Five Negative Search Engine Ranking Factors: BAM!

 

ARE YOUR CLIENT SITES GETTING THROUGH TO SEARCH ENGINES?

Webmaster and hosting blogs are jam-packed with hunches, guesses and opinions on Google’s ranking factors. The most powerful search engine in the world has been dissected, desiccated and analyzed by hundreds of experts and still controversy reigns.

 

Some of the more contentious issues include: server accessibility (get a good web host), quality of site content, domain extensions of sites linking in and outbound links to lower ranking sites. The experts can’t seem to agree on what counts in these areas.

SEOmoz is a great site for information from the ecommerce digi-sphere. Here, you’ll find some of the best information written by some of the most knowledgeable SEO professionals. Sure, there’s bound to be bias and debate, controversy and even the occasional name calling, but it’s all good.

In compiling its lists of positive, controversial and “known” negative ranking factors within the Google search algorithm, SEOmoz.org queried 31 well-known experts on their opinions and one thing is certain: no one individual has it all figured out. The ranking factors employed by the Googlistas change as Google’s math geeks and coders build ever-more sophisticated algos designed to provide more raw data and more pertinent data from spiders.

The Top Five Negative Ranking Factors
So what do the cyber-pros identify as the most negative ranking factors within Google’s current algorithm? They’re listed below but note, take these Google negatives with a grain of salt.

It could all change tonight while you sleep.

Negative Ranking Factor #1: Googlebots can’t access your server.
If the site is down for more than 48 hours, which is often the case with low-rent web hosts located half-way around the world, a site’s Google ranking drops like a stone.

If your host server is down a lot, search engines don’t want to recommend the site to visitors who will see a 404 error message that the site is unavailable and can’t be accessed.

The solution? Find a host that delivers not only a 99.9% uptime but also has local tech support, backup emergency generators and multiple layers of server side security. You’ll spend about $7.00 a month for quality shared hosting. Double that amount for quality dedicated service if cross-server attacks are a concern. Don’t let a few bucks a month keep your site from higher rankings. It’s just not cost effective.

Note: Server availability as a ranking factor is one of the most contended topics among SEO professionals who spend much of their time trying to out-think Googlebots, so even the experts can’t agree on this one.

Negative Ranking Factor #2: Duplicate or Similar Content.
Most experts do agree on this one.

Repetitious content is a stone-cold killer. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t pick up a useful piece of syndicated content of interest to your readers. The warning, here, has to do with site text. A programmer can always upload a syndicated article. However, body text should change from page to page, providing a more useful visitor experience.

Of course, duplicate content can be tagged with a designation, but too many of these “do not enter” signs is also a negative ranking factor. Bots want to be able to crawl pages and when you keep them off of critical content pages, it’ll have a negative impact on your SERPs ranking on Google.

Negative Ranking Factor #3: Links to low-quality sites.
SEO survey contributor, Lucas Ng, sums it up nicely: “Linking out to a low quality neighborhood flags you as a resident of the same neighborhood.”

It’s not just about links and plenty of them. It’s more about the quality of the links on a site. So, link up to sites in nice neighborhoods. On the web, Googlebots know you by the company you keep.

Negative Ranking Factor #4: Links Schemes and Links Selling.
Google’s algorithm employs probability modeling in determining bought-and-paid-for links, which doesn’t always equate to an accurate view of a site’s actual linking activity. Even so, Googlebots make assumptions programmed into the algorithm.

A site with a broad menu of links to diverse sites won’t fare well come spidering time. These links farms are easy for bots to spot. The key to avoiding being mis-indexed by Googlebots is to avoid too many links, try to link to higher-quality-more-visited sites and never buy or sell links. It could mean another web site fatality.

Negative Ranking Factor #5: Duplicate Title/Meta Tags.
Search engine algorithms employ numerous filters to identify everything from questionable links to duplicate content that appears on numerous site pages. The same thing is true of a site’s HTML code. Too many duplicate title tags and duplicate meta data can hurt you.

Survey participant, Aaron Wall, stated, “If a site does not have much content and has excessive duplication, it not only suppresses rankings, but it may also get many pages thrown in the supplemental results.”

Bots read code and if the same title tags show up on page after page, if title tags don’t match page text, or if meta data is cut and pasted into every site page, these crawlers take offense according to some experts.

However, there’s another whole school of thought, here. Many SEO pros and site designers believe just the opposite is true – that title tags on each page create numerous entry points to a site, and because each page is indexed separately, the site maintains a larger presence on SERPs.

The key appears to be in the duplication of inserting repetitive title and meta tags. If the content doesn’t change on a particular page, that page doesn’t call for yet another title tag. However, when topics and functions do change from page to page within a site, title tags do help spiders identify the page’s purpose and do provide greater site access to potential visitors.

What NOT To Do With This Information
The wheels are spinning, aren’t they?

You and a million other site owners are weighing negative ranking factors and the impact these factors have on their SERPs position on Google.

Forget it. Let it go. The time you spend trying to reverse engineer your site to appeal to the perceptions of a collection of 31 SEO professionals would be better spent on search engine marketing – promoting to humans.

Oh, sure, you can migrate your site to a host with a much improved uptime and, in this case, you should regardless of what Googlebots like and dislike. You should migrate, not because bots will like you better, but because your customers will like you better when you’re there when they need you.

Same with cheesy links. Disconnect from garbage sites, links farms and any site that ranks lower than your site in page rank (PR). That’ll take five minutes of your time and it’s something you should do, again, forget the bots, do it for your site visitors seeking to further their web searches through links on your site. Help out site visitors because it’s just good business.

But, if you’ve got duplicate content on site, perhaps as RSS feeds, content syndication or hosted content, it seems counter-productive to remove this useful information from the site. Bots recognize these ephemeral links and their time-saving value to visitors by providing good content all in one place, even if it does appear on a few other sites.

There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. Lesson #1: Even really smart people who study the activities of Googlebots under controlled conditions can not agree, ultimately, what negative ranking factors are programmed into that passing Googlebot.

Lesson #2: (And the most important lesson du jour) Don’t try to outwit a Googlebot. Don’t rebuild your site to mitigate negative ranking factors. Take the obvious steps by going with a reliable host, cutting links to unattractive sites and so on, but don’t spend time reverse engineering your site based on the opinions of SEO pros.

Spend your time promoting your site to humans. Do it ethically. And over time, your site will receive an improved rank on Google’s SERPs – guaranteed.

Guaranteed? You betcha. “Length of time a site has been up” is one of the positive ranking factors. The longer you remain hooked into the web, the higher your Google ranking.

It’s just a matter of time.

 

Need some juice for your site? Squeeze me at my website and let’s get some traffic on your website. It’s always a Webwordslinger gig.

Remote Site Syndication (RSS): Use It Or Lose It

 

Use RSS to Get Out The Word

Really Simple Syndication (or Remote Site Syndication, your choice) has been around for quite a few years, though web site owners are just beginning to recognize the potential RSS has to increase site traffic and to spread their site news from one end of the web to the other.

 

RSS feeds are simply the means of getting out the content to sites with visitors interested in what you have to say. And vice-versa: it’s a great way to deliver daily, fresh content to your visitors, increasing your site’s “stickiness” or ability to keep visitors returning regularly. Right now, all the big news outlets deploy RSS feeds to any site that wants to pick them up. Disney, CNN, Forbes, the BBC and other information outlets are distributing their content across the web via RSS feeds. Why? It’s easy, it spreads the costs of content development, and it works. It’s an effective marketing tool that can draw traffic from sites a far distance from your own.

Why Add RSS to Your Site?
Okay, first, it keeps your customer base up to date on sales, special promos and other news from your site. That’s how your site becomes sticky. You broadcast to your customers and, because they’ve had a good experience with you previously, they check out the new merchandise. It’s a great way to keep in touch with previous buyers – the best buyers any retailer could ask for.

In addition, RSS feeds are based on a streamlined XML. This enables your RSS broadcast to be picked up by just about anything digital – cell phones, PDAs, voicemail, e-mail accounts and so on. (No, not the microwave.)

Outgoing RSS
By syndicating (broadcasting) content from your site, you disperse your web presence to sites many times removed from your own. In fact, it may be picked up by site owners you would never have considered and read by a readership you hadn’t even thought about. An on-line store selling horse tack and other equestrian gear found one of its RSS feeds on a site for Therapeutic Horseback Riding – a whole new market for the source of that RSS feed.

Your RSS feed broadcast can be picked up by any site with visitors who might be interested in the latest news in your area of expertise or commerce.

Let’s just say that broadcasting information from your site, and allowing it to be picked up by any site owner, can only help generate more revenue because some readers of your contain, regardless of where they found your latest article, will visit your site to learn more about you, your opinions, services and products.

Incoming RSS
It’s not a one way street. Using an RSS aggregator, which collects feeds from other sites, is a great service you can deliver to increase site stickiness. Let’s say you publish a financial advice newsletter each day. You can collect (aggregate) RSS feeds from other investment sites, large and small, and deliver all of the financial news in one place for your now-daily visitors. So, the web user who once had to visit 10 sites can now get all the news of the day in one place – yours. It’s a time saver for visitors and it keeps them coming back for more.

What Do You Need to Start RSS?
There are three elements in the process, all available as OSS – open source software, as in free. It doesn’t cost you anything except some time.

The RSS Aggregator
This software is used to collect appropriate RSS feeds from other sites and it’s as easy as a mouse click to add a feed. Start by visiting competitor sites and look for the RSS logo (a small red box) or look for the site’s RSS hook up page.

When you find information that you believe your readers would enjoy, just click the “add” button and that feed is now hooked directly into your site. Simply move from site to site locating information that you think your visitors would enjoy.

A note of caution: when gathering RSS feeds for your site visitors, you’re, in fact, the editor. You decide which feeds to add and which to skip. Don’t add every feed just because you can. Be selective. Look for quality writing, solid research and topics that will really be of interest to your visitors. If you throw anything and everything at visitors, they’ll have a tougher time sorting out what’s useful and what isn’t, so collect the best and leave the rest.

The RSS Syndicator
Your web broadcasting antenna. The syndicator (also OSS) makes your feeds easily available for other site owners to grab and display on their sites. Keep your broadcasts short and use a lot of headlines to grab attention. Remember, your feed may be going to someone’s cell phone at a place where reading a 1000-word treatise on the importance of adjusting foot-pounds in running shoes won’t be possible. Broadcasts should be headline rich and employ lots of short paragraphs.

Keep the most important information in headers and in the first few paragraphs. If you haven’t captured their attention by then, you never will.

The RSS Reader
Another piece of OSS. This is the software site visitors need to sort through and read RSS broadcasts. Google offers a pretty spiffy RSS reader. All you have to do is download it and you’re ready to start enjoying the convenience that RSS delivers to visitors looking for a lot of information (good info) from many sources and on the same topic.

If you’re sending out feeds, offer an RSS reader free to your visitors to ensure they get the message.

Use it or lose it.

 

Looking to boost site performance? It ain’t rocket surgery. Drop by Webwordslinger’s place and give me a call. Let’s get some traffic moving on your site.

Pros and Cons of Website Features: It Ain’t All Good, Ya Know

'Slinger Gives You The Skinny on Site Features

There are pros and cons to every feature you add to your site, so before you put up that blog and sign up for Adsense, consider these positive and negatives to the most popular site features.

You just registered your domain name. You’re one step closer to that dream of your own website and finally, financial freedom. But now what? Well, if you’ve signed on with a good web host (one who values your site’s success because it ultimately means the web hosting company’s success) you’ve got a box full of goodies to play with in designing your website.

You don’t need a pricey site designer. But you do have to decide on what your website will display and which features will be left out. There are lots of options which means lots of decisions – and there are pros and cons to each one.

A Secure Checkout
Pros: If you sell a product or service, and you accept payment over the web, you don’t have a choice. You must have a secure checkout with SSL encryption to ensure that sensitive personal information isn’t snared by a bad guy. The alternative is to use PayPal or some other payment service but the more payment options you offer, the more your offerings will move out of the warehouse.

Cons: Cost, for one. If your web host doesn’t provide free checkout software, like osCommerce, it could cost you a bundle. On the other hand, people want to pay with credit cards as long as they believe the transaction is secure.

Also, opening a merchant account – one that allows you to accept credit card orders – is going to cost you – sign-up fees, per charge fees and a percentage of every sale, so if you’re operating on tightrope margins, these additional percentages may mean the difference between a viable business and one that shuts down after three weeks.

Web hosts should offer free checkout software. And, a premium service will let your site piggyback on the host’s SSL certificate, saving time and money.

A Blog
Pros: Blogs are great for keeping a site fresh with new content. A closed blog (one in which posts are limited to your control) is easiest to maintain. They’re also useful for a couple of other reasons. First, it’s easy to post new content when you have a blog module as part of your site’s infrastructure so you can update daily with a couple of clicks.

Blogs also create site communities. Once a reader begins a thread, others follow the lead and in no time, you’ll discover the same people conducting conversations and debate on your blog. These are visitors who return to your site often. A very good thing.

Finally, blog software should come free as part of your tool kit. If it doesn’t, look for another web host that does offer freebies by the pound at a reasonable price. They’re out there.

Cons: Conversely, if you allow visiting readers to leave comments to your posts, maintenance may become a problem. There’s always some foul-mouthed, trouble-maker who stirs up more interest in his online antics than the topic at hand. As the boss of the blog, you can block these distractions, but that doesn’t eliminate the need to monitor threads. You want an active blog but you also have to maintain it with regular posts and constant oversight of readers’ comments. This means part of your day will be used up in editorial duties, a real con.

Google AdWords
Pros: There are thousands of site owners who create websites for no other reason than to generate PPC (pay-per-click) revenues. They put up a little content, stuff each page with AdWords skyscrapers and wait for the money to roll in. And it does. Some of these site owners see $200 – $300 a month in click-through revenue per site, and if they maintain 10 such sites, it starts to add up to some real “walkin’ ‘round” money.

AdWords is a simple, easy-to-manage way to monetize a new site quickly. You only pay when search engine users click on your link so you’re not wasting money.

Cons: I don’t care how well designed a website is, AdWords – those cheesy little blue links on the top, bottom or side of a web page, diminish the perception of quality in the mind of the visitor. And as we’ve said many times in this blog, on the W3 perception is reality.

If your law firm maintains a website (and it should) you want to project a professional, positive image, not the Lionel Hutz “I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm” image.

Another con: click fraud. A competitor can just click on your AdWords link and have all of her friends do the same for five minutes a day. Your AdWords budget gets eaten up by black hat tactics and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. If you can prove click fraud, Google will give you credit, but it’s up to you to prove the fraud. Google get’s paid whether the click is licit or a scam.

Affiliate Links
Pros: A great way to make cash fast. Affiliates are companies into which you enter agreements. You agree to display the mother company’s logo and link on your site and, in return, you receive payment based on the number of visitors to your site who click on the link and perform some action. For example, put up an eBay link and collect $35 a head plus a nickel for each bid one of your referrals places.

Get a couple of hundred eBay buyers placing bids everyday and that money can add nicely to your site’s revenue stream. Also a great way to monetize a site quickly.

Cons: Same dealeo as Google AdWords. If you access a site jam packed with affiliate links, it doesn’t add much to the process of building visitor trust. The site looks cluttered and cheap.

More negative news: each one of those affiliate links takes up space that could be used to sell your products or services.

And finally, each one of those affiliate links is a ticket off your site. With a click, they’re off looking at something on an affiliate site. You may pick up a few bucks a month in affiliate revenue, but you aren’t making the real money you make selling your own goods or services.

One suggestion: As we said, affiliates do generate cash and fast, so if you’re runnin’ on empty, add affiliate links to a single page with a navigation link labeled “Our Partners,” “Our Favorites,” or “Our Picks.”

Pictures and Other Images
Pros: Pictures sell more than words. Online buyers want to see what they’re paying for and, yes, one good product picture is worth a thousand words. So you will sell more with high-quality pictures.

Carts and graphs are useful for providing a lot of information in a small space.

Cons: Unless you own a decent digital camera and unless you know how to dress a set (the place where the product will be shot) and you know that the product should be lit from at least three directions, don’t use product pictures that you take yourself.

Log on to eBay and look at the range of quality of product pictures. Some are ripped from the web so they look okay. But some are nothing more than a front-on flash that blows out the object to a hot white blur floating against a blacked out background. Awful stuff, and not a good selling point.

If you can get product pictures from your wholesaler’s marketing department you’re all set. If not, have those pictures taken by a professional using a hi-resolution camera, lit properly and attractively staged. It’ll cost you some cash but it’s a lot better than using home-grown product pictures that don’t do justice to the product.

Charts and graphs should also be professionally done, unless you know how to create images in Photoshop or some other image manipulation software.

The Choices You Make Now…
…will often determine the short- and long-term success of your site. And remember, your site will evolve. You may start out using AdWords until your site is pulling in enough traffic to make up the lost AdWords revenue. Then, you drop AdWords and…

… your site takes on a much cleaner, more professional look.  

Need more straight talk about building a successful website? Okay, visit me and give me a call. Webwordslinger does it right and at the right price.

Site Owners: Ready To Move Up To A Dedicated Server?

If your on-line biz is bouncing, you need a dedicated server.

Chances are, if you’re like most website owners, you started with a shared hosting program with a web host. In this case, you rent a given amount of disk space and share use of resources, like bandwidth and CPU access, with other shared hosting account holders. In the case of shared hosting, a web host can cram over 1,000 sites on a single box (server). If some of your neighbors are bandwidth hogs, it could mean longer download times and slower response times from your site when interacting with customers.

And customers aren’t a patient bunch. In this day of DSL and cable modems, web users want speed. They expect it, and if you aren’t delivering content fast, some site visitors are going to grow tired of watching that blue line slowly crawl to the right. They’ll click off and go somewhere else to purchase products or services.

Dedicated Servers
Just as the name states. Dedicated service consists of one box, one business. This provides unlimited access to all the server’s assets. No competition for CPU access. When you subscribe to a dedicated hosting program you rent the whole server.

In addition, the host provides an operating system (usually Linux, Windows or some variant), ecommerce software bundles that include site building software, a secure checkout, a database and other site enhancement tools, like blog modules that you can plug in with a couple of clicks on the administrator’s console and, if the host is good, you’ll also get access to 24/7 tech support on a toll-free line. Lesser-quality hosts (that still may charge high monthly hosting fees) provide email-only access to tech support. You, the webmaster, prepare a trouble ticket that’s emailed to tech support (somewhere on this planet, but that’s an assumption) and wait for a response and a fix. When your server is down, your business is down. How long can you afford to be offline?

Who Needs Dedicated Hosting?
Not everyone. That’s why shared hosting is the best option for start-ups. The hosting costs are low, usually less than $7.00 a month, and until your business concept and execution have been proven, don’t spend extra for dedicated hosting services. It’s like driving a thumbtack with a sledgehammer. Overkill.

However, if your site has been up for a while, it’s no doubt changed with the times, with a menu of new features and increased interactivity with visitors. For example, a blog takes up disk space and bandwidth as you and your site community interact. RSS feeds, a fully-customizable content management system and other front store and behind-the curtain features all take up disk space.

And, if you’ve enjoyed retail success online, chances are your product offerings have expanded over time. You’ve added pages to your site, pushing your shared hosting space to the max. Well, a good host will sell you disk space a la carte (by the gigabyte). That’s one way to expand. Or you can take the plunge and sign on for a dedicated server.

Multiple Sites
For many site owners, once they get “the bug” and see that there’s money to be made on the W3, building additional websites takes on greater appeal. If the site owner is clearing $500 a month with one site, 10 sites should deliver a $5,000 return each month. At least in theory.

If you manage multiple sites, all of which are deep in features (you manage 12 blogs, for instance), it’s time to move to a dedicated server. You can run a number of different domains from one server, expanding your web presence. In fact, if you plan on building more than one website (and why not, it doesn’t cost any more each month), a dedicated server is a must. A simple administrator console will quickly provide access to site data and activity from many different sites.

Site Functionality
Some sites contain 20 or 30 pages of static text and a simple opt-in form. However, for enterprise-grade businesses and web retailers, a dedicated server is a must-have. Many business sites contain hundreds of pages and are employed for a variety of purposes such as email and other inter-department communications.

Remember, you can customize your dedicated server any way you want to best suit your business needs. So, you’ll get much more functionality from a dedicated server – especially important when you’re running a virtual office with employees spread out across the globe, or a company with several brick-and-mortar outlets all delivering data simultaneously.

Data Security
If your database is loaded with sensitive, personal information like customers’ names, addresses and credit card numbers, you’ve taken on the responsibility of keeping that data secure from hackers.

Using a dedicated server, you can install your own security software and hardware – multiple layers of security on top of the security the web host provides as part of its service to you.

Managed or Unmanaged Hosting?
Dedicated hosting is offered in two formats: managed and unmanaged.

With unmanaged, dedicated hosting you’re responsible for the whole shebang. So, you and your team are responsible for everything – from the installation of your customized database to the creation of customer service responders. You do it all.

The advantage of unmanaged dedicated hosting is cost savings. Since the web host doesn’t do any hand holding (except for routine trouble-shooting) you’ll pay less for an unmanaged, dedicated server. However, either you’ll have to study up on site construction and connectivity to an ever-growing web, or pay some design guru to build the site to meet your company’s needs.

Also, with unmanaged hosting you’re responsible for your server security. It’s your anti-virus software, your hard-wired firewall, your everything.

Managed dedicated hosting puts you in partnership with the web host. You work with the host techs to come up with business solutions. If you’re employing your dedicated server in a variety of ways, services have to be synced up. Storage space has to be configured and managed so inter-office emails remain secure in transit. Hackers love dedicated servers because they know that these online businesses house hacker gold – personal information and lots of it.

Managed dedicated hosting also delivers managed database services for the most popular database platforms, i.e. Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft, etc. With managed services, you’ll also receive customized, configured security that syncs up with the box’s server-side software.

Managed dedicated hosting is also necessary to create multiple, “virtual servers” for different business functions that may or may not include interaction with clients and customers. Working in tandem with the host’s on-site team of networking professionals, you’ll create the superstructure of your online business – communications, data collection and collation, accounts management, inventory management and all of the other functions of a busy and growing company.

Shopping for a Dedicated Web Host
If you opt for unmanaged dedicated hosting, you will save money. However, you should compare disk space allotted, CPU speed and other apples-to-apples comparisons to get the most for your hosting costs. It’s a simple calculation of: features + cost = value.

However, if you envision an expanding business that relies more and more on the web and the Internet ( they’re two different things) to conduct daily operations, you will pay more for managed service but the price you pay for that extra attention will deliver a site that functions as you envision.

Before you sign an agreement with any web host, contact the business solutions professionals on staff. Discuss your current needs and needs going forward and get a feel for how the team adapts to your thinking.

As in any business, including the web hosting business, the client or customer is always right. So look for input from professionals and follow good advice when you get it, but make sure the managed services team at a prospective host is prepared to solve your online business needs – from site migration to multi-purpose server apps – to your specifications.

Once you find the right team, with the right attitude and the understanding that their success is dependent on your site’s ability to meet all of your business objectives, you’re not just getting a dedicated server, you’re getting experience and peace of mind that your site will be right, right out of the gate.

The Power of On-Site Links

You can’t swing a comatose web head without running into the stalest advice in all of SEO. Get quality, inbound links to improve site ranking with search engines. Yawn! What else ya got?

'Slinger's Linking His Way to Success

 

 

Okay, inbound links work in a lot of ways – creating credibility, trust and the chance for designation as an authority site so, yeah, inbound non-reciprocal links help, and there isn’t an SEO pro or newbie who doesn’t know it.

What you don’t hear a lot about is on-page links – links seen on every page of a web site. Links that connect visitors to other site pages.

Redirects and On-Page Links
Redirects are not held in high regard by search engines. The long-held impression that redirects are black hat tactics is still there. And, there are hackers still trying to hi-jack sites using invisible, on-page redirects. As soon as a visitor accesses the hacked site, s/he is redirected to another site page or even web site from the link provided in the SERPs. Redirects, such as a 301 (permanent redirect) or 302 (temporary), are cause for suspicion and can mean instant death for a web site.

There are plenty of legitimate uses for redirects. A blog, for instance, may send out a conformation of post receipt before redirecting the visitor to the blog and post itself. This kind of redirect is beneficial to visitors, providing useful and reassuring conformation and therefore, not all redirects are bad.

Here’s the deal: if the redirect has a valid purpose – one that an SE bot understands – redirects aren’t a problem. In fact, on-page links are nothing more than redirects and your body text should use them to help visitors navigate.

Embed Text Links Deep In The Site
It’s easy to optimize a site page for bots. The SEO industry still contends some search engine weighting factors, but there are many that enjoy almost universal acceptance by SEO pros.

That’s why some site owners optimize a page for bots and bots only. 5% keyword density, perfect title and alt tags, perfectly balanced informational content – the kind of content bots like to see. This page is then buried deep in the site with lots of links to more user-friendly pages within the site.

The deep site page, perfectly optimized for bots, won’t be attractive to humans (necessarily) with keyword dense text, no graphics (bots don’t read graphics files) and with a perfect title tag. This is a high ranking page according to metrics analysis because the content is information, as opposed to sales copy and again, it’s bot-o-mized in the page’s HTML.

Once the visitor reaches this highly optimized page, he or she is automatically redirected to a page that’s designed to appeal to humans rather than bots. These automatic redirects are usually permanent (301) and susceptible to bot interrogation and even page penalty.

Use On-Page Links to Avoid the Appearance of Impropriety
Use links to redirect visitors. Links are, in fact, redirects and they can be used to help visitors find the information, goods or services they need, and help index a site faster and with greater accuracy. If you do it right, you can get all desired pages indexed on the first pass by a Googlebot. For human visitors, it’s all about on-site links placement that strikes a chord or hits a nerve and generates a response to take action.

Example: A fire extinguisher site publishes an informational piece on home safety, providing good, quality advice. Quality, high-ranking content. This page is one of the high-ranking, deeply placed pages that draw visitors in. Now, instead of using automatic redirects, the savvy site designer will use contextual links to trigger a response from the site visitor.

Within the article, of course, is the recommendation to keep a fire extinguisher in the house. (Completely off the subject, you should have a fire extinguisher on hand. It saved my house.)

Anyway, the article provides a link in context to (1) generate a response and (2) compel action to that response. So, to move the visitor off the highly-ranked page, a short paragraph, based on the keywords entered to access the highly-ranked page, is used. For instance:

“Fire danger in the modern home is a reality, putting you and your family at risk every day. A small, properly-charged fire extinguisher can save your home and the lives of your loved ones.”

This deeply-embedded link then takes the reader directly to the products page for home fire extinguishers. The highly-ranked informational content draws attention from bots. The links draw the attention and direct the flow of visitor traffic once the site has been accessed, leading visitors to the precise page they need.

Use On-Page Links at All Site Access Points
A visitor can reach a well-connected site any number of ways – via directory, indexed as individual links in SERPS, links from other sites and, if you’re doing everything correctly, maybe even some organic traffic.

Obviously, the more access (doorways) to a site the better. However, how a visitor got there is indicative of what the prospect is searching for. If the prospect reached the site through the Directory of Insurance Brokers, that visitor may or may not land on a home page depending on the query words used in the directory search.

“Low-cost high risk car insurance,” as the query phrase, displays a link with that exact headline. The searcher clicks on the top-ranked link, reads a short “Let us show you how to save $$$ on high-risk pool insureds, and a click takes the visitor to the car insurance zone page where additional links continue to direct the pathway taken by the visitor, i.e.

“High risk insurance will cost more depending on just how complicated your driving history is.” , (especially if you’re a local broker looking for local business).

Directions for Humans, Street Signs for Bots
These on-page links direct visitors to precisely the information they’re looking for. These links also provide pathways for search engine spiders that are trained (programmed) to follow links.

Links direct spiders to the far corners of a site, deep into the corpus. However, it’s just as important to make it clear what pages are off limits to Googlebots and other snippets of spidering programs.

Keeping Spiders Out
Spiders don’t just crawl. They follow the mathematics within the algorithm that directs their movements. They follow commands as well.

You can designate certain pages as to keep spiders out of your private business, or keep bots from indexing pages that are in beta at the moment and not quite optimized for indexing.

Or, if you want to close off large sections of a site to spiders, create a robot.txt file that identifies the pages of a site that are NOT to be indexed or accessed by spiders. The fact is, Googlebots are unleashed on any site visited by a user with a Google toolbar so there’s nothing you can do to keep bots from crashing the party.

A robot.txt file, placed in the site’s root directory, will make it clear to spiders what they can and cannot see. It’s the safest way to keep the relentless, “Terminator”-like Google bot from reforming from liquid into a dangerous cyborg once again. And believe it, bots “…will be back.”

Each page of a site should be analyzed from both the bot and the human perspective. Use embedded links instead of automatic redirects to avoid raising the suspicions of bots who think redirects are “icky.”

And place these on-page, intra-site links for maximum effect – either at the point when user need is identified, at all entrance points to the site, on the order form and the contact page.

On-site links are invaluable for helping visitors and helping bots. And together, that’s very helpful to the success of your site.

The 10 Dumbest Site Design Goofs

Despite some of the posts on
SEOmoz.org, site optimization is NOT a science. Science requires accurate, contestable data. No metrics or analytics deliver empirical data so it ain’t no science. SEO Pros don’t even agree on which weighting factors have the most impact on PR and TR.

However, it doesn’t take rock solid numbers to identify dumb design decisions – decisions that prevent access, make buying difficult and make site navigation a wonderland of surprises.

Thus, I offer the 10 Dumbest Design Practices: 

10. Flyouts or drop down menus that cover site text. Umm, yes I want to navigate to that page but that flyout covers home page content that I want to read. Dumber still? No way to close the flyout. Duh.

9. Limited payment gateways. DIY site owners happily launch with PayPal as their only payment gateway. A lot of buyers have never even heard of PayPal, they don’t have an account and they’re not going to the trouble to open one.

The more payment gateways, the more orders you’ll receive. Get a merchant account.

8. Spamglish. Yep, it’s still out there on critical pages that, ostensibly, are designed for humans. Keyword density, as a factor in PR and TR is losing significance so why stuff pages with keywords.

7. Critical site information in graphics. Bots can’t read graphics, so important indexing data may be lost, tucked in a bitmap somewhere.

6. No telephone number. This one is a poser. As a site owner, you went to a great deal of trouble, time and money to get that visitor on site. Wouldn’t it be great to have a telephone number (toll free) so visitors could call with questions or, better yet, orders?

5. Ambiguous navigation. The assumption, here, is that site visitors know what a link labeled “Damsels” means – kinda like those rest room signs in theme restaurants, i.e. “Buoys and Gulls.”

4. No site map. Come on, you guys. You can buy a site map generator for less than $100. And. in creating this remarkable map, you help visitors and bots find their ways around.

3. Dated, duplicate content. We’ve all encountered the entrepreneur who wants a low-ball site populated with public domain and syndicated content and 1,200 affiliate links. The site is dated the day it launches.

2. The long-form sales letter. I’m sure Dan Kennedy meant no harm but these endless pages of mixed type faces, heaps of hype and the never ending (literally) PS, PPS and PPPS bonuses are insulting to the intelligent of a chimp.

1. Home page opt ins. Are you nuts? I don’t even know what I’m opting for (or against). If I have to give you my email address knowing that you’re going to back sell me to the grave, I want to know what I’m getting.

Why place this HUGE stumbling block on page uno. I’m bouncing.

Paul Lalley

webwordslinger.com