David Pratt » seo http://daipratt.co.uk Concerned about Website Construction & SEO Thu, 17 May 2012 19:14:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 A few things to consider when developing on a public domainhttp://daipratt.co.uk/a-few-things-to-consider-when-developing-on-a-public-domain/ http://daipratt.co.uk/a-few-things-to-consider-when-developing-on-a-public-domain/#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:07:21 +0000 David Pratt http://daipratt.co.uk/?p=1098 If you ever find yourself developing a site on a public facing domain, it is always a good idea to have measures in place to prevent search engines indexing it in the event that a stray link enables a search engine spider to find it. A few of the things that you can do are…

Ensure the document head of each page has the “noindex” meta tag. This statement tells search engine spiders to not index any of the content on the current page.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex" />

Ensure the document head of each page has the “nofollow” meta tag. This statement tells search engine spiders to not follow any links on the page.

<meta name="robots" content="nofollow" />

Add a rule to the robots.txt file that prevents search engine spiders from accessing the site.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Just remember to remove these measures when you launch the site!

]]> http://daipratt.co.uk/a-few-things-to-consider-when-developing-on-a-public-domain/feed/ 0 How to add nofollow to the Lifestream plugin for WordPresshttp://daipratt.co.uk/how-to-add-nofollow-to-the-lifestream-plugin-for-wordpress/ http://daipratt.co.uk/how-to-add-nofollow-to-the-lifestream-plugin-for-wordpress/#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:29:51 +0000 David Pratt http://daipratt.co.uk/?p=894 If you use the popular Lifestream plugin for WordPress, you might notice that there is no option within the plugin settings to toggle the rel=”nofollow” attribute on the links that it creates. If you are concerned that your site is “leaking pagerank” because of this, you can set all the links that the plugin creates to have the rel=”nofollow” attribute by default if you follow these few steps and manually update the plugin source code:

Locate the file:

\wp-content\plugins\lifestream\inc\core.inc

Find the function get_anchor_html and locate the line within that function that looks like (line 690):

$html .= ''.$label.'';

Update this line so that it becomes:

$html .= ' rel="nofollow">'.$label.'';

Save the file.

This is for version 0.99.9.5 of the Lifestream plugin for WordPress, but it is possible that the update would work for other versions too.

]]> http://daipratt.co.uk/how-to-add-nofollow-to-the-lifestream-plugin-for-wordpress/feed/ 0 Zoocha – A new digital agency in Hertfordshirehttp://daipratt.co.uk/zoocha-a-new-digital-agency-in-hertfordshire/ http://daipratt.co.uk/zoocha-a-new-digital-agency-in-hertfordshire/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:45:30 +0000 David Pratt http://daipratt.co.uk/?p=814 I just thought I’d drop in a cheeky little post on here about a new start-up that I’m very excited to be a part of. We are a Hertfordshire based web agency that specialises in web design, web development, seo and marketing. If you’re looking for help in any one of these areas, or know anyone that could do with a bit of help from Zoocha, then please get in touch with us!

Hertford's newest digital agency

Hertford's newest digital agency

]]> http://daipratt.co.uk/zoocha-a-new-digital-agency-in-hertfordshire/feed/ 0 How to get the path of a node from the node ID in Drupalhttp://daipratt.co.uk/how-to-get-the-path-of-a-node-from-the-node-id-in-drupal/ http://daipratt.co.uk/how-to-get-the-path-of-a-node-from-the-node-id-in-drupal/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:29:29 +0000 David Pratt http://daipratt.co.uk/?p=750 I’ve just stumbled across a very useful internal function in Drupal that I thought I’d share here.

If you have a node that you know the node ID for, but you don’t know what the full clean url is (or how to generate it), then there is a handy function you should know about called drupal_lookup_path() that will get the full clean (pathauto) path for you. For example, a typical Drupal relative path such as:

/node/9999

Is easy to generate if you know the node ID, but if you pass it through the drupal_lookup_path function like so:

drupal_lookup_path('alias',"node/".$node->nid)

Then you will get the full clean path of the node based on the rules set out in the pathauto module. For example:

/band/future-of-the-left

This is very important for SEO. If the exact same content/page can exist on two different urls on your site, then you will run into problems with duplicate content and will have to start using things like the canonical link element to fix a problem that shouldn’t have been created in the first place.

]]> http://daipratt.co.uk/how-to-get-the-path-of-a-node-from-the-node-id-in-drupal/feed/ 9 Meta keywords and descriptions in Drupalhttp://daipratt.co.uk/meta-keywords-and-descriptions-in-drupal/ http://daipratt.co.uk/meta-keywords-and-descriptions-in-drupal/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:50:24 +0000 David Pratt http://daipratt.co.uk/?p=416 Meta tags, once a powerful force in determining the search engine ranking of a page, have seen their influence wane over time to the point that they don’t really count that much at all anymore. However, they are still worth investing some time in so that a when a page is returned in organic search results, the best possible description of the page is presented to the user to encourage them to click through. Best get your online marketers to write them for you then…

In Drupal, the two most popular ways of controlling your meta keywords and descriptions are using the modules:

Both are very good and offer a range of options that allow meta keywords and descriptions to be automatically set for a node of a given content type, but occasionally you’ll find that they just don’t give you the level of control that you require.

Step forward the Drupal “drupal_set_html_head” function – this allows you to add any code you like to the document <head>.

This is the function that I use to set the meta and title tags from within a page/template in Drupal:

function setTitleAndMeta($title = null, $metaK = null, $metaD = null){
	drupal_set_title($title);   //Set page title
	$metaDescription = "<meta name=\"description\" content=\"$metaD\" />";
	$metaKeywords = "<meta name=\"keywords\" content=\"$metaK\" />";
	$meta = $metaKeywords . $metaDescription;
	drupal_set_html_head($meta);
}

Pretty simple huh? A typical call might look like:

setTitleAndMeta("motorbikes | daipratt.co.uk", "motorbikes, gsxr, donors", "I really hope that motorcyclist has signed his organ donor card. If he keeps riding like that and he won't need them anymore.");
]]> http://daipratt.co.uk/meta-keywords-and-descriptions-in-drupal/feed/ 1 Notes from SMX London 2009http://daipratt.co.uk/notes-from-smx-london-2009/ http://daipratt.co.uk/notes-from-smx-london-2009/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 21:00:32 +0000 David Pratt http://daipratt.co.uk/?p=348 Twitter
  • Twitter is the delayed search… ask your peer group a question, then wait. Personal recommendations are valued more than computer answers.
  • Twitter is a recommendation engine.
  • Invite your entire user base onto twitter and engage with them. Ask them what they want to see, how you can help them etc.
  • NEVER spam to twitter
  • Participate – help your followers out and be genuine.

Marketing / PR

  • Brian Fetherstonhaugh on Multi-channel marketing – when each channel has the same design: “it’s like matching luggage syndrome and it’s failure number one… lazy integration… campaigns should play to the strengths of each medium.”
  • Hot 5 marketing channels: Mobile, Social Media, LBS (location based service) & Local, Digital POS and Gaming.
  • Search (SEO) is research, it’s an early form of discovery… “here’s what your consumer said”, “here’s what we know about our consumers”, “Search is the keeper of consumer intent”
  • SEO Niches and the Big Picture
  • You are no longer able to choose your brand spokesperson. Everyone is a spokesperson.
  • Find the people who care about your brand, then give them the tools to speak about your brand.
  • Only put out messages that people care about. Be interesting.
  • Never “we are great / this is great because” more “we do this / this is how”
  • Site failure / downtime is an opportunity “We’ll be back shortly, try this…”
  • Free your data, but carry your logo.

PPC + Advertising

  • Give MS Live a whirl as they have removed the minimum bid
  • There is an Excel plugin for MS live keywords – “Advertising Intelligence Tool”
  • Advertise on social media and news sites if you specifically want to target mobile users.

Should be thinking about now

  • London 2012 – Get a page up for it now and get some content on it that is relevant to your niche. Page should have established position come the time when it is needed with a sneaky bit of link building.

Content + SEO + link building

  • Don’t let SEO’s bastardise creative, well written copy. Let SEO’s support it with meta, title and supporting signposting.
  • Focus on content, not the latest SEO craze.
  • Make sure that you have a good geographic spread of links across the entire area that your business operates. Try to get full coverage.
  • Consider buying a database e.g. maybe like this one – many to choose from here + other sites. Use this database and then invite businesses to supplement this information with their own content and encourage them to treat it as their own site. Sprinkle with some UGC and the number of new inbound links this will generate is huge. Also dish out badges or whatever to the businesses that do have their own sites for additional inbounds. If you get this site directory site to rank well, then it cannot be ignored by businesses.
  • Total number of unique external domains linking to a url is the most important external linking metric. Always go for domain diversity.
  • “Websites do not link to websites, people link to other peoples work”
  • “Take what’s in the mind of people and mix it with your niche” – Swine flu etc.
  • “Create discussion sparking content” – Invite authority figures to participate once the discussion has started.
  • Buy directory links for stuff you need to rank on e.g. “baby”
  • Shamelessly buy keyword links from digital point forums if you are a big enough brand. Don’t overdo it though.
  • There has only being 1 penalty due to external links from a UK site, and it didn’t last very long. see here
  • Great task for an placement student – build a promotion network.
  • Tip off popular bloggers when you do something link worthy. Many of them have contact forms + twitter accounts that they are very responsive to.
  • Do Bounty guest posts or articles on other blogs or magazines sites. Very powerful. E-zines… . Consider paying for this if the site is highly regarded enough. Sponsor well known writers to write an article on your behalf.
  • Get Linkscape because it tells you external 301’s + the backlinks tool
  • Use SEO Moz tools to see the reasons why other sites are ranking higher than you
  • Don’t do footer links, particularly over optimised ones. A limited number of navigation ones are ok.
  • Remove crap content.

Tech

  • Do rel=”nofollow” on stuff you don’t want to rank for:
    • Login
    • My account
    • Personalised stuff
    • Basket
    • Terms of service / Terms and conditions
    • Privacy policy
    • Legal notice
    • Accessibility
    • Disclaimer
    • Corporate site
  • Dont use rel=”nofollow” on:
    • External links such as editorial external links. This is very important from building a promotional network and maintaining relationships with other sites.
    • About us page.
  • CSS absolute positioning is risky behaviour. Shifting content by over 350px is more risky according to some spammer forum or other.
  • Use meta=”noindex,follow” on page’s where you know you content is duplicated or on pages that you don’t want to be cached.
  • FIX: “/blah/”, “/blah”, “/Blah” issues. Choose lowercase and always have closing slash.
  • Choose one of http://blah and http://www.blah
  • How to do 301 redirects in Apache .htaccess, IIS, PHP, ASP and ColdFusion
  • Using Host Headers to host multiple websites on IIS 6.0
  • Use rel=”canonical” for dupe pages e.g. blah.com/news/blah/ blah.com/news/blah/?sdfs=sdfsdf
  • MAKE SURE 404 PAGES RETURN 404
  • Use seomoz top pages with httpFox to check all OK.

Google Search:

  • Use “filetype:” to find legacy pages
  • Informational queries on the up
  • Transactional searches reducing
  • Check out Google Options

Analytics:

  • Use compete.com for US
  • Use Alexa 3 month reach for Global
  • The real number of indexed pages by Google is: Go in your analytics package > filter referrer by Google > Do a count – that figure is the index.

People who knew their stuff:

Tools:

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