Google has introduced new SEO attributes – rel=”alternate” and hreflang=”x”, for better handling of multi-lingual pages and content. This feature is predominantly for websites, that contain:
Google Introduces New Multi-lingual SEO Attributes
September 29th, 2010 by Navneet KaushalThe Benefits And Risks Of Domain Name Changes
September 15th, 2010 by Joe GriffinA domain name is an ID label that defines a field of administrative authority or control on the Net, according to the Domain Name System or DNS. It is used to supply easily identifiable names to address Web resources numerically.
While some might still question the importance of having a domain name, there are those who recognize the importance of having one and so have established their own domains. Just think of it this way: if you have a website with free Web hosting assistance but without a domain name, the company that will be earning from it is the hosting company and not you.
Your domain name is your online address. It can either make or break your presence on the Web. It needs to be easily recognizable to gather enough visitors, contain keywords for it to be search engine-friendly, and not difficult to spell to avoid losing traffic. It is basically your way of putting yourself out there and earning money.
Why change?
There are times, however, when you have to change your domain name for certain reasons. You may want to diversify and consider putting a lot of thought and advanced planning to your domain purchase. You may also do that after a corporate re-brand or if you have chosen a poor name the first time. Also, when your business has now outgrown its original status or when your business needs an upgrade, renewing the domain might be appropriate.
With every action, there is always a risk, including the renaming of your domain. You may lose the support and word of mouth your previous clients have under your old domain name. You may also need to take time to re-introduce your new domain to your clients; some of them will not be available or will be difficult to contact by then.
Square one
Your marketing material, with a link to your web address, will appear on catalogs, brochures, business cards, billboards, television ads and printed pamphlets, but they will likely be rendered questionable once you change your domain. It will also cost you in reprinting material to add to your new address.
The brand that you have built with your old domain name will not be as significant when you have acquired your new address, as impressions and reputations need time to develop and will not immediately be transferred to the new domain. Regaining the value of your brand requires hard work and patience.
Things to look out for
Having a new site design for the new address is essential. While it would be a good idea to move the elements found in the old domain to the new, there has to be changes in the visual design — logos, footers and headers, for instance.
Lastly, and most importantly, the domain change might affect the organic search volume. One of the most common errors site owners do is point their old site to the new one, without a 301 redirect implementation. If you just park your old domain and link it to the new address, you are at risk of a duplicate content issue, making your rankings slowly go down, affecting your SERP visibility and your traffic.
The benefits that eclipse all (if you changed your domain name for the right reasons)
Due to these risks, one might think that a domain change is not worth it. However, it can be. It is important to weigh the advantage from the disadvantage before choosing to change your name permanently.
Having a new domain is good to reach a wider scale, without the risk of losing browsers who recognize the old domain and believe that you focus only on one product or service.
Moreover, having a renamed domain helps the rankings in the search engine as well as online marketing. Since the new site is better, it will be more recognizable and users will easily remember it, resulting to a greater traffic influx. Keywords included in the new address will help SEO efforts and will eventually achieve a higher place in the search results.
Using Your Common Sense To Write SEO Copy
September 1st, 2010 by Courtney MillsThe copy (or content) within your website needs to have 2 purposes. Firstly, it must be optimized properly to help get the maximum exposure to searchers through the crawling of the search engine spiders and it must also be engaging and compelling for the reader or customer.
Building A Better Tweet Button For Your Site Content
August 18th, 2010 by Andy BeardHaving criticized the new retweet or “tweet” button that Twitter have introduced, lets see if we can make it better.
This mainly covers WordPress – if you are on another platform, find a geek that uses it to try to do the equivalent, but I doubt this is possible on Blogger.
I should point out there are already implementations out in the wild that are significantly better in some ways, though might not meet all the goals of the Twitter developers.
Guidelines For New Web Analysts / Strategists
August 4th, 2010 by Manoj JasraI often receive emails from new web analysts/strategists who are fresh out of University or a year into their careers asking what they can do enhance their career and how they can fine-tune their skills. Below are 5 tips definitely worth looking into: Read the rest of this entry »
Creating Great Landing Pages For Conversions
July 21st, 2010 by Courtney MillsMost website owners know that a great landing page is the key to turning visitors into buyers. The main point to getting a landing page that converts is to test, test test.
This is a mantra that Anne Holland from MarketingSherpa swears by. In a recent interview with Revenews, Anne explains her testing tactics, common mistakes and why lies ahead for landing pages in the future.
Build Your Site For Tomorrow’s Algorithm Change
July 7th, 2010 by Patrick HareWhen it comes to search engine algorithms, the one thing you can count on is change. Google says there were hundreds of tweaks last year, Bing is always refining its indexing, and scores of other “Google Killers” are trying to worm their way into the market with a better search experience. In the process of all these changes, there are sites that keep their positions, ones that suddenly move up, and others that drop off the map. People who employ search engine optimization tactics usually see their sites hold positions or improve slightly during these updates. Despite this, the majority of SEO work involves playing “catch up” with the latest indexing changes, even though they could have been anticipated with a little foresight.
Using Your Footer To Improve Site Optimization
June 23rd, 2010 by Jeff HowardWe will discuss how to optimize the footer, header and images that expand over the entire portion of a website. We will also touch on the importance of unique title tags and description tags. The end result of these tips will be a few changes that need made to your website.
Building A Diversity Of Skills To Be An SEO Leader
June 9th, 2010 by Jacob StoopsSo you want to be an SEO aye? I’ll be the first to tell you that working as a Search Engine Optimization professional is a very cool gig, but doesn’t come without it’s challenges. SEO’s are a very special group of people (that’s just my opinion) that often have a very diverse set of skills and experience.
Just like any other profession, there are good SEO’s, bad SEO’s, and a lot of other SEO’s in between. Now far be it for me to use this as a place to toot my own horn, but I feel like a pretty good SEO – definitely not an industry leader at this point, but still very far from bad.
Using Google Labs To Develop Your Site
May 26th, 2010 by Stoney deGeyterThis final section of Google Webmaster tools provides some tools that Google calls “experimental”. The tools in this section change frequently so those mentioned here are available at the time of this writing. More may be added or others removed in the future.