Archive for the ‘SEO Techniques’ Category

Scheduling: One of The Great Website Tools

Creating and posting fresh content on a regular basis is one of the standard tactics of SEO. Providing this constant content is a severe drain on resources, and one of the major drawbacks of this tactic. However, don’t worry because scheduling technologies may be the answer to your problems.

The problem

If you’ve just hired a SEO company to provide services for your site, it won’t be long before they bring up the issue of constant content provision, probably just after going over your current content with a fine-toothed comb. It usually takes a bit of persuasion for companies to see how important fresh content is. For most established sites, the issues they usually face have to do with the technical side of things, rather than what actually appears on their pages. To change gears from ‘we need to update our servers’ to ‘we need to find an article on boot polishing techniques’ is not an easy task, but eventually the message sinks in. Content needs to be updated regularly.

This creates a whole new set of problems. Where will the content come from? What is it going to be about? How much will you need? How frequently does it have to be supplied? These are all questions whose answers will depend to a large extent on your business, although talking to an SEO consultant can help. Our experts at SEO Consult can help you sort out your individual answers.

Do you have time for constant content?

Once you’ve got the answers, you need to figure out how your content plan will fit in with your business. Not many business owners have the time or the inspiration to sit down and compose a 250-word article twice a day, but this may well be what is required.

There are plenty of viable solutions to this particular problem. Web writers are everywhere, and there are numerous sites that act as intermediaries between writers and contractors. Most SEO companies provide content provision services, meaning that your site’s search engine optimisation plan is taken into account within the content. You may even find a member of staff that is a closet writer. After this problem is solved, however, you come across the next major hitch: when exactly to post.

Investigate your options

Happily for stressed site owners, numerous technologies exist that allow you to schedule content publication. If you’re running a blog through Word Press software, for example, nothing is easier than uploading several posts and scheduling when they will appear. If you are feeding content to your site’s pages directly, or using other methods to add content, you will need to investigate your site’s existing technologies. Talking to a web consultant can be of help in this instance.

If you are able to access scheduling technologies, the problem of constant content gets a lot easier. Pieces can be bought up in bulk or assigned to several writers at the same time, then uploaded at your convenience. A little research may be all that you need for more efficient content posting.

SEO: Why Dynamic URLs are so Problematic

Dynamic content can be a boon to a site. It allows you to address individual user needs, keep your content fresh-looking, and basically do a lot that static content just can’t do. The major problem dynamic content presents for most sites is that the URLs produced for dynamic content are not friendly to the search engines. This can seriously drag your pages back in the results pages.

When do you know when you have a problem with a dynamic URL? Basically, you know because it features on your site. SEO experts habitually change any dynamic or dynamic-looking URL during optimisation so that it at least looks static. Many do their best to discourage clients from using dynamic URLs at all on their site, as this makes SEO much easier. This means that any URL with ‘?’ or ‘&’ featured may need to be changed.

The many problems with dynamic URLs

The search engines are known to dislike dynamic URLs, although it’s rarely explained exactly why this is. Mostly, it’s thought that the extra characters in the URLs confuse the search engines. This, however, isn’t the only issue that can arise from dynamic URLs.

Problem 1: Confusing characters

This is the most commonly known of the issues that the search engines have with dynamic URLs. Basically, the non-alphabet characters used by dynamic URLs are thought to confuse the search engines.

Problem 2: A short stop

It is also thought that the search engines read only part of a dynamic URL. This means that a large number of your pages appear to have the same URL, with obvious complications for planning SEO.

Problem 3: A waste of SEO potential

The most frustrating thing about dynamic URLs from a search engine optimisation point of view is that a valuable SEO asset is actively discouraging the search engines. URLs are a great place to feature keywords. The search engines tend to rank sites higher when the keyword is in the domain name or URL. The hints are there every time you perform a search yourself. Filling a URL with dynamic information is a waste of opportunity.

Many websites have dynamic URL problems. Although sites that feature shopping carts and other transactional technology are the ones that most commonly suffer from these problems, a number of non-commerce sites discover that their features set up URLs which become problematic. If you’re thinking about adding a forum feature or individually tailoring content to site users, it can help to discuss your technology options with an SEO consultant. You can talk to our experts at SEO Consult about this problem.

Dynamic URLs can be worked around in a number of ways. Most site owners opt to have their dynamic URLs rewritten, which can take time and may require the services of a programmer. Some remove the technology causing dynamic URLs, a big move. Some sites on Linux servers opt for redirects to static URLs, taking care to rewrite their internal links as well. The path you take depends on your circumstances, but professional advice may come in handy.