noblewebdesign.co.uk

How to redirect a web page using 301 redirect

noble web design — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:12:39 +0000

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.

Search Engine Friendly SEO XHTML Page

noble web design — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:21:20 +0000

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 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 tags directly below where you placed the Character Set used in page.

Your Page Title should be placed inside 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 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 tag open your 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:

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

Website standards

noble web design — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:05:31 +0000

Website standards and accessibility

We know about professional web standards and accessibility guidelines as part of our quality assurance. We are registered members of UKWDA who lobby for better designed web sites to the W3C guidelines.

Why bother

You only have a few seconds to impress your visitors, so slow or broken web sites will turn them away for sure!

We build our sites using advanced coding practices such as xHTML and CSS and implement checks for readability, usability and accessibility. WHY? Because your site will be faster to download, work in more browsers and on more PCs (Apple Macs included) and be seen by more people than a site not coded to these standards.

A website designed to meet W3C web standards and accessibility guidelines will display correctly accross multiple web browsers ensuring the widest possible audiance can view your site. This proper coding will also ensure search engines can read your website properly for higher rankings in the search results.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The W3C are the guardians of web standards that ensure web designers and developers have a coherent direction & blueprint for professional web design. They provide validation tools and conformance badges to show a web site has passed their web standards.

Choosing a Web Designer

noble web design — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:13:22 +0000

How to choose a web designer

Unless creating your own hobby related site, you should use a professional web designer to create a website for your business.

There are many people out there who claim to be web designers but in reality have no real experience of meeting web standards or designing for established clients.

Questions to ask a web designer

What software do they use?
What technology and languages do they use?
Can they manually write HTML code?
Can they apply SEO to the website?
Are they able to create forms and interactive content?
Can they work in a secure server environment?
Do they validate code to web standards?
Do they meet accessibility guidelines?

Any good web designer should hold these skills, even if they don’t apply to your project at hand they are still a good set of questions to ask. Should a web designer lack in these areas, they are unlikely to be qualified to work on your website.

Try to find out what programs the web designer will use, although a website can be setup using cheap software this does not necessarily mean it will be a good website.

Web design software

Microsoft Front page should be a warning sign, few professional web designers will use this programme
Plain text editors, in theory should demonstrate that a web designer is able to code by hand, and in return has a good understanding of their medium
Dreamweaver and other associated programmes are very good and expensive, however just because a web designer owns this software does not necessarily make them qualified

Other questions to ask

Find out what steps the web designer will take to make sure your website can be found in the search engines, this is very important.

Ask to see examples of the web designers work, if they have a portfolio take a look.

Find out what will happen if you do not like their design, will you incur additional charges or will they keep working on the website until you are satisfied?

Find out who will retain copyright of the website once it is complete, some web designers try to retain ownership of the website. In our opinion the client should own the website outright with no limitations or conditions at all.

Ask about the websites cost, a website quote that sounds to good to be true usually is.

Starting with SEO

noble web design — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:40:07 +0000

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

Choosing a domain name

noble web design — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:27:32 +0000

Choosing a domain name for your website and business

To help your website and business flourish, pick a domain name that:

is easy for Web users to remember and find
suggests the nature of your product or service
serves as a strong trademark so competitors won’t be able to use a business name or domain name similar to it, and is free of legal conflicts with trademarks belonging to other businesses

So what makes a good domain name?

Good extension – If a person is surfing around looking for a site, and they know its name, most people will try .com. So, for the web site owner who wants their site to be found, the rule is: if at all possible, get a .com name.

Short – Less than 7 characters, ideally. A simple name will roll off the tongue more easily in conversation, look more professional, and have less chance of being mis-typed.

Easy to spell – Make sure it passes the phone test: if you were to say the domain name of your website to a friend over the phone, would your friend be able to spell it correctly the first time without your having to spell it for them? If not, you’ve failed the phone test and should likely try a different domain name.

Also, be careful about double letters. Take CyberRodeo, for example. Their domain uses a double R, as you might expect, but there is an uncertainty there. The two R’s together look a bit strange if written without capitalization, and a good name will not force the user to assume anything about the name. If you must have a double letter, the best solution is to buy both versions of the domain. Avoid using dashes in your domain name.

Descriptive – A good site or business name will describe exactly what the site is about. In most cases it’s important for a person to be able to get some sort of sense what the website is about just by reading the domain name. Of course that logic doesn’t work for sites like ebay, amazon, ivillage, etc, but then again you likely don’t have a multi-million dollar budget to help you brand your name and teach people what it means.

Keywords – Include descriptive keywords that describe your business, product or mission in your domain name. This will play a very small part, in some cases, in increasing your search engine ranking for search phrases that include the keywords used in your domain name.

When shopping for a domain, it is also important to keep an eye open for domain name scams. The surging popularity of domain name affiliate programs has created countless “fly by night” operations; dozens of domain name resellers worldwide cease operations every month, often leaving the administrative status of the domains they leave behind up in the air. Making a purchase from a reseller is not a bad decision, but make sure to research the company’s history and credentials.