here it is: I wrote a really super cool simple php script that searches for a free domain name that uses your keyword research file as an input.

This script get as input a csv files with your keywords, and checks for every keyword whether the the domain name built from these keywords with or without hyphens is free. The result of the script is your original csv file with 2 more columns containing the domain names found.

<?php
define(’KEYWORDS_FILE’,'keywords.csv’);
$f = @fopen(KEYWORDS_FILE, “r”);
while ($f && !feof($f))
{
    $line = trim( fgets($f, 4096));
    echo $line .”,” ;
    // find the first string in the line, that comes before the first comma
    if (preg_match(”/^([a-zA-Z0-9 ]+)/”, $line, $matches))
    {
        $keyword=$matches[1];
        // check if the domain name is available
        $domainName = str_replace(” “,”",$keyword) .”.com”;
        $ip=gethostbyname($domainName);
        if ($ip != $domainName)
        {
            echo “–,”;
        }
        else
        {
            echo $domainName .”,”;
        }
        // check if the domain name is available with hyphens
        $hyphensDomainName = str_replace(” “,”-”,$keyword) .”.com”;
        $ip=gethostbyname($hyphensDomainName);
        if ($ip != $hyphensDomainName)
        {
            echo “–,”;
        }
        else
        {
            echo $hyphensDomainName .”,”;
        }
    }
    echo “\n”;
}
fclose($f);
?>

I warmly recommend using this script, so that next time you buy a new domain name you can get your-keywords.comright away.

Notice that the script is based on gethostbyid() which checks if the domain exists and not if it is registered, so it is not 100% right.

I was recently asked by some customer what is the secret of a good keyword research. My answer was there is no secret :)  When he asked for the details, I started writing this post, so you all know what it takes to get the right keywords.

Keyword research is the most important part of an SEO campaign. Doing this part wrong, might lead to spend your energy in the wrong direction. A good keyword research takes days. However, if you are a beginner trying to find your keywords, here is a quick guide for beginners.

1. Start with asking your team members for a list of at least 20 keywords each. Ask them to think of the keyword that your customers will be looking for. Ask as many guys possible, R&D, sales, support - everybody. People tend to think differently and the more answers the better. Create a list from the answers you got, at this point don’t filter anything.

2. For every keyword in your list, try to find all possible related keywords. Use as many keyword tools you can. Google Adwords Keyword Tool has limited options but it’s free, KeywordDiscovery costs $70 per month and KeywordElite costs around $200 for permanent license.  There are many other tools you can use.
For every keyword, look for all its variations. You will find hundreds of related terms, plurals, singulars, nouns, objects, verbs, adjectives, spelling mistakes and everything you can think of. Look also for common phrases that may include your keywords like “buying a..” “the best.. ” etc.

3. With the huge list you have in hand, check the following for every keyword.
a. How many results Google has for this keyword. (competition)
b. How many searches are made on this keyword according to keywords Discovery, Google Tool or any other tool you use.
c. KEI - Keyword Effectiveness Indicator. The easist formula to use is Searches * Searches / Competition.

example: The word softswitch has  859000 sites in google - this is the competition. Google Keyword Research Tool’s estimation for this keyword is 8100 searches per month. The KEI for this keyword is 8100 ^ 2 / 859000 = 76.3

Unless you have a very small list, going over thousands of keywords manually is almost impossible. At YBO Interactive we use a software that was developed in-house to do this task, (sorry, not for sale) but there are commercial tools that can do a pretty good job. Again, KeywordDiscovery and KeywordElite are good options.

4. Add another column to your spreadsheet, call it market value. Grade every keyword in your list between 0-3. Give a 0 to keywords that have no chance to generate sales. Give a 3 to keywords that have a great chance to generate sales. In your keyword research you probably found excellent keywords that have beautiful numbers but the chances for these keywords to actually sell are low. grade them accordingly.

Now, filter out keywords with low Market Value.
Filter out keywords with low number of searches.
Sort the list you got according to the KEI from high to low.
Choose the top 10 keywords and use them to lead your campaign.
Congratulations! You got yourself a keyword list.

Now that you have campaign leaders, go back to the full list and find keywords that support your leading keywords. Create a group for every keyword in your top 10 keywords and try to add as many keywords possible to these groups. These “supporting” keywords can later be used in the articles you write, and in the links you build.
There is much more to say about this, but for the basics we’re done.

Comments are welcome. Got any?

Usefull Tools:

- KeywordSpy - An excellent tool that will help you find the keywords your competitor is using.

Using WordPress? If you’re looking for SEO improvements, checkout this excellent WordPress SEO Guide. It has quite a lot of good ideas for optimizing your blog, with the relevant plugins. I would recommend doing most of it.

One of the things they didn’t mention is removing bloginfo(’name’) from header.php so that the blog name will not appear in the title of every single page on site. (If you are asking why, here is the answer)

In case you want to do it, all you need to do is edit header.php

change this code:

<title><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> » Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title>

into this:

<title><?php
if ( is_single() || is_category() || is_tag())
{
wp_title(”);
}
else
{
bloginfo(’name’); ?> <?php wp_title();
}
?></title>

Warning: If your blog is active for a long time and has thousands of posts, I wouldn’t change the title for all posts. Google doesn’t like ‘big’ changes. In that case, I would change the title only from the current postId, so that next posts will be with no title and old ones stay untouched.

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…

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.

Last week was first SphinnCon Evar, how lucky are we to have it here in Israel. Did you see me behind Barry on the 4th picture? I AM FAMOUS

The event was excellent, very VERY interesting people spoke up, and I personally felt that the discussion was more ‘casual’ that usually it is - people felt comfortable to ask interesting questions and answers from panelists were great.

The only problem with the event was the T shirt - the XXL T shirt I got is barely a Medium…

Here are some more pictures taken by Yos from RankAbove and some terrible quality movies I took , on youtube.

Small Business SEM has an excellent post about the SEO Success Pyramid.

“…the best SEOs don’t talk to their clients about rankings; they talk about the process of making great web sites that earn traffic and convert visitors into customers. They talk about the process of creating great content that attracts links like bees to honey…”

I agree with that, it is sometimes hard to make people look at the whole picture, but once they do, they like much better what they see.

This image (from that post) makes it very clear:

Yesterday, I spoke to a marketing communication manager who said, “We are just about to build a new website, so we don’t need SEO at this time…”

I have heard this sentence too many times lately, and I think it’s about time to write an answer.

Anyway, that company has a great website. It has 300 pages, 2,500 unique visitors per month, and it is in the top 20s on Google SERPs. It has PR5, and 35 incoming links from websites in their industry. The only problem they have is that “their website is ugly”. I think they are right. I’m not sure if ugly is the word, but it looks old fashioned and definitely needs a face lift. So they have decided to put it down and build a new one.

How clever is that? Putting it down and building a new site is a huge mistake. HUGE.

It is very simple. The day they kill the old website and Google web crawler gets error code 404 (Page Not Found) on their 300 pages site, all their ranking will go kaput. The 2500 unique visitors they have today will go down to 0, and the keywords they managed to bring to top20, will disappear.

And now, they have a new website to start everything from the beginning… How cool is that?

There is a right way to do it, rebuilding websites is a legitimate marketing need and can be done easily without loosing traffic, or ranking.

The first thing to do is research. We need to find which pages perform the best and which keywords have good ranking on our old site. Finding these keywords and pages is the key to make the transition smooth.

Now, for every page in the old site, we’ll find it’s equivalent in the new site, and we’ll add a permanent redirect (301) to that page so that the search engines understand which page in the old site is replaced by a new page.

The new pages should have a similar content to the content of the old page to maintain the same traffic. It doesn’t have to look the same. The colors or graphics are meaningless. The text, images, titles, url and other factors are important, but not the graphics.

Now that our main traffic sources are forwarded to the new site, we need to take care of all the other pages. The only easy way to handle a large amount of redirects is htaccess. Here are a few htaccess examples , but as usually happens with examples, it is very likely that the one you need isn’t there… htaccess should be used only if you really know how to do it, because if you don’t, your whole site might stop working.

Only when we see that the search engines have updated the 301 redirections to the new pages and the traffic is going directly to the new site, can old pages be removed.

In fact, sometimes it is recommended to keep the old pages in place, since other sites may link to internal pages or people may bookmark pages and look for them sometime in the future.

At the end of the process, every URL on the old site should lead to a URL on the new site. You should monitor your logs and verify that there is no 404 errors. If there are 404 errors on some URLs, rebuild those URLs or add a 301 permanent redirect to htaccess.

There are many more issues that should be take care of when rebuilding your website and the most important one is the structure of the new site, URLs, titles and links. But this is a topic for a new thread.