Nothing is worse than having to build around a messy site. What I mean by messy is lengthy URLS with pointless characters and crazy dynamic URLs! So here are my tips on creating an SEO-friendly site:

1) Use static URLs when possible. This might not be possible with really large sites, but if your site has less than 50 pages and doesn’t require new pages to be created all the time, this is definitely the way to go. This is definitely the easiest way and best for SEO. The second best is using an htaccess redirect to use a name in the URL and pass it as a GET variable. Something like this:

http://www.tampacreations.com/portfolio

In this case, portfolio is being passed as a GET variable, and you should always check this against an array of acceptable values! Combine that htaccess code with the proper rewrite condition to tack on the www, and handle forward slashes at the end too. Would you like to see it? Here’s the code I’m using:

Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?yourdomain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/?$ index.php?page=$1 [L]

So that’s the second best option if you have to go with dynamic URLs and it works pretty well! I believe I’m using PHP, then, to set 404 status of not found domains.

2) Search Pages can be a nightmare! Search pages can be problematic because they’re dynamic by nature and can end up having lots of variables in them. I think the trick here is to have a few of them indexed (the simple ones) and list those in your sitemap. The other ones you can let Google figure out or just deny it access.

3) Watch out for capitalization! Capitalization counts in URLs (just not the domain), so if I were to have a page Portfolio.html and portfolio.html, those are two different pages! If you’re using dynamic URLs, this can become a big problem with duplicate content.

4) Multiple websites. Lot of e-commerce site owners have the mentality that duplicating their entire store 5 times and putting it on 5 different domains helps their SEO out. Probably not a good idea. What ends up happening is since most stores have a lot of products, the owners use the same descriptions, same images, everything, and all the sites end up having duplicated content issues! I happy to report that a client I worked with who had this issue across 4 domains, downsized to one domain, and has twice as much traffic now after doing so in about 12 months. It takes time, but it’s worth it. The only way you should keep 5 different stores is if all the stores are different! Different product titles, different descriptions for each page, keywords, product descriptions, shipping text, contact text, etc. etc. etc. Everything should be completely different if you want to rank well.

Tampa Website Design, TampaCreations.com

The thing that makes Tampa Creations different from most other website development firms is that it offers a full range of web services, from website design all the way to social network marketing. This makes Tampa Creations a “web presence” provider, not just a website design firm. The benefit to businesses here is that one company handles the vertical integration of your online development and marketing, allowing each part to be connected and play a vital role in supporting the other.

Just how important is vertical marketing? Throughout years of working with clients, most clients don’t believe or don’t think about if they want to incorporate search engine optimization or website marketing techniques into their website in the future. Of course, many of those clients visit that possibility after they learn that traffic doesn’t come from nothing, you need optimization and internet marketing to drive the traffic to your website, after all, that’s one of the main benefits of having a website… free web traffic!

It’s important to look at your business and online strategy and decide if going after the web traffic is right for your model. If it is, having vertical integration allows your website to be built from the ground-up incorporating the best search engine optimization methods and even to start the marketing early on, kind of like priming an engine. If you don’t do this early on, it can become an overwhelming task to revisit and incorporate the right optimization, and even worse if the website has to be re-designed to allow it to rank properly. Don’t make these costly errors, put the additional small investment now into your website and design to prepare it for the future.

1) Domain. Probably one of the most important is the domain you’re going to establish your business at. Choosing the domain comes down to the ultimate goal of your internet presence. If you’re looking for SEO then you should probably have keywords in your domain. If you’re looking for branding, then you should probably have something creative and memorable. Perhaps you’re looking for both, try then to fit a keyword or two into one short, memorable domain. The reason a domain is so important is because you’ll be investing a lot of time and work into either telling clients about the domain or optimizing it for ranking in Google. In either case, changing the domain later on will be a mess!

2) Social Networking. Some people get too overwhelmed with the idea of running MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. accounts. Figure out what your clients are interested in/sign-up on and use one, maybe two of these. That way you’re not spreading yourself to thin. If you’re on every network and not updating each as much, no one will care to read what you have to say. If you stick to one or two, you’ll be able to update your profile more often and keep people interested in coming to visit you.

3) Blogging. Think serious about this, don’t just start a blog because you can. You’ll need to stick with it. What’s the purpose of your blog? Do you have enough time to invest into your blog to keep it fresh (like the social network thing)? How often will you update? Try writing a couple articles first to see if it’s as easy as you think. Also, if you’re looking into blogging just to help people stay updated on your company, consider news releases instead. You can even use the same Wordpress (or other) software, just brand your blog as a new release platform. That way, you’re not expected to write so much or so often.

4) Multi-Websites. It’s fine to have more than one website, but each website should serve its own purpose. Don’t lose sight of each site’s purpose, keep clear goals for each site and measure them to make sure each site is working its end. Many clients will want to have multiple sites because they got a couple great different domains. Just because you have two domains doesn’t mean you need two websites! A domain is about $7/year. Hold on to the domain until you find something useful to do with it (as opposed to hiring a website developer to create a whole other site you don’t need, confusing yourself to what really is the purpose). Also, don’t put up a mirror copy of one site on another domain! If you desperately need to use another domain, you can use it for memorability/ease of typing and have it forward to main website, but no mirroring! This can destroy your online rankings as I’ve seen it dozens of times with clients.