Your Host: Jill Whalen [jill@highrankings.com]
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~~~IN TODAY'S ADVISOR~~~
*Search Engine Marketing Q&A:
----> Same Content, Different URLs
----> Submitting to Directories and Search Engines
----> SEO Non-compete
----> Can Lots of Clicks Equal Higher Rankings?
----> Absolute Links or Relative?
----> Effect of Navigational Content
*High Rankings Happenings:
----> $100 Off Our Basic SEO Consultation Package
----> Half-day Website Marketing Workshops – April 2–3
----> SEO Full-day Training Classes
*Stuff You Might Like:
----> Podcast Conversation: Length of Copy for Search Engines
----> Press Release Distribution Discount Extended
*Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week:
----> How Many Keywords Is Too Many?
*Advisor Wrap-up:
----> Vote for Kim!
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~~~Introductory Comments~~~
Hey everyone!
Today is one of my famous email Q&A bonanza issues. Enjoy! – Jill
~~~Search Engine Marketing Q&A~~~
++Same Content, Different URLs++
Dear Jill,
I have a new website selling children's eco friendly toys. The site was designed to enable customers to search for toys by age, by type of toy, by brand, and by country of manufacture. A given toy description would be in each of these categories as well as in multiple age categories and multiple toy types (i.e., in puzzles and wooden puzzles).
Consequently, a given toy may end up with 10 different identical pages on the site. A newbie to this SEO world, I recently read that having duplicated pages is not good for SEO. How do I meet the needs of my customers to search for a toy by whatever means they prefer and avoid crippling my SEO efforts?
Thanks!
Nancy
++Jill's Response++
Hi Nancy,
It's definitely not good for SEO because you are basically creating duplicate content. (Same content on different URLs.) While you won't get penalized for that, it's not good practice because you'll be splitting your internal link popularity, plus forcing the search engines to index URLs that they really don't need to.
What you want to do is have your developers tweak your content management system so that each ultimate landing page for any given toy has only one specific URL, regardless of what category the user started from. I'm not a programmer, so I don't know all the ins and outs of how to tweak it in the back end of your system, but your IT team should be able to do it.
Of course, not all content management systems are that easily changed, or your programmers may be too busy or give you some grief over this. If that's the case, and it's impossible to create only one ultimate landing page URL for any toy, then I suggest blocking the search engines from indexing all but one URL, via your robots.txt exclusion file if at all possible. At least that way you won't have multiple copies of the page getting indexed by the search engines.
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-XqXfwfXQZe5Es%403956574-tee.MbuHaPaCs
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++Submitting to Directories and Search Engines++
Dear Jill,
I'm writing now because a colleague and I have some questions on search engine/directory submission and we are hoping to get your expertise on the subject. We currently submit new sites to major SEs once they go live, but are wondering if some of the services are worth pursuing or if you advise against these?
Are there any negatives in such a large volume of submissions or do SEs view this as spammy for any reason? Do sites typically see a lot of benefit in the engines after they've been submitted? If you recommend against doing mass submissions, are there a few select SEs or directories that are worthwhile to submit to?
Also, is it helpful to submit to Google/Yahoo to speed up the process once you've updated a site or launched a new one, or do they typically index the content pretty quickly?
I would really appreciate any advice you can offer.
Thanks much!
Erin
++Jill's Response++
Hi Erin,
For the most part, the only search engines people use are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Because they are crawling search engines that find pages by following links, there's no need to submit any URLs to them. You would just be wasting time that you could be doing something productive with, because submitting to crawling search engines will have no effect on anything.
Directories, on the other hand, need to be submitted to by hand, but most of them don't bring a whole lot of traffic these days. In other words, they're really not worth worrying about either. Certainly if your site has a specific niche, a directory that focuses on that would be good. But all those thousands of low-quality general directories are becoming a thing of the past, in my opinion, mostly due to overzealous SEO abuse.
As to automated directory submissions, that's definitely a huge waste of time and money. It always has been and always will be.
Hope this helps!
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-HdOyz0YXpkIhM%403956576-4rjFHWhJ1J14A
++SEO Non-compete++
Jill,
What do you think about a potential SEO client who asks you to agree not to work with any related company for 2 years after the conclusion of the business relationship?
Do you ever sign that kind of agreement?
Thanks!
Pete
++Jill's Response++
Hi Pete,
I haven't typically been asked to do that, but might sign it depending on the circumstances. If it is a niche where you think you might get additional clients, there may be an opportunity to charge an extra exclusivity fee. So while you may not ordinarily want to sign something like that, if the client is willing to pay for it, it might be worth your while.
But honestly, if the project is a big one and you're being compensated well, you may just want to sign it, no strings attached. It can sometimes be perceived as a bit sleazy if you compete with your own work. It really depends on what the industry is, and how closely related the 2nd client's website is to the first.
If you do sign it, my recommendation would be to make sure it's very specific in what sort of client you can and can't take later. Have that spelled out clearly and have an attorney check it out too.
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-x2piRloqybgWs%403956577-Hgyr3OoxGkpQQ
_____________________High Rankings______________________
Website Marketing Workshops April 2–3, 2009
______________________________________________________
4 Half-day Workshops to Choose From!
Already know the SEO basics?
In these half-day in-depth website marketing workshops you will learn:
* Keywords: How to research them and use them within your website
* Copywriting: For your target audience and the search engines
* Social media: How to get the word out and gain traffic and links for your website
* Web analytics: How to measure the success of your web marketing campaigns.
Register for just one workshop, an entire day, or all 4!
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++Can Lots of Clicks Equal Higher Rankings?++
Hi Jill,
If I hire people through something like crowdsourcing just to Google some keywords from various areas of the globe to click through to my site and stay there for 5 minutes, will it improve my rankings?
Thanks for any advice.
Mohan
++Jill's Response++
Dear Mohan,
The short answer is no.
The long answer is that it's very difficult to replicate true user behavior. The search engines have some pretty smart people working for them and they can easily detect patterns of clickthroughs to a website. Not only that, there's really no proof that clicking to a site from the search results is even factored into the algorithm. While I believe that, on a very large scale, they may be using clickthrough data, it's doubtful that your efforts would ever even be noticed in a way that would help your rankings.
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-Vhx44YmddSsJw%403956579-NxyQCG2VvlHQ6
++Absolute Links or Relative?++
Dear Jill,
I've been researching absolute vs. relative links and there seem to be two camps -- one that advocates absolute as better for SEO purposes and the other that says that absolute links won't improve your rank. My site is set up with relative links, so is it worth the effort to change them to absolute?
Thanks,
Cliff
++Jill's Response++
Hi Cliff,
I'm surprised you found anything in your research that mentioned absolute or relative links as helping or hurting SEO because they are not an SEO issue.
For those who aren't familiar with the terminology, absolute links are coded into your HTML as the entire website URL, like:
rather than simply /example.htm.
But it's all the same to the search engines either way you code them.
The only time where it is helpful to use absolute links is if you have more than one domain parked at the same website. This is because you wouldn't want the search engines to index your website under both URLs, which they might do if they get to the additional domain and it has relative links on it. If it has absolute links, they'll always click back to the "real" site.
Of course, these days, you should be 301-redirecting any additional domains rather than parking them anyway, in which case it wouldn't be an issue.
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-oi2t2RxO/egfo%403956580-/AW/NhJQ/dYGc
++Effect of Navigational Content++
Hi Jill,
I'm redesigning my website using CSS for the layout. In the HTML code the navigation information comes before the actual page content. What worries me is how I have my navigation set up. I use CSS and span tags to make neat little information boxes appear when my navigation links are hovered over. These boxes will tell the visitor more about what to expect from that particular link.
The problem is that the search engines will see quite a bit of content that has little or nothing to do with the actual content of the page before they ever see the real content. Is this going to have an adverse effect on my rankings? I try to build my sites for my visitors instead of the search engines, but can I afford to do it in this case? Your advice would REALLY be appreciated.
Thanks,
Rodney
++Jill's Response++
Hi Rodney,
I wouldn't worry about it.
The search engines (especially Google) seem to understand what's part of your navigation (because it's on every page) and what's part of your actual content. While I have no proof, I would imagine they'd mostly filter out that extra information in your span tags because it's on most pages of the site.
If you were really concerned (and I wouldn't be), you could accomplish the same thing for your users via JavaScript instead of CSS, and the search engines would be less likely to find, read, and index the information that way.
Hope this helps!
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
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P.S. If anyone would like to republish any of the above Q&A articles, please email me your request and where it will reside, and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.
______________High Rankings SEO Training___________________
2009 SEO Training Classes Open for Registration
_______________________________________________________
1-day SEO Training Class for beginners to intermediate learners.
You will learn what SEO is and isn't, as well as what you need to do
to bring in more search engine visitors who are seeking out exactly what you offer.
Class is limited to 6 students and we will work on YOUR specific website issues.
Our March class is sold out, but we've added April and May classes:
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~~~Stuff You Might Like~~~
++Podcast Conversation: Length of Copy for Search Engines++
Karon Thackston and I were discussing copy length the other day (yeah, we're total geeks when it comes to that stuff) and decided to share our conversation via a podcast. You can click to it and listen from Karon's copywriting workshop page here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-r8r69P2mPtpNk%403956583-SCtDozcc4An5Y
I think it's about 7 or 8 minutes long.
By the way, we're offering more than just the copywriting workshop in April. Be sure to check out the keyword research, social media marketing one and web analytics ones as well. Here's the main website marketing workshop page with more info:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-gD7KwHf3sjwgI%403956578-Kw5aaSNEOUm/U
++Press Release Distribution Discount Extended++
The response to our 24-7 Press Release discount was so good that our friends over there have graciously added an extension through to the end of February! All High Rankings Advisor subscribers can receive $30 off their $89 press release package using the coupon code of highrankings59.
Here's where you can learn more about their press release distribution services:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-x7ABKg4SFpt0.%403956584-6ads1WqOVULhs
~~~Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week~~~
++How Many Keywords Is Too Many?++
Forum member "anne999" was wondering how many keywords she could target on her website. See the responses or share your own here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-KW4dpjOUhV9O.%403956585-mjgEBkL/FY/Bo
~~~Advisor Wrap-up~~~
That's all for today!
I'm looking forward to SMX West next week. It should be another good show. Who else is going? (We did give away our free pass already, sorry if it wasn't you!) If you are going, please be sure to say hi to me. I'm speaking on Wednesday and Thursday.
And if you're on the other side of the pond, you can try to catch up with me at SES London. You may need to do so on Wednesday (the week after next), as I won't be hanging around the conference as much as usual since Don and Tim will be there with me.
Oh, and one last thing...you probably have heard of our friend and usability consultant Kim Krause Berg from The Usability Effect. She's been entered into a "moms in business" competition over here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-KKbTBqCDaQ4x.%403956586-J/2C7u2xXAsuY
If you've enjoyed her guest articles here or her blog posts, or have had one of her awesome usability analyses for your website, I'm sure you'll agree she's the one to vote for in the competition! Please note that you can vote once a day, so vote often and vote for Kim!
Catch you in 2 weeks (from London)! – Jill
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