Google doesn't like these

If you’ve got a website and you pay attention to where your visitors comes from, you’ll probably see that search engines like Google provide you with a huge proportion of your traffic.

Google is probably the most useful website in the world, and one of the things that makes it so good is that it’s very efficient at clearing out pages that don’t exist any more. Ask yourself, when was the last time you clicked on a link in Google and got taken to a blank page?

It hardly ever happens, and when it does happen, it’s usually because a website has just changed and Google hasn’t cleared out its data about that website yet.

So what do you do when you’ve got a website with hundreds or thousands of pages … and you want to scrap the whole lot and move to a new system?

Will your old pages disappear forever from Google? The ones you’ve spent years optimising for high Google rankings? Will your hard-earned search engine traffic disappear?

The answer is “probably yes, and you’ll need to wait until Google finds all your new pages” – unless you use the power of the redirect.

Let me explain…

On the web, when you try to connect to a website and load up a page in your browser, the other computer sends your computer a code to tell it whether your request has been succesful or not.

There are quite a few of these status codes, but here are the most common ones:

200 – OK
301 – Moved (permanently)
302 – Moved (temporarily)
401 – Unauthorised
403 – Forbidden
404 – Not found
500 – Internal error

You’re probably most familiar with the 404 error. This is what happens when you try to browse to a non-existent page. You can see examples of them on most good websites.

Check out our 404 error page here: http://www.mogul.co.nz/404

Facebook’s 404 page is here: http://www.facebook.com/404

And here’s Amazon’s 404 page: http://www.amazon.com/404

If Google finds a link to a page that gives this error code, it deletes that page from its index. So your pages that don’t exist will disappear from Google’s search results.

How to ensure a smooth transition to your new site

Often when you create a new site to replace your old one, your pages stay roughly the same and you just want to redirect people (and Google) from the old pages to the new pages.

So what you need to do is use the ‘Moved (Permanently)’ codes (301) to point Google in the direction of your new page if they follow a link to the old page.

A few of our clients have required this on a pretty massive scale, e.g. Kennedy Park Top 10 Holiday Resort and EIT.

There are two ways you can do set up redirects:

1. If your pages have simply changed their filetype (e.g. page.html to page.php), you can set up a rule to redirect any page ending in .html to its equivalent page ending in .php.
2. If the structure of the site has changed significantly, you’ll need to do it the hard way: i.e. set individual redirects for every page you want to be redirected. A good way to do this is to list all the old pages in the first column of an Excel spreadsheet and then in the column next to it, put the page that you want each one redirected to.

Then someone (like us) who knows their way around a web server will be able to set up these redirects and when you switch the site over from the old one to the new one, Google won’t dump all of those old pages. They will be replaced in the Google index by the new pages. They might move up or down in the rankings, but at least they’ll be in there.

The added benefit of this is that your internal links will still work and links to your content from other sites will still work too.

Simple!

We know that content is king and you need to be publishing new content regularly, otherwise you will sink down the Google rankings and your competitors with their fresh content will rise above you.

It’s never been easier to create your own content online. Nearly all of our clients have a content-managed website or a blog, and a large number have Facebook pages too, but most people get very nervous about publishing content online because they don’t know the ‘rules’.

So how do you write content that…

• people want to read?
• people want to share with their friends?
• makes people take action?
• is easy to find in search engines?

Read on and I’ll give you some advice we’ve learned over the last ten years.

You need to tailor your content to your audience and the action you want your reader to take, but some things apply to any type of content you publish.

• You should always have social media sharing buttons. These increase your readership by making it really easy for your readers to share your article with their friends. The most common and effective buttons are:
  • Like this on Facebook
  • Share this on Facebook
  • Tweet this
• Use short paragraphs – no-one likes huge blocks of text
• Make use of graphics – but avoid stock photos if possible. They always look contrived.
• Narrow columns are easier to scan – just like a newspaper or magazine
• Bullet points
• Numbered lists
• The headline is vital, so make it good. As David Ogilvy said “On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 80 per cent of your money.” People seem to like headlines like ’7 social media tips I learned from Elvis’
• Always finish the article with a call to action, e.g. Buy now , sign up here, fill in your details, place a comment.

If the purpose of the article is to sell something:

• Use questions just like you would if you were selling to the reader in person.
• Demonstrate the benefits of your product or service using facts and figures. You will improve your results by 60% if you do this (sorry, I just made that up, but you see what I mean).
• Make sure you include testimonials from satisfied users, a money-back guarantee, and if possible, the offer of a free trial.
• Don’t bore the reader. Don’t give them a reason to click the ‘Back’ button.
• Don’t distract the reader with links to other websites (they might not come back!).
• Give the reader a clear call to action: e.g. “Buy now” or “Start your free trial”.

If the purpose of the article is to inform

• think of the article as answering a specific question, and stick to answering that question
• use sub-headings to break up your article
• provide links to further reading
• at the end of the article, use a poll that asks ‘Did you find this article helpful? Yes or no’

If the purpose of the article is to entertain

• make it entertaining! If you’re lucky it might go viral on the social networks (yeah right!)

And lastly, a word about search engines. You might think that you can fool Google and leapfrog your competitors in the rankings by stuffing your site full of keywords. But wait a minute… Do you really think that you can pull the wool over the eyes of a company worth US$200 billion that makes its living from delivering accurate search engine results? Dream on…

Just sprinkle keywords throughout the article like you normally would. and make sure the headline of the article is in the HTML title of the page, and then go out and tell the world about it. The more people that link to the article, the more Google will like it.

Simple.

But, as shown in the last few days, Google can change the rules without warning. This week, the Google algorithm changed. That’s the recipe Google uses when it’s deciding how to rank sites in its search results. The algorithm is a tightly guarded secret, so competitors can’t emulate it, and so websites can’t game it to get easy high rankings.

Google says the reason for the change is to promote quality sites that produce useful, original content and penalise ‘content farms’ – sites that simply replicate good content from lots of sources in an attempt to lure search engines.

Since the change, sites such as Mahalo.com have seen their web traffic plummet by 75% overnight – and Mahalo.com is faced with laying off 10% of its staff as a result.

The lesson: Don’t put all your eggs in one online basket. Provide a great product or service – and use all of the digital channels at your disposal to promote it.

As Fred Wilson said …
“Live by SEO, die by SEO. Don’t be a google bitch.”

We’re working with the Havelock North Business Association (HNBA) members to give Havelock North a regional ‘digital advantage’ ahead of big events like the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and to provide visitors with information they may require, such as businesses’ opening hours and location.

We have contracted EIT student Damian to get out and about in the streets of Havelock North, creating and verifying Google Places listings in an effort to make Havelock North the most ‘Google-y’ place in New Zealand!

Visitors coming to Hawke’s Bay might be looking for a dentist, tyre stockist, food market or a babysitter. We want to ensure when they are searching online, using a computer or their smartphone, that Havelock North businesses are as easy to find as possible.

According to the official Google Blog, over 4 million businesses around-the-world have claimed their Google Places listings since its launch in September 2009. The listings connect people to relevant information such as hours of operation, vouchers, and product offerings, but also offer photos and video uploads. We want to ensure Havelock North is capitalising on the service.

It’s estimated that around 20% of all searches on Google are related to location. Google Places is a fantastic free service that enables businesses to raise their digital profile and promote their goods and services to people searching the Web.

Another great benefit of Google Places for businesses is that it provides valuable insights into how many people are clicking to their listings, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people travelled from to get to the business. All this can really help a business fine tune their offer or expand into other markets.

Havelock North Business Association President, Adrienne Pierce is excited to see Mogul embrace the tool. “We’re very grateful to Mogul who are willing to invest their own time, for free, for the collective good of Havelock North businesses. The Association is working towards providing Havelock North Village with wi-fi access, so Mogul’s initiative works in really well with our strategy. We live in a digitally mobile society, so Havelock North will be in a powerful position to communicate and direct visitors to the town through their computers and smartphones.”

Anyone can create their own Google Places listing but not everyone is sure how to go about it. If there are any other Havelock North business’ wishing Mogul to volunteer their services to help with their Google Places listing, please contact me (Georgina Miller) at Mogul on 06 877 7478 or email george@mogul.co.nz

Search engines want to be like people

The purpose of a search engine is to provide relevant results to searches. The best way to achieve this is to understand what the person is searching for, and present them with the most appropriate options. Search engines are continually becoming better at filtering out spammy, “optimised” content and keeping genuinely useful and relevant content.

People tend to assume that search engines have different needs than human users. The natural response to this thinking is to try to feed as many “keywords” to the search engines in the hope that this will tap into large streams of users. This doesn’t work, and flies in the face of what the search engines want.

Write quality content

Your site should be valuable to people. That is the first goal. Trying to stuff as many keywords into headings, titles and links doesn’t work, and only serves to annoy your users and cheapen your site. If your content can be skimmed over and understood, it will be appreciated by both search engines and your users too.

The main thing to remember is to write for the benefit of your users. Keep the text clear and concise, ensure the titles and headings are pithy and explanatory. Most of all, ensure that the content is relevant.

Make regular updates

Many search engine optimisation people will point out that you should create “landing pages”, or pages that focus on a specific topic, in order to maximise the breadth of searches that arrive on your site. This is only half right. Landing pages can be bad for users, they present a barrier to your real site and get in the way.

The best way to maximise your exposure is to add regular, useful content to your site. If you know and understand your business, it should be easy to find topics to write about. People will find it interesting, your site will be more trustworthy and successful, and you’ll get more people finding your site in the search engines.

The internet is a community, and by being part of the community you will stand a better chance of getting the attention your site deserves.

Who links to me?

When another website references a page on your site, it creates a highlighted or underlined piece of text that links your page to theirs. A visitor can then click that link to see your page and continue their reading.

Since the web consists of billions of pages of information, links are the backbone of how the information is found, and are very important to your search engine optimisation strategy.

Why they matter so much

When a search engine looks for information on the internet, following links from page to page is the main way it discovers information. Further to this, search engines, such as Google, use methods to try to determine which pages are important and which are not so important. Each search engine is different, but one of the most fundamental factors in determining the importance of a web page is the quality of the pages linking to it.

A link from a quality page is like a vote of confidence. The writer of the page that links to your page is “vouching” for your site, by referencing it as a useful source of information. When a search engine counts up the number of links pointing to your site, it’s able to rank the relative popularity of the page in terms of people linking to it.

So, if you want to have a page that ranks well for relevant searches in Google, you would need to ensure that the page has been referenced elsewhere, preferably by multiple sources.

Not all links are equal

The quality of the site that links to your site is very important. You could sign up for any number of free web site directories that promise links to your site, and see little benefit, or you could get a link from a well established newspaper site and your rankings will benefit greatly.

Should I link to everyone?

No. A link is seen as a “vouch” from your site to another, and if you link indiscriminately this can have a negative impact. You should definitely be prepared to link to good, useful sources of information, but avoid taking part in “link-swap” schemes.

As when writing titles and headings, it pays to link for the benefit of your site visitors. Search engines are very good at spotting when linking is done as a way to artificially boost a site’s links, and there can be negative results.

So, how do I get linked?

There are many ways you can establish links to your site and encourage natural linking.

Give to get

By giving value through your web site, you encourage people to share this by linking to your site. For example, if you write articles on your web site, you can share useful tips and helpful information. This gives others reason to comment on your articles within their own blogs, and can result in very good links. An advantage of this approach is that by keeping your site up to date and fresh, you may be able to become an authority within your industry.

This approach does take time but can be worthwhile.

Get into directories

While linking out indiscriminately can damage your reputation, it doesn’t hurt to submit your site to relevant directories. Search for local directories for your region, or industry directories for your industry. Many are free to join and can offer alternate ways for visitors to find you.

Write for publications

Writing for other sources of information can be a great way to increase visitors to your site. Back this up by providing compelling information on your site and the visitors will be even more likely to return or mention it on their own site.

If there are other blogs within your industry, take time to write notable comments on their blogs and encourage discussion. This will reflect well on you, and offer opportunities to promote your web site. You could also submit articles to be published on their blog.

Speak to people

Getting linked is a lot like traditional networking. By putting your web address on business cards or telling people about your site, you increase the chances that people will find your site and link to it from their own. Get to know people in industries that complement your own, as they may link to you as a source of related information.

So I should join link networks?

Generally speaking, if something seems to offer something for nothing, avoid it. Many such sites encourage you to link out in return for multiple links back. This is generally frowned upon by search engines and can result in worse rankings in the search engines.

Easy does it

Like much in business, establishing yourself online is something that takes time, and a slow steady approach is the best way to ensure your web site grows to become a long-term success. Like much business, giving value and communicating to people is the best way to encourage online growth. The internet is a community, and taking part in that community is the best way to ensure your site works for you.

Search engines want to be people

Many people think that optimising a site means placing “keywords” in their “meta tags”. While this may sound technical enough to be worth trying, it’s a waste of time. Search engines may have used these bits of information in the past, but it is no longer the case. Most modern search engines try to view sites from the perspective of real people, in order to find and present good information in a way people will find useful. When planning the content of your titles, headings and links, it’s important that your site keep this in mind.

One caveat to the above is the “description” meta tag. While this does not have significant impact on your search engine results, it is sometimes used beneath the title on search results.

Title is important

First thing to check is your page title. Page titles are the text people click on in search results. They should be easy to scan and informative. Some people attempt to put as many “key” words in here as possible, but this can make the text off-putting to users. And if the text isn’t aimed at users, it isn’t what search engines want.

Secondly, make sure each of your pages has an appropriate title. Repeating one title for every page in the site doesn’t help. Even if the title is appropriate for the site generally, you will miss out on specific searches for which the page in question may be appropriate. For example, if your site is about Holidays, and you have a page about Camping, a “camping” oriented title will help the page rank for related searches.

Headings summarise the page

Second to the page title, the page heading (H1 tag) is important. Again, it’s important to write headings for people first. Headings should be specific and summarise the purpose of the page, for example “Car Dealers in Wellington”, and not be vague, such as “Welcome to the site”. This means that the title is helpful both for people, as it describes well the page, and for search engines, as it contains key words that help the search engine decide what the page is about.

Subheadings (h2, h3) should be used to break up longer pages. The text should be organised into discrete sections, and good subheadings will help visitors scan pages, and allow search engines to more easily determine what the content is about.

Link it well

Links are a very important part of a site. In this case, the way you link to pages within your site can help your search engine ranking. Most sites have a menu that links to their main pages, but this can be augmented by making sure to link to pages within your content also.

The reason for doing this, is that search engines will take into account the words used in the links themselves, and the page being linked to will have a better chance of ranking for the words used in the link. For example, of your home page talks about your “home heating services”, make those words a link to your services page. This will be of far greater value than the commonly used “click here”.

Not only will links that use descriptions as the link text be more useful to search engines, they are also helpful for your visitors. The link stands out to people scanning the page, and it is quite evident from the link text where the link is pointing.

In summary, the advice for making good titles, headings and links is to write them primarily for the users of your site. Well thought out text in all three of these areas will have a double-edged benefit, making your site easier to use and navigate, while helping it rank well in search engine searches.

Some points to bear in mind:

• Don’t stuff keywords, e.g. “Foo Inc – Foo products, consulting, sales, manufacturing, kitchen sinks, cat food, free mp3s, download, crazy ringtones”
• Make titles descriptive and easy to read, e.g. “Foo Inc. – We make foo for you”
• Ensure each page title is appropriate to the page content
• Keep headings concise and descriptive, and relevant to the page in question
• Use subheadings to break up content and summarise each section
• Link your pages within your content, not just the menu
• Ensure each link is descriptive, not “click here”