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Category: Web Design

Talk through the latest in web design and development trends.


  • I'm trying to decide if I should use a CDN to speed up my site. I've never used one before, but I do know that there are a lot of images on my site and I think that could help a great deal. Are they hard to set up? Are there any down sides? And are the pricey? Also I'm not sure even sure if it would make a difference for me, but I want to work on getting my site faster. Thanks.

    | NoahsDad
    1

  • So today Google have updated their Webmaster Guidelines and they have drawn particular attention to their update relating to Link Schemes. http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356 Unless you have had your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears since February then most people are aware of the types of link schemes that the updated is refering to but there is one area that isn't so black and white for me. "Here are a few common examples of unnatural links that violate our guidelines: Widely distributed links in the footers of various sites" We are a design agency and we design and build lots of websites for our clients. It is pretty standard practice for agencies to add a credit to the footer of websites and we pick up a lot of work from people that see a site that they like and click through the footer link to our site. Our footer credit is standard on all of the websites that we create:- Website by Teapot Creative Only the 'Teapot Creative' part of the credit is anchor text so we are only linking using our brand name with no intention of manipulating search results. Is this going to hurt us? or will the fact that we are only linking using our branded term and without any SEO intent keep us in the clear? Thanks.
    Ade.

    | AdeLewis
    0

  • Dear all, what would be the ideal layout of a webpage for SEO? How would a homepage and landingspage look like? Thanks in advance! Best regards, Ben

    | HMK-NL
    0

  • Does anyone have any experience comparing the effectiveness of website colors? Does background color make any difference?

    | casper434
    0

  • We've recently changed our site over to a new hosting system, we've got similar pages and are now looking at changing the URL's to ensure we do not loose our link juice from our previous site. My question is regarding the URL's, is it worth us changing our URL's to MVC friendly URL have a good or bad affect on our rankings and or link juice? Thanks

    | SimonDixon
    0

  • Hi there, I'm a php gal really, but am working with a client on a new build which will be in Umbraco. So the question to Seomozzers out there is what should I be aware of and are there any recommendations for plugins/extensions that'll help in ongoing SEO? Thanks!

    | Shivvyt
    0

  • Hi, I've always used tags on blogs, but I've noticed that some prominent and reputable blogs (e.g., SEOmoz blog, Problogger, Copyblogger) are no longer using tags at the end of each post. I'm curious about what is the reason for this - any ideas? Thanks in advance, Carolina

    | csmm
    0

  • Hi, I would like your thoughts about pages vs. posts for SEO. I understand the difference in terms of WP structure and have read the SEOmoz blog post about setting up your site for SEO success (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). However, if you're trying to rank for a particular keyword, it seems that either one could work, from an on-page SEO perspective, as far as title tag, URL, meta description, etc. So how do you decide whether to set up a page vs. a post? What are the pros and cons, from an SEO perspective, about using one vs. the other? Thanks in advance! Carolina

    | csmm
    0

  • I'm just looking for a backup application in Wordpress. I've found BackupWordpress y BackWPup. What of these ap. is the best in terms of performance and functionality? Is there any plugin better?Thanks in advanced.

    | aalcocer2003
    0

  • Hi, We currently have a very simple splash page that Android and iPhone users see when they land on our homepage. The screen gives them the option to download our app or move on to the full website. If they choose to go to the site they are redirected to our homepage. Is this going to have any negative impacts on our rankings? I'm not sure how the Google bot treats this type of page. We have also talked about replacing the splash page with a modal window, but I'm concerned that this will increase the load time of the home page on mobile devices. Does anyone have any experience with a similar situation or any advice? Thanks in advance!

    | Cash4Books
    0

  • I have been working on a brand new website currently it is live but I have disallow Googlebots temporarily as I dint want any negative impact. The business of the site is to generate leads , they install and sell Stairlifts and used Stairlifts. There are two main categories New Stairlifts and Reconditioned Stairlifts Currently the URL for new Stairlifts is : http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/stairlifts/ and for Reconditioned Stairlifts is: http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/reconditioned-stairlifts/ My concerns are that the word Stairlifts is mentioned twice in the urls  so is it going to have a negative impact or panda penalty? I am thinking of changing them to http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/new/  and the product pages to display as http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/new/brooks/  Currently its http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/stairlifts/brooks/ Same with reconditioned Stairlifts I like to change it to : http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/reconditioned Also its product pages to http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/reconditioned/brooks/ As currently its http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/reconditioned-stairlifts/brooks/ Thanks

    | conversiontactics
    0

  • Hi, We have a client in China that is looking to create three versions of the same website, English, Chinese and Korean. They do not want to use a translation plugin like Google translate, preferring to have the pages duplicated. What is the best way to do this bearing in mind that the site needs to be found in all three languages. Would also appreciate if anyone knows of a good hosting company that has English support on the Chinese main land. Thanks Fraser

    | fraserhannah
    0

  • Okay so I am currently redesigning my company's webpage.  I am making it responsive and giving it a more up to date look with newer features, etc.  A facelift, basically. While updating the site i'm also doing some on-page optimization here and there, and am curious about the page title for my homepage.  My company offers video production, web development & design, and web marketing.  While we do offer each service individually, we are really trying to sell the combination of all three services to our clients and show them how they can work together effectively. Now my question is, in my homepage title, should i list each service offering keyword (which is what i do now) like this : "Video Production - Web Design - Web Marketing • Company Name" Or, should i try to find one keyword that kind of sums up what we do, like this: "Magic All-Encompassing Keyword • Company Name" I'm thinking that since three sort of unrelated keywords are in the page title, it may be viewed as over-optimizing and we won't see as good of results as just focusing on one keyword, which leads me to think that i should try to sum all of our services into one "all-encompassing" keyword such as "media production", which isn't the best choice, i'm just throwing it out there for the sake of this discussion. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    | RenderPerfect
    0

  • I help run a small real estate site in ireland www.aplacetorent.ie and Im in charge of seo. I have read lots of books over the last year or so and while they offer lots of advice some of them dont actually show you what to do. I have joined distilled and I think its the best thing i have done  in the last few weeks and am learning a lot but if anyone has any advice i would be very grateful. Thank you

    | Kessie
    0

  • Is there a primer anywhere that will help me understand how rel=me works and how to implement it properly? I do NOT have a blog but I do have a Google+ account. I want to put my mug into my SERPs so I need to understand both the concept and the technical details of implementing this. I am very comfortable with markup so I will be able to do this if I understand WHAT I am doing and HOW it is done. Thanks for your help! Chris Streeter

    | DVRSystems19
    0

  • Highly discussed in our team is the question: Should all parent navigation items be clickable, or only the ones that have no child menu appearing on mouse over? At Starwood Germany, we  would like to adjust the main navigation for all our websites in order to improve consistency and user friendliness. At the moment, most of our websites feature both clickable non-clickable parent items, depending on whether the items have a corresponding child menu (appearing on mouse over) or not. See example here: http://www.imperialvienna.com/en Some of our team members believe it might be irritating and/or confusing for the user if some items are clickable while others are not. What do you think? Any thoughts and insights would be truly appreciated!

    | DFM_GSA
    0

  • Hi Guys I am new here, and very much learning a lot, and enjoying the benefits of being an SEOMoz user. So here goes with my first question (probably of many). I have known for sometime that our website has a top heavy number of links in the primary navigation.  But I wasn't too sure how important this was.  Our main objective was to make an east to use nav for customers.  All of the feedback we have had says that customers really like our navigation, as it is easy to use etc etc. However, when running an SEOMoz campaign on our site, again we got back that there are too many links on the pages.  Example, home page has 500+ links. So I decided to do something about this.  I have implemented what I think is a good solution where by the drop down navigation isn't loaded on first load.  If the user then hovers over one of our "departments" the sub navigation is loaded via Ajax and dropped in.  This means if the user wants it, they get it, if not then it's not loaded with the page.  My theory being that Google loads the page without all the links, but a user gets the links as and when they need them. I tested with the SEOMoz toolbar and this tells me that when I load the home page there is 167 links in it vs 500+ previously.  However, the my campaign still tells me that my home page has 450+ links (and this is a recent crawl of the page). Our site is here: www.uniquemagazines.co.uk Can you tell me is what I have done is a) a good solution and b) does the SEOMoz crawler have the ability to trigger the hover event and cause the AJAX load of the sub navigation content?

    | TheUniqueSEO
    0

  • Hello all, I am working in the keywors structure of a web and I have the following doubt: If I want to target these keywords: great food madrid and my website is: http://www.madridlive.com I do not know if I should keep either: OPTION 1: page url: www.madridlive.com/great-food-madrid or OPTION 2: page url www.madridlive.com/great-food I do not know if the search engines "understands" madrid in "madridlive", therefore I can avoid the "madrid" keyword, dicarding option 1 and going for option 2. Additionally I avoid duplication of the madrid keyword  that can be seen as redundancy and also have a shorter page url. Thank you very much and sorry for such a question but I am new in this SEO field...just the excellent SEOMOZ's SEO Guide for beginners! Best regards, Antonio

    | aalcocer2003
    0

  • Which URL structure does google prefer..............OR DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Option A www.example.com/services/service#1 - this is the default that wordpress uses Option B www.example.com/service#1

    | webestate
    0

  • I'm really baffled and none of my research has shed much light on it. My url is www.emporiumofmanliness.co.uk I'd really appreciate any help! Thanks

    | JoshED
    0

  • all of my pages are working fine. but i added my sitemap to my footer in my website and when i click on my blog from my footer it takes me to the homepage. so now im having duplicate content for two diff urls. ive tried adding a rel=canonical and a 301 redirect to the blog page but it doesnt resolve the problem. also, when i go to my footer and click blog. after it brings me to the homepage ill try to click on my pages from the original bar at the top of my screen and it will bring me to the right pages. but it will have the same blog url in the search bar even when im on other pages. other than that all of my pages in my footer and in my homepage toolbar work fine. its just that one particular problem with the blog page in the footer and how it stays with the same blog url on every page after i click the blog in the footer. can someone please help. im using yoast and idk if i should disable it or what.

    | ClearVisionDesign
    0

  • I have a site that offers services across two states and was wondering if I would see any benefit from creating pages such as: SERVICE in CITY, TX Would I need to change the content on the pages completely or could I simply swap out the city/state if I have roughly 3-5 combos I want target?

    | nusani
    0

  • I own two websites. One is older and contains the bulk of my content. The other is a web-based tool that has less written content, but is equally important to my business. For the sake of examples we'll call the older website "oldsite.com" and new website "newsite.com". Would it benefit my old site to direct traffic to the web-based tool using a domain like "newsite.oldsite.com"? What's the best way to integrate the two sites so I am not splitting my traffic?

    | Travis-W
    0

  • Hi, I just recently joined SEOMOZ and am excited to be apart of the community.  I am launching a blog to educate mu readers on a variety of topics.  Is there any specific themes or theme creators that do a great job at structuring their themes from a technical perspective for the best SEO results?  Thanks!

    | ROYINOW
    0

  • Hey guys, i am currently redesigning our company's site, and have come across some things that I'm not quite sure of. We used to have individual service pages in our main navigation (design, video, marketing) before the redesign.  In this new design, i had the idea of making just one "services" or "capabilities" page, where these three services would each be outlined, and each service would have a list of links to more specific landing pages. Obviously, breaking it up correctly with HTML5 using the andtags. What I'm wondering is that if i'm going to be penalized for having those three services that aren't necessarily related too closely on the same page as opposed to having the one page for each service (like we have now). Any help would be greatly appreciated, and let me know if i need to elaborate more. Thanks in advance!

    | RenderPerfect
    0

  • I am reviewing the optimization on my site and it appears that my page titles follow this method: PAGE_NAME | KEYWORD in CITY ST - COMPANY_NAME I am pretty well optimized for "KEYWORD in CITY ST" but am wondering if I should drop it from all page titles except for the pages that actually deal with that keyword. What are your thoughts on optimizing?

    | nusani
    0

  • Today I installed the SEOMoz toolbar for Firefox (very cool, highly recommended). I was comparing our site http://www.ccisolutions.com to this competitor: http://www.uniquesquared.com For the most part, the deeper I go in our site the more the page authority drops. We have a few exceptions where the page authority of a subcategory page is actually better than the cat. page one level up. In comparison, when I was looking at http://www.uniquesquared.com I noticed that their page authority stays at "21" on every single category page I visit. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Is this potentially a problem with the tool bar or, is there something significantly different about their site architecture that allows them to maintain that PA across all category and sub category pages? Is there something fundamentally wrong with our (http://www.ccisolutions.com) site architecture? I understand that we have longer URLs, but this is an old store with a lot of SKUs, so we have decided not to remove the /category/ and /product/ from the URLs because the 301 redirects that would result wouldn't pass all of the authority they've built up over the years. Interested to know viewpoints on the site architecture and how it might be improved. Thanks!

    | danatanseo
    0

  • Hello fellow mozzers, Hope you are all well. I am looking to get a website done and I am struggling to decide whether to get a custom build website site done or a website built on the WordPress platform. Would you be able to share your experiences and advice/suggestions on what you would use, and why? (pros and cons, etc.) Thanks in advance. Kind Regards

    | JonathanRolande
    0

  • Hello, Our web team and I have been building a e-commerce website for the past couple of months. The project is nearing its end and I was just wondering if there are any big issues on this website that jump out at anyone, besides the fact that it hasn't been submitted anywhere or there has been no link building done yet. The website is wheelchairparts.com All feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated! Thanks!

    | Mike.Bean
    0

  • Hey folks I'm working with a small team on putting together a new niche accommodation / holiday search portal here in the UK. We are most likely using PHP / MySQL technology for the site - I am a huge fan of WordPress but not sure its quite man enough for the task (many option search over 10,000 plus properties). We can't afford to pay for a bespoke development, so off-the shelf CMS is the most likely route for release 1, and from what I've been reading Pyro CMS seems a good open source choice... https://www.pyrocms.com/ Has anybody come across this, or know how good it is with regards to on-site SEO? Or maybe WordPress is up to the task? If not, what are other good open source options for sites focused around a search function? Cheers Simon

    | SCL-SEO
    0

  • on some of my report cards its saying certain things featured on my services page are actually linking to my blog or something. and its saying im not using rel canonical correctly. can you help me out?

    | ClearVisionDesign
    0

  • I recently spoke to a consultant at a search conference who took a look at my site map and mentioned it looked like google would have a hard time crawling the site and indexing new pages and changes.  I am managing an ecommerce site with a bunch of products, however, I am not an XML expert by any means so i'd appreciate any advice on what to look for in the site map that would possibly be affecting googles ability to crawl/index.

    | GregWhiteStarMedia
    0

  • Hi SEOMOZ community, Can you please advise on how to increase Linking root domains and domain authority. much appreciated.

    | wahin1
    0

  • Hi, If I have the domain name www.businessname.com.au pointing (using 301 redirect) to a particular page on a business directory site (eg www.bizdirectory.com.au/businessname), is it possible to have the URL www.businessname.com.au displayed in the Google search results rather than the destination page of www.bizdirectory.com.au/businessname? Thanks in advance,
    Adam

    | blackrails
    0

  • Do you have one where you deliver the same content to the desktop (rich user experience) as well as mobile websites? In our case we provide content to www.domain.com, m.domain.com (for smart phones not using our native apps) and mo.domain.com (for older feature phones). We found that in some instances Google favours the indexing of our mobile content over our desktop site and we have now started pointing canonical content to our desktop site (i.e. to www.domain.com). Possible downside is that Google might not present desktop indexed content on mobile devices. This is not really a big issue, as currently Google presents mobile content for desktop searches. A better approach would have been responsive design, but we feel that dedicated apps will rule the mobile device space and desktop-websites will evolve to allow content to be displayed on all devices (we consider our m.domain.com and mo.domain.com stop-gaps to overcome legacy device issues and bandwidth limitations). What is your mobile device strategy with regards to SEO?

    | MagicDude4Eva
    0

  • My website http://www.socialseomanagement.com/ is using tons of bandwidth.  I received a message from the hosting company saying I exceeded my monthly bandwidth and it has only been a few days.  Can anyone take a look and make suggestions? Thanks

    | JChronicle
    0

  • Hi Mozzers, I am looking to develop a mobile version of one of my sites and was wondering what was considered best practice for the following: Where to host it: m.domain.com or domain.com/mobile ? Is rel='canonical' enough to avoid mobile version being indexed or should I use "noindex" on mobile version? How to handle tablets? Which screen size sees mobile version? Which sees full site version? Thanks in advance Geoff

    | SEM-Freak
    1

  • Hi could any body could give me some idea on 'on page optimisation' Currently in my campaign I have around 3000+ errors, 14,000+ warning, 7000+ notices for the following reasons: Overly-Dynamic URL
    Temporary Redirect
    Title Element Too Long (> 70 Characters)
    Duplicate Page Title
    etc... First of all I know these have negative effect on SEO. Now to fix towards those issues it involve lots of works and times. At the same time most of our important keywords/url rank position have not changed over the last 12 months. Does that mean the above has only limited negative effect? I just want to know is it worthy to invest the man/hour/money to clean those issues. As it involves decent development time. Is it common to have some of error/warning in most website that rank well? (e.g. I 've seem may big website have duplicate title/meta-desc on their currency variant page)

    | LauraHT
    0

  • I am wondering if SEOMoz would consider adding a Question Topic called Webmasters. I see many questions that require answers from webmasters and I have some questions to ask that would require a webmaster to answer. Would it be better to find the answers on another platform? If the question is yes any recommendations on which forums are good for these types of questions?

    | polarking
    1

  • I think I have a good handle on the external local seo factors such as citations but I'd like to determine the best IA layout for starting a new site or adding new content to a local site.  I see lots of small sites with duplicate content pages for each town/area which I know is poor practice.  I also see sites that have unique content for each of those pages but it seems like bad design practice, from a user perspective, to create so many pages just for the search engines. To the example... My remodeling company needs to have some top level pages on its site to help the customers learn about my product, call these "Kitchen Remodeling" and "Bathroom Remodeling" for our purposes.  Should I build these pages to be helpful to the customer without worrying too much about the SEO for now and focus on subfolders for my immediate area which would target keywords like "Kitchen Remodeling Mytown"? Aside from my future site, which is not a priority, I would like to be equipped to advise on best practices for the website development in situations where I am involved at the beginning of the process rather than just making the local SEO fit after the fact. Thanks in advance!

    | EthanB
    0

  • So I need to build a website with over 100 pages in it. Elements of the design will probably be moved around and or tested so I need to use a CMS. It's pretty much a review site so while the content will remain static I'd like to employ A/B testing to mess with conversion rates. Wordpress has a plugin for that even. So I'm just wondering, since CMS pages are pretty much created on spot and not retrieved from a library, how this affects backlinks and anchor text? How exactly does the external website point to yours if the URL is dynamically generated? Or am I misunderstanding something? Please recommend any extra resources as well if you can.

    | seochump
    0

  • We have a website and we are getting good traffic to it. Its a travel related domain registered many years back. Now its ranking high for most of the potential keywords even if it is not at all SEO friendly (Domain is an exact match keyword). We are planning to redesign it. Will that affect the SEO Ranking? We need to ask some more doubts: 1. When redesigning we are planning to change the inner page URL. So it it wise to redirect (301) old URL  to the new URL?  Old url will not be there after redesigning. But its currently having page ranks. 2. Can we redirect more than one old url to a single new page? 3. Google new updates said "they will be going to diminish the exact match results domains". Does that updates affects us? 4. Any more suggestions for the redesigning?

    | jjv
    0

  • I'm looking at making an embedable calculator and asking users to embed it to their website. I had the idea of using javascript to include the calculator which would also conatain a text link back to my site in order to gain some back links. If it's possible Google won't see the link (as they may not execute the javascript), is it safe to place the link in the <noscript>tag? If so, Will it be indexed and will Page Rank be passed?</span></p> <p>Thanks in advance for your answers. </p> <p>Anthony</p> <p><span style="color: #5e5e5e;"><br /></span></p></noscript>

    | BallyhooLtd
    0

  • I am building a website which will have a main navigation related to the site and each link of the main navigation will have a secondary navigation. We do not want to use a megamenu style navigation. I will try to explain it with a example: Let's start with an example for a computer store "My PC Store", the Main Navigation would be: Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets
    Multimedia
    When clicking on the "Notebook & Tablets" the user is directed to the page domain.com/notebook-tablet.html and on this page the secondary navigation appears: Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad I am confused on how I should organize the semantic navigation for best SEO performances and I need advice / suggestions. I thought about 2 different ways to do it but which one is more appropriate in terms of SEO? PROPOSITION A Home Page: <header> My PC Store <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> </header> Sub-Page (Notebook & Tablets): <nav>(or <aside>?) Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </aside> </nav> <header> Notebook & Tablets <nav> Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad </nav> </header> As you notice on the home page the Main Site Navigation is included in the <header>while it is not in the sub-pages. PROPOSITION B Home Page: <header> My PC Store <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> </header> Sub-Page (Notebook & Tablets): <header> Notebook & Tablets <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> # Notebook & Tablets * Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad </header> The main navgation remains always in the <header>(home page / sub-pages) of all page. I need suggestions... How would you guys organize the nav ? </header> </header>

    | netbuilder
    0

  • Just as the title says, has anyone used bugherd.com for SEO purposes? I was thinking it could be used to show client changes that need to be made regarding the website. Example could be if you are looking at a CRO prospective, you may want to change/add some graphics or text to improve conversions. It seems like a nifty tool to show the changes you want made and to keep track of them. It integrates with basecamp also 🙂

    | KyleChamp
    0

  • In Google Web Mastertools you can stipulate which paramters you want the Googlebots to ignore when crawling your site. This is common place on pages that add some form of parameterisaton to the end of the link when a web user filters the information on a page (eg. on a clothes website someone may filter the products so they only see 'blue' jumpers, rather than 'all') This is meant to be beneficial as it means Google trawls through less duplicate content. Having now set this up, what impact will this have on my search results, if any? Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting to shoot up to no.1, but will it benefit me in any way?

    | DHS_SH
    0

  • I have recently built a site that has a main page intended to rank for national coverage. This site also has a number of pages targeted at local searches, these pages are slight variations of each other with town specific keywords. Does anyone know if google will see this as spam and quarantine my site from ranking? Thanks

    | stebutty
    0

  • Do you have any recommendations for http://me.graficode.com/preprod? I know the right and bottom nagivations are the most important links/pages. I have over 16 headers. I want to know how I can make the resort header links for barcelona, madrid, london, etc.(in the middle of the homepage) carry more wieght by the search engines? The website was built using HTML5 and javascript.

    | Melia
    0

  • I recently published new EMD and installed WP on their. Now i installed the Plugin called Yoast <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> and XML Sitemap. Now whenever i am trying to submit sitemap it shows "URL restricted by robots.txt" but you can see my robots file line written below: User-agent: *
    Disallow: /cgi-bin/
    Disallow: /wp-admin/
    But still it is showing same error.. i deactivate plugin and resubmit the sitemap but still no luck.. please help

    | xplodeguru
    0

  • I am looking for a more current answer to this question. I know that google leaves out the js and css. But since the code usually has display:hidden inline with the code while using jquery ui tabs I was curious to know if google considers this hidden or from what some articles have said, "tries to ignore the content". Is this still true today? I would assume no but looking for some back-up.

    | sknott
    0

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