Questions
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Links from flash site completely useless?
Never heard of it. However the best method to find out if it works is to actually implement it and try it. Once you have implemented it you can view your site in a SEO browser like lynx, basically it kind of gives you an idea what the crawler sees when they crawl your site or page... Now keep in mind these SEO browsers are not as advanced as Google's crawlers but it can give you a general idea...
Link Building | | igor.pinchevskiy0 -
"Products 1-20" text in the Serp Results
You see there is no text "Products 1-40 of 93", just "Displaying 1 to 40 (of 93 products)" so good must be able to understand that, and put it into its own format. The "Products 1 - 40 of 93" does use up space so the meta description is shorter than normal, but to be honest I'm not too worried about it. I was asked to look into it, just to understand why its there.
Technical SEO Issues | | eunaneunan0 -
Customer forum on an ecommerce site, good or bad idea?
Hi Eunan, I have done this very thing in the past - creating a forum for the ecommerce site that I was working on. I actually put the forum on its own domain and found that it did help increase relevant traffic to my main website. However I found that customers were reluctant to post on this community in comparison with a well known independent forum in the same niche. The one thing I didn't do at the time and think that I should have done learning from experience is inviting customers and others with interests relating to my site to be moderators. By doing this I think that you would help increase some exposure through these sources and also give the forum more of a feel of independent discussion even though it is attached to your business. One other thing I would say that I think you should consider is the fact that if your forum is on your main site and creates a sudden surge in traffic will your site be able to handle it without causing the whole site to slow down. As we all know there is nothing worse for user experience than a site that is slow and clunky. We also know that this also has an influence on rankings.
On-Page / Site Optimization | | Matt-Williamson0 -
Embedded videos Youtube or Dailymotion?
Hes got 77 Linking Root Domains mostly seems to be coming from his linking network or article sites, while I have only 31. Also he is only ahead of us in one variant of the keyword (the biggest traffic wise). It seems that he pretty much focusing on just that keyword 58/77 of the links, while I only have 16/31 using the same keyword. But you think that because the junk links he has, hes not that far ahead of me ie I don't need to get 30+ good anchor text links to reclaim the top spot?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | eunaneunan0 -
Entering different but related industry, keep it on the same domain or new domain?
We have different websites for our different brands. It's a lot more work, but gives each brand its own separate internet presence. From a search viewpoint each website can be tailored to different groups of customers, and links between our sites are well travelled with good conversion rates. While it is a lot more hassle to run multiple websites, remember that trying to address multiple markets from one domain presents its own set of challenges. You have to think about the impression you make on both suppliers and customers (are you a kitchen specialist, or a furniture retailer dabbling in kitchens?), as well as whether your brand is easy for customers to remember. People expect different levels of retailer expertise for different products, and I think your customers would need more help with kitchens than with furniture. While you could demonstrate your kitchen expertise in a sub-folder of a single domain through great content, a separate domain more specific to the kitchen market would send a powerful message that you are a kitchen specialist (thereby implying that you are a kitchen expert before they even click your link). I think the answer is to do what's best for the brand. It seems to me that you have a great name already with Love Furniture, and developing a separate Love Kitchens brand could work very well. Just for the record, my personal preference is for single domains where possible.
Web Design | | StoresDirect0 -
Facebook competition: what's the best way to do it
Hi! Hopefully I can shed a little light on whether to go after shares or likes. Both actually correlate well with higher rankings, but this isn't necessarily a direct correlation it could simply mean that good content gets shared AND linked to which in turn helps rankings. Originally "likes" didn't show up in a user's wall or stream only shares did, so at that point they were more valuable because the share would be seen by more people. However FB has changed it so if you "like" something, not only does it show up on your wall/stream but it also allows you to add a comment. So it works very similarly to a share. If you feel that you can get more "likes" then go for it! I hope this helps a bit. Jen
Social Media | | jennita0 -
Monitor site loading speeds
One method: Install JMeter on a remote machine in a VERY remote location and perform regular performance tests with it. Downside to this method: Values may not be exact as JMeter is not a browser but a site testing tool, so values may differ significantly from your browser experience. http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/ Another method: Webservices such as yottaa.com. They offer performance testing and monitoring. I think they also might be using a JMeter implementation, at least it sounds like it www.yottaa.com This may be the easiest solution, and I'd definitely give it a spin, but maybe you shouldn't rely on their data as your only source. Third method: Build your own testing tool based on Googles PageSpeed SDK. http://code.google.com/p/page-speed/ That would be my favourite, but you need someone with coding experience Sure, these were all rather advanced options (except for yottaa.com) but if you want to have reliable data you should take your time and use a proper tool.
On-Page / Site Optimization | | akaigotchi0 -
Google Keyword tool data + No. 1 Serp rank =/= to taffic on landing page
Do you use your webmaster tools data? This is where I get content ideas. I see what keywords are already bringing in some data, or ranking somewhere from #5-20 and then I build good content around those keywords. What some people do is write some "teaser" blog posts to see what attracts attention. So, for example, you could write a blog post about "high sleepers" and see what kind of traffic you get. Then, write one about "loft beds" and see what happens. You may be surprised and find that you are getting searches for something that you didn't optimize for. This is totally made up, but let's say you find that you are getting hits for "high beds". Well, then you may choose to take that term and write a comprehensive article highly targeted for "high beds". That's what I'd do, but I'm sure there are others who use some tools out there.
Keyword Research | | MarieHaynes0 -
Original content and the Google Panda Update
I meant to say that there is of course the added benefit of good products descriptions for the customers. Thanks for the reply and the real life example
On-Page / Site Optimization | | eunaneunan0