Analytics (Google et al) - advice required...

L

lacroupade

Veteran
We have a fledgling website (originally a shop) that not only is about to be rebranded, but joined by a sister site selling other products.

We have some good people doing the site stuff and helping with all this keyword/analytic stuff, but its all very new to me and I wondered if anyone had useful experiences or reading they could recommend on the whole issue of site optimisation and attracting traffic?

Optimistically yours...Paul :)
 
Hope this isn't boring everyone else!

Actually IWL, it does beg one question that I'd like to understand the answer to,...and its about spelling.

Its a two-parter: (i) what are the issues - or not - around having a website name which includes a word thats difficult to spell, or spelt differently in different countries, e.g jewellery? Is it a bad idea or does it just need special attention? And (ii) is it a good idea to have mis-spelt keywords in ones armoury as well?
 
It's generally a bad idea to try and game the search engine in that way. You can be penalised for having many URLs pointing to the same content. Also you really only want to have one URL (known as a canonical URL) that is used to access the website i.e. http://www.something.com/ which is different from http://something.com/ although you might have them both pointing to the same IP address and ultimately the same web application.

Mis-spelt keywords are corrected by the search engine these days anyway i.e. google will use the "did you mean" thing automatically. :thumbsup:
 
playalistic said:
It's generally a bad idea to try and game the search engine in that way. You can be penalised for having many URLs pointing to the same content. Also you really only want to have one URL (known as a canonical URL) that is used to access the website i.e. http://www.something.com/ which is different from http://something.com/ although you might have them both pointing to the same IP address and ultimately the same web application.

Mis-spelt keywords are corrected by the search engine these days anyway i.e. google will use the "did you mean" thing automatically. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Thanks for that - the thing I was more worried about was the issue of people missing the site altogether because, for example, they misspelt a search term or used, for example, a US spelling of, say, jewellery (I think they miss out the third 'e'?).

The canonical URL is also a good tip...we have the .com domain names (and the .co.uk versions) for the sites we are building so it feels like this is an option we can use. thanks very much!
 
lacroupade said:
playalistic said:
It's generally a bad idea to try and game the search engine in that way. You can be penalised for having many URLs pointing to the same content. Also you really only want to have one URL (known as a canonical URL) that is used to access the website i.e. http://www.something.com/ which is different from http://something.com/ although you might have them both pointing to the same IP address and ultimately the same web application.

Mis-spelt keywords are corrected by the search engine these days anyway i.e. google will use the "did you mean" thing automatically. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Thanks for that - the thing I was more worried about was the issue of people missing the site altogether because, for example, they misspelt a search term or used, for example, a US spelling of, say, jewellery (I think they miss out the third 'e'?).

The canonical URL is also a good tip...we have the .com domain names (and the .co.uk versions) for the sites we are building so it feels like this is an option we can use. thanks very much!
Click to expand...

Good advice, it's usually not worth trying to "game" the system. IMO the canonical URL issue doesn't really penalise you anymore, as Google realises they are both the same and just indexes one of them. Putting your exact content on a complete new site would penalise you though.

The main thing for getting ranked is:

1) a good URL, with keywords in (i.e. "z4" and "forum" ;) )
2) dynamic content, changing at least several times a week
3) consistent use of keywords throughout the site

BTW, the whole keywords META stuff is largely irrelevant now, Google tends to rank from the core visible content rather than keywords in the header.

The best thing you can do is install analytics and look at it at least once a week, in detail, and learn what keywords are being searched for and try to tailor the site in a way to encourage them.
 
I cant really add to the great advice above from Sp3ctre and playalistic, except to add that links can really help in ranking (i.e. hyper-links from other sites to your site )

IMHO its increasingly difficult to try and second guess or cheat the system, especially with Google, MS, Yahoo et al and as soon as you find (or find out about) a way to up a ranking, it's been removed as a possibility already by the code writers at Google, MS, Yahoo et al - (who remember work 24 hrs a day to prevent anyone cheating the system!!)

Paul- ref the mis spelling of jewellery, the only real way around that is to purchase the other domain name; i.e. in your case with the Americanised spelling of "jewelry" (i.e. http://www.jewelry.com) and point this to your domain (i.e. http://www.jewellery.com) this way you win traffic to both domain addresses.

P.S. you will not go far wrong with the above advice from pro's in the web business:
I know sp3ctre runs the forum and his own web design firm in the north
I am in the same business in the south & have launched over 300 client sites in the last couple of years
I'm unsure what playalistic's background is ? but he's got great advice too

all without a fee; :thumbsup: that's the beauty of the Z4-forum- Thanks JS- sp3ctre :thumbsup: :happyclap:
 
What can I say?! Thank you very much all of you, its really appreciated.

We are meeting with the web designer next week and talking to a guy who claims to be able to do the SEO stuff - he comes recommended from my wifes day job with France Telecom but I will be checking his credentials. It sounds like some of what he's suggested to us relates to this weekly checking of analytics, so if I can get my head around that it might help.

When we have done the rebranding and rehashed the website (its sadly parochial at the moment LOL) I'll post a linky for you to have a squint.

Thanks again guys - really kind of you. :thumbsup:
 
Another thing to consider is sticking as close to the letter to semantic HTML and CSS. Google is known to provide precedence to well-formed, semantic HTML. Also response times have a direct effect on organic search placement too.

Overall though the best way to get guaranteed google juice is to have other sites with rank linking in to your content and the only (decent) way to get this is to produce good content on a regular basis.

If you're running an online shop, make sure you have your site provide a google products feed and get that hooked up to be automatically submitted to google products. Google often gives precedence to products and poor performing organic results will often perform well via google products while you're building rank.

Any specific questions just ask! My background is in web development but I've done plenty of SEO in my time. :thumbsup:
 
Excellent thanks! And when I get some more capital I don't mind paying for results LOL! :)

This discussion is an excellent basis for our meetings next week though. Thanks again everyone. :thumbsup:
 
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