Questions
-
Appropriate Use of Canonical Tag
Hi Jason, I would definitely not canonicalise between the three+ URLs about one text unless those URLs contain identical information. Since they won't be identical (one will be plot, one characters, etc. as you say earlier in the thread), I would not canonicalise. You will result in content such as that on characters not being indexed or crawled. The site is therefore probably less likely to rank for queries like [othello characters] if the characters page has a canonical tag on it, pointing to the plot summary page. Without having seen the site or mock-ups, I believe you would be safe to use separate URLs for each area of study surrounding one topic. However, you could indeed put all this content on one page and use tabs to switch between the content, given that it is too long to fit nicely on one page. The tabs should be operated by CSS, and all the text (plot summary, characters, context) would be in the source code upon page load. People would click between tabs to read it. This is not considered cloaking or hiding content, although I would avoid doing this if the content for each section is particularly lengthy. I doubt it would get you in trouble, but if you are creating substantial content for each area of study, this would work well on separate URLs _without _canonicalising to one particular page, as per your original structure. Cheers, Jane
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JaneCopland0 -
SEO Implications of Moving Blog to Subdomain
This video is nearly 2 years old and people are still saying to use sub-folder. not sub-domain. I am knee deep in setting up a proxy to deal with this because my ecommerce site runs under tomcat and we use wordpress for our blog. Simple to get going but keeping it the way it was would be easier..
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OrderTech0 -
Software to Monetize Email Newsletters
Most ESPs (Email Service Providers) will be able to break down the information you input in your customer forms so you can create custom lists based on them. For example, if you want to just email people who live in California, if you have that information, it can segment based on that. Different providers will do different types of automation, depending how you set it up. Some popular providers include: MailChimp, Bronto, and Exact Target. Pricing is usually based on level of software (SMB or enterprise), if you want your own whitelisted IP (recommended), and how many you send per month or year. You can also use marketing automation software to send emails based on website triggers. To be transparent, I've never used software, but I know some popular providers are HubSpot, Bronto, and Marketo. Some companies build their own triggers and marketing automation and then will maybe use a smaller email provider just to send emails and ensure deliverability. (This is what we do at Moz for say q&a emails and our ranking reports, but we use a full ESP for marketing emails.) Hope this helps put you on the right direction!
Local Listings | | EricaMcGillivray0 -
Site Navigation
Jason - I took a look at the Aplos Software site, and I tend to agree with you. what I like about the site is it's simplicity, which is good for an organization promising to "Simplify Your Nonprofit's Finances" The color scheme is basic, there's a big strong call to action (Get Started for Free). That said, there's very few options for the end user to interact with the site. And links at the footer are not going to make that happen. To answer your three questions: 1. What are your thoughts about including a drop down menu in the header for the different products? My answer: I think this would be really helpful. If the end user is on a long, long page, a footer navigation is helpful to allow someone to quickly click to something else on the site. But it's not how most main stream users navigate a site. The top navigation is... 2. They have a good blog with content that gets regularly updated. Currently it's linked in the footer and gets a tiny amount of visits. What are your thoughts about including it as a link in the header instead? My answer: Yes! You should add the blog to the top of the site. The blog is a way that end users can see a little bit under the covers of an organization, as it's not the content that's been through so many rounds of revisions that it's 100% polished. The blog is a great place to feature new clients, awards, and other information. If it's updated frequently, it also demonstrates that the company is active, and conveys the idea that the software product the company is selling is not static / done, but is continuously supported. That may or may not be true, but a blog that is updated all the time will tend to convey that the company is still actively working on the product. 3. What are best practices with using (or not using) no follow with site navigation and footer links? How about with links to social media pages like Facebook/Twitter? My answer: honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about using no-follow tags on your footer navigation. At least on this site. You don't have so many links that Google is going to ignore them. Plus, it's at the end of the page anyway. You certainly could, though, and it won't hurt in any way. Just make sure that your site map, privacy policy, etc are followed links. Hope this helps! Jeff
Technical SEO Issues | | customerparadigm.com0 -
Blog Bounce Rate & Placement in Site Navigation
Do you suggest we keep the site navigation link to the blog in its current location or move it some place else in the footer or in the header? If they are proud of this blog and want people to read it then it should have a link that is slappin' the visitors' face. The bounce rate for the blog is over 81%. What is a reasonable goal for a bounce rate for a blog on a business website? What are some tactics to improve the bounce rate? The best way to reduce the bounce rate is to give the visitor something juicy to click. If you want people to read a second article then featuring the best posts that your visitors will want to see, in a way that visually stands out and mentally speaks to the visitor. I would get rid of the wordcloud and change the category names to something more meaningful. For example: "Church"... I would make it "Church Accounting"..... "Payroll" would be "NonProfit Payroll". In the content manager I would change the visible title tag for this to "Church Accounting Software" and "NonProfit Payroll Accounting and Software".... Right now your title tags are simply "church" and "payroll". Add more detail to compete for better traffic. The blog also need some visual appeal. I would change that tiny gray font to something larger, blue and clickable - put more space between the lines to make them more readable. Do you suggest including a call to action to sign up for a free trial on the blog home page and/or individual posts? Yes. And, a sign-up for people who want to receive an email message when a new blog post is published. Do these guys get lots of questions about the software? If they do then "tips" might be good subject matter for the blog. My response here is not an answer to your question. It is a starting point for a possible brain storming session with the client.
On-Page / Site Optimization | | EGOL0 -
Importance of 301 Redirects
Thanks for all the great responses so far. The site was registered in 1997 and the current site has been up for 6 years. Here's the link profile for the site: Domain Authority - 32 Domain MozRank 4.08 Domain Moztrust 4.86 Esternal Followed Links 258 Total External Links 271 Total links 59,852 Followed Linking Root Domains 71 Total Linking Root Domains 76 Linking C-Blocks 46
Technical SEO Issues | | stageagent0