Archive for July, 2008

Jul 29 2008

The Survey for People Who Make Websites

Published by Lee Stuttaford under SEO, SEO Issues

Hi again,

A straight punt for the survey, I know, but last year’s one brought some fascinating insight, much like SEOMoz ’s survey recently. The web is about participation, so get going :)

Taken verbatim from Zeldman.com :

It’s back, it’s improved, and it’s hungry for your data. It’s A List Apart’s second annual survey for people who make websites.

I took it! And so should you. The Survey for People Who Make Websites.

Last year nearly 33,000 of you took the survey, enabling us to begin figuring out what kinds of job titles, salaries, and work situations are common in our field.

This year’s survey corrects many of last year’s mistakes, with more detailed and numerous questions for freelance contractors and owners of (or partners in) small web businesses. There are also better international categories, and many other improvements recommended by those who took the survey last year.

Please take the survey and encourage your friends and colleagues who make websites to do likewise.

Please do!

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Jul 18 2008

ChessCube.com has a revenue model!

ChessCube.com opens it’s virtual store!

View the opening products at ChessCube Store now!

The products are videos that you can add to your ChessCube Cinema Library and watch over and over - well known IM Andrew Martin takes you through the Opening Suggestions for Black I & II.

This is a fun and easy Video to watch. You gain high-level training from a senior chess master.

No DVDs, no shipping fees!

Simply download your video into ChessCube Cinema via the web and you can be watching Opening Suggestions for Black I (and II) in a few minutes!

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Jul 16 2008

New SEO All-rounder Tool from SEOMoz!

Published by Lee Stuttaford under SEo Tools

A tool I have been using for a while - SEOMoz Page Strength tool (old URL: http://www.seomoz.org/page-strength) has been retired in favour of:

The SEOMoz Trifecta Tool Set!


Measure the strength of pages, blogs and entire domains based on factors inherent to popularity, influence and ranking ability. See your impact and compare against others in your industry. NOTE: Trifecta replaces SEOmoz’s popular Page Strength tool with powerful upgrades and enhanced accuracy.

My thoughts:

This is a nice and clear evolution of the tool and now allows you to test a unique page, a whole site, or for variation a blog as they are all different and should be measured more appropriately.

Page test for a site I’m working on:

  1. ChessCube.com home page - Test Result for Single Page (50%)
  2. ChessCube.com domain - Test Result for Domain (33%)
  3. ChessCube.com blog - Test Result for Blog (6%)

As you can see, identifying areas for improvement becomes easy, and by reviewing the data collection and score comparisons you can see a more granular indication of what to start with. All in all, a very handy addition to the SEOmoz Tools Suite!

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Jul 07 2008

Solving Indexing Issues

Published by Lee Stuttaford under SEO Issues

After watching the video about Solving Indexing Issues by Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz, I wanted to summarise the great tips he gives so that it can be reused in documentation as part of the strategy for a website.

Enjoy!


SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday-Solving Indexation Problems from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

The Philosophy:

  • Make Every Link Count.
  • Create a single Navigation System for Bots / Crawlers.
  • Permanently redirect ‘Page Not Found’ Errors to the correct page (301s’ for 404s’)
  • Fewest Possible click levels to Content:
    • 1 page > 100 pages > 10 000 pages > 1 000 000 pages (only 4 leves to a million pages)

In Practice:

  • Consider using the “nofollow” hyperlink attribute every time.
  • Decide on Navigation System to get bots to the content as quickly as possible.
  • Use the “nofollow” attribute on non-core Navigation Systems like on-site Search result pages, links to XML & HTML sitemaps, Date Archive, Tags.
  • Use Google Webmaster Tools to find 404 and change to 301.
  • Slightly Grey Area: Permanently redirect (301) non human traffic to your preferred Navigation System start page.

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Jul 04 2008

The birth of four point o

Published by Lee Stuttaford under About

four point o is the happy result of an idea that had been simmering for some months and when the opportunity ‘knocked’, I grabbed it with both hands!

Mark Levitt of ChessCube.com, a former investor in my previous employer’s company, Clicks2Customers.com, and I have formed a partnership to provide Search Engine Optimization, Design & Development consulting to clients in a very busy and growing local market.

So what is four point o? Simply put, we are a boutiqe SEM consultancy that provides an objective consulting service to business where their online presence is concerned and helping business owners and stakeholders get the best out of their website.

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