Secrets of SEO Podcast

Just a reminder that I will be appearing on the EMarketingTalkShow podcast on Friday, January 31, 2008 at 3:45pm PST. Here is the link to the page:

http://www.emarketingtalkshow.com/seo/seo-secrets.asp

I hope you find it valuable.

Have a great day.

Catfish

More SEO Problems with CMS (Content Management Systems)

I was reading a fantastic article from SEOMoz (which isn't suprising) about SEO considerations for CMS systems.

The two most common problems I see with CMS systems that have not been mentioned (or I didn't read all the comments closely enough) are:

1) Breadcrumb navigation based on the path the user took to get to the page. So in the event that you have a product that exists in multiple categories, make sure that the URL pointing to the product is unique (don't have multiple URLs for the same product based on the category names). This will require that the breadcrumb navigation is generated using cookies which means that the engines will only see the default breadcrumb navigation (make sure its the most important category of your site).

Example:

You sell Dresses. You have Prom Dresses and Formal Dresses category. A particular dress, called the Fishkin style dress, exists in both categories. The breadcrumb navigation changes with respect to which path I took to get to the Fishkin dress. It could be

Dress Shop -> Prom Dresses -> Fishkin Dress or it could be
Dress Shop -> Formal Dresses -> Fishkin Dress

Either one could exist on the page depending on what the user path to the page was. This determination should be made using cookies in order to ensure accuaracy for the user. For search engines that don't use cookies, you will need to have a default breadcrumb (or block it entirely by putting it in javascript but that takes away valuable link connectivity). The default breadcrumb in this case should be based on whether Formal Dresses or Prom Dresses are more important to the business model because you can only show the search engines one of em. If you don't use cookies to generate the breadcrumb, the search engines will find a different breadcrumb everytime they spider the page from a different category and this can lead to inconsistent internal link connectivity which can adversley affect rankings.

2) Pagination where there are multiple pages and page one is not consistent. So in the Dress example, if you click on Promo Dresses, there may be 10 pages of promo dresses. If I click on page 2, and then navigate back to page 1 using the menu of page numbers that typically is put at the bottom of pages like this, more often than not, the CMS system generates a new URL for Page 1 which thereby causes a potential duplicate content issue and also splits PR between the two pages.

The pagination issue is less of a concern for the most part than the breadcrumb navigation issue. And the breadcrumb issue is most problematic when it generates seperate URLs for the same product. So in the first example, the following URLs would be generated by a CMS with this issue:

www.dressdomain.com/prom-dresses/fishkin-dress.html
www.dressdomain.com/formal-dresses/fishkin-dress.html

This obviously is a duplicate content issue. So when evaluting any CMS platform, pay special attention to the breadcrumb navigation. The devil is in the details with CMS systems.

Position 6 Penalty (Error) Confirmed by Matt Cutts of Google

Many Web masters have been noticing lately that their heretofore #1 or #2 listings had dropped to the #6 spot. This was reported consistently lately on blogs and forums by many Web masters. It's always hard to tell which so called "penalties" or observations reported on these kinds of sites should be taken seriously or believed. Although when the level of outcry rises to what it has recently, it's hard to not start investigating. Still, it took a lot of people a long time to understand that there was a Google sandbox...lol.

Anyway, Google came out this week and admitted that they had made a mistake with the Position 6 Penalty. I applaud Google for taking the time to communicate this kind of information to Web masters to save them from chasing their tail trying to figure out what they did wrong. I have been there...lol. I think it illustrates one of the hardest rules of SEO to learn. Don't immediately fix what you don't know is broken. Often times changes in rankings are temporary and even more often, vary by data center and personalization.

Personally I think your analytics is a better gauge of your SEO campaign then your rankings report, but I understand the value of measuring that data as well. I just think that as we move forward, it will be harder and harder to say that a site has a top ten listing for a given keyword phrase. Especially as personalization of search continues to evolve.

But more to the point, I see situations all the time where clients are concerned about a temporary shift in rankings and are quick to want to take action. But often times the best action is no action. Imagine the collective man hours that people who lost their rankings spent making changes to their site, only to find out today that they should have just stayed the course. Patience in SEO is more than a virtue. It's a way of life.

Have a great day.

Catfish

It's Thursday

I am taking a small break from doing SEO to blog. Just wanted to mention that I will be appearing soon on www.emarketingtalkshow.com . I will post more details soon. OK, enough blogging for today, I have to get my OMS presentation going. Have a great day.

Matt Cutts in Stephan Spencers Interview

First I would like to congratulate my San Diego Chargers on an outstanding season that come up a little short to one of the best teams to ever play. Having said that, I think we could have won had we had a couple less injuries to key players which bodes well for next year. In the meantime, now I can get more SEO done on the weekends..lol.

I came across this interview with Matt Cutts from Stephan Spencer today. It's a good read and dispels some fairly common myths like .edu links are better than .com links, you can only use 100 links on a Page, and that social bookmarking links don't count that much. One of the things I wish that Google would do that is mentioned in this article is bring back the supplemental tag result for Google Webmaster Tools so that you can at least know which of your own pages are supplemental. Supplemental results used to be a great tool for finding duplicate content issues, URL issues and some other common problems that are much harder to diagnose for sites that have thousands and thousands of pages.

Also don't forget to sign up for the Online Marketing Summit. I will be speaking there with several other industry professionals in a "vendorless" environment that is really focused around learning. It's my favorite conference of the year. Also, I will be writing soon for www.searchenginewatch.com, so please keep an eye out for my series of articles on SEO and PPC. I'll let you know soon when the first ones have been posted. Have a great week.

301 Redirects and Marketing URLs

What a great Friday. First, it's a three day weekend, which always makes it a great Friday. Second, I am about to watch the Chargers shock the world on Sunday and defeat the Evil Empire that is the New England Patriots. I predict 27 - 24 Chargers. and Third, I am going to the NAMM show up in Anaheim where I will get a chance to play the best guitars in the world from Gibson, Fender, Martin, Taylor and too many other names to mention. There is nothing else like the NAMM show. Special thanks to my friends at Guitar Trader / Music Power for making it happen for me and the guys in Dive Bomber.

I just got back from San Francisco and I had the opportunity to meet with a couple of our enterprise level clients. It's always fun to get out of the office and travel a little. It's also fun to get an opportunity to explain SEO to a receptive audience. One of the challenges that my clients face is managing their marketing URLs. They have a number of vanity domains that are product specific or are part of a marketing campaign. Up until now, the company has used 302 redirects to direct those URLs to the appropriate sub pages on their site. The benefit there is that the Marketing URL, or MUrl for short, is what gets displayed in the organic search results. However, if one really looks at the situation and the difference in the way search engines treat a 302 redirect and a 301 redirect, it becomes apparent that the 302 is not the answer.

The biggest issue with 302 redirects is that they do not pass link connectivity metrics because they are temporary by definition. And so therefore, if Page A is redirecting to Page B with a 302 redirect, the links that point to Page A WILL NOT be assigned to Page B and vice versa.

In this situation, what was happening was that people were using the MUrl to navigate to Page A which then redirected them to the long URL string of Page B. So many Webmasters who then wanted to link to the content, copied the URL string from the Web Browser (the Page B URL) and linked to it. But because the MUrl (Page A) is the page that Google is using for its search results, those viral links to Page B, were not being taken into consideration by Google when it ranked Page A. The solution was to convert the 302 redirects to 301 redirects so that the pages would be consolidated into a single page in Google's view. The only drawback was that the URLs that Google is now going to be indexing will be the long URL strings.

Example Page A (MUrl): www.domain.com/marketing-slogan

Example Page B: http://www.domain.com/?abunchofstuffthathasalotofparametersandishardtoread

The company can still use the MUrls for their print media and Internet marketing campaigns, but the Page B URLs are what will be listed in Google. And although the marketing department would prefer the shorter URL for obvious reasons, the trade off of consolidating links (this company is huge and gets a TON of viral links) is going to produce a much greater ROI than any benefit that having the MUrl show up in the search engine results would provide.

Two other notes. Due to technical limitations of the caching system and load balancing for this company's servers, it is technically impossible to 301 Page B to Page A or we would have done that. There are a ton of technical hurdles that have to be worked through based on the hosting environment of the company. But these are the kinds of challenges that make working with these large companies so fun.

The other note I wanted to make was that since the Big Daddy update by Google, Google has gotten a lot better at solving 302 issues like these. In the case of our client, there were a few examples where is seemed that Google did in fact assign link connectivity factors to the MUrl (Page A). But there were also examples of where it did not. And so because Google is so inconsistent (and the other engines like Yahoo and MSN are much worse at getting this stuff right), its better not to take chances and just use a 301.

So the important point of today's post (other than my prediction of the Chargers beating the Patriots), is that if you have any MUrls, or vanity domains for that matter, use 301 redirects instead of 302 redirects. Go Chargers!

The Top 5 Ways That Usability and SEO Work Together

Happy New Year! And what better way to start it than a San Diego Chargers victory over the Tennessee Titans in the first round of the playoffs last Sunday. As one of the 65,000 some odd fans that attended the game, I can tell you it was an amazing day for the community of San Diego and the energy in the stadium was incredible. Now if we can just beat the Colts again....

I really think that 2008 is going to be the year that you see the study of Web site Usability move to the forefront of Search Engine Optimization. If your not familiar with Usability, here is a really good definition that we like to use here at BusinessOnLine:

“After all, usability really just means that making sure that something works well: that a person of average (or even below average) ability and experience can use the thing - whether it's a Web site, a fighter jet, or a revolving door - for its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated.” - Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think, 2000, p. 5

If you would like more information about Usability, I have two great resources for you. The first is a list of articles by usability guru Jakob Nielsen, who is considered one of the foremost authorities in the world on the subject. The second is to check out the blog of my co worker, Usability consultant Thanh Nguyen who is one of the most passionate people in the business. Fortunately for me, I have the opportunity to get her input on all our SEO solutions to make sure that we don't sacrifice user experience for the sake of optimization. But aside from Usability concerns, which should almost always take precedence, it also makes a lot of sense from an SEO perspective to ensure that you always put the user first.

Search engine optimization encompasses many different variables. Search engines use things like links, content, meta data, server settings and other variables to try to determine how relevant a document is to a particular query. But as search engine technology advances, more and more variables that try to quantify positive user experience will be integrated into the search algorithms. Google wants to provide the best site to its users for any given search. Doing so ensures that the searcher will continue to use their search product. The word "best" is subjective and Google uses various signals like the variables mentioned earlier to help it determine which site really is "best" for a given user. And certainly part of the word "best" will encompass user experience. And therefore, having a site that provides a superior user experience will benefit a site's search engine rankings. Whether it's a time on site variable, positive references from social bookmarking and social sharing sites or just the propensity of quality sites to link to your site based on its excellent usability, there are a number of ways that usability already affects search rankings. And as technology advances, more metrics will be developed which will continue to make Usability a key ingrediant in the any successful SEO campaign.

In the meantime, I thought it would be a good idea to get together with Thanh and put together a top 5 list of ways that Usability and SEO can work together to not only enhance user experience, but increase search engine visibility as well. My thanks to Thanh for taking the time to help me put this list together:

1) #1 Don’t Use Flash or Java Script Based Site Navigation

Usability:
- Users without this technology cannot navigate your Web site (although according to Adobe 99% of users have Flash).
- Slow loading times for users without broadband Internet connections.
- Flash disables back button functionality.
- Bad for accessibility.

SEO:
- Search engines cannot see these links and therefore they will not contribute to your Internal Link Popularity, Page Reputation or Page Rank.

Instead use CSS or a No Script Tag for Java Script Based Navigation.
Use SWFObject for Flash Based Navigation

#2) Internet Architecture Should Be Keyword Focused

Usability:
- Your Navigation and Content Categories should closely align with the keywords that people are most often using when searching for your products, services or information.
- This improves the ability of users to find the information they need which not only improves their trust in your Web site but also increases conversions.

SEO:
- Increases the amount of keyword focused internal links.
- A link is considered a vote (even if its from your own site) that the page that is being linked to is important for the keywords that are contained within the link text.

#3) Images Should Have Keyword Focused Descriptive Alt Text

Usability:
- Users with disabilities, screen readers or that use browser with images disabled, will still be able to navigate the site in the event your images are linked.
- Additionally this user group will benefit from Alt text on non linked images because often times images convey a lot of important information that is necessary for the user to fully understand the page content.

SEO:
- Search engines use Alt text for Page Reputation (keyword relevancy) when the link is based on an image rather than text.
- Alt Text on images which are not links, helps with image optimization which is increasingly important with the advancement of universal search.

#4) Keyword Focused Breadcrumb Navigation

Usability:
- Immediately orients users to their position within the Web site in the event that a sub page is their first point of entry.
- Provide one-click access to higher site levels

SEO:
- Increases the amount of keyword focused internal links to deeper pages than the main site navigation (depending on the depth of content that the site has).
- A link is considered a vote (even if its from your own site) that the page that is being linked to is important for the keywords that are contained within the link text.

#5) Make PDF Documents Available in HTML Format

Usability:
- Users without this technology cannot understand your content.
- Don’t make your users reliant on 3rd party software in order to use your Web site or consume your information.

SEO:
- Search engines are inconsistent in their ability to understand the content within a PDF file.
- Search engines do not recognize link connectivity data within PDF Documents.
- More HTML pages equals more Page Rank.

New Year Bonus #6) Keyword Focused Title Tags

Usability:
- Your Page Titles should closely align with the keywords that people are most often using when searching for your products, services or information.
- This improves the ability of users to understand that your Web site has the information that they are looking for and therefore also increases search engine result click through rates.

SEO:
- Page Titles are still one of the most heavily weighted variables in the search engine algorithms for Google, Yahoo and MSN.

These six best practices are great for both SEO and Usability. And, if you do SEO for a living, being able to explain that these practices help Usability as well as SEO, increases the value of your services. Usability and SEO working together is an essential part of good SEO and the more SEO professionals familiarize themselves with the basic principles of Usability, the more effective their optimization skills will be.