Duplication

Do I really need to write unique page titles? Unfortunately so. Having the same or very similar page titles may trigger a switch in Google. Previously sites that would spam Google often had very similar page titles within the site. So Google uses that factor to determine how useful your site could be for users.

Does the same hold true for Meta Descriptions? I'd say yes. Use your meta descriptions wisely. They should obviously be of the same theme as your page titles, just a bit longer and more wordy. A short paragraph perhaps.

How do I know if I've got a duplication problem? The process should be:

1. Make sure you've got the Google Toolbar installed
2. Go around your site and see if any pages that have been around for a couple of months either have PR "0" or have the toolbar greyed out.
3. Copy the page title and search for it in Google. If it doesn't appear, then you've probably got a problem.
4. Check in Google Webmaster Tools and navigate to the Diagnostics section and then click "Content Analysis". If you have many pages that are listed as "duplicates" then you've got a problem and will need to take remedial action.

Site Structure

Does it matter if I've got really long URLs with loads of question marks in? About three years a go it would be a fairly significant problem. Today it's less of a problem, but it still exists. The main issue with page URLs with many variables within them are that often you'll create a site with the variables in a different order or forget some and the content will be exactly the same. This may trip the duplication switch in the Google ranking algorithm. It's best to use flat html/php/asp pages such as www.domain.com/widgetcolor/widgetsize.htm.

What should I think about when organising my site? If you make it easy for humans to navigate then it should be easy for the Search Engines. Think about text based navigation with links that organise your content logically. Always have alternatives to drop down menus, don't use flash navigation or splash pages and try not to use images as links.

Also don't make people click more than 4 links from your homepage to get to any content on your site.

Site Content

What should I have on my web shop? Obviously products, legal information, delivery notices etc. But have detailed and unique product reviews. You're probably not the only one selling what you're selling so make it different to you competitors' pages.

You may like to add a blog where you offer interesting information, videos, photos, behind-the-scenes info etc. People will often link to this for free or without being prompted.

What's all this long tail gubbins? Most website owners think about the main keywords that their competitors are targeting. It's far more productive in the long term and will help your site enormously if you just forget SEO for a bit when writing content for the first 3 or 4 months of a site. Just focus exclusively on writing content that is useful to your users. The amount of traffic you'll get from writing naturally can be mind-boggling!

What should I write in my links to my other pages? There is definite benefit of having the content of your links to match the keywords that people will use to search for your products and services. But I would never have that text link match exactly the content of the <title> or <h1> tags of the target page - Google may use that to determine if you're trying to spam them.

I've heard header tags are good. Are they? Yes, but like everything don't over do it. Just like the content of your links, don't have your <title>, <h1>, <h2> etc be identical.

Do I need to use alt tags? Yes, its good for visual site readers and there's some debate about being good for SEO. Regardless of that, they're useful to your visitors!

What's all this rel="nofollow" stuff? A much under-utilised tool. Most websites contain pages that you're not really interested in getting into Google. You can use rel="nofollow", possibly combined with a correctly created robots.txt to funnel the search engines towards the pages that matter. There are some advanced tactics that use this method which can be highly productive when working with large database driven sites.

Do I need a robots.txt? Probably. It's good to organise your site, and keep search engines and other robots out of sections you don't want them in. You combine this with .htaccess or modification of your IIS settings - consult your web developer before you do anything with this.

Social Media

What is social media? It is basically been around before ecommerce, but it's just being used more intelligently now. Its, newsgroups, message boards, forums, blogs - basically any site or service that allows people to communicate and other people to witness that conversation (unlike email).

Should I be using it? It depends on who you are, what you offer and what you want to achieve. Contact us answering those questions and we'll try and help.