Posts Tagged ‘Search Engines’

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There are advantages and disadvantages to using both absolute and relative links. Here I will explore the differences between the two, outline some pros and cons and also provide some additional information on how you can create hyperlinks in your site that will ensure that all links to your content remain in tact and properly functioning.

Back in the day, you know… the early 2000’s I loved to use relative links. Inserting relative links made websites development easy in cutting-edge programs such as Microsoft FrontPage. By using relative links you could move files around in your directory structure and FrontPage would automatically update all your link paths throughout the site, keeping them connected to the pages in their new location. No more manually updating all your internal links by hand! It was brilliant.

But now I’m not so big of a fan as relative links as I once was. I don’t have huge problems with them, but I understand the value in using absolute links rather than relative links. But perhaps I should take a step back and explain the difference between the two.

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Have you ever noticed that people are often more willing to travel to a conference than attend one in their own area? I think it’s a planning thing. With local stuff it’s easy to beg off in favor of “more important” things. When you travel you have to make a commitment that you don’t want to cancel at the last minute.

So maybe it’s a good thing that Reno doesn’t have any good search engine optimization conferences.
At least for me. Traveling is half the fun. Not the airline flights, mind you. I don’t much care for those. But I do enjoy going to places and just “getting out” of Reno.

So whenever there is an opportunity to get out to a great conference, I try to take it.

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Meta description tags get a bad rap. They are often either considered to be more valuable than they really are, or dismissed as near irrelevant. The truth is that the meta description can be useful but it’s on the lower rung of importance when it comes to the on-page elements considered by the search engines. So while not a whole lot of time needs to be invested in creating workable description tags, I’ll give you a few pointers on what you need to consider.

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Building a website gives you a lot of options when it comes to how to set up your internal linking structure. Different areas of your site or web pages may require different linking strategies, but regardless on what kind of internal linking strategy you implement, you want to make sure that it helps you achieve your search engine optimization goals. I’m going to break internal linking into three categories: The search friendly, search un-friendly and search meh-friendly link.

When a website goes into development most of the attention is usually paid to the design elements. That’s obviously the most important thing, right? The images, the layout, the colors, the navigation, how the user will interact with the site? These are all important elements to consider and necessary for developing a site that provides the best usability experience for your visitors. But what often doesn’t get enough attention is the site’s directory structure.

When I talk of a site’s directory structure I refer to both the file directory and internal link structures. They are two very different things, but in reality they should often mirror each other very closely, but not always…

In business, it is pretty much well known that it requires less of a financial investment to keep a customer than it does to acquire a new one. The internet is really no different. Once you get a visitor on your site, or get them wanting to be on your site, it takes less investment to keep them there than it does to go bring in another new visitor. Therefore it is important to do whatever you can to keep acquired visitors on your site helping them move through the conversion process. Everything, that is, short of hijacking their web browser!

One of the easiest ways to lose visitors from your site is through broken or invalid links. You’ve been there before… surfing through a website, looking for things that interest you only to click on a link that brings you to something like this:

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If you’re new to working with PPC, you may be like every other newbie in the world and be confused by the jargon often used. PPC, CPC, CTR, DKI … It doesn’t take long to figure it all out, but in the early beginning it would have been nice to have someone lay out the soup for me, so I thought I’d lay it out for you. The obvious ones are: PPC = Pay Per Click; CPC = Cost Per Click; CTR = Click Through Rate; and lastly and maybe not so obvious, DKI = Dynamic Keyword Insertion.

Dynamic Keyword Insertion
When I was first learning PPC, I had no idea what DKI referred to, so as part of Boot Camp, I hope to help others understand. Essentially what DKI does, is insert the searcher’s keyword into the ad text. With search terms bolded in the ad text, your ad stand out among the other advertisers. Because the search phrase is actually displayed in the ad, exactly as the searcher entered it (well, almost exactly), it also makes text more relevant to the searcher. They see your ad written and advertising exactly what they’re looking for! In finding this, the searcher is more likely to click your ad.

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Last week I was privileged to conduct a webinar on the topic of Website Architecture. Unfortunately I was only able to get to two of the three main topics due to time and my inability to not talk so much! Overall I think we covered the two areas we got to, URL & Domain Structure and Link Structure, pretty sufficiently.

Over the course of the hour I was told that over 16 pages of questions were submitted, yet we only had time to answer a few during the hour. I’m hoping to be able to go through those and answer as many as I can, but I’m still making my way through the pile of questions sent before the webinar. So without any more yapping, let’s jump right in and answer some more…

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