Web Design Forums

freelancr · 24-11-2007, 06:14

I have just recently, in the last month or so, created a website for my mother in law's brand new nursery which is due to open very soon. Here is what I have done to hopefully make the most of SEO, and I think it has worked well as they have had several enquiries which lead to parents registering their children with them when they open, and are 1st on Google for certain keyword combinations.

If nothing else I am just writing this to give ideas to others, and if you know of any other good methods then please feel free to reply. Here is the link to the site, it isn't quite finished yet as I am going to tweak the design a little bit, and add a photo gallery and registration form, so any feedback would be good.

The design and logo was created by our very own Sub, so if you like it visit his site for more info. (The colours for the logo were unfortunately chosen by the client, and we tried several times to get them to agree to a nicer selection that doesn't clash so much.)

Title: Crown House Day Nursery School - Baby, Toddler & Child Care Crèche - Evesham, Worcestershire
Made use of Business Name, Service they provide, and location. Still human readable, but contains plenty of relevant keywords. Pages other than the home page add the name of that page to the start.

META Tags
Used the obvious ones like keywords, description, but also used other rarely used ones like geo.position, geo.placename and geo.region.

Web Standards
The site uses valid XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 2.0, and unobtrusive degradable JavaScript. Also went to the bother of making printer friendly stylesheet and images.

Mod Rewrite (Friendly Urls)
I use mod rewrite to remove the file extension and as I am using PHP it replaces all the "?querystring" stuff to just one word.

Headings
Made the H1 tag the company name throughout the website. Page name is a H2 tag, and other headings use the H3 tag.

Title & Alt Attributes
Made use of these everywhere relevant, for the navigation it explains a little more about the link. Also denotes the accesskey.

Accesskeys
Not sure if these help for SEO, but I try to use them for sites wherever possible. I researched several websites but still didn't find any standard combinations, and it seems the browsers keep changing how accesskeys operate, and dont include it in the help file of the browser. Fucking ridiculous. There should be one way of activating accesskeys in any browser, and there should be a standard for which keys go to which page, otherwise what's the fucking point.

Robots.txt
An old habit, I'm not sure if it achieves much nowadays.

Multiple Domains
For this website I bought the .co.uk to use as the main, and the .com. I did this mainly to stop some prick buying it later and putting christ knows what on it, which could potentially damage the reputation of the company name and lose traffic. The .com redirects (301) to the .co.uk, and any non-www traffic gets redirected (301) to the www "subdomain". I also use Google Mail for the domain, so any email going to the .com domain gets forwarded to the same user, or the catchall, on the .co.uk domain. Very clever.

Sitemap
I have a sitemap page, a help page, and a sitemap.xml.

Google Webmaster Tools
I used this to submit the sitemap.xml file, the robots.txt file and notify google that the main address is www. - as you can tell it whether your main is www. or non-www so you don't get listed twice and penalized. I also use Google Analytics as its nice to print off a report every month to show the nursery. I discovered that in the search results that Google Maps does free business listings, so have submitted to that but waiting for the postcard to be delivered so I can authorize that the business is where I say it is.

Yahoo Site Explorer
Not sure if there are any other webmaster tools Yahoo offer, but I found this yesterday and submitted the address of my sitemap.xml to it, as the site wasn't appearing in this search engine.

MSN/Live Search
With the release of IE7, this has been forced down the throats of people using the search text box on their browser, as it is the default. Most public/employee networks run scripts on login to reset settings to the default so I would expect this search engine has become used more since the release of IE7. I haven't seen anywhere to submit the site, or sitemap, but to be fair I haven't really looked. The site doesn't appear in these results at all, so any advice welcome.

Other search engines
To be honest I think Google, Yahoo and MSN are the main search engines people use. I suppose AOL might be another popular one. Any advice on other search engines to submit url or sitemaps to would be appreciated.

So in conclusion I hope this helps someone, and if you can offer any advice on how I can improve upon my current understanding and methods that would be great!

freelancr · 24-11-2007, 06:36

SEO Expert Services - Submit Sitemap to MSN, Google and Yahoo

Very handy, just submitted the sitemap to Live/MSN and Ask Jeeves too! Also added a sitemap line to my robots.txt file.

WebO · 26-11-2007, 17:27

i thing content is the king of seo technical and Google analytics is The tool !!

pgo · 26-11-2007, 17:59

Nice post, Luke!

d3n!s3_Ü · 29-11-2007, 10:12

Relevant post!

freelancr · 29-11-2007, 10:15

The site seems to be 1st for "evesham day nursery" (google.co.uk: ALL and UK only) and 2nd (google.com) but take away "day" and it doesn't get anywhere close to the top. Not sure if Yahoo/MSN/Ask are ranking it highly yet as I only just submitted it.

anyone else got any tips?

weldo · 29-11-2007, 12:07

i wouldn't use the same h1 across every page - i think you're limiting your use of weighted keywords there !!! (besides - your use of a h1 on that site is inappropriate - thats a logo more than a heading)

i have found that using the same (or similar) text for h1's menu link items and page titles seems to work well.

i also find that text links are better than image links.

and i think good internal cross linking helps to build a strong relationships between yer pages ... and show a bigger site 'picture' to SEs.

Thats not gospel - just personal experience.

Don't forget about backlinks ...

paulanthony · 01-12-2007, 06:25

Make more use of

H2,H3

Bold tags - you can restyle with CSS to drop back to normal weight

Google Webmaster Tools - Add to local listings

Google Webmaster Tools - change location to UK specific searches

Urm...Another tip I heard recently was to use http://www.domain.com/link.htm - so when or if the page gets scraped anywhere you get the backlink effect. Although personally I dont like that one.

Content, Content, Content.

bermuda · 07-12-2007, 08:15

Heading tags can especially help with Yahoo rankings as it still favors on site factors.

adpitch · 11-12-2007, 17:07

...a quite helpful thread. The replies are as well usefull and complete the initial post.

Paul · 11-12-2007, 17:14

nice article luke, follow you on most points. dont' really bother with thmsn stuff, but going to check it out.

i always try keep the pages small and lots of links throughout (obviously a sitemap page) which ollinks the bitches together

mod_rewrite and try using descriptive titles, and page names

ta

transparent_opacity · 26-12-2007, 06:31

Robots.txt - you can specify your sitemap in here too: sitemaps.org - Protocol

Accesskeys - I pinched this paragraph from a local council website once, and 'recycle' it frequently:

"Research suggests that accesskeys could very well conflict with keys that are already assigned by a disabled user's assistive software. As a result, only the following keys (recommended by the UK Government access keys standard) can be used on pages:

Press ALT or CTRL depending on your operating system and browser and:

* S - Skip to main content
* 1 - Home page
* 3 - Site map
* 5 - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
* 9 - Feedback form & Contact us
* 0 - Access key details (this page)"

UK Government Access Keys Standard

Links/Headings/Titles - It may sound obvious, but I simplify SEO into these simple steps. If you want to rank for the phrase 'Fish food':

Make a page with the h1/h2 of 'Fish Food'
Put 'Fish Food' in the <title>
Call the page 'Fish Food' in your nav
Link to the page in other places with 'Fish Food' in the link text
Put a title on those links of 'Fish Food'
Get loads and loads of links from external (relevant) sites with the link text of 'Fish Food'
(most importantly) Have lots of content about 'Fish Food'
Use meaningful URL's either by filename or Mod Rewrite

roto · 26-12-2007, 20:39

Page names themselves deserve some discussion, too. I don't think I saw this mentioned above, and it seems to help...especially on Google.

To build on transparent's "fish food" example above. Let's say you were targeting searches for people looking for tropical fish food, and you created a page with great content for it. IMO, I've found it best to name the page tropical-fish-food.php/.html etc. -- adding other keywords to tailor your needs if needed.

For example...a page on dt:
have-you-ever-been-fooled-photoshopped-image.html

And a possible corresponding position atop Google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...oshopped+image
(although I doubt it will garner many searches, it still illustrates the point. Aside: Google loves dt...that thread was created only 10 days ago and it is already spidered and tops)

You can't get much better than a method in action than that...

proc355 · 05-01-2008, 01:59

top notch thread

24-11-2007, 06:14	#1 (permalink)
freelancr Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2,076	What methods/services/tools do you use to make the most of SEO? Here is what I do... I have just recently, in the last month or so, created a website for my mother in law's brand new nursery which is due to open very soon. Here is what I have done to hopefully make the most of SEO, and I think it has worked well as they have had several enquiries which lead to parents registering their children with them when they open, and are 1st on Google for certain keyword combinations. If nothing else I am just writing this to give ideas to others, and if you know of any other good methods then please feel free to reply. Here is the link to the site, it isn't quite finished yet as I am going to tweak the design a little bit, and add a photo gallery and registration form, so any feedback would be good. The design and logo was created by our very own Sub, so if you like it visit his site for more info. (The colours for the logo were unfortunately chosen by the client, and we tried several times to get them to agree to a nicer selection that doesn't clash so much.) Title: Crown House Day Nursery School - Baby, Toddler & Child Care Crèche - Evesham, Worcestershire Made use of Business Name, Service they provide, and location. Still human readable, but contains plenty of relevant keywords. Pages other than the home page add the name of that page to the start. META Tags Used the obvious ones like keywords, description, but also used other rarely used ones like geo.position, geo.placename and geo.region. Web Standards The site uses valid XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 2.0, and unobtrusive degradable JavaScript. Also went to the bother of making printer friendly stylesheet and images. Mod Rewrite (Friendly Urls) I use mod rewrite to remove the file extension and as I am using PHP it replaces all the "?querystring" stuff to just one word. Headings Made the H1 tag the company name throughout the website. Page name is a H2 tag, and other headings use the H3 tag. Title & Alt Attributes Made use of these everywhere relevant, for the navigation it explains a little more about the link. Also denotes the accesskey. Accesskeys Not sure if these help for SEO, but I try to use them for sites wherever possible. I researched several websites but still didn't find any standard combinations, and it seems the browsers keep changing how accesskeys operate, and dont include it in the help file of the browser. Fucking ridiculous. There should be one way of activating accesskeys in any browser, and there should be a standard for which keys go to which page, otherwise what's the fucking point. Robots.txt An old habit, I'm not sure if it achieves much nowadays. Multiple Domains For this website I bought the .co.uk to use as the main, and the .com. I did this mainly to stop some prick buying it later and putting christ knows what on it, which could potentially damage the reputation of the company name and lose traffic. The .com redirects (301) to the .co.uk, and any non-www traffic gets redirected (301) to the www "subdomain". I also use Google Mail for the domain, so any email going to the .com domain gets forwarded to the same user, or the catchall, on the .co.uk domain. Very clever. Sitemap I have a sitemap page, a help page, and a sitemap.xml. Google Webmaster Tools I used this to submit the sitemap.xml file, the robots.txt file and notify google that the main address is www. - as you can tell it whether your main is www. or non-www so you don't get listed twice and penalized. I also use Google Analytics as its nice to print off a report every month to show the nursery. I discovered that in the search results that Google Maps does free business listings, so have submitted to that but waiting for the postcard to be delivered so I can authorize that the business is where I say it is. Yahoo Site Explorer Not sure if there are any other webmaster tools Yahoo offer, but I found this yesterday and submitted the address of my sitemap.xml to it, as the site wasn't appearing in this search engine. MSN/Live Search With the release of IE7, this has been forced down the throats of people using the search text box on their browser, as it is the default. Most public/employee networks run scripts on login to reset settings to the default so I would expect this search engine has become used more since the release of IE7. I haven't seen anywhere to submit the site, or sitemap, but to be fair I haven't really looked. The site doesn't appear in these results at all, so any advice welcome. Other search engines To be honest I think Google, Yahoo and MSN are the main search engines people use. I suppose AOL might be another popular one. Any advice on other search engines to submit url or sitemaps to would be appreciated. So in conclusion I hope this helps someone, and if you can offer any advice on how I can improve upon my current understanding and methods that would be great! Last edited by freelancr : 24-11-2007 at 06:54.

29-11-2007, 10:12	#5 (permalink)
d3n!s3_Ü Maroon5 lover! ;) Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: PH Posts: 239	Relevant post! __________________ "When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." -Frederic Bastiat Web Designer & Developer

29-11-2007, 12:07	#7 (permalink)
weldo now with added beard Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Liverpool Posts: 5,273	i wouldn't use the same h1 across every page - i think you're limiting your use of weighted keywords there !!! (besides - your use of a h1 on that site is inappropriate - thats a logo more than a heading) i have found that using the same (or similar) text for h1's menu link items and page titles seems to work well. i also find that text links are better than image links. and i think good internal cross linking helps to build a strong relationships between yer pages ... and show a bigger site 'picture' to SEs. Thats not gospel - just personal experience. Don't forget about backlinks ... __________________ fuck signatures Last edited by weldo : 30-11-2007 at 11:09.

01-12-2007, 06:25	#8 (permalink)
paulanthony mingin dawg baitch Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Belfast Posts: 1,035	Make more use of H2,H3 Bold tags - you can restyle with CSS to drop back to normal weight Google Webmaster Tools - Add to local listings Google Webmaster Tools - change location to UK specific searches Urm...Another tip I heard recently was to use http://www.domain.com/link.htm - so when or if the page gets scraped anywhere you get the backlink effect. Although personally I dont like that one. Content, Content, Content. __________________ Web design Ireland

11-12-2007, 17:07	#10 (permalink)
adpitch Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 283	...a quite helpful thread. The replies are as well usefull and complete the initial post. __________________ Global Advertising Industry Links

24-11-2007, 06:36	#2 (permalink)
freelancr Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2,076	SEO Expert Services - Submit Sitemap to MSN, Google and Yahoo Very handy, just submitted the sitemap to Live/MSN and Ask Jeeves too! Also added a sitemap line to my robots.txt file.

26-11-2007, 17:27	#3 (permalink)
WebO Best Web Design SEO Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 2	i thing content is the king of seo technical and Google analytics is The tool !!

26-11-2007, 17:59	#4 (permalink)
pgo i'm done, son Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 12,262	Nice post, Luke!

29-11-2007, 10:15	#6 (permalink)
freelancr Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2,076	The site seems to be 1st for "evesham day nursery" (google.co.uk: ALL and UK only) and 2nd (google.com) but take away "day" and it doesn't get anywhere close to the top. Not sure if Yahoo/MSN/Ask are ranking it highly yet as I only just submitted it. anyone else got any tips?

07-12-2007, 08:15	#9 (permalink)
bermuda Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 5	Heading tags can especially help with Yahoo rankings as it still favors on site factors.

11-12-2007, 17:14	#11 (permalink)
Paul Junkie[scum] Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: location, location Posts: 1,718	nice article luke, follow you on most points. dont' really bother with thmsn stuff, but going to check it out. i always try keep the pages small and lots of links throughout (obviously a sitemap page) which ollinks the bitches together mod_rewrite and try using descriptive titles, and page names ta

26-12-2007, 06:31	#12 (permalink)
transparent_opacity funkin idiot Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Preston Posts: 230	Robots.txt - you can specify your sitemap in here too: sitemaps.org - Protocol Accesskeys - I pinched this paragraph from a local council website once, and 'recycle' it frequently: "Research suggests that accesskeys could very well conflict with keys that are already assigned by a disabled user's assistive software. As a result, only the following keys (recommended by the UK Government access keys standard) can be used on pages: Press ALT or CTRL depending on your operating system and browser and: * S - Skip to main content * 1 - Home page * 3 - Site map * 5 - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) * 9 - Feedback form & Contact us * 0 - Access key details (this page)" UK Government Access Keys Standard Links/Headings/Titles - It may sound obvious, but I simplify SEO into these simple steps. If you want to rank for the phrase 'Fish food': Make a page with the h1/h2 of 'Fish Food' Put 'Fish Food' in the <title> Call the page 'Fish Food' in your nav Link to the page in other places with 'Fish Food' in the link text Put a title on those links of 'Fish Food' Get loads and loads of links from external (relevant) sites with the link text of 'Fish Food' (most importantly) Have lots of content about 'Fish Food' Use meaningful URL's either by filename or Mod Rewrite Last edited by transparent_opacity : 27-12-2007 at 05:28.

26-12-2007, 20:39	#13 (permalink)
roto This is it - ground zero. Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Paper St. Posts: 4,345	Page names themselves deserve some discussion, too. I don't think I saw this mentioned above, and it seems to help...especially on Google. To build on transparent's "fish food" example above. Let's say you were targeting searches for people looking for tropical fish food, and you created a page with great content for it. IMO, I've found it best to name the page tropical-fish-food.php/.html etc. -- adding other keywords to tailor your needs if needed. For example...a page on dt: have-you-ever-been-fooled-photoshopped-image.html And a possible corresponding position atop Google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...oshopped+image (although I doubt it will garner many searches, it still illustrates the point. Aside: Google loves dt...that thread was created only 10 days ago and it is already spidered and tops) You can't get much better than a method in action than that... __________________ fun: HGC v.4 \| last.fm: DT \| me \| *oi! fck u roto: ...via meebo! New to interweb design?** Your friends at dt can help.

05-01-2008, 01:59	#14 (permalink)
proc355 Trailer Trash™ Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 851	top notch thread __________________ meh.

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