Category Archives: SEO

Search Engine Optimisation and the old, new and different opinions, techniques and advice associated with making it a positive aspect of a website.

Website Submission – Just to clarify

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Does this look familiar?

I will Submit your Site to 1 BILLION Search Engines for 5 dollars!
It will make you millions and get you loads of visitors in minutes!
Do NOT Delay – one off payment ONLY €49

This technique is so old I don’t even know why I have mentioned it, maybe because you still see it used (unbelievably).

Save your money and go have a good party, buy the girlfriend a present (definatley much more value there) or just give it to charity.

You do not need to submit your site to a search engine.

(at least not the ones that matter)

You CAN if you wish, but even then once is enough and only to Google it is more than enough.  A link from a site already established or a good press release to a popular article website will also allow the search engines to detect you. You will be detected and picked up, sooner or later.

Don’t waste your money on services offering this, its pointless, and frankly makes me feckin angry when I see it and see people paying for it.

Here, submit your site now, it takes 3 seconds:

Submit your site to Google

But dont just take my word for it:

References:
http://www.seobook.com/best-search-engine-submission-programs
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ridding-the-world-of-search-engine-submission

Permalinks – Clean URLs on your Website

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By this I am referring to website addresses which contain a lot of code such as <=?> or similar. These crazy lines of code are typically produced by databases and where not considered to be SEO friendly URLS because they had little or no relevance to the content contained within the pages themselves.

Search Engines (at the time) could not read them but also people could not read them either, they seem to be complete jargon to the untrained eye and coupled with the fact that no one would ever remember or recollect them they where something that most of us tried to avoid.

SEO Friendly URLs

If for example your website address was:

http://www.mywebbie.com/search?q=sdf&sourceid=75856=navclient-ff&ie

It was much more preferable to have:

http://www.mywebbie.com/search/catagory/webstuff/item1

It is still important to have a clean URL such as the second example.  It helps to create relevance to the content and to be honest is much more pleasing to the eye. You can read a good detailed description of clean URLs (or Permalinks) on Wikipedia.

If your using a blog, specifically WordPress its always a good idea to set up your Permalinks correctly as soon as you do a fresh install. The benfits in regards SEO and gaining listings in the SERPS is extreme in combination with a raft of other plugins you can add toaid in creating exposure.

For an exaplantion of Permalinks check out homebizpal.com and for a guide on setting your permalinks in WordPress try bloggingbits.com.

W3C Validation – Is it Worthwhile?

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W3C Validation Is it Worthwhile?What is W3C Validation?

It stands for World Wide Web Consortium (see the connection?  3 W’s, for W3. smart eh?) and basically is an effort to standardise the way pages on the internet are created to make them universally accessible for as many people as possible.

It tries to ensure that pages don’t take forever to load, use the CSS and XHTML language and this in turns allows browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome to display them all in the same way with fewer problems or errors.

At least that’s the aim.

Many agree that having this validation “certificate” allows search engines to read your site in a much more efficient manner thus the site is more friendly.

It is NOT essential to have on your site but should be remembered.  As the sites are now so dynamic, simple changes can cause errors that, should you wish to maintain this validation, must be fixed and a lot of energy can be wasted on maintaining its integrity.

Until it becomes an absolute necessity the best thing is to try and maintain it but not become unhinged if it is not applicable. Otherwise it just might drive you insane.  One thing I have terrible headaches with is apply a new plugin to my blog and it might just cause a W3C validation error.  Its impossible to tell until you try it.

There is a handy little plugin which allows you to check your W3C Validation on WordPress called “Validation” surprisingly enough. This plugin adds the error list to the admin of your blog allowing you to drill down to specific errors and correct them.

Millions of errors what do I do!?

Don’t be surprised the first time you run it if you get what seems like millions of errors.  This isn’t actually the case so don’t panic!  The errors are usually held within the template files of your site so by fixing one set of errors it will fix all the errors site wide reducing the total number rather quickly.  It all boils down to the amount of time and effort you have in making it happen.

Hint… Spend the time, make it happen!

How to check W3C validation online.

Checking your sites validation couldn’t be easier.  There are two main files that most people will ensure are validated. These are the XHTML files and the CSS files.

To check how valid your sites XHTML is go to:
http://validator.w3.org/

and to validate your CSS check out:
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

On the W3c homepage there is a range of other checking tools to review, all available at http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/

For some further reading on the ins and outs of W3C Validation and the effect and benefits it can have check out Web Pro News.