Below is a list showing the results of the SEO campaign. The column on the left shows actual searches carried out on Google during December 2009 that triggered Google to show the optimised website site in the search results. The right hand column shows the searches that resulted in click throughs.

Click image below for larger version.

As well as the standard SEO, we also optimise Google Maps so that client sites appear when their niche is being searched on Google. An example of the search Flat to let Cardiff brings our client up in the top position on Google maps as well as position 5 in the main results.

Search Engine Optimisers and Webmasters have been in a quiet panic for a while now about the upcoming major change to the Google ranking algorithm.

Many of us old-timers remember the mass suicides (well nearly) after the huge change to the algorithm in November 2003 (called the Florida Update); that caused hundreds of thousands of websites to disappear from the Google rankings during the run up to Christmas. Thus losing many millions of pounds of revenue.

Then there was the roll out of new back-end technology (called Big Daddy) in December 2006 which also caused massive disgruntlement among webmasters and search engine optimisers.

So, if the 3 year cycle is to be repeated, we are due another massive update. Well it is, and we are.

Google have been working away on a radical update to the way sites are indexed and the way the search engine results pages are being constructed.

This update is called Caffeine and has been tested in the wild on a couple of datacentres in the US and it is expected to go live very soon, however, Matt Cutts, a senior engineer at Google in charge of web spam, has posted a blog about the impending update stating that it wont happen until after Christmas.

So, it seems that Google may have learned from the past and are saving webmasters from suicide during the busiest period of the year, however, I have noticed a few changes already. Minor, but changes none-the-less.

Am I scared?

A little. I lived through the last two updates and came out the other side unscathed, but not without hours and hours of research and testing in order to get sites back on the first page of Google. Nobody really knows what is gong to happen, but it is my suspicion that spammers and webmasters using black hat techniques are going to suffer most – which is a good thing.

Watch this space.

Gulp.

Rumours abound as to what the new algo will consist of. Of the many things rumoured to be rolled out with this update, not many will have an effect on websites optimised ethically and within Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, however, there is one change that webmasters and SEOs need to be aware of.

For some time now, the speed at which a website loads has had a bearing in the quality score as applied to Google’s Adwords product. Google engineer Matt Cutts has announced that site speed will now be part of the new algo.

If you are left wondering how important the site speed will be with regards to ranking, I think it is likely to be more important than Page Rank. The thinking behind this is quite simple. Google’s Webmaster Central has a new section, which although in Beta, provides details of the site speed. Clearly, Google must think it’s important enough to worry about. Google has dedicated a lot of resources in developing a tool available as a Firefox plug-in too. Thus, once again demonstrating the importance of such in the new algo.

Firstly, let me quickly explain what it is and where you will find it.

The title tag or page title is not visible to the web user accessing the site on the web. It is inserted in the head section of the page by the Search Engine Optimiser or the designer. It is used by search engines to ascertain what the page is about.

So, armed with that little gem it is easy to see why it is important to get the title tag right. The title tag should be written succinctly in proper English and should contain the keywords used in the page. It is effectively the search phrase used by web users to find your page.

When considering the page title and thus the page content it is important to think like the user; like the web surfer. If your page is about a product, and for the sake of argument lets say it is, and your product is Blue Widgets, you would be right to use the term “Blue Widgets” in your title tag and in the page itself.

All well and good, however, there may be many thousands or even millions of pages vying for rankings on that phrase and there might just be a better way of looking at it. Remember earlier I said think like the user? Here’s why. “Blue Widgets” the two word search phrase will be harder to rank than a three or four word search phrase, so we need to expand it a little. Now, what might the web user type into the search engine? “The best blue widgets” is a strong possibility, so use that. You can select good title by using intuition, however, there are tools to aid in this and a subscription to Wordtracker is invaluable for keyword research.

When composing your title tag, there are some other things to take into account. The title tag is displayed in the search engine results page and therefore benefits from a dominant position in front of the user, so why not add a hook or a call to action to the title? In this case how about:

The Best Blue Widgets – Click here to see our favourites
or
The best blue widgets are only available to buy here

You will notice that I have placed the keyword at the beginning of the sentence. That too is good practice.

On the subject of good practice:

DO: Use keywords in the title.
DO: Use complete sentences.
DO: Pay attention to the maximum character length (below).
DO: Make sure that the keywords are also in the page headings and text copy.

DO NOT: Use the same title on multiple pages.
DO NOT: Use keywords in the title that are not relevant to the page.
DO NOT: Spam the tag by repeating keywords.

One last thing that needs to be taken into account when writing your titles is the length; the maximum characters read or displayed by the search engines.

The web consortium, W3C state that the maximum length should be 64 characters due to limited space on search results pages, but that was written when the average screen resolution was 800 x 600. Things have moved on.

Google displays 66 characters of the title, but does not show part words and will crop at the last complete word.
Yahoo has a cut off at 120 characters. Yahoo will simply crop there.

Now think back to the part where I mentioned a call to action in the title. So as to display nicely on Google, make sure that the title looks good when cropped in accordance with Google algorithm. We want the call to action to be visible and we want the title to be legible so as to attract clicks. That’s what it’s all about. Clicks = Visitors. Feel free to use the 120 characters allowed, but make sure to visualise what it will look like in the search engine results pages.

Here ends the tutorial on SEO Title tags.

Good luck. Feel free to ask any questions.

This something I have recently done with our re-brand from Zoom to Coast. I have often given advice on the correct way to do this, but this is the first time I have done it myself. You, the reader can follow this in real time and see that it can be done.

I expect the rankings and PR to move over from the old URL to the new one in 2-4 weeks, but let’s see,

It is best to move the entire site so that the file structure and site content remain the same. The only thing to change would be the domain name. In this case, however, I have taken the opportunity to update the site content which has meant a slightly different approach has to be taken.

In the case of a a straight forward domain name change the procedure is as follows.

1. Set up new domain on a hosting account, preferably sharing an IP address (in the case of virtual hosting) with the existing hosting account. If on dedicated hosting, it is best if the IP address is a near neighbour. This is not essential: in fact there are circumstances where the reason for the move will be to distance yourself from a previous bad neighbourhood or to move the site to a country specific IP block.

2. Upload a copy of the site to the new domain.

3. Run a link checker such as Xenu link sleuth over the new site to check the integrity.

4. Set up 301 redirects from the old site to the new site. It is important to do this quickly before the content is indexed at the new domain otherwise it will be seen as duplicate content and would risk a penalty being issued by Google. It is fair to say that carrying out the redirects correctly would fix that issue, but best to avoid it in the first place.

5.Test redirects using a site map of the old domain.

6. Check headers to ensure redirects are 301.

7. Make a complete back up of old site.

8. Delete old site leaving any files required for redirects.

9. Monitor ranking on new domain.

For the purpose of this exercise, I will be monitoring 3 established search phrases that have been in the top 3 of Google in the time running up to the new domain: namely.

Search Engine Optimisers

SEO Suffolk

Search Engine Optimisation Suffolk

Please note:

You can use a Meta redirect set to zero. Google sees this as a 301 redirect.

Never use 302 redirects.

Don’t forget to set up new Webmaster and Analytics accounts.

CaptainSEO.

To hire me to move your site for £100, please contact me here.

Over the years I have had to specify many hundreds of websites and I have always found it useful to include a specification for search engine friendly web design.

Below you will find a specification for website design with regard to Search Engine Visibility that I use as my basis in my proposals.

URL Structure:

• URLs and file names should include the page keyword(s). E.G. www.domain.com/keyword.htm or www.domain.com/keyword1- keyword2.htm and must not use “?” or “=” characters. Keywords are to be used in the file names and must be separated by “.” “:” or “-”. Never use the underscore “_” or spaces. Session IDs (or anything that looks like them) must never be used in a public area of the website.
• URL re-writing must be used to avoid the use of illegal characters in the URL string.
• 301 redirects should always be used in favour of 302 redirects.
• When using Windows servers it is essential that duplicate content is not created by IIS serving pages that aren’t case sensitive. All URLs and file names must be in lower case and any requests for pages with mixed case must be automatically re-written and served as lower case with a 301header. E.G. If an external site links to page thus www.domain.com/Page1.htm it must be re-written as www.domain.com/page1.htm and served with a 301 header.

Navigation:

• Page navigation should be by using simple text or graphic based html hyperlinks.
• CSS can be used to alter the look of the links.
• Navigation using Flash, JavaScript and Image Maps should not be used unless there is a simple html version available too.
• For small sites (up to 20 pages), a static link to each page should be available at the bottom of each page. Larger sites need to have a link to every main section of the site at the bottom of the page and each section should then have links to all other pages within that section.

1. Update: Although the above is good practice it is more important to have an XML site map in place and referenced in the page head section.

• Every page must have a link to the home page in short format. E.G. http://www.domain.com/. The link can be an image or text and must have the closing slash. Never mix trailing slash and absolute paths as this can cause duplicate content penalties.
• Canonicalisation. http://domain.com must be redirected by a 301 handler to http://www.domain.com so that only one version of the site is indexed by the search engines in order to avoid duplicate content issues.

Site design:

• Frames must never be used – the exception being where CSS is used to create inline frames that are visible to search engines.
• The use of Flash must be restricted to page elements only.
• <hn> tags must be used for page headings and sub headings.
• All code must validate to w3c standards – http://validator.w3.org/.
• Pages must be output as static html unless dynamic use is specifically required. E.G. A site selling a rapidly changing commodity such as Airline Seats.
• Acceptable technologies for database driven sites are .asp .php .net asp.NET and .jsp in conjunction with a re-writer. For static sites, html, html and variants are to be used.

Page Content:

• Every page must have at least 85% unique content.
• Keywords must be in the page copy at a density of between 1-10%, however, it must be noted that keywords should be included so as to read correctly. A general rule to follow is that if it reads well, the keyword density should be correct, but must be within the broad limits.
• Keywords must not be repeated in the copy more than 2 times in a row.
• Google’s algorithm now adds weight to “local search”. Therefore, the address and phone number needs to be prominent and preferably on each page. This can be in the footer or an easily accessible (one click from home) page.

Hidden text:

• No attempt should ever be made to hide text or keywords in a web page.

JavaScript and CSS:

• These must always be “off page”.

404 Error handling:

• A custom 404 page must be used. The should must have a copy of the sitemap and utilise a Meta refresh to the home page set at 5 seconds.

The following are preferred but not essential and are only applicable when dynamic content is used.

Meta Description Tag:

Should be dynamically generated from the first 250 characters of the page copy.

Title Tag:

Should be dynamically generated from the page <h1> heading.

The above would also need to be editable as an override.

Deviation from this specification is only acceptable if permission is given in writing.

CaptainSEO