Hi,

We have a brand website under which we plan to develop various apps. We think that putting each website on its own sub-domain would be a good option. E.g. Main website – abc.com; app1 website – app1.abc.com; app2 website – app2.abc.com etc. Would it be the right way to do it or should we put the apps in a sub-directory. E.g. abc.com/app1; abc.com/app2 etc. These apps would either be totally unrelated or may be in future we may provide something so as to enable their integration.

Thanks

Awesome response! Thanks a ton Patrick. There is no room left for a follow-up question

Hi,

We have a contact and a registration form on our website to capture leads/enquiries. However, I have come across many websites who give away many resources for free i.e. without asking for any user details. In this case, how do they track or capture the data of people coming to their website and interacting with the content?

There are other methods we well like CTAs, pop-up on exit intent etc., but these are different to what I have asked above.

Regards

Thanks linklater! Can you please guide me how to implement it?

Thanks for the reply Houses! Probably I framed the question incorrectly.

Please visit http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/facebook-testing-globalregional-fan-pages-that-share-a-single-like-count/279822 page. It dates backs to 2012 but i want to know if something similar is still possible.

Regards

Hi,

Our business spans across many countries and in order to maintain brand consistency, we were contemplating to create regional fan pages on Facebook. The structure would be like parent-child relation i.e. one main page and other regional pages. Is it possible? We searched for it but could't find something concrete except that in 2012 Facebook was testing similar concept.

Regards

Thanks a ton Donna for looking into the issue and helping at this level. I highly appreciate it

Their canonical tags confused me. As you have mentioned, the tags should have been one, I don't know why they are using two different ones. Probably, they have set the different geographic targets in Google Webmaster Tools and with the minor content variation and canonical tags, they want to signal Google to treat both the pages differently. I mean it's a big name in the world of ERP. They can't mess up with the canonical tags.

What do you think?

Thanks for the reply Donna but my question is bit different. Could you please take a look at the rel canonical tag of the urls I posted. The content on both the pages is 100% same. The only difference is that they are targeted at different geographic locations. The canonical tags point to the page itself and not any master page.

Thanks everyone for the response! But I am still confused. The two links that I have posted in my initial question have exactly the same content on both the pages (targeted at different geographic locations) and their canonical tags do not refer to any master page but to them itself, i.e. canonical tag on page A refers to A and canonical tag on page B refers to B. Please take a look at both the pages: http://bit.ly/1b48Lmp and http://bit.ly/1BuJkUR

Regards

Hello,

http://bit.ly/1b48Lmp and http://bit.ly/1BuJkUR pages have same content and their canonical refers to the page itself. Yet, they rank in search engines. Is it because they have been targeted to different geographical locations? If so, still the content is same.

Please help me clear this confusion.

Regards

A Twitter hashtag #MufflerMan is trending worldwide and that too since last 8-10 days. How is it possible for a hashtag to rend for so long?

HTTPS is one of the ranking factors and is in testing phase. However, in the near future, it might become a vital factor. Since you are going for a re-branding, now is the time to take the decision.

Regards

I would worry more about Google guidelines and best practices rather than wasting time on W3C validation.

Hi,

As you said your site was struck by manual penalty, I assume you had filed Request for Review. As far as ranking is concerned, did it rank earlier on these keywords? Because these a the most competitive keywords in this domain. Making the on-page changes only will not help your site to rank on these keywords. A white-hat off-page SEO too is required along with some traction from social media domain. It will take some time.

Meanwhile, you can try Google AdWords and buy traffic to your website.

Regards

Yes! As Suresh and Shakur said, that it is preferred by people and search engines. People have hard time reading the urls with special characters and a hyphen is recommended.

Regards

Thanks for the replay Shawn! Can you please guide how this is done? I mean these are the dynamic pages with no or less content then how come they get indexed in Google and then ranked?

Hi Daniel,

These are known as Sitelinks. Please read this page: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/47334?hl=en

Point to note here is that you can demote up to 100 URLs, and demotions are effective for 90 days from your most recent visit to the Sitelinks page in Webmaster Tools.

Regards

Hi,

Use this simple tool: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en-GB

Regards

Hi,

Probably that page is having 100% bounce rate. This blog post may help you http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/standard-metrics-revisited-time-on-page-and-time-on-site/

Regards

Hello,

I have noticed that some travel sites rank for almost all the keywords but when I click the page, it has no relevant content and often no content at all. I remember Google once updated its algorithm to do away with such sites but I still found some.

The question is - if they don't have relevant content or if they don't have content at all, how do they even rank? Secondly, how come they have pages for all keyword combination? How is this achieved?

Regards

Thanks guys! I used your responses to test few other keywords and the results are similar. It is really not the backlinks alone. Surprisingly, for one my tests, only quality content and keyword competitiveness did the trick as i had no backlink for the page except 2 internal links (Wikipedia).

Regards

Hi,

Suppose, a page from Wikipedia ranks on 1st position in Google for "keyphrase1". But when you investigate further, there are no backlinks to that page that have "keyphrase1" as the anchor text. Then how come the page ranks for that keyphrase?

Regards

Hi,

Yes, it is in Google interests to show different and relevant sites to users.

You said, "2 websites for the same company (very different domains) - both sites are targeting the same primary keyword phrase, however, the user journey should incorporate both websites, and therefore the sites are very heavily cross linked - so we can easily pass a user from one site to another."

I am assuming the by very different domains, you mean different site address because two sites on two different topics can't be heavily interlinked. In this case, I would recommend to have a single website that is performing well in the search engine and merge the other one in it. As you said that users journey should incorporate both the websites, this means they are closely linked. In this case, it would be better to have a single website that suffice users' needs.

Regards

Hi,

• Don't fall for PR. Google has stopped updating it.
• As you said that the result is a local one, they really don't need much of backlinks to rank in local results.

Please provide url of the website, Google domain, your browser name. Check it once again by clearing the cache of your web browser.

Regards

Hi Garrettkite,

There are 2 things that I would answer:

• Firstly, don't use underscore (_) in the url. Instead, use hyphens (-). E.g. domain1.com/inner-page.aspx
• Secondly, whether to have a longer url or shorter version is totally your call. It is better to have a flat structure as much as possible. Never go for very long urls e.g. domain1.com/directory1/directory2/this-is-the-inner-page.aspx. On the other hand, focus on the structure of the website from user's point of view. Is it intuitive? Can a user reach to the inner page easily? But in some cases you may have to use longer urls which is again conditional.

Till date I have successfully worked on more than 100 sites by following the above standards.

Regards

Hi Peter,

It's better to have separate pages for blue widgets, red widgets etc. As far as backlinks are concerned, ask yourself - if I click this link and land on a page that doesn't answer my question, would it be a good user experience? There is no need to maintain any sort of proportion/distribution of links between the Home page and inner pages. Often, you may not get a chance to link the inner page. In that case you may vary the anchor text.

-Shailendra

Hi,

So the news is that Google has started giving more importance to sites with HTTPS i.e. it is now a new ranking signal. It says that as of now it affects fewer than 1% of  global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high quality content but it may decide to strengthen it as they would like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.

In that case, what should we do? Switching from http:// to https:// means change in urls and low traffic. How to cope with it? Do we have to implement 'n' number of redirects?

Regards,

Hi,

I use the following method for keyword research:

1. Create a long raw list of keywords.
2. Use Google AdWords Keyword tool to find monthly searches.
3. Find raw competition.
4. Find direct competition (via allinanchor: search operator)
5. Calculate KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index)
6. Calculate KOI (Keyword Opportunity Index)

Is there any other (better) way to execute the keyword research? Or is finalizing/selecting the keywords only on the basis of monthly searches sufficient? In short, how to select the best keywords from a long list?

Thanks & Regards

Hello,

I have changed the font size and require feedback as in what do you all think about the older size and the new size:

http://103.9.12.244/index.aspx - New size

http://www.optiproerp.com/ - Old size

Regards

If your motive is to support the main site with backlinks, I suggest you take it off. Google even penalized this arrangement in 2009 I suppose.

Regards

As you said blogs setup for different geo locations. Would it serve purpose if you redirect all of them to a single website/blog? I mean they must been for varied geographic targets.

I case you are contemplating to discontinue all of them and redirect them to one so that you can focus all your efforts at a single place then it can be a good idea but make sure you redirect (map) specific pages/posts to the corresponding new pages. Simply redirecting all the domains to a single domain will not help much. You should keep in mind the user comfort as well.

Regards

HI,

We are planning to launch sites specific to target market (geographic location) but the products and services are similar in all those markets as we sell software.So here's the scenario:

1. Our target markets are all English speaking countries i.e. Britain, USA and India
2. We don't have the option of using ccTLD like .co.uk, co.in etc.
3. How should we handle the content? Because product, its features, industries it caters to and our services are common irrespective of market.
4. Whether we go with sub-directory or sub-domain, the content will be in English. So how should we craft the content?
5. Is writing the unique content for the same product thrice the only option?

Regards

Thanks Robert! I had similar things in my mind but I was not sure. Your reply made everything clear.

Thanks Referral Candy! The link you shared is really good.

Regards

Answer to Q1 - Write for the readers/users and not search engines. Keywords are important but use it when required. Avoid keyword stuffing. Write the content, read it as a user and then ask yourself - Does it offers what the page promises to? You can use keywords in the alt tags of the images and internal links. But excessive usage is strict NO.

Answer to Q2 - Using multiple

tags for SEO purposes is actually a misuse. h1, h2, h3 etc. tags should be used to define the content structure i.e. headings of the page. h1 - main heading, h2 - sub headings etc. Again, keyword stuffing them is a violation.

Answer to Q3 - I guess MOZ has its own index.

Answer to Q4 - MOZ's guidelines are for our education. Obviously, the guidelines and tutorials are good and helpful but it is your effort that counts. MOZ can tell you what to do but how you do it is your responsibility.

Regards

Thanks for the prompt reply Robert! We have the social media icons across the pages of the website along with the corresponding social media pages and YouTube channels. Other than this, what else can we do?

Because ERP software does not appeal to mass market and within ERP domain we are serving only process manufacturers like Food, beverage, pharma etc. It's like niche within niche.

We can start interacting with our existing clients via social media channels, this is one thing we can do but how to market our products and services on social media channels in a manner that can even attract the attention of totally irrelevant and unrelated people. I want people to view our campaigns and make it viral and create a perception that even an ERP company can create engaging campaigns across the channels. As of now, my target is brand building and not conversion.

Regards

If you are talking about user profile pages, it is your call.

If you are talking about links that users post in profile pages, use as signatures or use in threads, make sure to mark them nofollow.

Regards

No, don't remove the links coming from good authoritative sites.

For rest of the links, download links to your site report in Google Webmaster Tools and check if those low quality sites are in there. Start by removing the links that are in the report. You can disavow the links as well but you should be very careful in doing so. Sometimes, people get extra cautious and disavow good backlinks.

Regards

Use meta="noindex" tag for the user profile pages. It is more effective.

Regards

Exactly! You are on the right path. Google states that you should submit the proof of your manual removal work along with the reconsideration request. It will help them understand that you are serious and are working for it and will also expedite the process.

Regards

My experience tells me that using hyphens (-) in domain names doesn't go well with the users. Even a single hyphen in the domain name is quite frustrating. Think as a user - would you like to type a lengthy domain name with multiple hyphens? Users might perceive it as a spammy domain.

It is better to use short domain names that are easy to remember. If you have run out of options and a long name is the only choice then avoid hyphens (-). Moreover, having a domain name same as the business name or kind of work is just one of the factors.

Regards

Hello Andy,

If you are gonna write the content for online users/reader, you would get the answer yourself. When you write a quality piece, you think of your users and not the search engines. If you make the users happy, search engines will be happy as well.

As far as targeting a single phrase or multiple phrase is concerned, if two terms are totally different altogether then having separate pages is a better idea and that is categorization. E.g. A site selling mobiles can have different categories based on brands and then further categorization based on OS.

To sum up, it is your call. If you think that all the 2 phrases should be on the same page as they offer real value when read together then you can put them in a single page. On the other hand, if they are inter-connected and quality content can be crafted for each of them then individual pages with good internal linking can be done.

Regards

Check you robots file. Are there entries to block the crawling? If you can give the url then it would be helpful/

Regards

Hello Everybody,

We are an ERP company and want to get into social media marketing. We have decided to use Google+ over Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Any ideas what we can do besides regular updates and getting our clients link to us?

Regards

Hi David,

Check the date when the broken link was detected in Google Webmaster Tools. The reports get updated late in GWT. To ensure that all the internal links ae working fine, use Xenu Link Sleuth. It is a freely available tool and is pretty good at detecting broken links.

Regards

Hi,

We participated in an event and it is now over and therefore it has to be removed now. I was thinking of writing a blog post about the event and place a 301 redirect on the page enlisting the event's detail and registration process.

Would it be a good idea or should I do something else?

Regards,

Hi,

Can anybody guide me to a document or a presentation that elaborates how the content for overall Internet marketing strategy should be developed? And how do people beyond marketing department contribute to its success?

Regards

Hi Circa,

Your focus should be on link building as well as on-page SEO.

The number of links don't matter but the quality or value matters. A page with 5 quality backlinks can rank better than a page with 100 low quality backlinks.

As far as on-page SEO is concerned, focus on keywords, internal linking and most importantly content! Go through the content of your competitors site, identify the gaps or disconnect between your content and the keyword you want to rank for. Write for the users and fill those gaps.

Regards

Hi Daniel,

Here's what Google has to say about this issue https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en

Regards

Hi Bob,

Carla is right. Also, you can check the service provided by http://www.bloggerlinkup.com/. We have used this service with good success rate.

Regards

It says, "Gateway aliases..." So you will still be on myblog.ABCD.com and therefore the situation remains same.

The best option is to purchase the domain and hosting service and continue with the blog.

Regards