SEO

This is of course extremely time consuming, but one way that people often approach this is to set up location and keyword specific domain names. We see this often, even though it rarely works, is rarely done well and there is a much better way of doing it.

For example, let’s say you want to rank for blue widgets in Ellesmere Port, where we’re based. The quick and easy path (Star Wars fans take heed) is to buy a domain name such as ellesmereport-bluewidgets.com and fill it with text about blue widgets, mentioning Ellesmere Port liberally throughout the page. Then, and here’s the not actually very clever bit, you can also buy domain names such as liverpool-bluewidgets.com, chester-bluewidgets.com and manchester-bluewidgets.com and replace the ‘Ellesmere Port’ string in your text with the new location. This can create dozens or hundreds, depending on your scope, of websites all with keyword and location specific domains, each with identical text – save for the location.

Guaranteed to work right? Wrong. There are a few notable issues with this plan, so let’s go through them one by one.

1. Google has already stated that the significance of the keyword in the domain name is being diminished as a ranking factor, due to many companies and SEO experts doing just this – therefore buying obviously keyword-focussed domains isn’t a long term strategy
2. The text, even with the location changed, is still duplicate. Google will easily tell that each website is a copy of the other, and will probably penalise all of them – possibly chucking them out altogether, which is something others have experienced
3. Each website is an island, devoid of links, strength, trust and any form of history; each requiring link building work and promotion. The strength of your main website does not help these new sites
4. Cost – this may seem obvious, but each requires building, the domain name registering and hosting – plus, if you’re intending them all to rank, you’ll need to host them on different IP addresses, increasing the cost

As you can see, this isn’t a viable strategy. Instead, in order to optimise your website for different locations, this is what you should do:

1. Use your own, existing, website as its strength is paramount to success. This way, any content you add, links you build or links you acquire will aid your website and its general rankings anyway
2. Create landing pages on your website for specific locations. These landing pages should be organised in a directory format, such as /north-west/Liverpool/blue-widgets – with subpages for each of your keywords, optimised for one keyword specifically. These landing pages all require UNIQUE content, written specifically for that page. Simply copying content and changing the location name will not suffice, as Google will identify as being duplicate and your site will suffer
3. Links – and no, we don’t mean links to your website. If you intend your subpage to become part of the local community and rank for geographical searches, show Google that it truly is local and add links to local relevant resources of note, such as the local council website, local sports teams or universities. These really do help
4. Links – this time we do mean links to your site. Find local sites to your geographic location and add links on them, such as local business directories, blogs, forums etc. The more you can associate your landing page to the location for which it is being optimised, the better
5. News… lots of local news. We can’t emphasise this enough. One of the best ways of ranking for geographic keywords is to feature local news relating to your industry, and feature that news on the geographic landing pages. This news must be unique once again, it must be relevant and it must be well written

Following these steps you’ll not only rank for geographic keywords, for as many locations as you choose to optimise for, but you’ll also increase the strength of your website for generic keywords. Most importantly of all, and this is the real deal clincher, it’s ethical, i.e. natural, which is what the search engines want to see.

By adding specific geographic landing pages, content and relevant local news to your own website you’re giving Google what it wants to see. This is a much better, long term, strategy than creating a myriad of duplicate domains in the hope of ranking for regional searches.

SEO

One of the main advantages of WordPress is the permalinks functionality that allows you turn horrible URLs such as ‘?p=345’ into URLs that Google embraces like a long lost friend, such as ‘/how-to-rank-in-google-with-wordpress.html’. The permalinks function is even configurable, so you can have other things in your URL if you so desire, such as dates, categories, ID numbers and the like.

Of course, this is only possible so long as you’re on an Apache server and you can use a .htaccess file. If, however, you’re on a Microsoft Windows Server on IIS6 you’ll probably have to put up with the dreaded ‘?p=345’ URLs… unless you know how to get search engine URLs on a Windows Server with IIS6.

Here is how you do it

First off, you need root access to the server, through something like Remote Desktop. With this you need to be able to access the IIS (note that IIS7 has a URL rewriting module already installed, so if you have IIS7 you won’t need to know any of this, Microsoft has handled it all for you).

Once you are logged in to the Windows Server, install the Microsoft Web Platform Installer – which is a free download (www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx). With this software you can install WordPress directly, without having to bother with such trivial things as FTP or setting up a MySQL database – the installer handles all of this with the clicks of a few buttons.

This will install WordPress on the server on a website of your choice, and add the website to the IIS – now you need to handle those pesky permalinks, which has always been the bane of the IIS6 user. In the WordPress admin, set up the permalinks as you would normally do on an Apache server. This will of course produce a ‘file not found’ error, so you need to download and install the ISAPI rewrite manager (http://www.helicontech.com/isapi_rewrite/) which costs $99. This software will allow you to apply a .htaccess file (or at least the same rules used in one) to each site in your IIS.

If the prospect of spending $99 seems too much to bear, there is also a free version of the software which can be installed on the server and used to create permalinks in WordPress. The only restriction on the free version is that you can’t set different .htaccess rules for different sites, they all have to use the same rules – which is fine if you don’t want to have your WordPress installation in different folders for different websites.

By using the ISAPI rewrite manager and the Microsoft Web Platform Installer you can have lovely search engine friendly URLs on a Windows Server with IIS6 – which means your SEO won’t suffer!

SEO

The thing is, when you do all that to a page, you can end up with spam. So what do you do?

It’s important to recognise that the rules of SEO can be bent, and most of them can be bent at any time. The key is in never going too far on the one page. Applying keywords in some areas and not in others gives you the flexibility to make your site natural, while not ignoring search engine optimisation altogether.

For example, say you’ve positioned your keyword ‘Liverpool wacky widgets’ at the start of the title tag. You’ve also worked ‘Liverpool wacky widgets’ into the body copy multiple times. You probably don’t need to work further instances onto this page. What you can do, though, is point links with ‘Liverpool widgets’ from other pages, and in your next article, posted the next day, place your keywords in other prime spots.

In varying your keyword placement, you not only work your way around the spam filters of the search engines, you ensure your readers don’t get bored. It’s a part of the quality checks you should be looking at during organic SEO.

It’s amazing what one little ‘s’ can do. It turns a computer into computers. It turns Apple into apples. It even turns the industry of SEO into a group of gossiping SEOs. More importantly for your search engine optimisation campaign, it can turn your keyword list from expansive to limited.

Plural keywords, or alternately the singular keywords, are an issue that not many site owners think about. The search engines seem so adaptive to user needs these days that it’s easy to assume that keywords don’t need to be exact matches. In some cases, they don’t need to be – you can safely separate words in a keyword string, or even mix them together. If you want to compete against top-ranking sites, however, it’s important to have everything in the best order possible, and that includes keeping your keywords open to singular searches.

Once the issue is recognised, there are a couple of other things to think about:

1. Should you exclude plurals completely?
2. If not, how do you work them onto your pages?

There are mixed thoughts in the industry about whether singular keywords can stand in for plurals. If you do decide to include both in your SEO keyword list, it’s going to need some fancy copywriting footwork to work them in naturally, but it can be done.

search engine optimisation

The first question to ask is what the benefits are of allowing users to post links. This is a fairly easy one to answer. When you, as a site owner, are looking at other people’s blogs or sites, you’re more likely to post a comment when you can also include a link. If you want to attract quality comments on your own site, allowing links in user signatures is encouraging. It’s a simple way to keep activity happening on your pages.

The second question, then, is how to minimise the risk to your site. There are a few things you can do:

*Require some form of login. This is the most basic form of protection for comment sections in general.

*Upload the latest technology. A lot of sites get into trouble by using outdated comments software. Updates often have security features that are beneficial to your SEO.

*Review comments. This can be a laborious task, but adding comments reviewing to your SEO jobs list is the best way to ensure no spam is posted on your site.

SEO

Spiders may not have money pouches, but they do spend when on websites. They spend time, and for crawling and indexing, time is precious. The good news is that with SEO you can influence how search engine spiders spend their budgets on your site.

The concept of a crawl budget relates to the limited time spiders spend on low-ranking pages. The lower the rank, the less time spent. High-ranking pages, being more interesting to the search engines, get more time. SEO experts theorise that each site can expect limited crawl time, and that this time can be redirected with careful structural planning.

The method is fairly simple. If you want to boost a page’s rank, stick it next to one that’s already doing well. Link to it strongly from the home page. The association will get that page more crawl time, which means more attention to the on-page optimisation techniques you’ve applied, and eventually a better ranking.

By directing search engine attention in this way, you’re spending your crawl budget on pages that count. The attention itself won’t be sufficient to boost rankings, of course, and it’s important to have your on-page SEO jobs taken care of beforehand. It’s just a smart way to take advantage of the attention you’re given.

Liverpool

Now you know how Google feels.

A connection limitation, also known as a host load limitation, is a server-related problem that can prevent Google’s spiders from accessing your site. Many site owners forget that shared servers limit the number of connections for a site, effectively blocking out some connection requests. Google sometimes gets caught up in the melee.

Servers can cause lots of trouble for the websites they host. A lot of site owners opt for shared servers because they are a far cheaper option than a dedicated server. Web companies are happy to offer discounts, but less happy to volunteer information on the other sites on the server. This causes problems. While some of these problems can be handled by a clever webmaster, connection limitations require more direct action. A server change is the ultimate answer.

Search engine spiders are fickle beasts. Search engine optimisation companies spend a lot of time figuring out how to keep the attention of the search engines’ little crawling robots, and a lot of SEO advice is centred on this subject. Many site owners don’t realise that it can be difficult to get that attention in the first place. Sharing a server is not always a good move.

Chester

Link juice, like its fruity counterpart, degrades over time. It’s inevitable that sites get shut down, pages get moved, and important links fall by the wayside. This undermines a essential part of your search engine optimisation plan.

Preserving this link juice is a must. This preservation requires just as much effort as the creation of all those numbered preservatives.

*Keep an eye out for the best brand. Some types of juice keep better than others, both in links and in fruit. When planning out your link building strategy, it’s vital to include a couple of links that are likely to provide long-term benefits.

*Add a little something. Juice doesn’t preserve itself. You have to work on it. Maintain your link juice by keeping in touch with your valuable link suppliers. Continuing to build on the relationship may net you more links.

And finally –

*Get some more juice. The best way to keep the juice in your fridge fresh is to buy it fresh. The same goes for links. The constant pursuit of links should be included in your regular SEO jobs.