daveb

SEO friendly URLs are important not purely for the benefit of search engines.
 
Compare as an example...
 
yoursite.co.uk/samsung-tv
 
with
yoursite.co.uk/products/productinfo.php?id=1023223b
 
 
Which URL are real people most likely to be able to relay to others, imagine telling someone via telephone to go the link. The former wins everytime, be it telephone, or typing in an email, writing on a note to hand over to someone.
 
Also to a user, when they see the former, its immediately obvious what they can expect when they click on the link.
 
So my point is seo friendly URLs are people friendly as well as search engine friendly
 
Search Engines DO take into consideration the keywords used in a URL, it gives a strong signal what the content will relate to.
 
However, (there's always a however..)
 
Having a URL like
 
yoursite.co.uk/this-is-the-very-best-tv-on-the-market-dont-look-anywhere-else-and-buy-it-now
 
Will more than likely fire off spam signals with the search engines so keeping them short and to the point is also key.

Hey there,
 
It is a good idea, and yes google will consider it duplicate content if you have both sites setup so what you need to do is first ensure that your webserver/hosting company is setup to serve both the .co.uk and .com domains and then you can use the .htaccess rules below to take care of the redirect from the .com to the .co.uk address so the .co.uk solely receives the ranking credit for your content.
 
 

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^code-digital\.co\.uk$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^code-digital\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.code-digital\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]
 
 
The first rule redirects code-digital.co.uk to WWW.code-digital.co.uk
Second Rule redirects code-digital.com to WWW.code-digital.co.uk
Third rule redirects www.code-digital.COM to www.code-digital.CO.UK
 
Rgds,
 
 
Dave

Hey there,
 
It is a good idea, and yes google will consider it duplicate content if you have both sites setup so what you need to do is first ensure that your webserver/hosting company is setup to serve both the .co.uk and .com domains and then you can use the .htaccess rules below to take care of the redirect from the .com to the .co.uk address so the .co.uk solely receives the ranking credit for your content.
 
 

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^code-digital\.co\.uk$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^code-digital\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.code-digital\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]
 
 
The first rule redirects code-digital.co.uk to WWW.code-digital.co.uk
Second Rule redirects code-digital.com to WWW.code-digital.co.uk
Third rule redirects www.code-digital.COM to www.code-digital.CO.UK
 
Rgds,
 
 
Dave

Correct, FORGET about keywords in the keywords meta tag. They are not used and considered by some, myself included to be A. a waste of time and B. can have a negative effect on your SEO efforts as competitors can immediately see what you are targetting.
 
The most important tag on page is your Title tag. Aim to create your site so each page has unique content and a title tag relating to one primary phrase. Structure your title tag so that the primary phase appears before anything else and keep it under 70 characters.
 
The 'Description' tag also does absolutely NOTHING to affect your rankings, however it is crucial to make it compelling enough so when someone sees it in the seach engine results, they feel they want to read more on what you're offering and click to your page.
 
As for the content of the page, don't fall victim to thinking you need to keep repeating the same phrase over and over in the content of the page, 2-3 times is enough, studies show any more doesn't really have any positive effect and will just lead to unnatural looking reading if you are forcing occurances.
 
So pick a primary phrase and then work on informative and interesting text revolving around that phrase per page, think of possible 3-4, even 5 word alternatives to the primary phrase and try to include these words in your text also, more often than not when checking results to see what search phrases are driving people to your site you will be surprised just what phrases people search for to find you. This is referred to as going for 'long tail', which makes up the majority of searches.
 
When you have a few pages constructed, use appropriate anchor text to link between your pages, so say you have a supplemental page on 'super widgets'. Be sure to link to that page from your home page with 'super widgets' in the link text.
 
That's just a few points relating to your question.
 
 
 
 

I'm going to risk getting my neck cut off here and stick it out a bit but I think including the areas covered IS important. It doesn't have to look spammy. My usual practice for clients targetting local search is to include areas covered in the footer, done subtley so it doesnt distract from the rest of page, but enough so its visible and readable.
 
If you want to attract business from surrounding towns and villages, then its crucial IMO to include that village name somewhere on your page. Certainly DO NOT start filling up white space for the sake of it stuffing in "plumber in X" but if you include some of the the smaller town/village names on your page then you stand a great chance of showing up top on search results as the competition is always going to be much smaller for when someone searches for "plumber in <tiny village>" as opposed to "plumber in <city>"
 
& make sure you have your company address(if applicable) & telephone number present when you can.

DO NOT be tempted by the companies offering 100 high page rank for $
Your site maybe penalised, Google arent ignorant and if you're selling software in the UK and have links to your site on 100 tennis shoe directories in India, it will be aware.
 
DO NOT be tempted to outsource the linkbuilding effort to < $5
These people don't 'care' about you and you will be paying them to basically create spam. Gain reputation not despite
 
DO research on link building!!!
The obvious one I know but really, don't search google for 'linkbuilding', search rather for link building webinars and guides on the subject from reputable sources.
 
DO consider investing in your own education
Go for a free trial first, these are usually a month in length and then consider a subscription to reputable SEO aids out there like SeoMOZ, or WordTracker. These guys have Excellent webinars on linkbuilding, not just from themselves but from other highly rated industry professional. The information and ideas you will gain from these can be invaluable and give you fresh ways of link building you won't have contemplated. In addition you will be able to discuss linkbuilding and other SEO topics in Q&A sessions with both the highly rates guys and other individuals who take their SEO seriously.
 
@davebrown1975

DO NOT be tempted by the companies offering 100 high page rank for $
Your site maybe penalised, Google arent ignorant and if you're selling software in the UK and have links to your site on 100 tennis shoe directories in India, it will be aware.
 
DO NOT be tempted to outsource the linkbuilding effort to < $5
These people don't 'care' about you and you will be paying them to basically create spam. Gain reputation not despite
 
DO research on link building!!!
The obvious one I know but really, don't search google for 'linkbuilding', search rather for link building webinars and guides on the subject from reputable sources.
 
DO consider investing in your own education
Go for a free trial first, these are usually a month in length and then consider a subscription to reputable SEO aids out there like SeoMOZ, or WordTracker. These guys have Excellent webinars on linkbuilding, not just from themselves but from other highly rated industry professional. The information and ideas you will gain from these can be invaluable and give you fresh ways of link building you won't have contemplated. In addition you will be able to discuss linkbuilding and other SEO topics in Q&A sessions with both the highly rates guys and other individuals who take their SEO seriously.
 
@davebrown1975

The domain name doesn't have any bearing whether google indexes the site or not. But he must use the meta tag to instruct google NOT to index the page whether it was referred to from his own site or any other link on the internet.
 
Rgds

Hi Alex,
 
Take a look at this tool : http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
 
The free version has a 500 page limit, if that is enough for you then you'll have the job done in minutes
 
Dave

Hey Jason,
 
freeindex.co.uk
hotfrog.co.uk
bing & yahoo local listings for start
 
 

No extension on the file, and the code above is all you need. This is based around the mod_rewrite Apache module, so it goes without saying that this is for Apache servers with mod_rewrite enabled only.
 
 

Hey there,
 
It is a good idea, and yes google will consider it duplicate content if you have both sites setup so what you need to do is first ensure that your webserver/hosting company is setup to serve both the .co.uk and .com domains and then you can use the .htaccess rules below to take care of the redirect from the .com to the .co.uk address so the .co.uk solely receives the ranking credit for your content.
 
 

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^code-digital\.co\.uk$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^code-digital\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.code-digital\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]
 
 
The first rule redirects code-digital.co.uk to WWW.code-digital.co.uk
Second Rule redirects code-digital.com to WWW.code-digital.co.uk
Third rule redirects www.code-digital.COM to www.code-digital.CO.UK
 
Rgds,
 
 
Dave

Hey there,
 
It is a good idea, and yes google will consider it duplicate content if you have both sites setup so what you need to do is first ensure that your webserver/hosting company is setup to serve both the .co.uk and .com domains and then you can use the .htaccess rules below to take care of the redirect from the .com to the .co.uk address so the .co.uk solely receives the ranking credit for your content.
 
 

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^code-digital\.co\.uk$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^code-digital\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.code-digital\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.code-digital.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]
 
 
The first rule redirects code-digital.co.uk to WWW.code-digital.co.uk
Second Rule redirects code-digital.com to WWW.code-digital.co.uk
Third rule redirects www.code-digital.COM to www.code-digital.CO.UK
 
Rgds,
 
 
Dave

In your ie only stylesheet(vbulletin-chrome-ie.css) on the .toplinks selecter remove position:realtive and add a width
 

.toplinks{z-index:203;width:710px;}
 
I think that should work