Blog posts of '2011' 'September'

A Web designer is one of the persons without whom it is not possible to create a site. However, when SEO is concerned, Web designers can be really painful to deal with. While there are many Web designers, who are SEO-proficient, it is still not an exception to stumble upon design geniuses, who are focused only on the graphic aspect of the site. For them SEO is none of their business and they couldn't care less for something as unimportant as good rankings with search engines. Needless to say, if you hire such a designer, don't expect that your site will rank well with search engines.

If you will do SEO on your own, then you might not care a lot about the SEO skills of your Web designer but still there are design issues as we'll see next, which can affect your rankings very badly. When he or she designs the site against SEO rules, then it is not possible to fix this with SEO tricks.

When we say that you need to hire a SEO-friendly designer, we presume that you are a SEO pro and you know SEO but if you aren't, then have a look at the SEO Tutorial and the SEO Checklist. If you have no idea about SEO, then you will hardly be able to select a SEO-friendly designer because you won't know what to look for.

One of the ultimate tests if a designer is SEO-friendly or not is to look at his or her past sites – are they done professionally, especially in the SEO department. If their past sites don't exhibit blatant SEO mistakes, such as the ones we'll list in a second and they rank well, this is a recommendation that this person is worth hiring. Anyway, after you look at past sites, ask the designer if he or she did the SEO for their past sites because in some cases it might be that the client himself or herself has done a lot to optimize the site and this is why the site ranks well.

Here is a checklist of common web design sins that will make your site a SEO disaster. If you notice any or all of the following in the past sites your would-be designer has created, just move to the next designer. These SEO-unfriendly design elements are absolute sins and unless the client made them do it, no designer who would use the below techniques deserves your attention:

1 Rely heavily on Flash

Many designers still believe that Flash is the next best thing after sliced bread. While Flash can be very artistic and make a site look cool (and load forever in the browser), heavily Flash-ed sites are disaster in terms of SEO. Simple HTML sites rank better with search engines and as we point out in Optimizing Flash Sites, if the use of Flash is a must, then an HTML version of the same page is more than mandatory.

2 No internal links, or very few links

Internal links are backlinks and they are very important. Of course, this doesn't mean that all the text on a page must be hyperlinked to all the other pages on the site but if there are only a couple of internal links a page, this is a missed chance to get backlinks.

3 Images, not text for anchors

This is another frequent mistake many designers make. Anchor text is vital in SEO and when your links lack anchor text, this is bad. It is true that for menu items and other page elements, it is much easier to use an image than text because with text you can never be sure it will display correctly on users' screens, but since this is impacting your site's rankings in a negative way, you should sacrifice beauty for functionality.

4 Messy code and tons of code

If you have no idea about HTML, then it might be impossible for you to judge if a site's code is messy and if the amount of code is excessive but cleanness of code is an important criterion for SEO. When the code is messy, it might not be spiderable at all and this can literally exclude your site from search engines because they won't be able to index it.

5 Excessive use of (SEO non-friendly) JavaScript

Similarly to Flash, search engines don't love JavaScript, especially tons of it. Actually, the worst with JavaScript is that if not coded properly, it is quite possible that because of the use of JavaScript your pages (or parts of them) are not spiderable, which automatically means that they won't be indexed.

6 Overoptimized sites

7 Dynamic and other SEO non-friendly URLs

Well, maybe dynamic URLs is not exactly a design issue but if you are getting a turn-key site - i.e. it is not up to you to upload and configure it and to create the links inside - then dynamic URLs are bad and you have to ask the designer/developer not to use them. You can rewrite dynamic and other SEO non-friendly URLs on your own but actually this means to make dramatic changes to the site and this is hardly the point of hiring a designer.

These points are very important and this is why you need to follow them, when you are choosing a SEO-friendly designer. Some of the items on the list are so bad for SEO (i.e. Flash, JavaScript) that even if the site is a design masterpiece and you promote it heavily, you will still be unable to get decent rankings. SEO-friendliness of design is a necessity, not a whim and you shouldn't settle for a SEO-unfriendly designs – this can be really expensive!

It is not only web designers and developers, who need to adapt to webcomake changes to their strategies and tactics, if they want to capture the lucrative mobile search market. Mobile search is a constantly growing segment of the market, which is good news. However, mobile search has its own rules and they are kind of different from the rules of traditional desktop search. This is why if you don't want to miss mobile searchers, you need to adapt to their requirements. Here are some very important rules to consider when optimizing for mobile search:

1 Mobile Searchers Use Shorter Key phrases/Keywords

Mobile users search for shorter keyphrases, or even just for keywords. Even mobile devices with QWERTY keyboards are awkward for typing long texts and this is the reason why mobile searchers usually are very brief in their search queries. Very often the search query is limited to only 2 or even 1 words. As a result, if you don't rank well for shorter keyphrases (unfortunately, they are also more competitive), then you will be missing a lot of mobile traffic.

2 Mobile Search Is Mainly Local Search

Mobile users search mostly for local stuff. In addition to shorter search keyphrases, mobile searchers are also locally targeted. It is easy to understand - when a user is standing in the street and is looking for a place to dine, he or she is most likely looking for things in the neighborhood, not in another corner of the world. Searches like “pizza 5th Avenue” are quite popular, which makes local search results even more important to concentrate on.

3 Current Data Rules in Mobile Search

Sports results, news, weather, financial information are among the most popular mobile search categories. The main topics and niches mobile users prefer are kind of limited but again, they revolve around places to eat or shop in the area, sports results, news, weather conditions, market information, and other similar topics where timing and location are key. If your site is in one of these niches, then you really need to optimize it because if your site is not mobile-friendly chances are you are losing visitors. You could even consider having two separate versions of your site – one for desktop searchers and one for mobile searchers.

4 In Mobile Search, Top 10 Is Actually Top 3

Users hate to scroll down long search pages or hit Next, Next, Next. Desktop searchers aren't fond of scrolling endless pages either but in mobile search the limitations are even more severe. A page with 10 search results fits on the screen of a desktop but on a mobile device it might be split into 2 or more screens. Therefore, in mobile search, it is not Top 10, it is more Top 4, or even Top 3 because only the first 3 or 4 positions are on the first page and have a higher chance to attract the user's attention without having to go to the next page.

5 Promote Your Mobile-Friendly Site

Submit your site to major mobile search engines, mobile portals, and directories. It is great if your visitors come from Google and the other major search engines but if you want to get even more traffic, mobile search engines, mobile portals, and directories are even better. For now these mobile resources work great to bring mobile traffic, so don't neglect them. Very often a mobile user doesn't search with Google, but goes to a portal he or she knows. If your site is listed with this portal, the user will come directly to you from there, not from a search engine. The case with directories is similar – i.e. if you are optimizing the site of a pizza restaurant, then you should submit it to all directories where pizza restaurants and restaurants in general for your location are listed.

6 Follow Mobile Standards

Mobile search standards are kind of different and if you want your site to be spiderable, you need to comply with them. Check the guidelines of W3C to see what mobile standards are. Even if your site doesn't comply with mobile standards, it will still be listed in search results but it will be transcoded by the search engine and the result could be pretty shocking to see. Transcoders convert sites to a mobile format but this is not done in a sophisticated manner and the output might be really unbelievable – and everything but mobile-friendly.

7 Don't Forget Meta.txt

Meta.txt is a special file, where you briefly describe the contents of your site and point the user agent to the most appropriate version for it. Search engine spiders directly index the meta.txt file (provided it is located in the root directory), so even if the rest of your site is not accessible, you will still be included in search results. Meta.txt is similar to robots.txt in desktop search but it also has some similarity with metatags because you can put content it it (as you do with the Description and Keywords metatags). The format of the meta.txt file is colon delimited (as is the format of robots.txt). Each field in the file has the following syntax form <fieldname>:<value>. One of the advantages of meta.txt is that it is easily parsed by humans and search engines.

8 No Long Pages for Mobile Searchers

Use shorter texts because mobile users don't have the time to read lengthy pages. We already mentioned that mobile searchers don't like lengthy keyphrases. Well, they like lengthy pages even less! This is why, if you can make a special, shorter mobile version of your site, this would be great. Short pages don't mean that you should skip your keywords, though. Keywords are really vital for mobile search, so don't exclude them but don't keyword stuff, either.

9 Predictive Search Is Popular With Mobile Searchers

Use phrases, which are common in predictive search. Predictive search is also popular with mobile searchers because it saves typing effort. This is why, if your keywords are among the common predictive search results, this seriously increases your chances to be found. It is true that predictive search keywords change from time to time and you can't always follow them but you should at least give it a try.

10 Preview Your Site on Mobile Devices

Always check how your site looks on a mobile device. With the plethora of devices and screen sizes it is not possible to check your site on absolutely every single device you can think of, but if you can check it at least on a couple of the most important ones, this is more than nothing. Even if you manage to get visitors from mobile search engines, if your site is shown distorted on a mobile screen, these visitors will run away. Transcoding is one reason why a site gets distorted, so it is really a good idea to make your site mobile-friendly instead of to rely on search engines to transcode it and make it a design nightmare in the process.

Mobile search is relatively new but it is a safe bet that it will get a huge boost in the near future. If you are uncertain whether your particular site deserves to be optimized for mobile devices or not, use AdWords Keyword Research Tool to track mobile volumes for your particular keywords. If the volumes are high, or if a particular keyword is doing remarkably well in the mobile search segment, invest more time and effort to optimize for it.

Usually SEO efforts are directed towards achieving top rankings with Google and sometimes with Yahoo and Bing. However, in addition to the Big Three, there are also other search engines that might be of interest to you. In fact, some of these search engines might prove a better option than Google, Yahoo or Bing. If these search engines are used by your target audience, they will be more efficient and it is worth to spend some time optimizing for them.

If you haven't heard about Baidu, don't worry. It is a popular search engine but its reach is not global and this is why many people don't even know about it. Still, Baidu is certainly not just one more search engine to waste your time with. Baidu is big in China and since the population of China is more than a billion, if you rank well with Baidu, this can make quite a difference. In fact, if you are operating globally, not to mention if your visitors are based mainly in China, you can't afford to miss this market. On the Chinese market, the share of Baidu is around 60% and it is the most popular Chinese language search engine. Google is less popular in China than Baidu, so if your traffic comes from the Chinese market, it pays to optimize your site for Baidu.

The algorithm of Baidu is different from the algorithms of Google, Bing, and Yahoo. In a sense, it is less sophisticated and it kinda resembles the algorithms of the other search engines from many years many years ago. Here are some tips what you should do in order to get decent rankings with Baidu:

1 Find the right Chinese keywords

Of course, as with other search engines, keywords are important for good rankings. You need to find the right Chinese keywords to optimize for. This might be a challenge because Chinese has many dialects and the same words have different meanings in different dialects. However, Pinyin Chinese is preferred by Baidu and this is why Pinyin Chinese is your best choice. You should stick to it not only for your keywords but for your content as a whole.

2 You need LOTS of content in Chinese

Even if Chinese is not the official language of your site, you need to have many pages in Chinese. With Baidu, content is king – the same as with other search engines. When generating tons of content in Chinese, follow the official guidelines for what content is acceptable in China because there are strict rules there and if you don't obey, this could cost you not only your good rankings with Baidu.

3 Metatags weight a lot

Similarly to the early days of the other search engines, with Baidu metatags are very important, so don't forget to make your metatags top-notch. However, don't abuse metatags and don't stuff them with keywords.

4 Get a Pinyin Chinese domain name and host your site on a Chinese host

Domain names are important with Baidu as well. In addition to having keywords in your domain name, you need to have a domain name in Pinyin Chinese. You can use a .com, .net, or .cn extension with it. For even better results, host your site on a Chinese host because this gives you an additional bonus with Baidu.

5 Use simple navigation structures

Simple navigation structures are a must with every search engine but for Baidu they matter even more. Baidu won't follow links that are deeply buried in all kinds of messy code or that go many levels deep in the site hierarchy.

6 Watch for duplicate content

Baidu is very strict about duplicate content. With the other search engines you might also have problems, if you have duplicate content but Baidu is even less tolerant. Use a robots.txt to tell what not to index and you are safe.

7 No links to bad neighbors and no link farms

Linking to bad neighbors and getting links from link farms isn't a good idea with any search engine but penalties with Baidu are even more severe, so you need to consider this. Also, don't put too many outbound links on your site because this also affects your Baidu rankings in a negative way.

8 Plan in advance

In Google you can get top rankings for a week (though this certainly isn't the norm and we don't mean you should use blackhat strategies to achieve it) but with Baidu success doesn't come that fast. In Baidu it can take 6 months or more to achieve the good rankings you will achieve in Google overnight and you need to take this into account. For instance, if you are promoting a summer-related site, you should start optimization not later than November, so that when the season comes, your site will have achieved the rankings you want.

9 Baidu doesn't deal with Flash and JavaScript

Flash and JavaScript aren't Google's favorites but Baidu absolutely hates them. This is why you should use Flash and JavaScript only if you provide altenative HTML versions of the content you have incorporated in the Flash/JavaScript. Baidu doesn't like iFrames either, so avoid their use as well.

10 Make sure your site is spiderable

As any other search engine, Baidu uses crawlers, so make sure your site is spiderable. Use a spider simulator to check what is accessible from your site and what isn't.

As you see, optimization for Baidu isn't totally different from optimization for any other search engine but it certainly has its specifics. Follow the rules, be patient and sooner or later success will come to you. When you are done with your Baidu optimization, it won't be a surprise, if your site starts ranking better with Google as well, especially for country-specific searches. When you have so much content in Chinese and a Chinese domain name, this will inevitably help you to achieve better rankings for your Chinese search terms in any other search engine.

The Internet might be global in nature, but if your business is local, it makes no sense to concentrate on global reach, when your customers live in your city, or even in your neighborhood. For local businesses getting a global reach is a waste of resources. Instead, you should concentrate on the local community. You might be asking how you can do it, when the Web is global and Google doesn't classify sites according to their location. Here is how you can go local with SEO:

1 Use your location in your keywords.

The first trick is to use your location in your keywords. For example, if you are in London and you sell car insurance, your most important keyphrase should be “car insurance London” because this keyphrase contains your business and your location and will drive people who are looking for car insurance in London in particular.

2 Use your location in metatags

Metatags matter for search engines and you shouldn't miss to include your location, together with your other keywords in the metatags of the pages of your site. Of course, you must have your location in the keywords you use in the body text because otherwise it is a bit suspicious when your body text doesn't have your location as a keyword but your tags are stuffed with it.

3 Use your location in your body text

Keywords in the body text count a lot and you can't afford to skip them. If your web copy is optimized for “car insurance” only, this won't help you rank well with “car insurance London”, so make sure that your location is part of your keywords.

4 Take advantage of Google Places and Yahoo Local

Google Places and Yahoo Local are great places to submit to because they will include you in their listings for a particular location.

5 Create backlinks with your location as anchor text

It could be a bit tricky to get organic backlinks with your location as anchor text because some keywords with location don't sound very natural – for instance, “car insurance London” isn't grammatically correct and you will hardly get an organic inline link with it but you can use it in the Name field to comment on blogs. If the blog is dofollow, you will still get a backlink with anchor text that helps for SEO.

6 Get included in local search engine

Global search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo can bring you lots of traffic but depending on your location, local search engines might be the real golden mine. A local search engine could mean a search engine for the area (though it is not very likely to have regional search engines) or more likely for your country. For instance, Baidu is a great option, if you are selling on the Chinese market.

7 Get listed in local directories

In addition to local search engines, you need to try your luck with local directories, too. You might think that nobody reads directory listings but this isn't exactly so. For instance, Yellow Pages are one of the first places where people look when searching for a local vendor for a particular product.

8 Run locally-targeted ad campaigns

One of the most efficient ways to drive targeted, local traffic to your site is with the help of locally-targeted ad campaigns. PPC ads and classifieds are the two options that work best – at least for most webmasters.

9 Do occasional checks of your keywords

Occasionally checking the current search volume of your keywords is a good idea because shifts in search volumes are quite typical. Needless to say, if people don't search for “car insurance London” anymore because they have started using other search phrases and you continue to optimize for “car insurance London”, this is a waste of time and money. Also, keep an eye on the keywords your competitors use – this will give you clue which keywords work and which don't.

10 Use social media

Social media can drive more traffic to a site than search engines and for local search this is also true. Facebook, Twitter, and the other social networking sites have a great sales potential because you can promote your business for free and reach exactly the people you need. Local groups on social sites are especially valuable because the participants there are mainly from the region you are interested in.

11 Ask for reviews and testimonials

Client reviews and testimonials are a classical business instrument and these are like letters of recommendation for your business. However, as far as SEO is concerned, they could have another role. There are review sites, where you can publish such reviews and testimonials (or ask your clients to do it) and this will drive business to you. Some of these sites are Yelp and Merchant Circle but it is quite probable that there are regional or national review sites you can also post at.

12 Create separate pages for your different locations

When you have business in several locations, this makes the task a bit more difficult because you can't possibly optimize for all of them – you can't have a keyphrase such as “car insurance London, Berlin, Paris, New York”. In this case the solution is to create separate pages for your different locations. If your locations span the globe, you can also create different sites on different, country-specific domains (i.e. uk.co for GB, .de for Germany, etc.) but this is only reasonable to do, if your business is truly multinational. Otherwise, just a separate page for each of your locations will do.

These simple tips how to optimize your site for local searches are a must, if you rely on the local market. Maybe you are already doing some of them and you know what works for you and what doesn't. Anyway, if you haven't tried them all, try them now and see if this will have a positive impact on your rankings (and your business) or not.