Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Mat,

Not dull at all, thank you! Yes that is the struggle I face. The designers want something similar to this:

http://www.smokeybones.com/

http://www.blue-leaf.co.uk/

I'm thinking we can have a long scrolling page like this for the homepage but have a more traditional layout with inner pages.

We get most of our leads from organic search so we can't afford to lose out on SEO in favour of design.

Any more input from Mat or anyone else is very welcome

I'm an SEO at a Web Design Agency and we are just about to start work on a new site. We have a complete blank slate to work with and the designers / developers will honor any requests I make.

I'm not asking you guys to do my job for me, I've been doing a lot of research and I have a large feature set ready. However I am interested in what you guys would go for in this situation. What cool new SEO features can we use? Any examples of websites that you like?

The creatives are very keen on HTML5, parallex scrolling and very minimalist design. I need to make sure we can achieve these things whilst also have a super optimised site.

Any suggestions / examples?

Thanks

Does anyone care to share their view on my last?

I have ran backlink checks and they have a site wide footer links from 2 of their other businesses. This has created thousands of backlinks with the exact same anchor text. Do you think this could cause a problem?

I'm thinking of reducing it to just 2 links each from the 2 sites.

Other than that the backlink make up looks pretty normal except for the repeated anchor texts.

Thanks for all the responses guys. I have taken them on-board. 1 thing I have noticed...

I have ran backlink checks and they have a site wide footer links from 2 of their other businesses. This has created thousands of backlinks with the exact same anchor text. Do you think this could cause a problem?

I'm thinking of reducing it to just 2 links each from the 2 sites.

Other than that the backlink make up looks pretty normal except for the repeated anchor texts.

Thanks

I had a meeting today with a prospective client who has been hit by Penguin. Their previous SEO company has obviously used some questionable techniques which is great for me, bad for the client. Their leads have dropped from 10 per day to 1 or 2. Their analytics shows a drop after the 25th, a back link check shows a lot of low quality links. Domain metrics are pretty good and they are still ranking ok for some keywords. I have 1 month to turn it around for them. How do you wise people think it can be done? First of all I will check the on-site optimisation. I will ensure that the site isn't over optimised. Secondly, do I try and remove the bad links? Or just hit the site with good content and good links to outweigh the bad ones. Also, do you think G is actually dropping rankings for the over optimisation / bad links or are the links are just being discredited rsulting in the drop in rankings. 2 very different things. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

We have made the change!

http://burfieldcreative.co.uk/

We have put the redirects in place and carried out the domain change procedure with google. If anybody can check everything is in order  that would be most appreciated.

Thanks for all your advice.

We have made the change!

http://burfieldcreative.co.uk/

We have put the redirects in place and carried out the domain change procedure with google. If anybody can check everything is in order  that would be most appreciated.

Thanks for all your advice.

Thanks for the response. Yes the reason is that the company has grown and already rebranded to burfieldcreative. We need to make this switch one day...

There will be a like for like relationship on the urls and we have hired a .htaccess expert to implement the redirects.

We are carrying out the full domain change procedure in Google webmaster tools.

Please see my previous thread here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/change-of-domain-procedure

We are carrying this out today but I am still unsure if I want to put my neck on the line!

Thanks for the response.

1. 60% use www. because:

a. There name server sets it up for them automatically

b. They think that is the only option

c. Don't realise that you maybe reducing diluting the keyword % of the domain name (A metric that is obviously considered by search engines)

2. Surely those numbers are mainly for www.jamesburfield.co.uk and not www.burfieldcreative.co.uk? It is hard to separate the back link numbers due to the new redirecting to the old. As we are doing a redirect anyway why not go to the non www?

The screen shots are great (thanks) but the tests we really need to do are:

www.burfieldcreative.co.uk

burfieldcreative.co.uk

As then we can compare the weightiness of the 2 options and see which is best.

What do you think?

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the reply. The old domain is http://www.jamesburfield.co.uk and the new domain is http://www.burfieldcreative.co.uk.

This new domain has been 'played around with' previously but it's pretty much a fresh start I think (worth checking though!). Therefore I thought we might as well get off to the best possible start and that would involve (I think) dropping the www.

So now I have 2 questions if I may...

1. Theoretically if this was a brand new domain with no history is it better to set the non www as the preferred? Of course we would redirect the alternative.
2. How can I find out which version is juiciest as the new domain is on the google radar, I want to choose the most prominent version.

Thanks for your detailed reply.

Gareth

We are planning on changing our domain next week. Everything has been covered including google change of domain procedure and redirects etc.

I plan on dropping the www during this move as it is redundant and dilutes the keyword density of the domain.

What do you guys think of this? Is it worth doing?

Thanks,

Gareth

Hi Guys,

I have been tasked with conducting a change of domain for our company website. The website will be exactly the same, just  change from www.jamesburfield.co.uk to www.burfieldcreative.co.uk.

This was attempted before but my boss got cold feet and switched back after he saw a drop in rankings. (He put in the redirects and went through the change of domain procedure with google).

I have told him that I think its possible with minimal disruption and we have agreed even with some disruption it will better in the long run for the company.

Here is the process I intend to follow:

1. Copy and upload site to new domain

2. Redirect all pages with a wildcard or individually - possibly drop the www also

3. Follow the change of domain procedure in webmaster tools

4. Change the href of as many as possible back links to point at the new domain

Please let me know your thoughts on my plan and if there is anything else I can do to ensure we maintain our rankings.

Any help is appreciated as this is my suggestion and my neck is on the line!

Thanks guys!

Gareth