WebStrategies - website optimisation and search engine optimisation (SEO) Auckland, New Zealand » Website Development

Should you use free website hosting?

Webstrategies — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:00:05 +0000

There are many companies internationally that provide free website hosting, but care should be taken when using them for the following reasons.

Performance issues– many free website hosting providers have an extremely large pool of clients, which may effect the performance of their servers.
Reliability of services – what are their uptime Vs downtime stats?
Support – can you get hold of them by phone or email if needed?
Band width and volume – be sure you will get enough bandwidth and storage volume. Know what they are offering and what the costs are.
Backup and redundancy – do the providers of free website hosting backup their web servers and databases regularly, and then can they RESTORE it if needed?
Location – where exactly are their servers? You should host your website in the country of your target market if possible. Google checks this.
Their advertising – do the providers of free website hosting require you to feature their advertising on your website anywhere?
Redirects – be sure that the free website host doesn’t use any redirects as part of their services that might prevent Google finding or indexing your website
Bad neighbourhoods – avoid any hosting company that hosts spammers or link farm websites. If their servers get blocked, you are in trouble.

Author: Ashley Bryan
Webstrategies
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Checklist for starting a website

Webstrategies — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:50:45 +0000

Starting a website either to support your existing business, or to be the business in its own right, involves a number of factors and considerations that you need to understand. Here is a check list of things to consider:

Domain name – when starting a website you should research and investigate possible domain names for your website. Your domain name is important in terms of intuitiveness for your potential customers to remember, and also to reflect your business name or services/products. It is also a key factor for top rankings on Google.

Target market – where and who are they? Your website should speak to them, in terms they understand.

Design – your design should reflect your business branding and philosophies.

Content – what information and functionality do you need to include in your website?

Hosting – locate a company who can provide professional website hosting services for you. WHERE your website is hosted geographically is also very important for Google.

Cost – ensure your website development cost is within your budget and that you will get a Return On Investment (ROI).

Marketing – before starting a website, determine how you are going to market your website, both online and offline.

Google – you need to get found on Google, so your website needs to be built so that it is Google-friendly.

Author: Ashley Bryan
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CASE STUDY: Corporate Cabs

Webstrategies — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:07:02 +0000

About the client:

Corporate Cabs provide premium chauffeur driven taxi services in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

Services:

Taxi service
Airport transfers
Limousine Hire
Wedding car hire
Corporate Tour Service

The task:

Corporate Cabs undertook a recent rebuild of their website www.corporatecabs.co.nz. Webstrategies was tasked with assisting to ensure that the new website was launched in an as optimised state as possible. A particular challenge was to ensure that the new website was optimised for phrases using the word “taxi”. The website currently performed well on Google for search phrases using “cab”, but not for “taxi”, and this was a requirement.

Work undertaken:

Webstrategies provided input at key stages of the website development cycle: design stage, content writing stage, and launch phase:

1. Design stage: advised on content placement: key features, calls to action and user pathway start points. Reviewed visitor activity of existing (old) website and factored this into new content planning
2. Content writing phase. Draft content was a reviewed and optimised for relevant keyphrases that had been identified using keyword research.
3. Launch phase. Prior to launch a full technical analysis was undertaken to ensure the website met best practice for Google friendliness.

The results:

Within 10 days of launch the website performed in the top 5 Google NZ results for searches on the phrases “book a taxi online” and “call for a taxi”. Visitor levels from Google had risen by 74% over the old website.

——————–

Testimonial:

“
Hi Ashley,

Just a quick note to say thanks for all your help with our website. Since employing the services of Webstrategies to oversee and advise us on the development and implementation of our new website we have already seen an increase in traffic. Our web developer also commented on how easy it was to work with you.

I look forward to implementing stage 2 of our programme in the near future.

Regards

Colin Samson I Chief Executive I Corporate Cabs Ltd
www.corporatecabs.co.nz
“

Noindex Meta tag versus robots.txt disallow – which to use?

Webstrategies — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:23:35 +0000

It’s easy to think that both the noindex Meta tag and the robots.txt disallow command appear to do the same thing: stop a page being listed on search engines. But there’s more to it than that.

Robots.txt, disallow:

A search engine bot will recognise that the page exists but not index the content, therefore the page URL may still display in search results, but with no other content displayed.
A search engine bot will not crawl the page, therefore will not find any content that you might want it to eg other Meta tags, or links out of the website.
Page can still accrue PageRank.

Format:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /page.php

Noindex Meta tag:

A search engine bot will not index the page and the page will not show up in the search engine results.
A search engine bot still crawls page and find content.
Page can still accrue PageRank.

Format:

= the page will not be in search results but Google can still follow the outbound links in the page.

= the page will not be in search results and Google will not follow the outbound links in the page.

= the page will be ignored ie the same as

Author: Ashley Bryan
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Q&A: geographic targeting in Title tags

Webstrategies — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:15:07 +0000

I have been asked the question by a web developer:

“I’m working on a site for a private school (approximate ages 5-18).
Since the school doesn’t target students outside of the metro area, I
wrote code to only put the school’s name in every title tag.

But for SEO, how important do you think the school’s location is for
the title tag? And a broader question: What would you recommend I put
as standard text in title tags across the site?”

You raise several points. Firstly, we know that Google looks closely at the title tag in order to determine what a web page is about and that each page is treated separately by Google. Thus if the title tags are all the same with just the name of the school in them then we have a potential duplicate content issue with Google and pages will be held back in the rankings potentially. At least there will be a loss of value for many of the pages with Google. Good SEO practices dictate that title tags should be different for each page and should be relevant to the page content, so its fine to put the name of the school in all title tags but also add some content to the tags that is relevant to the page. For instance “XYZ School | curriculum” for the curriculum page, “XYZ School | suburb | city” for the Location page etc.

Google is moving more and more towards local search and has been for several years. This is set to increase and we already see local results appearing in the Google Web searches. The fact that the school doesn’t target outside of the metro area means that undertaking geographic SEO targeting is also beneficial in terms of keeping the school out of search results for non target areas and keeping irrelevant enquiries as a result, down. You can add a Meta location tag to all pages to assist Google to identify the location of the school.

Author: Ashley Bryan
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FAQ: What is the Google bot?

Webstrategies — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:54:19 +0000

Google Bot is an automatic tool used by Google using a mathematical process to continually crawl, just like a spider, through web pages and websites to find new and updated content to add to its database. At the same time it removes old links to dead pages or websites thus keeping the “index” of websites that it has listed, as up to date as possible. In short the Google bot checks your website and tells Google what it is all about so that Google can then present your website to people who are doing searches using keywords and phrases.

An important point is that the bot only reads text. So a page with no text will not perform well on Google because Google has nothing upon which to determine what that page is about. A page that does have text and so can be read by the Google bot will most probably get “indexed” and listed in the database. Of course it’s logical to then realise that if Google bot reads text to gain an understanding of what your page is about then it is reading words and phrases and so it’s important to ensure your relevant and desired words are in the page where Google can find them (giving rise to Search Engine Optimisation or SEO).

You can tell if the Google Bot has visited your website by looking at your website statistics supplied by your web host or by joining Google’s Webmaster Tools, which is a service provided free by Google. These tools will tell you how often the Google bot returns and checks your website. The bot follows links so the more links into your website the more often the bot will return.

What does all this mean to you? Well, it’s really important when your website is designed to ensure that the Google bot can find all of your pages. And when writing your content ensure that meaningful and relevant phrases are included and placed in the right places on your pages for Google to find. Quality keyword-rich content with relevant links into your pages is what the Google bot needs, and that is what you need in order for your website to perform well on Google.

Author: Stuart Wilkerson
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Finding best keyphrases for your website

Webstrategies — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:28:33 +0000

The first step to establishing what keyword and phrases you should optimise your website for is to establish and understand what its goals and objectives are.

This is best done before you even build your website, but is also extremely valuable for existing websites, as part of your optimisation and fine-tuning efforts. Your website’s goals could be to:

Increase enquiries from your website from level X to level Y
Increase sales from your shopping website from $X to $Y
Increase the rate at which people download your e-book or other file(s)
Increase sign-ups to your newsletter

Understanding the goals of your website leads on to the crucial task of determining the keyphrases that are relevant to your website and business.

These keyphrases need to be relevant to your target market, business, industry and location and are essential for good performance on Google. They are the foundation of what is commonly called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

An excellent first step to determining what the keyphrases for your website should be is to do a search for your products and services on Google, just like your target market will do. Keep refining your search until you get a set of results in which you would like your website to appear, and there, you have determined one of your keyphrases. You’ll possibly see your competitors listed there.

Work your copy to be relevant to that phrase, and ensure that you have the keyphrases on the page in the right places like title tag, Meta tags and in H1 headings. And of course measure! There are plenty of free SEO tools around that will tell you your placings on Google for your keywords and phrases, and your website statistics will tell you how successful your newly identified keyphrases are at driving visitors to your website.

Author: Ashley Bryan
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It’s all about Performance

Webstrategies — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:25:31 +0000

Successful websites are all about performance: your target market achieving the goals that you set for your website. Your goals could be to: sell your products or services; to inform and educate, or to drive business leads. The important thing to remember is that having GOALS for your website is essential, and these are best established during the planning phase of your website build - afterall they should be in line with your business and marketing plans anyway. Goals allow you to set measurable performance targets and to plan the path to the achievement of these goals. Make sure you measure and understand the success of your plan, along with an understanding of the Return On Investment (ROI) for your efforts.

Success of your website can be attributed to several key areas:

1. It’s performance on search engines notably Google.
2. It’s success at pulling relevant and qualified visitors to your website from other sources.
3. It’s success at converting your visitors to meaningful leads or sales
4. Your ability to measure and understand what your website is doing.

All of these areas are measurable, so add Google Analytics to your website and monitor your key measures at least on a monthly basis. Use this data to refine as you go and you’ll be surpised at how much meaningful information you obtain. Also remember to undertake a technical optimisation of your website, and finally: use a copywriter!

Author: Ashley Bryan
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Getting a content management system (CMS)

Webstrategies — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:50:34 +0000

Looking for a system that allows you to manage your own website? Any by manage I mean: update individual page content (text and images at least), add new pages and new sections to your website. Such a system is called a Content Management System (CMS), and here is what you need to look for:

Ease of use of the system
Ease of use of the resultant website
Can it handle alot of updates?
Can you create new pages and sections for your website or just manage existing page content?
Is there a help system?
What support is available for the website.

Look for the best system to suit your needs and ask the right questions. Better still get a demo version so that you can test the software before you commit.

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Building a new website: what are the costs?

Webstrategies — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:14:03 +0000

So you have made the decision to have a website built for your business, but are not sure of what is involved, and where the costs lie? It can be confusing, especially if you are not particularly Internet or PC savvy: web development, web hosting, domain names, email addresses. All of these are factors that need to be considered and costed into your project. As well as that, you’ve seen many great websites on the net, which are packed with loads of cool features, moving graphics, options to sign up for newsletters, database searches and links to other sites. Do you need all these features, and how much will all that cost? What should you have in your website, what’s the process, and how much will it all set you back?

The first step is to think of a suitable domain name. The name of your company can be a great start, so you get www.mybusiness.co.nz or www.mybusiness.com . Which do you need: dot co or dot com? I believe that a dot co domain name is OK for most New Zealand businesses, and that a dot com name still really implies an American site, although this is not a fast rule. Why not identify your business as a NZ one straight off and use dot co, which will promote our country to overseas net users? Something else to think about is whether the name lends itself to what your business does or provides. So the domain name www.circusanimalhire.co.nz (it doesn’t exist, I checked!) tells you pretty much what the website is all about. A name like www.prsmythe.co.nz doesn’t give as much information about the core business, and so users then have to actually view the site to determine what is provided. You need a lot of advertising, PR and brand marketing clout to get a name like www.amazon.com to be synonymous with books right? But it is possible as we know. When you’ve thought of your name, register it: $39.95 will secure you the name for a year.

What does a website cost? A basic website can cost as little as $1000 – $2000. What do you get for that? You generally get what’s called a brochureware website. That’s one that is like what it’s name suggests: an online brochure introducing your business, products and services, and encouraging users of your site (your target market) to contact you. You can have the basic structure of three pages:
1) Home page which introduces you, your business, products and services
2) Products and/or Services page for more detail
3) Contact page, which may include location (a map!), phone numbers and email facility.
The latter may be in the form of a link, which opens up a blank email when clicked on, or may include a form, which users fill in, and this generates an email which is sent to you. The form is great way of encouraging users to give you a certain amount of required information, so that you can give the most informed response, and hopefully generate some business. A brochureware website is a great start if you want to start off small, with a good Internet presence at a reasonable price. Don’t forget you can always expand it over time once you have analysed its effectiveness, seen the benefits, and increased your confidence. This sort of site supports your existing marketing strategy and initiatives and is another facet of your marketing strategy: it’s an advertisement for your business.

What if you want your website to be more than just an advertisement, and actually want it to make the sale for you right there and then online? What if you want some more features, such as a search facility, where people can enter criteria and search through your products, and maybe place an order on your site or even pay for it online? With these features you can actually secure a sale or an order while the user is still visiting your website. This dynamic functionality involves including programming and database components in your website and so will cost you more. What you want determines what it will cost you. (What you NEED may cost you less, so get advice). There are no set prices for including this sort of functionality, and the best bet is to shop around. There are options.
1) A web development company will be able to construct an online catalogue, ordering and/or payment facility for you
2) You could buy shopping facility software yourself, and have it added to your existing site
3) You can utilise one of the many providers of this functionality who actually lease or rent the facility to you.
In the latter instance your catalogue is housed on their site, you manage it yourself and it looks like your site, but it is provided by a third party.

Even if you start with a brochureware website you can of course add features over time, and it is important to plan for this from the outset if that is what you want to do. Ensure that your website is scalable, that is that it can be expanded readily, without having the whole thing reconstructed from scratch. Don’t forget to consider the size of your site and the impact that this can have on your web hosting costs. Adding a catalogue with a lot of pictures can take up more room on your website hosting company’s server, and this may cost you more if you start to exceed the storage limit that you have for your account. Credit card facilities also need to be paid for – they will generally cost you a set up fee, a yearly fee and a percentage of each transaction, but they are convenient in that revenue is collected immediately.

Don’t forget also that once a website has been constructed and launched there may need to be ongoing maintenance of the site, in terms of keeping the data in it up to date, periodic review and testing and further development work. Discuss with your web developer what might be required and what these costs might be. This should be discussed with you during the initial planning phase of your web development project. Also discuss search engine optimisation (SEO), which is the process of ensuring your site can be found on the net. Many web development companies will include this service initially as part of their development price, but will charge for an ongoing maintenance and review of your listings. There are Internet companies that supply these services specifically as well, so have a look around. SEO of your site initially and on an ongoing basis, is strongly recommended for your website, as search engines still account for over 80% of the traffic to websites.

Once your website is complete, you will need to have your website hosted, and there are many hosting company’s available which offer this service. The prices vary for these services from about $20 to $50 per month, and the value added services provided vary considerably. Options such as website stats, account size limits, number of email addresses available with each account are a consideration, as is technical support and assistance. So, a lower priced host sounds great, but they may not give you web stats or a free form script, and this may set you back if you want or need these facilities for your site. Ask the right questions, or read the available information on the hosting company’s website before you commit yourself.

So, in summary it is fair to say that the costs of owning and operating a website do not just lie in the production of the website itself, although this is the major component. You also need to consider domain name purchase, website hosting costs, domain name-based email accounts, website statistics, service/support, search engine optimisation and of course ongoing management, maintenance and development.

WebStrategies - website optimisation and search engine optimisation (SEO) Auckland, New Zealand » Website Development

Should you use free website hosting?

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Checklist for starting a website

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CASE STUDY: Corporate Cabs

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Noindex Meta tag versus robots.txt disallow – which to use?

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Q&A: geographic targeting in Title tags

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FAQ: What is the Google bot?

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Finding best keyphrases for your website

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Getting a content management system (CMS)

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Building a new website: what are the costs?

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