On July 14, 2010, I will discuss how to maintain Pagerank when you update or launch a new website with the North Alabama Web Developers group.
In this meet-up we’ll discuss Google webmaster tools, Google analytics, sitemaps, and using redirects to map content with the .htaccess file (emphasis will be on Apache/Linux hosting). Please visist the meet-up site for details and sign-up.
When dealing with a decline in traffic it is important to determine the source of the problem. Is the change something indirect that you can’t control such as change in a search algorithm or a new competitor in the market, or is the change due to something more direct, like recent (well intentioned) changes to your site or a a server outage?
The clues are all in your Analytics data.
Is the loss from a single referer (Google, Yahoo, Bing)?
Is the traffic loss clustered around a specific keywords or phrases?
Has your website been off-line due to a server outage or update?
Is there a basic configuration issue, such as an incorrectly written “No Index” entry in the robots.txt file?
What changes, if any were made to the website preceding the loss?
Jill Whalen with High Rankings in Boston has a really great write-up on looking for the root of the problem here.
To summarize:
Determine what type of traffic loss you’re dealing with.
Look at the extent of the traffic loss.
Compare apples to apples.
Review and filter out “brand” traffic.
Analyze which keyword phrases have had a significant decrease in visitors.
Do a quick Google search for the phrases.
Review the landing page for the keyword phrase that lost traffic.
Review your long-tail traffic.
Decide if you’re dealing with a search engine penalty
Google added a feature to Webmaster Tools yesterday that I hope will find its way in to Business Listings and other services. Now, if you are verified owner of a website, you can simply add additional users to the Webmaster Tools account (through the verify link). This means site owners can add individuals that do development, marketing or optimization, without having to upload additional files or edit pages. This greatly simplifies things, giving owners a simple way to remove this access.
I just read a great article by Ian Lurie at Coversation Marketing titled Things You Don’t Know About Your Customers. Perhaps more aptly named Things to remember when designing a website, its a great read with clear points we all need to remember. In summary:
Reading onscreen is hard, for everyone.
Use short paragraphs.
Use short lines.
Use wide line spacing and nice margins.
Use dark text on a light background.
Scrolling up-and-down is OK
Use lists.
They browse in an F-shape
They can’t remember your web address (being at the top of search results for your name means nothing)
They don’t search for your name (they search for answers to problems)
They don’t want to log in (or anything standing between them and their goal)
They don’t want an ‘experience’ (simple is better)
They do want your newsletter (make it prevalent and easy to sign-up)
They don’t care how clever you are. (just the facts please)
They aren’t enticed by mystery.
They get lost a lot (make navigation easy, redundant, and extend to your 404 pages)
They aren’t using cell phones (at least not in big numbers)
They still use Internet Explorer (so be sure it works in IE)
They’re using big monitors. (so don’t create 800 X 600 layouts)
Duplicate Content has long been an issue with webmasters and is cause for concern because duplicating content dilutes your ranking in search results. Perhaps the most common cause of having duplicate content is in allowing both www. and non www versions of your site to exist. However, another place where I see duplicate content occur is when a customer has multiple domain names pointing to the same content. When you use multiple domain names, and there are good reasons to do this, you should pick a preferred URL and ensure that any secondary domains are 301 redirected to that URL.
In this video, Google’s Greg Grothaus does a great job explaining duplicate content problems and solutions ranging from 301 redirects to canonical tags.
I have previously blogged about how 301 redirects can prevent common problems from diluting the search engine ranking for your site. However, there are however a number of situations that create duplicate content concerns that are more difficult address. Webmasters now have additional tools to deal with duplicate content through Google’s Webmaster Tools panel. Through this addition to webmaster tools, Google Lets You Tell Them Which URL Parameters To Ignore. This will a great help, especially for many large dynamic sites.
Matt Cutts at the 2009 WordCamp. In this video he discusses terms like google juice, page rank, and back links, but don’t get overwhelmed by the jargon. The central theme is creating content that is relevant and reputable. Worth watching.
Matt Cutts’ Whitehat video from WordCamp 2007 still rings true. While it’s targeted at WordPress users, it has broad application and conveys an enormous amount of information. The video discusses SEO tips in plain speak – recommended. Note, he starts with a site that has been banned and gets a bit technical, but quickly moves into more general territory. The Q&A at the end is very much worth watching.
The big news in the press today is the Microsoft/Yahoo deal. I have already received questions about this from a couple of clients, so I thought it best to expand here.
In the deal the search brand at Yahoo will remain to be “Yahoo Search” but it will be “Powered by Bing.” There will be no immediate changes however until they get regulatory approval, following approval the integration effort will move forward (expected early 2010).
What about allocating advertising dollars? In the deal it appears that some mix of Yahoo Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter advertising will continue. It was reported that Yahoo ads will continue to run in the Yahoo properties with Microsoft getting 12% of the revenue and some Yahoo ads will be syndicated over the Microsoft network. Bing will run ads on Microsoft properties (and may run some ads on the Yahoo network as well), but the details are unclear at this point. It will take some time for all this to shake out, with conversions rates ultimately determining where ad dollars will need to be spent.
What about optimizing for Bing? This is really a non-starter, Google’s market share is so large that doing anything that could compromise your traffic from that engine would be a mistake. Unless Bing’s market share increases more than just picking up Yahoo traffic, there is really no point – as long as the feature sets remain similar. If features emerge that are unique to Bing, and could be supported without impacting your Google traffic, then optimizating for those features would be in order.
