Search Engine Optimisation Tips and Tricks

Originally posted by: optimalwebsite.co.uk

optimalwebsite.co.uk is better than optimal-website.co.uk. Aim to purchase a domain name which is all one word as people confuse underscores with hyphens and spaces.

But there again for the sake of a few pounds if you are registering www.factoringsolutions.co.uk it is better to also buy www.factoring-solutions.co.uk as at least you will stop someone else from trading with it.

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Ian

So true, Ian.  I truly believe we should secure as many variants as possible.  It's good protection for the relatively small amount of investment.

cheers,

Nigel

In 18 hours - dream on  - not by natural search -you have optimised for Optimal Website - who searches that!!!!!!!
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http://www.openmarkethomebuy.org.uk
http://www.sharedownershipmortgages.org.uk

www.webproworld.com Is the Worlds third largest SEO forum - Senior Mod ctabuk = multi million pound business no PPC all SEO -Like I said 'In your dreams'

Let us give you the benifit of doubt. You have made a new post on tips on how to optimise a website. With ONE keyword and No Links - 'New Site' you say, 18 hours old 100 visitors.

Question What stats are you using, why have you not put your site in your sig, why only one keyword etc etc. Come on Mr Harper sounds like forum spamming to me.

Ian, I am not 'up in arms' over anything. Maybe I just have more experience than you do. I mod in the large SEO forums, and we are 'trained' from an early age to spot 'spammers' now maybe Joel is not spamming, but to all intents and puposes it looks that way. NO SEO expert that I know on this planet would post such a load of 'drivel' into a forum without having a site to match their claims - common sense - if you were buying an Aston Martin would you go for a test drive in a Ford8 ? No of course you would not. He is selling a service. He 'optimises sites' for a living. All I am saying is that if his site is an example -it is a very bad one.
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http://www.openmarkethomebuy.org.uk
http://www.sharedownershipmortgages.org.uk

Joel - some useful points (although suprisingly ommitting the title tag, which is deemed as one of the most significant onsite SEO factors - and linkbacks - which is deemed as one of the most significant offsite SEO factors)........so does seem a little spammy.

Although I think the attack by ctabuk is a little harsh I can understand about the removal of posts. I have been a member of Startups Forum for three years now with many posts to my name.

I posted a similar post a few months ago offering free SEO advice (from an experienced seo optimiser with good first page placements for searched upon relevant terms) and my post was relegated to the 'Offers' forum. A little consistancy please moderators.....!

Dean

C2 Web Design

http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk

Worthy of a fresh post. Nice site, very nice. You need more links www.pheedster.com/directories.php will show you a starting point.

Add content every week, optimise each page with the page title related to your search terms. I cannot stress the importance of links. Forget high PR -that's a google gimmick,a link is a link. Get stats via www.awstats.com or www.statcounter.com keep a track of visitors. If you use adsense read a few posts at www.warriorforum.com/forum - that is the Worlds leading adsense forum. Good luck

"It is a flash site but I think we still get indexed properly by google don't we?"

No. Google only visits your first page and even then it probably wont index the words within the flash on your home page. Google wont visit any other pages because it cannot see any other pages, since it does not understand how to navigate Flash links, only HTML links.

To see how many pages Google indexes on your site you can use the google site: command then enter your domain.

For the Pyranet site only one page is indexed:

www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww.pyranet.co.uk

Here's an example of what it should look like for a search engine friendly HTML website, one of my company's client's website where all pages are indexed:

www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww.wollastonusedbmw.co.uk

"A site that changes it's content frequently will help to be indexed more often by the spiders"

This is true if the site is indexable in the first place. Since your site isn't, adding more content wont help with SEO, but it will still make the visitor experience more informative.
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Paul - www.awebapart.com - 'a web apart'
create, update your website today - the online professional site builder

Google can and does index textual content in Flash. I personally don't like Flash-only sites with lots of textual content - the effort to make them accessible to both visitors and SEs seems disproportionate to any advantages of visual eye-candy.

The problem of Google only indexing the front page of pyranet.co.uk can be put down to the fact that only one page - index.htm - exists. Everything else is bundled in a massive flash movie.

SE-friendliness could be achieved by having individual HTML files with concise flash movies for each page you wish your visitors to see and Google to index. Asking Google to follow simple links within your Flash is more reasonable than asking it to jump around frames and so on to index content. It's also more user friendly - visitors can bookmark a particular page, for example.
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Dave - clickedon.co.uk

I still stand by my original observation and advice for the pyranet site. Google is only indexing the first page, and it is not indexing any of the text in the Flash at all, even the Flash text on the home page.

To back this up I have already mentioned the google site command evidence, but if you want more evidence just google for the phrase from the home page:
"we are no ordinary IT Support Company"
and do a single google search for the following from the 'who are we page':
"Joe Burns" "Rory Perkins"
In both cases Google is not finding any results (this isn't concrete evidence since the text may be recent, but if it isn't recent, e.g. the founder's names, then this is better evidence)

ctabuk, you need to look again and look closer to find out what's really going on with the pyranet site. Whilst on a first glance it may appear that the site is moving from page to page and each page has a Google pagerank (PR) of 3, this is not the case. What's happening is just one single page and one url is being displayed in the browser (the home page which does have a PR of 3), and this page is displaying a Flash movie, which is acting like a browser in its own right, dynamically loading content for other 'pages' when Flash menus are clicked, but loading this within the same page/movie. Since the browser only sees one page whilst all this is going on, the PR of this one page is displayed all of the time. It is perfectly feasible for a one-page website to have a PR of 3, the www.awebapart.com site has a PR of 3 and is currently only a single coming soon page.

As clickedon says, yes it is feasible for google to index textual content in a Flash SWF file, much like it can index content in pdfs. But this usually works when the Flash SWF file has the textual content embedded (hardcoded) into the SWF file, like a pdf has textual content embedded into it, and for large Flash sites, and the Pyranet site, this usually isn't done like this since content is sometimes separated from the SWF and loaded dynamically using Flash actionscript code (which google wont understand). Separating content from the SWF files is sometimes done to make a Flash site content manageable (which may be the case with pyranet).

Even if you embed the textual content within Flash, this wont give optimal search engine friendliness since Google may see it as one page/url with loads of textual content (like google sometimes sees pdfs), and this can dilute your words and prevent you from focusing on particular topics on a page by page basis like you can with HTML sites. Again clickedon is right to recommend splitting up the site into multiple pages with short flash movies on each page for this reason.

However if textual content is still not embedded into the short flash movies on each page, then Google still wont index the text. If content is separate from flash, you may be better off keeping it this way, and just providing the content in HTML format as a Flash alternative on each page.

One final observation, Google isn't even realising that the Pyranet site contains any Flash because it is not detecting a Flash object embed HTML tag, since this HTML is dynamically generated using Javascript on the home page (and google doesn't understand Javascript when it indexes).
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Paul - www.awebapart.com - 'a web apart'
create, update your website today - the online professional site builder

One final piece of evidence to back up my comments on the pyranet site, when Google visits the site it only indexes the one home page, it looks at the meta tags for description etc, but it does not see any Flash, nor does it understand what's in the Javascript section. Since the HTML body only consists of Javascript (which google ignores) and a noscript section (containing the message below), the only text that google thinks is visible on this one page website is the following:

"Please use Marcomedia Flash 6 or about to veiw this website"

If you google for this phrase (with quotes and typos included) google will return the pyranet site in the results!

So the first thing you should do is replace the Javascript embedding of the Flash with standard HTML embedding of the Flash. At least then Google will notice the Flash, whether Google will index any Flash text is another issue which has already been discussed.
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Paul - www.awebapart.com - 'a web apart'
create, update your website today - the online professional site builder

Just in case I haven't bored you enough with Flash SEO intricacies, and you want to find out more, here are some useful article links:

www.metatoy.com/presentations/flashbelt051505.html (pdf presentation at end of page)

www.seoconsultants.com/articles/2598/flash/

www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Optimize-Your-Flash-Site-for-Search-Engines/

http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/

www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=74E89

www.internet-marketing-analysts.com/Google-Flash_tutorial/

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Paul - www.awebapart.com - 'a web apart'
create, update your website today - the online professional site builder

Yes, restructuring your site the way the visualeyesonline site works will be a big improvement SEO and accessibility wise, and it should allow your site to be fully indexed by google, just as the visual eyes site is...

www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww.visualeyesonline.co.uk

This approach is slightly different to those mentioned in this thread since it means you effectively have 2 sites a Flash one and a HTML one, and non-home page search engine visitors will always go to the HTML version of your site first, but it is still a common and workable solution to the Flash SEO problem.
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Paul - www.awebapart.com - 'a web apart'
create, update your website today - the online professional site builder

Originally posted by: optimalwebsite.co.uk

optimalwebsite.co.uk is better than optimal-website.co.uk. Aim to purchase a domain name which is all one word as people confuse underscores with hyphens and spaces.

I have to seriously disagree with this - from an SEO point. One long combo of words will NOT be recognised by most SEs as the individual keywords. It is FAR better to break the keywords in your domain with 'dashes' (the only alternative to break words in a domain) so they will be individually recognised.

You CAN'T have an 'underscore' or 'space' in a domain name, so where is the possibility 'confusion'? I can't occur.

I know it's a little early for me to be getting involved in 'contentious' threads but I make a living doing this and the amount of bad (or uninformed) advice floating about is painful, especially when it perpetuates itself through websites like this one.

As has been said, learn what your talking about before you start publishing advice - ANYWHERE.

Ohh, and also, 'universal' domains (you call them .com, .net) are CHEAPER than 'country specific' (you call them .co.uk, .eu etc). Where did you get this little snippet?? Surely not for paying for them. Otherwise, my domain supplier has got it ALL wrong...

I don't even want to mention this following bit - it's nonsense...

"Google, MSN, and Yahoo are all suspected of monitoring how long it takes users to return to their search engine. Long time = useful content = optimal website."

Even if you mean ""return to their website" (instead of SE), SEs are not influenced in any way by traffic to your site! If that was the case, traffic exchanges could charge mega-bucks instead of being free. And... "Long Time = Useful Content"???? So, is people take a 'Long Time' to return mean you have useful content??

I do also believe your post is spam...

Steve

">href="http://www.html-web-design.com.au">HTML Web Design - Affordable HTML web sites for Small and Home Business - SEO - The Affiliate Guide Book

Joel,

My apologies regarding my domain price error. You are correct as far as the UK is concerned. Although, can you tell me what the difference (or recommended use terms) is between the more popular .co.uk (obviously because of the price) and the .uk.com etc I have seenn around for 30 pounds or more?

Please don't generalise about SEO companies. In fact the only site I have ever seen (what appears to me to be) incorrect advice or out and out 'untruth' (or mistake) is yours. Aren't you an SEO company?

It's not a conspiracy mate, your advice is, in the main, incorrect. Of course, that's my opinion only, which you can take or leave.

(Incidentally, my primary work and income is derived from designing and building websites (which you also 'rubbish' in your website)...and affiliate marketing (where I learnt most of what I know of web design and SEO - Fighting other people for rankings).

Quote: The content users search for is nearly always text. An "optimal" website differs from a "designed" website as it features less graphics, has clearer navigation (essential to keep the click through rate high), and useful easy-to-read text.

What exactly is a 'designed' website, as oppose to an 'optimised' website?? (I know no other designer that has a penchant for images! In fact, as you seem to know, they offer no intrinsic SEO value, except the alt tag).

True, there are designers who keep offering Flash and often image laden websites, but it's far from a fact that "designed" websites (as you refer to them) can't be well optimised and achieve very good, quick rankings (thru methods you don't know of, as they're not on your website anywhere). You have, again, generalised, this time about "Web designers" (presumably, as opposed to only YOU).

From you website again - Quote: The importance of links in search engine positions is over-stated by most web developers. We are currently optimising JD Video’s website. A handful of links to it, no links from it, sparce content, but a high Google page rank of 3.

A PR of 3 is as common as an Iron Cross in May 1945. They hand them out with the coffee and bikkies

I'm a moderator in one popular Website/SEO/Marketing Forum and I stumbled on this one by chance and found an interesting post (and then yours, which admittedly, is also interesting...). I have occasionally (in 5 years online) joined a forum, only to become disatisfied or uniterested, but I have never spoken to anyone who has the penchant for Forums that you do.

You say your site has been online for only a couple of weeks, yet you belong to these Forums, using your site address as your user name:

Startups.co.uk Forums - Innovateur's venture forum - UK Business Forums - AardvarkBusiness.net Business Forum  - Bristol Community Forum - Small Business Forums

You've joined all since September 3rd (1 week ago) and your exact same post is the first post in each Forum.

In English - (by Shakespeare actually) "A rose by any other name..."

In American - "I calls 'em as I sees 'em..."

In Australia - "Don't p..s in my pocket and tell me it's raining!"

Look Joel. All I'm saying really, is that (in my opinion) you've 'jumped the gun' in terms of your knowledge and ability (or credibility, if you like) when it comes to giving SEO advice to the general Internet public (let alone selling the service). It's a very complex and difficult area of the Internet world and even the most experienced and knowledgable are often not really sure about many aspects.

Regards,

Steve

">href="http://www.html-web-design.com.au">HTML Web Design - Affordable HTML web sites for Small and Home Business - SEO - The Affiliate Guide Book

Thanks ctabuck. But I wasn't talking about 'titles'. This part of the discussion concerned 'Domain Names'.

Simply, I say, that if you want to take advantage of having your website or business name (or keywords) in your DOMIAN, you are far better off using dashes to separate the words. Most SEs DON'T separate the words (and count them when returning results) if they are all in one string - How can they?

For argument's sake, if I have a Domain named www.reknowed.com, does Joel really think that the SEs are going to count the word "know" (which is clearly contained therein) as a separate keyword and 'attribute it towards the listing? Think not.

However, If I call it www.re-know-ned.com. they will all see it as a keyword and attribute it.

Well, obviously, the same thing applies with any 'string of full words that have nothing breaking them up. They will (by MOST SEs) not be recognised.

As far as website 'Titles' are concerned, I agree whole heartedly with your assertion that using dashes is pointless. Also is using: of, at, to, for, by, in, on, the, as, etc as they are among many other 'genatives' 'datives' and 'ablatives' and they have no specific meaning without other 'nominative' words with them. Although, before I'm corrected, 'the' is a 'definite article' rather than one of the other declention terms mentioned.

Steve

">href="http://www.html-web-design.com.au">HTML Web Design - Affordable HTML web sites for Small and Home Business - SEO - The Affiliate Guide Book

wow - that was a great discussion which kind of passed me by, but am I right in saying that each page on my website should have meta title and descriptons tags realting to the individual page, I have one broad set of meta tags across the whole site.

If you guys want to show who is best, or who is right can you look at www.belmont-media.com and tell me where I'm going wrong or right.

I chose the name before I realised the debate about dashes sorry.

Any help though guys greatly appreciated.

I'm based and working from the uk, no clients as yet any tips or thoughts.


Thanks........
P.S. I have one other post on here asking for help about my site design which I am taking to be different to meta tags hope this is ok for you guys as I asked about meta tag help in my other post.

<<<<<<<< am I right in saying that each page on my website should have meta title and descriptons tags realting to the individual page, I have one broad set of meta tags across the whole site. >>>>>>>>

Yes, individual meta titles and descriptions for each page and that will give you a better chance of getting each page ranked for it's keywords rather than just the index page.
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Ian

this site is great I've made two posts and I have recieved replies within a day each time.

Ian thank you for your help, it really helps............

I will make the relevant changes, cheers !!!!!!!

Its strange rereading this post after nearly 3 years....

Most of it's still relevant too!

I hope it helps!

:-)

Yeah i agree allot of the forums mentioned on here are pr5 to pr6 nice quality on signature links
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