Website Development, Tips And Tricks

Bleed

Okay, I am not a website guru, or anything alike, but I do have a decent knowledge built up within last 13 years (when I've setup my first website). Every here and then, when I'd stay at home, I would browse the web and try to learn as much as I can on how to make a website, and stay in touch with the latest news, and technologies when it comes to Mister G (Google).
I would like to help as much as I can to everyone over here on CT with this post as a series of tips and tricks on how to create/rebuild/update your website so that Mister G ranks you higher on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). I'll try to keep this post updated every few days or so. If you need a help with a specific problem, send me a pm, and I'll help ASAP.
P.S. English is not my native language, and the first time I started using it was five years ago, so please try to ignore grammatical errors. Thank You!

TIP#1
Today I have looked at many of your websites, and I noticed that only 3 websites out of 25+ have proper link to the main page. To put this up as simple as possible, I'll take the example website. Lets assume, your website is www.examplewebsite.com and you have 5-10 pages already built up, like Home, About us, Image Gallery, Contact us. Every of those pages have a back link to your main page (index.html, default.html, main.html, home.html etc...etc). Now, the interesting part. When you click on (for an example) About Us link, you are redirected to www.examplewebsite.com/AboutUs.html , and if you want to go back to your main page, you simply click on "home" link right? Well, if you click on a "home" link you will notice that you will be redirected to www.examplewebsite.com/index.html or www.examplewebsite.com/main.html or www.examplewebsite.com/default.html or something along those lines. Notice that none of these 3 links are NOT the page you have listed with Mister G, and that one is www.examplewebsite.com
Why is this back linking so important? Well, as you already know, Mister G likes links, and you already know that he has Page Rank to rank the websites/pages, so while you are building your external back links, you completely have forgotten on your inner link building. That means that your external links are pointing to www. examplewebsite.com, and your inner website links are pointing to www.examplewebsite.com/index.html .
How to fix this?
That's really easy. go to your html editor, and change the links on EVERY page from www.examplewebsite.com/index.html to www.examplewebsite.com. Once when you are done, upload all the pages, and from now one, you will have only ONE main page on your website, which is a proper way to build your links. If this post makes you all confused, send me a pm, and I'll try to clear it up for you.

TP#2
Another very common mistake is having links external/internal to your main page like this:
examplewebsite.com
http://examplewebsite.com
instead like this:
www.examplewebsite.com
Basically, we are having a same problem as in TIP#1, and to resolve this, we will be using 301 redirect in .htaccess file. A proper way to do this has been explained in this article by Herman Drost http://www.isitebuild.com/301-redirect.htm
As always, if you have hard time with your .htaccess file, send me a pm and I'll help you out.

Stay tuned for the TIP#3

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George Z

keep them coming

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cmecham

"Bleed" has some good advice. I've helped lots of contractors with their web sites (with some pretty good results IMHO) and I'd add a couple more critical problems to the list of things I see all the time. First, there is no easy way for a potential customer to get in touch with you. Yes, I know everyone has a "Contact" page, but people tend to ignore those. You have to be a little more obvious and compelling. Plus, if you're specializing in more high end projects, people are going to do a little shopping around, so it's good to have a way to establish a relationship with your visitors and keep in contact with them. Not everyone who visits your site wants to buy today. Keep in touch with people on a regular basis so when they are ready to buy, you'll be the one that gets the phone call.

Craig

Cole

Show some links fellas of what you have done.

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cmecham

I'm new around here and I guess I can't post URLs until I've made at least 15 posts . Sorry about that. I had some good examples for you.

I suppose I could cheat the system and do something like website[dot]com, but I'd probably get in trouble. Get in touch with me and I'll send you some links. You can call me at 509-922-0535.

Craig

OGStilts

Bump!

This thread died after Tip #2 for some reason. I'm trying to bring it back to life so Bleed if you are out there - I'm listening.

Also cmecham if you are out there, you now have enough posts to show us your examples.

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MattCoops

Bleed,
The way hypertext links are written (in URL format) has very little affect on a search engine algorithm. Sure using direct links (i.e. http://www.website.com/index.html) is the best route, but it really plays a very minor miniscule part. Just to have a link on another page is "weight-worthy". I wouldn't worry too much about the specific url people are directing to. If you have been in the "sandbox" for some time other sites could use any method they wish.
You know you really are commendable when people can type some anchor text in an address bar and get to your page.
For instance, if someone typed in the address bar:
Charlotte tile contractor (without adding a http:// or www, or even a .com at the end)

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