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joi, 9 februarie 2012
Watch: The Tuskegee Airmen Visit the White House
SEO 101: Getting the Right URL Structure Graywolf's SEO Blog
SEO 101: Getting the Right URL Structure Graywolf's SEO Blog |
| SEO 101: Getting the Right URL Structure Posted: 09 Feb 2012 10:46 AM PST
On my list of top 5 problems I encounter when doing client work, the number one problem is poor URL structure. In this post I’ll go over the basics, how to get it right, what are the most common problems, and how to fix them. URL CanoncilizationWhile this may sound like a big fancy term, what it basically means is that your content needs to have one URL and only one URL to be most effective. For example, a website could have identical content on each of these URLs, yet search engines would consider them as different pages:
Depending on how you link to pages internally or how others link to them externally, search engines will eventually discover these multiple URLs. If one “page” can have 6 or more “page” permutations, it’s easy to see how a website can get out of control quickly. You can fix this issue with the rel=canonical meta tag, but this is really more of a band aid solution. If 99% of the people link to a version of your URL that doesn’t match the rel=canonical tag, the search engines will ignore your tag in favor of the links. The best way to handle this problem is with server side programming. Use htaccess or ISAPI to configure your web server to serve pages always with or always without the “www.” If you have been serving both, do a link audit to see which has the most inbound links and choose that one. For new domains, I omit the “www.” Although it gives you three more characters if you keep the www or allows you to use a bigger font size in printed material if you omit it, there is no SEO value one way or the other. You just want to be consistent. File extensions in URLsThere is no value to having .html, .php, .asp or any other file extension, as long as you chose a common one and not something irregular like “.dx” that executes a programming language of your choice. That said, the best method is to not use any extension at all. If your website is around long enough, chances are good you will move from one language to another and change file extensions. When you do, you will need to set up redirects so you don’t lose your inbound link equity. Sure, you can set up your server to serve .asp pages using .php programming, but this makes your server work harder than it has to. That may not matter on some sites but it does on busy ones. If you are using extensions now, don’t change them just for the sake of changing them–wait until you upgrade the code, then rip the band aid off (so to speak) and remove all of the extensions. your content needs to have one URL and only one URL to be most effective… Since we are talking about the “end” of the URL, also consider the trailing slash at the end of the URL. Make sure to configure your server to consistently use it or not use it, don’t use it inconsistently. Personally I like the trailing slash: it’s kind-of like a period at the end of my run-on OCD sentences. Word Delimiters in URLsThere was a time where Google really cared about what you used between words, but nowadays it’s less important. You can use hyphens or underscores–it doesn’t really matter. I like hyphens for readability and usability, but either is fine. If you choose another character you are “going off the reservation” and search engines may have trouble deciphering your words and giving them value, so choose this course with extreme caution. I also advise against “smushing” your words together. Search engines may be smart enough to figure out easy, common, high volume keywords, but other words become problematic. URL LengthShorter is almost always better than longer. Ideally you want to have no more than five words. If you can get it closer to three, that’s even better. Don’t use abbreviations, stop words, or really short words. While search engines can handle longer URLs, in practice I have found it better to be under 60 characters in total length including the domain. You can certainly go longer without running into problems–in fact, you’ll need to on large sites–but when you do go over 60 characters, do it for a reason. Keywords and Numbers in your URLsGenerally speaking, it’s better to have keywords in your URL than not to. However, having too many keywords in your URL can work against you from an algorithmic and perception point of view. For example, which URL looks more trustworthy to you.
The second doesn’t break any of the rules and it is short, but it has that untrustworthy, keyword stuffing quality to it that will work against you. If you use numbers in your URLs, be careful. Make sure they aren’t in a format that Google might interpret as a date. If it is in a format similar to a date, they may be interpreted as such and your post could look older (or younger) than it really is. My advice? Don’t wander down that dark alley, keep off the moors, and avoid that issue entirely if you can. Parameters in URLsOne of the sticky issues with URLs is using parameters. In the early days of the internet, programmers and developers used parameters in URLs to keep track of things like products or shopping sessions. Today it’s used by everyone from the marketing and advertising department to customer service. In the beginning, search engines had a lot of problems with parameters, so they ignored any URLs with parameters in them. Nowadays they are much more sophisticated and, in most cases, can handle them just fine. They even have specialized tools that allow you to tell them which parameters to ignore, but don’t fall into this trap. Using parameters is like sword fighting. Unless you are very, very good, eventually someone will get hurt. You can avoid that problem if you avoid parameters entirely. If it seems like I’m being overly cautious here, you are correct. I’ve just seen too many instances where this has derailed more than one website. If you need to use URL tracking, use hash tag tracking. Directories in URLsThe question of whether or not to use directories in your URLs is slightly nuanced. If you are going to have a large site in excess of 500 or 1000 pages, then yes, you will absolutely need directories in your URLs. If you are going to have a smaller site, it’s up to you. Using directories gives you additional control, but it costs you in complexity and overall URL length, so consider those facts before you make your choice. Moving, Changing and Redirecting URLsIf your website is around long enough, for one reason or another you will have to change URLs. When you do, the best way to make sure things don’t go off the rails is use a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL. Search engines have gotten smarter about other types but using them is still a bit of a dice roll, so don’t take that chance if you don’t need to. See my article on how to create a smart custom 404 page for an efficient way to put that logic into action. Unless you are working with a custom built CMS, it’s unlikely you will have the flexibility and control to get each of the aspects I discussed above. Just think of each one as a trade off. The more of them you give up, the more obstacles you put in the way of your overall SEO effort and the harder you make things for yourself. So let’s recap the important aspects of this post:
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This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review. |
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6 Reasons You Need to Charge More
6 Reasons You Need to Charge More |
| 6 Reasons You Need to Charge More Posted: 08 Feb 2012 11:30 AM PST Posted by Dr. Pete 1. It’s Not All BillableAlmost every new consultant, freelancer, and even agency makes a critical math error. Pay attention, because this mistake could could haunt your business for years to come. It goes something like this: I need to make $37,000 to pay the bills, and I’d like to make $50,000. A year is about 2000 work hours (50 weeks x 40 hours), so if I can just charge $25/hour, I’ll easily pay the bills and make my $50K goal. I sincerely commend you for doing the math – it’s important to know what you need to pay the bills and to figure out what that means on a daily and hourly basis. Here’s the problem – in a 40-hour week, especially starting out, you’re going to spend half that week pounding the pavement (or more). You need to network, build your site/portfolio, blog, make phone calls, write proposals, and on and on. Once clients come in, you’ve got administrative work to do – somebody has to send the invoices, pay the taxes, and buy the toilet paper. So, at best, only 20 hours of your week will be billable. Now, your $25/hour just netted you $25,000. You not only fell short of your $50K goal – you didn’t even pay your bills. 2. Delivery Kills SalesBut wait, it gets worse. That 20-hour billable week assumes that all of your pavement-pounding actually gets instant results. When it does finally pay off, what happens? You get a nice, juicy contract, pour all your time into delivering it, and then realize that you didn’t actually keep selling while you were doing the work. So, after you get that check, you go a month with no work at all while you rebuild your lead pipeline. Ultimately, you’ll be working a 20-hour billable week about every other week, especially for the first year or two. So, you’re averaging 10 hours per week and your $25/hour just netted you a $12,500 bottom line. 3. You Have New CostsThis one’s mostly for the freelancers and independent consultants. Revenue does not equal salary. Even being a consultant costs money – it’s not a high-overhead profession, but everything’s coming out of your pocket now. Some things that you didn’t think twice about when you were employed will suddenly seem shockingly expensive. Want to go to an industry tradeshow? With the full-conference pass, airfare, car, hotel, and meals, that’s about $2,000-3,000. Need a copy of Photoshop? You can’t just pop down to IT anymore – Adobe CS5.5 starts at $1,299. Suddenly your old boss doesn’t seem like such a cheapskate. That doesn’t count the perks you’ve lost. You’ll hear all about the amazing tax breaks of self-employment from your friends who dream of self-employment but don’t actually have any idea what they’re talking about. Sure, you might be able to write off half your phone bill or a corner of your condo as office space, but meanwhile you’re paying both halves of your employment taxes, your own health insurance, and you’ve got no 401K. Even if you hit that $50K revenue goal, it’s probably more like a $40K salary. The $12,500 you barely squeezed out in the realistic scenario above is more like $10K, and that assumes you skip health insurance, which will run you roughly that entire amount. 4. You Set Your ValuePeople are funny – when we discount our prices, we expect the buyer will understand they’ve gotten a bargain. When we pay discount prices, we think we’ve walked away with something of less value. Let’s say you go to a fancy restaurant with a 50% Groupon – a month later, do you think “I should go back to that place, since I got such a great deal last time!” No, you think – “If I go back to that place, I’ll have to pay full price. That sucks!” My wife would rather die than go to Bed, Bath and Beyond without a coupon, and it’s entirely their fault for sending us 11 a day. They’ve set their value, and the message is “We don’t have any.” What’s worse is that you send a broader message that that discount rate is your value to the market, and you even begin to believe it. Unless there’s an amazing opportunity and you’re 100% clear that this is a one-time deal, don’t even start. The legacy of discount pricing could haunt you forever. 5. Your Time Is FiniteWe tend to price future work based on past work. On the surface, that makes perfect sense, but the problem is simple – the cost of 10 hours/week when you have nothing to do is a lot less than the cost of 10 hours/week when you’ve already got 40 hours booked. You only have so many hours in the day, and as you run out, they become more valuable. Think of your time like any marketable resource – with more scarcity comes higher prices. Your time is like MegaBus. When the bus is empty, you may be able to charge $1 for a seat, but that last seat should fetch a premium price. People naturally want to book every available hour, but there’s an opportunity cost to being left with no time at all. Once the hours start to book, it’s time to raise your prices and protect your most non-renewable resource. 6. Cheap Attracts CheapSome people may take offense at this, but experience has taught me over and over (and by “taught” I mean “beat with a bat and left me for dead in the alley”) that the people who fight you over price will never stop fighting you. It’s easy to think that, since you gave them a discount and gave into all their demands, they’ll appreciate you more and manage their own expectations, but that’s never happened to me in almost 15 years of working with clients. It’s almost never about the money – there are some people who just think vendors are meant to be beaten. If you win, they lose. Unfortunately, that means they’ll never see your relationship as win-win. Learn to recognize those clients during negotiation, and get out while you can. There’s one exception – if you really want to help an organization and you know money is an issue for them, consider doing the work pro-bono. Scope a one-time project and donate your time. There’s nothing wrong with helping people. Where you go wrong is when you start letting other people define your value. So, How Much Is “More”?That’s the Million-dollar question, isn’t it? According to our SEO pricing survey last month, the most common hourly rate is between $76-$200 US. That’s quite a range. I think it comes back to that math in Reason #1. The trick is to do the math realistically. Be realistic about your costs and the number of hours really left in the day after sales and marketing are done (and you need to do sales and marketing every day, even when you’re working on deliverables). Maybe more importantly, decide what you want long-term and be careful about setting your value too low just to land a few clients. Today’s discount “just to pay the bills” could set your price for years to come. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Using blekko's SEO Data to Evaluate Web Directories Posted: 08 Feb 2012 06:10 AM PST Posted by davidzimm This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. If you haven’t tried it out yet, blekko.com is a unique search engine. Along with allowing you to customize your own search results (or view results customized by one of its editors) it transparently provides a plethora of data showing why it ranks sites in the search results. The best part is, even if you aren’t trying to increase visits from blekko, their SEO data is very useful. Getting blekko’s SEO data It’s simple to get the SEO data from blekko. First you need a blekko account. Then all you have to do is type a URL into the search box, hit the spacebar, and add /seo (what they call a “slashtag”) at the end of your search string. One of blekko's most distinctive pieces of data is “Host Rank”. This is not so much a ranking of websites but a measure of website authority- like Domain Authority or PageRank. Unlike these other metrics, Host Rank is on a linear scale rather than an exponential scale. Typically a linear scale is a little easier to wrap your brain around. For example, while you might be tempted to think that a website with a PageRank of 4 is only a little bit better than a PR 3 website, we need to remember that this is an exponential scale and the former has a significantly higher authority than the later. In other words the difference between a Host Rank 30 and 40 website is simply 10 points but the difference between websites with Domain Authority 30 and 40 is not 10 points, it is 10 to the power of X points (it is an exponential scale- what's the exponent? ask Mr. Fishkin). Host Rank also avoids a maximum value on its scale unlike the coveted PR 10 website (or comparatively strong DA 100 website). There's much more to blekko besides another number to compare websites. The /seo slashtag also provides a nifty pie chart outlining what countries the links tend to come from. Although there is nothing wrong with a link from India, for example, if a website is based in the United States and the audience is primarily in the United States, the origin of the links can be indicative of some (shall we say) risky SEO techniques. I also find the “co-hosted with” list at the bottom of the /seo page very interesting. Does this website have dedicated hosting? If not, that’s not necessarily bad thing but if it is co-hosted with some (shall we call them) questionable websites, that might be a neighborhood you wouldn’t want to be associated with. Blekko’s data gets even more specific. You can also slashtag a URL with /domainlinks to find a list of inbound links (you can also access this from the right sidebar of the /seo page). Now this list of links most closely resembles the defunct Yahoo! SiteExplorer in that it provides a very long list of links that you have to manually filter through to be useful, but it does a good job giving you an indication of the source of this website’s link authority. I also like to take a look through a websites /sitepages. This gives a list of all the pages on a website, as sorted by Host Rank. This is a great way of seeing how Host Rank (and presumably PageRank or even Domain Authority) flows throughout a website. Of course, the homepage of any website will always have the most authority- but does any authority flow to interior pages on the website? Let’s get a little more concrete with this data. We can use blekko’s SEO data to evaluate a couple of web directories to see if we should submit our site to them. Starting with SEOmoz’s directory list, let’s take a couple of authoritative directories (as measured by Domain Authority) and a couple of low authority directories. The Yahoo! Directory (Domain Authority 100): http://blekko.com/ws/dir.yahoo.com+/seo Anyone with (shall we say) the means to afford $299 a year has probably submitted their website to the Yahoo! Directory. For a while Google’s Webmaster Guidelines even suggested it. Is it worth the cost? What will we get out of this listing? Let’s use blekko’s SEO data and find out. /seo
/domainlinks
/sitepages
The Better Business Bureau (Domain Authority 99): http://blekko.com/ws/bbb.org+/seo Got a brick-and-mortar along with your website? Why not submit it to BBB.org? /seo
/domainlinks
/sitepages
Sporge (Domain Authority 33): http://blekko.com/ws/sporge.com+/seo With a name like that, who wouldn’t want to be in this directory? (I’m not much for branding but I’d recommend a name-change in this case). Still, it might be worth something. Let’s see /seo
/domainlinks
/sitepages
The Brick Wall (Domain Authority 22): http://blekko.com/ws/thebrickwall.com+/seo This is the least-authoritative directory, according to SEOmoz’s list. Is it even worth the 10 minutes it would take to submit your website? /seo
/domainlinks
/sitepages
Now blekko’s search market share is (shall we say) still growing, but the data they provide can help you do SEO in other search engines too. As with any third-party tool, you wouldn’t want to rely on this data exclusively- obviously neither Google nor Bing are using this data to determine how they rank webpages- but this information can still be a big help to any SEO attempting to evaluate websites for potential authority and value. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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I’m a reluctant Capitalist. I didn’t grow up with a lot of money (my dad was a country preacher, and my mom was a schoolteacher), and the transition from academia to building a start-up and then running my own consulting firm has been rocky at times. The one thing I still hear almost every week is “You need to charge more,” and I preach the same message to new SEOs even as I try to remember it. This post is a reminder to myself (and to you) of why what you charge matters, and why it’s not just about greed.
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Seth's Blog : Inaccurate labels and why we need them (and need to improve them)
Inaccurate labels and why we need them (and need to improve them)
If I tell you, "I'm going to the baseball game," it seems as though you're likely to understand what I mean.
Of course, you won't. When George Will goes to a baseball game, it's a religious experience. Me, I don't even like baseball. Or maybe it's my nephew's ball game (the playoffs), or maybe going to the game causes me to miss an important event, and on and on.
We label the experience with just two words, and two words can't possibly capture the emotions and circumstance surrounding an event.
The same thing is true with brands. If I tell you that a new business was funded by USV, that might mean something to you, or not. Or if someone asks you to pay extra for a brand you trust, that's stuck with you through thick and thin, that might be an easy sale. It certainly won't be if your experiences with that label/brand/company are negative ones.
As soon as we put a word on it, we've started to tell a story, a caricature, a version of the truth but not the whole truth.
The label removes us from reality. It takes us away from the actual experience. But do we have any choice?
How else can I get you started down the path to understanding me and my life and my schedule and my projects... labels are just about the best thing available to us.
A well-written book, then, is far more powerful than a blog post, because the book can take more time to get the labels right, to help you see what the author means. Five minutes of a movie is probably more powerful than five minutes reading a book because the tropes of a movie (the soundtrack, the lighting, the dialogue) are capable of delivering more accurate labels if the director is any good.
When there's a disagreement, it's almost always over the interpretation of labels. When you think your job title or your purchase order or your reservation means something because of how it's labeled, you'll end up in conflict if you're trying to work with someone who interprets those labels differently.
The key is in placing the blame where it belongs--on the labels, not on the individuals who are stuck. Get clear about the labels, clear about the promises and what they mean, and you're far more likely to generate satisfaction.
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