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URL Syntax and How It Can Dramatically Affect SEO

October 12, 2012 by

While it may seem like a minor detail, we can’t tell you how many times we’ve spotted bad URLs in a website…in fact, it’s one of the first things that jump out at us when evaluating site from strictly the ability to be crawled and indexed.

Search engines do in fact take time to crawl just about any URL, no matter how badly it’s set up.

Taking a little bit of time to manage your URLs to ensure they display properly though can provide multiple benefits – in terms of both SEO and usability.

Take this URL for example:

http://www.seo-advantage.com/website-optimization-company.htm

This “breadcrumb” style that includes keywords is best type of URL to have. Since we know keywords in your URL is a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm, this “general to specific” approach makes the URL easily crawlable. Also, a URL like this already has anchor-text embedded in it so even if it’s listed on other pages like we’ve done above, you will still get some of the keyword ranking benefit…just like if you link to it using actual anchor-text (i.e. website optimization company).

Back in 2009, we wrote a post on proper anatomy of a URL and included a cheat sheet developed by Dr. Peter Meyers at SEOMoz. It’s handy to have a copy of this cheat sheet available as you evaluate your site’s URLs.

Our example above differs from some of the URLs you’ve likely encountered in the past. These old style, “dynamic” URLs include a bunch of characters. While these long URLs can be indexed, any symbols (parameters) like a “&” or “@” will dilute the impact of keywords that may be in the URL.

These older style URLs also may include information like user ID, session ID, sort code, print code and other parameters that’s transmitted outside of the URL. If a webpage address includes parameters, it is possible that you can run into duplicate content issues.

Auditing your site’s URLs and addressing any issues

A site’s content management system, or CMS, can lead to issues with your URLs. Some systems use characters like a “#” or “%” that are not legal to use. Others generate multiple URLs for the same page, leading to duplicate content issues.

By using Google and Bing webmaster tool reports and taking a careful look at the URL syntax for all of your pages, you should be able to determine if URLs are hindering your search rankings and usability of your website.

First thing you should look for are unsafe characters. There are several that aren’t even allowed in fact, and others that will not be indexed. Google doesn’t read anything past a pound character (“#”) for example. Therefore, if you have that symbol in your URL, search engines will ignore the symbol and anything past it.

For example, …website-optimization-company.html#seo-friendly-url will not be indexed. But if you change it to …website-optimization-company/seo-friendly-url, it will.

Other items to look out for include:

  • Underscores – problematic for SEO since search engines see these characters as connectors. Consider using dashes to separate words.
  • Mixed case – with the exception of machine names, URLs are case-sensitive. Having mixed cases can lead to duplicate content. The easiest way to deal with this issue is to have your website automatically rewrite all URLs into lower-case.

If you have long URLs with lots of parameters and other characters, how you transition to an SEO-friendly URL structure will depend a lot on the CMS system you’re using. Here are a few general options you can consider for cleaning up your site’s URLs and dealing with any duplicate content issues:

  • Reconfigure your CMS platform to generate one consistent URL for each page of content
  • Do a 301-redirect for any duplicate URLs to the new or correct version
  • Add canonical tags (…a way of communicating the preferred page to Google) that will direct search engines to group duplicate content and combine their ranking signals
  • Configure URL parameters in webmaster tools that direct search engines to ignore URL parameters that may cause duplicate content

Check out this piece from Tom Schmitz in Search Engine Land for more information on unsafe URL characters and other ways of dealing with bad URL structure.

Understand that not all CMS systems are created equal. You may be using one that will not allow you to modify the URL structure to be SEO-friendly. Even if you can’t optimize your URLs for the search engines, you should definitely make sure they meet minimum standards. For more information on these standards, click here.

Does your site have a bad URL structure?

If so, how badly is it affecting your position in the search engines?

Related Posts

Proper Anatomy of a URL – An SEO Cheat Sheet

Use Caution with Session IDs and Dynamic URLs

 

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Site Architecture, Tip of the Day, Usability Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Is SEO and Usability Separable or Inseparable?

August 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As a search engine optimization company specializing in helping businesses dominate their respective industries online, we spend a lot of time considering what makes a website not only good, but stellar.

Of course, we spend a good bit of this time evaluating the metrics (a.k.a. algorithm) Google and other search engines use to rank web pages. What makes a certain website appear on page 1, or at the top of page 1?

However, this isn’t the only question we consider.

While search is the dominant way people find information online, we’re also mindful of the experience users have once they land on a website. Therefore, we don’t cater to every little SEO trick out there thinking all we need to do is pepper the right keywords in the right frequency, put up some good metatags and call it a day.

Over doing SEO can certainly “…undermine the user experience” according to a recent column from Jakob Nielsen’s weekly column.

Initially, it’s easy to see SEO and usability as two separate topics – search engine optimization is about “attracting people to your site” by making it show up high in the search results. Usability on the other hand is about the user’s interaction with your site after they’ve found it.

Therefore, the goal of SEO is to attract visitors while the goal of usability is to maximize the numbers of visitors that become actual customers.

Both SEO and usability have to be impressive in order for your site to succeed

If your SEO is stellar but your usability is lousy, plenty of people will find your site but none of them will actually convert.

Likewise, if your usability is great but your SEO is lousy, your site just won’t see too many visitors.

So even though SEO and usability focus on different parts of the lead generation process, there are many ways in which these two elements work together. However, there are a couple of ways they conflict, which I’ll get into below.

One of the first points to understand is that SEO goes well beyond Google. Studies have shown how search is “…the main resource discovery strategy” for most people. This concept applies to those already on your site as well. Many websites though don’t spend much time thinking about their site’s internal search usability, which can kill conversion rates in the end.

This is especially true when it comes to e-commerce type sites – one of the first laws of e-commerce is that your products must be found before they can be purchased. For general, mainstream websites, many users go straight to the site search rather than using navigation. Often times, the internal site search is so bad that users get frustrated and go all the way back to Google to find what they’re looking for.

Therefore, websites have to employ basic SEO techniques in their internal site search functionalities to ensure their site’s usability, and specifically their site search, is the best it can be.

In the long-term, good search rankings will come from how well your site helps users

Since the advent of ranking factors, search engines must use a variety of indirect metrics (i.e. number of links pointing to it) to determine a site’s quality. But as Google and others increasingly move toward evaluating user behaviors, search rankings will more and more be based on usability criteria.

In the short-term, you can try and game the search algorithms…but long-term, this is a losing proposition since these algorithms are always changing. Instead, focus on providing a good experience for your users.

In the long-term, this will generate not only high search rankings, but high conversions as well.

Good short-term SEO and good design are equally important though

Only focusing on how current search algorithms work is a bad idea, yes. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t design your website to work well with today’s search engines.

Offer stable URLs so other sites can easily, and directly link to any piece of content on your site. Use terms in your titles, headline and main content that visitors will use in their searches – meaning, you should avoid cute sounding headlines or words that may sound catchy but no one will understand.

You need to also be sure you use plain text to ensure your site gets indexed in the first place. Information architecture is important too – a clear navigation not only helps your users easily find the products/ services you offer, it also makes it easier for search engines to crawl your site and determine where in your site’s hierarchy a page is located.

Finally, be sure you develop compelling content that attracts links and chatter on social media.

These steps are things you should be doing anyway. But considering these SEO/usability guidelines in tandem will ensure you not only see sustained search rankings, but that you will see increased numbers of click-throughs as well.

Although SEO and usability often go together, there are instances where they conflict

One clear example of this is keyword stuffing. While it may help search rankings in the short-term, keyword stuffing makes your content harder to read.

Fat or obese footers is another point where SEO and usability conflict. While including informative, keyword-rich landing pages in your site’s bottom navigation may be good for search rankings, it can play havoc on the usability of your site since you have so many links going to disparate pages that are hard for users to follow.

In the long-term, sustained search rankings come from having a crawlable site that’s both informative AND usable. As Google continues to increase its reliance on user behavior in determining a site’s quality, you will need to be increasingly mindful of your site’s usability to ensure you stay on top of the search results.

We want to hear your thoughts on how SEO and usability either work together or conflict.

Do you consider one more important than the other?

What do you spend more time worrying about – your site’s ultimate rankings or the user experience once they land on your site?

Related Posts

Answer These 23 Questions to Understand What Google Looks For

10 Important Points to Consider When Redesigning your Website

10 Most Common Web Design Mistakes

“Don’t Make Me Think” – A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability – Part I

“Don’t Make Me Think” – A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability – Part II

“Don’t Make Me Think” – A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability – Part III

 

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Site Architecture, Tip of the Day, Usability Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Why Mobile Sites Have to Be Simple

June 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Just about every day, a new technological innovation hits the market – at least it seems to anyway. One area that’s experienced rapid growth in recent years is mobile smartphone technology. These devices provide the capability to surf the web, check email and shoot/upload pictures and videos.

Of course, there are probably 20 other features we’re skipping here but that’s okay.

And from our first post exploring mobile-compatible websites and from our personal experiences, it’s safe to say that Internet capable handheld devices are quickly becoming the norm, especially in foreign countries where the cost to obtain a smartphone is much less than the cost of a laptop or desktop.

Most businesses and websites though have not taken this into consideration

While they may have a very extensive main site, many businesses have not spent 5 minutes thinking about a site optimized for mobile devices.

As you may know from your personal experience or by using a friend’s phone, the screen is very small. Trying to view a site that is not mobile-compatible on your phone means you may be scrolling up/down and sideways a lot.

Needless to say this can get frustrating…

Another consideration is the data used to transmit webpages to a mobile device. Unless all of your users have unlimited data plans through their service provider, they will quickly consume their allotted data (…usually expressed in megabytes) for the month if they have to access a site that’s designed with only traditional computers in mind.

Large images, background images, videos and other animations take bandwidth to transmit. Not only will this quickly consume a user’s monthly megabyte limit, it will be much slower than a connection through a traditional computer.

Unlimited data plans are in fact a thing of the past for many service providers so anyone new to mobile smartphones will likely have a limit after which additional charges will kick in. Like text messages and minutes, these charges can add up really quickly.

The other reason your mobile site has to be simpler is the fact that the vast majority of mobile users are in a hurry, even more so than users accessing your website from a traditional computer. Navigation and information on your mobile site has to be simple and easy to understand – visitors must be able to find what they’re looking for quickly and move on.

So what can I do to be sure I have a site compatible for mobile users?

In a way, the answer can be surmised in the three words – simplify, simplify, simplify!

Like we said above, smaller screens coupled with data limitations means any large images, videos or background images will take longer to load, consume more bandwidth and the entire screen on a mobile device. Get rid of these “extras” and stick to a basic navigation with short bits of content…logos and simple images are okay but fancy graphics will cause visitors frustration.

Also, keep your pages shorter.

Since screens on mobile devices are smaller, users may have scroll a lot to see all of your content. Some up and down scrolling is okay (…and is pretty common on traditional sites). Side-to-side scrolling though is a bit more cumbersome and frustrating.

It’s been suggested by usability experts like Jakob Nielsen that you should limit up-and-down scrolling as well by breaking pages up into several different pages. On each section, include a link that says “next” at the bottom so that visitors can click to continue reading.

And of course, you should also provide plenty of cross-linking opportunity between your mobile site and your full site. Doing so allows visitors the flexibility to choose which site works better for them…if they want to learn more, they can indeed go to your main site for more information.

There are of course other things you need to consider that are dependent on the kind of site you have.

One question that always comes up is whether you should have your entire site formatted for mobile or just a handful of main pages.

If you’re running an online store, you may want to consider having the entire site in both mobile and full versions. But if you’re a B2B or a service-oriented firm, having a few main pages then linking to your main site may be good enough.

All of this of course is dependent on your budget for developing a mobile site.

One thing is absolutely clear though – mobile compatible sites will be increasingly important in the future. If there are no businesses in your industry with a mobile website, building one now can give you a distinct competitive advantage in the years ahead.

As economic challenges in the western world continue to mount, it’s quite possible this competitive edge will make the difference between business success and failure.

Have you developed a mobile website for your business? If so, did you optimize your entire site for mobile or just a few pages?

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

Mobile Smartphones and SEO

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution, Part I

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution, Part II

10 Important Points to Consider When Redesigning your Website

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Site Architecture, Tip of the Day, Usability Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

10 Important Points to Consider when Redesigning your Website

April 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Every so often, your website should undergo a face lift. It’s important to consider a site redesign every couple of years or so to maintain a fresh appearance for your company.

If you just put a site online and don’t touch its design for many years, it will appear that your company is behind the times. Since online marketing channels and SEO is constantly evolving, you have to stay current or risk losing your position to a competitor who’s on top of their game and has an updated site.

Other reasons like migrating to a new content management system or rebranding your company can also serve as motivation for re-designing your website.

When planning and implementing your redesign though, there are several things you need to consider. Continue reading for 10 important items you should be thinking about when doing this all-important task. These tips came to us by way of a recent white paper from our friends at Hubspot. For more detailed information into the following 10 points, download the white paper today.

10 Important Points to Consider when Redesigning your Website

1.    Analyze your existing site’s metrics

Before you even begin, evaluate your current site’s performance to see where you stand. Metrics to consider include – number of visitors, click-thru-rate, bounce rate, time on site, current SEO rankings and more.

2.    Develop goals for your new site

Have a concrete reason for re-designing your site beyond “it’s been awhile.”  Redesigning your site should be more about how your site works rather than how it looks. Tie your reasoning into metrics mentioned in #1 and be sure you clearly communicate this to your in-house team or agency.

3.     Account for your current site’s assets

Many designers fail to consider how a re-design can hurt more than it helps. For example, you may have a page on your existing site that does very well and has lots of inbound links. Losing this page could do great damage to your position in the search engines. Important assets you need to be sure you preserve may include – most shared/viewed content, most visited pages, best performing keywords and number of inbound links to individual pages.

4.    Look at the competition

While it isn’t wise to obsess about what your competitors are doing, it can be very helpful to understand where they may be outfoxing you. Run you and your competitor’s site through a tool like Marketing Grader so you can learn the strengths and weaknesses of each. Don’t copy your competition but instead use it as an opportunity to learn where you can improve your site.

5.     Develop your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

Before you begin developing content for your new site, be sure you identify what makes you unique for your competitors and be sure that messaging is consistent across your entire website. It’s important you immediately answer why someone should contact you or otherwise stay on your site rather than flee to your competitors.

6.     Design your site around personas

Don’t make your site about you – make it about your customers. Use language they can understand and relate to. Segment your personas by demographics and identify their needs. Use this as a basis for developing your site’s messaging.

For example, let’s say you’re a hotel marketing manager trying to bring in new customers. In this case, you can target five buyer personas – an independent business traveler, a corporate travel manager, an event planner, a vacationing family, and a couple planning their wedding reception.

7.     Optimize your new site for search

Hopefully you’ve got all the bones there for building search engine rankings but it’s amazing the sites we run into who don’t. Anyway, be sure you inventory your existing site pages to find the ones with the most link juice and search engine value. Be sure you develop a comprehensive 301 re-direct strategy to ensure you don’t lose any of that traffic or value.

8.     Identify Calls-to-action

These are the elements in your site’s content and design that motivate a visitor to take action – be it to click ‘buy’ or simply provide their email address or download a whitepaper. Your website shouldn’t be static but rather should motivate someone to take action. Examples of good opportunities for conversions include: free whitepaper, contests/promotions, product purchases, free trial, etc.

9.     Have an ongoing content development strategy

As you know from reading our blog, we place high value on a consistent stream of valuable, informative content. Develop a strategy for building this content. Start a blog, develop press releases on important company news and think about landing pages you can develop that target important keyword phrases.

10.     Include extras

Any website built today should include basic elements like a homepage, product page(s), about us/FAQ and a contact us page. But go beyond this to really make your site shine. A blog for example is a great way to provide important information on an ongoing basis. You can also include landing pages for lead generation, add RSS capability and include social sharing buttons on all your pages.

This list of 10 things to consider when redesigning your website isn’t meant to be exhaustive. Each business and industry is unique. Much of what determines the success of a redesign occurs before you actually do the work. Many website owners get caught up in how the site looks rather than how it works.

Following these 10 recommendations though will ensure you’re well prepared to successfully re-design your website.

Many customers have come to us wondering why their site isn’t performing that well and we usually find something mentioned above that they’re lacking. Most of all, many businesses view their website as a singular resource when in fact it should “…integrate with other functions like social media, e-mail marketing and lead generation.”

Have you re-designed your website recently?

How did it work out? Are you satisfied with how your new site is performing?

Is there something mentioned here that you missed?

Remember, you can always go back and make changes – that’s the beauty of online marketing. You can always go back and make tweaks to boost your site’s performance.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

Answer These 23 Questions to Understand What Google Looks For

3 Types of ‘Breadcrumbs’ – And Why You Should Include Them on your Site

10 Most Common Web Design Mistakes

34 Things You Must Do When Redesigning your Website

“Don’t Make Me Think” – A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Part I, Part II, Part III)

Filed Under: Site Architecture, Tip of the Day, Usability Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Mobile Smartphones and SEO

February 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

You or someone you know in all likelihood owns a mobile smartphone (…like the I-Phone, Android or something similar) and accesses the Internet with it. These devices have grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years – projections are that one day, more people will access the Internet with a handheld device than laptops or traditional desktop machines.

With that said, now is the time to consider integrating a mobile version of your website into your online marketing strategy.

When examining this from a purely SEO standpoint though, one thing you must understand before anything:

Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo don’t give a hoot if you have a mobile compatible web site or not

That’s right – websites designed for mobile users do NOT receive any special treatment from the search engines. In other words, searches from a mobile smartphone are treated just like any other search from a regular computer.

If you take out your smartphone and do a search, you’ll notice that search engines do not rank mobile sites higher unless you add “mobile” or some other unique keyword to your phrase.

Let’s be clear though – having a site optimized for mobile users is absolutely important. However, this is more of a usability issue and not necessarily a ranking issue.

From a search engine optimization standpoint though, it’s highly unlikely your mobile site will ever outrank your main site.

The big impact in terms of SEO and mobile smartphones is local search. Here’s where sites designed for mobile devices are treated differently than desktop sites (…notice, they treat them differently, not better).

Google and others essentially assume that a mobile search is local. In fact, statistics show that there is a 33% or higher chance you’re looking for something local when using your smartphone.

For example, if you type in “Best Buy” on your mobile device, it’s assumed you’re looking for the local Best Buy store in your town.

Another caveat of mobile search (..exclusive to Google) is the fact that Google Places is clearly pushed to the top in a majority of local related keyword searches.

Therefore, if your customers are local, it’s quite clear you need to have a presence in something like Google Places.

Aside from local searches though, there isn’t any special treatment for mobile-enabled websites.

With this assumption in hand, your best bet is to drive all traffic to your main site and put your mobile optimized site with a sub-directory (i.e. http://www.yoursite.com/mobile) rather than as a stand-alone subdomain (i.e. http://mobile.yoursite.com).

Setting up your mobile site this way carries several benefits, including:

  • Content, trust and authority of your main site (…since it’s likely been around much longer) will be available to your mobile users
  • You can maintain focus of your link building on your main site rather than having to split your efforts between multiple sites
  • Setting cookies is less troublesome when you don’t have to go cross domain

If you’ve setup a mobile site with its own stand-alone domain, you’re probably experiencing difficulty in getting the new domain to rank. If so, you can setup a 301 re-direct to a mobile domain attached to your main website (i.e. http://www.yoursite.com/mobile).

From a marketing and usability standpoint, mobile compatible sites are becoming an absolute must, especially considering these devices are currently experiencing an explosive 400% growth in usage. Much of your content will stay the same – it will just need to include coding to make it compatible for the ubiquitous small screens mobile smartphones have.

But considering the fact that only a tiny fraction of companies have added mobile sites, you will likely have a distinct competitive advantage by starting one now rather than waiting another year or two.

Other Posts you May Be Interested In

Google and Merging of Search and Social Media

Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution, Part I

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution, Part II

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Usability Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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