26 replies to this topic

[lister]

Hi

Im a big fan of this forum, all the topics I have written were replied in literally minutes so thanks for all answers.....

I am building a new site - and am at the planning stage.

What is a top tip that someone can give me to layout the site in an SEO friendly fashion.....i know about clean url and clean navigation etc...anything else?

Thanks for all replies really appreciate them

Regards, Lister

[Jill]

What is a top tip that someone can give me to layout the site in an SEO friendly fashion...

Ahh...that's an easy one!

Do your keyword research first, and then create a site architecture based on that.

If you do that, you'll be golden.

[lister]

Thanks for your reply - as always very helpful...

Let me ask everyone another question which is still on the same subject -

What is the general understanding of placing content on your site which is not uniquely written by you - but - has been used with permission? I am sure that I have read somewhere that if you just simply copy and paste articles which are of relevance to your readers then you get punished for that - even if you are doing it with good intentions...

- basically can google or SE work out that you have duplicated copy that comes from another site and if so can they penalize you for that?

THANKS For all replies!!

[torka]

You definitely didn't read that here, though! There is no duplicate content penalty. (Sorry for being bold, but we've said this many many times in many many threads here. )

There is a duplicate content filter. What that means is that eventually, the SEs may filter out of their results the individual pages they determine to be duplicate content. They will not penalize the rest of your site. If there are pages on your site they haven't identified as being duplicate, those pages will continue to rank as they always have.

The problem is, nobody really knows exactly how they determine what's a "duplicate" and what's not. And the SEs aren't exactly forthcoming with additional details (that would only make it easier for spammers to game their system).

So it could be that your "duplicate content" pages might, at some point, be filtered out of displaying in the SERPs. And they might not be.

IMO, the best is usually to write your own content. But I understand that's not always possible due to constraints of time and energy, so there are times when reprinting the writings of others is an excellent alternative. If the content is useful to your visitors, relevant to your site and you have permission to use it, then by all means post it and don't worry about it.

I just wouldn't rely on a site built entirely out of other people's content if it were me.

--Torka

[lister]

thanks -

It does seem that we really keep coming back to what is clear.... that is to build the site for the readers/customer rather than the SE

Obvious but evidently very true.

Thanks for the reply - if your reading this could you just fire me a quick reply to this as well please? - Does google apply its same algorithm in other langauges? I know that English is (i think) the most popular language on the web - (then Chinese?) but anyways do you reckon that sites are ranked irregardless of languages?

Thanks - ps I'll go through the forum to see if that question/topic has been spoken about - thanks gain, Listert

[HuangHH]

Make your website useful to visitors, and then they will tell others about your site. You don't need to do SEO then.

Think about the users, not the search engines!

[Jill]

You don't need to do SEO then.

Of course you do.

There are hundreds of thousands of very useful sites that can't get found in the engines because nobody thought about SEO.

Making your site for your users is a good start, but if you ignore the search engines completely you're not going to get found. Which is why people are willing to pay a lot of money for SEO consultants.

[cre8pc]

Think about the users, not the search engines!

Until the human race all become insanely briliant and able to know everything about everything intuitively, search engines are pretty handy

I don't often hear someone say to put site visitors first. It would certainly be music to MY ears, as a usability oriented person. However, without search, many people will never find the web sites they want or need. Word of mouth referrals and links are helpful, of course. Search engines will try to match the search query in ways that some site owners may not consider or be aware of, such as local search results.

The best choice is to design for both. The basics, esp. with organic seo practices, work for both search engines and people. Search pulls in views, but it will always be the design that converts (persuades) and retains interest (increasing conversions, creating bookmarks, referrals, return visits.) Which is something search engines do notice!

[Jill]

Right on, Kim!

[Leann_Pass]

Hi Lister,

This is my 2 cents and I apologize if it more than you asked for:

Know your customer. Know what their needs and interests are. Speak their language.

Know your product and/or service and why your potential customer would need/want it.

Do your keyword research - AFTER you make sure you know your audience and that you are speaking their language.

Know your competition. - make it clear that there are benefits in choosing your products/services over your competition. (are you offering: higher quality, discount prices, special offers, greater expertise, outstanding customer service, etc?)

Speak TO your potential customers and give them what they want/need. At the same time give the search engines what they want (clean nav., good site structure, good optimization, quality backlinks) so that your potential customers can find you.

The bottom line is build a site that: is well organized, is easy to navigate, has good/useful info, is optimized with your well-researched keyword phrases, speaks directly to the needs and desires of your potential customers.

Hope that helps!
Leann

[stevehbs]

I agree with Jill do your keyword research, use that list of your keywords when writing articles, title tags descriptions etc. Only use them where they fit in naturally.

I know of a number of excellent sites that flat out cant be found because they did not follow basic seo practices.

Yes always write for the reader first but also remember they need to be able to find you in the first place.

I used to get all wrapped up in the seo versus writing quality content please do not make the same mistake.

I started a site about Alternative energy and made that mistake, I am in the process of redoing the whole site because of my well how should I put this (greed)

Quality content with proper keyword selection rules the day and always will.

[Bill Slawski]

Do your keyword research first, and then create a site architecture based on that.

I do this backwards, or simultaneously at times.

A very quick summary:

1. Learn about the enterprise the site is for, and its objectives with the site.
2. Find out who the intended audiences are
3. Learn about the market or the framework that the enterprise will fall within
4. Build a set of categories that the concepts the site will cover will fit within.

Creating those categories may include, during the process of mining candidate keyword phrases, doing things like the following:

1. Looking carefully at the site or plans for the site,
2. Interviewing members of the enterprise,
3. Reviewing potential competitor sites within the niche,
4. Looking at the major sources of information within the industry,
5. Looking at major sources of information for consumers of the kind of enterprise involved,
6. Looking at other marketing efforts from the enterprise - past, present, and those planned for the future,
7. Considering consumer information collected from site search, client contacts with the company (email, phone, etc.), log or web analytics analysis,
8. Consumer polling and surveys, and;
9. Others as appropriate.

The end result is having a large list of categories, with potential keywords under them - some keyword phrases may fit in more than one category.

There are at least two reasons for focusing on categories first, before keyword phrases (though keyword phrase collection is an integral part of building categories):

1. It can be easy to become so fixated on certain keyword phrases that you can potentially miss better ones, and;
2. Categories, and sub-categories, and sub-sub-categories can help you create the structure of your site.

Categories can be focused upon different groups of audiences, different product or service types, different activities. You don't need to keep all of the categories that you create, and you may add or discard categories at will based upon how they might fit into business objectives and marketing methods.

In a way, this is a process of mind-mapping. By writing down the concepts related to a potential site, and building an ontology around it, and the words commonly used in different parts of that structure, you create a framework that makes it easy to envision a useful site structure and the words that realistically go well with it in page titles, anchor text, page headings and subheadings, and so on.

That's the process that works best for me in building a site structure, and starting the process of keyword discovery.

[Jill]

That's actually not much different than I do it, Bill. I was giving the short answer!

[Bill Slawski]

I sort of assumed that, Jill.

I figured it was worth spelling out. I've seen folks get so focused upon specific keyword phrases, that they miss some really good ones by not having a well defined process in place to help them.

[bewarne]

To all the above, since you asked about "Building" a site, let me recommend that you build in PHP and put at least the footer and the navigation into an include file. As you build the site, you will want to change the navigation and the footer (which usually includes text links duplicating the navigation but often having a few more keywords than buttons can have) often and thereafter you will want to change the copyright date at least once a year. Having these things in an include file has made the creation of the website and the changes discovered as you do it and after it goes live, to be important. Even after you do keyword research, you may find from what people are searching for on your site that you forgot something and need to add it or whatever. Changing navigation by making changes to only two files is a dream compared to the way we used to do it. And PHP is an easy thing on a Linux server that has it installed. You create a regular html file and make the extrension php and just put in the include code. The only draw back is that you will not see these includes in your offline version of your pages. I am so grateful for this system and wish I had started doing it earlier. To you this might be too simplistic but you didn't say how you were planning on actually building the site.