Ask me Anything - Search Engine Optimization Expert

Tax Evader said:
Interesting you mention backlinko. I've been following Brian Dean's free stuff for a little while. He comes across really well and I'm tempted to buy in to his SEO That Works 2. Have you any experience of his paid-for material?
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I guess paid for material would be similar to what quicksprout did (with Brian) in their video series.

Not bad but all depends on what level you are at ATM.
 
Hey m8 - I'm looking at redesigning a website for a friend. His current site for his small business was completed about 6-8 years ago and is looking very dated. He wants a refresh of it to bring it up to date with aesthetics and standards compliance (current site isn't responsive at all).

Now, the thing is that for maybe 4 or 5 different key phrases, his site is ranking on page 1 of Google and varying between the top 3 or 4 results. Naturally we would like this to continue. I intended leaving the email side of the domain with his current hosting provider and planned simply on pointing the domain at my nameservers. But what I'm unsure of is will have any impact or bearing on the current excellent search ranking he has achieved over the past few years?

Thanks.
 
Draeger said:
Hey m8 - I'm looking at redesigning a website for a friend. His current site for his small business was completed about 6-8 years ago and is looking very dated. He wants a refresh of it to bring it up to date with aesthetics and standards compliance (current site isn't responsive at all).

Now, the thing is that for maybe 4 or 5 different key phrases, his site is ranking on page 1 of Google and varying between the top 3 or 4 results. Naturally we would like this to continue. I intended leaving the email side of the domain with his current hosting provider and planned simply on pointing the domain at my nameservers. But what I'm unsure of is will have any impact or bearing on the current excellent search ranking he has achieved over the past few years?

Thanks.
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You can preserve rankings if you 301 redirect the pages to the relevant ones without changing the structure.

You can find articles like this to help you out

https://moz.com/blog/how-to-avoid-an-seo-disaster-when-changing-your-website

Checklists are pretty good just in case you forget about something.
 
africanos23 said:
You can preserve rankings if you 301 redirect the pages to the relevant ones without changing the structure.

You can find articles like this to help you out

https://moz.com/blog/how-to-avoid-an-seo-disaster-when-changing-your-website

Checklists are pretty good just in case you forget about something.
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Thanks, much appreciated.

africanos23 said:
You can preserve rankings if you 301 redirect the pages to the relevant ones without changing the structure.
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Could you explain that in a little more depth? :cool:
 
I guess the main question is, how do you rank as a small site starting out. Sure you can design the website, and pay for advertising but how can you get a decent ranking (without spamming)? It's impossible to create a 'viral/excellent' guide to launch your site... lets be realistic.

All guides etc I read seem to state months to see if it has an effect, I am not expecting instant as soon as a post is published results... but who can wait 6 months to see if what was written in an article ranks?

Plus, Google Analytics doesn't seem to track for a new site - keep getting referral spam (.ru etc) so how can you realistically track traffic?

Shame this area of the forum isn't more active.
 
Gangster said:
I guess the main question is, how do you rank as a small site starting out. Sure you can design the website, and pay for advertising but how can you get a decent ranking (without spamming)? It's impossible to create a 'viral/excellent' guide to launch your site... lets be realistic.

All guides etc I read seem to state months to see if it has an effect, I am not expecting instant as soon as a post is published results... but who can wait 6 months to see if what was written in an article ranks?

Plus, Google Analytics doesn't seem to track for a new site - keep getting referral spam (.ru etc) so how can you realistically track traffic?

Shame this area of the forum isn't more active.
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You can rank in less than a month for low-mid volume terms pretty easily with a few tricks (nothing blackhat btw).

For referral spam use filters in GA or htaccess rules.
 
Some great tips, Just want to pipe up about HTTPS, Nowadays no reason not to consider it when it is free with https://letsencrypt.org/ i use it across many sites that have no budget for SSL but still take customer details like newsletters / contact us etc.
 
Here is an interesting question that just popped into my head.

We're writing material to be published in a blog in English. We have a Welsh branch too and the UK has many different languages used. I know google chrome etc will auto translate pages once you are on them but what about when people are searching?

If I create a blog titled "7 reasons that using a Will Writer could save you money!" and someone searched in English for something like that it would appear, but what if someone searched using Welsh or Polish, will it also appear or just results in Welsh or Polish?

Does that makes sense? :D
 
Following on from my earlier question on preserving SEO ranking if moving a website, I've read in various places including a blog post from Matt Cutts that 301 Redirects are really only required if you are actually changing the domain name of a website. What I intend on doing is keeping the domain and urls exactly the same but simply change where the website is hosted by pointing the domain at the IP of the new server. The site will be redesigned and freshened up but the urls will remain the same as will the domain name itself. Would be interested to hear any comments on whether this is correct or not as far as not requiring a 301 Redirect put in place is concerned?

Ta!! :)
 
Draeger said:
Following on from my earlier question on preserving SEO ranking if moving a website, I've read in various places including a blog post from Matt Cutts that 301 Redirects are really only required if you are actually changing the domain name of a website. What I intend on doing is keeping the domain and urls exactly the same but simply change where the website is hosted by pointing the domain at the IP of the new server. The site will be redesigned and freshened up but the urls will remain the same as will the domain name itself. Would be interested to hear any comments on whether this is correct or not as far as not requiring a 301 Redirect put in place is concerned?

Ta!! :)
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As English says, the website structure isn't changing and although the hosting changes it will make no difference.
 
Quick question, are alt tags for images still seen as important? I've just finished a site, which I won't link to as its an ecommerce site and I don't think I can here, and now I'm just seeing what the best use of my time is regarding SEO.

The basics are there, with meta data in place, but the images are not tagged so might do that bit by bit. There are over 2000 product pages though : p

Also, is there a good critique site where you can put links to sites that are fairly looked at etc?

Thanks
 
From what i was told last year, images names and alt tags all help SEO.

If you google "pink elephants" it also runs off and finds images with the name "pink elephants", alt tags are extremely important from an accessibility point of view. If a person with a visual impairment is browsing your site and a competitor and you have alt tags and theirs doesn't, who do you think they are going to use?

As for crit sites, i am guessing you want yours ripped down so you can fix anything. If you can't post it here (you can always as a mod if it is allowed) then I'd look at web dev facebook groups and post it in there asking for feedback.
 
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