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05/12/2010

How to redirect a web page using 301 redirect

Filed under: Search engine optimisation, Uncategorised — Tags: domains, URL — noble web design @ 3:12 pm

How to redirect a web page using 301 redirect

If you already have a website and need to redirect domain names or website pages without affecting your current search engine rank then the best method is by using a 301 redirect.

What is a 301 redirect?

The code 301 is interpreted by search engines as “Moved permanently”, you setup the code 301 inside a .HTaccess file on your server. This method will keep your current search engine rank as appose to just forwarding which will lose the search engine position and traffic.

What is a .HTaccess file?

A .HTaccess file is simply a file named .htaccess which is then uploaded to the home root directory of your web server. The .htaccess file can contain code for lots of different features like URL rewriting, specific requests, security and password permissions. When a search engine spider visits your site it will check the .htaccess file for instructions.

How to setup a 301 redirect on your server from domain1.com to domain2.com:

1) Open notepad and type the following:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]

2) Save the file as .htaccess (with no extension)

3) Upload the file to your server

4) Check you are not overwriting any previous .htaccess files or code

How to setup a 301 redirect from old page to new page:

1) Open notepad and type the following

redirect 301 /something/yourpage.htm http://www.domain.com/new.htm

2) Save the file as .htaccess (with no extension)

3) Upload the file to your server

4) Check you are not overwriting any previous .htaccess files or code

Note: /something/yourpage.htm is the old folder path and file name. The domain.com/new.htm is the new path and file name. Do not add http://www. to first part.

When the search engines spider your site again they will follow the rule you have created in your .htaccess file. The search engine spider doesn’t actually read the .htaccess file, but recognises the response from the server as valid.

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01/23/2010

Search Engine Friendly SEO XHTML Page

Filed under: Search engine optimisation — noble web design @ 7:21 pm

Search Engine Friendly SEO XHTML Page

When creating an XHTML page for your website there are some basic tips you can follow to make sure it is search engine friendly and SEO ready.

Declare the Document Type

Right at the very top of the page you should declare what Document Type you are using, the two most popular are Transitional and Strict. We would recommend using the Strict 1.0 Document Type. The code would be as follows:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>

Give your page an XMLNS Attribute and set the proper Page Language Code

The code to use here should follow on the next line down directly under where you defined the Document Page Type, this code tells the browser which language you are using:

Declare a Character Set used in the Page

Indside the <head> tags your first line of code should define the Character Set used in page, the correct code to do this is:

Define your Page Title

This is one of the most important parts of Search Engine Optimisation, the Page Title should be placed inside the <head> tags directly below where you placed the Character Set used in page.

Your Page Title should be placed inside <title> </title> tags and include no more than 70 characters. The Page Title should include core keywords to use when people are searching for your website. Try to avoid stop words like and, or, if, etc. We advise using 8 max main keywords in the Page Title.

Define your Page Description.

The page description should be no more than 25 words, in these words try to include all your same keywords used in the Page Title in the same order. Again try to avoid words with no use or meaning to search phrases. The correct code to use for this is:

Define your Page Keywords

The next line down after Page Description include your page keywords, the correct code to use is:

Include no more than 8 main keywords and avoid stop words like and, or, if etc.

Include External CSS and JavaScript Files

At the bottom of your <head> section before the closing tag define your page external CSS file and and JavaScrip files. The code to do this is:

Define your Page Body Content

After the closing </head> tag open your <body> tag and insert your main page content here. For search engine optimisation you can bold, italic, and list keywords and include image alt attributes to include keywords.

Some of the most popular tags to use for Search Engine Optimisation are:

<p></p>

<a></a>

Close the body section with </body> and then remember to close the html with </html> at the very bottom of the page.

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01/12/2010

Starting with SEO

Filed under: Search engine optimisation, Your first website — noble web design @ 3:40 pm

Domain Name

Choose a domain name which is keyword rich and describes the product you are selling exactly.

Always choose either .co.uk or .org.uk extension as these are most defiantly preferred for ranking in google.co.uk.

So a good example which covers both of the aspects above, would be winterboots.org.uk.

Title Tag

This is one of the single most important aspects of on page SEO. This needs to be totally relevant to the domain name and also be as natural as possible

So a good example of a title tag for winterboots.org.uk would be this : winter boots | girls | boys | shoes

Keep it short and to the point. Don’t be tempted to put too many keywords in here, as you will water it down and not have the same impact.

Meta Description

This is what the search engine uses to show a snippet in the results page. This should be keyword rich with your domain name keyword used at least once and also be informative and easy to be read by humans

So a good example of a meta description would be this “Winter Boots have the best range of shoes for this magical occasion. We have both boys and girls winter boots at the cheapest prices and available with free delivery”

This is very keyword rich, with lots of possibilities of other matching keywords appearing also in the search engines.

H1 Tag

This is very important and your chance to shine. Google likes correct formatting of the header tags and if you use them correctly, you can achieve some excellent results. Try to keep it as similar as possible to your domain name, but without making it to obvious.

So a good example would be “Winter Boots at the cheapest prices”

H2 Tag

Again this is important and can be used with good effect. Use a variation of your main keyword and keep it targeted

So a good example would be “Their special day is fast approaching, and you are looking for the best Winter Boots you can find – now you have found them”

H3 Tag

Just to keep in line with looking fluent with correct use of H tags, this can be utilised with just another variation of your main keyword.

So a good example would be “Choose from our extensive range of winter boots, which range from classic to modern”

Image ALT tags

Make sure you always use image ALT tags on all images included on your page. These do not only aid those who are partially sited, but it also follows further compliance with search engines and makes your site nice and clean. They also can bring you extra traffic from google images etc if done correctly.

Unique content

ALWAYS use unique content. Never copy someone else’s content as A. it is stealing and B. search engines hate duplicate content. Keep your content as keyword rich as possible but only mention your main keyword 4-6% in the entire content on the page. So for every 100 words, you can mention your keyword 4-6 times. Only bold the keywords approx 2-4 % on the page also – don’t over do it

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