Internet Marketing Brain

It’s time for another of my free SEO website reviews and analysis.

Feel free to leave feedback in the comments below, thanks!

Canonicalization issues can really be a pain in the butt. They can wreak havoc on all your hard SEO work – all that great content you created, all those hard-won backlinks you built, all the other work you put into your site can be diluted like pouring a bucket of water into a glass of beer.

Making things worse, canonicalization problems come in more flavors than you can find in your local ice cream store. There are so many ways you can have canonical URL problems it makes my internet marketing brain spin just thinking about it. Im not going to make your head spin by listing them all out here.

Oh, and by the way – In yet-more fun, the solutions can be just as overwhelming as the problems… yay! If you’re a developer-type, maybe a coder or a programmer or both, then the solutions aren’t as daunting. But if you’re an average webmaster such as myself, and maybe use WordPress, such as myself, the solutions don’t come as easy.

So, what, is this post all canonical URL & canonicalization issues doom and gloom? What the heck is canonicalization, anyway, you ask? Glad you asked.

It’s maddeningly simple: canonicalization is making the same content available on different URLs.

This can happen in many ways – one of the most common being this:
Having both

http://www.YourSite.com/

AND

http://YourSite.com

indexed by Google.

Or by having dynamically-generated pages generate the same content on different URLs, very common with Ecommerce sites.

Or by having scrapers or thieves steal and publish your content on their “websites” (quotes on purpose, as those sites are usually a messy mish-mash that no visitor derives value from, but the site owner does this to try to rank highly in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Then there is pagination and navigation issues that can cause canonicalization issues and duplicate content problems (think long articles broken up into separate pages,with a printer-friendly-page version also being indexed), duplicate websites created by the same person, sub-domains with duplicated content…

…Is your brain spinning yet?

Right now, let’s cover one of the most common, and perhaps most damaging form of canonicalization that I see literally – yes literally – every day in my job as an SEO working in an Internet Marketing agency:

Both http:// AND http://www versions of the site both exist, both are ranked by Google.

How To Find The Problem

Go to your browser address bar, and type in http://YourDomain.com (or .net, or whatever it is, and of course substitute “YourDomain” with whatever your domain name actually is, this site domain is InternetMarketingBrain) – and then hit enter.

Watch closely to see if the address changes over to http://www.YourDomain.com or stays at http://YourDomain.com.

Assuming there is no change and you stay at the URL http://YourDomain.com, now add in the www’s – place your cursor after the http:// and add the www’s so you now have http://www.YourDomain.com – and hit enter.

What happens? Does it revert to the http-only version or stay at the www version?

If there is no change in both cases when you hit enter, you have a canonicalization problem… You see, technically-speaking, a URL with www is actually a sub-domain of the http-only version. Yikes! You have a problem, Houston!

***Why is this a problem? – In brief, Google doesn’t like to show multiple results for the same search query, so your 2 sites force Google to decide which it will show. Even worse, you may have backlinks to pages on your http-only site, as well as your www version, which means you’re splitting up your precious link juice! Ouch and double ouch.

How to Fix the Problem:

If you’re on a Windows-based server (Microsoft IIS Server, to be more specific) you’ll need to ask your webmaster to do a SAP rewrite. Use a backlink analysis tool like Market Samurai to determine if the http-only or the www version has more backlinks, and have your webmaster do 301 (permanent) redirects from the version with the lower number of backlinks to the version with the higher number of backlinks.

If you’re hosted on an Apache/Linux-based server, you’ll need mod_rewrite code put into an .htaccess file placed on the root of your server (see your webmaster) ask your webmaster to write up the mod_rewrite code to perform wild-card matches such that all URI’s (page names) redirect to the corresponding URI (page) of the version you’re redirecting to.

I was going to post a couple of examples of mod_rewrite code one of the developers I work with provided, but I figured this post is already techie-enough. If you’re super-interested and want to see them anyway, let me know in the comments section below and I’ll add them here.

Bottom Line and Summary:
I wish the world of websites was not so technical, but it *just is* and the more you dive into it, the deeper it gets. I work with coders and programmers all day long and it never ceases to amaze me how much there is to know about how websites really work. Test your website for the http and www versions I noted above. If you find both exist, fix it and fix it fast, you’ll be doing your SEO a huge favor!
photo credit: PopCultureGeek.com

Welcome to another of my SEO Website Reviews.

This is where you get to look over my shoulder as I look for potential roadblocks that might cause problems with indexation and/or ranking, as well as look at some on-page SEO factors as well as some competition analysis.

Grab one of your favorite beverages (depending on what time of day you’re watching this) – sit back, relax, and enjoy!

If you have any questions or comments please add them in the comments section below, thanks!

Google QR Codes – done right, they’re great. 

Done wrong, and you’re completely wasting your time.

Think I’m just exaggerating? Maybe just kidding? I’m not – you can really lose potential customers fast by getting this wrong.

I’m not going to let that happen to you. Plus, I’m going to not only show you how to get QR codes generated – for free and done right, but I’m going to give you a HUGE bonus: – I’m also going to show you how you can simply and easily track EVERY TIME someone scans your QR code!

First, let me show you a perfect example of QR codes gone wrong, check this out:

My girlfriend and I were driving through a neighborhood we really like a lot the other day. A house for sale made us stop – but there was no flyer out front for us to take, just a sign with no details.

But there was a QR code!

So we whipped out our smart phones and scanned the QR code and prepared to get all the juicy details on this house for sale…

…and then, we landed on… not a page with info about the house, but the home page of the Realtor selling the hourse – but wait, it get’s worse: it wasn’t even a mobile site we could navigate to try to find the home for sale!!

So we gave up. Now think about this: this Realtor stands to make many thousands of dollars from selling this house. We’re ready to buy. But we were frustrated and lost confidence in this real estate professional.

Now, setting aside the fact that we could call the real estate agent, visit their home page later on a laptop etc., we were immediately unimpressed and under-whelmed.

Are you doing that to YOUR customers? Don’t! Here’s how to use Google’s QR Code Generator, PLUS track every time someone scans your code and visits your site in Google Analytics, in 9 simple steps!

1. Copy the full URL of the page of your site you want people to land on when they scan your QR Code.

2. Go to http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578 and paste in your URL – this is Google’s URL Builder Tool for Google Analytics Tracking*

*Not sure how to do this? – I’ll cover it in a future blog post soon.

3. Copy that new URL with the Google Analytics URL Tags.

4. Go to Google’s URL Shortening Tool at goo.gl and paste in your new URL  and click on “details” to the right (it will be at the top of the list of your new URLs on this same page.

5. On the “details” page you’ll see the QR code at the right – underneath that you’ll see a URL in green; copy that and paste that into the URL address bar of a new browser tab (you’ll see just the QR code now).

6. Right click on that QR Code image, and choose “save image as” – save to your computer, like your desktop, somewhere you’ll be able to find easily (it will save as a .png file).

7. Open an image editor or use an online image editor and save the file as a JPEG (.jpg) file.

8. Now use that image on your flyer, brochure, or whatever you want!

9. ***Make sure the page that people will land on is a mobile-friendly version of your site! – If you use WordPress, you can use a mobile plugin like this one to instantly make your website mobile-friendly, and you site visitor’s smart phone will automatically detect it.

Now, go forth and create QR Codes – and, don’t forget to check the “campaigns” tab in your Google Analytics to see how visitors behaved once they landed on your site.

Any suggestions for improvements? Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments below.

Today’s Free SEO Website Analysis is for a site about Debt Relief and related keywords.

I’ve put a few notes about how I did my review below the video.
 

From a “classical” on-page SEO perspective, most things are in place. You can see how I diagnose if there are any barriers or road blocks that might be preventing search engines from being able to crawl and index (and ergo rank) the site properly.

You’ll also see me make a few recommendations for small changes that might be helpful. Another factors to think about is something a bit intangible, and that is how trustworthy your site appears to visitors. In the video you’ll hear me ask 3 important questions you can ask yourself about your site to see if your website passes the “trustworthy test”.

The last think you’ll see me do is a quick competition analysis. You don’t have to be, well, an internet marketing brain to know that this particular niche is competitive, but I think you’ll like the snapshot approach I take to this.

Feel free to make a checklist of the items you hear me check so you can perform your own website SEO analysis or audit, or feel free to request me to do a free website SEO review of your website.

Feel free to comment below if you’d like to add some aspects you like to review when you do a site audit, thanks for your input!

In SEO circles and on Internet Marketing Forums you very often hear people refer to the dreaded Google “duplicate content penalty”.

Is there really such a thing? Can we find objective proof that this elusive animal actually exists in the wild, or is this the stuff of legend and urban myth – SEO’s chupacabra that sucks the blood, er, linkjuice, out of your website or page’s hard-earned PageRank?

First, let’s talk about what this SEO-killer is rumored to be:

What IS “The Duplicate Content Penalty”?

In short, the idea is that website A has a page of content, and website B has the exact same bit of content, that Google will penalize one or both of those sites or pages. How could this happen? Easy – let’s say you wrote a page of content and put it on your website but because that content was so scintillating, so brilliant, so eloquent – you decided to add it to an article directory too, maybe EzineArticles.com or Ehow or one of a zillion other article directories on the internets.

Or, maybe someone stole your content. Yep, came to your site and ripped you right off – or maybe they used a spider to crawl the interwebs based on a keyword search and automatically took your content and posted onto their site for their evil get-rich-quick affiliate marketing purposes or for AdSense clicks.

In any event, your content can wind up on someone else’s site by manual or automatic means.

How exactly will Google penalize you & what should you do about it?

Okay, time to separate fact from fiction, lies from truth, urban legend from actual reality. There is no duplicate content penalty per se. Google does not “penalize” you for having duplicate content on your site or any other site.

“So what gives? Why all the hubub about duplicate content if there’s no actual penalty?” – you must be asking? Right? Glad you asked…

The fact is that Google is on a mission to keep searchers (they call them “users”) happy.

And their research shows that users are not happy if they perform a search, let’s say “how to make purple elephant tables” and all the results the user gets are the same page.

Yep, the same page, over and over. This frustrates users. Think about it, wouldn’t you be frustrated too if you were looking for a number of options on how to build your purple elephant tables and all you got was the same page over and over and over… frustrating, yes?

So, Google wants to show just one page if they find 2 or more of the same pages in their index… your query “deserves diversity”, they reckon, and rightly so, and so that’s what they try to do.

This “penalty” is not really a penalty – Google just puts the duplicate content into a supplemental index.

There are many subtleties to this topic – if a site steals your content and has more authority than your site, you content page might get relegated to the supplemental index. Google is also moving to create “author rank” (more on this soon) in order to give authors the ability to be properly credited for their hard work and original unique content.

The canonical tag can be very useful, but this is mostly limited to websites on which you can update the Meta Data yourself, but it could be useful to specify your canonical tag in the Meta Data of your website’s <head> section such that if scraper bots rip you off, they probably will be too lazy to take out the rel=”canonical” tag. Another good idea, by the say, is to use a site like Tynt so that you might even wind up with a link after someone steals your content. Ha. Hats off & credit to Ian Lurie for this killer tip!

Finally, if you don’t believe me and are about to trash me in the comments section (go ahead, I can take it… but seriously, I do welcome your input and opinions, even your disagreements) you can read for yourself here that the duplicate content is indeed, just a myth, like Nessie, bigfoot, and affordable health insurance.

photo credit: MythicSeabass

What is Website success?

Should success be defined by how good-looking the site is and how well it represents your business image? Or is success how much time visitors spend on the site, or the number of pages viewed, or the number of new visitors? Is website success how high the site ranks in Google for targeted keywords? Or should website success be measured in tangible conversions such as sales, or leads captured, or whitepaper downloads?

Clearly a website can attempt to reach a number of goals. But how many goals are too many for a single website to try to achieve all at once? Anyone who’s worked as a website project manager has experienced “death by committee” – where a number of stakeholders in the business all want a say in how the site looks, what goals it must achieve, and how it should function. It ends up being a “too many chefs in the kitchen spoil the soup” situation.

A humorous way I like to pose the question to a client is, “if your website was stuck on a desert island and could only do one thing for your business, what would that one thing be?”

Many times I and others have run into the opposite scenario, where a business owner had not considered that the site should have specified goals!

Magic Fairy Dust & SEO

“A funny thing happened on the way to becoming an author…”

I fell in love with SEO completely by accident. I wrote a few books on public speaking and wanted to sell more of them on a website, so I figured I’d have to learn about that thing called “Search Engine Optimization” – whether I wanted to or not.

At that time, I figured that SEO was a bunch of insider tricks & techniques – magic fairy dust I could sprinkle on my website so it could rise to the top of Google, I’d sell zillions of books, and be rich. I figured that all I had to do is find those people with the Magic Fairy Dust and learn all their tricks.

In my career as an SEO specialist, I’ve discovered that many website owners share the mistaken belief I used to have; they want me to sprinkle the SEO Magic Fairy Dust on their website so it can dominate Google, and they’ll be rich.

I complete understand their mentality; I used to suffer from the same delusion. I wish it were that simple and easy!

SEO comprises a surprisingly large number of factors, but can be oversimplified as on-page/site factors and off-page/site factors. On-page factors include things like site architecture, proper use of Meta data, quality relevant content, and other factors. Off-page factors include how many other sites link to your site, and what your online competition is doing. Whether you’re creating a new site from scratch or revamping an existing site, without properly assessing all the relevant on- and off-page factors – and without careful consideration about the goals of your site – you’re shooting in the dark hoping for “success”.

Unfortunately, many business owners only consider SEO after a site has been live for some time, and they’re ready for the Magic Fairy Dust. But really, SEO should be built-in, not bolted on.

Successful Rescue from a Desert Island

Setting aside all the things your website should do and be, a simple way to boil down your website goals from an SEO performance perspective is in 3 areas – ranking, traffic, and conversions.

While opinions may vary on site appearance and usability, ranking, traffic, and conversions can all be measured and monitored objectively. Website success is taken out of the realm of feelings or opinions and subjected to measurements everyone can see. And, measuring your website’s key performance indicators means you can make data-driven decisions and not operate on hunches or what the highest paid person in the room thinks.

Ultimately, by establishing clear, measurable goals and metrics that are valuable and meaningful to you in your business, you define what website success really means to you.

photo credit: Jody McNary Photography

The #1 Biggest Business Website Mistake

Although it’s hard to choose just one “biggest website mistake” when I see so many each and every day, this is by far the biggest.

And, funny enough, it has nothing to do with your business website!

You probably thought I was going to say “bad architecture, bad design, poor planning, too-busy, not enough content” or something about the website itself, right?

Wrong.

The biggest mistake I see, is business owners banking on their website to be a cash cow.

I hear something like this all the time: “if you can just get my website to the first page or high-up in Google, then I’ll be making money hand-over-fist…”

While it’s true that if you’re not ranking highly in Google’s search results,  then no one will ever see your website, it’s also true high ranking doesn’t guarantee you’ll get more customers and make more money.

People – business owners – have this unrealistic expectation that the website all by itself will be responsible for truckloads of cash pouring in.

Sure, a high ranking website means you’re much, much more likely to be seen by your potential customers and clients, but after that, what about you? – what are YOU going to do to capitalize on that traffic?

Are you going to put a strong call to action on your site? Are you going to sign up for an automatic email collection service so you can give away a freebie in exchange for their email address and then do “permission marketing” to those prospects? What exactly are YOU going to do?

The biggest mistake I see is an unrealistic expectation of what a highly-ranked website is going to do, all by its lonesome.

What about you? What do you think the biggest mistakes are?

That’s what the comment section below is for!

More soon,

David
photo credit: ER24 EMS (Pty) Ltd.

Huge Google Changes!

Google moves at lightning speed – well, you might know think that from the picture to the left, but they do!

And in the last 2 days, they’ve made several huge changes you need to know about:

1. If You Own a Business, You’re About to Celebrate!
Google FINALLY updated their “Places” function so you can respond to reviews! No longer will you have to shout at your computer or mobile phone  screen because someone posted a nasty comment to your places page. Now you can engage people, reply to them, solve their problem and post that you did so. Or let people know what you’re doing to correct complaints. This is HUGE for business owners!

2. No More Logging In & Out of Google Accounts:
If you’re like me and have more than one Gmail account, yo’ll be glad to know that you can now view multiple Gmail accounts in one browser! Whoopee, I just saved at least 6 minutes a day!

3. Announcing: The Google Small Business Blog!
Another win for business owners, the Google Small Business Blog was just released, go grab the RSS feed right now!
photo credit: ToastyKen

GoogleBot Indexing Sites In 24 Hours Or Less

Usually when I put up a new website (and I put up about 2 per month on average, sometimes more, sometimes less) I see Google indexing my site on it’s own in 2 to 5 days.

By “on it’s own” I mean without me doing anything to get that site indexed.

But just yesterday I put up a new site (it’s about toys for two year olds) about 4pm in the afternoon, and by 8am this morning, the site was fully indexed and even ranking!

This could only mean one thing: Google is crawling the internet much, much faster than ever before.

Am I missing something? Could there be another reason?

Let me know in the comments below.
photo credit: Igor ™