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I've been using CrazyEgg for a couple of weeks now and have been getting some pretty valuable data about where people are scrolling to on page. Surprisingly, people tend to scroll down from the top slightly, which I wasn't expecting.

If you use them through Moz's perks, you get 90days free - pretty darn reasonable if you ask me!

Hi there,

We're an online booking portal for the hair and beauty industry, and also provide salon management software. We're thinking of creating a separate subdomain on the main site, probably along the lines of salons.example.com as a resource point and advice centre for salons.

In it, I was thinking of featuring links and extracts from various blog posts I've written on salon marketing, downloadable white papers and featured videos we've created - a sample of each that you can click through to get all the bits on one page i.e. you click a see all vids bit to be taken to a page with all the vids on it.

This is very much conceptual at the moment (though we do have a fair number of resources on the blog and the like), but I'd love it all to be drawn into a helpful section for salons. I'd love to hear what you think about it and whether there are some other ways we might look into doing this. No right answers, hoping for a bit of a debate/advice around resource centres.

Thanks a million!

Hi there,

I'm working on a site that has a ridiculous number of 404s being returned by webmaster tools. We believe this was because there was an onpage error that was amending the urls and adding in folders that shouldn't have been in a big spiral i.e. /salons/uk/teeth became something like /salons/uk/teeth/salons/edinburgh/hair/teeth...

Anyway, we think the issue is now sorted, but these pages were indexed it seems, and so it looks like Google is still searching for them when it crawls the site. What's my best move? It's the sheers volume (over 13,000) that has me concerned so I thought it best to seek some expert advice before continuing.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. I didn't even consider that Google would evaluate a site with a noindex, just not display it.

If that's the case, it seems it's best to rank lowly at first and then have the engines crawl when they will and notice the changes we implement over the coming weeks. As you say, it'd make no difference to how the site is viewed at the time we'd remove the noindex (unless the times between crawls were massive!), but that we'd lose out on potential traffic from ranking lowly.

Hi,

So, we have a site going up on Monday, that in many ways hasn't been gotten ready for search. The focus has been on functionality and UX rather than search, which is fair enough.

As a result, I have a big list of things for the developer to complete after launch (like sorting out duplicate pages and adding titles that aren't "undefined" etc.).

So, my question is whether it would be better to noindex the site until all the main things are sorted before essentially presenting search engines with the best version we can, or to have the site be indexed (duplicate pages and all) and sort these issues "live", as it were?

Would either method be advisable over the other, or are there any other solutions? I just want to ensure we start ranking as well as possible as quickly as possible and don't know which way to go.

Thanks so much!

Unfortunately we can't redirect from the shorter to the longer as those we are selling the profile spaces to want to be able to see example.com/profile-name on the browser

Thanks for the input guys! Will implement a canonical then.

Hi,

This is probably going to sound a bit stupid, but I nevertheless want to check.

We have a site that's going to have identical pages (really not my choice) for a sales reason. The two examples would be example.com/profile-name and example.com/location/profile-name

Users using the onsite navigation will always end up in the latter example naturally as they have to select a location before viewing content (plus having the location in the url is nice as there are multiple profiles across different locations that have the same name). However, it's easier to sell our services when we can offer just example.com/profile-name to users for their own marketing reasons.

I'd like to make the example.com/profile-name noindex follow, and have just the example.com/location/profile-name indexed, but not sure if it would be better to implement canonical tags instead? Can anyone see any potential pitfalls of using either method or does it not really make a difference (which is what I suspect, but I'd rather look stupid than get this wrong)?

Thanks!

Has anyone had any experience with seo4ajax.com and moz?

The idea is that it points a bot to a html version of an ajax page (sounds good) without the need for ugly urls. However, I don't know how this will work with rogerbot and whether moz can crawl this. There's a section to add in specific user agents and I've added "rogerbot".

Does anyone know if this will work or not? Otherwise, it's going to create some complications. I can't currently check as the site is in development and the dev version is noindexed currently.

Thanks!

Thanks very much, it was very interesting. It seems like it isn't too much of an issue, or at least, we can make it a non-issue, and it's whatever we think would be best from a design/UX perspective.

We have a website being built that will effectively function like an e-commerce site. When customers search within the site, we will display the results (sometimes hundreds).

We were thinking of implementing infinite scrolling, but with so many results which all function as links to product pages, would this look funny i.e. having too many onpage links? Would the links at the bottom pretty much just be ignored (which is fine) or would they bring disrepute to the results further toward the top of the page?

Thanks!

While I agree with the above comments, it's not always that easy i.e. an ecommerce product page when there is more than one way of naming the product. Also, 1000+ words of unique content on each page in that scenario may look a little bit odd (most people just want a product description and specifications, if necessary).

If she can make two pages, terrific! If not, is it better to combine your keywords?

Thanks for the responses guys.

We were going to just have a unisex version of these pages located on the female sections and have the links on the male part redirect there, but our designer thought this would break the customer process up too much as once on those pages, the only way back to where they were (the male part) would be to click the back bottom on the browser as simply clicking to return home would take them to the home of the female part.

I'll make them canonical them - cheers!

So, we're a service where you can book different hairdressing services from a number of different salons (site being worked on). We're doing both a male and female version of the site on the same domain which users are can select between on the homepage.

The differences are largely cosmetic (allowing the designers to be more creative and have a bit of fun and to also have dedicated male grooming landing pages), but I was wondering about duplicate pages.

While most of the pages on each version of the site will be unique (i.e. [male service] in [location] vs [female service] in [location] with the female taking precedent when there are duplicates), what should we do about the likes of the "About" page?

Pages like this would both be unique in wording but essentially offer the same information and does it make sense to to index two different "About" pages, even if the titles vary?

My question is whether, for these duplicate pages, you would set the more popular one as the preferred version canonically, leave them both to be indexed or noindex the lesser version entirely?

Hope this makes sense, thanks!

Hi,

I work for a site that allows people to book a variety of different services in different locations (mainly hair and beauty related). The site is still in development so I can't link to it I'm afraid.

My colleague is about to start writing these descriptions for each of the beauty salons we have signed up and I thought I'd take the opportunity to check what everyone else thought about these descriptions.

As far as I'm concerned, a near perfect example can be found at http://www.toptable.co.uk/fishers-in-the-city

We have about 100 words at the most, so I was thinking that as long as we get in the name of the salon, the location (being more descriptive than the general area our services search function allows for) and the USP of each salon -  their specialty services.

Is there anything else you'd include? Foremost, I want this to be as descriptive as possible to offer more detailed information about the salon.

Thanks!

Thanks Chris - that's some very helpful and clear advice.

Hi,

I was rather hoping for a little advice on how to best get my content out there. I made a simple, and pretty poor quality (though funny I hope), guide on making homemade slippers for Father's Day - you can find it here http://appointedd.com/blog/homemade-slippers-for-fathers-day/

I guess my question would be, where would you put it up?

Being fairly new to this kind of content creation (and this was only something I did in my spare time), I'm still trying to get my head around some of it.

thanks!

Just started using BuzzStream and have found it really helpful. You can upload domains via various sources and it'll return all the info you want and you can then launch outreach emails from within the software. I'm quite taken by it.

I hated my experience with Wix. It was certainly very pretty and got us a site up in next to no time that did the trick in the short term - if that's what you need, fine.

As far as I'm aware, you can't mark up anything in Wix manually, which is quite a big deal. Having it readable by an engine and having it optimised are very different.

Thanks for all the feedback guys - really appreciated!

Yeah, blog is going through a restructure today and new sitemap submitted tomorrow. Went up on G+ yesterday when it was posted I believe.

Thanks though.

We've a new intern who spent a good few hours writing this article http://appointedd.com/blog/nominees-for-the-british-hairdresser-of-the-year-2013-announced/ - quite a good we one feel.

Our main competitor has taken almost the entire thing word for word and put in up on their blog http://www.inaa.com/apiblog/?p=821

While this is a foolish move on their part, we're still quite offended over the incident as this was the intern's forst article and she'll be looking to add it to her portfolio.

I was wondering what the best practice is in this situation? Is simply writing to them enough if they've demonstrated they're underhanded? Should we call them out on it? I'm simply unsure as I want to protect no only the business but the intern also.

thanks!

Hi,

Firstly, I think I'd clean the homepage out a little. At the moment my eyes are being drawn to every part simultaneously. Have a think about what it is you want the user to interact with first when they land on your homepage - blog, sign up, sales pages?

Once you've got that, work the rest of the page around it. Make your calls to action clearer and the main point of focus.

For instance, it seems like you'd want people to immediately select their bin size right? If so, drop the side panels, it doesn't seem like they're needed there.

Sigh - just wrote a nice long answer and my computer failed. The short of it:

• Guest blogging is fine if it's relevant and good quality.
• Be careful and check where you'r posting and don't do the whole link swap.
• Make it a part of a larger picture.
• Read this http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-guest-bloggers-are-sleepwalking-their-way-into-penalties

Hope this helps!

Thanks - I hadn't encountered this before so immediately panicked. Having spent the last several hours doing research I've calmed down a little and will work around as best I can Really appreciate the help!

Not yet, but I get the impression they weren't very good as they managed to down all emails from the domain while working on it and didn't even realise. Hopefully I'll be able to get some answers tomorrow. If HTML snapshots are being seen (though only by Google, nothing else it seems!) then that's at least better than nothing, but currently, it doesn't seem to be looking like that.

Yeah, we can bring that up for the homepage, but every other example only brings up the original homepage. Do you think this is because the rel="canonical" is pointing back to the homepage on every page?

Thanks for the response - does this mean the search engines are actually finding the information properly in the form of an HTML snapshot?

So does that mean we've lost all of the SEO benefits? I had thought Wix used HTML5 templates.

Hi,

We recently (yesterday) had a developer make a new site for us on Wix http://www.appointeddhq.com/ as the one we were planning to put up had a few teething issues (the beackend booking system wasn't ready and we needed something up immediately for a TV show we were being featured in).

Having now had the chance to look through it, I'm not quite sure what's going on. None of the text appears to be there on any page, I can't find any of the descriptions we gave the developer, the alt tags behind pictures (and even the pics themselves) don't appear to be there, the URLs are messed up, titles are incorrect and there are no title tags to be found. Am I misunderstanding or is the whole site built in java?

Obviously, this is quite a huge issue and I'll want to get it sorted immediately, but I thought it best to see what the good folks here though.

Thanks!

In most themes, but by no means all, the h1 tag is the name of the post or page you're on.

Thanks for all the help! Hopefully that'll be it sorted now. Cheers!

Hi,

I seem to be having a few problems with getting google authors set up on Wordpress. I've set up my G+ account, put the link to my blog http://appointedd.com/blog/ and then registered it on the yoast plugin.

However, I'm not sure it's set up correctly and I can't seem to be able to get it to work.

I'm hoping a fine someone here has experience in this as I'm a little flustered.

thanks.

Thanks!

That's a great idea. This is exactly why I love these Q&A areas, everyone is so willing to help and provide assistance.

Once again, thanks!

Hi,

I know that it's not advised to engage in link swapping activities, but what about when it's actually useful for our readers?

As an example, I'm writing a guest post on a hen party website on how to choose the right hairdresser for your wedding day (relevant content to both their site and mine). They asked if I'd like a post in return about the best way to do makeup if you're going on a fancy dress night or hen party (which is again relevant to both our audience groups and will be of great interest to them).

Is this sort of link swapping okay, when the primary goal is to actually provide our audience with a richer experience, or would this still raise red flags for search engines?

Thanks!

I'd say probably not a good idea. As I understand, you risk having all the content on your site devalued as a result. Also, you run the risk of getting involved in building very weak links that don't have much value and could possibly have penalties involved.

Instead, I'd look to create new content if you're wanting to publish it elsewhere (though I'd still be awfully careful).

Ah, thanks - that's very useful to know. I might try and incorporate a bit of the article content into the title as way suggested by Simon above.

Cheers!

Thanks very much!

I hadn't done that as I'd wanted to keep the sense of consistency week to week, but what you say makes a great deal of sense. Do you think it might might be better to highlight the main article content and then put a consistent part at the end.

As an example, today will mainly be focusing on a new UK cosmetic surgery review, so the title might be "Cosmetic Crisis: UK Cosmetic Report - Beauty Industry News" or do you think it better to simply leave the last part out?

Thanks!

Hi,

I do most of the current copy for our blog which you can find here http://appointedd.com/blog/

I believe having a regular blog structure with a mix of irregular ad hoc posts to go in around these. So, for this blog, I write an article on "Beauty Industry News" every week.

Now, I don't want to use the same title for each post, so I've peen butting in the date after each one i.e. "Beauty Industry News - 24/04/13". Is this best practice or is there a better way of naming regular posts?

Thanks in advance!

Ah - whoops. The more you learn, eh? I'd be interested in the differences between how the two function.

I've been confused about seemingly simple things too and the more you think on them, the more confused you get - it's a horrid cycle sometimes.

What I've been wondering about is Stumble Upon etc. If one does put up content here, and other reputable places, does this become duplicate with what's on the original site? It seems like it would to me, but I'm not certain.

My company was recently approached by someone who's done SEO for some quite big sites, promising a top three position within 4 weeks for a competitive area by "spinning".

Thankfully, my boss swiftly told him we didn't need his services as there's no such thing as a fly-by-knight in reality.

I guess it's just about keeping as up to date as possible so whatever we do has a positive lasting impression. Phew!: does take some work though.

If true, that's pretty terrifying! I've not the experience to really be able to talk on the subject I'm afraid, but I've been putting in a lot of effort trying to learn. The idea that such work might be potentially hazardous is certainly a cause for mild alarm.

Do you suppose just playing things as straight as possible will be enough? Our focus is on creating really compelling articles for our blog and a site that's a cinch to use - fingers crossed!

Hmm, that is a bother. Are you not able to edit the permalinks directly for each of the posts? Sorry, maybe I'm just not following, but why create whole new posts?

Hi,

Would it be possible to delete the old pages if they're not serving any purpose?

As a first port of all, I'd install Yoast for wordpress. It's a very powerful plugin that allows for a great deal of control and can sort duplicate content issues by automatically adding in rel="canonical" tags. There's a great a webinar here http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/advanced-wordpress-seo on seomoz.which also provides a lot of great advice for dealing with archives.

We had too many duplicate titles also, which were created when our pictures were links to themselves - new page but with same title. As a temporary measure, I set up redirects on these back to the posts' page but will go and remove these links later.

I hope this was helpful, if I got it wrong, however, I'm happy to learn!

Thank you, that's what I've done, so that's great.

Brilliant answer, very informative, so thank you.

Hi!

Do you think it better to:

a) have all archives crawled (date, time, category etc.) even though they create duplicate content,. or;

b) disable crawling of all archives?

Ideally, I'd like to set up just excerpts in the archives and have a unique intro for each, but I'm having trouble doing this just now so was wondering which is the smarter option in the meantime?

Thanks very much!

Thank you so much, you're an absolute star!

I know this probably seemed a very obvious question, I just wanted to make sure I had it straight in my head before going down a path.

Hi,

I recently started a very much "learn on the job" SEO position, transitioning from  a copywriting background.

We currently have a wordpress blog up and running (and producing some decent quality content too I hope!) at example.com/blog/ and a sign up page located at example.com (sorry, can't put the address right now) for a site that is being custom built as it's got some nifty software linking to back end systems.

My question is whether the content on the blog will bring SEO benefits to the main domain or whether it'll just be for the blog itself? If the latter, should we navigate the blog onto the a separate page of the main site?

Thanks so much! I'm learning as much as I can as quickly as I can, but somethings still get me in a little bit of a tizzy.