SEO Friendly Features in Website

1. SEO Friendly Features in Website We? de?elopers are great: ?ithout the?, ?e ?ould?’t ha?e, ?ell… the ?e?! But u?fortu?atel?, a lot of developers can have a bit of a blind-spot when it comes to SEO. While some on-site SEO features almost always come as standard now (ability to edit meta tags, image alt properties, et?.?, there are so?e i?porta?t areas u?der the hood that ofte? get ?issed. Let’s ha?e a look Analytics (Google or Otherwise) A decent analytics package is essential for any web marketing effort, both for measuring results and gaining insight into how your site is being found and used. Plus, as any marketeer knows, access to historical data from a site at the beginning of a campaign is almost priceless. And yet, it’s a?azi?g ho? ?a?? sites, ?ig a?d s?all, are lau??hed ?ithout a?alytics. Get it on there from the get go and get it set up properly! Semantic URLs A semantic URL is essentially an address for a page that is human-readable and conveys useful i?for?atio?. A? e?a?ple for a page o? ??lue ?idgets? ?ould ?e: www.example.com/techi-webi/ However, all too often we see pages with addresses such as this: www.example.com/index.php?page_id=46 The reason we see this latter version so often is that it is much easier to implement. The trouble is that it’s a disaster for SEO! Although o?-page factors are not that important compared to link

2. building, by and large, having keywords in the URL is the single most important part of on-page optimization. Make sure your developer implements semantic URLs on your site and gives you control over ea?h page’s URL –?o e??uses! Although ?ou do?’t get pe?alized for usi?g a ?o?-semantic URL stru?ture, ?ou’re ?issi?g out o? a ?ig opportu?it?… a?d ?ha?gi?g it after the site has go?e li?e can be a big headache. XML Sitemaps Site?aps do?’t ha?e a great i?pa?t u?less ?our site is o? the large side, ?ut the?’re eas? to set up a?d ?ost ?othi?g, so are al?a?s ?orth usi?g. It’s ?ot a pro?le? to ge?erate these ?a?uall? (there are several free tools for doing this), but if your site is dynamic or updated often, this can become a real pain pretty quickly. It’s ?u?h ?etter for the site’s CMS to update the site ?ap auto?ati?all? ?he?e?er the site ?ha?ges. A lot of pa?kages ?ill do this ?ati?el? or ?ith the aid of a plugi?, ?ut if ?ou’re ha?i?g a custom CMS written, make sure the developer includes this facility. Controlling Indexation If you have a large site, Google will almost never index your entire site: they have a percentage cap of the number of your pages that they will keep in the index. Now, discussing how much of the site they decide to index and upon which pages they bestow the honor of indexation is a post for another time, but suffice to say for now that although you definitely can’t tell Google which pages to index, you cantell the? ?hi?h pages ?ou defi?itel? do?’t ?a?t i?de?ed. You do this with this meta tag in the head of the page: [?eta ?a?e=?ro?ots? ?o?te?t=??oi?de?,follo?? /] Agai?, if ?ou’?e got a s?all or stati? site, this is?’t a pro?le? to set up ?a?uall?, ?ut for larger sites ?ou’ll ?eed to ?e a?le to ?o?trol this through the CMS. You ?a? e?e? ?a?t to de?elop a strategy for noindexing pages automatically –if the?’re ?ot getti?g sear?h traffi? a???a?, for e?a?ple. Ideall?, ?es, ?e’d like ?e?er to ha?e to do this ki?d of thing, but if Google are only goi?g to i?de? a part of ?our site a???a?, ?ou’d ?etter ?ake sure it’s the part that ?ou?ts. 301 Redirects Ho?estl?, ?ould this ?e ?ore i?porta?t? U?fortu?atel?, a lot of de?elopers do?’t thi?k so.

3. If ?ou’re ?igrati?g fro? a? old site, making sure that pages from the old version are redirected to the ?e? is ?ital ?assu?i?g that the page ?a?es or URL stru?ture has ?ha?ged?, ?ut it’s also important that your new CMS creates 301s automatically if you remove or change the URL of any page –so?ethi?g that ?ou’ll i?e?ita?l? e?d up doi?g if ?ou ?ork a?ti?el? o? ?our site. Agai?, so?e CMSs do this ?ati?el? or through plugi?s, ?ut ?a?? do?’t. If ?ou’re ha?i?g something custom written or your developer is using something off the shelf, make sure it handles 301s for changed pages properly. Canonicalization Sorting out canonicalization of URLs from the start is another must –?ou do?’t ?a?t Google to see dupli?ate ?o?te?t o? ?our site e?e? for a? i?sta?t, or it’ll ?e re?i?di?g ?ou of it through Webmaster Tools for evermore. The first step is www versus non-??? ?a?o?i?alizatio?. Fro? a? SEO perspe?ti?e, it does?’t matter which you choose, but you have to choose one and stick to it. Implementing it involves just a simple 301 redirect rule and is easy for your developer to do. The second step is making sure that your CMS, e-?o??er?e pa?kage or other platfor? is?’t ge?erati?g ?ultiple URLs for ea?h page, a?d is?’t addi?g a lot of e?tra?eous data to URLs. This might sound like a no-brainer, but Magento, for example, makes each page available by three different URLs by default. Checking to see if you have this problem is relatively straightforward – use a tool such as Xe?u’s Li?k Sleuth??es, it’s a ?raz? site? to ?he?k the ?u??er of pages o? your site. If it’s ?a? higher tha? ?ou ?ere e?pe?ti?g, ?ou’?e got a pro?le?. If ?ou’?e ?ot fi?ed this problem before the site goes live, that means a lot of 301 redirects to set up as you rationalise the URL structure. Lastly, implement the canonical tag itself. At it’s ?ost ?asi? le?el, this tag tells Google ?hat the defi?iti?e URL of a page should ?e. If ?our CMS defi?itel? is?’t ge?erati?g ?ultiple URLs per page, it is still worth implementing, as it will help prevent potential problems caused by incoming links with extra URL data in them (e.g., tracking tags from mailing list software, etc.). The canonical tag is dead easy to implement and should appear on every page. It looks like this: [li?k rel=??a?o?i?al? href=?http://???.e?a?ple.?o?/page.ht?l? /] Google is expanding the remit of this hu??le tag o?er ti?e as ?ell, so it’s ?orth keepi?g a? e?e on what you can and should be doing with it –it all helps ?ith Google’s i?de?atio? of ?our site. Site Speed Hardcore coders are often obsessed with speed. This is a good thing, as site speed is now a part of Google’s ra?ki?g algorith? ?although perhaps ?ot a large part… ?et?. The pro?le? is that the

4. ?ai? issues to do ?ith a site’s perfor?a??e are ?ot to do ?ith the ?ode itself ?at least ?ot for most smaller sites), but rather to do with things such as HTTP request optimization, combining and compressing external files, loading JavaScript asynchronously, using cookie-less domains, etc. If all that sou?ds prett? te?h?i?al… ?ell, it is. Lu?kil?, ?ou do?’t ?eed to u?dersta?d how to do it –?ou just ?eed to ask ?our de?eloper to look after it for ?ou. If the?’re ?ot alread? o? the ?all ?ith site speed, a ?u??er of free tools ?ill audit a site’s perfor?a??e a?d ?ake re?o??e?datio?s for i?pro?e?e?t, su?h as the Google’s Page Speed suite. You may also want to ask your developer about using a content delivery network such as Cloud Flare. Going to to?? o? ?our site’s speed reall? ?a? ?ake a surprisi?gl? ?ig differe??e! Summing Up Making sure that your developer gets these basics sorted right from the beginning will get your on-site SEO running like clockwork, leaving you free to concentrate on building links and great content. None of them are optional! Source: http://www.techiwebi.com/article/seo-friendly-features-in-website