Use a different sitemap to reference each different type of content on your site that you want indexed.
After posting my Geo Sitemap tutorial, I have had a difficult time getting my own Geo Sitemap, and my clients’ Geo Sitemaps to validate in Google Webmaster Tools.
If you add your Geo Sitemap to your general XML sitemap, it isn’t going to validate in Google Webmaster Tools, you’ll get this error: (more…)
Using the <acronym>, <abbr>, and <address> tags to improve readability for disabled users, web crawlers, and search engines.
You want to make your website as informative as possible, right? For search engines, users – everybody. Help search engines, disabled (blind) users, and any users who may not understand the meaning of your acronym or abbreviation by using semantic XHTML tags like the <acronym>, <abbr>, and <address> tags in context. (more…)
I took the liberty of adjusting Joost de Valk’s Nofollow Display Greasemonkey script to highlight links on pages that use a nofollow Meta tag. As always, Joost’s tool is really great but it only shows nofollow links when the rel=”nofollow” attribute is used (skipping links that are nofollow due to the robots Meta nofollow tag).
A quick thanks to Luis over at Wordszilla for interviewing me on his blog. The interview covered the topic of search engine friendly web design – here is a small excerpt:
“And returning to the importance of the written content: make it so useful that your visitors will want to link to it. Make it so remarkable they will share it; make it factual so that they will cite it in their blogs, articles, and reports. Finally, make it relevant so that search engines will deem it worthy of great rankings.”
-Me
SEO Book.com just released the ultimate SEO toolbar - and so far, I’m really pleased with it. I’ll even get to delete a few SEO Firefox addons that I won’t be needing anymore.
The goods include all the website overview stats that SEO for Firefox provided (Yahoo links, domain age, Alexa rank, directory links, etc. – visible right on the toolbar), as well as a handy keyword tool that allows you to enter a keyword right in the sidebar and look it up in all the major keyword tools across the web. Very handy indeed.
To see and download the toolbar, go to http://tools.seobook.com/seo-toolbar/
Step-by-step instructions on how to create a Geo-sitemap. I will post a tutorial for setting up a GeoRSS feed soon.
Tutorial: Redirecting non-WWW to WWW
I have seen a lot of clients get frustrated quickly after I tell them to set up a 301 Permanent Redirect from the non-WWW version of their website to the WWW version.
Example: Redirect http://domainname.com to http://www.domainname.com
It is important to note that this method only applies to servers running Apache. Be very careful when you change the .htaccess file because it can cause your entire site to fail with a simple typo. I recommend hiring an experienced web designer to do this for you.
First: open your .htaccess file. It should be in the root folder of your website (usually www). If it doesn’t exist, create a new file named .htaccess – that is the entire file name, so don’t add a .txt extension or add anything in front of the period.
Add the following lines (if there are already some code in the file, add these lines above them):
RewriteEngine onRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domainname\.comRewriteRule (.*) http://www.domainname.com/$1 [R=301,L]REMEMBER: Be extremely careful, and make sure you know what you are doing. Depending on the structure of your website, adding these lines in the wrong place can break your website.
I am working on a large post explaining what the .htaccess file is and now to use 301 Permanent Redirects for many reasons – I will publish it as soon as possible.
If you just made significant changes to your website design, or are thinking about giving your website a face lift/some major on-site SEO optimizations, you are probably wondering what kind of impact those changes will have on your search engine rankings.
Several of my SEO clients have seen some serious fluctuation after making major changes to the copy or structure of their website, and come to me asking, “Those changes are supposed to help my rankings – but I just dropped out of site! What’s going on?”
Watching search engine rankings decline after paying a bundle on SEO and web design changes can be painful, and you will likely see a temporary decrease in site traffic, but if you can stomach the temporary set-back, you will be better off for it in the long run.
Changing your website may temporarily hurt your rankings, but it will come out on top after some fluctuation.
If you see some fluctuation, don’t let it surprise you. Search engines are just re-evaluating the new content on your site – it has changed a lot since the last time they visited your site, and have to make sure that your site is still relevant to those keywords.
You’ll see some fluctuation – your website rankings will probably drop at first, then shoot up and down for a few weeks like a Californian seismograph, but in my experience, you can count on it coming out on top in the end – with much higher rankings than the website had before.
The good news: it won’t hurt for long. It will usually take between 30 and 60 days to see the improvement you are looking for, but think of what you’ve gained:
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