How Many Homepages Do you Have?

Posted by Brian Greenberg on April 13, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

If you want to get the very best out of your SEO marketing efforts, it is imperative that you have ONLY ONE HOMEPAGE.

I see this time and time again with new clients and all over the Internet… websites with multiple homepages addresses.  Besides skirting the duplicate content line, you are forcing the search engines to index multiple copies of your most important page.  To be clear… below are examples of multiple homepage url’s:

Are you starting to get the picture? 

Notice the http or https, www or no www, / or no /, index.html or index.php.

What commonly happens when link building is other sites will link to anyone of your homepage url’s… and if your site gets a link to the index.html page, then it is the index.html page that receives all the benefit.  Then the search engine is forced to pick which homepage url is the strongest! 

If you want to rank well you need to be consistant. 

  1. Pick one homepage address, and 301 redirect all other variations to that chosen homepage.  I always use http://www.yourdomain.com/. 
  2. Put No Follow, No Index robot tags on all secure pages if you have them.  These are the https pages that are commonly used for ecommerce sites.  The https means the page is secure and are necessary when using secure certificates.
  3. 301 redirect all non www pages to pages with the www in them.  If you prefer not to use the www pages then that is fine… but be consistent!
  4. 301 redirect all index.html or index.php pages to your chosen homepage, and make sure you do not have any links on your site pointing to these pages anymore.
  5. 301 redirect all pages that do not end in a / to pages that end in a /.  I know this seems insignificant… but a page with or without a slash are different pages.  Be consistent.

How do I 301 redirect these pages?

It is actually a pretty simple process for any web developer, programmer, or SEO.  I use Apache servers so this is all taken care of in the htaccess file of my sites.  I suggest consulting your web designer or a professional to do this for you.  It is well worth it.

When all is said and done… the search engines should have only one indexed/cached page of every page in your site.  Including the most important page of your site, the homepage. 

This is a huge ingredient of long term success on the Internet.

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What Stategies do SEO Services Firms Use?

Posted by Brian Greenberg on December 22, 2009 · 2 Comments 

For many people search engine optimization and exactly what SEO services firms do is pretty much a black box. Explaining the search engine algorithms and the value of link building to a business owner is pretty much like beating my head against a wall. I think in simplest terms, SEO firms are like PR firms for the Internet.

Articles

Article marketing is a great way to help your website in the search engine rankings.  Although article marketing done by someone who does not understand SEO is like fishing in an empty lake. 

  • Have an experienced English Speaking person write your articles!
  • Carefully choose the keywords to target in your article.  This does not mean keyword density!  You must link back to your site in the “about the author” section using your keyword.
  • Submit your articles to article submission sites… preferably manually. 
  • 1-2 articles a month should be plenty.

Blog Reviews

There are many names for a blog review…  news article, blog post, pay per post, sponsored review, etc.  A blog review is a site owner of a blog website writing an honest review of your website and publishing it on his/her website.  This is generally not a free service and finding quality blog owners is not easy.

  • Find relevant blog sites to write about your website.
  • Make sure they link back to your website using the keywords you want.

Press Releases

Press releases are pretty expensive but worth it if done properly.  An seo submission to PR Web runs $200 and does not include spending the time to manually submit the release.  And your release needs to be well written by and English speaking person.  A submission to PR Web includes submissions to various other Press Release websites and is a great idea to do a few times a year.

  • Make sure you are able to insert text links in your press release, preferably towards the very top of the release.  It breaks my heart to see so many people issue expensive releases and not link back to their sites using their keywords.
  • Get help learning how to properly submit a press release online… it is not an easy process to do right.

I think the above examples are some things that business owners can grasp.  These are all permanent content creation and permanent links promoting your website.  Some of the other techniques used to promote sites like directory submissions, social bookmarking, paid links, and link exchanges is a whole other story.

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How do you identify good backlinks?

Posted by Brian Greenberg on December 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment 

The best kind of backlinks are without a doubt… one way back links from authority sites on indexed pages.

One Way Link

To get the most from a backlink… meaning an increase in search engine rankings, it is best that the link be one way.  This means that another site links to you, and you do not link back to that site.  Reciprocal links are highly devalued in the search engine algorithms, so much so that I would not even bother with a reciprocal link campaign (unless you are doing three way link exchanges).

Authority Site

Ways to identify whether a site is an authority site is whether it:

1. Has a high Page Rank on the homepage of the site (I would say PR 4 or above)

2. Ranks on the first pages of the search engines for it’s main keywords

While the above is a pretty loose definition of an authority site… it is definitely a definition of a site that is worth getting a link from.

Link on an Indexed Page

For a link to hold any value at all… it must be on a page indexed by the search engines!!  Always check to see if the page your link will be on is indexed in Google, Yahoo, and Bing.  If the page is not indexed in any of these search engines, the link is useless.  On the other hand, if the link page is indexed, the link will have value and help in your search engine rankings.

On a side note…  I would also avoid having links on pages that have the word “link” in the url (address).  I happen to believe that these pages are devalued by the engines and do not pass any value… or at the very least pass significantly less value.

 

Happy link building :)

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Paid Directory Submissions. Are they worth it?

Posted by Brian Greenberg on December 14, 2009 · 1 Comment 

While the Page Rank of most directories has dwindled, paid directory submissions still help with organic rankings, but only if certain conditions are met.

What to look for in a paid directory listing.

  • The homepage has Page Rank – If the homepage of the directroy does not have any page rank, I would pass on the directory as it means one two things.  Either the site has been devalued by the search engines, or it has been banned.
  • Submit to Directories that have a high homepage Page Rank.  The higher the Page Rank of the homepage the better indicitive that the site is an authority site.  Here is a good list of paid directories.
  • In order to gain anything from a directory listing… the page that will have your link must be indexed by the search engines.  I personally check to see if the page I am submitting my site to is indexed by Google, Yahoo, and Bing.  If the page is not indexed on all three engines, I pass.

How to optimize your directory listings

  • Submit to categories where you are not pushed to a second page.  Many directories are pretty full and if you get pushed to page 7 of  a category it is not a good thing. 
  • Always try to get your keyword in the title of your site.  The title of you site is the text used to link to your website… and getting your keywords in this link is huge.  Many directories require you use your exact site name, and if you don’t have your keyword in your domain you are out of luck.  But try anyway.  Most directories will just edit your site name/title, or they won’t since they are busy.  Go for it though.

What tpe of listing should I buy?  Annually recurring, featured, or a one time fee?

  • Well first off… don’t do the reciprical link option.  You don’t want to be linking back to the directories as you will lose the benefit of having a one way link!
  • Pass on the featured listings.  The regular listings are on the same page and give the exact same link benefit.  If you are hoping to get traffic from these directories you will be disappointed. 
  • Go with the one time fee listings.  Like the ShowTime Grill guy says “Set it and Forget it!”.  Always go with a permanent listings and plan on being in business for a long time on the web.

Some of my favorite directories:

If you would like custom SEO Services let us know and we will be happy to provide a detailed quote.

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