Most Australian Search Engine Service consultants have to work with their clients’ existing web hosts and domain names, leaving little opportunity to use these important elements as part of their overall Australian SEO strategy.

These tips are sure to help you execute your SEO strategy and choose your host and domain names with SEO in mind.

SEO tips on choosing a web host

• The server of your host should be in Australia, where most of your customers are, as Google will consider the IP address in its algorithms. If the main server of your host is in China your site will rank well on google.cn, but not so well in Australia, on google.com.au. So for example; you should host your main website in Australia, but when you build a micro-site of your website for your Chinese customers, make sure it is hosted locally, so both sites are ranked well in their respective local Google rankings.
• Your web host should offer a fast service. If your pages load too slowly the search engine spider will ‘time out’ and your site will not be fully indexed.
• Your web host should also be reliable and not have a lot of down time. Even if your site is down when your customers are not on it, if the spider happens to visit your site at that time, the same time-out code will be activated. The total number of timed-out queries will negatively affect your rankings.

SEO tip on choosing domain names

Google attaches the greatest importance to the words it sees first and the very first block of text a search engine spider sees is your full URL (so your domain name and directory structure). This has two important implications;

• A domain name ending in .com.au is a clear indication of your location, Australia, and helps you in your rankings on the local SE.

• It’s fair to say a keyword heavy domain name would be an ideal way to boost your rankings

If you are fortunate enough to start a website from scratch, you should obviously do keyword research first so you can use the outcome to choose a domain name. This ensures a huge head start on Google rankings.

I realise this is difficult for most as a keyword heavy domain name may appear spammy or you would prefer to use a business name instead. Fair enough of course. In that case you could get some keyword heavy domain names to use as landing pages of certain campaigns, or use them as your business blog.

Good luck!

Guarantee SEO success

Duplicate content is a problem for many sites, often the site owner does not even realize his/her site has this problem and is being penalized by Google and other search engines, whilst loosing valuable PageRank. Let me explain this in more detail and offer you a simple solution;

Canonicalization

Let’s get the terminology out of the way first. Canonicalisation is computer speak and means the same page can be represented in more than one way.

For example, you may not be aware your home page may have the following versions;

1)      www.example.com.au

2)      example.com.au

3)      www.example.com.au/

4)      example.com.au/

5)      www.example.com.au/index.html

6)      example.com.au/index.html

7)      www.example.com.au/home.aspx

8)      example.com.au/home.aspx

Is this a problem? YES

Should you care about it? YES!

Why is duplicate content a problem?

1)      If Google indexes your website and your home page shows up several times, google will think you have duplicate content. Google penalizes you for having duplicate content! Its plagiarism or old fashioned cheating, and you should try and avoid it at all costs.

2)      All your back links go to any of the above 8 versions of your homepage. Each version of your homepage will attain its own ranking which dilutes the PageRank of your preferred (canonical) page. Why share the linking-love with all these pages that are essentially the same?

How can you find out if you have a duplicate content problem?

Type into the Google search box:

site: example.com.au

You may now find that Google has indexed more than one URL for your home page eg.

1)      example.com.au

2)      example.com.au/home.htm

How do you solve Google having indexed several URLs which are essentially the same?

-          Ideally you avoid having more than one version per page from the very beginning, so make sure you or your content management system (CMS) creates standardized URLs which are always the same.

-          Also make sure you are consistent yourself when it comes to linking internally and have all your preferred (canonical )links in your sitemap.

-          Use Google Webmaster Tools to tell the Google spider about your preferred URL. This is a free tool to use and works best if you set it up from the start.

All this does not clean up all the non-canonical URLs you may have floating around though. If you have found that you have a duplicate content issue you can do a number of things. Best practice is to insert a canonical link element or set up a 301 redirect.

Canonical Link Element (UPDATED CONTENT 22-dec 2009)

Insert a canonical link element into the head section of your website. Google announced on 15th Dec that this link element now also can be used for cross domains.  It tells the search engines which of the various URLs you want to be the ‘official’ URL. It looks like this:

<head>

<link rel=”canonical” href=http://yourdomain.com.au/page.html />

</head>

It is a great solution for when you or your web developers do not have time or are not able to set up a permanent 301 redirect. Remember, the tag is used a suggestion not as a directive.

Permanent (301) redirect

You can also use a permanent (301) redirect from all your non-canonical pages to your canonical or preferred pages.  It is very similar to the canonical link element, but it is the preferred method of migrating content. It not a suggestion but a very clear directive.  So you can redirect www.anotherexample.com.au to www.example.com.au

Client Website Revamp – Risk of losing PageRank

Redirecting pages to new keyword rich URLs

I recently helped a client with the on-page optimization of their new website.

Firstly, they conducted keyword research and found that in order to achieve better ranking they had to slightly change the keyword combinations they were using. This affected their page titles and URL structure.

Their existing site already has been around for years and they did not want to lose all the back links to their current pages, even though those were not keyword optimized.

The simplest way to avoid losing their PageRank was to set up permanent (301) redirects from their old pages to their new.  This way they could continue with the optimization of their site and implement the new keyword phrases into their structure and content without risking going down on the Search Result Pages.

In an ideal world each and every company would consider to do Search Engine Optimisation before they start building a website.

Having a website built involves deciding on the structure of your site; You need to decide  which pages should be in your top level navigation, which pages in your section-pages (next level down) and which in your category pages (next level down) and what should be in your content pages (next level after that. You’ll also be likely to buy a domain name.

But consider this…

• How do you know how your customers are most likely to search for your company or your services/product online?
• How will people who have never heard of your company name find you?
• What keywords are your competitors using and
• What combination of keywords provides you with new online opportunities?

Keyword research and is by far the most important component of SEO.

Let’s look at this in a simplistic but practical example:Charlie is opening up an online golf store. For simplicity’s sake he will only sell products of the major brand ‘ABC’. He will structure his site according to the different products he thinks he should sell. So he decides his content silos are; (golf) shoes, bags, balls and clubs.

We managed to convince Charlie to do some keyword research before he goes ahead with the design of his website. After some keyword analysis Charlie found that the words ‘ABC clubs’ were too competitive but ‘ABC equipment’ still provided him with plenty of searchers per month to entice to his store. Charlie will use this information to work on top rankings for ABC equipment, as top rankings for ABC clubs is out of his league for now. He can now work on his page content as he now knows which words to use.

He also finds that there are a lot of searches done for golf books. When he finds the competition is fairly low, he decides to add books to his product offerings. (He adds another content silo)

He also found that ‘ABC carry bags’ and ‘ABC golf bags’ get very different search results. He realises that behind every set of search terms is a different buyer so he decides on a different structure for his website. He will need separate pages for different types of golf bags. (he needs an additional level in his navigation) This way, the customer searching for a carry bag can instantly be guided to the page with carry bags and she does not have to sift through different types of bags once she landed on Charlie’s website.

This is a simple example to clarify why doing keyword research BEFORE you have your website built could really benefit you.

The decision to do keyword research has helped clarify three things for Charlie;

1) He knows which words are too competitive and he can write his content with the words he knows he has a chance to reach top 3 rankings for.

2) He learned that there was room for an additional product. The amount of searches done for golf books, and the lack of competition for these keywords, have opened his eyes for opportunity. He will quite easily be able to ‘win’ a lot of the traffic for golf books. (Don’t build a website selling golf books, this is just an example)

3) He also learned that 1 level navigation was not enough and that he needs a 2nd level. The next level down will specify different types of bags/shoes etc.

He can now tell his designers how many branches and levels he needs in his website because his keyword research informed him about different buyers he can now service with their own pages. He has saved himself the time and money to have to make changes to his site AFTER the launch.

So, consider SEO before you build your website. The keywords will help you determine your final structure and the number of navigational levels your site needs.